A COLD MIST came with nightfall and veiled the waning gibbous moon. Shadows flitted among the silent pines. When the air was still, Maia smelled a heavy odor of blood and decay. Two figures approached from afar. They stopped, leaning into one another, as if conversing. They parted, one retreating through the forest, the other coming toward her, empty-handed but carrying the nauseating smell of the midnight shuttle.
“The children told me you might be here,” JP said, enfolding her into his arms.
“Uh, you need a bath.”
“Aren’t you curious where I’ve been?” He took off his bloodstained L’amant T-shirt and khaki pants.
“You should wash your clothes, too.”
He was now naked. “Is this the lake of your father’s letter?” He stepped into the dark glassy water and submerged himself. He vanished and then surfaced, floating easily on his back.
“It’s warm and salty and buoyant,” he said, “like the sea.”
Water undulated, ripples spreading across stillness.
“Come, Maia!”
And she did.
They swam in the lake, cold air above and warm water below. The buoyancy lifted them, and they let go to the embrace. Two bodies moved as one. The mist swirled like a dance of white cloth above. The water cupped them below. When their skin cooled, though inside remained hot, they left the lake and lay on a flat boulder.
“Do you remember the soldier we picked up on the shuttle?” JP asked.
“I can’t forget his smell.”
“He’s coming back in the morning to take me across the border to where the locals have sighted a group of men. One of them could be my brother.”
“Can you trust him?”
“It’s my only lead.”
“I’m not coming to translate for you if that’s why you’re here.”
“I’m not looking for a translator.”
Night calls burst from silence, startling JP, and he reached for her hand.
“It’s the children,” she said.
Lying side by side, they listened to the back-and-forth calls that encircled them in a rawness of flowing emotions. She could identify many of the voices as belonging to the children, but two did not: clear resounding voices she could not pin down but had heard from the previous nights. She was reminded of the odd duet on Waiting Mountain when their animal-like calls transformed the bare peak into a lush forest. An inexplicable lightness filled her. The mist thinned and unveiled the moon above and its reflection below in the pearl-shaped lake. Turning to JP in the silvery light, she whispered yes to the question he had not asked. Yes.