Chapter 25: Remembering
As Josette, Barnabas and David walked back to the Old House, Laura obviously hovering around them, Josette's hand found it's way into Barnabas' own.
"We haven't caught up, have we?" Josette asked.
"What does that mean?" Barnabas asked.
"To affirm each others news to each other. To explain what we've been doing while apart, if we've thought of each other."
"I thought you knew, Josette. You behaved as if you knew."
"True," she admitted, "But it isn't enough, is it?"
"Not all ventures could be as recognizably foreordained as we might assume, my love." He reasoned.
"Well, then," she began, her trod gentle and somewhat slow, "While we've been apart... you've been ashamed of being a vampire."
"Terribly." He confessed.
"And I've been drifting through lifetimes... to find you."
"Lifetimes?" he breathed worriedly.
"Yes, Barnabas, yes. Like the ocean I first journeyed over to reach you. Spirit journeys, if I can recall accurately, are much the same as ocean voyages, mostly the tides and rocking, Time folds like lapping sea waves sometimes."
"How we found each other the first time is mystery enough," he told her, "How we regained each other centuries later is beyond my comprehension, Josette."
"Something like the heart exists in spirit," Josette explained, "and mine was tied to yours. I just never questioned it and it led me on, through the tides and waves of time and motion. I could never ignore it."
"A soul beyond my deserving," he said.
"Always so hard on yourself, Barnabas." Josette smiled, "It's like a trademark."
"Which is what?"
"A trademark is similar to a branding on livestock to know to whom it belongs."
"Then you are branded on my heart, Josette," he proclaimed, "and this 'trademark' is yours, your branding, your sealing of soul, that is I, myself... to be yours and whatever you will to do with me."
"To have you listen and understand would be my wish, were it grantable." Josette persisted. She sighed, admiring The Old House from afar, "Detailing a journey of spirit is far more difficult than I hoped, alas, alas," she admitted starring down now.
"What I do understand, my Josette," is you made treacherous journeys to return to me, whether in spirit or in mortality or a mixture and what matters to me?" He lifted her chin with a point of nail here, "Is that you made that exhaustive effort, my darling, darling Josette duPres."
Sun setting; hard to tell in the woods but in that setting of giant star they kissed dearly and fondly and even with a smile, knowing they belonged to each other however absurd things were or became in the future.
"Song to the Siren"
Long afloat on shipless oceans
I did all my best to smile
'til your singing eyes and fingers
Drew me loving to your isle
And you sang:
"Sail to me
Sail to me
Let me enfold you
Here I am
Here I am
Waiting to hold you"
Did I dream you dreamed about me?
Were you hare when I was fox?
Now my foolish boat is leaning
Broken lovelorn on your rocks
For you sing:
"Touch me not
Touch me not
Come back tomorrow
O my heart
O my heart
Shies from the sorrow"
I am puzzled as the oyster
I am troubled as the tide:
Should I stand amid your breakers?
Should I lie with death, my bride?
Hear me sing:
"Swim to me
Swim to me
Let me enfold you
Here I am
Here I am
Waiting to hold you"