River

Gregor

She wakes before me, strangely enough, for the first time that I can remember. When I open my eyes, light is already coming in through the window, and she is there, on the pillow next to mine, her warm brown eyes gazing at me, her long brown hair scattered across the space between us. This is different, to realize that she has been watching me sleep.

I smile at her, and reach my hand sleepily to caress her face. She kisses my fingers. “What a treat,” she says.

“Mmmm?” I ask. I’m not sure I’m fully awake yet. She thoroughly wore me out last night, just what I needed. I’m surprised she’s awake after I interrupted her night so completely. “What’s a treat? I didn’t do anything last night I haven’t done before, I don’t think.”

“Except sleeping. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you actually sleeping before.”

I feel myself coming more awake, and I chuckle. “Ah, that. How can watching me sleep possibly be a treat? I’ll bet I snore. And drool.”

She laughs. “I’ll never tell. But I’m glad to see that you can actually do it. I was starting to wonder.”

I roll over onto my back, lifting my arm behind me to hold up my head. I look at her from the side of my eye. “You help me do it. It’s one of the things that I love so much about you.”

She grows more serious. “I’m glad I can help you. I’m not sure I’ll ever understand what is happening with you, but I know that you need to sleep and can hardly ever do it.” She smiles. “I’ll have to remember what I did last night. It seemed to help.”

I grin, remembering the frenzy that she drove me into, doing the things I have taught her to do. “Oh, it did. Yes, please take a note that your technique last night was perfection itself. Exactly what I needed.”

She pretends to pull a piece of paper and pen out of the air above our heads, and with a flourish takes an invisible note. It makes me laugh, and makes me love her all the more. “I love you, Rosalind,” I tell her. I find myself constantly amazed at how much. I feel Wolk’s glowing approval, but I don’t try to seek him out with my eyes. I know the wolf will be settled on the floor across the room.

“I love you too, Gregor,” she says, discarding the imaginary note and coming over to me, cuddling up against me, her head on my shoulder, her arm across my chest.

We are silent for a few minutes. I play with her long hair, she moves her hand across my bare skin. We are both lost in our own thoughts. I do not ask Wolk to spy on hers for me.

“Ayola can sleep,” she comments after a time.

I lift my head and peer down at her. “What?”

She meets my eyes briefly, then relaxes her head back down against my shoulder and continues stroking me, curling her fingers into the hair on my chest. “She is like you. But she can sleep.”

I am flabbergasted. “What…?” I am speechless.

She smiles and shakes her head slightly. “I’ve figured that much out, at least. She is like you. Whatever it is that you are. That’s why you love her so much.”

“I’m…” I am taken aback. But I realize that just because I have not explained things to her, does not mean that she is not observant, has not been figuring things out on her own. I won’t lie to her, though. “Yes, you’re right. You are incredibly perceptive. Ayola is like me. We are … drawn to each other because of it.”

“But she can sleep?”

“Yes. I could too, when I was a child. It was after I grew up that it stopped being so easy.”

“I suppose that makes sense,” she muses. “Children are still growing, so she probably needs it more.”

It feels so bizarre to be discussing this with her. I don’t know how far this conversation can go. I don’t want to lie to her, I don’t want to deceive her, but I also don’t think that I could ever explain about Wolk and Misty. And everything else.

“It’s all right,” she says, making me feel like she must when she realizes I know what she is thinking. “I’ve told you before, I don’t mind if you keep secrets. I just hope that you don’t mind if I learn things by watching you.”

I lean down to kiss the top of her head. “Of course I don’t mind, darling. I’ve told you, I am yours. You may watch whatever you like. I just don’t think I could ever start to explain to you ….” I don’t even know what to say. “I’m a very strange person.”

She chuckles. “Don’t I know it!”

“Ha!” I laugh, and squeeze her to me. “I’m just glad that you are willing to accept me.”

“I don’t just accept you. I adore you. I love you. I’ve learned a lot about you, and everything just makes me love you more.”

I am curious. “What have you learned?”

She shrugs, and starts ticking off items on her fingers. “You don’t sleep. Sometimes I think you wouldn’t eat either if food wasn’t put down in front of you. You treat everybody with a very strange level of kindness. You hate slavery. You know what I am thinking half the time. You heal faster than you should.” As she says this, she strokes her finger along the very faint line on my face that was left by Abraham’s lash last week. It is almost gone. It will fade completely away in another few days.

“And, I think you can help other people heal too, by touching them. I think you did it to me, after….” She doesn’t want to mention it. She knows that I am still angry about what Mason did to her. “And I am sure that you helped Dalila heal. Hester said that she was healing much faster than she should have.”

I listen, silently, in amazement, at how much she has discerned. I should never underestimate her perception again. She goes on. “I think that is the thing that made me realize that Ayola is like you. I could tell - she was healing her mother as well, on purpose.”

“Yes,” I breathe to her. “You are right. I am sorry that I have not explained these things to you. I still don’t know how I could. But I am not unhappy that you have noticed. You are such a gift to me, I am so lucky to have you, to know that you understand so much about me.”

I shift over so that I can kiss her. She happily accepts it. After a few moments, I ask, “Is there anything else that you have noticed?”

She grins. “There is the obvious stuff. You have ‘a ridiculous amount of money’,” she says, quoting something I once told her. “You are ridiculously generous with it. You have a beautiful accent. You love taking baths more than anyone else I have ever met. And, of course, you are remarkably good in bed.”

I guffaw. “That isn’t any special gift, it is just paying attention. You are even more remarkably good in bed!”

She reaches down below the covers and grasps me firmly, giggling, which makes me react almost with violence, crushing her to me and beginning to -

The sound of Nadine and Moses entering the house through the back kitchen door interrupts us, and we dissolve in hilarity.

We are still laughing after we have thrown on our clothes and are coming down the stairs.