walnuts
I woke suddenly in the scritch and call of the bush at midday, needles of she-oak beneath me. For one moment I did not know where I was, what had happened. And then I remembered the feel of Thea’s hands on my skin, the lift of her neck under my mouth, and my body thrummed so hard in memory I had to bite down on my hand.
What had I done?
What had we done?
Cold stones groaned memories of liquid heat. The song of the soil was loud about me.
My hands were shaking, and when I looked down I saw that they bore unfamiliar knuckles. The nails were dark with dirt I had not worked. The lines upon my palms were not my own.
‘Hans,’ I said. ‘Oh my God. Hans.’
The relief I felt when I found Hans alive, sitting opposite Thea at their table, was so overwhelming I felt scoured by it. He was not dead. I had not killed him.
‘I know it happened,’ Hans was saying quietly. The noon meal was on the table between them, but neither Hans nor Thea were eating and I saw, next to the untouched bread on their plates, the white-worked pillow cover I had left under Thea’s sleeping hand.
Thea was still. A waiting pyre. I could see it in her limbs, in the set of her chin. Her fingers twitched against the surface of the table.
‘I know it happened,’ Hans continued. ‘But I don’t understand how.’
Thea opened the book and flipped to the third page. There, in gothic text, I saw ‘Gespr?che mit Toten zu führen’。 She turned it around and pushed the book towards him.
Hans read, face growing pale. ‘To converse with the dead? Thea . . .’ He looked up at her, then carefully closed the book and passed it back to her. ‘You told me you only used the seventh book. The herbal cures. This seems . . .’ He shook his head.
‘I know.’
‘You summoned her?’
Thea nodded. ‘Three nights ago. When you were sleeping. I thought it didn’t work. I was going to try again, last night, when she came.’ Her hands were shaking. ‘I saw her.’
Hans pushed the bread out of the way and leaned over the table, taking Thea’s hands in his. ‘I saw her too,’ he said, and then he laughed in a frightened way. ‘I felt her.’
Thea bent forwards and rested her forehead on their entwined hands. ‘Please don’t tell anyone.’
‘I don’t know how or why you did it, Thea, but’ – he hesitated – ‘there was no evil in it.’ He attempted a smile. ‘Not if it was Hanne.’
Thea lifted her head and looked up at him. ‘You truly do not know why I did it?’
Hans seemed to falter. ‘You miss her. You were friends.’
Thea sat up. Brought a hand against the back of her neck. ‘I loved her,’ she said eventually. Her voice was moss underfoot. Was a palm against a skin of water. I could not take my eyes off her.
Hans looked at her and said nothing.
‘I still love her.’ Thea’s eyes were intemperate blue. The heart of a candle flame. ‘Did you know such a thing was possible?’
Hans went very still. ‘Did I know that love was possible?’
Thea bit her lip and sat back in her chair. ‘I don’t mean to hurt you,’ she said.
‘Thea . . .’ Hans suddenly reached for her again. ‘How can I make you happy?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I don’t know what is real anymore. I feel . . .’ She took a shuddering breath. ‘I feel as though I am burning down all the time.’
‘What do you mean?’
She shook her head. ‘Like I am being consumed by the depth of my feeling for her.’
‘I miss her too.’
Thea took a deep breath and glanced up at the ceiling. ‘Not like I do.’
Hans told her the story he remembered best about me then. Thea began to cry and laugh at the same time, nodding as Hans told her about the argument, me on my hands, searching for the source of the song I claimed to hear, the well all those years later.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Yes, that was Hanne. She heard those songs. She sang them to me.’
Hans wiped the tears from Thea’s cheeks. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry she died.’
‘I’m sorry too.’ She kept crying. She could not stop.
‘I have something.’ Hans suddenly pushed back his chair and crossed the room. He pulled a small case out from under the bed in the corner, opened it, and took out a small cloth bag. ‘Here,’ he said, and placed it gently down on the table in front of Thea.