The Will o' the Wisps

I remember that morning by the pond.
The water-lilies seemed to grow wilder than ever before. The pond had burst through the enclosing beds of grass, sprouting with weed and thorny twigs, when the rain flushed over the garden during the night.
It had been a bitter storm, bleak and ill willing, thrusting its weeping winds upon the village. I had sought cover from the thundering storm where I thought it would never find me. But somehow, the dismal atmosphere that wrapped its wings around us, had chased me down the stairs and past the armours and in though the doors; it had chased me into his arms again. Once the rain had stopped tapping and the winds had stopped howling, screaming for me and whatever was left of the feelings Edmund and I once had for each other, there was no erasing the secrets of the past or the present. There was no going back.
Though the flowers could rejoice, drooping in the rains enriched strength, the pond had reached and gone beyond the point where our garden was enough and stretched into the bog in the far. But the lilies, they grew.
In the twilight, I went outside to find it was going to be a sunny day. I was dressed in my white nightgown and it soaked in the bottom hem as soon as it touched the grass. I couldn't care less. In its white lace and flowing bobbinet netting it made me feel a little freer. If it was free from him or me, I do not know. But since the night before, it seemed to have fallen out of shape. As I stood there I wondered if it was I who had fallen out of its shape.
The beams from the cracking dawn beyond the hills danced in the flooded pond that was still twirling, high-spirited, dancing with whatever torn flowers and the flourishing water-lilies it could catch. It felt as though my will was amongst them, spinning helplessly, drowning. I closed my eyes and let the rays from the burning light rest on my eyelids.
As I stepped into the garden, which thrived in delight, the draw to the pond subdued me. The glistering shallow waters threw its reflection on the stones by the waterside. It was a fair sight.
I sat down on the low wall surrounding the water. It was still drying from the rain, but was luckily enough still a few inches from being swallowed by the surface of the pond. I had always found the pond to be a good place to divert ones clouds and to think clearly upon ones troubles. Today, it was a place to escape and to condemn myself for the fact that yesterday was not a day for a walk in the park.
I let my hair down. It concealed my face, concealed the rain in my eyes.
Far out, on water that was not in our possession, I thought I saw the will o' the wisps. They always seemed to appear after a rain like this. What I wouldn't give to be here and gone, to be far away, to be as white as a ghost on the bog.
- I thought I'd find you here.
For a moment I had been lost in the twirling waters, in the ember-like sun smouldering beyond the ridge, had been gone in the embrace of the fool's fires. But his voice over my right shoulder brought me back. In the silence I felt naked, so I answered him reluctantly.
- Well it is where I'm always at.
His pause was one of confusion. I could hear him open his mouth behind me, ready to speak, and then close it again. Instead he sat down beside me. In the corner of my eye, through a curtain of dew and mist-covered ash blonde hair, I could see him looking at me. He opened and closed his mouth, looking for words, breathing heavily. If I didn't know him better, I'd say he was on the verge of laughing. Or maybe it was crying.
- I missed you. Before it seemed like longing, but now... I think I've always missed you.
- Don't talk like that, Edmund. Don't be foolish. It doesn't suit you.
I tried to avoid a conversation. I closed my eyes and hoped he would never see my face. I clenched my hands around some gravel on the ground, letting the stones dig into my skin. I wished they would scar me. Edmund continued, his voice shaking slightly.
- Emma; fool or not, some words need to be said. I hoped you would feel for me enough to look at me, but you may never respect me that much. So what must be said, let it be said, because the eyes you turn away, are only ones that will never hear what the ear you turn to me, the heart, will do. And whatever you do, whoever you act, I will not go away.
His words were beautiful and I wondered if he'd practised them. But for their sake, I turned to him. His eyes were big and his hair was still tousled. He had never been a handsome man, but with the rising sun in his eyes and the waves of the water reflecting against his bright skin, he seemed more attractive than I allowed myself to think. When I turned and looked at him, he acted as though that was his cue and opened his mouth again to speak. I silenced him quickly.
- There are no words that haven't already been said.
I hoped that somewhere in my eyes he could see that I did not need this. Something to make him know I didn't need him.
- What is spoken has never been said. Do not call a passion a tongue; do not make a man into an animal.
Suddenly I saw what I had figured for laughter behind those eyes. But it was nothing amusing. A fierce rage dwelled behind them, as burning as the sun that started to warm my back with its morning glow. His voice was raised. I felt exposed, like the water had stripped me of my clothes and left me, vulnerable, at its bank. An impulse I could not quell told me to fight for this insulting gesture of making me into a fool. Edmund's words and that anger were inevitable; what was it really he was accusing me of? My words just poured out.
- And an animal is not what you are?!
All the blame I had put on myself seemed to bubble inside of me. My heart beat faster. The blood in my veins rushed around and all I could feel was the anger and the accusation I cast upon Edmund. With a second of unrestrained fury as my fuel I threw the gravel in my hand in his face. I continued ranting, my words stumbling over my tongue in the race of being said.
- There is nothing to respect in a man like you, so no, I believe no woman can find you anything but an animal! I feel for you nothing but pity, nothing but repugnance! Don't you dare expect of me anything else! Any blame you put on me, any feeling you accuse me of, only makes you more of an animal! Nothing but instincts, that's what you come with. Tell me now, who is more of a man, because you are an embarrassment!
I immediately regretted my words. But he did not notice that. Instead he just picked up the pebbles that had found their place in creases in his shirt and in his lap one by one and flicked them in the pond. I could see his jaw moving behind his skin as he clenched his teeth. Because every ounce of anger within me had been poured out together with my words, I jumped when he answered me in a raised voice.
- You might not believe it, but there are other feelings but yours! The heart you have, oh, it's cold! You believe there is no riddance of this; well, I welcome any idea you have to redeem whatever pride is left in me! There is no end; you can believe that, there is nothing but nothing anymore! There is no love that isn't love!
He was shouting loudly, his voice shaking. He scared me. The sun was now filling the entire garden with warm beams that threw themselves between the water, the windows on the house and the dewdrops in the grass. With a groan he rose from his seat and started walking along the gravel path back the house.
After a couple of seconds of watching him walk away I took heart and stood up too. I yelled after him, with scarlet cheeks and my teeth grinding.
- All my heart is in forgetting! Whatever mistakes I made in the past, you can be sure, will never happen again! There are people and there are animals; in time I hope you will learn that we are not the latter! We cannot go on like this any more, Edmund. It's not the life for people like us. You must know in your heart that it isn't!
I searched in the heat of the moment after a simile to explain my cryptic words.
- Like the will o' the wisps; they seem to appear out of nowhere! It's hard to put your finger on what it really is! You find yourself wondering if what you see and feel is right. But eventually, any which way, it's gone! So must this be!
While I had been shouting, he'd been walking towards the backdoor of the house. But now he stopped. He turned to me again. Despite the distance, I could see his eyes were burning. Seconds went by as we stood looking at each other. A knot of insecurity tied in my stomach.
Suddenly a chilly wind swept through the garden, as a big grey cloud that had come from nowhere, sealed the sun in a solid shadow. His voice cut through the thick silence.
- All people are animals and will forever be. If my love would be gone, like the will o' the wisps, I would be no man. And I'd rather die.
With those words he left me, under the flocking clouds overhead. I sat there until the rain burst, drenching me in its pure drops. Though the water below me danced, the flowers rejoiced and the nightgown soaked through, I only sat there. Right then and there, I would give anything for the rain to go on forever. I hadn't felt as clean in weeks. But it was an empty feeling.
That's when I saw the lit candle in his bedroom window. He was waiting.
I crossed the garden in a second.