Fables & Other Lies

“I didn’t even get to say goodbye. I didn’t say goodbye.” It hurt when I spoke the words, emotion clogging up my throat to the point of pain.

“It’s okay,” he whispered against my hair, holding me tight.

“Is this a dream?” I pulled back.

His smile was sad. His nod was brief. I shut my eyes and let the tears cascade down my cheeks. His fingers wiped them away and I opened my eyes to meet his gaze.

“I’m only gone physically, little witch.” His lip turned up. “You’ll still carry me inside you, deep within your bones.”

“I want you here.” I shook my head, tears continuously spilling. “In front of me. For real.”

He kept smiling. “One day, when you’re alone and afraid, I’ll poke you from within and you’ll feel me there, and then you won’t feel so alone, so afraid anymore.”

“I don’t want that. I want you here.” I cried harder. My shoulders shook. Tears fell, snot loosened. I didn’t care. I wiped my face with the back of my hand. “I want you here.”

“You’ll have me here.” He kissed the tip of my nose, my cheek, my lips.

I returned the kiss harder, more frantically, and undressed him as he undressed me. I made my way down his body, dragging my lips on every etch and every plane. He gripped my hair when I kneeled between his legs. I glanced up at him, reveling in that dark gaze. The weight of his lust propelled me into action, pulling him into my mouth and sucking, licking, moving until he groaned and gripped me tighter. He yanked me off of him and pulled me up with the same hand that was just encouraging the foreplay, and slammed his mouth against mine, unleashing his tongue into my mouth. His other hand found my breasts, my nipples, my clit, and rubbed as he mouth-fucked me, his fingers in my hair gripping to the point of pain as I cried out, soaking his other fingers. He let go of my hair to hold me by the waist and pull me on top of him. It started out hard—him slamming into me, punishing me, but then he turned me so that my back was flat on the mattress and he hovered over me, looking into my eyes and sliding in and out of me painstakingly slowly, as if memorizing every second of the moment, unwilling to let it go. I remembered it was a dream, and that maybe, possibly, River might be experiencing it as well. I brought a hand up to his face as he continued to move inside of me.

“I love you,” I whispered. “I’m sorry I couldn’t save you.”

He kissed me then, deeply, with an ardor and longing I knew I’d have for him as long as I lived, and when we found ecstasy, he smiled down at me.

“Your love sustained me and made up for a lifetime of loneliness,” he said. “I’ll love you for eternity.”

And then, he was gone. I gasped, sitting up in bed, sweating, and when I looked down, I wasn’t wearing any clothes.

“River?” I scrambled out of bed. “River?”

No one answered.

Chapter Thirty-Two

A few days later

“It’s a miracle,” the priest said. “Gia Guzman has made a full recovery.”

The church cheered. I clapped, but I wasn’t really there. I looked out the window I was sitting beside and saw someone out in the cemetery. I blinked. Mayra? I stood quickly and walked to the back of the church, not worrying about the people looking at me as I went. They all thought I was crazy anyway. Half of them had told me to leave the island. That I was a devil worshipper. Never mind that I was the reason they were still alive and thriving. Never mind that they depended on the very leaves I brought back for that. I rushed to where I’d seen Mayra, but there was no one there. I looked around, left to right, right to left, and found nothing. With a sigh, I walked back toward the church. As I walked, I looked down at the unpaved road beneath my feet and saw track marks. Bare feet. They were all facing one way. La Ciguapa. I looked up in the opposite direction of which they came and saw a woman standing at the edge, where the tombstones met the forest. A young woman, dark, much younger than Mayra could ever be. Fabiola. She smiled at me, a bright smile, and bowed deeply. I didn’t begin to cry, but the sob stayed in my chest, heavy, making it difficult to breathe.

Divers had been surrounding the area where Dolos once stood, but it was gone. The Calibans, the Devil’s Chair, the seedy town, and its people. Just gone. I’d done a ton of Google searches on it and found very little being reported. It seemed that news of Dolos and Pan Island only made it as far as the surrounding islands and even then it wasn’t top news. The people in Puerto Rico, Cuba, Haiti, Jamaica, and the Dominican Republic had bigger things to worry about, taking care of the aftermath of their own natural disasters.