He should be happy, he knew. They’d both survived a terrible ordeal this afternoon, and came through no worse for wear, at least physically. Valancy—Valancy, of the fragile heart; Valancy, who herself declared that she might drop dead without warning—was alive and, at that moment, sitting in a chair just on the other side of the door. He should be with her now, holding her, comforting her, waiting, perhaps, for the inevitable end with her—he should be doing anything but pacing back and forth in this tiny lean-to, but he found himself incapable of doing anything more. A pervasive numbness had settled into him in the moments following the incident at the tracks, and he feared it would not lift until he addressed the thoughts gnawing at the back of his mind.
Over the year they had spent together, he’d grown incredibly fond of Valancy, both as a friend and as his wife. Her way of looking at the world, with unrestrained wonder and a sense of grace and nuance that belied her dull and stifling upbringing, forced him to look at it with fresh eyes, himself. A world in which Valancy existed could not be all bad, he figured, and he thrilled at showing her the beauty of the wild, feeling anew, through her reactions, the elation of unexpected discoveries and the draw of unending possibilities.
And this was to say nothing of her playfulness and understated sense of humor, which kept him smiling and laughing throughout the day, even as he worked; or of the warmth of her hands, and the interplay of tenderness and passion in her kisses and caresses; or the pride she took in household duties he never asked her to assume, bringing order to the wilderness of the Blue Castle; or how she stretched before the fireplace, absorbed in a book; or how they sat, on the verandah or the couch or out in the woods, in perfectly comfortable silence, each lost in their own thoughts, and completely secure that the other would still be there when they came back down to earth.
Years before, he swore he was done with love, swore that it didn’t exist, at least not for him. But how else could he describe what he felt for Valancy? How else could he describe what he had stood to lose if he could not free her from the track in time? How else could he describe his willingness to die with her, his refusal to go on living if she couldn’t?
She had, in the time they’d spent together, remade the world for him. She made a place in which he finally fit, she made his house into a home. Without her… Barney shuddered and tried to shake the thought away. He’d never understood how bleak, how cold, his own life had been before Valancy entered it.
Without her, he had nothing.
Yes, he loved her. He admitted it to himself under his breath, through clenched teeth. He loved her, but what good would that do? Would it stop death from taking her away? Would it stop the pall of loneliness and grief from settling on his heart once more?
It seemed unfair, cruel. Not to him, but to her. For the past year, Valancy had given herself to him wholeheartedly, unreservedly, asking nothing in return but companionship. And though he had given her that, and more, he had always held a part of himself back, too stubborn and too afraid to admit what he truly felt. And now, it might be too late.
He resisted the urge to open the door and check on her, partly because he had no idea how to explain his feelings for her, how not to let the shadows of fear and uncertainty cloud what should be a joyous declaration, and partly because he didn’t want to find her lying on the floor or the couch or the bed, pale and still, her final moments spent alone while he wrestled with his own fear and denial.
At some point, he relinquished his pacing for sitting at his desk, finding it no easier to sort out his thoughts while seated, but far easier to lay his head on his arms and fall asleep.
He awoke in that still hour between night and dawn, when the crickets had ceased their chirping, but the birds had not yet begun to sing—that hour in which the wind whispered through the pines in a language foreign even to him, and he realized, as he had on many a night, how small and insignificant he was in nature’s grand scheme. This morning, however, other thoughts occupied his mind. It took him a moment to understand where he had fallen asleep and why, but once the flood of memories and emotions returned, he found them clearer than they had been the night before.
He must go to Valancy and tell her what he felt, his love for her and his fear of losing her, all the light and shadow of it. And maybe, a small glint of hope, as well. If she survived such a scare as the one she’d suffered the day before, perhaps her health wasn’t as bad as Dr. Trent feared. Perhaps there was someone else Barney could take her to, perhaps there was something to be done about her condition. He rose from his desk and strode to the door, determined to fight for Valancy’s life until he exhausted every option.
But the silence and darkness that greeted him without dulled his resolve. Valancy, sensible woman that she was, had not waited for him on the chair or the couch, or even by the fire. She had put herself to bed, feeling, he was sure, lost and afraid and alone, probably certain that he was angry with her. Oh, if she only knew the truth! If he only had the nerve to tell her! He walked to the doorway of the bedroom, holding his breath, hoping that he hadn’t waited too long.
She lay on the bed, illuminated by the moonlight filtering through the window, her face peaceful, one hand resting beside her head. He watched, carefully, as her chest rose and fell in languorous rhythm, then began to breathe again, himself, as he realized she was still with him.
He made his way to the bed as quietly as he could and sat down, careful not to disturb Valancy, or Good Luck, curled at her feet. “Oh, Moonlight,” he whispered, “what have you done to me? I swore I was done with love, but you… I never even knew it was happening. You were just the best friend anyone could hope for—kind and sweet, funny and loyal—you made me believe in the goodness of the world again, you made me forget about my own pain, and even yours. I forgot—no, I chose not to see—how closely death watched your every move, your every heartbeat. But now, if he hasn’t come to collect you, does that mean there’s still a chance? Or is it just another cruel joke, letting us hope, then snatching hope away?”
He gave a shuddering sigh. “I love you. I know I should’ve told you before, but I’ve only just been able to admit it to myself. Moonlight, if you knew, if you knew why I was so afraid of falling in love again, I’m certain you would forgive me for waiting so long. But can I… can I forgive myself?” He reached out and gently laid two fingers on the inside of her wrist, finding her pulse through her skin. Then, he counted each heartbeat, as he had done on many nights before—ten, twenty, sixty, one hundred—strong and steady, giving the illusion of a woman in perfect health.
But one day, he knew, it would stop; one day, he would have more numbers than heartbeats, and the thought that that day could come at any moment, that he might feel her slip away beneath his fingers, chilled his heart and forced a tightness into his throat. With a strangled groan, Barney withdrew his hand and turned away from Valancy. He was going to lose her. Sooner or later, he was going to lose her. It was a simple, miserable fact that he thought himself resigned to. Until yesterday, when he realized in an instant that he couldn’t live without her.
“There has to be something,” he muttered against his knuckles. “It can’t end now, not this way, not so soon. You’re still here, Moonlight… that has to mean something, right?”
But nature was often harsh, and indifferent to the wishes of man. He knew this, perhaps better than anyone else, having weathered the fury of blizzards in the Yukon, of storm-tossed seas, of sweltering heat; having seen a lightning strike so close to send a shiver through his body and raise the hair on his arms; having clambered over the trunks of freshly-fallen trees that, had he walked beneath them a few days before, might have become his own tomb. Nature didn’t care how he felt, how much he loved Valancy—if it decided she would die tomorrow, there was nothing he could do about it.
He stood up suddenly, fists and teeth clenched, rage simmering in his chest—rage at the indifference of nature, rage at his own helplessness in the face of it. He stared down at the floorboards, his vision clouding with tears. For all his inane ramblings as John Foster, for all his claims of kinship with nature, he had never felt so betrayed.
A quiet meow cut through his tumbling thoughts, and Barney blinked away tears as Good Luck trotted in front of him, raised himself on his hind legs and pawed at Barney’s knee. Barney sniffled and gave a quiet laugh.
“Luck? What’re you doing up? You hungry?” He glanced back at Valancy, still sleeping, and scooped Luck into his arms. “Come on, then, let’s go, before you wake up Moonlight.”
Banjo, too, had been roused, either by the hour or by Barney’s movement, and sat on his chair cleaning himself, sparing Barney only a sullen glance before returning to his task. When he heard Barney placing food in his dish, however, he ambled over and availed himself of the meal.
“Once every thousand years, they say, a cat is allowed to speak,” Barney said, scratching behind Good Luck’s ears. “Might it be your turn today? What would you say, then? Could you tell me what to do? I can’t just let her go, you know that. There has to be…” He trailed off with a sigh and looked around. The Blue Castle suddenly felt too small for the enormity of his feelings, too suffocating in which to think properly. Indeed, despite his anger at the natural world at the moment, at whatever forces controlled life and death, he knew he would be better able to think in its presence. The very rhythms of life that he feared would take Valancy from him yet soothed his soul and cleared his mind, a connection not even the iciest desperation could sever.
He stroked Banjo’s back, smiling at Banjo’s quiet proprietary growl as he dug into his food. “I’ve got to go,” Barney said. “I’ll be back as soon as I figure it all out. Meanwhile… you’ll take care of her, right? You won’t let her slip away.”
Banjo kept right on eating. Good Luck looked up at Barney, blinked, then resumed his meal, as well. Barney chuckled ruefully. What did he expect? They were cats, they couldn’t possibly understand him. Yet it made him feel just a bit better; he wasn’t leaving Valancy alone, though whether Valancy would understand that when she woke was probably about as likely as the cats having understood him now.
Barney looked at the darkened house once more, then grabbed the pad of paper and little stub of a pencil Valancy used to make household notes and shopping lists and walked out into the purple predawn light. He slid his canoe into the water and climbed in—the sound of the paddle in the water calmed him somewhat, and he took a deep breath of the cool morning air. He had no destination in mind; he would keep paddling, keep walking, until he came to a decision, until he resigned himself to Valancy’s fate, or thought of a way to change it.
Yes, he loved her. He repeated it to himself, more openly than before, and found neither shame nor fear in his admission. Falling in love with Valancy had been so easy, so natural—so gradual, like the changing of seasons—that he didn’t realize he had until it was almost too late. And he owed it to her, who had loved him so completely from the start, to show her how he felt, and to make whatever little time they had left together as fulfilling as possible. To love her as if his own life depended on it.
Because it did.