To be a Wildflower

Chapter 22

Chelseaville March 1976

Hope ran around town, out among the people she loved in ways she didn't know desperately trying to love them and create more memories with them within the given time span: helping out at the opening of the dock yard, the first ever in all of Chelseaville, and volunteering with Mrs. Mirrors' daughter Ruby with her bake-do at the senior centre in Fairhope, serenading at the Jug and Lion with hopes of making everyone fall into a spell under her voice, thinking they'd forget her imminent departure which worked on every soul, except for one. And as he watched her wear herself out for a memory to cherish, it just made him want to be there for her even more, because he knew she was not making the town forget, but herself, which was slowly killing her.

And as the days of March sped on, day after day, Hope eventually drew a compromise with her arrogant father after much disagreements and that was if she were to leave Chelseaville forever, she did not have to live with them anymore since she would be doing a lot of that with them in Portland. Ever since then Hope whirled around town shining upon everyone and then dropped away into a world of her own, silently next to Harrison feeling blissful and at home like a habitual place of comfort she had known since she was young.

Her eyes were spent and droopy, yet she was determined to read out her poems every night before she passed out tacitly in her bed, but this time she had got company from someone who couldn't say no even after her usual silky voice was sore and slightly raspy after the singing sessions at the pub. It was still perfect for him.

While Harrison twirled locks of her hair in his fingers unconsciously as they lay wrapped together carelessly, Hope reached for her ancient collection of poetry with the blue leather cover, which she had borrowed from a library in Portland before she arrived in Chelseaville. She did not have the heart to leave it lying all alone among the dusty shelves in the library corners where nobody ever ventured to. Hope clutched the book to her chest and glanced at Harrison's room- where the cobblestone walls glistened at the touch of the moon beams that streaked in through the windows. Her eyes wandered from the wooden drawers which were neatly tucked in the corner of the room to a tapestry awkwardly hung in a wall where there was an old painting of king Arthur's round table with an empty spot- Lancelot's. He was too obvious, Hope thought pitifully.

She turned towards the woodwork table, where he carved on little objects to ignore time— a tiny family of ducks and a half-carved horse and the round head of a morphed wooden octopus, which only she could distinguish after his trying efforts. These were the very animals she had been telling him when he had asked about the weirdest pets she'd like to have. Hope laughed to herself and turned towards Harrison, who's slow breathing hummed against her neck as he rested his eyes.

"Everything here agrees with us." Hope said tracing her finger on his cheek, and he smiled slowly with eyes still closed.

"This is the only place that wants us to be together." He said, his voice low and heavy.

"That's why I love it," she laughed again, her body vibrating against his.

Harrison opened his eyes to take her in, glowing under the gleam of the night that poured in as if just for her. He remembered her calling herself a moon child by the river once and he had teasingly said she was just a sucker for shiny stuff, but as he let his eyes fall for her as of this moment he couldn't deny it- she did look ethereal, almost unreal.

"We'll make this ours, when you come back." He said hazily, but he sounded steady. Hope's eyes widened halfway.

"How?" She asked feigning curiosity. He smiled and closed his eyes.

"I'll marry you." He said as if it was as normal as taking the horses on their daily trot around the paddock.

"And how would you know I'd say 'yes'?"

"If you wouldn't you'd be out of here already," he said and then looked at her unnervingly. "We could wake up here, every day and go to bed here together. I'm a man of practice Miss Mayfield, I hope you understand." He said seriously.

"I wouldn't mind getting used to that 'practice'," she leaned closer to his ear, "and because I answer to myself Mr. Crawford, let me say that I'd always marry you in a heartbeat."

Harrison's eyes crinkled and he pulled her close to him, the woodland smell of river, lavender, and old paper- the three elements of Hope's essence- hanging heavy in his head.

Hope picked up the poetry book and  before she could get to the pages, Harrison slipped the sheets off her, revealing her skin like fragile porcelain, almost translucent which he always thought was too pure and dazzling to be concealed. Her lips curled into a smile of rapture as she shivered at the touch of cold air and his warm hands encircling her hips and waist. She balanced the book on her chest and snuggled into read.

"Read the one with fairy fruits and flowers." He said into the crook of her neck.

"Edgar Allan Poe's?" She asked flipping the pages, the words of each and every line engraved in her mind.

"Don't make me sound stupid now," he said dead pan and she laughed lightly sending rippling waves of vibrations across his body and face. Once she had flipped to the page of his choice, she recited the words, her voice filling the empty quietness of the entire cottage as it suddenly turned the grounds into a world reigned by them and them only.

Thou wast that all to me, love,

For which my soul did pine

A green isle in the sea, love,

A fountain and a shrine,

All wreathed with a fairy fruits and flowers

And all the flowers were mine.

Ah, dream too bright to last!

Ah, starry Hope! That didst arise

But to be overcast

A voice from out the Future cries,

On! On! —but o'er the past

(Dim gulf!) my spirit hovering lies

Mute, motionless, aghast!

"Why do you like this one?" She asked pausing, a wave of concern in her eyes.

"Sounds pretty when you say it," he said as his eyelids hung heavy, "and it fancies your name." He grinned, which always made her leap in happiness at this rare sight.

Hope shook her head and crept closer to him, thankfulness and worry coexisting in her mind altogether at the fact that he was unaware of what the words truly meant.

She was wrong. It was Harrison who held onto those words as he held onto fear and loss as if his life ran on it, unable to break free. The months he had spent with Hope he had learned that fear and pain gone, would always be replaced by another novelty which was always worse than the last, every time he would meet love and comfort. He did not realise that Hope was more than just someone to hold onto.

Hope resumed to play her words of To One in Paradise, like a song sung for children, a tone of innocence and faith just the way she wanted him to hear and before she could even finish the poem, the book slipped from her hands slowly as her eyes finally gave away from fatigue.

Harrison was awake with her laced around him, eyes desperately opened as if he didn't want the moment to be buried under by sleep, and the last verses from her voice remained rampant in his mind, like a memory play that took the stage on its own.

And all my days are trances,

And all, my nightly dreams

Are where thy grey eye glances,

And where thy footstep gleams—

In what ethereal dances,

By what eternal streams.