Love, Artifacts, and You by Sarah Ready

13

Andrew

It’s growingclose to dusk. In less than an hour the sun will set. Emma and I are hiking in the woods, nearly a mile from the buried settlement. We spent the entire day searching the caverns that I mapped out last night and have only two more to go. We didn’t go far inside any of the caves. None of the previous four seemed likely as Sol’s Cavern. They were either too shallow, stopping in a wall of rock near the entrance, or too narrow. I’m expecting to find a landform similar to what Vikings left in other locations. Large, wide, circular caverns that let in light through narrow shafts.

Ahead of me, Emma wipes a drop of sweat from the back of her neck. She’s in jean shorts, a t-shirt, a baseball hat, and hiking boots.

We brought day packs with utility tools and flashlights, food, plenty of water, and bug spray. I’m most grateful for the bug spray. It rained last night and the mosquitos are thirsty. The woods are gathering into the noisy, busy period before dark. The forest birds sing and fly about, a deer runs by, and the horseflies are biting. I smack at one on my arm.

“Want to call it a day?” Searching the caves during the daylight was fine, it didn’t bring up many memories. But the idea of going into one with dark falling is causing tension to ride up into my shoulders and back.

Emma looks back and smiles. “We’re only a hundred meters from the next. Let’s just check it and see. Then we can hike out and I’ll make dinner.” At the word dinner she presses her lips together and flushes.

I stare at her mouth and decide that braving a cave at dusk is well worth dinner and anything else she has in mind. We’ve spent the day exploring the woods and each other. She’s asked questions about my business and I’ve told her a little more about what I do.

How I now specialize in finding items of value in everyday places, the lost items in plain sight. I told her about my auction house and my partnership with Dom. She asked a lot of questions, brought up points I hadn’t thought of and offered ideas for where we might streamline and where we could expand. I imagined it was the case before, but now I know, Emma has a keen business mind and a real instinct for how to move in the marketplace. I think if I hadn’t sabotaged her progress, she would’ve made Castleton, Inc. even more successful than her father did.

She’ll start again though. I don’t think there’s much of anything in the world that can hold her down. She started to articulate that she might like to stay here and excavate the settlement – it’ll take years to carefully remove the layers of soil and uncover the history buried in the site. She’s always loved the process of discovery best. But then, during her story, she looked over at me and something made her stop. Then she shrugged and said the future was up in the air.

I’d be lying if I said that didn’t unsettle me.

This morning, when she put my laptop into my briefcase, the file folder with the printed report slipped out. Her hand paused over her name printed on the folder’s edge.

“What’s this?” she asked with a smile. “Were you doing research on me too?”

“Yes,” I said. Then I kissed her and pushed the file back into my bag.

Emma seems to have forgotten it, but I haven’t. I can’t keep this up much longer. Last night in bed, I wanted so badly to uncover myself to her, let her see me as I am. But I couldn’t. Didn’t.

Up ahead, I can see the shadowed outline of a large rocky outcropping. It’s covered in moss and vines. The sun is nearing the horizon and the golden light hits the stone and turns it a burnished gold.

“My word,” Emma breathes. She stops and stares at the light glistening over the cave. “Do you think…?”

She turns to me with a question in her eyes.

Sometimes, ancient people would have the entrance shafts of caverns or burial mounds face the sunset or sunrise so that when the sun hit it just right, the interior room of the cave would be bathed in a golden glow. It’s a magical experience. They believed that the deads’ souls could fly up on the beam of light and be set free.

This cave’s entrance faces due west, toward the setting sun.

“There’s only one way to find out,” I say.

We hurry forward into the woods, trying to beat the sun before it sinks below the horizon. I push aside the plant growth near a two-foot-tall entrance and find a rune carved into the stone.

“It says Sol.” I look over at Emma.

She touches the rune. There’s a look of awe on her face. Then she turns to me and there’s joy in her eyes. “We found it.”

Suddenly, I’m taken back to another place. The cenote, The Heart, Emma saying the same words. At that time, I knew she loved me, and I’d felt like I could fly. Like I was free. I want to feel that again.

I grin at her, all the past falling away. I can feel that again.

Emma blinks, looks at me with a stunned expression.

“I haven’t seen you smile like that since…”

I can’t pull the smile back. It’s all going to be alright. “I know. Come on.”

I duck down and crawl into the low cavern. Emma crawls in behind me. The tunnel is circular and smooth, like it was carved out with iron tools. After only four feet of crawling I reach the end of the tunnel and step into the cavern. Emma stands up behind me.

The room is about twenty feet in circumference and fifteen feet high. The walls are limestone and the ground is rock and dirt. Emma stands next to me and presses into my side.

“Do you see what I’m seeing?” she asks.

We turn in a slow circle, taking it all in. Suddenly, the light from the setting sun hits the entrance tunnel and the cavern is filled with a golden glow.

“The Lost Treasure,” I say.

“It’s beautiful.” She wraps her arms around me and we both take in the shining gold room. I think the ancient people were right. At this moment, I do feel as if my spirit can fly free.

“What does it say?” Emma whispers.

I look at the elegantly carved runes and the intricate scrollwork meticulously inscribed into the cavern walls. The runes circle the cave and are illuminated in the light. I begin to read.

“It’s a love poem.” I say. I lean down and kiss Emma on the top of her head. “My love, kiss me. Kiss me.”

I brush a kiss across her forehead, she tilts her head up, her skin is washed in gold. Her lips are partly open to me, so I reach down and drag my mouth over hers. I don’t have to look up to know the next line.

I whisper it against her lips. “Remember me always, I remember you.”

She wraps her arms around my shoulders and leans into me. This is Romeo’s Treasure. Not gold, or Viking spoils, jewels, or crowns—it’s the love of a man for his wife.

She brushes her fingers over my face, runs her hands down my cheeks, my throat, to my beating heart.

“Is there more?”

I nod and press my hand over hers. I look at the inscription and then back into her eyes.

“Love me,” I say. “I love you.”

Her lips tremble and her hand presses into my chest. Even though I’m reading the words from an inscription on the wall, I’m speaking them from my heart.

“I love you so much that even fire seems cold. Kiss me, my love. Remember me. I remember you.”

My throat is raw, and I realize that there are tears in my eyes. I can’t look away from her. We stand in the center of Romeo’s Lost Treasure, an ancient work of art bathed in golden sunlight, and I can’t look away from Emma.

“I love you too,” she whispers.

A great feeling of relief washes through me and I feel as if a thousand pounds has been lifted from me.

“I love you. I love you.”

I drop my forehead to hers and close my eyes. Our breath mingles and I press my lips to hers.

“Marry me. Marry me, Emma.”

“Is that part of the poem?”

I look down at her and smile. “No. That’s me asking you to be my wife. To stay with me forever. To kiss me. To love me. To be mine.”

“Yes,” she says. “Always, my answer is always yes.”

I take her mouth in mine, and as we kiss I taste tears. And I don’t know whether they’re hers or mine. Then I pull her shirt from her head, lift it off and drop it to the ground. She looks up at me, a question in her eyes, and I nod. She takes my long-sleeve t-shirt and pulls it off me. The golden light illuminates the white raised lines covering my skin. They crisscross over me, as thick as a wicked spiderweb.

I look to Emma’s eyes and swallow down the fear I have at her reaction.

She nods her head once, slowly. “Okay,” she says. A single tear falls down her cheek, but she doesn’t wipe it away. She keeps her eyes on mine. Then she presses her hands to my chest and places a kiss over my heart. “You came back to me,” she whispers. “I’m so glad you came back to me.”

She kneels down in front of me and slowly unties my shoes. She pulls them off. Then she unbuttons my jeans and pulls them down my legs. They are even more scarred than my chest and back. If my legs were hurt, I’d be less likely to run.

I watch her face. Even with her head bent I can still see her expression.

There’s no pity, no revulsion. Only acceptance. And love. My word. There’s so much love there.

“Emma.” My voice breaks on her name. I try to say everything in that one word.

She nods and puts her lips over my length. I throw back my head from the pleasure and the pain of it. She pulls on me and I reach for her. Pull her to me.

I can’t…

I need…

I yank her clothes from her. Make a pile on the ground and love her. With each thrust I tell her. “I love you.”

I feel free.

When we’re both sated, laying in a pile on our clothing, I realize that all the light is gone. The cavern is dark.

But I don’t feel any fear. In fact, laying in the dark, with Emma in my arms, I only feel love.