Silence. I bent my knees enough I could slip out the gap in the tree’s trunk and lean against the bark.
The pots of soil I’d carried from my garden were empty and neatly queued at the base of the tree. I dropped to my knees and read a note instructing me to refill the little pots with soil from where I had been standing. I scooped up the damp dirt with the trowel provided and filled each pot to the rim.
Done. What was next?
Squatting, I surveyed what was directly within my field of vision. I couldn’t see much past my extended arms and the lowest branches, other than the tops of tents scattered throughout the grassy field.
Crawling forward, gathering the layers of my dress to my waist, I grew ever more aware I was covered in blood and dirt and honey, bits of crushed fruit, sticks and leaves. I stopped. The ground lurched into a spiraling movement, and I fell over, onto my side, and watched a line of black-winged birds circling above the wide reach of the mother tree’s branches.
Blood. And honey. I wanted blood, and I wanted honey. I wanted to pierce my skin and lick my self-inflicted wounds, fly in the company of bees and drown in flower cups of fresh nectar. I wanted to eat dirt and tickle beetle bellies and rush up the oak trees like squirrels after branches full of ripened nuts.
My giggles grew into a full-bellied laugh. The birds and branches were joined by a ring of masked faces peering at me. More faces gathered, until the skin tones and hair textures and wildly painted features blended together in one eternally recognizable face, and I passed out again, because if Gaia wanted to claim me for Herself, I was ready to go.
Voices. All of them feminine. Hands explored my face, fingers tried to open my eyes, and all I could do was grin, turn my face to the loamy soil, and seek sleep.
A deeper voice, urgent and bossy—definitely bossy—joined in. A strong, thick arm insinuated itself behind my knees, and another arm supported the back of my shoulders, while softer, smaller hands cupped my hips and the back of my head.
Golden. The sun kissed my eyelids. I smiled at the gift. My body met the cool surface of a car’s interior, and my heart reached for the door, pressed at it, willing it to stay open so I could escape the machine-made confine and make my way back to the Earth.
The door won. Grass then macadam, unfurled under the tires. I rocked with the rhythm of the road, left my resistance someplace I might never remember, and drifted to sleep again.
Water. Warm water, softened with soap and scented with strawberries.
Support. My shoulders once again cradled by an arm thicker and stronger than my own. I opened my eyes slowly. A pulse on a throat. The curve of an unshaved jaw. Hair, wet at the tips, grazing a muscular neck and shoulders.
My bath. Tanner’s gaze on my knees where they broke through the bubbles coating the surface of the bathwater.
“Why are you here?” I asked, my voice scratchy.
His head turned in slow motion, and his eyes sparked bronze, as though the irises were newly forged and piercingly hot. “Rose called me.”
“Oh.” I closed my eyes, let my knees drop together and my head loll toward Tanner’s shoulder. My bones were missing. He was shirtless. I was defenseless. I took a long inhale through my nose and found his musky scent underneath the light-hearted soap. “Did I do okay?”
“I’d say you passed. You more than passed, which is why Rose asked me to come and get you. She thought if I brought you home, you would find yourself faster.”
“Was I lost?” I sounded drunk. I felt drunk.
“I don’t know,” he whispered. “I don’t know. But you’re here now, and that’s a good thing.” Tanner pressed his lips to my forehead, extracted his arm from behind my shoulders, and placed a folded towel over the edge of the bathtub.
I rested my head against the thick terrycloth and sighed a breathy, “Thank you.”
“You okay to wash yourself?”
I had to think about that before I flipped to my side, seal-like, and nodded. I didn’t want to let go of his eyes, his beautiful, gem-like eyes, a mother lode of crystal in a lightless cave. “Yeah. But if I’m not out soon, check on me.”
“I’ll do that.” He reached for the tall glass on the counter beside the sink and handed it to me. “Drink. It’s water with electrolytes. And if you feel dizzy when you get out, yell. I’ll wait for you in your room.”
“What time is it?”
“It’s almost dinner.”
Mmm, did Mama make honeycakes?
I sighed, slid under the surface, one hand gripping the curved edge of the tub so I wouldn’t go all the way under and swim down the drain and follow the call to the sea. Eyes closed, I ran my free hand over my skin, felt for my hair. Tanner must have washed away the dirt and blood I vaguely remembered coating me when I crawled out from inside the apple tree.
I emerged from the bath, steadying myself on the rounded sides of the old standalone tub while I bent forward and squeezed the excess water out of my hair. Fresh towels were stacked on the toilet seat. I unfolded the top one and wrapped it around my head. Standing tall in my terrycloth turban, I patted dry. My skin was too tender to rub or scruff. A jar of wild rosehip oil sat near the glass of water. I sniffed the oil’s familiar healing notes and poured a generous portion into my cupped palm before drizzling it up and down my limbs and around my breasts. I
