Michael does not have time to regret this moment on the stoop in the light of the moon, even brighter when it is reflected from the sheet of snow over most of Novus. The door to the dark little house swings open, the fire swells to life, and a cold wind sighs in from the vineyard.
Oh, she says - and she is a breathtaking girl painted in a dizzying pattern of spots, with eyes that he will later recall as the very color of her grape leaves drinking the light of a late-morning sun. He sees that she looks very sad, or very tired, and the fingers of it brush against his own exhaustion, against his trembling legs and the pit in his heart that sobs this is enough, every morning and night as if he could use it to keep the time.
Outside the waves break against the dark rock, a sound that is muffled by the layer of snow. Fat drops fall into his hair and his eyelashes.
"Oh," he says almost in unison. Michael is drawing in a breath to apologize, to say I should not have intruded, I am so sorry, I should have been anywhere else but your vineyard and your quiet little home and-- and-- and-- when she steps back and invites him inside in a voice that he barely hears at all over his blood roaring in his ears. He does, as beckoned, filling first the doorway and then the space against the wall with gold and white and pulling the door shut behind him until it clicks gently into place.
Michael breathes as if he has forgotten how to do it automatically (in, a long pause, out).
Across the room on the table there are two wine glasses, one empty as the fingered light of the fireplace laughs in its reflection. Across the room there is the fireplace itself, cold though it is laughing in red and yellow and orange, as if it rose up to greet the stranger at the door--later he will wonder, later Michael may lay in bed and think long about the vineyard and its fireplace, and how so many things feel like a hearth with laughing flame and heat that does not touch his knees, or his ankles, or any part of him. Across the room there is a rabbit that stares at him with eyes like the moon even as that same moon bounces off its edges.
Michael turns back to Red. Michael stares into her vine-green eyes with a lump in his throat. Michael smiles at her like breaking waves and the sad songs his mother used to sing to the ocean. "Sorry, I'm Michael. I'm here for the, uh, festival. I was just walking, and--" As he speaks his ocean eyes roll away from Red, as if he will find the words in her room with her wine glasses and her rabbit. "I really don't mean to intrude. Were you waiting on someone? I just mean with the glasses."
Oh, she says - and she is a breathtaking girl painted in a dizzying pattern of spots, with eyes that he will later recall as the very color of her grape leaves drinking the light of a late-morning sun. He sees that she looks very sad, or very tired, and the fingers of it brush against his own exhaustion, against his trembling legs and the pit in his heart that sobs this is enough, every morning and night as if he could use it to keep the time.
Outside the waves break against the dark rock, a sound that is muffled by the layer of snow. Fat drops fall into his hair and his eyelashes.
"Oh," he says almost in unison. Michael is drawing in a breath to apologize, to say I should not have intruded, I am so sorry, I should have been anywhere else but your vineyard and your quiet little home and-- and-- and-- when she steps back and invites him inside in a voice that he barely hears at all over his blood roaring in his ears. He does, as beckoned, filling first the doorway and then the space against the wall with gold and white and pulling the door shut behind him until it clicks gently into place.
Michael breathes as if he has forgotten how to do it automatically (in, a long pause, out).
Across the room on the table there are two wine glasses, one empty as the fingered light of the fireplace laughs in its reflection. Across the room there is the fireplace itself, cold though it is laughing in red and yellow and orange, as if it rose up to greet the stranger at the door--later he will wonder, later Michael may lay in bed and think long about the vineyard and its fireplace, and how so many things feel like a hearth with laughing flame and heat that does not touch his knees, or his ankles, or any part of him. Across the room there is a rabbit that stares at him with eyes like the moon even as that same moon bounces off its edges.
Michael turns back to Red. Michael stares into her vine-green eyes with a lump in his throat. Michael smiles at her like breaking waves and the sad songs his mother used to sing to the ocean. "Sorry, I'm Michael. I'm here for the, uh, festival. I was just walking, and--" As he speaks his ocean eyes roll away from Red, as if he will find the words in her room with her wine glasses and her rabbit. "I really don't mean to intrude. Were you waiting on someone? I just mean with the glasses."
"Tell me how all this, and love too, will ruin us."
@red <3
