We All Fall Down

We All Fall Down
Book Three—The Stone Heart Series
Available 2013

 

The figure stands for a full minute, watching the blackened windows, searching for a response or sign of life. She gives neither. He waits three, four, five minutes before slowly raising his hand as if to wave, as if to beckon her to draw near, as if pleading. He turns, walks away. 

Undone, she runs into the night, running, running, running to him, crashing against him, breaking like waves against the rocks.

“You can’t be here,” she cries out, clings to him, desperate for the emptiness to leave. “You shouldn’t have come.” The look in his eye is as lost and haunted as her own, and as he pulls her closer to himself, the noise which comes from deep within him—part howl, part groan,  part sob, causes her to cling to him more tightly.

“You shouldn’t have called,” he says at last, and  their eyes move upward to where the bright beacon of the lighthouse broadcasts their hunger. 

Hours later, they will stand in the shadows, saying hushed good byes, trying to avoid the coming light of day, but for now, in a few stolen moments, the waves of grief are settled.

ivy •  

•  Peter is distracted, which isn’t helpful. I’m having to repeat myself, pick up things he’s left sitting in curious places, and periodically, call him back from wherever his thoughts have taken him.  I hear him undressing, hear the sound of his weight upon the bed. I hope he will call for me, but he doesn’t. After a few minutes, I head to the bedroom. When I curl up next to him, he is already asleep.  I lay awake, trying to slow the beat of my heart to match his.  Outside, the wind begins to howl—in grief or warning, I do not know and in all honesty, I am afraid  to find out.

When a beautiful stranger arrives in the cove, her presence stirs panic and mistrust in the heart of the quiet town, and threatens to be the straw that breaks the Stone’s already strained marriage.