IX.

     Once she woke up and heard the faint sound of chopping. Then suddenly the sun was shining through the entrance…and the sleeping bag beside her was empty. There was newly chopped wood by the hearth, so she made a fire, heated water for tea, and pulled off chunks of bread from a hard loaf for her breakfast. Still hugging the blanket around her, she climbed the terraces behind the hut to inspect the morning. From above she could make out the vineyard, but Eben was nowhere to be seen.

     When the sun was high, the day warming, she made her way down to a string of clear pools she’d spotted from her lookout. Encircled by boulders, the largest was barely six feet across. She pulled off her clothes and laid them out on a rock, stuffing her socks into her shoes, then stepped gingerly in among the skating water spiders. Her first step raised a billow of brown silt that turned the water murky, and she nearly slipped on the slimy rocks of the pool floor. She waded up to her waist, feeling faintly disappointed that the pool was so mucky, then rubbed herself briskly with the chill water before climbing out again to dry off in the sun.

     She’d donned her shorts but not her top when she heard footsteps behind her—and turned to see Eben. Her first thought was to grab her bra, but then she wondered if that would seem prudish. Not just Alana but her roommates too—and many of the other expatriates—were always naked at the beach. He sat down near her, necessarily, because there wasn’t much room on the only flat rock. When he asked her how she’d slept, she grimaced before answering, remembering the sensation of the rocks underneath her wearing through to her bones. And then she did something she would regret. She reached out and gently pushed his snarled hair out of his eyes. He jerked back slightly at her gesture, saying “It’s waxy, isn’t it.” Only moments later he stood, stammering that he had to get back to work.

     For the next hour, on some steps near the shelter, Seely tried to write, but found herself becoming impatient—words were so balky, so gallingly inadequate, she fumed to herself. She wandered, explored—and each time she left the shelter she became lost in the maze of terraced hills…only to stumblingly find her way back again. She fetched more water from the stream in the earthen jug. Finished off the pear yogurt and cheese she had in her satchel. But the longer she bided her time, the more certain she became that Eben had receded from her, like a tide that wouldn’t rise again. As she gazed around at the dusty slopes, she felt a piercing sadness, experiencing their loss before she’d even taken leave of them.

     Finally, in the mid-afternoon she rolled up her sleeping bag, took up her satchel, and with the crude map Aaron had drawn her, started her long trudge back to town. When she reached the first bend and turned back for a last look, the hut was already indistinguishable from its stony backdrop.

This is the end of the factual bulk of my story, and the beginning of the fictional ending.