It didn’t occur to him that he should recoil when he felt the hand on his shoulder. The room was black and silent, and the air was perfectly still, and he was very much aware that the hand should not have been there at all. But it had been so long, it seemed, since he’d felt any presence outside his own, that there was nothing this hand could bring to him that wouldn’t be a kindness. He didn’t startle, and he didn’t stand. He didn’t even turn to see to whom the hand belonged. He simply leaned lightly back against it, and he felt that hand squeeze gently, and it stayed there on his shoulder until his breathing slowed, and he slept.

When the sun in the eastern window persuaded his eyes to open, there was no hand upon his shoulder, and there was no one next to him. He wondered if it had been a dream, but he decided that, if it had, he surely would have dreamt of more. Besides, he couldn’t remember a single dream as long as he’d been on that island, however long that may have been and wherever it may be. In fact, he remembered very little. Hardly anything at all. He was sure there was a world he’d seen that lay beyond its shores, and he was sure that there had been a time that he had been out in that world. By now, though, that was, more or less, all the memory he had.

The hand had been there, he assured himself, and he resolved that he would believe it whether it was true or not.

When he rose, he stood in the doorway, and he smelled the dew around him, and he turned his eyes to the sea. The water was calm that morning, though not entirely still, and he watched the small waves lapping at the stones along the shore. It was movement that caught his eye then – a movement wholly dissimilar from the breaking of the waves. It was slow. It was deliberate. It had substance, and it had shape. At almost a mile’s distance, however, he couldn’t quite be certain as to what that shape might be. He had suspicions, and he had hopes, but he wouldn’t let those suspicions and hopes build into expectation.

He called as loudly as he could, and he found himself caught off guard by the volume of his voice. There had been no reason on this island to raise any word above a whisper, and even now he knew that it would be to no effect. Every muscle and bone in his body urged the man to run – to go, as quickly as he could, to see what the movement was. He fought the impulse momentarily, but only long enough to realize he had no reason not to go. So, he ran, and as he did, thistles and gneiss tore at his feet, but he gave little attention to the bleeding or the pain. There is something here, he thought. Something different. Something new. He ran, in utter disregard, to whatever that something was, until he reached the water, his feet in tatters and his breath in gasps.

He turned in all directions, and again he raised his voice, until the burning in his throat from the calling matched the burning in his lungs from the run. He could find no movement, save for that of the sea, but he stayed, and he searched, and he screamed until the tide went out again. He then sat himself on a jagged rock, and he laid his face in his palms.

He couldn’t remember if he slept then, but he was certain that he must have, as when he lifted his head from his hands again, the sky was dark and cool. Stretched out on the ground in front of him, cast by the moon at his back, was a long and slender shadow standing just to the left of his own.

When he spoke, he spoke slowly, and as kindly as he could, afraid any sound or movement might send the shadow into retreat.

“It was you that I saw this morning.”

“It was.”

The answer was short and simple, but the voice was warm and calm, and he worried for a moment that he might lose the sound beneath the pounding of his own heart.

“And it was your hand on my arm last night?”

“Yes.”

He wanted desperately to turn his head, to see the source of the sound, but he wouldn’t let himself do anything that might cost him this companionship.

“You’re hurt,” the voice said, and the man wondered if he’d imagined the trace of sympathy in those words.

“I ran to you, when I saw you here.”

The voice answered with “I know.”

“I would very much like to see you. If I turned around, would you leave?”

“I might.”

The man was certain he hadn’t imagined the mischief in those words.

“It’s been so long since I’ve seen any face…” he let this thought trail off, and he replaced it with another.

“Will you stay with me, this time?”

He felt a hand brush along his back, and every nerve in his body was alight, and he turned, and he looked, and he found himself alone in the dark again.

The walk back to the cottage seemed much longer than the morning’s run, and he cursed himself with every step for not finding his boots before he’d gone. But he made it back, and he cleaned the wounds, and he wrapped his feet in linen, and he lie there in the darkness, and he replayed her voice in his mind.

She didn’t come that evening, or in the morning, or the next, and the following days were a smear in his mind, filled only with the thought of her. He didn’t sweep the floors of the cottage, and he didn’t tend to the plants that grew in the garden plot out back. On the third day, or the fourth day, as the days began running together, he reminded himself to eat a simple meal, made from wild garlic and a hare. After what he guessed was a week had passed, he let himself believe that it all must have been a dream, and he resolved to put it behind him and mind the life that he’d neglected.

The next morning, when he rose with the sun, he did not look to the sea. He busied himself with the garden, and, in the evening, with a broom. When everything was in order, and both he and the house were clean, he settled in for what he was sure would be his first restful night in days.

What woke him was a gentle breath, as it brushed across his cheek, and when he opened his eyes, he found another pair looking back into his own. They were blue, and they were vibrant, almost radiant against the dark, swirled in green and with flecks of gold spread generously throughout. He was lost in them for minutes before thoughts or words would come. When he did find words, they came in a whisper, and they were fewer than he’d hoped.

“You’re beautiful.”

He was immediately wracked with regret that those had been the words that came, but he had said them, and he had meant them, and he made no attempt to recant, as he saw what looked like a smile tugging at the corners of thin, pale lips.

“You say that every time,” she answered. Those words were unexpected, and he wondered what they meant. Moments passed in silence as he studied the blue of her eyes.

“How did you get here?” These were the words with which he’d chosen to break the silence, as they seemed the most innocuous of any that came to mind.

“I’ve always been here.” She told him, stated as though it were plain as day.

“Why don’t I remember?”

“Because I keep your memories with me.”

The questions in his head were many now, but they were tangled in each other, and even as his mind was racing, her touch steadied his pulse.

“Have I?” When he asked, she looked at him quizzically, so he clarified the question.

“Have I always been here?”

At this she smiled fully, and by the time she began to answer, he’d almost forgotten what he’d asked.

“Not always, no.”

“Then, you brought me here?” He was careful with his tone when he asked, hoping he’d made the distinction clear between question and accusation.

“The sea brought you here. For me.”

“Why?”

The smile passed from her lips now, and she closed her eyes as she answered.

“To be with me. For this.”

He wished he could remember. He wished for any memory at all. She was comfortable there, and she knew him, and he wanted so badly to feel the same. But when she placed her hand lightly on the center of his chest, the questions in his mind didn’t seem to matter much at all. He draped one arm across her, and he felt the warmth of her skin, and he pulled her closer to him, until they were intertwined.

His days were different after that, as her visits grew more frequent, and while she was always gone in the morning, the sun in that eastern window would find him eager in his waking and content in his daily work, bolstered by the knowledge that there was another, now, nearby, and comfortable in the assumption that she would come back to him soon.

His evenings were consumed entirely, whether by her presence or her absence. The nights that she did come to him were spent mostly in silence, and he would drift in and out of the blue of her eyes and study the lines of her face, intent on building a memory that would carry through the nights apart.

Those nights apart were filled with questions. He would wonder where he’d come from, and how long it had been. He would wonder where she’d come from, and he’d wonder what she was. He felt the weight of those questions then, but he knew that they would flee his mind when she was with him again. He would think of Odysseus and of Calypso, and of the stories of the kelpie, but would decide that none of it mattered much, if it meant that he wasn’t alone.

Those nights apart grew frequent as the air began to chill, and by the eve of the season’s first hard frost, he’d come to expect her absence. She did come to him that evening, but she did not lie with him, standing instead in the shadows in the corner of the room.

“You’re going away,” he said to her, and he could barely see her nod. The beat of his heart was painful then, and it thundered in his ears.

“Have I done something wrong?”

“No,” she said, almost meekly. “But I have to go away.”

He struggled then to find the line between the shadows and her shape.

“Why do you have to go?”

“Because of the seasons, and the moon…”

“Then I will go with you,” he decided, and he was resolute in this.

“You say that every time,” she said, and he wondered if the same smile now was tugging at the lips the darkness hid.

“You can leave, if you want to,” she offered. “The sea will let you, if I ask. But you cannot go with me. You would die out in the waves.”

“If I die, then I will die with you. Better than staying here, alone. I will follow. I will find you. I will…” he was interrupted with a sigh.

“That’s why I take your memories. That’s why I keep them with me. If you don’t know what to look for, then you won’t run to the sea. You can leave. You can build a boat, and the sea will take you home, or you can stay, and you can wait for me, without knowing why you do.”

“And if I stay, will you come back to me?”

She answered with “Of course.”

He could feel tears in his own eyes now, and he wished that he could see hers, and he struggled to breathe through the knot in his throat and the tightening of his chest. He weighed his options carefully, and he thought on that word, “home.” But what is home, he wondered, and what, if anything at all, was waiting for him there?

“Then take the memories with you, and I will wait for you. But leave me one. Leave me something. Leave me anything at all.”

“I can leave a small one. It will be faded, though, and vague.”

“Then I will wait as long as I have to.”

The room was dark and silent then, and the chill in the air came sharply, but as the darkness turned to pitch, he felt the brush of a hand against his cheek.

When he rose with the sun in the morning, he could feel the frost in the air, and he stood inside the doorway, stopping first to pull on his boots. He turned his eyes to the sea then, and he scanned the shore for movement, not knowing what he was looking for, but knowing that, some morning, something would come.