17.
Night has passed and day has come. Samuel awakes. He feels pain, pain all over. It is as if he had run a marathon the day before, a marathon he had not trained for and now his body is paying the price. He sits. Delia has been awake for a little while and she has been watching her husband as he had rested.
'Do you love me?' she asks before he even has the chance to completely compose himself.
'What? ...'
'You heard me ...'
'Of course, I love you, you are my life, my world, why would you even ask me such a question?'
'Because of last night, what the hell was that?'
'I don't know, but I hurt all over. I feel as if I have been hit by a bus.'
'I bet you do ...'
'Whatever this place is, wherever it is that we are, as I have said once already, we most definitely are not in Kansas.'
'Right then so, are we ready to continue this little adventure of ours?'
'Sure, I may be sore, but I am ready for more. I don't quite know what happened last night, but we are good though, aren't we?'
'Yeah Sam, we're good.'
'And you are alright with staying here a while longer? We can always go home ...'
'No, my love, we were meant to come here and here is where we are supposed to be ...'
Delia heads out onto the rocks outside the stone building. For the first time in their relationship things feel more than a little cold. If he were to think about it, could the two really go home if they wanted to? The door that brought them to this world, it vanished once they walked through, it would hardly be there waiting for them if and when they went back to that wide open space, would it? Whether it would or not, that is something for another time and not for this particular moment.
Determined to make things right, Samuel does not hang around. He does not waste time in heading out after Delia. There is no question as to where their journey, their physical journey should head next. The emotional journey, well that just may need a little help right now.
The hills, the land originally beyond the stone building, the land on the other side of the lake from which they came, is most definitely worth exploring. Those hills are also much closer to that stone building that the land they had come from the day before, despite appearing to be of equal distance when an arrival to the lake was made, so an unspoken choice was and is the obvious decision to make.
Delia had done nothing wrong but all the same feels a need to make things right. It is as if she accused her husband of something and now believes she is wrong though exactly what it all was or is, she does not know. Perhaps she is not as invested in being in this place as he is, or perhaps she feels a stronger to it than the one she has with her husband. Could that actually be a possibility?
Before she and her man get into the canoe like craft that they had made, she moves to him throws her arms around his shoulders and plants a lengthy kiss right smack on his lips. If it weren't already clear as to why he loves her so, it is now.
It's moments like this that really are the heartbeat of a very special connection. Delia is one heck of a special lady and Samuel knows better than to take her for granted. It's time to savour the moment, it's time to relax and enjoy the surroundings, this is supposed to be a honeymoon after all ... it soon will be time to move on.
Even though the hills are relatively close, Samuel and Delia take their time to travel the short distance over the water between the stone building and land. Once on land, they make sure to hide their canoe for it is quite likely a time may come where they will need it to once more cross the waters to head back in the direction they first came from.
