Equinox ★ jimmy page imagines

eight

Each curling splash of water, where the wood oar breaks the lake, tears at some place within me. The white open of the moon calls your focused face forward. It lights your cheeks and forehead and the dark hairs of your beard to turn all a shivering silver. 

You face me in the rowboat. I watch the twist of your muscles each time you move. Behind you, the house on the hill illuminates with a single light. The water beneath our boat is dark and deep like the soil here. I look down and find my reflection shining by the moonlight.

I want to ask you again about Nessie, but when I find your face, you are somewhere else. Not here, not present.

My mouth is dry. Suddenly the boat stops. Your bring the oars up into their locks and say my name.

Land stretches away from the boat on all sides; we sit in the middle of the water.

"Jimmy?" I question. "What is it?"

"The Highlands hold ancient power. Crowley chose Boleskine specifically because it was far from the cities." Your gaze wanders to the sky—the moon illuminates you fully—and falls back to the house on the right.

"And what about the cemetery? Was it there when he moved in?"

"Yes, the graveyard was there for the parish, when a church sat on the land. This was centuries ago . . . Are you afraid at night?"

I look up at the sudden question. Your dark eyes, beneath your sloping dark brows, stare at me.

"No," I tell you. At night, I sleep in the same bed with you. More than one morning, you've woken me and asked if I heard noises the night before. I say yes every time. Sometimes, there is loud banging, as if someone is working in the kitchen, or a patterned thud like something falling down the stairs. "I never feel afraid here."

You raise your chin in approval. I have learned to earn this look and it fills me with such raw satisfaction like a good meal.

The lake below is still. I continue, "I don't believe in haunted homes or buildings. How can something inanimate hold power?"

"It can hold power if someone puts it there."

I shake my head. You cannot lean back in the boat. But I imagine, if we were in the sitting room, you would lounge in your huge chair and consider me. Your low eyes, your frazzled hair and unkempt beard. Here, you look primal. You are ready for the coming winter. 

"I think we can only have control over ourselves, not over anything outside of the self," I offer. 

"And if the repositioning of control is a benefactory result of the self's power? What about the reign you have over me?" You raise your hand to your chest then pull it away to gesture toward me. "And the reign I have over you?" 

Liquid warmth rushes over me, like taking a warm shower. "It's different." I look to the sky, searching for Aries, which should sit high above us this time of year. 

"How is it?"

I hum to myself. It irks when you push me, but I squirm and eventually figure myself out. "I don't feel like I control you. Or that you control me . . . Or do you mean in the sense that you're constant in my mind and in that way you have power over me?" 

"I always enjoy watching you work out your thoughts," you tell me. You steady yourself in the boat and I feel like the sun, breaking through staggered clouds. You take the oars in your hands and suggest, "Perhaps we'll come out again tomorrow."

"Wait a moment. Can we rest here?"

You agree. I take the opportunity to look again at the dark purple around the lake. The trees sit as black shadows against the night sky. The only lights beside the glittering stars and near-full moon come from the cabins near the lake.

"I'm not afraid here," I tell you one last time. "I feel safe with you. You remind me of celestial bodies."

"How so?" Your voice is cool like a gust of wind. I close my eyes at the sound.

"Surreal, almost. More than I can comprehend."

"Ah, darling." You lean forward. The boat rocks. "Do you remember the raspberries we picked the first night we were here? How we washed them at the sink and I fed you?"

I nod and move to touch your hands.

"They were so red and sweet, fresh from the soil. That's how you are—gift from the earth. Rich with life."

I bring our joined hands to my lips to kiss the place where our skin meets.

When we separate, you look me over. "Are you ready, then? I miss the bed."

"Me too," and I think instantly of the hair on your calves, how we share the bed and my legs entwine yours.

You take us back to shore then. The water laps at the sides of the boat. The light in the kitchen window on the hill grows brighter.

For kaiconic. Thank you for this brilliant idea. I've been inspired by you. I had all sorts of different ideas going here, but I'm very intrigued by this period in jp's life and living in Scotland and all that. I hope yall enjoy <3