connecting constellations

Light pools on the dark horizon like a band of molten metal. The water’s surface is smooth as glass, disturbed only by the occasional eddy, fallen leaf, or branch. Along the muddy bank, sheltered under the spreading canopy of sycamore, sweetgum, and poplar, Sarah can finally snuff her lantern and revel in her secrecy. The picket guard is accustomed to these dark morning wanderings of hers; they no longer tense at her leaving, though she always makes sure to return after daybreak, when the locusts have awoken and the sun reveals her as nothing more than a fastidious young woman gone for a bathe.

And, from the way she’s seen both James and Henri glare at the more bucksome soldiers about camp, she has little cause to fear unwelcome interlopers; her privacy is well-assured. There are some benefits to keeping the boys around.

A quick survey of the scene, as well as an attentive silence as she listens to the woods behind her, confirms that she is by her lonesome. Nothing more ado, she slips out from underneath every garment until the morning air blooms along the length of her bare body. The sensation never fails at stirring her lips to smile. If only high London society could see her now! A daughter of Brittania, stripped to the skin with all the cheerful abandon of an American. Good sense might dictate she at least keep her shift on, but how could it be sensible to forever deny herself the rising sun’s touch, or the caress of flowing water?

The river is cool when she splashes through the shallows, but only just. An entire summer’s worth of sunshine has rendered the whole a most pleasant bath. As she carefully picks her way further, water streaming all around her abdomen, it takes no time for shock to melt away. The riverbed is mostly sand beneath her heel, but boulders buckle through the earth every which way, their surface prime bedding for prickly water grass; the texture on her feet is but a trifling bother.

When she roams beyond the shade, the dazzled reflection of sunlight on the water’s surface casts itself unto the riverbed like ribbons of gold filigree. Submerged to her chest, her motions have grown sluggish and contented. The indolent gush of the current around her flesh slowly massages her joints, and the weightlessness of water relieves them of every earthly strain.

She finds herself nearly halfway across before the riverbed dips deep and she can no longer see the bottom for the murk. Water up to her neck, she closes her eyes and loosens her limbs; she half-stands, half-treads water with just enough vigor to keep suspended in place.

The air she tastes and the landscape she hears is all water, fresh water, gushing its heedless flow from the mountains to the sea. The more she quiets her body, the more she feels herself dissolve into the current; the more the world turns from burning saltpeter, sour brimstone, and coppery blood to flowing water.

All around, the shapes of sunfish dart to-and-fro between rocks in their modest schools, scattered by the slightest disturbance but always forming back together. The shadow of a hulking catfish passes by with sublime disinterest. Distant splashes herald a feeding frenzy, bass pouncing at hapless insects come to rest on the water’s surface. Somewhere in the murky, shadowy deep, an ancient snapping turtle sleeps in his cave of waterlogged tree trunks and stones. Far across the river, a flock of ducks paddle about, sometimes dunking themselves head-first into the water for morning victuals. The elegant shape of a heron stands stoic atop a boulder jutting out of the water; from somewhere high above, an osprey whistles to her mate.

Sarah stills in the river for a length of time she does not care to measure. The world about her, made so real and so pitched by the purity of sensation, is yet dreamlike. Ageless seasons, ageless water; mud older than mankind, older than war, older than life and older than time.

When she stirs her consciousness to attention, a curious bluegill has taken to softly nipping at her leg hairs. Dawn is risen to a full-bodied gold and a choir of insects shimmers the treetops behind her. The heron takes to wing, croaking its morning song.

Suddenly, the unmistakable sour notes of tobacco smoke touch her senses. Her blood freezes in her veins. She whips round, disturbing the water with a great splash, and glares across the river, ready to cry havoc at whoever dares violate a woman’s peace.

Deep in the riverbank shadows, behind the glowing cherry of the offending pipe, a familiar smile parts the lips of a familiar face. Sarah lets out her held breath in a great, exasperated heave; she nearly dips below the surface for the force of her relief. Carried across the water, she hears the sound of his chuckle, and she casts him another glare. The temptation to upbraid him is great, but she doesn’t dare reveal herself to the world any more than she already has.

And so, she retraces her watery path through the stones and mud. James’ face comes into full relief under a sweetgum’s dappled shade. He’s lounged upon a boulder, cloaked in insouciance, bare feet and calves dipped into the shallows. His stockings, shirt, waistcoat, and summer coat lie mixed in with Sarah’s clothing. Despite her exasperation, she can’t help but stare appreciatively at his bare chest.

“Morn’n’ t’ye, Sarah,” he croons softly on her approach, smoke trickling from his lips, his gaze wandering up and down her body as she emerges. She feels beads of river water stream down the curves of her skin like a hundred caressing fingertips; involuntarily, her nipples harden. A wave of effervescent lust warms her belly at the welcome sight of his breeches tenting.

“How the bloody hell did you find me?” Sarah mutters back, torn between the desire to chastise his audacity, or to settle herself fully in his lap. James’s eyes flick up from where they’d tracked a jewel of water slipping in between the curves of her thighs. He gives her a petulant look.

“Are you not pleas’d t’see me, Miss Phillips?”

“Not half as pleas’d as you, it seems.”

James lets out a devious giggle and ashes his pipe, just in time for Sarah – all pantherine grace – to slink in for the kill, leaning over him, running a finger down his chest and along the hard, throbbing curve trapped in its fabric prison; she smiles like a huntress at his intake of breath.

Then, her lips softly brushing his in a heated whisper: “Off with your britches, Mister Hiller, or I shall be obliged to tear them off.”

They make a lazy morning of it. Mounted astride him, she luxuriates in the motion of their bodies slowly rocking against each other, the delectable ache of his eager, swollen member spreading her from deep within, his breathless groans tickling her into exponentially heated displays of ardor. By the time they’ve finished each other off, all paroxysm and unvoiced cries, a fine film of sweat coats their skin. When a breeze whispers through the sycamores, its chill sobers them to the present.

Loathe to give up the river’s charms quite yet, Sarah returns to the water, only to find James joining her, his expression soft as butter as he follows her lead. Approaching the depths at the river’s heart, he then gathers her up in his arms and ventures further, her body close to weightless. He finds a large, half-submerged rock formation to lean against. At last, boneless and content, Sarah relaxes into him, the sound of his heartbeat joining the river as it swirls all around them. Her eyes close when his fingertips rake down her shoulder and arm.

“I know ‘tis some time away, but… I don’t want to leave.”

His confession comes out a sigh. Sarah leans back a little bit in his arms, tilting her head up at him. The look he gives her is arresting; her heart flutters with the weight of it.

“Can you not stay, James?” she whispers back. “Why not write Moses. Have you truly no freedom in this matter?”

“One of us must report on the Carolinas,” he hums, though the words give him no pleasure. His shoulders disturb the water when he shrugs.

They both quiet, for a moment taken with the ever-present song of the river. Absently, Sarah traces the hairs on his chest with a finger.

“Why not follow me thither?” he asks at length, voice a bare murmur.

Sarah’s heart plummets, and when he gazes her with that merciless yearning, she wants to let her tears flow free.

“It would be remiss to neglect Virginia,” she answers timidly. “Or to foul the Gazette’s opportunity at Tuckahoe. Have we not been separated before?”

“I’ll be gone fer the Army up north after this assignment. ‘Twill be nigh on a year before I see you again!”

James lets out a snort. She glances up from his chest, but he’s looked away, the corner of his eyes flashing. She cannot ignore the ugly sensation twined deep in her body.

“I know.” She sighs, and watches James’ shoulders sag. When he looks back at her, his expression has turned despondent.

“This whole affair is a mis’rable sack of horseshite.”

“I know.”

They breathe out almost in unison. He gathers her close in his arms once more, rests his forehead on hers.

“More than once, I thought I’d lost you fore’er,” he renews, voice quivering with emotion as they nuzzle. “That ne’er would I look on yer face again. ‘Tis an agony I can hardly bear.”

“You won’t lose me again, James.”

“Sarah…”

“You won’t lose me.”

“And should you die, what then?” James runs a hand through her hair to hold her neck, his voice grown bold. “Will you not run onto battlefields like always? To leave you here, in the very pitch of campaign, for God-only-knows how long! I should be with you, or you should be with me. None of this is right.”

Her heart almost breaks when she hears his words crack. Still, she gathers all the resolve in her body to level him with a hearty look.

“I will not die, James Hiller,” she declares.

“You cannot make that promise.”

“I can, and I shall.”

Despite his skepticism, something wild burns in his eyes at the pledge. She watches his gaze bore into hers, searching, pleading, overpowering. It almost unnerves her.

And then –

“Marry me, Sarah.”

The only hint that the world has not careened to a halt is the river flowing all around them. Her stomach backflips as it flutters; her heart pounds and her blood runs like fire. So suddenly weak, she can only find language enough for a stammer.

“I – you – we – ”

“Only think!” he pleads, his grip on her grown stronger, his eyes inflamed. “What if I die? What if you die?”

“James – that’s – ”

“I cannot stomach a life where I miss’d the chance to be a husband to you. A lawful one, not just in words.”

His voice is a heated rush of breath against her skin. Sarah’s throat has gone dry; her entire being is caught up, trapped, suspended between a cold shriek of terror and what might very well be the greatest swell of excitement she ever has felt in twenty-two years of life.

“We can ask the chaplain,” he stammers anew. “If he will not marry us, surely there is a chapel nearby that will – ”

“James,” she croaks, pain getting the better of her voice. It’s enough to stay his pleading for the moment; she can hardly look him in the eye. “I would – this very moment I would have you! Only…”

“Only…?”

Her heart breaks at the pain creeping into his hope.

Please don’t misunderstand, I love you, I love you, I –

“The war – and my father – my family –” she manages to stutter. She draws a breath. “I don’t want to make a rash decision,”

“This is no ‘prentice boy’s whim, Sarah Phillips. You cannot begin to know how I have thought over the matter. I have loved you for so long, I scarce can image a time I did not.”

She cannot interpret the feeling on his face nor the low burn of his voice. Giddy with nerves, her stomach burning bright with a dawning courage, she looks him in the eye. She runs a hand along his jaw. She tries not to cry, and she speaks.

“I will have you, James Hiller, as you will have me. Only grant me this: when this conflict is over, and we know where our nation stands – then will you ask me to marry you.”

For a moment, the river alone answers her, a hundred gushing currents carried over a hundred miles. The sky dances forever in his eyes. The sun rises.

“Aye, Sarah. We will be married then.”