Haven (Installment 3)

Over time her nerves quieted and her bright scientific interest dimmed to comfortable familiarity. At times I would look at her and get a glimpse of regret. She would fold her arms over her chest and look as if she was receding into herself and some of that old pain would come back.

I eventually stopped asking about her origins and figured she was Havinian now. The longer she stayed the less she would say about her past. And then she started calling Haven home.

She hummed our songs, she knew our stories, she cooked our food. About the time I stopped noticing her looking to the horizon from whence she came, I stopped seeing the pain in her eyes. It was replaced by relief so strong I thought there must be liquid light in her, overflowing so that it filled me, too.

We lived this way for many years. Jane rose through the ranks in her company until she became the head of Water Distribution. It was her inner ambition asserting itself - in every other area she was content with things just as they were. It was the start of another winter, already showing the signs of being long and frigid, when I found out just how far her desire for stability went.

Despite the cold I didn't want to stay inside. Jane and I walked aimlessly through streets packed with people trying to get every moment of time they could before the winter season truly began. I smiled as I took Jane's hand, for I loved her.

We walked until the ocean blocked us and then we sat on a bench, huddled together for warmth. The sun broke through the clouds and cast its brilliant rays on the world. I squinted at it; and then a shadow blocked my eyes. As the final pale sunbeams were extinguished by dirty yellow clouds, the silhouette turned into a man. Though he was probably over 30 years old, he had the face of a boy - all brightness and expectation and shiny, grinning teeth. He shouted, "Jane!" and I somehow knew he was here to change the world.

Jane was shaking her head. She was gaping in disbelief, but under it I could see fear. She looked as if she wished the man would go away. He said exuberantly, "I'm here to rescue you!"

Finally Jane choked out, "James. You look exactly the same."

"Oh, it hasn't been so long," James said.

Jane scoffed, "Only a decade."

This made James confused. I could see his excited energy dissipating and he said, "It's only been a couple months." Then he started up again, nearly yelling, "Jane, you're a genius. Even looking at the equations it took me two months to figure out what you did. When we get back you'll be up for a Nobel Prize. I just can't understand why you couldn't get back. It shouldn't be any harder than getting here."

"I don't want to go back," Jane said firmly.
It took a moment to sink in and then James stood perfectly still. "You don't?"

"James," she whispered, "Leave this place. Leave me. This is not a place for you. Go back to your dimension, tell them my experiment was a failure and it killed me. Tell them not to try it again."

"But... I'm saving you," he said.

And Jane said, "Let me show you something."

We took James everywhere I had taken Jane that first day, just watching life going on around us. Jane explained many things in terms I didn't understand and James grew quieter and quieter. Though I didn't know what she meant by war, crime, countries, genocide, famine, or a long list of other words, I could tell she was naming differences between our home and her old one. And I knew for certain now that she came from a place I couldn't imagine.

That night we found James a room. And in the morning we woke up to his frantic knocking.