Chapter 17

The first thing that occurred to Warren to say when the creature that appeared as Sofi led him to Sofi, chained wrist and ankle to the cavern wall on the dark side, was to ask if she were alright. Yet a tiny Livingstone hiding in the back of his mind advised against it. Her condition was fairly obvious to him: poor, yet alive. She stood rather defiantly in her shackles, rather than sagging in them, as others (several yards away on each side) did. But her head was bowed, her chin pressed to her chest—only when he was within an arm’s length of her did she look up.
Warren would never forget her face in that moment of recognition. There was joy, yes. But it weighed heavily both with relief and with exhaustion. He longed to hold her up, embrace her, keep her safe. But the harpy was near—she was watching. He had to win her mind. Such enigma inhabited those words. And so he chose his own carefully, and fortunately, she sensed that he must speak first and waited for him.
He swallowed and began. “A young lad went into town one afternoon, but having very little idea where he was headed.” Sofi cast him a strange glance, but didn’t interrupt him. “About halfway through town a voice from his side told him to enter the café to his right. He had not known this voice long, but he heeded the instruction nonetheless and entered. He felt very out of place; in fact, if you had asked him, he might have told you he didn’t care for coffee or tea at all. But in he walked anyway and almost immediately his eyes found a girl.
“From the start, he could tell she was exceedingly beautiful—the voice at his side even suggested he make her acquaintance. Suspecting the intentions of the voice from the start, the young lad nonetheless walked over and stirred up conversation with the girl—a pleasant one, too. It soon became apparent to him that she knew much more than he, for he asked a great deal of questions, of which she answered very little. But she found something desirable in him—a taste for adventure, a thirst for knowledge which wouldn’t be satisfied with half-truths.
“But almost as suddenly as the conversation had begun, it ended. And the boy slipped out of the café to head to the woods to think, but not before stumbling upon an article in the local newspaper, authored by the very same girl with whom he had just been conversing. The article addressed God’s business in the garden of the universe.
“Now imagine this lad’s surprise when he made this connection, and tell me, Sofi Gio Seville, if you can, what that boy might have told the girl next he saw her—if he saw her?” Warren finished. The harpy kept a corner of her mouth open in expectation.
Sofi herself simply smiled. “Are you a rose in that wonderful garden?”
“And what would have the girl responded?”
“Which path in the garden do you tred?”
“And the young man’s answer to that?”
“Wherever I must, in order to smell the roses,” Sofi replied, her eyes fixed upon Warren’s.
“Shall I finish the story then?” Warren asked of the harpy, whose delight was palpable. She came and kissed him on the cheek.
“You truly are a wonderful man,” she praised him and fished a key from her rags. She unlocked Sofi’s fetters and looked her squarely in the eye.
“Do not let go of this one. Ever,” she demanded of her. Sofi managed a weak smile and nod, and collapsed into Warren’s embrace. Then, with a rush of wind, the harpy burst into the air with her great flapping wings. “I will leave you two for a while. But your tests are not finished, Warren. You have more friends to rescue.” And with that she flew off into the darkness.
Warren simply stood and Sofi simply relaxed in his arms. And for several defining moments, she rested her head on his chest and he held her tightly. They exulted in feeling the rise and fall of each other’s breathing and could say nothing.
Then a whisper from Sofi reached his ear: “What was your task, your test for my release, as the creature inferred?” Warren sighed and stroked her hair.
“To love you,” he answered her whisper with his own.
“How was that?” she wondered.
“I had to rescue your mind, she told me.”
“Why my mind?”
“I guess she thought your passions would overtake you, otherwise.”
“Warren?” Sofi asked, looking in his eyes for the first time. Warren noted that this was the first time she had used his real name and gladly returned her gaze.
“Yes?”
“When we were taken last night, I thought only of you and how I’d let you slip from me. You were there, so tangibly, so pristine in your affections for everyone, so excellent in your love for anyone, your mind of questions only ever improved your understanding in any situation. And then, just like that, you were gone. I didn’t expect to see you again, Warren. And then, then there you were, with a creature that looked like me, talked like me, but wasn’t me. And you knew it. I knew you knew it when you looked at me. In that moment…she was right. My passions had taken me over.”
“And now?”
“Now I know I love you, rather than simply feel that I love you,” she stated without blinking, in a soft voice like jasmine in the cool midnight air. “Your story, Warren. You moved my heart from the moment into duration. You anchored my spirit in memory. I thought back as you spoke and realized how perfectly necessary it was for me to love you.”
Warren drank in her words like nectar. “Well I’m glad it worked,” he said at last with a wry smile. “I wasn’t at all sure what I was doing.” Sofi dropped her eyebrows and grinned.
“Yes, you were. You were talking to me; that’s all you needed to do.”
“For what, the harpy’s satisfaction?”
“For my love.”
“So I suppose now would be a good time for me to say how I can’t stop thinking about you, what you’ve meant to me in these crazy past few days, how I want to give you every thread of my love?” Warren asked with raised eyebrows. Sofi blushed, sighed, and placed her head back on his chest.
“Yes, it would,” she whispered.
“Sofi?”
“Yes, Warren?”
“I can’t stop thinking about you.” Sofi smiled and tightened her grip around his back. “You have meant more to me in these past few crazy days than anything else,” Warren continued. “And I love another girl.”
Sofi instantly pulled away to arms length—yet did not dare let him go—dropped her eyebrows, and stared him down. Warren’s poker face cracked into a smile. “What can I say? I love Ali, too,” he said, laughing. Sofi scowled and tried desperately to keep from smiling.
“Not funny, Warren,” she said, resisting his tugs and a smile.
“Sofi?” he said.
“Yes, Warren?” she answered.
“I want to give you my undying love. I want to love you with every fiber of my being, heart, mind, and soul.”She relaxed her shoulders and let him pull her back into his embrace. He kissed her forehead. And for the next several minutes, they stood in each other’s arms, participating in pefection.