(I would have been just as thrilled had he recited Goblin Market and he knows this.)

When I was very small (okay, not so small but slightly smaller than I am now and a lot less worldly) Lochlan would to bore me to sleep with lessons in literature, philosophy and astronomy. Astronomy was my favorite because the sky was so huge. A close second was poetry, for I was so impressed with how the romantics could make me feel so many big feelings with such shortened bites of words strung in tiny bracelets instead of endless spiderwebs of information, after devouring that Poe book translated by Baudelaire and winding up more fascinated by the man behind the man, as always. It's as if he was fated to eat at that diner, find that book and bring it back, where we would sleep in the bed of the pickup truck on hot nights and three decades later be tossing around entire poems as ammunition, deployed from our hearts as we try to live in the present, a place I'm not all that sure we belong.

To this day I mostly stick with Baudelaire but ever the showman, Lochlan knows how to bring a crowd to attention. Easily so when the crowd is one person and she wasn't expecting it as we quietly inspected the new grotto that is now finished and quite unlike anything I have ever seen. We waited until the heat of the afternoon when everyone else had disappeared for some creative endeavors or naps or catching up on books and sun. He smoothed down his curls and then his vest over his rumpled white button-down shirt and he stepped up on the wire chair and then onto the stone table and he cleared his throat and stared at me until he had my full attention. Oh, Rossetti. Sigh.

I loved you first: but afterwards your love
Outsoaring mine, sang such a loftier song
As drowned the friendly cooings of my dove.
Which owes the other most? My love was long,
And yours one moment seemed to wax more strong;
I loved and guessed at you, you construed me
And loved me for what might or might not be –
Nay, weights and measures do us both a wrong.
For verily love knows not ‘mine’ or ‘thine;’
With separate ‘I’ and ‘thou’ free love has done,
For one is both and both are one in love:
Rich love knows naught of ‘thine that is not mine;’
Both have the strength and both the length thereof,
Both of us, of the love which makes us one.

Caleb stepped up beside me and clapped. You really do have a gift for performance, Loch. He smiled. The whole display of generosity was nothing more than an attempt to change the direction of the wind. I'm pleased I could give you a good venue from which to recite the work of other people.

I have my own works as well. Bridget knows..

Yes, I'm well aware. Not as if I haven't had the last five years to discover all there is to know about you as an adult. It didn't take that long, of course. Not much there below the surface, is there?

Stop it. I step in front of him.

Caleb simply looks over my head at Lochlan, who has stepped down off the table and changes the subject. Well, since you're both here I can detail some of the features I had installed. If you want to stop the water, just turn this lever toward the wall. This switch operates the lights. He flicks it and hundreds of tiny white fairy lights come on. It's shady enough to see them. And around the entire perimeter to the gate and then meeting the wooden fence is electrified netting. I will tell the children but I wanted you to know in case you decided to venture into the woods or something from the woods ventures down into the yard.

You put an electric fence around me?

If you belonged to me I would do a lot more than that to protect you and the children but perhaps I'm just more conscious of your safety.

You're fucked in the head, Diabhal. Lochlan tells him. He is done with the digs, jabs and barbs, and heads back to the house riddled with scratches and holes.

I'll be right in. I call after him and he turns, pointing at me. He holds up three fingers. Three minutes. I have three minutes.

(I am twelve.)

Well, what do you think? The Devil looks so pleased with himself.

I don't think we want or require an electric fence, Caleb. That's dangerous.

No, it's dangerous to have you or Ruth oblivious to the world with your headphones on all the time with the endless parade of black bears and coyotes down the lawn. Sometimes I have to take matters into my own hands.

To keep me safe.

Yes, he whispers.

Safe. I repeat louder than before. We've had this conversation already.

Bridget-

Is this for me or for you?

For you, of course. 

So you're tightening my leash, making my world smaller. Give me everything right here so I will be safe? 

No, I'm giving you a quiet, shady place to draw, Princess. Cole always talked about having a dedicated space in which to create. 

I like it. But I have to go. 

Maybe you can come down later? For some dessert? 

Maybe. I turn away and hurry into the house. I don't want any more grand gestures. They're just stirring up the sand on the bottom of what was easily a clear blue sea at one time and is now opaque and black.

Good enough.

It's cooling off a little, finally. The wind has picked up and a lovely breeze keeps us cool. I had Eisley's Currents album playing through my headphones and kept swapping it with Pallbearer for a little Heavy versus Light for my brain to play with. I was drawing caricatures of the boys on a new sketchbook that I stole from Lochlan's desk drawer. He won't mind.

I painted my nails green, though I expect it to last about two whole days because I'm terrible with polish and worse once it chips. Besides, PJ already grabbed my hand and smudged the polish and I snapped at him and he snapped right back before apologizing. He's not fond of Lochlan's methods but Lochlan has reminded him twice already today that there's nothing underhanded about the way he's going about things and he would do the same if Ben were here. PJ snorted and Lochlan said under his breath that he should shut the fuck up and mind his own business.

PJ heard that (He has giant ears) and roared back that Bridget is his business and if Lochlan wants to give half-cocked orders PJ will paint him into the floorboards with one stroke, flattening his pasty Scottish ass.

I laughed out loud and iced tea came out my nose and I started coughing so hard at least Dalton bothered to get up off his chair and pound my back gently.

Duncan briefly considered (out loud) throwing all of us off the cliff, one at a time until Lochlan shut that down too. You're not throwing my girl off a cliff but here, let's see if the fat one floats. 

So PJ charged and before Lochlan knew what had happened he was cartwheeling through the air, followed by Duncan, Dalton, Sam and PJ too. I don't exactly think it's bright of them to all jump at once in case someone lands on someone else but the shouts of sheer delight that bounced back up over the ledge gave me comfort. It will take them ten minutes to swim around and climb the steps back up. I get up to head inside for a new glass of tea when Caleb stepped onto the patio from the side yard. He's in running gear.

Are you insane? It's too hot for you to run in this weather, Cale.

He ignores that. Where is everyone?

I indicate the sea and he nods, still keyed up from his workout. He hands me his water bottle and his phone and his shirt after he pulls it over his head and tells me he'll be back before pulling off his shoes and taking a running leap off the ledge too. I run to the edge and he has already broken the surface and is beginning to swim around the point.

Oh hell, I tell myself and I put Caleb's things down on the concrete path and I jump too. I know they will wait for me, alerted to my impending presence by the volume of my scream as I fall.

Fire in the hole.

I am a child in need watch me bleed
How can I live if I can not feel
I am a animal no one knows
I limp around on broken toes

Blood sinks down to the canvas
I'm going down, down, down
My blood sinks down to the canvas
I'm going down, down, down, down, down

The girl who loved the monsters
Traces black streaks in the sky
The girl who loved the monsters
Is the girl who wants to fly

No sleep. No phone call today and a surprisingly eventful day yesterday so yeah, you didn't get to hear the end of the story about Friday night and no, I don't know what kind of owls make those sounds we heard last night but they were very close and I was freaked out and excited to and so I just lay there all night long amazed and awake but mostly just freaking amazed.

Now I'm a small coffee-making zombie. Just picture a mini blonde version of the one in the lab coat on the other side of the door when Brad Pitt is trapped in the room in World War Z. I'm even making the funny chomping, clicking sounds with my teeth.

(That's going on to the list of Best Movie Moments for me of all time. No kidding.)

Lochlan is still doggedly working on his act which now involves feats of strength and testing limits.

Last night he pulled me up by my ankles and I fought to be released and he asked me very quietly why I liked to fight it. What was I looking for? Is it a habit now, with him, with them? Too many hard questions so I latched on to the final one. I nodded carefully, eyes wide. One thing he always taught me is that I can lie to anyone else and should, regularly but to him I should always tell the truth.

So he pulled harder on my ankles still and called me mo taibheoir beag (which means something like my tiny little clown and is a far more cumbersome nickname than Circus Peanut and so never lasted long anyway and true to form he stripped back the years and peeled back my flesh and wrapped his heart around all of the pieces of my heart that we could find in the dark and he brought me back to life, but just for a little while. All the way, baby, see the lights? We're almost there, safe and sound.

His plan is transparent and yet fireproof. Fill in the gaps and I will no longer need anyone else. They saw it in shadow before but he didn't give it his all. His all is a force to be reckoned with. He just couldn't be bothered. He's too busy. He's too focused. He's too jacked out on his own preservation, trying to weather the past, present and future without self-destructing and he'll do it the way he's done everything. With magic. Controlling fire. Controlling our tiny camper-walled-limit universe, a hard worker nailing down our hopes and dreams while I'm spun off on sugar and lights and loud music and daydreams. He's focused now, but on me instead of everything else. His timing is maddening and incredible and perfect.

Nothing changes when everything changes, he always told me. We do our jobs, eat at the same time every day, swim in the sea at least eight times a week, say our prayers to the stars when we go to sleep at night, do our laundry every second Saturday and everything else will fall into place. It's all in finding a rhythm, a routine on the road. A plan within the chaos, Peanut. Come over closer so you won't get cold. Did you have fun today?

I fear the rest of them are doomed, knowing what I know. It's as if they're locked in the room and I'm the zombie standing on the other side of the glass, smiling and chomping at the bit. Come out and I'll destroy you. Stay inside and die anyway.

We're planning a trip to Tofino in a few weeks time and I was nailing down some details when I see this.

"Please note that portions of the Wickaninnish Sand Dunes are temporarily closed as a result of the possible presence of unexploded explosive ordinance (UXO)."

It looks so beautiful and harmless in the photo I took, doesn't it? Wickaninnish Beach easily took the title of Bridget's Favorite West Coast Beach. From the moment I saw it. I hope they find all the bombs because I'm going anyway and I'd rather wear a bathing suit than something from the Hurt Locker wardrobe department.

He said it was a cotton candy.

Came back to get my pashmina. It's cooling off finally. So far so good. No roofies (the night is young). Just PJ and Duncan, our own personal bodyguards and we're on the patio because PJ wants to be a big thug tonight. Boy, is Satan mad that they're here.

Also JESUS. Butterscotch Schnapps. I could lick the glass.

A utilikilt and four torches.

That's pretty much how every sunny Saturday morning should begin, no? Unless you're the Devil, who breaks out a short-sleeved polo shirt (black) and then still picks up his cufflinks before remembering that he doesn't have cuffs.

It's like Crazy versus Sane, and I'll tell you which side I'm on but I doubt you would even ask, at this point, you would stand and watch as the show begins.

The Sane one looks crazy and the Crazy one looks sane. The Crazy one told me his personal goal for Ben's time spent away will be to make me fall in love with him. No, not with Ben, with Caleb because you can't just tell him no. That isn't good enough and he can buy the change required to make things turn out in his favor.

On the other hand the sane one (who looks crazy in his strawberry curls, freckles and red skin in a skirt and nothing else) uses luck and skill and things will turn out as they turn out and we'll deal with it as it happens. Also, Peanut, you look hungry. I'm taking you out for supper tonight because you need to eat.

Duncan and PJ got me smashed last night on two whole glasses of homemade something or other (strawberry cordial) and I'm still in my pajamas and it's almost lunchtime and I got sidetracked watching Lochlan practice and talking to Ben on the phone who needed me to relay some work notes to Caleb for eventual transmission to Batman because God Forbid I have to talk to Batman at this point. Or worse, Jasper. So I was fine to go over and get more coffee and the Devil frowned and asked why I smelled like bed and kerosene and I laughed and said none of his business but he makes it his business anyway.

He came outside with me and dropped a fifty dollar bill in Lochlan's hat that he only puts out for luck and he smiled tightly and said Lochlan could use the money to buy dinner for the lady so the lady doesn't have to pay and Lochlan didn't miss a beat, telling him he's about to take me up and have a shower with me so we can get going just as soon as he cleans up his mess. And then Lochlan winked at me and the flames got too close and I melted in the heat of the sun.

And then I got drunk on his fingers in the shower again and when we came out there was a pewter envelope on the table in the front hall.

After our dinner we've been invited down to have a nightcap on the boat. Hopefully it won't be more strawberry cordial. It will probably be roofie cocktails instead. Because Crazy doesn't play fair either.

This is the best.

There are FLAMES. It's like someone took Ben and Loch and mashed them right together in the wickedest way yet.

Contact.

Ben sent me this. Apparently they don't even take away phones anymore in five-star rehab:

So I sent him back this:

Yes, I know I'm awful but it's fucking funny.

How it's done.

Sam is playing Would You Rather with wedding details. It's six-fifteen in the morning and I'm not sure I've had enough coffee to do this right now only it's best, we have learned, to cram in as much wedding planning as possible when he is in the mood because then he falls apart again and throws himself headfirst into everyone else's problems and while he's an incredibly skilled counselor (thank you for Sam, Jacob, have I ever said that to you before?) he's a crying shame in his own right, terrified and watching Schuyler and Daniel with curiosity and longing. He wants a happy life, that's all, he wants a sign that he's making the right choice.

Matt walks in and Sam accosts him with two different plate designs, both in brown. Which one should we use?

Matt studies both of them for a minute and says I like them both, actually, so you pick whichever one you like most. 

My brain says, oh, a compliment followed by a complete abdication of responsibility but Sam just beams.

Matt winks at me and throws his curveball. Pretty sure he does that on purpose. I remember you saying something about the green plates though? Those would be nice. 

Then he leaves and Sam's cheerfulness strangles itself once again with doubt. I turn and throw my toast overhand at the back of Matt's head. It nails him and he laughs. It's a plate, Sam. I don't care if we eat directly off the goddamned table as long as you are with me forever.

Birdgirl.

I will only stop you drifting so far

Before the storm moved in last evening it was so warm and sunny and broiling that we decided to go for a swim, just me and Daniel, in our undies in the sea. The tide was going out so we could cross the beach to the little cleared area where we sometimes find the courage to venture into the water if we get hot enough, which rarely happens thanks to the perpetual breeze. But not last night. Last night everything was stilled before the storm.

I emerged with chattering teeth and a frustrated mindset. Nothing changes. He listens to Loch and never let me get out of arms reach. I never did become a strong swimmer and Loch remains paranoid and diligent around the water. The camper was and is a birdcage, only I can't hear myself sing.

***

Lochlan has one hand wrapped around my jaw, and the other clutching the back of my neck. We're having a staring contest in the dark. I will either win or melt but then he drives against me and my eyes close involuntarily. I can't win if he doesn't play fair. I move to turn my head so he doesn't look at me when I'm weak but he keeps it held in place. His lips find mine for a favorable response and I give it. Sharing breaths. Blocking words. Getting that confirmation where if nothing else, we're okay.

Are we okay? So many questions. So many endless changes. One minute he's oblivious and content in his ignorance, the next intense and dark with the weight of history. He's turning into Ben. Into Cole. I don't even know. Hearts blur into one big red puddle and we fight our way through, drowning in every conversation and he has begun to place time limits on my indecision and on my proclamations as if he can quietly, gently become Jacob and Caleb too.

Instead I just pulled my arms up around his neck and he tucked his face in against my jaw and we held on because that's what we do when we can't figure out where to go from here. He knows. I do not. He waits. I spend time like it's water, flowing through my hands. He suffers, I dissolve. Yes, we have this all figured out. There's only one thing we have figured out and in the dark that's where you'll always find me.

***

The Devil has a small army outside in the front yard just after sunrise and I'd like to murder him because my room is the closest to the front of the house and how freaking unfair to wake a light sleeper with unannounced machinery.

And then as the backhoe begins to cut in to the edge of the property he pulls my elbow so that I follow him back to the boathouse and he passes me what I think is a watercolor painting of a small Victorian stone patio with a high semicircular wall around it, built-in benches and a round table made of stone with a hole in the center for an umbrella. There's a tiny chiminea incorporated into the wall for heat. There are flowers all around the entire patio and on the wall above the table too. The trees form a sort of natural shade canopy and smaller stones are set into a path leading away from the space.I tell him it's pretty and he takes the rendering back.

I'm building this for you. Right now, today. A place just for you so you can write or draw or just read without interruption.

Why?

Because I know how much you miss your turret.

I nod and narrow my eyes. I'm not sure how he would know that other than I am predictable too. The turret was a glass and iron atrium at the very top of the castle. It had copper panels on the roof and stained glass below that and clear glass panels all the way around. It was unheated and frigid. And I destroyed it with my bare hands and they had to remove the frame because it would have cost too much to fix.

I've regretted that every second of every day since but I was angry and scared and alone and I just snapped and I wanted to bring pain with a capital P. I got it. The house would have sold for a lot more had I left it alone and I understand that now. Money is the bottom line. Caleb doesn't let me forget that. He says it's not important but it is or he wouldn't have so much of it to fill the hole from where I am not.

Where are the bars?

Pardon?

Nevermind.

Lochlan comes out front to see what the fuss is and I meet him to tell him about the patio, describing all of the little features from Caleb's picture. He nods and looks pained as he watches the men work and then he shakes his head.

This will cost him a fortune. 

But you and I can draw here. 

He nods and watches me watching the little backhoe climbing into the trees at the side of the house. Bridget, you know he's not doing this because he wants to make you happy. 

I know. He wants to up the property value. 

Loch just keeps watching me. His eyes squinch down into slits and he shakes his head as if he has water in his ear.  You don't really think that's why-

No, I don't think I'm that naive anymore. But he thinks I am and that's all that matters.