“Hey, where are you going? Do you need help?” Mira called out, but the woman didn’t move. The woman faced the fields and Mira was unable to see her expression. Whatever lay ahead had transfixed the woman. Dressed in all white, in the dark she looked like an apparition, a ghost roaming. Her hair cascaded down her back, and to Mira, she appeared to be an angel, not a ghost, something descended from the sky, something holy, something true, and Mira called out again, asking for her to turn around, but the woman wouldn’t listen. The woman took one step and then another, her bare feet gliding through the dirt and mud, dirtying her skin, getting closer to the edge of the fields, and as she got closer, Mira’s heart quickened. She called out to the woman in white once more before running toward her, to see who she could be, but when she got to the fields the woman was gone. Mira searched and searched but there was no one, not a single other person anywhere to be found.

IX.

MIRA WAS GRATEFUL for the comfort of her bed. She sighed from the feeling of the cool sheets hitting her skin. It had been a long time since she’d enjoyed a simple luxury like this. Her apartment did not have central air and the box air conditioner was constantly on the fritz. She was always hot. By now she’d hoped to have adapted, but she never got used to the damp feeling of the mattress wet from her sweat. She needed a new one; every morning she woke to a persisting ache in her lower back. In this bed her back didn’t ache. The cool air was a welcome reprieve. This, to her, felt decadent, and she relished it. Her muscles relaxed as she settled in and closed her eyes.

It was not instant, not a sudden pulsating rush of remembering, but instead a dull hum, a gnawing that grew as pieces of her evening with Jesse replayed themselves for her in the dark. How he looked. How he’d been. When he’d hugged her, she’d caught a subtle hint of cologne and was surprised he would wear it. She tried to conjure the smell of it again, tried to remember the feel of his body when they’d embraced before separating for the night. His hand had only grazed her waist, but the memory was enough to get her started. She thought of how he’d grabbed the railing surrounding the slave cabins, how his fists had tightened against the rail, and the muscles in his forearms had tensed. All that was left was her ache from longing. She pulled the covers up and over the rest of her body, pressed her head against the pillows.