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The heady, overpowering scent of dying, rotting flowers is all I can smell, although the faint smell of animal manure seems to lay underneath the smell of the flowers.
Some of the flowers in the meadow may be dying, but winter wildflowers are making their appearance.
Their colorful heads dot the meadow, wilder versions of pansies, winterberries, snowdrops, and camellias.
Did we ever have anything like this on Protheka?I wonder to myself. And then I wonder what place that is and why I just thought of it.
“This,” Amara answers me as she unpacks her satchel and hands me some food wrapped in hessian cloth. “This is my favorite place in the world. I don’t think anyone else in the Great Lakes region knows about it. I try not to come here too much because I don’t want to disturb the ecosystem. But I’ve found some great herbs here in the past.”
We flop down onto the soft, though slightly prickly, grass, while the wolves race each other around the meadow.
Amara and I eat the food, chewing slowly and savoring the flavors of the salty roasted meat and fried vegetables.
I am sure that it is because I am in the meadow with Amara at my side, but everything tastes better, brighter, and fresher.
After we eat, Amara takes a look at my wound, and my body warms even further underneath her touch.
“You want to race the wolves?” I ask her, feeling more energized after the meal and Amara’s hands against my skin.
She doesn’t answer me and doesn’t wait for me, either. Instead, she breaks into a run, letting out a sharp whistle to alert the wolves to the race.
For a second, I just stand and watch her.
Is this really how she lives? Nothing but fresh air and the wolves?
That is when I join the run.
I am not unaware of the fact that Amara faces large difficulties which I will probably never be able to understand properly. She lives an isolated life and has to do everything for herself.
Maybe if you stayed, she’d have fewer of those problems.
I forget what I was thinking very quickly as we race around the meadow. All I can think, all I know, is that the burden of my missing memories has been lifted from my shoulders.
The urgency to know who I am, and what I was, and especially, where I came from, has vanished.
Now, all I know is that I am free. Free to be who I am now and not the person I was in the past, and not what the past version of me thought I would become in the future.
We run for what feels like hours until Amara stops and gasps for air before she flops back down onto the grass.
I collapse next to her, and my head spins slightly as I take several deep breaths.
The sun has become cooler, and tinges of pink streaking across the sky tell me that the afternoon is growing older.
I turn onto my side and look at Amara. She smiles with her eyes half closed, and then as if she feels my eyes on her, she opens her own eyes and turns to me.
“That was nice,” she murmurs and reaches toward me to flick grass and dust off my face.
My eyes flutter close beneath her touch, as she moves to cup my face with her somewhat calloused hands.
“Everything is nice,” I reply as she strokes my cheek with her thumb. When I open my eyes again, I speak as earnestly as I can. “Everything that I do with you is nice. You’re perfect.”
A dash of red spreads across her cheeks, and I see the tips of her ears growing red, too.
“Thank you.” The words come out in an embarrassed whisper.
I still speak, as if I am trying to convince her of something. “I don’t think the old me, the one who has all my memories, would ever have imagined that I would end up here. In a meadow with a pack of wolves and a human. But I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
Amara turns onto her back again and sighs.
