Page 79 of The Seeker
“Planned disorder?”
“Yes. I don’t want my garden to fall in rows, but I do want to be the one who plants it. Does that make sense?”
“Yes. And life has been everything but certain since I showed up, hasn’t it?”
“Putting it mildly.” She leaned into his shoulder. “But now…”
He put his arm around her. “Now we know.”
“Now we know what we are to each other. What we do from here is our choice.”
Rhys’s arm felt steady and secure. Familiar and still thrilling.
“Exactly,” he said. “We focus on the mission. Anything that happens between us from here is up to us. And when the mission here is done, then who knows?”
“Won’t you need to go back to Istanbul?”
He shrugged. “I’ve been their errand boy for several years now. If I asked Malachi for any kind of leave, he’d agree.”
She nodded. “Then we can take our time.”
“There’s no rush.” He stroked long, lazy fingers up and down her arm. “We’ll take all the time we need.”
“You’re very confident that I’m going to choose to be with you, aren’t you?”
“I can be quite charming to people who aren’t idiots.”
“Your generous nature continues to amaze me, Rhys of Glast.”
They moved slowlyfrom large channels to smaller tributaries, Roch consulting the map that Rhys had brought with the listening stations marked, but they still got turned around more than once. Compasses were brought out once phone signals were lost. Meera tried to keep track of where they were, but every channel looked exactly the same to her.
Thousands of acres of flooded forest, streams, and marshes made up the terrain, and dense mounds of palmetto were the only indication of higher ground. Small birds perched like lazy sentinels in the bald cypress groves, egrets and herons hunted along the shores, and more than once Meera spotted eagles hunting overhead.
Alligators were their constant neighbors, lining the waterways and sliding in and out of the water as they passed. Meera watched for other residents of the bayou—beavers, otters, nutria, and even bear—but they hid from the sound of the motors.
“The first people who lived here,” Rhys asked over the sound of the engine, “what kind of homes did they build?”
“Round houses from wood and mud, mostly.”
“On stilts like the Cajun houses?”
“Not usually. They built on mounds.”
Roch revved the engine.
“What?”
“Mounds. They were built up over years and years. Most used discarded shell as foundation. Eventually silt from the water deposited on them, creating mounds.” Meera pointed to a rise of palmetto in the distance. “See that plant? It doesn’t grow in the water. It needs solid land. So if you see stands of palmetto, you know that area is solid.”
“That’s where we’ll camp once we leave the boat,” Roch yelled. “Find high ground.”
“The leaves also make good roofing material,” Meera said. “Keep an eye out for palmetto. If you follow them, you won’t sink. Probably.”
“Probably?”
Meera shrugged. She didn’t take anything for granted in the bayou. You could be walking on what you thought was solid ground only to have it give out beneath you.
“Good,” Rhys said. “Excellent. And there are hurricanes here as well, yes?”
