Free Waters Fall by Becky Doughty Page A

“Sure. I can show you around.”
    “Well, don't let me take you from your work. I don't have anything in particular I need right now; I just want to see what's available. I have a few hours to use up.” She stumbled over her words again. “I'll just wander.”
    He tipped his head toward the doorway. “Come inside. You're not taking me away from anything. I'm just hanging around here, bugging Janelle, because I have nothing else to do either. I was expecting a shipment this morning, and it still hasn't shown up.” He shrugged his shoulders. “Apparently, it's our lucky day. You’ve got a few hours, so if you’ll have me, I’m all yours.”
    He stuck out a very large hand. “Tristan, at your service.”
    “And I'm Nora.” She shook his hand, her face burning over his suggestive comments, his low voice like a velvet caress, and she wasn't surprised when he didn't immediately release her, but drew her through the door instead.
    “Welcome to my world,” he said, letting her fingers slip slowly from his grasp. She removed her glasses, her eyes widening with delight.
    Sculptures graced the tops of podiums and pillars, wall nooks, and low platforms; water nymphs, botanical creations, geometric shapes in metals and plasters, marble and wood. Hanging from the ceiling, beneath the warm glow of focused lighting, were structures looking as though they'd just floated in from outer space or from deep beneath the ocean. Blues and greens, silvers and purples, shot through with sienna and gold, the colors were organic and unearthly at the same time. It was eclectic and otherworldly, the haunting music of Celtic instruments playing softly in the background.
    “Oh, my.” Nora's eyes were drawn to one sculpture in particular, a piece full of both movement and stillness. A child, or a young woman, poised with arms extended, hair swept up in a swirling pattern above her head. The remnants of a dress turned in and out around her body, and her feet were tight together, toes pointed. She wasn't standing, she was being lifted off her feet.
    No, she was sinking.
    “Oh.” She said it again as she approached. Something in the posture, in the lines, pulled at her heart, and without thinking, she reached out to run a hand along the curve of the girl's hip.
    “This one, hm?”
    “Oh, my.” They were all the words she could manage.
    “What do you like about her?” He asked after several contemplative moments.
    Nora considered her answer, trying to understand what moved her so deeply about the creature. “I don't know, really. I feel like I...can relate. But relate to what?” She asked the question more of herself than to the man who stood on the other side of the sculpture studying her reaction. Up close, she could see red- and blue-coated electrical wires woven in and out of scrap metal, forming the girl's neck and face, her arms, and feet. The billowing dress was tattered canvas, painted the color of light shining through water, and her hair looked like it might have been fashioned from the strands of an unraveled mop, crimped and rippling through unseen ocean currents. The upturned face, incomplete features made from pieces of broken pottery, euphoric from a distance; shattered up close.
    Could she put any of that into words?
    “She’s like a perfect combination of pain and pleasure, of suffering and joy. Like she’s surfacing and drowning at the same time.” She paused before she continued, knowing her words were going to sound silly and formulaic, but she didn’t really care. “It’s as though she embodies the essence of a woman’s soul.”
    Tristan didn't respond for so long, that Nora finally looked up at him. She was surprised to see him staring at her, a curious expression on his face.
    “What?” She tucked her hair behind her ear, self-conscious beneath his unguarded gaze. “Did I say something stupid? I'm no art connoisseur, you know. I just like pretty things.”   
    “Stupid? No.” Tristan crossed his