Last week, we went back in time and watched Sarah and Michael find Kerensa’s goodbye notes that said they would never see her again.
The Emerald is printing “And the Dew is Our National Treasure” in serial form, with an installment every Tuesday in the Pulse Relax section. Earlier installments can be found at www.dailyemerald.com.
 
Sarah and I found no comfort in my cold house. Most of the night we sat against opposite ends of the sofa, one blanket between us, and argued: I wanted facts about events before Kerensa’s disappearance; she gave me mystical abstractions. At 3 p.m., we went outside. The cool textures seduced us and we wandered through silent, car-less streets.
“Clouds appear before it rains, Sarah. A lion stalks before it pounces. Volcanoes tremble before erupting! Can you really tell me there were no signs?”
“I had premonitions, Michael. After all, Kerensa and I were close. But close only because we were different. We were as alike as the wind and the grass. Kerensa was large and encompassing. I’m small and supple. I don’t know what produced her.”
I responded involuntarily: “And the wind said to the grass, ‘I can make you dance.’ And the grass said to the wind, ‘I can make you sing.’” My unconsciousness embarrassed me, and I walked ahead quickly into the tunnel of trees that led through the park.
Sarah stayed close. Small moon circles lit the trail, and boughs creaked in the canopy. She kept her hand on my back, and I proceeded carefully.
“Kerensa made enemies,” I said. “She once said to a room full of mayors: ‘Child molesters at least have the decency to let most victims live. Developers always strip the innocent, crush them and bury the crime beneath concrete.’”
We approached the creek, and animals fell silent in the brush.
“But Kerensa had a presence, Sarah. No one would hurt her.”
We exited the park at the law school and climbed to the top of Taylor’s Ferry Road. In the graveyard, phantoms of mist drifted among the turning maples and the headstones. The grass threw dew at our soles until they squeaked. “There, you see, Sarah? It’s an omen.” I stepped around a freshly mangled rat. “It’s rudimentary, my dear: a squeak and a rat equals a villain. She’s been murdered.”
“Oh, Michael, Michael, Michael!” Sarah leaned her head against my shoulder.
We crossed the Sellwood Bridge; a “V” of geese flew overhead. “Maybe the developers threatened her,” Sarah suggested.
“Kerensa wouldn’t run,” I said. “If she left, it was by choice. Which means either she has a lover, or she did what many people only talk about doing, which is to suddenly drop all responsibilities and vanish.”
“But we really don’t know,” Sarah said. “It’s as if the wind carried her off.” We walked past antique stores and expensive restaurants. “The only way to find her is to let the wind carry us.”
“You’re saying I shouldn’t call her friends and colleagues, shouldn’t file a Missing Persons Report — that I should just wait for the answer? I’ll tell you, Sarah, a captain arrives at his chosen port through use of charts and seamanship. Not by drifting.”
“But there is no chosen port, Michael. We don’t know where Kerensa is. The only port that’s certain is the one we’re all going to in the end.”
“More metaphysical bullshit, Sarah!”
“How many people truly experience the journey, Michael? I let my heart lead, and it guides me to the people who complete me, to the circumstances that fulfill me.”
We arrive at Marsee’s coffee shop just as the waitress wipes the dew from the tables.