I must have dozed off in the chair at the bedside sometime after the stranger from the sea had fallen back to sleep because, the next thing I knew, the sun was up and aunt Jaana was gently shaking me awake.

"Haltija, wake dear," she whispered to me. "Go up stairs to sleep the rest of the morning in Emmi's bed where you'll be more comfortable."

My head felt muddled. I wasn't sure whether I dreamed or not. But, I rose obediently and left. Aunt Emmi greeted me with a sweet smile and escorted me up the narrow staircase to her room. She had to help me dress for bed because I could hardly keep my eyes open. It was an easy task made very difficult by my drooping head, eyes and limbs. But, she only laughed good naturedly through it all, and smiled down at me lovingly the moment I was tucked into her soft bed.

"You've done well, haltija," she told me as she smoothed down my hair and petted my cheek. "The young man will survive now. It is certain."

She smiled brightly at me and her eyes twinkled with mischief. I could not help but smile in return although I could barely keep my eyes open.

"Sleep," she commanded me gently and in that moment I stopped struggling to stay awake. Instead, I let myself relax into the soft folds of her warm bed and gladly bid farewell to consciousness.

Sleep was bliss until I began to dream of him. I dreamt of his long black hair, his deep dark eyes, his cold fingers, and his parched lips.

In the dream I found myself floating out to sea on a thick bed of seaweed. The stranger was with me. He was submerged in the frigid waters right up to his shoulders, and contented himself by  pushing my bed of seaweed further and further out to sea. He swam in the cold salty water as if he were born to it, and he drank it back as if it were no more than tea.

Horrified at the prospect of being taken so far out to sea on such a questionable raft, I tried to steer the seaweed back to shore. However, every time I dipped my hand into the water to paddle toward home, the man from the sea would grasp my hand, pull me down, and kiss me. I feared his kisses, but I was equally afraid of drowning in the salty water that was so deep it was as black as his hair.

Frightened, realizing he was determined to take me out to sea, I rolled off the bed of seaweed and tried to swim to shore. However, in the self-same instant I found myself on a cliff looking over the sea below. There was a great storm brewing over the sea and it was wild with violently crashing waves. Such a sight was enough to make me tremble.

Then my eye spotted the stranger with his long black hair. He was caught up on a rocky shoal below the cliff. His hair was entangled in driftwood that was fetched up in the rocks. I could see that the enormous, wind-whipped waves were going to drown him and my heart felt sick for him.

There were fishermen on the water and on the beach but they didn't see him. I cried out to them in a panic, asking them to save him, but they did not hear me. Finally, more distraught then I could ever remember being, and full of terror for the stranger, I braved the cliff's edge and climbed down to him. 

Once on the rocks, I pulled his cold wet body into my arms. His hair was so severely entangled that I did not have a hope of freeing him from the driftwood. My heart sank into despair. We were going to die there together on the rocks for the waves were ready to bash us to pieces and none of the fishermen around could see or hear us. I wept over him without restraint.

Just as a enormous wave came, I hugged him close. But, in that same instant, as is the way of dreams, he transformed into a great black horse and dove into the sea with me clinging to his neck. We were miraculously carried away from the shoal by an outgoing wave.

I rejoiced that we were alive. But, my elation was quickly stamped out when I realized he was no ordinary horse. I had my arms tightly wrapped around the silky smooth neck of an Ech-ushkya. These dark creatures of legend were said to charm their victims onto their backs, and once there the Ech-ushkyas would dive into deep waters and drown their riders. A cry of dismay ripped through me and I swallowed the sea.

The next thing I knew I woke in my aunt's bed gasping and choking on air.

The noon-day sun, shinning through the window, brought me back to reality. I forced myself to breath normally as I sank back into the bed. With my heart racing madly, I could not recall ever being so frightened in all my life. It was not a dream but a nightmare, and it took several minutes to recover myself.

When I was sure I would not faint, I rose from the comfort of the bed and washed my face in a basin of cold water. The water was refreshing and as I splashed it on my warm cheeks I felt myself truly awaken. The nightmare began to faded as I became more and more alert. The cool water had washed away the vestiges of sleep. 

All thoughts of that strange dream flew from my mind entirely when I heard a loud thump down below, which was promptly followed by one or two clangs and crashes. What on earth was going on!

Still in my night dress with my hair unbound and falling to my waist, I rushed down the stairs to see what the matter was. I no sooner stepped through the hallway into the kitchen when our guest stumbled into me and the two of us went crashing to the floor. I let out a startled cry of alarm, but he, at least, had the presence of mind to try and shield me from the fall by wrapping his arms around my head and shoulders and tucking me into his chest. We hit the floor with a great thud and my aunts both let out frightened gasps.

His back was to the floor and I lay on his chest stunned and as still as stone. I could hear his heart pounding in his breast, which lay directly under my cheek. He didn't seem in a hurry to release me, which was a little reminiscent of the strange morning I had passed with him in the pre-dawn hours. Afraid of a repeat of those unsettling events, with a quickening pulse and a blushing face, I pressed my hand to his chest and pushed back. He released me instantly, which came as a great relief to me. 

Getting up to my knees, I looked about us. We had fallen into the kitchen and the chairs by the table had scattered when we went down. The aunts were staring at us their eyes wide with surprise.

"Are you alright haltija?" Aunt Emmi asked in a whisper.

"Yes," I said with a nod. "Just a little startled is all", I told her.

"And what of our guest?" Emmi asked looking at him with concern.

I looked down too. He still lay on his back. Unlike myself, he had not even tried to get up yet. It was clear he was experiencing some pain for his eyes were shut tight and his face was contorted in a grimace.

"What's happened?" I asked my aunts. "Why is he walking about?"

"We don't know," Aunt Jaana explained. "He suddenly became agitated and wouldn't stay in the bed. He just got up and started moving about. He's refused to let us help him back to bed." 

I leaned toward him and placed my hand on his forehead, afraid his fever had returned. It was warm but not overly so. He opened his eyes at that moment and they were pleading with me. To do what I did not know. I frowned and looked at him quite helplessly.

"Well, lying here is not what you want," I said to him with a little smile. "Let us get you up and then see where it is you want to go."

Taking hold of the hand closest to me, I tugged on it as I stood to my feet. He could get as far as his left knee without assistance. After that though, I had to secure an arm around his waist while he draped an arm over my shoulder and I half pulled him up as he used me to stand. We stood there in the kitchen for a moment while he found his balance.

Looking up at his unquestionably handsome face with his impossibly long lashes and unfathomably dark eyes, I asked with an amused smile, "Where to now, Captain?"

I heard the aunts giggle, which made me grin all the more. Yesterday I was very reserved around him but today, after having been thoroughly kissed by him before sunrise and knocked to the ground by him at noon, I felt free to be myself. Nothing unladylike I might do could compare to his own behaviour toward me, whether he remembered the kisses of not, and this realization freed me to act more naturally with him.

His deep eyes studied my face a long while. Long enough for the aunts to stop their tee-heeing and exchange a few uncertain glances with each other and myself. I doubted that our stranger understood the captain reference and was probably puzzled over the aunts' reactions. 

I sighed with some amusement before patiently pointing to the bedroom and then to the hearth saying, "Would you like to go there or there?"

Despite the fact that he had not spoken a word to any of us yet, as far as I knew, he seemed to have a great deal of understanding. I was sure he would comprehend the significance of my pointing.

He looked at the direction I'd pointed and then back down at me. His eyes were full of intensity but I could make no meaning out of his look. Was he angry? Was his frustrated? Was he confused and desiring more information? His eyes were such a mystery to me.

The longer I looked up at him the more intense his expression became. Why did he always look at me so, I wondered uneasily. This penetrating look in his black eyes made me shiver to the core and blush profusely. No one, in all my life, looked at me the way he did from the moment our eyes met on the rocks by the sea.

Suddenly, I was afraid to look at him too closely. I was afraid of those eyes, which I thought might be remembering strange kisses in the early hours of the morning. My face became hot as my blush deepened at the memory of his lips on mine. 

Mortified by my recollections, I could not bring myself to look at him or even open my mouth to speak to him again as his fingers firmly gripped my shoulder through the thin fabric of my nightdress. The realization, in that moment, that I was only in my nightdress increased my discomfort a hundredfold. Why hadn't I thought to get dressed before I came down the stairs, I scolded myself.

All these miserable thoughts were interrupted when I caught sight of him raising his free arm and pointing to the back door off the kitchen.

The aunts, seeing his intention, sprung into action and made a way for us. I instructed aunt Emmi to take a kitchen chair and set it just outside the door so that he could sit on it. Aunt Jaana suggested a couple of quilts to wrap him up in, which we all agreed was a good idea given that his feet were bare and he had no coat. 

As he and I struggled the short distance across the kitchen floor to the door, I could not help but notice things now that I had not noticed before. He smelt like the sea – salt and seaweed and cool breezes. I marveled that a man, who had just been spewed from the ocean and spent a night tossing and turning under the grip of a deadly fever, should smell so fresh and inviting – for I always found the scent of the sea inviting.

I also noticed that his body was warm despite the fact that his skin had not lost the peculiar blue tinge I had seen on his hands and face the previous day. With only the cotton of our night gowns between us, I was more aware of his warm body now than I had been when I dragged him from the rocks or when he pulled me to his chest last night and forced a kiss on me in his fevered state. In all my life I had never been so close to man who was not my father – let alone a stranger. I had never before felt, or relished, the heat of a man's body. It was thrilling and yet I was greatly embarrassed that I should think so. My cheeks burned with my awareness.

And lastly I noted for the first time how very hard his body was. He was all sinew and muscle. There were no soft edges on him. My own father, whom I had always thought as a very fit man, and whom I hugged on a regular basis, was soft to the touch in any number of places. I always sank into his chest and found comfort there. I would never sink into this man's chest. His was a hard plane - a ship's plank.

The only soft place on him was his lips. I looked up at them now shocked by the train of my own thoughts. They did not look parched and dry this afternoon. Instead, they looked silken, perfectly sculpted and very inviting.

And suddenly, without warning, I heard my mother's voice admonishing me not to fall in love with the stranger whom the sea spat out. In response to that voice, I straightened my back and tried to concentrate on the task at hand. I was never so glad to let him go as when he sat in the chair outside the door, but I was also never so sad to be parted from him, which puzzled me greatly. What in the world was wrong with me?

I stood back as the aunts tried to make him comfortable and when his eyes, his ever intense and unreadable eyes, caught mine I blushed deeply and looked away. In fact, I nearly ran back into the house. I needed to dress. I would feel more myself when I was fully clothed and had my hair pinned up. I would feel less like this wild thing I was becoming in his presence. 

Without another word to anyone, I took the stairs two at a time and reached Emmi's room before the aunts had likely even registered that I was gone. I dressed as quickly as I could, ran the brush through my hair with urgency, and then pinned it all in a bun. The loose bits I just tucked behind my ears.

Afterward, I took a good look at myself in Emmi's mirror. Instantly, I felt better. Being fully dressed was the answer. A sort of relief flooded me. I was not changing before my very own eyes. I was still me. I just needed to face the world, and that man from the sea, with my day ware on!

I smiled at myself and then walked back down the steps. All would be well. I was not falling in love with him. Mother would be pleased.