And a Diamond in the Middle

I could practically hear him cringing on the other end of the line before he replied, "Possibly. Just how am I supposed to find this particular pool of water?"

"Kathy liked the spot so much she pinned the coordinates on her phone. I'll send them to you."

"Okay, do that and I'll see what I can find."

In the end, Jim teamed with an attorney in Ireland who handled things on that end. He approached the owner to seek permission but was immediately rebuffed.

"Sam, they won't give us permission," said Jim a couple of weeks later.

"Jim, offer to pay. I'm doing this for Kathy so I have to get it right."

"We'll see, but I suspect it could get expensive."

"Do it." I gave him what I hoped was a ridiculous upper figure to work with.

Two weeks later, Jim called me back. "Sam, the farmer, a Mr. O'Haire, said, and I quote, 'wouldn't accept all the money in the world to allow it.' I think we're at the end of our rope on this. I'm sure Kathy would understand."

"Probably," I agreed, "but let me try one more thing."

That evening, I wrote a letter to Mr. O'Haire, explaining my love for Kathy, how we'd discovered the pool when we went further upstream than originally planned, and how she'd fallen in love with the spot without mentioning our actual lovemaking on the spot. I told him of how she'd talked about the location so many times after we'd returned home, and how she'd repeated it as her dying wish. I asked him to reconsider for Kathy.

Though he gave me weekly progress reports by email (i.e., "There is no progress in the case this week."), it was almost a month later that Jim called me back with the news.

"Sam, Mr. O'Haire, the owner, reconsidered and has agreed, subject to certain terms and conditions that you'll need to agree to in writing. I'm emailing them so you can read everything, but you'll need to pick a date for the visit—they've given some choices and times—and then come into the office to sign so we can notarize and get this ball rolling."

***

I read through the forms as Jim said. Finding nothing that appeared to be a deal breaker, I asked for and received his concurring legal opinion before agreeing and signing in front of his notary.

With everything in order with the owner and permission obtained from the Irish government to bring Kathy's ashes into the country, I arrived at Shannon Airport on a Tuesday in late July, rented a car, and drove up the River Shannon to the bed and breakfast where we'd stayed that night after our visit to the pool. I crashed and slept so late on Wednesday morning that I missed breakfast. Fortunately, my host set a plate aside for me, which I devoured before leaving around noon.

After a stop at a local store, I headed for the stream and parked a short distance from the bridge that crossed over it. Clambering down the embankment, I made my way upstream, remembering when Kathy and I had done it the first time.

It was around 3 p.m. when I approached the pool, looking exactly as I remembered it, as pretty and as neatly kempt as ever. The farmer's rules were that I was to be there only between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m., so I had plenty of time to do the deed, spend some time in quiet reflection, perhaps even recalling the events of that wonderful day now over four years earlier, and be on my way by 4 o'clock as agreed.

I found the area where Mr. O'Haire and the government would allow the ashes to be spread, but as I stood there, I couldn't do it. Though it had been so long since her passing, I couldn't let her go, the tears slipping down my cheeks.

It was when I closed my eyes that I smelled the fragrance of the wildflowers and something approximating a recent rain carried by the wind. Kathy had recalled that smell many times in the months that followed our visit. While there were still tears, it brought a smile to my face and courage to my heart; minutes later, the deed was done and I sat down by the bank to watch the pool one last time before I left it forever.

Perhaps the water mesmerized me, the shimmer of the sunlight on the barely perceptible ripples hypnotized me, or maybe it was the captivating smell of the wildflowers spread around the pool but something happened and I lost track of time. When next I moved, I looked up at the sun through the trees and realized that it was much later than intended and well beyond the time when Farmer O'Haire had required me to be gone from the pool and off his property.

"Shit, I hope he doesn't call the Garda on me," I mumbled aloud, while knowing he had every right to do so.

Sitting in one position for so long, my legs had practically fallen asleep so I started to rise when Kathy, wearing her little Irish hat with the shamrock pin, rose up out of the water in front of me, water streaming off of her.

Never having been more surprised in my life, I gave a frightened yelp and fell over backward, scrambling as fast as I could with two numb legs for the line of trees that surrounded the pool some feet away.

Kathy put her hands on the bank and raised herself up out of the water, allowing me to get a better look as I backed into a tree trunk. The smell of wildflowers was stronger there; I was surprised when they seemed to help calm me, at least a little.

Seeing her more clearly and perhaps thinking just a bit more level-headed, there was a definite resemblance but no, she wasn't Kathy, not my Kathy, anyway, despite wearing her hat that had been missing for so long. No, this woman was shorter and significantly thinner due to a smaller frame, though my Kathy had always kept herself in great physical condition until the cancer began to eat away at her.

Standing on the bank just feet from me, she took off the hat and whipped her hair around in a circle, two or three rounds, somehow drying it almost completely before stopping and fluffing it with her hands. Remembering Kathy spending ages with her blow dryer with her long tresses, I couldn't believe this woman had been able to do that. She set the hat back on her head and moved closer to me.

Yes, it was her hair, long, blonde, and curly, that most resembled my late wife before the cancer and the chemo took it all away, but her brilliant green eyes, as deep as African garnet, were much different than Kathy's blues and her pale skin covered by a white gossamer gown seemed to have a sort of greenish tint to it.

"Who are you?" I bleated as she stood before me. Her wet gown, see through showing her tiny nipples and small, dark areolas, dried quickly as she stood in the sunlight.

She smiled at me and said something I didn't understand but believed to be Irish. Perhaps she saw me cock my head, for she repeated it again. A couple of words sounded like a bit of the Irish I'd picked up in our travels and I heard "Niela" this time as she pointed to herself.

"Niela," I repeated before recognizing the similarity of the name and asking, "a Naiad? A water sprite? Or a woman the damn farmer hired to scare the shit out of me?"

With my background in the classics, I was probably as familiar with the mythical Naiads, the water nymphs of Greece, and the water sprites, the elemental water fairies, as anyone alive who didn't study them as a specialty. Of course, I knew they were mythical so it had to be a woman playing a trick on me. However, as I looked at her, I doubted that it was a woman, as I knew them anyway, and I couldn't believe the farmer would play such an evil prank considering that he let me come there out of respect for my wife.

No, the person in front of me, if it was a person, looked like she'd just stepped out of one of my old comic books from my childhood or from one of the newer comic book-inspired movies and I didn't see any special effects people around. For some reason, I didn't think she was human.

She said something else that seemed to be in Irish, but then she repeated my word, "Naiad? Sp-rite?"

"Naiad, a water nymph, what the Irish called a water fairy—"

"Ing-glish," she interrupted with a nod and I didn't get to explain the difference in a sprite. Standing just feet from me, she smiled and sat down on the grass in front of me.

"She...called you...Sam."

"Wait! You were here when I was with Kathy," I accused. "You stole her hat."

"I am...sorry," she replied, and then continued, with her speech improving with almost every sentence. "I did not mean to stole...steal it. It fell out of her...garment...onto the bank so I wanted to look at it. I picked it up and put it on to look at my...image in the water but then I loved it so much that I could not let it go. I felt bad after you left and thinking on how sad she'd been to lose it. I was...wrong."

She removed it from her head and handed it over to me. "Can you return it to her...please?"

While the Naiads of Greece were sometimes said to be rather violent at times, my initial fear had dissipated. I sat up straighter against the tree trunk and pulled my knees up, putting my arm around them while holding the hat in one hand. Looking over to my left, I saw where I'd spread her ashes a little time before.

"No, Niela, I can't. My Kathy is gone. She died soon after visiting this place but loved it so much she wanted...wanted to come back one last time."

Niela the Naiad, or whatever she was, reached down and touched my hand. It was warm and soft. "I...I could tell she loved you very much. She would be glad you returned here to remember her."

I drew a deep breath, that wonderful smell making things seem better. "She died a long time ago, Niela. She asked me to do this for her as well as for me, to set her to rest so I can move on."

She nodded and then moved up to sit beside me against that tree trunk, putting her hand over mine and resting her head against my shoulder. "I am...very...sorry," she said, as if struggling for the words. "It is...hard...to be alone for a long time. Do you wish to move on?"

"Wish? If I had a wish, she'd be here now, even if it meant that it was me scattered over there. I know that's not going to happen, though, so, as much as I've missed her, I've accepted that I have to let go and move on or I'll continue being sad and lonely for the rest of my life."

"Sam, you know your Kathy would not want that fate for you?"

I nodded, knowing what she meant. "I've had several women ask me for a date in recent months and I've considered accepting," I said but she gave me a blank look. "You know, a chance at a romantic engagement?"

She smiled and nodded. "She would want that for you too." Giving my hand a squeeze, she reached up and kissed my cheek.

I turned to Niela and put an arm around her for a hug. She did the same for me and we sat there, side by side, embracing for a while. I smelled her hair, scented, I realized, like the flowers. A deep breath led me to moan lightly, and I caressed her hair and then her cheek. To my surprise, I felt a stirring that I'd been suppressing for years since Kathy's death, only allowing it to manifest itself in private when I needed relief.

She looked up at me expectantly and I stared into her brilliant green pools. "Niela, I—"

"Shhh, Sam. Your Kathy would want this for you as much as I do, as much as you want it yourself."

Niela kissed me then, full on the mouth and, to my surprise, I responded with that long-suppressed hunger. She was on me then and we rolled onto the grass next to the tree. She was trying to free me of my clothes, but Naiads apparently aren't familiar with buttons so I had to help where needed, as well as removing her gossamer gown over her head, allowing her golden tresses to fall over us like a cascade.

She giggled and I laughed and soon we were kissing, hugging, and caressing before she spread her legs and whispered for me to come inside. I did, thinking only of her, and we were soon rocking together in perfect harmony. Niela began to moan and my panting became more moan-like over time as I felt the beginnings of what I suspected would be a massive orgasm. Her face looked tormented as she climbed toward a big climax of her own.

"Release in me, Sam," she whispered. "I need to feel your seed in me, to feel your love. Do it, Sam! Do it!" Seconds later, she moaned, long and loud as her climax hit and as I sent gush after gush into her.

Exhausted, we lay side by side looking up into the branches of the trees above us.

"Thank you, Sam," she finally whispered. "You don't know how much that meant to me."

I nodded, suspecting that I did. While I would always love Kathy and her memory, I hadn't been bothered by it as Niela and I made love and I knew that I'd be able to move forward now to seek a new future, new happiness. As I'd been considering but been unable to do for some time, I'd finally let her go.

"Sam, stay here, please. I'll be back in a moment."

Still completely nude, she rose in a heartbeat, took four quick steps toward the bank as she allowed me to see that her backside was as petite and gorgeous as her front and made a dive into the pool that would have made an Olympic champion proud. She shot up out of the water and landed standing on the bank without even using her arms moments later, did her hair-drying shake, and rejoined me on the ground, lying against me, her small breast against my chest, and her leg draped over mine.

Those damn wildflowers, such a soft, sweet smell, so fragrant and enticing. Or was it her hair? I took a deep breath, enjoying it immensely, whatever the source.

It wasn't long before we were going again, this time with Niela atop me, toward me at first, and then, somehow, switching into a reverse cowgirl without us losing contact. On and on she rode, tirelessly it seemed, doing just enough to cause me to build slowly, before switching back toward me for the mad dash to the finish line.

We held each other for a while afterward before she took another dive and dip in the pool. This time, when she returned, she looked pensive.

"Sam, the sun sets before long. You must go."

It was probably just having had sex, incredible sex, twice in quick succession, for the first time in years but the thought struck me out of the blue. "I will, Niela, but come with me."

She looked at me, her look turning to outright sadness. "Sam, I can't. You know I'm what the regular folk call a fairy, a creature of the water and this pool is my home. I cannot stray far from it."

Yes, that's like the Naiads, I thought. They were tied to a particular body of fresh water, and rarely ventured far away.

"I love floating or swimming on or just below the surface of the water—it's much deeper than it looks—and I sit on the bank in the sun at times and I dance in or around my pool in the moonlight. I maintain the grass, the flowers, and the trees that surround us, and I even go as far as the edge of the fields around us at times, but I must return to the water often. I can't leave the pool when the sun is high in the sky for more than moments at a time because it dries out my skin nor for more than—oh what is it called? I haven't spoken your language since my mother taught me when I was young many years ago. An hour? Yes—an hour or two of your time any other time. I can't go with you."

I nodded, knowing what she said to probably be true based on what was believed of the ancient Naiads. "I understand, Niela, but I want to see you again. I'll come again, okay?"

"You won't, Sam. I've lived many years, but my time is almost up. You should go."

Now I was concerned. She looked young, in her mid-twenties to early thirties, I guessed, possibly even too young to be interested in someone my age despite what we'd just done. Twice.

"What do you mean, almost up?"

"It's the circle of life: we are born, we grow up, we have a child, and we grow old and die. My mother once faced the same issue, when she fell in love with the farmer who owned the surrounding land—"

Ah! No wonder the farmer didn't want me snooping around his pool! The bastard knew she was here! And he would only let me be here when the sun was overhead when it was unlikely that she'd come out.

"Mother and the farmer wanted to be together but it wasn't to be, it couldn't be. She died when I was young after passing along the knowledge of the water fairies, including the farmer's language and yours, to me. I will do the same."

"But you're not to that point yet," I countered. "What if I moved here, somewhere nearby? I could come see you every day. We could be together then."

"No, Sam. My time is short, shorter than you know, and it...it's too hard. Besides, you...well, you aren't yourself. My aura, it affects you."

Yes, I suddenly realized, this wasn't like me, wanting to be with someone I'd just met. Perhaps she was right but I was puzzled, seeing nothing around her, no lights or shimmers or anything else that one might expect to surround a mythical being like a Naiad. Of course, if it was magic in a modern world, I might not see it, so I asked, "Aura, what do you mean?"

"Most of my nourishment comes from the water and the sun, but because of that, I can't control my aura that surrounds me, that allures men to me."

"You use photosynthesis for nourishment," I guessed, realizing that while she had human form, perhaps the barely perceptible greenish cast to her skin had to do with chlorophyll. "And, wait, your aura? Are you talking about that fragrant smell? Pheromones? Wildflowers, a spring-like breeze, and, what..." I sniffed, once and then again. "Fresh-cut hay?"

She laughed. "The last one is from the farmer's field—you can see it there between the trees—but the others, yes. If I come out of the water, my aura—pher-o-mones, you say—attracts men...and, perhaps, women. The day you and your wife were here, I emerged from the water to see your Kathy's hat, and you were both overcome with love."

Though I hadn't known what it was at the time, I recalled the sweet smell and the intense lovemaking and orgasms we'd shared that day. Kathy had spoken of the incredible volume of my cum, both that day on the bank and when she fulfilled her promise of a blowjob later that evening. Even Kathy herself had rarely ever been so on edge.

"That day, it was just like when we made love here a little while ago. Your pheromones affected us and our bodies reacted, going into overdrive with the hormones."

She nodded, before turning and diving, almost noiselessly, into the pool. She emerged just moments later. The water beaded and sheeted off her in seconds and a quick sling around of her hair seemed to dry it. She stepped back into my arms, her wonderful smell practically overpowering me.

"Did you notice it lessen when I moved away and return when I came back?"

I nodded and we held each other as I thought over all she'd said.

"Niela, you mentioned the farmer. Was he your father?"

"Yes, my mother watched him from the waters when he would come to the pool to take a break from his efforts in the fields around us. She grew to like him, love him even, and one day she emerged from the water and I was conceived. He came to see her often after that, but I couldn't meet him because of my aur—my pheromones. After my mother was gone, he still came and I saw him at a distance, from below the water at times when he would come and sit by the bank, staring into the water for ages. I think he truly loved my mother and wanted to spend time with me, but it wasn't to be because it's not our way.

"He eventually brought another, a woman much younger than him, and over the years they returned from time to time, bringing one, then two, and eventually five little ones of their own with them. His eldest son did the same with his young lady and their children, but no one has returned for more than a few moments in many years...at least until you and your wife came."

"Niela, you're talking, what, three generations or more? But you're not that old."