“Mm-hmm,” was all the reply that sounded over Kilmuir’s shoulder.
They ascended a slow-rising hillock and began following a stream. Juliet let the Highland environs drift through her senses even as her gaze remained steadily fixed on the man in front of her. From an artist’s point of view, he was quite sturdily built.
An artist’s?
Hardly.
Not one of her more poetic observations. The man wasn’t a thick-trunked tree, after all.
Then the view before them opened, and all such hackneyed observations faded into irrelevance. The relevant point was, before them, a waterfall had appeared as if by magic. From a hundred feet above, it poured down in three distinct tiers into a small pool that flowed into the stream they’d been following all this time.
Juliet wasn’t one given to loud exclamations when overcome with delight. Instead, she preferred to find a place to sit—as she did now—and quietly take it all in. The first word that came to mind was usually the most banal word, and this waterfall and the entire surrounding tableau of moss-covered rock, mist-clouded air, and leaf-dappled bluebird sky high above deserved better.
Kilmuir took a seat a few boulders over. He didn’t rush in with a bevy of observations, but rather took in the view alongside her for a long while before asking a question. “How would you describe this waterfall?”
She understood he wasn’t asking for the thoughts of Miss Windermere the lady, but rather Miss Windermere the poet. “I would find a single word and create from there.”
“What single word comes to you now?”
“Sublime.”
“That’s a good one.”
“It’s a start, but it doesn’t actually say anything about the waterfall itself. It only really describes my feeling about the waterfall.”
He snorted, drawing her gaze. “How would you describe it, Kilmuir?”
Like for like.
“Pretty. That’s what I would say about this waterfall. Then I would find a word that rhymes with waterfall.”
Juliet canted her head. This was becoming strangely interesting. She’d never spoken with anyone about the process that happened before words were committed to page. It only followed that every individual’s would be different. “And what word is that?”
Kilmuir tapped a pensive forefinger against his mouth. “Eyeball?”
A sudden laugh slipped from behind Juliet’s hand. “Forgive me, but—” Along came another laugh that wanted to be a howl. “Please lead me through that succession of word choices.”
“It’s simple. You see the waterfall with your eyeball.”
“True,” she said, slowly. Her mind cast about for another word. “Perhapsenthrall?”
“See?” He pointed at her.
“See what?”
“Right there,” he said. “That’s what you can do that I cannot.”
Juliet felt the compliment down to her bones. But there was a misconception she wanted to clarify. “Of course, you can. Everyone has expression inside them that’s bursting for release. But sometimes it requires a bit of digging to get to it.”
“That’s assuming we all have the same depths, Miss Windermere. Perhaps some possess more than others.”
Juliet couldn’t deny that fact, but she also knew something else. They hadn’t yet scratched the surface of Kilmuir’s depths. “But what else is the waterfall?” she asked. “What is it beyond a pretty pleasure for the, erm, eyeballs?”
“Wet,” he said. “I would say it’s wet.”
“Water isn’t actually wet. That which it touches is.”
Kilmuir’s eyebrows drew together and released. “I’ve never met anyone like you, Miss Windermere.”