Joanna blinks and nods. The woman must be talking about her familiar, nothing else could make someone look as lost as that. Even as the woman presses her own hand to herself, Joanna feels a warmth falling through her chest, and her eyes open wide, looking for something similar in the other woman’s face. Her eyes aren’t looking at anything, they’re focusing inwards, and Joanna’s mouth lifts involuntarily into a smile.

Almost immediately, the woman takes a step towards her and Joanna notices the woman’s hands come up next to her face, and Joanna cannot do anything more than marvel as the woman presses her soft mouth onto her own. She’s surprised, not just at a stranger’s actions, but at how different it is from a man. But she can’t think about that, because Kafka’s there, in her soul, again, and it hurts, oh it hurts because he’s so far away, although he’s getting nearer, nearer, he’s almost, he can see the castle but oh it hurts, her body almost collapses with pain; he’s too far away.

Almost unconsciously, she follows Miri in a straight sprint to the outside world, hardly noticing when she stopped except that Kafka was getting closer, closer, and behind the wolf that ran to Miri was her Kafka, ridiculously large for the halls which had seemed so big, barrelling towards her, not quite his usual graceful bounds, his poor darling face half pained, half exuberant, he reached her and she was clinging to him, his giant thickly furred head resting on her shoulder, her knees only just standing the weight of the embrace.

His leg’s hurt. She can feel it inside her, the vague pain, almost entirely ignored as he rests peacefully against her. He growls low in her ear and she brings herself back into the world, turning to the woman, again not smiling, her eyes watching the other woman, taking note of her features, making her into an unlosable memory.

I’m Joanna Ridderbos, this is Kafka. How strange that I should meet you just as we became whole again. I’m glad.

She’s not good with words, they trip in rounded peals like golden globes from her tongue, not quite remembering their order. The longer her eyes rest on the other woman, the more friendly Joanna herself looks, her mouth just about smiling, a small, generous smile, with the last word. Kafka looks at Joanna with surprise, rifling through her memories to find who this woman was. Joanna leans her head sideways on Kafka’s.