Lapis and Gold - Extracts

Difficult Conversation / Heading North For The Winter

“-I just think you might be better off staying with the family a little longer.”

I pinch the bridge of my nose, trying to release the headache building in my skull. Talking to Thomas’ mother was never the easiest thing in the world. She was a force of personality like no other; five feet of silver-haired cockney will, voice strained to sandpaper by smoking and recent grief.

“I know, Jill, I know. I need to get out, though. I’m going mad in the apartment.”

“Then you can come back down to London with us.” It was a statement, not a suggestion.

“Jill-”

“No, Amelia.” There was steel in her voice, but it was close to melting, “We’ve just lost Tom… I know you wouldn’t be gone for that long, I just... I just worry. You’re all I have of him now. God-”

Her voice hitched, fading back into the pseudo silence of phone static. I tried to find the right words, but they caught in my throat. It hurt me to leave Tom’s family at a time like this, but it would hurt more to abandon what we’d planned. I tried to turn that feeling into something coherent, to project out, but all that managed to make it past my lips was a strained, “I know.” before my wandering eyes caught on one of his hoodies crumpled in the corner of the sofa, and tears drowned anything else. I could hear Jill fighting off something similar at the other end of the phone.

“Sorry. Sorry, I’m just… I know Jill. But I need to go.” I sniffed and wiped my eyes, “I’m going to go.”

There was a pause, silence rendered fuzzy by phone static.

“Jill?”

“I’m fine. I’m fine.” Repetition betrayed the lie.

“It’s just a few weeks, Jill. I’m staying in contact. I’ll send pictures, I’ll call you.”

“I know you will, Amelia. I know.”

“And you’re going to message me too, right? I put a lot of effort into digging over your allotment, I expect updates.” I forced a little cheer into my voice. It seemed to work.

Jill chuckled slightly, and took a ragged, centering breath, “Of course.”

“Say hi to Mark for me?”

“I will. Send me a message when you get to terminal, and when you get to Carlisle, and when you-”

“I will, Jill. Love you.”

“Safe travels, love.”

My finger hovered over the disconnect button as I tried to fish for the right response. A long, long moment passed before Jill hung up. I tossed the phone onto the sofa beside me. It slid off the cushion and thunked onto the floor, next to a discarded sketchbook and several takeaway containers that had been lost to the morass.

I sighed, rubbing my eyes to clear the last of the sleep. Jill’s call had been a surprise, waking me from fitful sleep on the sofa. The bedroom seemed so big now. It was probably a good thing she’d called when she had, or I might have missed the bus, and then my flight, and then my other flight and-

Coffee. I needed coffee.

We only ever had instant coffee in the house, the good stuff we reserved for when we were in cafes, restaurants or on holiday. The bitter, slightly off taste was the taste of home. It was as golden as the sunlight filtering through the blinds in the bedroom, and warm as the rich red paint Tom had insisted we use on one of the lounge walls. I’d protested, but it did go well with the bookshelves. I set the kettle to boil, and wandered through into the hallway.

Between periods of crying and curling up on the sofa, I’d managed to mostly pack for the trip. Everything had gone into an old hiking rucksack I’d inherited from my grandfather, and a vast, dust-scented duffle-bag I’d bought from a charity shop in Devon. I’d augmented my clothes over the years with a number of Tom’s hoodies, and managed to bring myself to pack a couple of them alongside my wet weather gear and an array of thermal socks I’d never found a use for before.

Notably absent from the chaos were my art supplies. They were stacked up in my studio room, gathering dust as they had been since the storm. It felt strange to leave them - I’d always carried some kind of notebook or sketchpad with me since secondary school - but it wasn’t like I was suddenly going to start drawing again. It didn’t feel right; to create something in the midst of the wreckage of my life.

I checked the time on the oven: not enough left for a proper breakfast, I'd have to eat on the way. I took my coffee back into the lounge and checked my luggage for the final time. Clothes, toiletries, electronics, climbing kit, bad weather gear, snacks. Something was missing. I grabbed Tom’s old headphones from the table. They were well-loved, one half of the headband wrapped in duct-tape, the other spattered with spray-paint from when he’d left them in my workshop. I put them on, flicking through my phone to find a playlist.

A reminder buzzed across the screen; don’t forget toothbrush. My past self had prophetic knowledge of my sleep deprived state, it seemed. After finishing my coffee, I gathered the offending toothbrush and a few other forgotten items into my bags, washed up the dishes scattered around the lounge, and turned off all the sockets at the wall. It was a habit I’d picked up from my mother, a ritual to ease the anxiety of leaving the flat unattended for a few weeks.

I flicked the switch at the back of the lock on our front door so that it would lock properly when I closed it. Something tugged at the back of my mind.

I glanced back across the apartment, and checked my phone for the time again. I needed to go, but something felt wrong. What had I forgotten. I walked hesitantly back into the lounge. My untouched sketchbook laid amongst the crumpled blankets and takeaway boxes. Force of habit I assumed. I’d gotten so used to travelling with a book over the years that it had become part of the process. I stuffed it into one of the myriad outer pockets of the duffle bag, and strode out to catch my bus.

---

I was alone at the bus stop. A rarity. Since the Sea Change, public transport had expanded massively throughout the country. So much so that most people no longer owned a car, despite the prevalence of electric vehicles in the market. I played with the bus pass in my pocket, rotating it against my leg with a couple of fingers. It was still early, and the street was clearer than I’d seen in a long time. The coffee shop on the corner was still closed, though blurred shapes behind the frost glass door heralded its imminent opening. A pair of cyclists rode past, snippets of a conversation about work whipping past me with them. The autumn sun tinted red-brick facades the colour of honey. I watched the shadows of my side of the street creep down the buildings on the far side, retreating from the glow to pool behind pillars and lamp-posts.

I’d never thought of the city as serene before. It was a long, stretched moment before the quiet was broken. A car turned onto the street a few blocks along from me, rattling over a section of cobble before rejoining the recycled tarmac of the road, and whirring up to a slightly irresponsible speed. Like the first crack in a bursting dam, the car heralded the coming of greater noises. A blimp whirred quietly overhead. Music leaked from a newly opened bedroom window, and the hubbub of the morning commute began to rise over distant and scattered birdsong. The noise of everyday life had never been as comfortable for me as for others. Even now, with the assistance of a pair of Tom’s old headphones, it was a lot. Focusing on a particular sound was nigh impossible, and the bleed-through between my senses rendered the task mute. The ignored honking of a car horn would simply insert itself into the sensory morass as a keening line of silver in my mind’s eye. Chatter and footsteps transmuting into a mild, near-imperceptible hint of burning sugar. Not for the first time I questioned moving to Birmingham. Why, my mother had always asked, would I even consider living somewhere where the very background hum of life could be too much? Tom had definitely been a factor, money too, but the inconvenience was worth it for my work.

Or it had been, before Tom had… gone.

Money was tighter now, despite what he left me. The world was louder in his absence. It felt different too. The streets resonated differently. I let my eyes wander across the street again, and different features stood out to me. Puddles of water, settled into every shallow depression of the land. Shattered roof-tiles pushed into side alleys like shed hair in a drain. The premature leaflessness of the aspens that dotted the street, and the absence of several brought low by the wind. Despite the sun, this place still reeled from the storm. Maybe that was why it sounded different.

The purring of a new engine cut through my thoughts as the bus rounded the corner and rolled to a stop. It was one of the newer ones, doubledecker, comfier seats than the under-stuffed average. I flashed the middle-aged lady behind the wheel my bus pass, and staggered into a window-seat on the lower level.

The city was like a damaged ant’s nest; disturbed, wounded, but healing. Treestumps lined the pavement like broken teeth, floodwaters slowly receding from their bases back into the drains and the long-hidden waterways below. I leant against the bus window, feeling the vibrations of the road passed into my forehead in blurry azure waves. My mind wandered to the city beyond the condensation clouded glass. Birmingham had taken the steps required of it by the Sea Change, but only those on the surface. Below street level, hundreds of streams and other watercourses still roiled in concrete culverts, corralled by the city’s builders into neat systems designed to move as much water past the city as quickly as possible, without regard for those downstream who would have to cope with the higher volume. I’d created an exhibition piece about them once. A map of the tunnels rendered in 3D and stretched across the inside of a gallery room in painted wooden boards. Not my most successful showing, but one that had stuck with me. The gallery had been old, and was actually built over one of the old culverts. I hadn’t yet had the heart to go and see how it had fared. It was located in a natural dip in the land. And I knew from bitter experience the way that could amplify excessive rainfall. Pre-Change city planning wasn’t solely to blame for the flood, of course. Preoccupation with the emissions of cars and businesses operating above ground had been the focus of policy, and a succession of city councils had seemingly forgotten to do much other than maintain the existing tunnel network. Enough water and debris in them had wreaked havoc with the system. The bus thudded over a pothole in the road, causing my head to bounce painfully off the glass. I rubbed my forehead.

Thinking about this stuff was likely to be a part of the bereavement process, my therapist had said. Didn’t make it any less depressing. Knowing what I knew now set my stomach churning in the wake of… what had happened. The mayor had called on the government to fund repairs, reconstructions, and to make sure it wouldn’t happen again. But that didn’t stop my dreams filling with floodwater, or the grit of collapsing concrete. I shivered.

The bus thunked its way over another pothole, jarring me from the reverie. I checked the blinking inside monitor for the next stop. We were about halfway to my stop. Lots more time to overthink my way out of this.

Before the storm, Tom and I had been planning to make this journey together. There was a festival in Iceland for the winter solstice. He’d always wanted to go, so I bought us both tickets for Christmas.

Now… I wasn’t sure. I’d never been the most outgoing person. Hell, I’d met Tom entirely by accident. Festivals, travel, strangers, none of them were my cup of tea. But I owed it to him, I thought. He would have wanted me to go.

An older man boarded the bus at the next stop, and briefly searched for a free seat. I prayed silently that he’d find somewhere else as I watched him search. Then, he looked over, a flash of eye contact sealed my fate.

I shifted my duffle bag and he sat down heavily next to me.

“Thank you.” He breathed, clearly a little winded.

“All good.” I turned back to the window.

“Where are you heading today?” He was polite, and probably didn’t actually care. Very few people actually did in my experience.

“Short haul terminal.”

“Oh lovely. Can’t stand flying, myself. Never did it, even when you could take a plane from London to Glasgow and back in a day. Those blimps are so damn slow, you know…”

I nodded along, smiled when it was appropriate, as the journey went from one kind of unpleasant to an entirely different sort. I was rescued from my personal hell a few minutes later by his stop. We said goodbye and he staggered off, thanking the bus driver in what I was sure he assumed was a normal volume, but definitely wasn’t. With a sigh of relief, I put Tom’s headphones back on, and returned to the blessed rhythmic noise of my own little world.

---

The terminal was surprisingly quiet. I had expected the flight to Carlisle to be busier, though the fact I’d counted seventeen travel-mugs by the time I reached the gate suggested it might have something to do with the early start. Sleep had been a somewhat alien concept to me since the funeral, but I felt strangely alert. The air was cold, crisp with autumnal potential, and it was bright, even through the mist rapidly burning away as the day began.

I’d never travelled by airship before. It felt like something from an old movie; a strange fusion of the real and uncanny. The short distance balloon docked with the terminal like a taxiing plane, doors opening onto a cleanly upholstered interior that walked the line between bus and limousine. My seat was at the bus end, seats packed just a little too close for comfort. Then again, it was only for forty minutes. I stuffed my pack into the overhead locker and slumped into my window seat.

The view was not quite as breathtaking as I’d expected. We were still on the ground of course, but I’d expected more of a picturesque view. Even the Sea Change hadn’t quite managed to strip the grimness from the air in Sparkbrook. The trees lining the airstrip’s edge were still young, some had fallen recently, and no effort had yet been made to pick them up. The asymmetry was pleasant, I supposed, and absently drew my sketchbook from the carry-on bag.

I paused then, and replaced it; no need to start this one with something so mundane. I owed him that much.

The doors of the cabin jerked close with a professional clatter, and I leant back in the seat a little, feeling the rough fabric as a crackle of silver on my bare arms.

I snatched a glance at my fellow travellers; three dour looking businesspeople in suits were huddled near the back, chatting over pretentious coffee and laptops. A woman and her grandchild had spread across the row in front of me, the child alternating between pressing his face against the window and scooting across the gap to his grandmother to tell her what he could see. A man on the opposite window seat scowled a little after the third circuit and put his headphones on. There were others too, a smattering of commuters, and another traveller bound for a longer journey, trying in vain to stuff his pack into the overhead storage. His efforts stopped with a thud when the blimp’s engines kicked in and we lurched upward, causing the bag to drop into the seat next to him. He muttered something unsavoury and adjusted it to prevent another tumble to the floor.

I turned back to the window as we began to rise into the air. The ground unfurled through the morning haze, houses seemed to be conjured into existence as my perspective shifted higher and higher, soon I could see the edge of the city, far in the distance, and the ascension smoothed out into a stable Northward drift. I peered down at the streets below; veins of dark trees shading many from the meagre sun.

Birmingham had undergone the largest transformation of the Sea Change, according to the Council’s proclamations. It was true that the city had cleaned up; everywhere had. The Center was made pedestrian; the tram system now snaked along rails in the grass - extended far beyond its previous reach, supplemented by bus routes and cycle-paths, and several parking structures had been torn down in favour of communal gardens. Solar panels glittered on most roofs, even in the Inner City. I remembered a project I’d completed - half a decade ago now - on Temple Row. A vine, curling the length of the street, dipping in and out of the fountains that lined the middle of the street. It was also where I’d taken Tom on our second date. A little cafe on the corner; all warm sepia and the smell of lavender.

The memory turned to concrete dust in my head, and I realised I was rubbing the little scar on my neck. I looked to the horizon instead, leaving the threat of tears in the town centre, and trying to ignore that phantasmal hint of scent. The sky was scattered with patchy clouds, and the blue glittered with coruscating silver particles that made my head swim just a little. Visual Snow aside, it was shaping up to be a beautiful day, and I could just make out Chasewater to the north, rapidly resolving as we headed up towards Carlisle.

“First time?”

I turned with a start; a short woman with an overstuffed backpack lounged across the pair of seats behind me. Her dark, curly hair spilled across the seat back, kept out of her eyes by a weather-worn red bandana. I wanted to draw that hair. The messy curls flowed like whitewater.

“Yeah.” I searched for something more to say, “First time.” Great job.

“Nice! Make sure you look out the windows as we go north, where are you heading to?”

I found myself already tired of people being polite. She was pretty though,

“Carlisle, then on to Glasgow and Fort William.”

She smirked, “Scotland eh? Headed to Edinburgh myself; got a long train ride back home. I’m Elyse, by the way.”

I shook the hand she held out, “Amelia. Nice to meet you.”

“Are you heading up to meet anyone?” She smiled, glancing out of the window.

“No.” I sighed, “just heading there on my own.”

She didn’t seem to fully notice my hesitancy, “That’s a pretty major trek to do on your own.”

For some reason I decided to respond, “Yeah, I was supposed to be doing it with…” Stop talking, Amelia, “my boyfriend. But he… the storm…”

Elyse looked mortified, “I’m so sorry. Really, I am.” Great job, Amelia. Perfect.

My sight was suddenly blurry, tears welling unprompted and with embarrassing ease, “He was working. He just went outside during his break and…” my voice caught, “never came back.”

She went very quiet then.

“Sorry,” I wiped my eyes, feeling suddenly embarrassed, “You didn’t ask about- Sorry.”

I went to turn back to the window, but felt a gentle hand on my shoulder. Elyse leant forward in the seat, a sympathetic smile ghosting on her sharp features.

“It’s ok, Amelia. I get it. Lost my dad a few years back. It takes a while to get back to normal. Storm was what, three weeks ago? Hell, I’d still be in a cocoon on the sofa. You’re doing something damn brave.”

A response made its way into my throat and died there, coming out as a quiet, choked sob. Elyse squeezed my shoulder.

“Want me to change the subject?”

I nodded.

“Ok. Uh. What do you do for work? God, I sound like my mum.”

“I’m an artist.”

She raised an eyebrow, “Artist, eh? Nice. What sort of stuff?”

“A little bit of everything really. Sculpture installations, murals. Most of the time I just draw in my sketchbook, mixed media.”

“Oh cool. So like… paint and ink and stuff?” There was a glimmer in her eyes that I couldn’t quite divine the source of.

“Mostly more portable stuff. Watercolour, Pencil, Crayons.”

“Crayons?”

“Yeah.” She smirked at me, I frowned, “What?”

“Nothing, sorry.” She laughed, “Just always associated Crayons with like. Kid stuff.”

“They’re a completely normal medium-” I felt colour rising in my cheeks, not exactly embarrassment, but something else.

“You’re messing with me.”

She smirked, “Yes I am, Crayons. Yes I am.”

She laughed again, but I knew she wasn’t laughing at me. I wiped my eyes again, and laughed a little myself. Maybe this flight wouldn’t be so bad after all.

---

He hears her come into the room, and pad softly across non-existent floorboards to the window. She puts a hand on his shoulder and whispers, voice raw with loss, “I miss you, Tom.”

He raises a hand to hers, holding it against him, wishing with all the presence he can muster to be what she wants him to, to be real. It was never going to be enough. “I know you do. I miss you too.”

“I want to go back to Temple Row.”

He would have smiled. She loved the corner shop there. “Then do it.”

“I can’t. It wouldn’t be right without you…” She grips his shoulder tighter, and he feels the chill of the illusion breaking, “besides. We said we’d go to Iceland. I need to.”

“I know.” He sighs.

She lets go of his shoulder, “I’m dreaming, aren’t I.”

He reaches out to hold her hand gently, “Do you really want to know?”

“No.” She leans against him again as his fleeting universe fades once more.

“No, I don’t.”

Borne on Storm-Swell / The Light After

“Crayons!” Amelia yelled up the staircase, “Time to go! That squall is moving our way now.”

I looked up from the sketchbook, out towards the horizon. The evening light had painted it a beautiful inverse rainbow, fiery reds at the terminus, rising through the spectrum to an almost purple-blue above us. A stain was spreading across that rainbow, far out into the ocean, dark clouds billowing across the blended colours.

“I’ll be down in a sec! Just finishing up.” I called back.

“Amelia. We’ve gotta go now, it’s not safe to be here in high winds.” There was an unusual edge of seriousness in her tone.

I shut the notebook with a thud, and, casting a final glance across the ocean beyond the Rig, sprinted down the rickety iron staircase to Elyse.

“Grab the bags from the helipad, I’ll get my stuff from the offices.” Without waiting for a response, Elyse turned and jogged off across the platform. I shrugged, and made my way over the helipad where I’d spent the night.

My bags were arrayed around the condensation-dampened blanket I’d slept on, and I tried in vain to shake the worst of the water off for a few moments, before conceding and stuffing it into the weatherproof bag. I quickly packed the remainder of my scattered belongings, sluicing out my coffee cup with a splash of water from my bottle. I grabbed the bag, tucking the sketchbook into my backpack and the pencils into a pocket. One fell out, and rolled across the surface of the helipad before disappearing under the railing silently. I heard it ping off a metal spar somewhere further down.

I hurried back down from the helipad, past the graffiti, past Elyse’s secret garden, trainers slapping on the metal grated floors, the clouds had spread out across the horizon as I’d packed, arrayed above it like a massing army. They were still some distance away, but definitely getting closer.

The sky was so mesmerising that I almost ran into Elyse. She had emerged from the dilapidated office building with her kit-bags slung over both shoulders, and I nearly slipped on a patch of damp moss trying to avoid her.

“Woah there, Crayons.” She held out a hand to steady me, “We’ve got a boat, no need to dive in and swim back.”

I rolled my eyes and smiled, “Sorry, in my own world.”

“All good, just be careful. Gotta get you back to Storrness in one piece.”

I nodded, and followed her down to the loading dock. There was more swell today than when we had arrived, the water seeming to breathe even more than it had the night before. Elyse tossed her bags into the boat, and hopped in after them.

“Load her up and start untying us, I’m gonna get the engine going and stow my stuff.”

Without waiting for a response, she ducked into the cabin to stuff her bags into the storage locker. I struggled with the mooring ropes. The one Elyse had tied had stayed tighter than mine, and it took me a couple of minutes to gain enough traction on the loop to free it.

A drop of rain specked against my cheek.

The ocean came alive then, seemingly all at once. Coiling around us, a snake puppeteered by the rising wind. Nausea tugged at me. The sky had bruised to blackness in the distance behind us. The chop slapped at the sides of the hull. I heard Elyse swearing from the rear of the boat, and lowered the last of our weatherproof bags into the boat.

“Are we ok?” The breeze tugged at my words.

“Rosey!” She yelled in response, and pulled on the ripcord again.

“Oh well that’s alright then! I thought we were in trouble for a moment there.”

“You picked a great time to learn sarcasm, Crayons.” She grunted, drawing the cord back again.

The engine sputtered and growled into life.

“Oh thank fuck.” Elyse held out a hand to help me into the boat. I took it hesitantly, and stepped down. My foot lost grip on the algae-slick grating immediately, and I stumbled forward as I landed, awkwardly falling against Elyse.

She laughed, “maybe throw yourself at me when we’re not on a time limit, eh?”

I felt my cheeks burn red, and quickly sat down, facing out to the water. Elyse exhaled, as if preparing to give a speech.

“Seriously though. When we get back to shore… if you wanted to, I mean…”

For the first time since meeting her, I saw Elyse was lost for words. I turned to face her, silhouetted against the darkening sky, curls tossed by the wind. My response died in my throat, and I fumbled for a new one.

“Sure. Yeah. Uhm… Yeah. I would. We should.”

“Great,” She cleared her throat, swagger seeping back into her posture. Her eyes glimmered in the dim sun, “Let’s head home then.”

She gunned the engine, and the boat swept forward from the platform. The sky behind us was fully black now, an inkpot upturned across the world. The wind was noticeably colder, and rising in tempo, like a drum-beat building beneath the sound of the water.

We swept across the sea, Elyse expertly steering us around the larger swells. The water flew past, smaller waves sliced in two by the hull. Errant drops whipped by, an inverse rainfall flying up from the ocean and into the bruised sky. Despite the danger, despite the storm looming in the background, and the adrenaline seeping into my blood, I felt elated. Something in me caught fire in the wind, and blazed to life. Something I hadn’t felt in a long, long time.

I stood unsteadily, one hand tightly gripping a handle rising from the plastic of the inner hull. As I rose above the level of the front wind-break, the full force of the wind hit me, whipping my hair out behind me. I raised my free hand into the air, touching the strands of the gale as it flew by. I closed my eyes, reaching out, almost touching the swirling patterns of air that curled above us.

“You’re a better door than a window, Amelia!” Elyse yelled over the wind.

I sat down, suddenly aware of an ache in my hand. My knuckles were white from gripping the handle. I let it go and flexed my fingers a little, massaging blood back into them.

“Sorry! Just needed to… I don’t know why I did that!” I laughed as I spoke, catharsis almost turning manic. A floodgate was opening in my chest. There, in that little boat, racing back to the golden glow of the village on the shore.

It was in view now, sat silently on the coastline like a poet, perching over the churning ocean. In the fading light, with the stone-grey sky arrayed behind it, the golden lights twinkling from Storrness’ windows formed the only constellation we needed to follow.

I could almost feel the pressure differential the storm was bearing in on, air flowing around us in a reflection of the ocean below. Elyse gunned the engine again, and we swept towards the shore faster. The stacks that guarded the sea entrance to Storrness loomed out of a thin mist clinging to the shore, and we passed between them, the darkness of the rock standing stark against the concrete sky. The first droplets of rain were dancing on the water now, plunging into the ocean and bouncing back out in a sonata of physics and art.

“Amelia! I need you to help me tie her off when we reach the jetty!” Elyse shouted, eyes fixed on the dockside as it resolved from the fog.

“Got it!” I yelled back, and reached for the rope coiled under the bench. It was damp with the rain, and rough from years of use, feeling like sandpaper against my skin. The texture reminded me of Tom’s mother, and her dusty voice.

Elyse killed the engine as we approached the dock, using her last flick of the outboard to angle us so that the churn of the water brought us alongside the low wooden jetty. I stumbled over the side onto the boards, and hauled on the rope to bring the drifting prow back into true with the parking bay.

I tried to remember how to tie a cleat hitch, and fumbled the rope over the mooring stud. Elyse was off the boat a few seconds later, deftly tieing off her own rope.

“That bit goes under!” She pointed at one of the strands I was struggling with, and the instructions she’d given a few days prior blossomed in my head once more. I undid the erroneous portion of the knot and tied it off.

“Not bad.” Elyse patted me on the back, and jumped back into the boat.

The rain swept in behind us, fat drops like liquid pebbles slamming into the already damp earth. With the boat secured, Elyse threw a tarp over the kit-bags and bundled them into the cabin. I tried to shelter under the awning of a nearby bait shop, but the wind whipped the rain under its rippling pinstripes.

“Which way is your house?” I say, holding my hair away from my face.

Elyse ran over, keys dangling from one of the carabiners on her belt. She grabbed my hand and leant in close.

“Follow me!”

Then she was running, and I was trying to keep up. Her hand gripping mine, the rain pouring in sheets around us. For a moment, everything seemed to fall silent, as she looked back, a grin gently pulling her beautiful features into those of an angel. I felt myself smiling back as the cobbled streets flew by below. The water found its way through our clothes quickly, but we just ran faster. The idea that I could outpace the rain flashed across my mind as we rounded a corner, Elyse unhooking a little wooden gate and pulling me up a gentle grassy path.

Her house was old, a classic white-washed building shrouded in honeysuckle. The rain ran in rivulets across the slate-tiled roof, bouncing and spattering over old cast-iron gutters into the neat little garden below.

Elyse struggled to find her keys, cursing quietly under her breath again, then even quieter when she realised I was standing behind her.

“It might be easier to search your pockets with two hands?” I smirked.

“But then I’d have to let go of yours.” The lack of sarcasm caught me off guard, I’d expected something snarky, gentle mockery. I closed my mouth, trying to process some coherent form of response.

“That’s adorable, Crayons.” She said, finally fishing the keys out of a back pocket and unlocking the door. She stepped inside, flipped on the hall lights, and I followed her through.

The interior of Elyse’s house was not quite what I’d been expecting. She seemed the sort of person who would hoard punk albums, paint walls like a street artist, and live in a much messier way than me. I couldn’t have been more wrong.

I certainly didn’t expect the plants. They tumbled from window-boxes, climbed trellises in large pots, crowded the kitchen window-sills and flowed from top shelves in delicate green tendrils. I’d been expecting a lair, Elyse had brought me to an interior garden. Her house was small, but cosy. The entrance hall was a nook leading into a spacious lounge, beyond which I could see a small kitchen through a doorway framed in potted ivy.

“Are you still up for this?” I ask.

Elyse turns back to me, “Of course I am. I just ran across the entire damn village like a mad woman with you.”

“Ok. Good.”

“I like you, Crayons. A lot.”

My mouth seemed to stop working, “I like you too.” Wonderful, very romantic.

She took my other hand then, and pulled me close. Warmth crept across my cheeks.

“Let’s get out of these wet clothes then, shall we?”

---

He is standing at the edge of the sea. A flat plain of concrete crumbling into slabs the size of houses, broken apart by the dark ocean churning against them.

She isn't watching the water this time. She lies on her back in the centre of the sole patch of grass in this place, staring up at the sky above. A gull cries from nowhere, and the call ripples across the inked heavens as silver sparks.

He loves these dreams, where the world is how she sees it, where smooth greys are painted by the texture of light and sound. She focuses on the ocean, and each wave paints itself on the broken land in reds and oranges.

“Is this what it's like for you?”

She doesn't turn; she knows who's speaking.

“When it's quiet.” She smiles.

“I wonder what I look like in this one.”

Lavender sprouts from the grass around her when he speaks, the scent suddenly accentuating the freshness of the ocean. The air tastes white and purple; the texture of salt crystals. He feels himself becoming more solid, grounded to this place.

“Why do you keep coming back here, Amelia?”

The world freezes momentarily, before the clouds stutter back into motion.

“I don’t want to lose you.”

“I’m gone, Amelia. You know that. I wouldn’t know it if you didn’t.” There is anger in his voice, but it’s not his own. They’re both realising the truth of this place. The sea flows backwards in the distance.

“I miss you then.” Frost rimes the coastline

“I know you’re lying. Do you?”

“I’m not-”

“You are. Look around.”

“I’m afraid, Tom.” The admission paints the sky a rippling turquoise. He sits down next to her, and squeezes her hand.

“Of what?” She sits up next to him, and he sees the cold stone around them turn warm with sudden sunlight.

“I’m scared I’m not… I don’t want you to be gone. But with Elyse…” She pauses, choosing her words carefully. Realisation unfurls like the petals of a flower.

“I feel stuck. Elyse and I have… whatever we have. I don’t want that to replace you but… I feel like it might.”

“That sounds like you’re moving on.”

She sniffs, “I don’t like it. I don’t deserve to.”

He hugs her tightly, “That’s just cruel. What makes you think you need to deserve it? Who judges that?”

“You? I don’t know. It just feels strange.”

“And that’s ok. It’s meant to. Hell, Amelia, I’m gone. You know that. I’m never going to be able to give you permission to be happy. That’s not my call. Even if I was alive that wouldn’t be my call. I want you to be happy. How many times have I told you that?”

A sob shakes her body, fracturing the calm of the sky. Concrete dust drifts down from the cracks.

“...A lot” her voice is small.

“So don’t you dare feel guilty about being happy without me.”

The dust rains down more heavily, chunks of concrete crash against the bare rock.

“But what if I mess it up?” She raises her voice to be heard over the rising downpour.

“Then that’s life, my love. You know I’d love you either way. Elyse will understand too. But you can’t keep using me to get in your own way.”

She tries to ask something else, but the decaying concrete sky is too loud. He smiles at her, and kisses her on the forehead. The eastern horizon slumps into the ocean. There is a finality in this. He takes one last look around the landscape she made. The way she sees things is so beautiful. As the dream collapses in on itself, he finally, slowly becomes aware of himself. The form he has taken, the way she remembers him. He’s a golden constellation, everchanging, yet always recognisable. A kaleidoscope of light and sound made flesh. The singing of the stars they had gazed at together on their first date.

The sky rushes down to meet Him.

---

It was the kind of waking that felt fluid. I had begun the gentle process of slipping back into the real world from that of my dreams. Elyse’s cottage was filled with light, even at this early hour. I let it play across my eyelids in coruscating patches. Sunlight split by tree branches. Now a river, reflecting rays. Now a sunset over the ocean. I didn’t rush to open my eyes.

Elyse was still asleep; I could feel the gentle rise and fall of her chest in the tension of the blanket. She had fallen asleep with her arm draped over my waist, her rough fingers a centimetre or so away from brushing my hip. I felt my own breath quicken a little, warmth rising in my cheeks, entirely separate from the sun.

As if sensing I’d woken, Elyse shifted closer, burying her head in the crook of my neck. Dark hair spilled across the patterns of light, and her anise scent lingered on the edge of my perception. I turned to rest my chin on her head, and gently opened my eyes.

In the dark of the night before, I hadn’t really been able to see much of Elyse’s room. The evening had been a blur of sleepiness and discarded clothes. In the daylight, the white walls were rimed in gold. Even though I knew this wasn’t her permanent home, expeditions and research trips being what they were, I could have been fooled by the way she had spread her things to fill the space.

I noticed with a smile that she was the sort of person who feels the need to fill drawers in holiday homes. The room had a chest of drawers, and a wardrobe, both glimmering with the rays falling from the skylight. The former was old hardwood, the open second drawer overflowing with socks. The latter stood open, revealing an assortment of clothes much more colourful than the work outfit I was used to seeing Elyse wear. Her desk was similarly full, scattered papers surrounding a battered laptop like a nest around a grey and silver egg.

In contrast to every other surface in the room, her floor was uncluttered. I would have called the smooth blue carpet plain if it wasn’t mottled with our rain-soaked clothes. They led in a trail from the half-open door to the bed itself. I shifted my leg a little and watched Elyse’ bra slide from the blanket to the floor.

I glanced over to the desk again, and noticed they weren’t the only things there. A relatively neat pile of high grade watercolour paper poked invitingly from a gap between the desk and the wall behind. I could see the edges of leaves poking out from some of them; a great stack of pressed plants.

So you are an artist then. I smiled, and kissed the top of Elyse’s sleeping head. She shifted slightly, moving closer to hug my side. I breathed out slowly. There was peace in this; the absence of a long-lasting pain, like when you had a splinter removed. It was more than that though. I realised I felt safe here, something I’d been sorely missing. I let my eyes drift closed once more.

The door, previously a little ajar, swung open and bounced loudly from its stopper.

Elyse started awake, sitting bolt upright with enough force to knock her head against the headboard. The sudden movement caught me off guard, and I nearly tipped out of the side of the bed.

“What! What?” Elyse said, shaking the sleep from her head.

A small, storm-grey cat hopped up onto the end of the bed and let out a grumbly chirp.

“Goddammit, Cara!” Elyse rubbed her head and hugged me around the chest again, making a sulky face at the cat.

“Your cat’s name is Cara?”

“Don’t look at me like that, hun. It's short for Caravaggio.”

“Of course it is.” I kissed the top of her head.

Cara tried to lay herself in the gap between the two of us, and succeeded mostly in making Elyse giggle. We stayed there for a while, basking in the late-autumn sun. Elyse got up to make breakfast, and I watched her from the bed with the duvet around me like a soft shell. Cara stretched herself awkwardly across one of my knees, the tips of her ears the only part not squished into the little circle of sun that fell from the skylight. I stroked her head, and she purred bassily into the duvet.

Elyse was humming as she cooked, something sizzled on the stove in the background. The melodies intertwined in my head; the rich brown crackle of the oil, the purple and gold of her voice.

“Do you like eggs?” She looked back.

I nodded, smiling as I met her gaze.

“Cara likes you.”

The cat’s eyes were barely open, though I couldn’t tell if it was from the warmth of the sun or being petted.

I thought back to the hotel in Glasgow. The cold morning. Grief crystalised on snowy window sills. The sensory chaos of a city that never slept. I kept expecting the tension to come back; that nagging, incessant feeling of wrongness that had been there for so long. But it was gone.

The wound was clean now, and finally healing.