Chapter 24
THE CALM
Aster would not have fallen if he saw my move in advance. He was stronger than I was, and faster. When I pushed him, my actions surprised him so much that he didn’t even scream. He simply fell over the edge in silence and crashed on the rain-soaked scrub below.
At first I couldn’t believe what I’d done. I stared unblinking at the naked space where Aster had stood only a second before. My heart thudded in my chest, and I glanced out at the foam-crested waves of the ocean as if I expected him to hop back up. I remained alone.
When Aster didn’t reappear, I quickly reviewed my action. I didn’t throw him out of anger. I didn’t want to throw him off. To kill him. I simply felt tired. Done. And after he tossed my laptop from the catwalk, the action had felt more natural than anything else.
My fingers curled over the fence. I looked out—first across, then down—to see what I had done. In all likelihood, I expected to see nothing at all except for the sad rectangle of my laptop lying half-buried in a puddle. Ruined now beyond any question.
When I saw Aster lying on the ground, motionless, I turned around, left the catwalk and sank into a fetal position on the cold metal floor of the lighthouse tower. I hugged my arms around my legs, facing inward and looking at the socket where the light had once shown out of this place.
I waited for the rain to end and for the feeling associated with it to blow away. The wind had picked up enough that fat drops still landed on me from time to time even from my sheltered vantage.
After a time, the storm ended. I didn’t know if minutes or hours had passed after I’d pushed Aster over the edge. I considered staying in the tower longer, feigning sleep in a desire to wake up either in bed or in front of my work, any chance to undo everything that had just happened.
That was the worst problem with Aster’s abilities. He could cast the strongest illusions, but I never knew when he was being honest. I had no way of knowing where we even stood with each other.
Eventually I relaxed. I rolled my shoulders and stood up. Now the sky was blue, and the clouds had faded to a distant fog over the calming ocean. I didn’t look down this time.
I turned around and walked down the stairs, pressing my hand to the wall for support.
When I reached the bottom I stepped out into the light and stood in the sun for one moment.
If the weather had started like this, this day would have played out so differently.
I could still feel some of my old temptation to go out and spend the day on the beach.
But my concerns surpassed my need for an escape at the moment.
The ground was wet, the concrete dark and puddles over the patches of nearby grass and dirt. I peeled off my sweater and put it on the railing next to the front door of the house. Then I walked to the back.
With every step I braced myself for an unfortunate discovery.
I’d have to call an emergency number about the body.
I’d tell them it happened by accident, that I didn’t know this man or what he was doing.
Then of course they’d take him, they’d check his teeth or fingerprints to see if they could identify him.
And they wouldn’t find one record.
I froze when I saw Aster’s shirt, white and thin over the grass where I had seen it from above. One sleeve came into view before the rest, and at first I missed the irony of the fact that no arm stuck out from it.
His clothes were there, but the man was gone—disappeared, raptured. And then as I reached for what I could of his woven remains, they too disappeared. The shirt, pants, and even the shoes turned to air before I could take them, and my fingertips touched only the open grass.
I stood tall and hurried around a few shrubs to where my broken laptop had landed.
That unfortunate device still lay where I’d last seen it.
When I picked it up I assumed that there would be no way to restore anything I’d kept on it.
For some reason, that didn’t worry me. I took it, holding it under my arm the way I had earlier, and went back inside the house.
The windows I’d opened in the morning had been left open during the storm. In front of them were tiny puddles where the rain had fallen through onto the sills, still in need of drying. The wind had also blown the curtains out of place.
What caught my attention the most was the cross, the remains from the shipwreck. It had been nailed to the part of the wall next to the stairs, a space far from the nearest windows, but something had shaken it from its place.
I picked the cross up from the ground and wiped some of the dust from the old wooden boards. Then I slipped it back onto the nail where it hung and watched it for a couple seconds in silence.
After returning the cross to its usual place, I walked into the kitchen.
I selected an apple from the bag and sat down at the dining room table as I ate, never minding that it was my third or fourth for the day.
Everything felt quiet and still, but it was all real.
For the first time in weeks I felt like a functioning human again.
When I finished eating, I went upstairs.
I knew I’d never sufficiently clean the mess I’d made for myself, but staying busy helped keep my head clear.
I brought the broom with me, and for the next half hour I focused on cleaning up what I could of the mirror and throwing the broken doll into the trash.
I had no trouble seeing my reflection now.
Everything Aster had done to me and everything I’d done to him had vanished into thin air right along with the man himself.
It was as if I’d been here alone the whole time.
Like I drank too much of the water or waded too deep into ocean and some of the salt air had nested itself too far in my brain.
I had broken the mirror. I had destroyed my laptop.
Over my stay, I’d written more than I even knew, but I had no proof of my work because the manuscript was destroyed. When I left Illumination Point in two or three weeks, I would have nothing of value to show.
Earlier the thought of such empty-handedness would have destroyed me, but now it was a basic fact.
For twenty minutes, I swept away every glass shard I could find and mopped up the bloodstains that still scarred the tiles. If nothing else, I could claim that I had better pain resistance than I knew.
After I cleaned what I could of the bathroom, I returned to the bedroom.
The blankets were still in place as Aster had left them.
The dented pillow and ruffled quilt and sheets reminded me only of how recently things had changed, how just this morning everything was still operational between me and Aster.
For two or three seconds, I studied the bed in silence.
Then I stepped forward and started to work.
I smoothed the pillows and tucked the sheets under the mattress before making the bed.
My residency might have gotten off track, but there was still time to begin again.
Even if I didn’t create a literary masterpiece in my remaining time, at least I could get myself back on track and start making plans for the future.
The house was quiet without Aster. It wasn’t just the ethereal tone of his voice that muted the sounds. It was the lack of movement, the fact that I was the only person still here. The only living thing in this house.
It was only as evening drew near that my thoughts turned to writing again. The first thing I did was open my abused laptop and press the power button. I assumed I could salvage nothing. The screen refused to brighten, and the buttons remained unresponsive to my efforts.
No surprise there.
I didn’t know what I would have done if I had turned it on successfully and restored the draft.
I still didn’t know what the book really amounted to.
It was Aster’s idea, and even the parts I wrote I couldn’t remember properly.
The original ideas—the starting pages—a few moments scattered throughout the book—those were all I could discuss in a hypothetical author interview.
Aster had kept the rest to himself, either directly or indirectly.
Either way, I saw the ending of the book now more clearly than I had before.
I had often considered the imagery of the storm before and the metaphors that came with it, but I had never thought of the resolution as being anything more than simple destruction.
A shipwreck. A sad skeleton on the bottom of the Atlantic floor.
Now, just as they had outside, the clouds in my book parted and I could see the blue sky that waited for them at the end.
But the book itself? Ruined. Gone.
Or at least Aster’s portion.
The house had come with a basic printer and some clean white printing paper, both stowed in a closet to be kept handy for if I or other residents needed it during the stay. I snatched a few sheets of paper and then scrounged around the kitchen for a pen featuring the logo of a local bank.
Then I sat down and began to write. I wrote at the kitchen table, not at the desk.
I didn’t worry about the tidiness of my handwriting or the speed that the story came out.
The only thing that really mattered was that it was mine—all mine, exactly mine, mine the way I had always pictured it. With or without Aster.
At one point, I got up and turned on the overhead light. It was night now. I’d been at the table for over two hours and covered four sheets front and back in a tiny half-cursive scrawl with small page numbers hatched into the corners.
I stretched my arms and fingers. I held my breath for a second and imagined what Aster would have thought if he could read it.
Picking the papers up from the table I skimmed them and re-read everything I’d just scribbled down. Aster didn’t like me to re-read my writing because it slowed my progress, but even as I read, I felt the itch that only writers know to show it to as many people as I could.
I knew what I needed to do to make it complete.
I folded the papers and packed them away into my purse. Then I slipped on a soft blue denim pair of flats and hurried off to my car for an evening in the Red Sails Cafe.
I’d picked a busy night on the schedule.
When I entered the cafe, I found a live jazz trio playing instrumentals in the corner and more people here than I’d seen before.
Come to think of it, the only other time I came here, Aster and I had been the only patrons around.
Or perhaps I hadn’t noticed everyone else because of the haze that surrounded us everywhere we went together.
I did find one table to sit at. It was small, round, and seemed to exist more for decor than practicality since it added up to only the approximate circumference of a slightly larger than average plate.
I ordered a hot chocolate and a chocolate-filled croissant, and then I sat down and pulled out my paper.
The red and blue lighting breathed new life into the writing. At first I only looked at the pages I’d already written and admired how serious they looked, how diligent. It would take a long time for me to get back everything that Aster destroyed…
Aster. Even now, even after I restored what order I could to the lighthouse, I hated his absence. I missed him and his drama and still wanted him to come back, and something in me couldn’t let go my guilt over throwing him over the ledge and making him disappear.
I would not write any more for the rest of the night.