Chapter 11
When I woke the next morning, Auris wasn’t in bed with me.
I stretched and rolled onto my back. I was…
happy. Through the entire pandemic with a new scare on the news almost hourly, I hadn’t been, not like this.
And yet, after the horror in the abandoned church, after seeing Auris like that, here I was, a wide smile on my face.
After a minute or so, I got up and found clean clothes. I headed down the hallway and found Auris sitting at the counter and typing away on his laptop, much like he had been the day before.
His silver eyes met mine. “Good morning.”
“Good morning.” I headed straight for the coffee maker and the fresh pot that was already waiting for me. I felt energized, and I wanted to move, do things. I turned to Auris, sipping my coffee. “Will you take me back to the house in the woods?”
He gave me a curious look. “Right now?”
I nodded. “I’d like to take a few photos of it in daylight. Unless you mind?”
“Not one bit, so long as you tell people you came across it somewhere in the wilderness and can’t quite remember where. I don’t want anyone finding it. I want it to be something only between us.”
I slurped, rolling my eyes. “If anyone even cares to ask, I’ll tell them I forgot where I found it. I don’t think I’d be able to get there without you anyway.”
We took my car again. The drive was a little over an hour, and I spent some twenty minutes writing emails on my phone while Auris drove.
As we got closer, I saw that the last bit of proper road we took seemed weathered and disused. We hadn’t passed another car in a while, nor a town or even a house. I looked out the passenger window at where the wilderness loomed and stared right back at me.
When Auris pulled off the road and onto what was at best an overgrown hiking path, I turned to him. “We were really here the other night?”
He looked over at me. “Yes. Why?”
I shrugged. “It just looks so abandoned, like no one has been here in ages.”
“That’s the idea. These woods are a lonely place that no one visits much anymore. Even the hiking routes are farther inland.”
I could feel the unevenness of the path as he slowed the car, eventually bringing it to a stop when the path vanished entirely ahead of us.
“Is that like that by design? Or just coincidence?”
He reached over to touch my cheek. “Design. Come on, get your things.” He was out of the car before I could ask him any more questions.
I unplugged my phone from the car charger and looked at the screen. The signal was cutting in and out already, and it was probably worse deeper into the woods. I still put the phone in my camera bag.
Auris opened my door for me, and I handed him my camera case while I reached back and shoved the spare battery and a bottle of water into my bag.
I slung everything over my shoulder before grabbing my tripod from the trunk.
I double-checked everything while Auris stood by.
I was good to go, but on a whim, I grabbed for the camera flash and stuffed it and the flashlight into my bag.
When I turned around, Auris stood there, smiling. “You get absorbed. Let me carry some of that for you.” He reached for the tripod and the camera case as well.
“Thanks. It’s nice having an assistant.”
“Don’t mention it. Ready to go?” He held out his hand for me to take.
“Yes.” I twined my fingers with his and allowed him to pull me along into the wall of green.
I soon had to take my hand back. Navigating the forest demanded two arms to push branches out of my way and climb over fallen and rotting tree trunks.
The other night, most of this had been left to the darkness, and I had relied on Auris to lead me, but today, despite some cloud cover, I could see all the wilderness around us.
The silence and ease with which Auris managed to move out here struck me as wondrously strange. At one point, I stopped and pulled out my camera to take it all in, even though nature photography wasn’t my usual fare.
The pale, almost glass-like mushrooms that grew evenly on the leaf-dark soil near a large tree caught my attention, and I snapped a picture as the cloud cover shifted and sunlight seeped down and ran in glistening brightness over the near colorless caps.
I turned my lens skyward before the sun had a chance to fade again so I could catch the faint rays striating branches that were shedding their summer dress slowly but surely for the arrival of the cold season.
There were even some metallic copper and pewter tones there already, heralding the end of the season.
The next picture I took was of Auris, half-turned, with the tripod case slung over his shoulder, eyes gleaming silver. His hair was smooth and perfect, the kind of hair some of the fashion stylists I had met on odd jobs would kill to work with.
I put the camera back in its case after that, and we resumed our journey deeper into the woods. It felt like we reached the house faster this time, but it was probably the absence of darkness that made it seem that way.
The place was different in the daylight, but no less enchanting.
I caught it from a little distance away, with two sapling trees poking into the foreground of my photograph and the light coming in to halo the building from behind.
It made the moss and vines that were set on reclaiming the manmade structure look softer, like a painter had put them there with just the tiniest stroke of their brush.
Auris stayed out of frame, but I could feel his eyes on me as I approached the house, taking pictures of a different part of it with each step.
The other night, I’d walked around the house to the front door, counterclockwise.
Today, I chose to go the other way. I caught the cracked windows moisture had crept inside through and soaked into the walls I could only just make out.
I caught the lichen-encrusted stones of the foundation, the weeds that had found purchase in the gaps between them.
I caught the roof, just slightly slanting against the once more cloud-veiled sky.
I circled the building once, then came to a stop at the entrance. I let the camera hang from its strap around my neck and looked at Auris, who still stood among the sapling trees.
“Hand me the tripod?”
He walked over, and I took the case from him and started to set up the camera. I positioned it to capture part of the house, with the front steps and the half-rotten front door to the right.
With the light being part cold winter light and part fading sunshine, I wanted to try a long exposure. If the wind stirred the leaves and branches, it would give me an even scarier, more haunted look.
A small, round window up on the second story or the attic was another point that drew the eye, because while the window was broken, glass still clung to parts of the frame, and that high up, it reflected the light like too-sharp raindrops.
I had completely missed that window in the dark and was now sad about that, wondering what effects the flash reflecting off the glass would have given me.
Auris seemed content to watch me work, though I quickly forgot he was even there. There were a few more angles I wanted to capture in long exposure, so I dragged the tripod around with me until I had them all.
When I was satisfied with the outside of the house, I ventured inside. I saw the disturbed dust on the cabinet I’d placed my camera on that first night, Auris had wrapped me in the warmth of his lust and pushed me up against the wall.
I squatted to take a photo of those lines in the dust, the angle giving them contrast. This photo wouldn’t be part of a collection, but I’d keep it as a private memory that only Auris and I were able to read and put meaning to.
I explored the rest of the house with the lens between me and reality, my trigger finger clicking away on autopilot.
Floorboards creaked beneath my feet, but a candle holder in a patina of mottled green distracted me from the uncanny noises.
The staircase was stone, smoothed with age and dirty with abandonment.
I loved the way the angles of it cut patterns into the fading daylight, so I took a few dozen pictures of it.
When I was done with that, I turned, only to find Auris standing under a lintel, still as a ghost. My lens was drawn to him, and I took a picture.
The light was turning, and if I wanted to make the most of this delicate interplay of shadows, I had to hurry to get what I could.
Everything after that would have to be done with the flash.
I worked without thinking, and it was the darkness that eventually stopped me.
Auris handed me the flash before I could ask for it, and I went outside, back to where I could see that round window looming.
I let the light reflect back in aged brightness, and it was perfect. Spooky, but also beautiful.
My fingers stilled then, and I exhaled as if I had been running or fighting or fucking. Photography worked that way for me sometimes; an intense wave that just stopped when something inside of me told me it was time to stop.
“Satisfied?” Auris said from the front door’s threshold.
I rubbed my neck. “For now.” A joyful exhaustion settled over me, the same feeling runners get after really pushing themselves.
“I suggest we return. You’ve had only coffee all day, and coffee is not food. I’ll get your tripod.” He vanished back inside.
As I packed my camera away, I became aware of how cold it was as night claimed the forest. Winter really did rush along the coast and inland on quick feet.
I saw Auris come back out of the house.
“I think I might have to make you bring me back here again.”
Auris, with the tripod case back over his shoulder, walked down the front steps with a low chuckle. “Ethan, do you truly enjoy me acting as your assistant and sometime model this much?”
I zipped my camera case shut. “Maybe. Though I think you’re trying to be my muse rather than my model.”
“I don’t mind that, my sweet.” He pulled me to him for a quick kiss. “Now let’s go back to the car while there is still a modicum of light for you to see by.”