3. Erebus
EREBUS
The world begins and ends, over and over, in Blackthorn Bay.
The difference now is that I have something akin to anticipation when I step into the little coffee shop nestled between a taxidermy storefront and a vape parlor called Hemlock Mist, two doors down from the dance studio where a minotaur teaches late-night salsa classes.
Even when the winter fog crusts the sidewalks with salt and the electric glow above the window is half-eclipsed by a moth the size of a crabapple, I arrive early, position myself where I can see the counter, and watch for Calliope.
I am not supposed to have favorites. That is the first rule.
The second is that I am not to interfere in the progression of things, a stricture older even than I am, a bone-deep law that has shaped eons. Night comes, Night holds, Night yields. There is comfort in the simplicity of it, or at least there always has been.
But every evening for the past several, I have sat at Ghoulish Grinds' sticky bar, watched Calliope ring up sullen students and bone-tired parents, and listened to her unspool stories about her town, her life, her assembled collection of minor disasters and even smaller victories.
In theory, I am not keeping score.
In practice, I know the number of times she twirls her hair around a pencil when she is thinking, the exact twist of her mouth when a regular tries and fails at banter, and the pattern of freckles along her cheekbone that resembles the constellation Cassiopeia.
Tonight, I sit with both hands cupped around my mug, letting the warmth soak into my joints. Calliope keeps catching me at it, as though I need constant reminding that one is supposed to treat a hot beverage with proper ceremony.
"You said the pastries are better on Wednesdays," I tell her, regarding the scone she has presented. "I suspect this is an attempt to secure my loyalty."
She wipes her hands on her apron, leaving a faint dusting of flour behind. "You'd know if you stuck around for a full week. Maybe you're afraid you'd get bored."
"I do not experience boredom."
The speed of my response makes her eyebrows rise.
"Touchy."
"I recognize repetition for what it is," I continue. "A precondition to comfort. Or so I have read."
"You read up on comfort?"
"Once. It did not seem urgent at the time."
I break off a piece of the scone and study it before adding, "Now it does."
Her expression softens before she laughs, not at me, but with the gentle amusement I have come to recognize as uniquely hers.
I find I like that distinction.
The shop is busy, then still, then busy again in predictable pulses.
Third-shifters fill themselves with espresso and mutter into their phones while students grow progressively more frantic as deadlines approach.
At the crest of each wave, Calliope finds her way back to me, sometimes with more coffee, sometimes with a story about someone in town who has apparently not changed in decades.
She tells these stories with the easy affection of someone who both loves and despises her roots.
By the fourth night, she no longer waits for a lull to speak to me. She leaves the bar during her break and drops into the chair across from mine, frowning at her phone before placing it facedown on the table.
"Do you ever feel like there's more to the world than anyone sees, but you can't tell if you're crazy or if everyone else is just ignoring it?"
"Yes."
The answer escapes before I consider its weight.
She leans forward. "I knew it. You're not from here."
"No."
"You're not even from, like, adjacent reality, are you?"
The urge to tell her everything presses unexpectedly against my bones. I could tell her how the first light of creation sounded, about the secret hum between atoms or the civilizations I have watched turn to dust beneath skies they believed would last forever.
Instead, I say, "I have seen many versions of this world. Most people look away."
She does not.
"What about you?"
"I am not most people."
She studies me for a second. "You know, sometimes you sound like the villain in a movie. The kind who gets all the best lines."
I remember to blink.
"I am not cast for that role."
"Fine. Tragic antihero." She nudges my plate toward me. "Or maybe you're just a weird guy who likes scones. Jury's still out."
"I am not opposed to weird."
"Good. Because you're crushing it."
Someone calls her name from behind the counter, and she disappears before I can ask what, precisely, I am crushing.
I watch her go.
Two students at the next table whisper to one another, followed by laughter.
I turn my head.
They immediately look away.
My hearing is considerably better than they realize.
Shadow boyfriend.
I consider correcting them.
I do not.
When closing time comes, I remain while the other customers drift out into the fog. A raccoon the size of a terrier hunts pastry crumbs along the curb outside while Calliope finishes cleaning, tosses her apron across the counter, and reaches for her oversized coat.
"You waiting for me?" she asks.
There is no surprise in her voice anymore.
I stand. "It is unpleasant to walk home alone. This is general advice, not a specific judgment."
She snorts as she pulls on her coat. "For all you know, I'm the thing people should be worried about."
"You are."
Her hands still on the buttons.
Then she smiles.
I file this away for future study.
Our walks have become a formality neither of us believes but both continue to honor. Kingfisher Street is quiet tonight, save for the distant whir of the packaging plant and the occasional rush of tires over wet pavement.
I let her set the pace.
"You ever look at something and feel like you're the only person who sees it for what it really is?" she asks after a block.
"Not only do I see, but I am compelled to see. Things hide from others, not from me."
She glances up. "You're not great at metaphors, are you?"
"Metaphor is irrelevant to me. I see the thing itself and what it wants to be."
"What do I want to be?"
She says it lightly, but it is the kind of lightness searching for something firm enough to land on.
I consider her.
"Resolved."
Calliope's steps slow.
"Is that supposed to be some cosmic insight?"
"Perhaps. Or only observation." I allow the tiniest shrug. "You lack peace, but you are not at war. The boundary is difficult."
For once, she has no immediate answer.
"Well, damn," she says eventually. "That's annoyingly accurate."
"I apologize."
"No, you don't."
"No."
She laughs and bumps her shoulder against my arm.
The contact is brief and probably accidental.
I feel it for the rest of the walk.
At her building, Calliope climbs the first step before turning back toward me. The porch light has burned out again, and she complains about her landlady while searching through her bag for her keys.
"I swear she won't fix anything unless the building is actively on fire, and even then she'd probably ask whether we tried opening a window first."
Her keys slip from her fingers and strike the step.
"Sorry. Cold hands."
She bends, but I reach them first.
When I straighten, I take her wrist without thinking.
Her pulse jumps beneath my fingers.
I have touched countless living things. I have felt the last breaths of kings beneath moonless skies and held darkness around frightened children until morning came. I know the rhythm of sleeping cities and the slow heartbeat of oceans.
Yet this is different.
Calliope looks down at my hand around her wrist, then up at me.
For a second, the world seems to contract around the point where our skin meets.
Rain taps against the railing. Somewhere beyond the buildings, an ambulance whines toward the hospital. Her heart beats beneath my fingertips, quick and warm and impossibly temporary.
I release her.
She opens her palm.
I place the keys in it.
Instead of pulling away, her fingers close around mine.
"You're freezing."
"I am aware."
"Do you ever get warm?"
"Rarely."
She takes my hand between both of hers and rubs it as though warmth is something she can simply transfer through determination.
The gesture is absurd.
It is also the most remarkable thing that has happened to me in several thousand years.
"See?" she says. "Better."
"It feels exactly the same."
"You're supposed to lie."
"I will remember that."
She laughs, still holding my hand, and leans against the porch rail. Neither of us makes any effort to move.
Over the next few nights, this becomes another kind of routine.
Coffee and pastries. Her complaints about the new parking meters. My inability to understand why anyone would willingly participate in karaoke. The occasional cigarette she steals from a coworker and insists she doesn't actually smoke.
She tries to play music for me once, but her phone dies before the song begins. I offer to repair it, then discover I have no idea how modern phones work.
"You've seen many versions of the world, but an iPhone defeats you?"
"It has no discernible screws."
She laughs so hard she has to put her head down on the table.
I decide I dislike the phone less than I did moments before.
On Friday, she asks what I studied before coming to Blackthorn Bay.
"Patterns," I tell her. "I was meant to catalogue them. To ensure none grew too large."
"Like algorithms?"
"If you like. But grander."
"I bet you're a nightmare at parties."
"I am seldom invited."
Again, the laughter.
Always the laughter.
By the end of the week, the regulars expect me. Calliope fills my cup before I ask, and the students no longer bother lowering their voices when they call me her shadow boyfriend.
I still do not correct them.
Our walks stretch longer, too.
Sometimes we take the direct route to her building. Other nights, Calliope suggests a detour toward the bay or insists on showing me some ridiculous new piece of art someone has nailed to a bus shelter.
Tonight, she chooses both.
By the time we reach her building, the hour is later than usual. She stands with me on the bottom step, one hand tucked into her coat pocket and the other resting lightly against the sleeve of my coat.
She has been telling me about a customer who tried to pay for a cappuccino with an allegedly enchanted spoon.
I do not care about the spoon.
I care that she has not gone inside.
"So then he tells me it's worth at least thirty dollars because it belonged to some seventeenth-century warlock, and I'm thinking, great, but unless the warlock wants to cover your sales tax, I still need six-fifty."
"What did you do?"
"Took the spoon."
"Why?"
"It's a nice spoon."
I look at her.
She laughs. "Don't judge me."
"I would not."
The eastern horizon pulls at me.
It is subtle at first, an ancient pressure so familiar that I almost obey without thought.
Almost.
Dawn is approaching.
My portion of the world is ending.
Calliope looks toward the street, then back at me, and I can feel the moment beginning to loosen around us.
"I should go upstairs."
"Yes."
Neither of us moves.
Her fingers remain on my sleeve.
"I like this," she says.
I look down at her hand. "Standing outside your building?"
"No." Her smile is smaller now. "This. Talking to you. Walking home. It's become the best part of my day."
Something shifts inside me.
I have watched continents split apart with less consequence.
The pull comes again.
Dawn.
For all of existence, I have answered without hesitation. Night yields because Night must yield. There has never been a reason to resist.
Until now.
Calliope is still looking at me.
I make a decision.
Five minutes.
Nothing more.
The horizon waits.
The stars remain where they are.
Night holds.
Calliope notices nothing.
She steps closer and rises slightly onto her toes, and for one impossible second I believe she might kiss me.
Instead, she presses her lips softly to my cheek.
"Good night, Erebus."
Every thought I have ever possessed disappears.
She smiles at what must be an extraordinary expression on my face, then climbs the steps and unlocks the door.
"Tomorrow?"
I recover enough to answer.
"Always."
She disappears inside.
I remain on the sidewalk, staring at the closed door while the warmth of her mouth lingers impossibly against my skin.
Only then do I release my hold.
Far beyond Blackthorn Bay, the first thin edge of morning breaks across the horizon.
Five minutes late.
An inconsequential amount of time to almost anyone.
But Night has never been late.
I should be concerned.
Instead, I touch my fingers to my cheek and smile.
Tomorrow suddenly feels very far away.