EREBUS
Ihave stood at the rim of the world with the storm in my veins and the universe unsleeping at my feet.
I have measured centuries by the careful metronome of stars and carried darkness across the earth like an endless, silent tide.
I have existed longer than there have been words for longing, and I have never missed a moment.
Tonight, I miss forty-three.
I did not expect it to feel so momentous.
Dawn is not forgiving. She paces the edge of her domain, a scatter of flame and spindrift in the greased indigo between night and day.
Most mornings, she is patient; she waits for me to step aside, to slip into the places where her light cannot follow.
She calls it the dance, but I have never danced. I endure her arrival. I abide.
This time, when she reaches for me—tired, loving sister, all cinnamon hair and lion’s-tooth smile—I resist. Only a little, only enough to linger at the edge of the world for forty-three minutes before finally relinquishing the sky.
She huffs, clearly insulted, but waits. She always does.
When I finally step aside, I feel the shift in the rhythm of things. The world’s pulse is slightly off-kilter. Small animals blink up at the light as though surprised to find it there, and buried things push harder against their cloaks of soil and stone.
I walk back through the waking town carrying the echo of Calliope’s heartbeat in my chest and, for the first time in countless millennia, I find I do not care about the indelible record of time.
I care only for Calliope Craven.
She is not at Ghoulish Grinds when I arrive.
Several scones and a tray of brownies cool on a rack near the register, and for reasons I cannot properly explain, I stop to study them.
One scone is dotted with raspberries, another glossed with lemon curd.
The brownies have a precise crosshatch of caramel, and I find myself wondering which she would choose.
The back door bangs open before I can determine an answer.
Petra enters in a cloud of irritation.
I have seen mountains collapse with less violence.
Her stone arms are dusted with gravel, one shoulder sits noticeably higher than the other, and her gait is so rigid that for several steps she appears to have misplaced the function of her left leg.
“Where is Calliope?” I ask.
Petra stops.
Slowly, she turns toward me.
“Where’s my Dawn?”
“The sun rose.”
“Forty-three minutes late.”
“Yes.”
Her eyes widen. “You admit it?”
“I was there.”
“Oh, I know you were there. That’s why I’m here.”
She braces both hands on the nearest table and attempts to stretch one leg behind her. Something inside her hip makes a grinding sound that concerns me.
“Are you injured?”
“I am a rock monster in my sixties who requires regular stretching so I don’t become part of the municipal infrastructure. What do you think?”
“I was not aware your condition was so precarious.”
“My condition was perfectly fine until somebody decided morning was optional.”
“I apologize.”
“You should.”
Petra straightens with visible effort and rolls one shoulder. The resulting noise resembles stones tumbling inside a cement mixer.
“I had sunrise yoga at six-thirty. Sunrise. It’s right there in the name.
We had seventeen people standing by the bay in the dark waiting for the sun to come up, and by the time it finally did, Mrs. Garcia had tied herself into something she called reverse pigeon and I’d lost feeling in my left butt cheek. ”
I am uncertain how to respond.
Petra points at me. “Do you know what forty-three extra minutes of darkness does to a woman with sedimentary hips?”
“I do not.”
“Neither did I until this morning, but apparently my left hamstring becomes load-bearing.”
I look at her leg.
“Should you seek medical attention?”
“THAT IS NOT THE POINT.”
Her voice rattles several cups behind the counter.
I fold my hands behind my back. “What is the point?”
“The point is that the sun comes up when it’s supposed to. People plan around these things. Birds plan around these things. I plan around these things. You can’t just move sunrise because you’re having a moment.”
“It was forty-three minutes.”
“Yes, I was there for all of them.”
“Compared to the age of the universe, forty-three minutes is insignificant.”
“Tell that to my ass.”
I decide not to.
Petra stares at me for another moment before her expression changes, irritation narrowing into suspicion.
“Why did you do it?”
“I was delayed.”
“You are never delayed.”
“I was last night.”
“Erebus.”
The use of my name feels oddly threatening.
I look toward the rack of pastries.
Petra follows my gaze.
Then she gasps.
“This is about Calliope.”
I see no reason to lie. “Yes.”
Her entire face changes.
“Oh.”
I wait.
Her eyes widen.
“Oh.”
“I do not understand the distinction between those responses.”
“You held back the sunrise because of Calliope?”
“Yes.”
“Because you got kissed?”
I turn toward her sharply. “How do you know about that?”
Petra waves one thick hand. “Please. I’ve been alive a long time, and you’ve got the expression.”
“What expression?”
“The one men get when a woman has scrambled their brains.”
“My brain is intact.”
“Debatable.”
She looks me over again, and to my surprise, some of the anger leaves her face.
“Oh, honey.”
I dislike the word immediately.
“There is no need to pity me.”
“I’m not pitying you. I’m deciding whether this is adorable enough to forgive the loss of sensation in my extremities.”
“And?”
“No.”
I incline my head. “Understandable.”
“But I am happy for Calliope.” Petra reaches across the counter, takes one of the raspberry scones, and points it at me. “Get attached. Court her. Woo her. Buy her pastries. Whatever ancient gods do when they’re trying to get into somebody’s pants.”
“I am not attempting to—”
“I don’t need details.”
“I was merely correcting—”
“Still don’t need them.” She bites into the scone.
“My point is, you can fall madly in love with the girl if you want. This is Blackthorn Bay. Half the town is in love with something their grandmother warned them about. But you do not get to rearrange the cosmos every time Calliope touches your junk.”
“She has not touched my—”
“I SAID I DON’T NEED DETAILS.”
I close my mouth.
Petra chews, apparently satisfied.
“Tomorrow. Six-thirty. Sun.”
“I understand.”
“I mean it.”
“So do I.”
She starts toward the back door, pauses, and turns around.
“And if Dawn is late again, I’m coming back.”
“I will attempt not to destroy civilization.”
“You do that.”
She disappears through the door muttering something about primal forces being horny on main.
I decide it would be unwise to ask what that means.
For the next twenty minutes, I occupy myself with the pastries.
I move the raspberry scones to the front because I suspect Calliope prefers them, then change my mind and put the chocolate ones there instead.
I divide the brownies into equal portions, adjust a crooked label on the display case, and discover that waiting for one particular human to arrive is a remarkably effective way to make time—which I have never before considered scarce—move intolerably slowly.
When Calliope finally walks through the door, her hair is pinned into a lopsided knot and her scarf is patterned with improbable stars. She looks tired until she sees me.
Then she smiles.
The universe rights itself.
“Good morning.”
“You are seven minutes early.”
“Couldn’t sleep.” She drops her bag behind the counter and glances toward the windows. “The sky was weird this morning. Pink forever. Did you see it?”
“I was there.”
She pauses, then smiles again. “I love that you say things like that.”
“They are always true.”
“That’s why I love it.”
She begins moving around the kitchen, checking the schedule and gathering cups while I watch her. When she is near me, I find it difficult to remember anything Petra said. I remember instead the taste of chocolate on Calliope’s mouth and the warmth of her fingers in my hair.
“Petra texted me seventeen times this morning,” she says.
I become attentive again.
“Apparently sunrise yoga nearly became sunrise physical therapy. She says her left hip is filing for divorce.”
“She spoke to me.”
Calliope laughs. “Oh, no.”
“She was displeased.”
“I bet.”
“She threatened me with consequences.”
“That means she likes you.”
I consider this. “Your town has unusual methods of demonstrating affection.”
“You have no idea.”
She reaches for a mug, and I know I should leave the subject there. The delay has ended, Dawn has risen, and forty-three minutes have already been absorbed into the vast accumulation of history.
Instead, I say, “It was my fault.”
Calliope’s hand stops.
“What was?”
“The delayed sunrise.”
She laughs, but when I do not, the sound fades.
“Wait. You’re serious?”
“Yes.”
“You delayed the sun?”
“I delayed Dawn.”
Her eyes narrow. “Somehow that distinction is worse.”
I say nothing.
“Why?”
There is no reason to avoid the truth now.
“Because you asked me to.”
“I asked you to delay sunrise?”
“You said you wished the night did not have to end.”
Calliope closes her eyes.
“Oh my God.”
“I understand that expression now.”
Her eyes open again. “Erebus, I was being romantic.”
“I know.”
“That is the kind of thing people say after a nice date. It does not mean you can alter planetary scheduling.”
“I do not alter the planet.”
She points at me. “Do not get technical.”
I incline my head.
Her expression softens almost immediately, which seems unfair when I have apparently committed an offense serious enough to impair Petra’s mobility.
“Did you really do it because of me?”
“Yes.”
For a moment, she looks touched.
Then she sighs and comes around the counter.
“You can’t do that again.”
“I understand.”
“I mean it. Not because I say something stupid, not because we’re having a good night, and definitely not because we kiss.”
“I will not.”
She studies me for a moment, searching my face for something.
I mean the promise when I make it.
Finally, she reaches for my hand and runs her thumb lightly across my knuckles.
“Good.”
Then her mouth curves.
“It was kind of sweet.”
I look at her.
“Do not let that encourage you.”
“I would never.”
She laughs, and for several hours, I believe keeping my promise will be simple.
The following night, Calliope meets me at the bench overlooking the bay.
There is a folded square of paper in my coat pocket containing several lines of what might generously be called poetry. I have no intention of showing them to her, although I have carried them with me for six hours.
She sits close enough that our shoulders touch, and we talk until I lose track of how long we have been there.
Calliope tells me about a customer who attempted to tip her with cryptocurrency, and I tell her this is one of the more disturbing developments I have witnessed in recent centuries.
She laughs, takes my hand, and eventually settles her head against my shoulder.
I become very still.
“You can breathe,” she murmurs.
“I am breathing.”
“Debatable.”
I allow myself to relax, and the sea moves below us, black and silver beneath the moon. There is nothing remarkable about the night itself. I have presided over countless nights more beautiful than this one, beneath clearer skies and brighter stars, on shores untouched by cities or human hands.
Yet I have never wanted one to remain.
Calliope shifts closer, her fingers threaded through mine.
For the first time in my existence, I understand why mortals fear endings. They have so little time that every good thing arrives already carrying the certainty of its loss.
“I wish we could do this forever,” she says softly.
I know what she means. Humans say such things casually, with no expectation that eternity will hear them, but the words settle somewhere inside me all the same.
When I feel Dawn approaching at the edge of the world, I remember the promise I made to Calliope and fully intend to keep it.
Then she settles more comfortably against my shoulder, her fingers still threaded through mine, and I tell myself five minutes will make no difference.
I have already stolen forty-three and the world survived.
Surely five more, given freely to a woman who has spent her life measuring happiness in coffee breaks and walks home after midnight, cannot possibly matter.
Five minutes becomes twenty before I bother to count them, and by then Calliope is dozing against me, warm and trusting, while Dawn waits impatiently beyond the horizon.
I should wake her and take her home. I should relinquish the sky and honor the promise I made only hours ago, but for the first time in my existence, should feels like a remarkably poor reason to surrender something I want.
So I don’t.
By the time I finally allow the first gray light to spill across the bay, three hours have passed.
Calliope stirs against my shoulder, unaware that Blackthorn Bay has spent half its morning beneath a darkness that should not exist, and I look toward the horizon with the uncomfortable certainty that I know exactly what I have done.
Worse, I know I would do it again.