An affectionate slow fire heated one side of me, and on the other side, my bare skin sipped on a chilly sea breeze.
Nostalgia hit me right then. I inhaled, breathing it in like a fine cigarette. Waking up here reminded me of when I was a little girl. I would sleepwalk right out of the house and make my way to the ocean in the middle of the night. By morning, I would awaken, curled up on my side, pressed palms against my cheek, sleepy eyes on the sea. It happened most during winter.
Awake but eyes still closed, I stretched my arms above my head, wanting to stay right here and make this last a little longer.
Then his voice penetrated my moment, woolly like a warm coat.
“You like it here.”
A smile stole the corners of my lips.
I pulled the sheet over my head to hide it.
“I believe if you resist a smile, you’ll forget how to do it,” he said.
“I’m not resisting it; I’m just hiding it.”
From under the white sheet, I could see the silhouette of him sitting by the fire. He shook his head. “Absolutely selfish. Half of that smile may be yours, but the other half is mine.”
“Oh, is it?”
“It takes two, no?”
I sat up and tucked the sheet under my arms, my gaze falling on Stone.
He was only wearing linen trousers with a button fly and gloves. His hair was tousled, and he sat with his legs stretched out and a piping hot coffee resting on his knee, its steam curling into the air—eyes on me.
He had old-fashioned eyes and an eternal gaze. Hooded. Longing. Clutches of despair. The look was always there, but I’d never had a name for it until he told me the truth about him.Old-fashioned eyes.
I didn’t know much about literature or writers, but I knew enough about those who mattered. The ones who didn’t write for money or fame but simply because the story became them, living in their flesh, their blood, their bones, bloating until it burned up inside. And the only way to be free of it was to break themselves open to let it go, cut their veins to bleed themselves dry.
And at this moment, as I looked at Stone, I saw him centuries before, with walls falling around us, a world wrapped in sepia, taking a stroll through The Romantic Period and reading novels from such, where it was dark and forbidding and every love story ending in tragedy. How fitting for a haunted, lonely man to exist at the same time as Poe, who, much like Poe’s characters, was pitted against a dark, ominous fate.
If he could vanish from the past, what was keeping him from simply vanishing at this very moment?
“You’re looking at me differently,” he said suddenly.
“How?”
“Longer. Tighter,” he said. “You’re looking at me with arms that won’t let me go.”
I glanced away, pulling in my legs and hugging my knees, my yawn making my eyes water. I didn’t know what to say. Not because it wasn’t true but because I was afraid it was. “How long have you been awake?”
“Six hours.” He sat back in the chair. “I couldn’t sleep.”
I raised a brow. “Have you been watching me this entire time?”
“Watching isn’t the word I would use.” He squinted an eye. “More like keeping a wary eye on you.” A pause. A concerned look on his face. “What doeswistoragicmean?”
Wistoragic?“I ... I don’t know?”
“Why are you sleepwalking?”
My heart bottomed out. “Sleepwalking?”
“Yes, sleepwalking; where one walks while asleep.” He leaned his elbow into the arm of the chair and dragged a palm down his face. When his gaze hit mine again, the look in his eyes sucked up all the lightness in the room. “I awoke to find you at the window as though you were stuck there. You were writing the wordwistoragicinto the fog repeatedly. And the way you looked at me …” Stone exhaled, not wanting to let go of the words. “Six hours ago, you had forgotten me, not recognizing me at all. Then as soon as I laid a finger on you, you attacked me. If I’m being honest, you scared me half to death.”
“Half to death?” Panic was slowly building inside me. I tried to mask it by covering it up with a smile. “And what happens when you’re scared half to death twice?”
