“So it’s an illusion?”
I am prone to illusion.If I weren’t, I wouldn’t be much of a muse.
He didn’t sound as if he believed in the statement, but rather like he wanted to make a fact out of it by repeating it to himself.
For the rest of the evening I avoided the topic of Aster’s changing nature.The only time he brought it up again to me was after the moon had reached its zenith, when we made love on my bed with the sheets thrown aside and the window open, curtains fluttering in the night breeze.
Aster leaned over me then.He kissed my forehead, kissed the tip of my nose, kissed my lips.And he told me that I had a beautiful taste.
THE CATWALK
Whenever a shadowof doubt or restlessness fell over me, I reminded myself that dealing with Aster meant dealing with the unknown.Even when I spoke to him about issues he cared about, I learned that his views were subject to change and shift more rapidly than a human’s.
People always came with pre-set personalities and beliefs, every one his own culture and his own world, observing his own customs and honoring rituals sacred to him alone.
Aster was fluid.He wasn’t a world.He was the space that enveloped worlds, and his temperament changed with the wind.One day he paced the grounds barefoot with an unbuttoned shirt, surprising me with a glass of wine and a chocolate.The next, a fury would overtake him.I would wake to find him wearing a gray robe, with flecks of gold spotting his eyes and a possessive need for control that hadn’t raised its head in our earlier encounters.Even a temper.
I didn’t dislike the changes in Aster, and I didn’t question them.He abided by the laws of myth, not reality.Nor did I regret pledging myself to him.The more his fury and ambition manifested, the more energy I threw into my novel and the more passionately he made love to me in the gaps between writing.On his friskier days, getting dressed at all felt unworth the effort.
One morning in mid-July I woke up later than usual, after dawn and the promised sunrise.I found myself alone in an otherwise empty bed, which was normal—I didn’t know when Aster got up, but I usually found him in the shower or waiting for me downstairs by the time I opened my eyes.Given that the sun had already clearly risen—the time was almost seven thirty—I was frankly surprised he hadn’t woken me with a rough shake earlier.
I got up and threw my silk robe around my shoulders, rehearsing a set of excuses and apologies as I hurried into the bathroom, and then down the stairs to see if my muse waited for me in the kitchen or near the old secretary desk.I saw him nowhere.
“Aster?”I asked out loud, tightening the strap across my waist.
For a moment, I missed the days when he appeared magically at my bidding whenever I pronounced his name.The days when he wanted to look at me and didn’t think of my writing at all, before I insisted it become his priority.The days before we had domesticated each other.That Aster only existed in the past tense.He was like me now, and I was becoming like him.Ephemeral: a word directly related to the word “fever” and meant to describe something that would only last a single day.
I hugged my arms over my chest and waited, turning to the shadows to catch him.
The shadows were empty.
Climbing up the stairs, I decided that Aster’s absence was easier to bear than the concerns he’d share if he were here.Your book won’t happen.Not the way you’re treating it.You value your comfort more than your own life.I couldn’t fault him for his concerns.They were my concerns reflected back at me.
Not finding him, I showered alone, changed into a light shirt with khaki shorts, and ate a croissant at the kitchen bar alone for breakfast.After I’d finished, I explored the estate on my own.I had hardly considered the lighthouse since Aster first appeared and started working with me.
Back when I first moved in, I thought that I’d have more than enough time to absorb the history and atmosphere of the lighthouse and Illumination Point.I planned to visit a few other historical and cultural sights on this part of the Maine coast, to learn what I could and let the knowledge spill through in whatever book I’d written.But Aster had lured my attention away from the conventional.I couldn’t focus on history when the present dazzled me beyond my comprehension.I couldn’t research other people while spending this much time researching myself… and the man who inspired me.
I looked at the Winslow Homer replica on the wall and the incidental cross with a new sense of awe.I put on my flip-flops, retreated to the porch, and for a few moments surveyed the ocean wordlessly and pictured the original owners of this house, the Childress family with their haunted eyes, watching for coming ships.
Then my gaze turned.I saw the profile of the lighthouse above me, the statuesque tower where the light had once regularly warned away ships in storms and fog, and I realized that I had never climbed it throughout my entire stay so far.I couldn’t believe I’d stayed away this long.
My curiosity won out.I ran back into the house and found the keys to the tower in a basket in the kitchen.From what I understood, the lighthouse property was free for me to explore as I wished.
I pried the door open with some difficulty.I didn’t know how regularly the tower was cleaned or maintained, and I found the inside cool but unmistakably damp.The spiral staircase leading upward was thin, with perforated steel steps so narrow that I would have to walk on the balls of my feet to climb.It was dark as well.There might have been lights at one point, but the only light now shone from a few narrow windows spaced at regular intervals during the climb.
I didn’t know what to expect at the top, whether the optic section which previously held the light was empty or if the light, though inoperative, still hung in its familiar place, surrounded by a network of mirrors and glass.The catwalk should be clear, at least.
The tower seemed taller on the inside than on the outside (about twice the height of the quarters nearby), but I climbed the heavy stairs quickly with all the energy of a child exploring a new place to play.Aster began to slip my mind.I still wanted to find him, but with every step I thought of him less and and the lighthouse more, the structure of concrete and light and the ocean cresting around it.
Finally I reached the top.At the end of a more heavily windowed section of the tower was an opening to the smooth floor: the light’s chamber.The upper room smelled dusty, like an old attic no one had disturbed in decades.I climbed up and noticed the gap where the light used to sit.Across from the gap, Aster stood outside on the catwalk.
Aster wasn’t looking at me when I first saw him.He stood in the open air, on the catwalk which was easily approachable from the light chamber.Aster faced away from me, gazing over the horizon of endless ocean in front of us, seemingly lost in thought.He looked poetic, almost melancholy, in a dark blue jacket with hair cut short and now more blond than white.
“Hello,” I said.
The sun stull hung in the east over the ocean, in the direction we both faced.When I approached him and looked out, I had to squint, at which point I found myself unable to enjoy the beautiful view that must have been before me.
Aster, unsquinting, turned to face me.You found me.
