It occurred to me that time did not pass here in the same way as it passed everywhere else.This place was a bubble enclosed from the rest of the world—a magic circle, so to speak.Perhaps someone else had been here last week.Or maybe there was a sort of magic, like the sort that allowed me to hear the ocean over the trees even though it was far away.
The fairy-tale beauty of this place so much resembled the charm of Aster’s presence that I turned around past a point and honestly expected to see him at the edge of the forest, watching me and waiting to join me with his promised present.But when I watched back, he was gone, and I found myself alone.
So I walked up and down the rows of stones, waiting for his voice, listening for my name called over the gentle breezes teasing the birches nearby.Eventually my legs grew tired.There was no place to sit over here—an intentional design, it seemed.If I wanted to sit, I needed to go back to the lighthouse and to Aster.
I retreated from the cemetery and waited for a time following on the edge of the woods.When Aster did not join me, I slowly walked back to the lighthouse.I found Aster seated behind my desk, typing his fingers away on his project.
Aster hardly noticed when I came in.He recited my name in response to my calling out, but never apologized for not meeting with me when I was out or asked what I found at the end of the trail.Instead he repeated a line to himself while typing, adjusted it.There, much better.I considered greeting him, but thought better of it.
THE SHADOWS
Aster stopped writing earlyone evening.Any time before I went to bed could have counted as early.Ever since my excursion to the Childress cemetery days earlier, man and machine had merged into one primal force.I had become redundant.Aster increasingly didn’t need me nearby.He didn’t need to talk to me or ask what I thought.He didn’t care.
My own ambition had landed me in a place where I couldn’t possibly succeed: stranded on the couch watching someone else work, or alone on a beach with only the waves for company.Not achieving anything.Not advancing in any part of my life.An accessory.
We didn’t talk much about the book itself.Aster kept it as a secret matter, private, as if talking about it with me would pop it like a bubble.He acted nervous about his work, as if he now cared about finishing the draft before a certain point and meeting a predetermined standard.He wasn’t in the mood to make another toast to immanent success.He was frustrated.Agitated.His voice tightened and his features grew harder by the day.The laidback muse I’d first summoned into my life felt like another person entirely.
Back when Aster commenced his writing odyssey, I had assumed the phase would last for two or three days until he tired of the idea or thought of something new to chase down.Instead, Aster only threw himself deeper into his draft with every passing hour.The few times when I crept into place behind him, the words popped up on the screen almost as fast as I could read them before Aster’s fingers lifted from the keyboard and he chased me away.He didn’t want me to read it at all anymore.He didn’t want me to get too close.
Tonight was different.He slowed down.I was reading on the couch when I noticed—thumbing through a copy of Daphne Maurier’sRebeccathat I’d found in a local bookstore.Aster’s fingertips clacking away in the corner added a natural soundtrack, almost as if the words on the pages in front of me were being written as I read them.
When the taps grew slower and further apart, I assumed that he must have hit an emotional high point and now slowed down to work on a scene more passionately than he would have before.Otherwise he had backed himself into a corner and was searching his brain for the best way out, a natural but unfortunate repercussion of writing without a plan.
Then he stopped.He turned around the room—checking my presence, I assumed—and then he looked back.He typed a few more words, three or five.Then he stopped again.Just leave me alone, he said a moment later.
I glanced out the window.The afternoon light still reigned supreme over the wilderness outside, though the sun was beginning to lower.“Should I make something for supper?”
He sucked in his breath.I’m sorry.I didn’t know you were still here.Don’t worry about it.
Then he returned to his typing.It sounded like angry typing now, peppered with sharp breaths and exasperated intention behind every tap.I returned my eyes to the book and tried to remember what I’d just read, but my distraction kept me from reading any further.
I’ve done—nothing—wrong,said Aster, still typing.How long are you going to stay here?You treat me like a criminal, but I can tell you it’s all above board.
Then he stopped.He steepled his hands in front of him and drew a long breath.
At this point I couldn’t even pretend to read.“Is everything all right?”I asked.
I thought I told you to stay away!
He turned around, eyes wide and fiery, nostrils flaring.
I sank back against the cushions and clawed my fingers into the red and gray blanket.
Then he looked around.He stood up and stretched.I’m sorry.I never meant it to come out like that.It’s just that I’ve been seeing them a lot lately and sometimes I forget myself.They keep coming back—keep telling me over and over to stop.
“Who?”I asked, but I already knew.
Until now, the most colorful part of Aster’s encounters with the people I couldn’t see—the Fates—had been when we went to the cafe together.Since then he had occasionally reacted to their invisible presence or mentioned them off hand, but he refused to clarify any of my questions on the matter.
He started pacing across the floor in a broad circle.No one,he said, tense like he was defying these people by the very act of declaring their nonexistence.
“I know it’s not no one,” I said.“The Fates, right?Want to talk about them?”
He shook his head.I thought they were the Fates.I don’t know.Maybe they are.Maybe there’s something to it.But sometimes I feel like I’m making the whole thing up.Like I look at them and they’re not there.And I don’t know if I should be terrified… or what.
“You’re working too hard,” I said.“You shouldn’t scare me like that.Anyone would think you were hallucinating.Losing touch with reality.Is there anything I could do to help?”
Aster didn’t answer directly.He glared hotly at me and sat down behind the desk again, returning to his typing with a renewed force.His shoulders drooped, and his typing sounded sad now instead of its earlier excitement.I wanted to comfort him, but I knew that he would send me away if I broke the bubble of silence he now held sacred.
