Charles26

Oh-ho. So Matteo has misjudged this big time🤩 Apparently he's not as straight as he thought. Not even close. Meanwhile he's really upsetting Adrian. If he doesn't sort things out pretty soon he'll be really deep in the ... mire.

So, Casey has lived down to pretty much everyone's expectations - or below. Levi's inner guilt is being matched by outer pressure and some good advice from Father Costas and so he surely will have to 'fess up to Matt ; and the sooner the better. But how Matt is going to take it, I don't know. He'll be angry and hurt but I can't think he'll disown Levi. Even so, things will be fraught for some time. And then Brooke is already unhappy and I doubt that she knows the full story... Some difficult days and weeks ahead for Levi.

Casey would think that. Casey is a true Thompson, alas.🤢

Oh, grief. So much pain, so many times over. Unbearable. I'm not quite sure which would be worse - to feel the anguish of being left behind again and again and again as the one you love is taken away yet again; or to remember the fear and the pain of dying again and again. Unendurable, except that the two of them have had to endure it. And where does Vale fit into all this ? That's still a complete mystery. Once more, a heart-rending chapter. Well done.

I think Marco is avoiding Christopher precisely because he loves him - more perhaps than he loves anyone and anything else in the world. I think he is trying desperately to protect him by keeping him at a distance. Doubtless a hopeless endeavour.

So Christopher may not yet understand much; but he does understand that Marco matters to him. It's a start. Probably a perilous one. The exceptionally low spring tide, falling not-at-all coincidentally on his birthday. His twenty-eighth birthday, which seems to be significant. If the number 28 is important we don't yet know why. But that tide. It's possible that the low tide in and of itself matters - when it comes to the supernatural anything is possible. But my own thoughts are more prosaic. A very, very low tide will uncover parts of the shoreline which otherwise remain hidden under water. (The present drought is having the same effect, sadly.) And I wonder what may be revealed and what that will make possible? Once again, the tension goes up another notch. Good job.

Yeah. So reassuring.😟

Like a kaleidoscope, the scattered, shattered shards begin to come together to form an image that terrifies Christopher. I wonder, though, how terrible a truth has to be for knowledge to be more frightening than uncertainty. In any case, the situation has moved on from "merely" threatening to actually dangerous. He came very close to falling off the Tor, which presumably would have killed him. Will they learn something to break the cycle? It would be an unusual twist if they do not. No two lives are the same and no two stories are the same, so we don't know. However, I have certainly read stories in which hitherto endlessly and hopelessly repeated deaths and resurrections and the same errors leading to the same fatal consequences are at last brought to an end. A bit like Buddhist teachings on the hope of breaking free from ceaseless reincarnation. Robert Graves said that there is only one story ever told that has real emotional bite, and that all stories that have an impact are re-tellings of some part of that story. It, too, is a story of endless birth, death and reincarnation. I think that the true Muse is at work here, so well done with the latest great chapter.

So. Cian likes to control situations but it seems he cares about people and doesn't try to control them. Unless he has some as yet hidden viciousness he is a decent man. Can anyone find anything good to say about Nolan? Thinking about Cian made me start comparing him with Evan's ex and I've been back to check up on him. He is everywhere, even though his name isn't mentioned all that often and he hasn't put in a personal appearance yet. But when I looked - what a vile man. Evan never stops preparing his defences. Nolan was emotional controlling for years. Endless criticisms, endless put-downs, endlessly demeaning. Humiliations: no uninhibited sounds permitted during sex - mocked mercilessly, I guess. Nolan unpredictable and moody, probably overtly vicious when Evan inadvertently crossed some unstated line. "Not cruel. Nolan had never been cruel in a way you could point at." So Evan prepares to make everything a joke to reduce the pain of yet another snide comment. He always looks for the "hook". He's always waiting for the next snide, hurtful comment. Poor guy. Four years with someone that abusive. - far more than enough. Well written @Kevin Snell, to create such a bastard mostly by inference.

He's scared. He's pretty much ashamed, no doubt. And he's been reckless and stupid and betrayed the trust placed in him. He had been warned often enough. A disastrous evening... But I think he'll confess, not that he has much real choice. Picking up the pieces afterwards won't be easy for any of them. A self-inflicted challenge for the author🙄 But obviously I care about Levi. I stopped reading part way through when it become evident that serious trouble was on the way and came back to it (still sober) some hours later. I only react that way when the people in the story are vivid and well-rounded enough to matter to me, so my hat is off to @Mark Ponyboy Peters

Then, sir, you may take some measure of pride in your achievement.😉

Cian is very much the "take charge" sort, is he not? Controlling, indeed; but caring with it. Perhaps not such a common combination. And it seems he is exactly what Evan wants and needs. If they both allow it, this could be a very solid relationship. There's a lot to like in the writing, too. One thing that struck me quite hard, possibly because it cuts to the quick of my own situation, is “Dublin’s fifteen years of people.” She said it to her plate. “You don’t rebuild that at this age. You get colleagues, and colleagues are grand, and then one Friday you look up and every person who’d collect you from a hospital is a motorway away in Dublin.” Another striking chapter in an absorbing story. Good job.

The Queyras: I guess he went over the Col d'Izoard which is a strikingly bleak place. Beautiful if you like the ascetic aesthetic ! Myself, I like the slightly lower slopes - "les alpes", indeed - where it's a bit greener. But the eremitic monks of old valued the desert (not necessarily hot dry sand) as somewhere to purge the soul and achieve spiritual growth. I think it is fair to say that Oliver is making great strides in achieving that. Perhaps we could say that he is at last integrating his body, his intellect and his spirit (or soul) to become more nearly the best he can be. His getting lost on the bleak, high slopes was genuinely frightening to read about. He did well not to panic. All in all, another great chapter; beautifully written. Congratulations @Kevin Snell

"For the rain it raineth every day" as the Bard put it. It certainly seems unrelenting in Penmere, which definitely sets the mood. I'm impressed, though. How much thinner can the barriers to memory get before they finally give way ? But then, while Christopher is becoming obsessed about the situation - which I can well understand - I wonder how much clear thinking is going on inside his head. Though to be fair, how can you think clearly about a situation which sweet reason says is totally impossible ? I guess that Marco knew the graveyard so well because he and Christopher have been buried there from time to time. Perhaps many times. The tension has duly been ratcheted up another notch or so and again I look forward to the next chapter. Well done !

Takes a deep breath. Pause. Yes, this is getting serious. The dream is, I guess, a scene from one of Christopher's past lives and deaths, though nothing is yet clear. Confusion has moved first to tension and now to dread. That's hardly surprising. But the figure in all this who puzzles me most is Vale. He seems to be as completely interwoven into their joint history as either Christopher or Marco and he clearly knows or remembers as much as Marco does. I had tentatively supposed that his role was to enforce the curse; judgemental and cold. Yet here he is warning Christopher that Marco presents a danger to him and advising him to keep his distance. That doesn't fit easily with my earlier supposition. What is Vale in this? And what force is it that compels the endless repetition and disastrous consequences of Marco and Christopher's choices ? All in all I find the story well-written, compelling and mysterious, so applause to @andy cannon

At least we know now who was responsible, even if the good people at the ranch still don't . The picture becomes clearer. And yes, they surely do enjoy life's little pleasures at Two Spirits.

The folk on Two Spirits ranch evidently live life to the full. Good on them!🤪

Oh, it's not THAT bad😁

Well, it is clear that Christopher has mentioned Marco to Jamie, though how often is disputed. I don't think it follows that Christopher and Marco have had numerous unreported conversations, though I suppose it is possible.

Barriers are thinning, dissolving - soon, no doubt, they will collapse altogether. But what is leaking through is feelings, not knowledge. Very difficult - but there is the uncomfortable sense that clear understanding, when it is achieved, will be harder to bear than the confusion. Again, a great chapter. The tension keeps increasing.

It's an amazing, compelling chapter!

I think he ended up comprehensively naked, wet at the front briefs included, not long afterwards😜

A lovely chapter. So much growth. Oliver is changing almost beyond recognition, and entirely for the good. But those memories - perhaps a benediction for him, apparently painless; but so much sorrow for his lack of awareness at the time and the impossibility of going back. Time never permits that. "He stood on the trail with his pack and his poles and thought about a small brown dog sitting at the end of a garden path in Surrey, waiting. The thought wasn’t grief. It was recognition, though he couldn’t have said of what. The loyalty had been a gift. He had received it without knowing it was being given. " That is so sad.

Oh, wow. I'm impressed. The sex is there, it's unambiguous and indeed central to the entire interaction, though it seems clear that the relationship will be much more than that in the end., but it isn't needlessly graphic. That makes it more erotic, in my view at least. They are two interesting men, both apparently quite badly hurt though responding to their hurts in different ways. And in their different ways they are both attractive and I want to know more about them. I wonder just how much money Evan has. A sum that is keeping Cian awake at night is a rounding error to Evan, though I can see that he can't just offer it as a gift. That wouldn't work at all. I look forward to the next chapter. Thank you for this one.

The symbol: three - three! - curved lines intersecting. No wonder all three of them are there: Christopher, Marco and ... Adrian Vale. But how exactly have the lines of their lives intersected? And what exactly happened after the end of the prologue? How was the curse imposed; what was done to the two of them? Clearly the site of the current archaeological dig is of huge significance, but what exactly? Marco is trying to protect Christopher - no doubt vainly since whatever it is it will hurt Christopher terribly when he finds out or simply remembers. Did I say "simply"? Duh!! The very staccato text - all those short lines - does a lot to heighten the tension. Good job @andy cannon