The Tor - 17. Chapter 17

Christopher stood for a long time after the last memory faded.

Rain had begun again.

It drifted across the harbour in a fine grey veil, softening the lights reflected upon the water until every colour seemed uncertain. The fishing boats rose and fell gently against their moorings, ropes creaking with the tide.

He ought to have gone home. Instead he found himself walking without direction through streets he had known since childhood.

Nothing looked quite the same.

The café where he bought coffee before school occupied the ground floor of what had once been a merchant's house. The narrow alley beside it had been a smugglers' passage. The church square had been a market long before the church existed. Every familiar corner concealed another century beneath it.

He wondered how many times he had walked these streets before he had ever been Christopher Edwards.

The thought no longer frightened him.

It saddened him.

Rain tapped softly against his coat. By the time he reached his flat the wind had strengthened, driving white spray across the harbour wall. Clouds gathered low over the bay until the horizon disappeared entirely.

The weather forecast had promised a gale.

He switched on the kettle, though he scarcely wanted tea, and stood looking out across the darkening sea. The lights flickered.

Once.

Twice.

Then the flat fell into darkness.

Outside, the wind struck the building with a force that made the windows rattle.

Christopher sighed. "Perfect."

He found a torch in the kitchen drawer. Its beam barely reached across the room. His mobile showed no signal.

The storm had swallowed everything beyond the nearest rooftops.

A knock sounded at the door. Three steady taps.

Christopher already knew who it would be.

When he opened the door Marco stood in the dimly lit corridor holding two candles and an old oil lantern.

Rain gleamed in his dark hair.

"I thought your electricity might have gone."

Christopher smiled despite himself. "So has yours?"

Marco lifted the lantern slightly. "I came prepared."

Christopher stepped aside. "You'd better come in."

Marco entered quietly. The flat seemed smaller in the candlelight, warmer. The familiar furniture cast long shadows against the walls while the storm growled beyond the windows.

Christopher found matches. Together they lit the candles. Their flames steadied gradually until the room filled with soft amber light. For a while neither of them spoke, the silence no longer uncomfortable. It carried the weight of everything they had already said. Marco stood by the window. Christopher joined him. Beyond the glass the sea had become almost invisible. Only the white burst of breaking waves appeared now and then before darkness swallowed them again.

"The sea sounds angry."

"It always does in weather like this."

Another silence settled. Christopher became aware that they were standing closer than they had since the confrontation on the cliffs. Close enough that he could feel Marco's warmth. He should have moved. He did not. His memories had left him exhausted. They had also stripped away resistance he had been clinging to since the summer ended.

He had spent weeks trying to convince himself that whatever existed between them belonged to confusion, to fascination, to fear.

Now he knew better.

Memories of quiet evenings. Arguments. Laughter. Hands finding one another without thought. Love had survived every death. It had survived even forgetting.

The realisation ought to have terrified him. Instead it felt strangely peaceful.

Marco spoke without turning. "You've been remembering again."

Christopher nodded. "Yes."

"I thought you might."

"I remembered lives." Marco remained silent. "So many lives."

"I know."

Christopher laughed quietly. "There was a monastery."

Marco smiled.

"I remember."

"A ship."

"I remember that too."

Christopher looked towards him. "You remember everything."

The smile faded. "Almost."

Christopher searched his face. The candlelight softened the weariness around Marco's eyes. For the first time Christopher wondered whether anyone had looked at him with such patience. Such impossible devotion.

He heard himself ask, "Were we happy?"

Marco looked surprised. "So much that every loss was worth enduring." Christopher waited. "We quarrelled." A faint smile returned. "You were stubborn."

"I still am."

"You certainly are."

Christopher laughed. Marco laughed with him. It was a small thing. Ordinary. Christopher suddenly understood that this was what he had been remembering as much as the deaths. The ordinary moments. The lives built between tragedies.

Outside, thunder rolled across the bay. The lights remained dark. The room seemed smaller as the storm gathered around the building.

Marco looked at him with an affection so open that Christopher found it difficult to look away.

Christopher felt his pulse quicken. "I've been trying very hard," he said.

"I know."

"I don't think I can any longer."

Marco's voice was gentle. "You don't have to."

Christopher looked down at his hands. "I kept telling myself none of this was real."

"You had every reason."

"I told myself I was imagining the way I felt about you." Marco said nothing. "I even convinced myself I was only drawn to the mystery."

Another gust shook the windows. The sea crashed somewhere beyond the darkness.

Christopher lifted his head. "I remember loving you."

The words hung quietly between them. Marco closed his eyes. When he opened them they shone in the candlelight.

"You don't have to say anything because of the memories."

"I'm not."

Christopher stepped closer. "I remember enough to know they belong to us." He hesitated. "But this..." He touched his own chest lightly. "This belongs to me."

Marco searched his face with extraordinary care. "As Christopher?"

"Yes."

"You are certain?"

Christopher smiled faintly. "No...I'm frightened."

"I know."

"I still don't understand what's happening to us."

"I know."

"I still don't know whether we're racing towards another disaster."

Marco's expression grew very still. "You probably are."

Christopher laughed softly. "I thought you'd say something reassuring."

"I promised never to lie to you."

Christopher nodded. "I know."

The wind screamed around the corners of the building. Rain lashed against the windows. For a long moment neither of them moved.

Christopher had spent months waiting for certainty. Perhaps certainty had never been required.

He reached out slowly. His hand found Marco's, warm, solid, real.

Exactly as it had been in every memory.

Marco's fingers closed gently around his. Christopher felt something inside him finally surrender.

Not to the curse. To himself.

He stepped forward until scarcely any space remained between them.

"I think," he whispered, "I've been coming back to you for a very long time."

Marco's answer was almost inaudible.

"Yes."

Christopher looked into his eyes. There was joy there. There was grief. Hope. Fear.

They had been carried together for so long that joy and grief, hope and fear had become inseparable. Christopher understood then that he felt the same.

He rose onto his toes and kissed him. The kiss was gentle, tentative. Nothing like the overwhelming certainty of memory.

It belonged entirely to the present.

Marco answered with equal care, as though afraid Christopher might vanish if he moved too quickly. Christopher rested his forehead against Marco's when they finally drew apart.

Outside the storm battered the harbour. Inside the flat the candles burned steadily. Christopher closed his eyes.

For the briefest instant another life touched the edge of his thoughts.

A Roman courtyard warmed by afternoon sun.

A monastery garden after rain.

The deck of a ship beneath a sky full of gulls.

A railway platform filled with steam.

A hundred forgotten mornings.

They did not overwhelm him.

They settled quietly behind the present, no longer demanding to be relived.

When he opened his eyes Marco was still there.

Christopher smiled.

"I think," he said softly, "this is the first kiss I've actually remembered."

Marco's smile was full of a happiness so quiet it almost resembled sorrow.

"No."

Christopher looked at him.

"It is the first one," Marco said, "you've remembered while we were both still alive."

The words settled gently between them.

Christopher tightened his hold on Marco's hand.

Beyond the windows the sea continued its assault upon the shore.

Inside, surrounded by darkness and candlelight, the centuries seemed, for one fleeting moment, to fall silent.