The Tor - 11. Chapter 11

Christopher spent most of Wednesday attempting to concentrate on work.

The approaching birthday lingered stubbornly at the edge of his thoughts.

Ordinarily he paid little attention to it. Twenty-eighth birthdays carried no particular significance. They arrived and departed much like any other day.

This one felt different, from the tidal event through the records stretching back through centuries to Adrien Vale's fear.

The coincidence sat uneasily in his mind no matter how often he attempted to dismiss it.

By lunchtime he had succeeded only in making himself increasingly irritable.

His students noticed. One asked him to repeat a question twice. Another politely pointed out that he had distributed the wrong handout.

Christopher apologised, but the remainder of the class passed in a haze of distraction.

When the final student departed, he remained seated for several minutes staring at the empty room.

Outside, pale sunlight reflected from the harbour.

The weather had improved considerably since the storm upon the tor. Blue sky stretched across much of the bay. Fishing boats moved steadily through the water. Terns and kittiwakes wheeled above the waterfront. The ordinary beauty of the scene felt strangely unreal.

Christopher gathered his papers and left the school.

The town was unusually busy.

Preparations were underway for the weekly market. Stalls were already appearing along the promenade. Workers erected wooden frames for temporary awnings. Strings of coloured lanterns hung between buildings overlooking the waterfront. Children chased one another through the crowd. A musician tuned a violin near the market square. The harbour seemed full of movement and anticipation.

Christopher felt entirely disconnected from all of it. As he walked along the waterfront, his thoughts drifted once again towards Vale's comment, I was hoping we had more time.

The admission continued to trouble him.

Vale had not sounded like a man concerned with folklore. He had sounded like a man awaiting a disaster.

Christopher passed several fishing boats unloading their morning catch. Voices drifted across the water broken by raucous laughter.

The sound reminded him unexpectedly of another absence.

Marco.

The realisation arrived before he could prevent it. He had not seen him since the conservation laboratory, since the careful distance. Since the conversation that had left Christopher walking home with the uncomfortable certainty that he cared far more than he wished to admit.

The thought irritated him immediately. He was a grown man. He should not be wondering whether another adult wished to speak to him. Yet the irritation did little to diminish the feeling itself.

Christopher rounded a corner near the eastern quay. Then stopped. Marco stood perhaps fifty metres away.

He was not alone.

Several members of the excavation team occupied a table outside one of the harbour cafés. Maps and folders lay scattered across the surface between cups of coffee. Marco sat among them with his sleeves rolled to the elbows, listening as one of the younger archaeologists spoke animatedly about something Christopher could not hear.

A moment later Marco laughed.

The sound carried faintly across the water. Christopher felt an immediate surge of relief. The reaction arrived so quickly and naturally that it took him entirely by surprise.

For several seconds he simply stood there. Marco looked well, relaxed, entirely ordinary.

There was no sign of the sadness Christopher had seen in the cemetery. No trace of the distance that had haunted their recent conversations. He looked like any other man enjoying an afternoon among colleagues.

Christopher found himself studying him more closely than was sensible. The familiar dark hair stirred in the sea breeze. Sunlight caught briefly upon his face as he turned towards the harbour.

For a fleeting moment Christopher considered crossing the quay. The impulse vanished almost immediately.

Instead he remained where he was, watching.

Marco's withdrawal had affected him far more deeply than he wished.

Christopher looked away.

The discovery left him oddly unsettled.

Across the harbour, laughter rose once more from the café table. When Christopher glanced back, Marco was smiling at something one of the others had said.

Christopher remained where he was for perhaps half a minute.

In the cafe, Marco continued talking with the excavation team.

The conversation appeared entirely ordinary. Someone unfolded a map across the table. Somebody pointed towards the shoreline. Laughter followed.

Christopher watched longer than he should have.

At last he exhaled quietly. This was ridiculous. He was behaving like an adolescent avoiding an awkward conversation.

Whatever existed between them, whatever secrets Marco continued to guard, the situation would not improve through avoidance. He had spent too long allowing Marco to decide when they spoke.

Before he could reconsider the decision, Christopher stepped away from the quay and began making his way around the harbour.

The waterfront was crowded with preparations for the market. Workers carried crates between temporary stalls. Electricians adjusted strings of lanterns hanging above the promenade. Children darted between groups of tourists while their parents attempted to keep pace.

The noise created a constant background murmur. Christopher crossed in front of a fishmonger's shop and continued towards the eastern quay.

The distance between himself and the café gradually shortened. Marco remained unaware of his approach, or appeared to be.

Christopher could never be entirely certain. The thought produced another faint flicker of irritation.

A moment later a deep mechanical siren sounded from somewhere beyond the repair yards, a harsh blast across the harbour.

Several gulls rose abruptly from the rooftops.

Christopher glanced towards the source of the noise. A crane towered above the dockyard at the far end of the waterfront.

Almost immediately afterwards came the metallic crash. Something large struck steel below with tremendous force. The sound rang across the bay.

Heads turned throughout the harbour. Workers shouted. The noise reverberated through the air long after the impact itself had ended.

Christopher slowed.

A fishing vessel stood moored nearby beside one of the repair sheds. Grey smoke drifted lazily from its funnel. The breeze carried it across the quay. The smoke obscured part of the waterfront.

The sensation arrived without explanation. A siren wailed, smoke billowed everywhere. Christopher stumbled, briefly disoriented.

It was gone as quickly as it had arrived.

He continued walking. Then he looked up.

Across the street in the harbour café, Marco had turned towards him. The distance between them remained considerable.

Even so, Christopher felt the moment of recognition.

Marco saw him. Their eyes met. Christopher staggered, feeling as though the ground had dropped away beneath him.

And the world vanished.

One instant sunlight glittered across the harbour water.

The next, the sky was burning.

A siren screamed overhead.

The sound tore through him with unbearable force.

Smoke rolled between shattered buildings.

Glass covered the street.

People were running.

Someone collided with his shoulder. A woman screamed. A child cried somewhere beyond the smoke.

Christopher staggered, dust filling his mouth.

The windows were blacked out, leaving the street unnaturally dark beneath the smoke. Men in steel helmets hurried through the smoke, ARP armbands bright against their coats.A child was being dragged through the smoke, his gas-mask box knocking against his hip.

The air smelled of burning timber, brickwork and cordite. A church tower stood beyond them, its outline barely visible through drifting smoke.
A building slumped half collapsed across the road ahead. Flames flickered through broken windows. The siren continued its endless howl.

He knew that sound. The certainty arrived before thought.

Air raid.

The knowledge felt instinctive.

Terrifyingly familiar.

A searchlight swept across a sky crowded with smoke.

Voices shouted from every direction, barking orders, shrieking warnings, desperate prayers.

The city seemed to shake beneath his feet.

Christopher turned.

A figure was running towards him through the haze, a man in an old-fashioned suit, dark hair plastered against his forehead. Rain mixed with soot across his face.

Marco.

The recognition struck with overwhelming certainty, unmistakable.

His expression carried a terror Christopher had never seen before.

Marco was shouting words that vanished beneath the onslaught of the sirens.

Then another explosion shook the street, masonry crashing somewhere nearby. Glass burst outward from a shopfront.

The world lurched, and Marco was closer now, his face sharpened briefly through the smoke.

Christopher saw desperation there, raw and exposed.

Marco reached for him. His mouth moved.

This time the words broke through. "Don't go."

The plea struck like a physical blow. Christopher felt it somewhere deep inside himself, a memory older than memory.

The scene fractured into smoke, fire, running feet. The sound of aircraft overhead.

Then Marco again, his hand gripping Christopher's arm, his face pale with fear.

He knew. Before the words arrived he knew.

Marco understood something he could not stop.

Something was about to happen.

Something irreversible.

"Please." Marco's word emerged through the chaos. "Stay with me."

Christopher felt his chest constrict.

The emotion behind the plea seemed almost unbearable, love and fear. The certainty of impending loss.

All of it arrived together.

The street dissolved.

Darkness swallowed everything.

A staircase, dust, broken stone. The smell of smoke thickening in his lungs.

Someone shouting his name. Far away now. Very far away.

Christopher tried to move. Pain tore through him.

The ceiling groaned overhead. Another collapse echoed somewhere beyond the darkness.

He understood suddenly. The knowledge settled with horrifying clarity.

Alone.

Buried beneath shattered masonry. The realisation carried no panic, only grief, a grief so profound it seemed to hollow out the world itself.

Somewhere beyond the rubble, Marco was still calling for him.

The voice sounded desperate. Then distant. Then gone. Silence closed around him. The darkness deepened.

Christopher felt himself slowly dying, listening to the city burn above him, listening for footsteps that never came.

The loneliness of it seemed infinite.

Then the memory shattered.

The harbour returned. Sunlight flashed upon the water. Voices echoed across the quay.

Market preparations continued exactly as before.

Christopher stood frozen in the middle of the promenade, pulse hammering against his ribs.

Across the harbour, Marco was already moving. His chair scraped violently against the paving stones as he rose to his feet.

The expression on his face was pure shock.

Somehow Christopher knew that Marco recognised exactly what had just happened.

Marco had known it all along.

Penmere had returned in a violent rush.

Christopher staggered. The harbour spun around him. Fishing boats rocked against their moorings. Voices carried across the waterfront. The smell of salt water replaced smoke and dust.

He could not understand where he was. The transition struck with such force that his stomach lurched.

He tried to take a step. His legs failed completely. The stone beneath him tilted.

Christopher's knee struck the pavement first. Pain flashed through him. He reached instinctively for support and missed. His shoulder slammed against the harbour wall. The impact drove the breath from his lungs.

The world blurred.

Voices erupted around him.

"What happened?"

"Sir?"

Several people were moving towards him. Footsteps echoed across the waterfront.

Christopher attempted to push himself upright. His arms trembled violently. The effort achieved nothing. The memory still clung to him.

Dust in his lungs. Crushed stone. The certainty of dying alone beneath the ruins.

For one dreadful moment he could still feel the weight pressing down upon him.

A hand touched his shoulder.

He flinched so violently that the person immediately pulled away.

"It's all right." The voice belonged to a woman he did not recognise. "Can you hear me?"

Christopher stared at her blankly.

Behind her a small crowd had begun to gather, workers from the quay, tourists, two fishermen.

Faces watched him with varying degrees of concern and curiosity. Humiliation arrived all at once.

This had happened in public. People had seen.

The realisation made his stomach twist.

A man crouched nearby. "Should we call an ambulance?"

Another voice answered immediately. "Is he having a seizure?"

Christopher closed his eyes. The questions merged into meaningless noise.

He heard hurried footsteps.

Then a familiar voice cut through everything. "Move."

The word was sharp, urgent.

People stepped aside.

Christopher looked up. Marco was already there.

He dropped to one knee beside him. For an instant neither man spoke.

Christopher saw his face clearly.

And froze.

Because the expression staring back at him was not concern.

It was horror, raw and unmistakable.

The same horror he had seen only moments earlier.

The same horror he had seen on Marco's face in the vision. The same fear. The same desperate certainty of loss.

Marco's face had gone completely pale. His eyes searched Christopher's with frantic intensity. For a second he looked as though he had forgotten where he was.

Forgotten the crowd, forgotten the harbour. Forgotten everything except Christopher lying broken in front of him.

The resemblance was so exact that Christopher felt a fresh wave of panic. Some part of it had been real.

He knew it suddenly. Not because of the vision itself but because of Marco.

Because no one could counterfeit that expression. No one could invent grief that deep.

"Christopher."

Marco's voice was barely steady.

His hand hovered near Christopher's shoulder. The hesitation struck him immediately. Marco wanted to touch him. He was afraid to.

The discovery unsettled Christopher almost as much as the vision.

"I'm fine," he managed.

The lie sounded ridiculous. He was shaking. His pulse hammered wildly. His chest hurt.

Marco did not look convinced. Neither did anyone else.

The crowd remained gathered around them. Christopher became painfully aware of every pair of eyes.

A woman stood with a phone already in her hand. Two dockworkers watched openly. Someone was still asking whether an ambulance should be called.

The humiliation deepened. He had spent months trying to conceal the strange disintegration of his life, but now it had unfolded in the middle of the harbour for everyone to witness.

Marco glanced briefly towards the gathering crowd. "He needs space."

The authority in his voice surprised several people. A few stepped back immediately. Others followed.

Christopher watched him. Marco's attention returned to him at once. The expression of horror had faded, partly.

Enough remained to make Christopher's stomach tighten, because he recognised it now.

He had seen it through smoke, through air-raid sirens.

Through tears.

Stay with me.

The remembered plea echoed inside his head.

Marco swallowed.

He seemed on the verge of saying something. Something important. Something dangerous.

Then he looked away.

The opportunity vanished.

Christopher found that almost as frightening as the vision itself.

Because whatever Marco had seen in his face just now had terrified him.

Christopher declined the ambulance.

The paramedics who eventually arrived appeared unconvinced by his insistence that he was merely exhausted, but after several questions and a cursory examination they reluctantly allowed him to leave.

By then the crowd had dispersed. The harbour had returned to its ordinary rhythms. Fishing boats came and went. Workers continued unloading supplies. Tourists wandered between cafés and gift shops as though nothing unusual had happened.

Christopher walked home through gathering evening shadows.

Marco had disappeared long before he reached the end of the waterfront.

The absence lingered.

His flat felt unusually quiet.

Rain had begun falling again by the time he arrived.

A fine drizzle swept across the harbour beyond the windows.

Christopher changed out of his damp clothes and made tea he had no intention of drinking.

The mug sat untouched on the table beside him.

Darkness settled gradually across Penmere .

Lights appeared one by one along the waterfront.

The museum glowed faintly on the far side of the harbour. Reflections trembled across the black water.

Christopher stood at the window.

For weeks he had been trying to understand Marco's cautious evasion and the sadness that occasionally surfaced beneath his composure, but the pattern remained.

Christopher died. Marco survived.

Perhaps this was what Marco had been carrying all these years.

Christopher remembered the grave beneath the yew tree.

The sadness in Marco's face.

I always seem to find my way back here.

At the time the remark had seemed strange.

Now it felt heartbreaking.

A terrible possibility began to emerge.

Not an answer.

Something quieter.

Something far worse.

Marco had never behaved like a man protecting a secret.

Christopher had mistaken caution for concealment because it was easier than considering the alternative.

The truth looked different.

He thought of the expression on Marco's face when he collapsed beside the harbour wall.

That had not been the reaction of a man afraid of being exposed.

It had been the reaction of a man watching history threaten to repeat itself.

Christopher stared out across the dark water.

A fishing vessel moved slowly through the harbour entrance.

Its lights drifted across the bay like distant stars.

For the first time since the dreams began, a fragile understanding took shape.

Marco had never been afraid of what Christopher might remember.

He had been afraid of what remembering might lead to. Afraid of the ending. Afraid of standing helplessly beside another death he could not prevent.

The realisation settled heavily inside him.

Outside, the tide continued its slow advance towards the shore.

Christopher felt a quiet sorrow for a man who had apparently spent far longer than anyone should carrying the same grief.

Far below, waves broke softly against the harbour wall.

Christopher remained there long after darkness had swallowed the bay.

Watching the tide come in.

And wondering how many times Marco Rossi had already stood beside a grave believing he had lost him forever.

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