The Tor - 2. Chapter 2

Rain arrived before dawn and never properly stopped.

By ten in the morning, Penmere had dissolved into shifting grey water and blurred light. Rain swept sideways across the harbour in dense curtains while the wind shoved hard against the sea wall below the promenade. Most of the tourist shops along the waterfront had their shutters down despite the hour. Plastic signs rattled uselessly outside closed ice cream kiosks. A rack of postcards outside the newsagent twisted damply in the wind.

The gulls had given up fighting the weather. They stood hunched along the harbour railings with their feathers blown ragged, staring resentfully out towards the sea.

Christopher crossed the road with one hand gripping the collar of his coat tighter against the rain.

The buses lumbering through town looked half asleep. Through fogged windows he could see scattered passengers sitting alone beneath fluorescent lights, faces pale and distant in the storm-dark morning.

Everything sounded muted beneath the weather, even the harbour. The tide rolled heavily against the quay walls in slow dark surges while fishing boats knocked softly together below the rain. Somewhere farther out, almost lost beneath the wind, the bell buoy rang once through the mist.

Christopher felt the sound low in his chest. He kept walking. He had finished the morning’s meeting at school an hour earlier than expected after an exhausting discussion about staffing shortages and heating costs in Block C. Technically he could have gone home afterward. Instead he found himself drifting downhill towards the harbour with a satchel full of unmarked essays knocking against his hip. Restless energy lingered unpleasantly beneath his skin. It wasn't anxiety, just the persistent sense that something sat fractionally out of place around him.

He had slept badly again. Dreams this time of seawater moving black beneath moonlight and a voice speaking close against his throat in a language he almost understood. He remembered waking abruptly before dawn with his pulse hammering and the strange certainty that someone had been standing beside the bed only moments earlier. By morning the feeling had faded enough to become embarrassing.

Too much time alone, he told himself. Too many ghostly walks around the tor. Too many historical documentaries before sleep.

Still, unease lingered.

Rain struck his face sharply as he turned onto the waterfront. Without consciously deciding to, Christopher crossed towards the harbour café tucked beneath the old stone arcade near the pier. The Lantern stayed open year-round mostly for locals. In summer it overflowed with tourists in damp waterproofs and exhausted parents bribing children with hot chocolate after beach days. In late autumn it became quieter. Slower. The windows steamed constantly from wet coats and boiling milk.

Christopher pushed open the door and stepped gratefully inside. Warmth closed around him immediately. The café smelled of coffee grounds, cinnamon, wet wool, and fried bread. Soft jazz played somewhere near the counter beneath the hiss of the espresso machine. Only four tables were occupied.

An elderly couple sat near the back sharing tea in complete silence.

Two council workers in fluorescent jackets argued mildly over football scores beside the pastry display.

Christopher sat alone near the window with a mug of coffee cooling between his hands and thirty unmarked Year Eleven essays still buried in his satchel beside the chair. The lunchtime crowd never really existed this time of year. Outside, the bay had almost disappeared entirely behind rain.

Christopher liked days like this. Tourists usually stayed indoors when the weather turned vicious. The town belonged to itself again. Harbour workers crossed the quay in waterproofs darkened by seawater. Gulls huddled motionless atop lamp posts with their feathers puffed against the wind. The whole coastline seemed to draw inward and become older somehow.

He lifted his coffee again just as the café door opened. Cold air swept briefly through the room carrying rain and salt with it.

Then a man's voice said, warmly and apologetically:

“Sorry. I think your weather may be trying to kill me.”

The girl behind the counter laughed. Christopher froze. Not visibly. Only a small involuntary stillness low in his spine. His stomach tightened sharply before thought caught up with it.

The voice itself should not have mattered. Warm baritone. Slight accent. Italian perhaps. Ordinary, and yet adrenaline moved suddenly through Christopher's chest hard enough to make his fingers tighten around the mug.

He stared down at the table. Ridiculous. His body reacted as though someone dangerous had just entered the room. Or someone deeply familiar.

The counter girl was still laughing. “You picked the wrong week to visit.”

“I am beginning to understand this,” the man replied.

There it was again, the strange tightening beneath Christopher's ribs. Recognition.

His pulse had begun beating too fast. He could feel it unpleasantly in his throat now. Slowly, before he could quite decide not to, Christopher looked up at the same time that Nina glanced up from the espresso machine.

“Bloody weather,” she said.

The stranger mopped rain from his forehead. “I think the sea’s trying to reclaim the town.”

“That would improve the rent situation.”

He smiled faintly and ordered coffee. He was tall. broad-shouldered. His dark hair was cut close to the scalp, his jaw square, his eyes dark. A nose too large to allow for handsome made his face arresting.

Unfortunately the café only had heat near the harbour side, which left the empty table directly beside him for the stranger. Rain lashed the windows beside them both while gulls wheeled ghostlike through the storm outside.

The stranger returned his attention to the harbour. Christopher attempted to do the same. It should have ended there.

Instead he became unpleasantly aware of everything.

The roughness of the man’s hands around the cup. Rainwater still clinging darkly to the shoulders of his coat. The faint shadow of exhaustion beneath his eyes. The subtle impression that he could become dangerous very quickly if necessary.

Christopher took too large a sip of coffee and nearly burned his tongue. Ridiculous. He was just a man. A tourist probably lost on his way to somewhere more picturesque.

The stranger spoke without looking away from the window. “Does it always rain this hard here?”

His English carried a soft Italian accent. Christopher felt another sharp burst of heat low in his stomach, immediately followed by annoyance.

“Only when the town wants privacy.”

The stranger turned then, faint amusement touching his expression. “That sounds like local mythology.”

“We take weather very personally in Penmere.”

“I can see that.”

Christopher became aware he was tapping one finger restlessly against the coffee cup. Stop it.

The stranger extended a hand across the small gap between tables. “Marco.”

Christopher stared at the hand a fraction too long before shaking it. The contact sent a sudden disorienting sensation through him, like standing too quickly after bad sleep.

Seawater and cold stone beneath bare feet. A voice speaking close against his ear.

Then it vanished.

Christopher pulled his hand back almost immediately. “Christopher.”

Marco repeated the name quietly, as though testing its weight.

A breath twisted in Christopher’s chest. He disliked how familiar the man sounded saying it.

“So,” Marco said, “you are from here?”

Christopher frowned slightly. “How could you tell?”

“You look at the harbour the way people look at family.”

The answer landed with uncomfortable precision. Christopher covered the reaction with sarcasm. “That sounds mildly unhealthy.”

Marco smiled faintly. There was tiredness in the smile. Something older than flirtatiousness “Perhaps.” Christopher was absurdly aware of the beating of the pulse in his own throat.

Marco watched the harbour while gulls wheeled pale through the storm outside. “Does the harbour always sound like this in storms?” he asked.

Christopher frowned slightly. “What do you mean?”

Marco tilted his head as though listening beyond the café walls. “The bells. The ropes against the masts.” A small pause. “The water.”

Christopher stared at him. Most tourists noticed the sea visually first. The colour . The cliffs. The postcard version of Penmere , not the sounds, especially not in weather like this.

“You get used to it,” Christopher said carefully.

Marco smiled faintly into his coffee.

“I do not think I would.”

The wording caught Christopher’s attention immediately. Slightly imperfect English, just slightly too deliberate, as though each sentence passed through an extra layer of thought before reaching the surface.

The shape of his hands, the softened Italian vowels, the way tiredness lingered permanently around his eyes.

He took another sip of coffee to interrupt the line of thought. Marco glanced towards the rain-streaked harbour again, resting one hand absently against his wrist while listening to the harbour wind outside.

At that exact instant a sudden sharp ache burned around Christopher’s own wrists beneath his coat sleeves. He inhaled sharply.

Rope.

The sensation arrived violently clear for half a second. Raw skin. Pressure. Wet fibers tightening.

Christopher jerked one hand downward beneath the table instinctively. The pain vanished immediately. Marco was watching him now.

Carefully rather than casually.

“You are cold?” he asked.

Christopher realised his breathing had changed. “No.” Too fast again.

Marco’s hand remained lightly over his own wrist. Christopher could not stop staring at it.

“Do many people stay here their entire lives?”

The question landed strangely. Christopher felt himself tense before he understood why. "Some do.”

“And you?”

Christopher gave a short laugh. “That subtle, huh?”

Marco looked momentarily concerned. “I apologise. In Italian perhaps that question sounds less…” He searched briefly for the word. “Investigative.”

Christopher snorted despite himself. “No. It’s fine.” But it wasn’t entirely fine, because the question had not felt casual. None of them had.

Christopher looked out towards the tor barely visible through rain and mist. “I’ve lived here most of my life,” he admitted.

Marco nodded once as though confirming a private expectation. “You like winter better, yes?”

Christopher blinked. “What?”

“The town.” Marco gestured vaguely towards the harbour outside. “You prefer it when fewer people are here.”

Christopher stared at him openly now.

A strange flare of irritation moved suddenly through his chest.

Who are you? Not aloud. Only internally. But the force of it startled him.

“You’ve been here about twenty minutes,” Christopher said. “You make a lot of assumptions.”

Marco met the edge in his voice calmly. “Yes,” he said after a moment. “I think perhaps I do.”

The answer should not have felt intimate, yet Christopher felt heat rise uncomfortably along the back of his neck. Rain crashed harder briefly against the windows. Neither of them spoke for several seconds. Marco’s attention drifted again towards the harbour. towards the tor. Christopher noticed immediately. Again that irrational flash of possessiveness tightened inside him before he could stop it.

The reaction made no sense whatsoever.

“You’re not here for surfing season,” Christopher said abruptly. “So why Penmere ?”

Marco glanced back towards him. The expression that crossed his face then was oddly difficult to read. More like careful than evasive.

“I like places that remember themselves,” he said quietly.

Christopher forgot what he had been about to say. A low and electric shiver moved suddenly through him. More than just attraction. Recognition, sharp enough to hurt, and at the same instant, flared violently beneath it.

Exhausting man.

The thought arrived with bewildering certainty. Christopher barely knew him. Had known him less than half an hour. Yet some primitive part of him already reacted as though Marco were a complicated problem returning to his life after years away.

Marco seemed to notice the shift in his expression. “You are angry with me,” he said softly.

Christopher laughed once in disbelief. “I don’t even know you.”

“No,” Marco agreed. A small pause followed. “Still.”

The word settled heavily between them. Christopher suddenly became aware of the storm again. The hiss of milk steaming behind the counter. The muted clink of cutlery. The smell of coffee and wet wool and sea salt drifting faintly each time the café door opened. Everything felt unnaturally vivid.

Marco rested both hands around his cup. His hands were broad, knuckles scarred pale beneath the café light. A faint pale line disappearing beneath his sleeve near the wrist.

“You should probably see more of England while you’re here,” Christopher said abruptly. “Most tourists don’t spend October voluntarily getting rained on in Penmere .”

Marco’s expression altered slightly at the word tourists.

“I am not exactly a tourist.”

“What are you then?”

The question came sharper than intended.

Marco lowered his gaze briefly towards the coffee cup between his hands. When he looked back up, exhaustion flickered faintly across his face. “I think,” he said carefully, “some places keep people.”

The words struck Christopher like a physical touch. A sudden surge of rose so quickly it startled him. “Sometimes people choose not to leave.”

Silence settled instantly between them. Even the café seemed quieter beneath the storm outside. Christopher heard the hostility in his own voice only after the words had already landed.

Marco did not react defensively. That somehow made everything worse. He simply nodded once, slowly, with the weary expression of someone hearing an argument repeated many times before.

“Yes,” he said softly. “Sometimes they do.”

Christopher felt a sharp irrational urge to hurt him. Emotionally rather than physically. The impulse shocked him enough that he looked away immediately towards the harbour.

What is wrong with me?

Nothing about this interaction justified the intensity building beneath his skin. Yet sitting across from Marco felt less like meeting someone new and more like reopening an old unfinished wound.

Marco spoke after a long pause. “I did not mean offense.”

Christopher laughed once under his breath. “No. I know.” And he did know. That was part of the problem.

Marco’s attention rested on him quietly now. Not demanding. Not possessive. Simply present. Christopher became suddenly aware again of how tired Marco looked beneath the solidity of him. The faint shadows beneath his eyes. The subtle guarded way he carried himself. The almost unbearable relief that kept surfacing whenever Christopher spoke or laughed or merely remained there across the table breathing. As though survival itself mattered. The realization disturbed him more than anything else so far.

Christopher stood abruptly enough that his chair legs scraped loudly against the floor, reaching for his coat. “I should go.”

Marco blinked once, clearly surprised by the sudden shift. “Of course.”

Christopher shoved one hand into his pocket, already irritated with himself for reacting so strangely to a completely ordinary conversation. Only it had not felt ordinary. That was the problem.

Every instinct in him felt overstimulated. Attraction hummed painfully beneath his skin while a colder, sharper emotion pushed against it from underneath..

Not earned, but older than that somehow, as though he had been exhausted by Marco for a very long time already.

“Enjoy Penmere ,” Christopher said.

Marco looked up at him from beneath the warm café lights while rain moved endlessly against the windows behind him. His expression carried a faint trace Christopher could not place. Relief perhaps, or sadness.

“I always do,” Marco said softly.

The answer unsettled Christopher enough that he left without replying. Rain hit him immediately outside. Cold wind rushed hard along the harbour road while waves crashed against the seawall below. Christopher shoved both hands into his coat pockets and walked too quickly uphill through the storm. His heart still had not settled properly.

You look at the harbour the way people look at family.

I always do.

Who even says things like that?

Christopher walked uphill through the storm with his pulse still unsteady and Marco's voice lingering unpleasantly in the back of his mind.

You like winter better, yes?

As though he had known that already. As though the quiet relief in his face at seeing Christopher had meant something.

Why did he look relieved to see me?

The tight pressure that had built inside Christopher's chest eased beneath the open harbour air. Good. He shoved both hands into his coat pockets and kept walking.

Less than a minute later he realised he wanted to turn around.

The ache surprised him with its force. Christopher slowed beside the harbour railings, staring across the black water.

"This is ridiculous," he muttered.

Behind him, the café windows still glowed warmly through the rain. He could go back. Claim he had forgotten something. Order another coffee. Sit opposite Marco again.

The possibility felt alarmingly natural.

Christopher forced himself onward. Attraction explained some of it, perhaps, but not the anger, or the grief, or the impossible familiarity.

He stopped briefly beneath the awning of a closed seafood shop. The tor stood faintly beyond shifting curtains of rain, dark and motionless against the bay.

For one strange moment the whole town felt watchful.

At the crest of the hill he paused again. Penmere shimmered below him beneath the storm while the lighthouse beam turned slowly across the water. Beyond it, the tor waited.

A thought surfaced quietly inside him.

He knew you would come back.

Christopher went completely still.

The sentence had not felt like a memory. It had felt like certainty wearing the shape of one.

And despite every logical instinct insisting otherwise, he could not shake the unease that had settled over him from the moment Marco walked into the café.

That night Christopher dreamed of seawater. Something older than the harbour or the modern sea. Black water shifting beneath torchlight while waves struck stone somewhere beyond sight in slow rhythmic bursts. Cold pressed against his skin. Not painful, but intimate.

He stood barefoot on wet rock with seawater washing around his ankles while wind carried smoke and salt through darkness. Torchlight flickered gold across slick stone walls. Shadows moved beyond the edges of vision without ever fully becoming people. Someone stood close behind him. So close Christopher could feel warmth through the cold night air. A hand touched his throat gently. Two fingers resting against his pulse. It wasn't threatening, but reverent.

The contact sent a sharp unbearable ache through his chest. Desire rose instantly beside grief so immense it hollowed him from the inside out. Christopher could not separate one feeling from the other.

He heard Latin spoken softly near his ear, a low male voice, roughened slightly by exhaustion and tender enough to hurt.

Marco’s voice, but not Marco exactly. Older somehow.

The words slid through Christopher like remembered music.

“Redi ad me.”

He did not understand the language, not consciously, and yet meaning flooded him immediately all the same.

The grief inside the dream deepened so violently that Christopher felt his knees weaken. Torchlight reflected across wet stone. Somewhere nearby water dripped steadily into darkness.

The unseen hand remained against his throat, thumb brushing once lightly beneath his jaw with unbearable familiarity. Christopher tried desperately to turn towards the voice. Not to see the face.

To stay.

Panic rose suddenly through the dream then, not his own panic, but someone else’s, urgent, terrified, holding too tightly.

The hand at his throat trembled once. Then everything shattered apart into seawater and darkness.

Christopher woke violently. His heart hammered against his ribs hard enough to hurt. The room lay dark around him except for faint harbour light filtering through rain-streaked curtains. For several disoriented seconds he genuinely believed someone had been in the bed beside him moments earlier.

The certainty lingered physically. Warmth near his shoulder. Breath against his throat. Absence arriving too suddenly.

Christopher pushed himself upright breathing hard. His skin felt cold and damp. Only after dragging one hand shakily across his face did he realise tears were wet against his cheeks.

He froze. “What the hell,” he whispered hoarsely.

The dream already frayed at the edges the way dreams always did after waking, but the emotions remained horrifyingly intact.

Longing. Relief. Grief so profound it felt centuries old.

And beneath all of it the echo of those words.

Redi ad me.

Christopher pressed both hands hard against his eyes. Outside, somewhere beyond the dark harbour and rain-lashed streets of Penmere , the bell buoy sounded once through the night.

Low. Hollow. Waiting.