The Tor - 6. Chapter 6

### Chapter Six #######################################################################################################################################################

The lantern festival transformed the harbour every autumn.

Strings of coloured lanterns hung between buildings and across the harbour road, their reflections trembling in the darkening water below. Food stalls lined the promenade beneath canvas awnings striped with rainwater and light. The smell of frying fish drifted through the crowd alongside mulled cider, roasted chestnuts, coffee, and salt carried inland from the sea. Somewhere farther along the quay a folk band played beneath a temporary stage while children ran between the stalls carrying paper lanterns that glowed gold and red in the gathering dusk.

Christopher followed Jamie through the crowd with a takeaway cup of tea warming his hands, wondering whether he still had time to escape.

The harbour was busier than he had seen it in weeks. A few tourists mixed with locals. Families filled the waterfront. Volunteers in fluorescent jackets directed people away from the busiest bottlenecks. Boats moored along the quay carried lanterns in their rigging, turning the dark water into a shifting tapestry of coloured reflections.

“I still think this is an absurd amount of effort for some lanterns,” Jamie said.

“You say that every year.”

“And every year I remain correct.”

Christopher smiled despite himself. Some of their university friends were already waiting near the old customs building. Sophie greeted them with an enthusiastic wave while Dev balanced a paper tray piled dangerously high with chips.

"You look thrilled to be here," Dev observed.

"I am thrilled," Christopher protested.

"You sound like a hostage." Christopher rolled his eyes.

The sea beyond the harbour reflected hundreds of scattered lights. Wind moved steadily off the water, cool enough now to justify scarves and heavier coats. The crowd continued thickening as darkness settled across Penmere. The conversation drifted easily into familiar patterns. Christopher felt some of the tension of the past week ease from his shoulders. For a little while he allowed himself to focus on ordinary things. Work complaints. Jamie's ongoing feud with his neighbours. L's latest disastrous attempt at online dating.

One of the local historical societies had erected several display tents near the excavation site. Information boards stood beneath strings of lanterns explaining the Roman and pre Roman discoveries uncovered during the summer.

Christopher noticed Vale first.

Vale stood beside one of the displays speaking animatedly to a small group of visitors while gesturing with a laminated reconstruction drawing.

Then Christopher saw Marco.

His stomach tightened automatically.

Marco stood a short distance away helping arrange materials on one of the tables. Lantern light softened the sharp lines of his face. He wore a dark coat and gloves against the evening cold. A few strands of dark hair had escaped the wind and fallen across his forehead.

Jamie followed Christopher's gaze. "Archaeologist?"

Christopher immediately regretted introducing the subject. "Unfortunately."

Jamie laughed. "You make him sound like a recurring problem."

"He is a recurring problem."

Before Christopher could elaborate, Vale spotted him.

The archaeologist's face brightened visibly.

"Mr Edwards."

Several heads turned.

Christopher closed his eyes briefly.

Vale was already making his way through the crowd.

"Good to see you," he said. "Enjoying the festival?"

"We've only just arrived."

"Perfect timing. Come and say hello."

Christopher had no realistic way to refuse.

A minute later he found himself introducing Jamie and the others while Marco stood beside the display table.

Then Jamie stepped forward and held out his hand.

“So you are Marco.”

Marco shook it. “Guilty.”

“Jamie.”

“I've heard about you.”

Jamie raised an eyebrow. “Hopefully nothing actionable.”

A flicker of amusement crossed Marco's face.

“Nothing that would survive in court.”

Jamie laughed immediately.

To Christopher's annoyance, so did everyone else.

The conversation began moving almost at once after that.

Marco proved infuriatingly easy to talk to.

He remembered names after hearing them once. He listened attentively when people spoke. He possessed a dry sense of humour that emerged unexpectedly and landed with unnerving precision. Within fifteen minutes Sophie was asking him questions about the excavations while Dev demanded stories about archaeological disasters.

Marco supplied both.

“Somebody once dropped a drone into a Roman drainage channel,” he said.

“Please tell me that wasn't you,” Dev replied.

“It was absolutely me.”

The group laughed.

Christopher stared into his drink.

A strange irritation had begun gathering inside him.

It made no sense.

Marco had done nothing wrong.

Quite the opposite.

He was being polite, charming, and perfectly normal.

That somehow made everything worse.

"Christopher talks about you constantly, "Jamie smirked.

Christopher nearly choked on his coffee. "I do not."

Jamie ignored him. Marco's eyes flickered briefly towards Christopher. The corner of his mouth moved almost imperceptibly. It was dangerously close to a smile.

"That is reassuring," Marco said. "I assumed he only complained."

Jamie burst out laughing. To Christopher's horror, so did everyone else. The conversation continued.

Marco listened more than he spoke. Within twenty minutes he had somehow become part of the group as they eventually drifted away from the display tents towards the food stalls lining the harbour. The transition happened so naturally that Christopher only realised it afterwards. Nobody had invited Marco. Nobody had needed to. He simply belonged there now.

“You're glaring,” Jamie murmured quietly beside him.

“I am not.”

“You absolutely are.”

Christopher looked away. Jamie followed his gaze towards Marco, who was currently listening to one of Dev's stories with an expression of exaggerated seriousness.

A smile tugged briefly at Jamie's mouth. “Interesting.”

“There is nothing interesting.”

“Of course.”

Christopher resisted the urge to push him into the water.

The crowd pressed warmly around them. Somewhere behind him Marco said something that made the entire group laugh again. The sound struck Christopher with surprising force. The feeling was difficult to name. Jealousy did not seem quite right. Neither did resentment. The closest word was intrusion.

Marco belonged to the strange world of excavations, unanswered questions and impossible memories. He belonged beside trenches and ancient stones and mysteries Christopher wished had never entered his life.

Seeing him here among friends and familiar voices felt wrong. As though two separate worlds had begun sliding together, and Christopher was no longer certain where the boundary between them ought to be.

The festival seemed to grow larger as the evening deepened. Lanterns glowed more brightly against the darkness gathering over the bay. Music drifted across the waterfront from several directions at once. The smell of food and seawater mingled beneath the cool autumn air while crowds moved steadily along the promenade.

Jamie fell into step beside Marco while they crossed the harbour square.

Christopher watched them from several paces behind.

"What most people forget," Jamie was saying, "is that the harbour was already important long before the Victorians got hold of it."

Marco nodded. "Most people assume history begins whenever the architecture becomes attractive."

Jamie laughed. "Exactly."

The two of them continued discussing local history with an ease that irritated Christopher far more than it should have. Jamie was usually suspicious of strangers. He disliked being sold things, disliked charm, disliked people who tried too hard. Yet within an hour he was talking to Marco as though they had known one another for months.

Later, while the group queued beside a drinks stall, Dev returned carrying far more cups than one person could reasonably manage.

The arrangement collapsed almost immediately.

"Right," Dev announced as two cups began sliding dangerously sideways. "This was a mistake."

Before anyone else could react, Marco stepped forward and relieved him of half the burden.

"A brave effort," he said.

"I was trying to save time."

"You were attempting structural engineering without qualifications."

Dev laughed. "So you're saying it wasn't my finest moment."

"I am saying the tea survived, which reflects well on all involved."

The exchange earned another round of amusement.

Christopher huffed a discontented sigh.

"What?" Sophie asked.

Christopher realised she had followed his gaze. "Nothing."

She smiled faintly. "Hm."

The sound carried enough meaning to make him uncomfortable. As the evening continued, similar moments accumulated. Marco standing comfortably beside Jamie and Dev while they argued about football. Marco helping carry equipment for one of the performers. Marco listening to Sophie describe a disastrous week at work with genuine interest.

Everywhere Christopher looked, he seemed to find him fitting neatly into ordinary life.

That should have been reassuring. Instead it left him increasingly unsettled. The problem revealed itself slowly. Christopher had never consciously considered it before. Without meaning to, he had begun placing Marco inside a very specific part of his life. The excavation. The harbour. The strange visions.

Long conversations that left more questions than answers.

Marco belonged to that world. A world of buried ruins, impossible familiarity, and things Christopher could not explain. Seeing him here beneath strings of lanterns and festival lights disrupted that picture completely.

He looked different tonight, more relaxed. At one point Christopher glanced across the crowd and saw him smiling at something Jamie had said.

The expression caught him off guard. There was a warmth to it Christopher had rarely seen before. Marco looked younger, lighter somehow, happy. The sight produced an unexpected knot of discomfort in Christopher's chest.

He turned away almost immediately. The feeling made little sense. Marco was allowed to have a life beyond archaeology, allowed to laugh, allowed to belong somewhere.

Yet each time Christopher saw evidence of it, irritation flickered through him. The emotion felt increasingly difficult to justify.

He stood beside the harbour railings watching lantern light tremble across the dark water below. Behind him, the others continued talking and laughing. Among them, Marco's voice rose briefly above the crowd before blending back into it again.

Christopher closed his eyes. The unease had become larger than simple irritation.

At one point Jamie wandered back carrying drinks.

"You know," he said quietly to Christopher, "I expected him to be much more intimidating."

Christopher looked towards Marco. He was helping an elderly volunteer adjust a display banner that had begun flapping loose in the wind.

"Why?"

Jamie shrugged. "Archaeologist. Mysterious. Permanent expression of historical suffering."

Christopher snorted despite himself.

Jamie grinned. "He's actually quite funny."

Christopher watched Marco exchange a few words with the volunteer. The older woman laughed immediately. Marco looked faintly embarrassed.

Jamie asked, "Walk with me."

Christopher eyed him suspiciously. "Why?"

"Because Sophie and Alex have become trapped in a discussion about mortgage rates and I value my remaining will to live."

Christopher allowed himself to be steered a short distance away from the others. They stopped near a quieter stretch of harbour where lanterns swayed gently overhead.

Jamie said nothing. Christopher should have recognised the warning signs.

Instead he took a sip of cider.

Jamie looked across the crowd towards Marco. Then back at Christopher. "You know," he said, "you two have a very interesting way of getting on."

Christopher nearly inhaled the cider. He coughed violently.

Jamie burst out laughing. "Oh, that was priceless."

Christopher glared at him. "You are an appalling human being."

"I've been told."

Jamie remained entirely unapologetic.

Christopher recovered enough to straighten. "Where on earth did that come from?"

Jamie lifted one shoulder. "You keep looking at him."

"I do not."

"You certainly do."

Christopher opened his mouth. Stopped.

Jamie nodded smugly. "Exactly."

"You're imagining things."

"I really am not."

Christopher looked away. The festival continued around them. People drifted between stalls. Children carried paper lanterns through the crowd. Somewhere nearby a busker was murdering a perfectly innocent folk song.

Jamie waited. Eventually he said, "Seriously though."

Christopher already disliked that tone.

"Why do you look annoyed every time he opens his mouth?"

The question landed harder than Christopher expected. He stared out across the harbour. Several lanterns floated on the water now, moving slowly with the tide. "I don't."

"You do."

"I don't."

Jamie gave him a look.

Christopher sighed. "Fine. Maybe a little."

"A little?"

"A moderate amount."

Jamie laughed. "Why?"

Christopher tightened his grip on the paper cup. The answer should have been simple. Marco was arrogant sometimes, secretive, occasionally infuriating. Any of those explanations would have sounded reasonable.

The real answer was something else entirely. The real answer was impossible. Because every conversation with Marco felt less like meeting somebody new and more like remembering somebody he had somehow forgotten. Because he kept recognising things that should not be familiar.

A turn of phrase. A look. The shape of a smile. The way Marco stood watching the harbour.

Because some stubborn, irrational part of him reacted to Marco's presence as though he already occupied a place in Christopher's life. A place he had never been given.

How exactly was he supposed to explain that?

Christopher stared at the dark water. "I don't know," he said quietly.

Jamie's expression softened slightly. That answer, at least, was honest.

"You don't like him?"

Christopher considered it, feeling the familiar twist of irritation.

"No," he said. Then he frowned. "That's not right either."

Jamie waited. Christopher rubbed a hand across the back of his neck.

The words felt absurd before he even spoke them. "It's more that..." He hesitated. "It's more that he keeps acting like somebody I've known for years."

Jamie blinked. "And that's bad?"

Christopher looked away. "I don't know."

The answer sounded inadequate even to him. Jamie studied him for several seconds. Then he shook his head. "You're very strange."

"Thank you."

"I mean it affectionately."

"That helps enormously."

Jamie laughed.

The conversation drifted elsewhere after that. Christopher answered where appropriate. He even managed a smile once or twice.

Yet his attention kept returning to the crowd beyond them. To the place where Marco stood talking with people Christopher had known for most of his adult life.

The unsettling part was no longer that Marco fit naturally among them.

The unsettling part was how natural it felt to watch him there.

The crowd gradually drifted towards the harbour wall as the hour approached.

Music faded into the background. Food stalls began closing their shutters. Conversations merged into a low anticipatory murmur that spread along the waterfront.

Christopher followed the others without really thinking about it.

The sea stretched dark beyond the harbour mouth. A cold wind moved in from the water, carrying salt and the distant crash of waves against rocks farther along the coast. Below the wall, hundreds of lanterns floated upon the tide, their reflections trembling across the black surface like scattered stars.

Jamie was arguing with Sophie about something entirely trivial. Alex was attempting to photograph the lanterns with steadily decreasing success.

Christopher listened only vaguely. His attention kept wandering.

The first firework launched from a barge beyond the harbour. A sharp whistle split the darkness. Then gold exploded overhead.

The crowd cheered. Light cascaded across the sea. Christopher looked up automatically. Another burst followed. Then another, silver, blue, crimson.

The harbour flashed with shifting colour. People pressed closer together along the wall as more spectators arrived behind them. The available space narrowed gradually until Christopher became aware that someone stood beside him.

Marco.

Perhaps he had moved there deliberately.

Perhaps the crowd had simply arranged itself that way.

Christopher could not have said.

Neither of them spoke.

Above them another firework blossomed into white light. For an instant the harbour became bright as day.

Christopher glanced downward. Their hands rested on the stone wall. Close together. Only a few inches apart. The next flash came. And the world vanished.

Salt wind struck his face. Firelight moved across dark water. The shoreline beneath his hands felt different. Rougher. Older.

His hand was wrapped around Marco's. The certainty arrived before thought. Warm fingers intertwined with his own. The familiar pressure of another hand returning the grip without hesitation.

The sensation carried no surprise. No uncertainty. Only belonging.

A feeling so profound that it seemed to define the entire world around it.

The sea stretched black beyond them. Firelight danced upon waves. Someone was laughing nearby.

Christopher could not see faces. Could not hear words clearly.

None of that mattered. The only thing that mattered was the man beside him. The absolute knowledge that they had stood together countless times before.

That this closeness was ordinary. Expected.

Home.

The memory lasted perhaps two seconds.

Then it shattered as a firework burst overhead. The harbour returned with cold wind, lanterns, crowds with modern voices. Christopher staggered slightly. His hand tightened against the stone wall, so overwhelmed by grief that he almost lost his breath because whatever he had seen was already gone.

The certainty vanished with it, taking the shoreline, the firelight and the feeling of belonging. All of it had dissolved before he could grasp it, leaving only absence behind.

Christopher stared blindly across the water, his chest painfully tight.

Beside him Marco watched him with an expression of recognition that faded quickly.

Neither of them spoke. The crown applauded another firework exploding overhead in a shower of gold.

Christopher barely heard it. He found himself mourning something he could neither name nor remember, and somehow that made it worse. because deep inside he knew with terrible conviction that he had lost it once already.

The fireworks continued. Gold dissolved into silver. Silver became blue. New bursts climbed into the darkness before the echoes of the previous ones had fully faded. The harbour flashed with shifting colour while cheers rolled through the crowd after every display.

Christopher barely registered any of it. He remained staring out across the water, grasping for a memory that had vanished completely.

He tried to hold onto it, to recover even a fragment. A face, a shoreline, a voice, anything, but nothing remained. The details had disappeared with astonishing speed, dissolving like a dream upon waking. Every image had already slipped beyond reach.

Only the feeling endured, and the feeling was unbearable.

A firework exploded high overhead.
Somewhere beside him Jamie said something.

Christopher heard the sound of his voice but not the words.

His attention remained fixed on the dark water below.

The memory itself was gone.

Only the loss remained.

Like remembering the existence of a wound without recalling how it had been inflicted.

Christopher swallowed.

Whatever he had experienced beside the harbour wall had carried none of the uncertainty of the earlier visions.

For those brief seconds he had known something with absolute certainty.

And then it had been taken away again.

Another cheer rose from the crowd.

Jamie touched his shoulder. "You alright?"

Christopher nodded automatically. "Just tired."

Jamie studied him. The answer clearly failed to convince.

Christopher did not care.

A few minutes later he made his excuses.

The festival was winding down anyway. People exchanged farewells and promises to meet again before Christmas.

Jamie squeezed his shoulder before letting him go. "Text me when you get home."

"I will."

Marco said nothing.

Christopher was grateful for that.

He doubted he could have endured a conversation.

The lantern-lit streets felt strangely quiet after the noise of the harbour.

Music drifted faintly through the town as he climbed the hill towards home. Paper lanterns still swayed above the pavement while families passed carrying folded chairs and empty cups, children dragging tired feet behind them.

Christopher reached the top of the hill and paused.

Behind him, the harbour glowed with hundreds of lanterns scattered across the darkness. Far out over the sea, the last fireworks faded into drifting smoke.

He stood motionless beneath the lantern light.

For weeks he had asked himself the same question.

Am I losing my mind?

For the first time, it no longer felt like the most frightening possibility.

A cold wind came in from the sea.

Christopher looked back towards the harbour.

What if these memories are real?