Page 12 of Where the Light No Longer Follows

“Do I scare you?” he asked, leading her inside.

As they stepped into the lift, she said, “Only what you are.”

Gabriel had been adored all of his life. Praised for just his existence alone. Made to feel above all. Finding Silene that one winter night so long ago had been the first time he’d understood his own being. Without a word, she had taught him so much about himself. For that small period of time where he’d circled her starless, moonless, sunless orbit, he’d found out the truth. Just how feeble and weak he was. How useless he’d been. For all he could do as he’d watched her hurt was to just simply do that—just watch. From afar. Hidden behind shadows of his own faults.

“Why did you bring me here, Gabriel?” she asked as the lift started going down.

His head dropped the mirror behind, and he stared at the lift’s flickering light. “I didn’t want to be alone tonight. Just this one night.”

The way her eyes rounded full of understanding he didn't deserve, coloured in with sadness he didn’t deserve might have been his next death—such a gentle one this time. “But why me out of all?”

“Tomorrow,” he started, “see me tomorrow and I will tell you.”

Her long silence almost spooked him, he’d almost never felt his heart race, but it did as she thought about her answer all the way down and as they reached the river. “Does it have to be in the morning?” she asked, hopping on the boat and turning to him. “I wanted to finish planting my new flowers for whoever will stay in my home after I’m gone.”

Gone. She’d be gone soon. “It doesn’t have to be in the morning.”

She sat down, gathering her knees to her chest and nodded at him as the boat started getting picked up by the current of the invisible river between worlds. “I will come to you since you can’t come to me.”

He walked along the riverbank beside her boat. “I can come to you, too, Silene.”

“But you never cross the river.”

He bit down his smile. “How do you know that I never cross the river?”

Looking away, she said, “You can go now.”

“It’s a great evening for a walk,” he said, keeping the boat’s pace. “How do you know I never cross the river?”

She sighed. “I have a great view from my house.”

He simply raised a brow. “And do you happen to watch me often?”

“I wouldn’t say often.” Grabbing an oar, she started to row a little faster, making Gabriel’s grin grow corner to corner.

The boat came to a stop when he put his foot on the bow and leaned in close to her. “I wonder,” he said, watching her chest rise and fall faster and faster the longer he remained there so closely to her. “I wonder how long you have known that I watch you, too.”

The ring of hazel thinned the longer her eyes remained on him, her pupils growing wide as if she’d been staring into the sun.

“Who told you? Az? Some busy body ghost?”

“I could fe…see you,” she stuttered.

How had he missed it? “You never said hello.”

“I’m not in the business of saluting stalkers.”

“Only murderers and psychopaths?”

“It’s my job to guide any soul, regardless. Az deals with them how he wishes to deal with them. I’m not a judge or jury.”

“But they get a hello, at least. I don’t.”

She slowly frowned. “You sound weird.”

“My pardon. I only meant to sound envious.”

“Will you let go of my boat, please?”