Midnight Wonders

2.2.2. A Stranger at the Green Hill

And as the sun came up, Luc was still in the kitchen, cracking hazelnuts. He placed them in a plastic container and made his toasted cheese sandwich and poured cereal and milk separately for Cora's breakfast.

When he brought breakfast to Cora's room and saw her still sleeping, he realized that he hadn't gone back to bed after returning home from the hill. Luc went into the bathroom and checked the dark circles under his eyes. Rubbing at them was a silly practice, but he did so anyway. It might have made them worse and he would still do it anyway. The force of habit. He went back to his room and dug around his desk until he found his glasses, and when he looked into the mirror with them on, through the unfamiliar clarity he thought he looked even worse. But he left them on his face and finished his morning routine.

It wasn't until he was sitting at the bus station that he remembered he'd forgotten to clear spring's souvenirs from his bedroom window's sill.

It was too late to run back home. He'd do it after school.

On the bus, Luc sat beside the brown-haired woman. That morning, she hadn't curled her hair, and it was smooth and flat down her back, spilling over her shoulders. That morning, her nails were painted red.

"Good morning," she said, and smiled.

"Good morning," he said. He kept meaning to talk to her more, but he never had anything to say, and she tapped away at her phone as he stared out the window. Luc wondered if the man at the green hill had existed. Probably not, elsewise Luc wouldn't know what to do with himself.

He thought the man must have been real. Luc would have believed it, until he saw the man enter the hill. There was something about him that had felt....real. Perhaps it was when he had touched Luc, when Luc's hand had been in his and he had felt the graze of the man's fingertips as he dropped hazelnuts into Luc's palm. Perhaps it had been the hazelnuts themselves, that were tucked safely away in a plastic container in his bag. Unless he had been hallucinating with the rolling pin that morning, and it would be very embarrassing if he took out his container after school and there was nothing inside. One of the older kids might make fun of him, and Catherine would be very indignant on his behalf, but she would be disappointed on the inside.

Perhaps it had been the man's voice instead. And Luc thought that had to be right, because he could not completely remember the man's voice. He had forgotten to make a note of it in his memory, and now it was gone. He only remembered what it had felt like to hear the man speak. When he had appeared out of the green and asked Luc what he was doing there. It had been a little startling, but not in a frightening way...Luc had been waiting for something, after all, and if he thought about it, the strange wanting felt a little less. There was no substitute, though, for the voice itself.

He tried to think about the voice. Would the man come back? If he did, and Luc went back, he would listen to him speak again and he would remember the way it sounded. If it were high, or low, or cold, or warm. If it were loud or soft, and if it had the quality of bells or whispers.

There were sounds echoing in his head, ringing from all the possibilities of a memory that no longer existed. A voice laughed, a voice chattered, and a voice spoke to another. And all of it was impossible because when the memory had disappeared, it had taken away imagination, and now all that was possible was fantasy.

Luc's head hit something. He blinked.

The hills rolled by outside. They looked clearer than usual. His glasses were crooked on his face. His head was on the woman's shoulder.

"Sorry," he said, sitting up. He wanted to rub his head but didn't want to show that it had hurt when he was the one who had dropped it on her shoulder.

The woman looked at him. Her phone was a foot away from her face. "It's okay," she said. "Long night?"

No; it had been much too short. But Luc nodded. "Sorry," he said again, and this time couldn't stop himself from rubbing his head. His hair felt a clumped mess. No one realized they were falling asleep until they woke, but he felt an unnecessary amount of guilt over doing so anyway.

"You're going to work?" she asked.

It was quite obvious the answer, and they both knew it, so Luc knew that it was just an invitation to a conversation. He didn't mind. Perhaps that would help keep him awake. How embarrassing it was to fall asleep like that. "Yes; I'm a teacher."

"Oh?" she said. "Elementary school?"

He nodded. "Third grade."

"You must have the patience of a saint."

"Oh, no. The children are lovely. They're a little hyper sometimes, but I don't see a reason to discourage the chattiness. It'll help them when they get older."

"Teaching must be quite exhausting," she said. "You're always nodding off both here and back."

Luc remembered the first time he had noticed her was when she had caught him sleepwalking. How...embarrassing. "Ah," he said, coughing lightly into his fist. "It's not very tiring. I just have poor sleeping habits. I don't particularly enjoy being conscious on buses either."

"That sounds like a rather odd grudge against buses." The woman put her phone facedown on her lap. She was looking directly at him, and he tried to remember the lines of her face.

"I have a personal vendetta against them," he said, remembering social convention. "I've been in a bus accident." Then he remembered that social conventions advised against revealing such personal tragedies upon first meetings. Not that this was a first meeting, but it was close enough to a first conversation.

"Oh," she said, her face taking on the expression of social convention. "That sounds awful."

Luc shrugged in the manner of social convention. "It's been a while." He glanced at her face again. Smooth lines. Round, like a porcelain doll. It made her look young. "What about you?" Social conventions advised not making a conversation all about oneself.

"I have no horror stories of buses," she said.

"That's...good. I meant what you do."

"Oh." The woman's nails drummed on the back of her phone. "I work at a day-care."

"You must be patient too, then," Luc said.

"Oh—not for children," she said. "It's for the elderly. I imagine they're much less hyper than the little children. And it's just volunteer work."

"Have you been working there long? Sorry, volunteering."

"Just started this year." Perhaps that was why he had not noticed her before. It made him feel a little better. "How about you? How long have you been a teacher?"

"This is my second year," Luc replied. "I'm hoping for a long career."

Social conventions carried the sparse conversation until the bus reached the woman's station.

"Goodbye," she said. "See you this afternoon."

"Goodbye," he said, and she was gone, and the bus continued on through.