Midnight Wonders

5.6.3. Time Frozen in a Glass

"I miss the clouds," Luc whispered. "I miss the sky. It's blue, out there. It's the clearest blue you'll ever see. And sometimes you'll look up and it'll be the only thing you ever needed to see. You don't have very much blue here. Even your rivers run gold."

"Water doesn't have color," said Kay.

"I know," said Luc. "But if you were to see the ocean, you might reconsider. It seems to have all the colors between blue and green. And it takes to the sun and moon so easily."

In the silence, Luc looked over at Kay. Kay wasn't looking up. He wasn't looking at Luc. His eyes were closed.

Luc was struck with the thought that he would have stayed there. That even though he wanted to see Cora and Emma and the others and go back outside and see his students and Catherine and Mr. Jacobs, he would have stayed. Everything was overpowered by that overwhelming urge to stay, to keep this moment right here and now and have it be the only thing, because, and Luc felt almost guilty for it, it felt like more.

And he didn't know why. He wanted to know why. He wished there was an encyclopedia he could open up and cry into and it would read his tears and tell him what was wrong with him. He knew he was feeling something by the way everything felt a little heavier, as if his body were already giving in to that desire to stay, and everything inside ached a little, and his mind was getting muddier and muddier.

Luc couldn't look away. Kay seemed as if he were made to be looked at. At least, for Luc to look at. His tie was still knotted around Kay's neck; it was draped on his chest, a stripe of red, like a bloody gash. Luc was struck with the inexplicable desire to touch it. He didn't know why, when he already knew what it felt like. When he'd felt it between his fingers so many times already. He couldn't help himself: he reached out and, barely grazing the fabric, ran a finger down it. He didn't know if he even felt the fabric under his finger or if he was just imagining it. Luc took his hand away.

Kay hadn't moved. He still didn't move. He could have fallen asleep. He was a portrait of serenity, completely relaxed. Luc didn't know if he liked better seeing Kay like this or when he smiled. Luc still didn't think he'd been afforded a proper moment of the latter. Kay opened his eyes, and Luc put his face in his hands.

"What are you doing?" Kay's voice was soft. It was floating, with no sight.

"My eyes hurt."

Silence. There was no breeze. Everything was perfectly still. Everything was perfectly silent. Even the sound of Kay's breath was masked by Luc's own quiet breaths and beating heart. It was so loud to live. He was afraid to be any louder.

"A sore sight I am," said Kay.

"A sore heart I have," said Luc.

Rustling. Luc squeezed his eyes even more tightly shut. "Why?"

"Well, that's the question."

Kay waited so long between responses that Luc wondered if he was thinking of what to say or if he just didn't want to say anything. But he said, "I am your journal."

Luc had tried, before, to keep a journal. It had seemed a good idea, especially when he had recognized that he had lost time outside, that he could not remember anything before when his life seemed to have begun. For some time it had eaten at him; he'd felt an unspeakable guilt that haunted him constantly. But he could never think of anything to write and it make him more guilty, so he had taken the urge and buried it and hadn't consciously thought of it since. Except he had, with Kay, in the middle of a forest inside of a hill, freshly cleaned and filled from a stream.

And maybe he had used Kay as a journal. Because he had told Kay all of his guilt and Kay had taken it without judgment and without any input of his own, really. If Luc spoke now, would Kay take it? Would he make smart comments as he had when Luc had returned to the Sycamore? Perhaps Luc wouldn't mind that, so long as Kay acknowledged what he said. He didn't want a journal; he wanted a person who could read him and reply.

"I just want to go home," said Luc, who found that he could not speak too loudly, or the words might bleed through the pages and leave permanent stains.

"You're not too far away."

"I suppose you're right; I am home, technically," Luc said. He lifted his head and glanced at Kay, who had closed his eyes again. He wasn't looking at Luc. He couldn't know that Luc was looking at him. "I'm here, in Under-The-Green-Hill, at the Sycamore. This was my home, for well over half my life. But it's not, because I can't remember it. It's no more my home than a hospital would be to a child born outside." A brief thought entered Luc's mind and he wondered where Kay had been born. Perhaps Kay understood better. But Kay did not say anything and Luc was left to speak by himself. "I think my home is outside."

"You think?" said Kay.

"I certainly don't know." Luc wasn't sure how to explain it even to himself. "There's only two constant familiar places outside: work and home. And I know work to be at the school, so that means elsewhere must be home. It must be the house I return to every afternoon. Except when I'm at home, sometimes it feels like...I'm waiting for something else."

"Waiting for what?"

"I don't know," said Luc. "That's the thing. As we've discussed, there are many things unknown that are very unlikely to be known ever. But I do wish that if there were anything I could understand, it would be my own self. But I don't even know myself. Everyone here knows me better than I do."

"Because they loved you," said Kay.

It was Luc's turn for silence. He glanced at Kay, who was just lying there, eyes closed. Kay probably hadn't meant it as such, but Luc felt a twinge of guilt. He couldn't remember. So how could he love? Could he love his parents, if he did not remember what they had done for him? If he did not, could not know how they had shaped him? "And you?" said Luc. He didn't know how much time had passed since he had last spoken. "Your home is the Sycamore, isn't it?"

"Under-The-Green-Hill is my home," said Kay. "I am always home. I am merely moving from one room to the next."

"Then what does home feel like?"

"Like you have nowhere else to be."

Luc thought that could be felt in so many different places, in so many different ways. It made home almost sound like a trap, a cage. Though it must have meant to be comforting. "So waiting is not part of it?"

"It shouldn't be."

Luc finally lay down beside Kay. The grass beneath him was soft, its sharp points flattened against his back. Looking up, he was wondrous to see that everything looked a little different when he did not have to lift his head to see it. When opening his eyes was all he had to do.

He wanted to go home. But he would have stayed there. Here.

It could have been forever. No one would know.

"I'm still waiting," said Luc.

Movement. He looked over at Kay and saw that Kay had turned to face him, opening his eyes. All Luc had to do was open his eyes to look into Kay's green ones. Slowly, Kay turned his face back up to the glass sky above them and closed his eyes. He didn't say anything. But Luc knew.

—