Glimmering

Martin buried his face in his pillow even as he thrust against the couch, cock straining against his hand and all of him exploding too quickly as he came. He gasped, imagining the boy there beneath him, his blue eyes seeing something inside of Martin that had not been warped by the horror of standing on a shoreline and watching as it was eaten away by the storm, watching as everyone he ever loved slowly drowned.

And yet, desire flickered, even as black water lapped at his feet. He felt like a broken clock, innards unsprung, heart uncoiled, gears rusting; but the alarm still works, clamoring until the hand reaches out to silence it. Thinking of the boy in the next room, who would not die, probably; might even be here later, maybe, after Martin himself was gone.

He slept.

And hours later, started awake. The room was all but filled with the strange moving colors that sometimes came after midnight, like moths drawn to the cottage windows. Velvety blue and violet and a shimmering white. To lie there was to watch their wings stir, and wait for sleep to fall again. Someone had spoken his name. Martin blinked and stared at the doorway, wondering if it had been the boy? But no—he was dazed with sleep, most certainly Trip had not stirred. He never did.

But still, someone had spoken—

“Martin…”

Even before he turned he knew who would be there.

“John.”

The name was ice on his tongue.

He stood in front of the window, gazing outside. He was naked, as thin as when he had died. Light streamed over him, that strange milky white, and seemed to clothe him, filling the hollows of ribs and throat, his sunken cheeks and pitted eyes. A long moment passed, in which the figure continued to stare up at the sky, and Martin’s dread grew—the only thing worse than a ghost would be a ghost that ignored you. But then the figure turned.

“Martin,” he whispered, smiling.

The smile undid Martin: it was so much John, it was what he had never thought to see again in all eternity. He began to sob, wiping the tears from his eyes.

“Is it difficult, Martin?” The figure crossed the room to stand beside the bed. Pityingly, and yet there was something remote in its gaze, too. “Martin?” the figure asked again. “Is it so very hard?”

Martin looked up, saw that within the hollow of its eyes something flickered that was not an eye. Hastily he lowered his gaze.

“It is—very hard,” he said at last. He forced himself to raise his head. “And you, John—is it—is it—”

The figure stared down at him. The misty white light seemed to fall away, so that Martin was not looking upon a glowing creature but only a man who stood in shadow. John tilted his head. His face grew gentle, and he stretched out his hand to touch Martin’s brow. But Martin felt nothing, not cold nor warmth nor the faintest breath of movement. He saw that the hand cast no shadow.

“It’s not so hard for us,” said John. “Because we remember, it’s not so hard as it is for you—”

“You remember?” Martin seized on the words. “You do remember?”

“Oh, sure,” answered John, grinning. “We remember. I remember—”

The grin spread as he opened his mouth, a glimpse there of more darkness, roots of teeth exposed like pilings.

Then John whispered, “Go with him. You won’t lose your way, Martin. I’ll find you…”

His words hung in the air, notes settling like dust. He wept so hard he couldn’t see, had to close his eyes to keep from exploding into grief. When he opened them the room was empty. A thin wind stirred across his skin. He sat up, fumbled for the bedside clock, and saw that it was 5:00 A.M.

He put the clock down, saw an object in the middle of the floor. A small wooden box, its corners rounded from being handled over the years. His bare feet skidded across the floor until he dropped to his knees, picked up the box, and cradled it in his hands—

“Oh John, John—”

—then opened the lid, trembling fingers feeling the worn velvet within and what it protected, cool metal forming the apex of a triangle and the sharper edges of the mirror and glass filters, a slip of pale green paper with a message written in peacock ink. Martin raised his voice in disbelief.

“—GOD! John, how—”

It had been lost for five years, since right before John’s last illness. He had looked everywhere for it, here and in the house in San Francisco and in the Wendameen because he had wanted to bury it with John, the present he had given Martin when they bought the boat for their seventeenth anniversary.

A sextant, bronze tipped with amethyst where the light struck it, the little mirror sending out sparks as he tilted it this way and that, then clutched it to his chest.

For you, dearest Martin, for seventeen years and a hundred more—
So you will always find your way.