Midnight

draped loosely

over fields,

pooling softly

in grass

and breathing

against cooling stone.

Fingers slipped

inside his sleeve,

brushing

paper thinned,

frayed by touch.

Graphite

seeped its last trace

into the fold.

third tree past the gate

come alone

no lights.

The words clung,

pressed into fibers,

fading

yet indelible.

Weeks had melted

into the fine dust

of empty hallways.

Ink smudged

where their thoughts

nearly touched—

edges of letters worn thin,

phrases trailing off,

like the sound of rain

slipping away.

Farther out,

a figure

peeled from the gloom,

resolving into a presence

he had always known.

Luna

stepped into view

near the gate.

Where dimness lifted

just enough.

Their gaze met—

the way wind

holds leaves:

brief

and weightless.

No words.

Only the faint dare

of her Stillness—

an open doorway

between worlds.

She moved onward.

No question—

just a knowing

left in her wake.

The world narrowed

to the effortless line

of her moving legs.

Wildness

wasn't in how she moved,

but in the Silence

that trailed,

unseen.

He didn't follow—

not right away.

But something in him

had already left.

The rhythm

of the world

fell away.

Leaving only

theirs.

Almost spoke…

but

left it untouched.

A near smile—

swift as secret

slipping into the dark.

The Stillness…

wasn't absence.

It was

a vow unspoken.

They moved

through a lush tangle.

Navigating

between puddles of night,

palms gentle

on mossed stone.

The farmhouses

had yielded

to the long,

slow sway

of the quiet.

He could barely tell

where the paths ended

and the wild began.

The ground softened,

and with it,

their pace.

A doorway stood,

or rather,

leaned—

a slight

geometric disturbance

in the wild.

It gave way

to the ruins

of a form

the wild reclaimed.

Its seams softened

to verdant dust,

where moss kept time.

She held the key

like a question

that had waited

years to be asked.

The door,

etched by seasons,

opened sideways

into a memory of a place—

its threshold unwinding

into a spiral staircase

that threaded upward

into a dark

the walls already knew.

From the darkness above,

a sound—

the faint cadence

of her ascent,

an Echo arriving

before its source.

Her presence gathered

before her form—

a glint

of remembered light.

The storm

when they were thirteen:

how she found his hand

in the dark,

said nothing,

and didn’t let go.

The final turn of the stair

didn't end,

but opened

onto wind

and open stone.

She didn’t look up—

she was already there.

Waiting.

Telescope beside her,

as if it had always been.

Her eyes,

fixed on the horizon,

lost their distance.

Seeing something

closer now—

him.

Those stairs...

Forgot to mention.

The night inside him

rearranged itself—

familiar in a new way.

You make it look easy.

A smile

touched her lips—

small, lopsided,

a secret

the night had nearly told.

Her gaze drifted past him,

to the edge of the roof,

to the waiting sky.

Sixteen turns.

One for each year.

Her finger traced

the telescope's edge,

completing the circle

her words had begun.

I never knew

if it was yours or mine.

A warmth bloomed

beneath his skin.

Her eye lifted from the lens,

offering him what she'd seen.

He leaned in.

The space

between them

softened.

Time became texture.

Everything beyond

narrowed

to this fragile now.

Their breaths

flowing in time.

Constellations dissolving

at the edge of knowing.

She looked longer,

her face softening

at something

he couldn't tell.

The same sky.

Different maps.

Their breath

fogged the glass.

Night deepened.

Hand in his coat pocket.

His thumb rolled the candle

wrapped inside a handkerchief.

I brought this.

Her gaze flowed

from the sky,

to the unlit wick,

to him.

A light kindled

deep behind her eyes.

His thumb traced

the candle's edge.

For things…

that stay.

Match struck.

Flame met wick.

Fragile.

Burning.

Fleeting.

He set the candle down

in the space between them.

Their shadows touched

where their bodies could not.

A scent

clung to her hair.

Not perfume,

something wilder—

from the fields.

She leaned,

into the space

he kept warm for her.

Her gaze fell

from his eyes

past his hand,

to the locket.

He gently lifted it

from the warmth

it had borrowed

from her skin.

A flicker—

silver yielding at the seam.

Her mother

turned away,

Her father

already half-gone.

There's a part of me…

that forgets

it was ever whole.

She traced

the pale line

through the photograph,

then the matching scar

on her palm.

Two halves

that never quite

met.

He settled the locket

to where it had rested.

His fingers grazed

The soft

unseen skin

at the nape of her neck.

Your eyes

They hold it too.

when you think no one sees.

Their eyes touched.

Unblinking.

Unwavering.

In that Stillness,

he glimpsed

what lay

behind the Veil

in her eyes.

I wonder...

Her finger

lightly touched

his eyelid.

Close them.

A dare.

His lids lowered,

slowly surrendering light.

A current moved.

Her warmth at his back.

Let go, Liam,

just

feel.

A faint pressure

on his temple.

Warmth spreading.

A feeling—

that wasn't a word.

A color—

that wasn't a color—

Warm?

The pressure

of her touch

deepened

beneath

her fingertip.

A little closer.

Her words unfolded

behind his eyes.

A flicker,

then a texture—

a memory blooming

into touch.

Um...

The scent of dry grass.

The feel of a path

beneath his feet.

Sunlight, through a window,

he'd almost forgotten.

Fallow-gold.

Almost.

Gravity,

drifting

downward.

Tracing

a slow line

he couldn't quite

follow.

Yet

awareness

came slowly—

her fingers.

Not at his temple.

Still.

At his collar.

Just...

breathe.

Her whisper,

barely a breath away.

The soft

dip beneath the button—

suddenly warm.

A boundary

dissolving.

A weightless

fall toward her.

The candlelight

revealed

depths in her eyes

almost familiar,

almost named.

He found

the button,

to fasten

his coat.

Yet her hand

remained.

In the way.

The button

slipped from his grasp

completely.

Her breath

touched

his neck

awakening

against

his skin.

Coats

brushed—

a soft

collision

in the dark.

He remained

breathless.

Neither

looked away.

She remained

visible,

while the world

dissolved.

The roof's edge

shimmered.

Distance

thinning.

Stone

became suggestion.

Sky

became question.

The candle between them

burned lower,

its light thinning

into memory.

The flame's pattern—

always different,

somehow the same.

A chaos with hidden order.

Something shifted.

Luna...

She drifted back,

into the gloom,

each step a vanishing.

There's a place...

where music turns

in endless circles—

painted horses

never tire.

Her voice

settled in his bones,

a fracture

in the stillness.

Three days, Liam.

Be there.

In one world

or another.

Words still forming on his lips,

his gaze stayed on the sky

then fell to the stone

where light rain

had begun to fall.

Yet before

he could speak,

her silhouette

was no longer

there.

The dry outline

persisted.

A truth

the rain

could not touch—

it wasn't her outline.

It was his.