The Ways of Paradox by Narya

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Ah! Leave Me Not to Pine Alone

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“Claire.”

My mind swam upwards out of a fog of exhaustion and grief. I could smell burning, and taste the salt of the ocean on my lips.

“Claire, wake up.”

Someone was shaking my shoulder. With a dizzying rush my surroundings came back to me – camp bed, sleeping bag, fluffy Christmas socks on my feet. The burning I'd thought I'd smelled was the fading tang of incense; the grief wasn't mine, and the salt and damp were not from the sea but the tear tracks down my face. In the glow of the street lamps through the curtains I made out Harrison crouching next to me, his plaster-encased leg at an awkward angle.

“Hey.” He withdrew his hand. “You OK?”

“Mm.”

“You were crying.”

“Sorry.” Tears had cooled on my eyelashes and left them damped and clumped. I dabbed at my face with my sleeping bag.

He shifted so he could stretch out his leg. “What were you dreaming about?”

“I don't know.” It drifted away from me like sea foam through my fingers. “The land was splitting. There was lava, I think...”

“Mount Doom,” said Harrison with confidence. "Maybe The Lord of the Rings isn't bedtime viewing.”

“Maybe.” Strands of understanding stirred in my belly but refused to link together, like he was right and wrong at the same time. “Is it morning?”

“Not exactly. Ten to three.”

“Ugh.”

“I know.” He hesitated. “You all good now?”

“I think so. Sorry I got you up.”

“Any time. Well. Preferably at least five hours later than this, but you know what I mean.”

I laughed and curled up on my side. “You've been up miles later with Theo, drinking or playing that stupid online game.”

“It's different when you haven't been asleep in the first place.” He yawned and hauled himself back up onto the bed. “Sure you're OK?”

“Sure I'm sure. See you in the morning. Later in the morning.”

“Yeah.” He slid back under the duvet. “Goodnight – or – well, whatever.”

He was asleep again in minutes, his breathing deep and even, broken by an occasional sigh. I lay with my sleeping bag tucked under my chin, trying to knit together the remnants of the dream. I felt a deep, yearning ache as I slid back along its trails, a sense of loss and melancholy that followed me as I slipped into a shallow doze. I was in the practice room with Mark in St Andrews, listening to him play - and then an image came to me, something I knew, not from the dream but from somewhere else – a hand clasped around a shining light, a cry of agony and disbelief. A sense of certainty swept through me, as though I'd discovered proof of something important; my half-dreaming mind flew to the terrible burns on Mark's hand, the strange geometric pattern seared into his palm...

Harrison gave a soft snort. I startled back into wakefulness, and the dream – vision? – floated apart like fog, along with that wave of intuitive understanding. I tried to grab back what I'd thought I'd realised but my brain was fuzzy from sleep and yesterday's wine. It was like trying to climb a cotton wool tree. I pressed my knuckles into my eye sockets, shuffling thoughts and images in my mind like a pack of cards – Mark, the dream, the hand, the film, the sea – but none of it locked together, and a blunt ache built in my head as I tried to make it fit.

A moped engine sputtered and choked outside, dispelling the last of the dream. I sighed and rolled onto my back. 

Go to sleep. You're being silly.

But sleep wouldn't come, and I lay listening to Harrison's snores until grey-blue light announced the tired drear of Boxing Day.

***

We drove back to St Andrews on the Monday after New Year's Eve. The latch had been fixed, there was a message from the landlord in my university inbox informing me that the cooker was working again, and the grey cat still kept watch on the corner of the street – although it could no longer push the door open and get into the stairwell, much to its annoyance.

Harrison, Theo and Rosie drew up study plans and covered the living room with stacks of notes and textbooks. Spidergrams about the Rainbow Mountains of Peru and abstract expressionism in the mid-twentieth century adorned the walls, and I took over most of the cooking and cleaning, since as a postgraduate I didn't have exams. In between I hunted down second hand copies of my set texts for the semester and tried to keep the worst of the revision madness under control – although as the exams drew closer I had less and less success. Harrison and Theo spent an entire Saturday talking in Gilbert and Sullivan quotations, and on the Sunday Theo started braiding parsley into Rosie's hair while she tried to memorise complex tables and formulae. She was so absorbed that half the bunch was gone by the time she realised, and in response she spent fifteen minutes chasing him around the flat, trying to stuff the remaining greenery down the back of his shirt.

On the following Wednesday I took Harrison to Dundee for his cast removing. We celebrated with cake from Fisher and Donaldson, but otherwise it was a muted, nervous evening. All three of them had exams the next day.

“Why does it have to be so wet?” Harrison stared wistfully out of the window as long threads of rain whipped against the single glazing. 

“Dude,” Theo said with his mouth full of toast, “in case you hadn't noticed – you're in Scotland.”

“I need to go for a walk. I feel like I've been let out of a cage.”

“Is that a good idea?” Rosie asked. “Don't you need to do physio and stuff first?”

“He's not nintey-two.” Theo rolled his eyes.

Harrison grinned. “I've got exercises to do, but it wasn't a bad break. I'll be fine as long as I don't start training for a marathon.”

“When can you start running again?” Theo asked.

I glanced up. There was an unusual note of guilt in his voice.

“Not sure yet.” Harrison leaned back into his chair. “Why? Are you missing me?”

“Well, it's not much fun sprinting up and down Abbey Walk by myself...”

“Get Claire to go with you.” 

“Not a chance,” I retorted. 

“You said before Christmas you wanted to exercise!” 

“If I do anything I'll go riding. Not that I have time for that at the moment, keeping you lot fed and sane.”

Harrison gave me a puppyish smile, then his eyes travelled longingly over the candleholder we'd made out of the Doublewood Seventeen bottle. “I wish we hadn't finished that,” he sighed. “Whisky's great for helping dinner go down.”

“I have an old bottle of Calvados in my room,” Theo offered.

Rosie frowned. “Calvados?”

“Apple brandy.”

She wrinkled her nose. “That sounds even worse than whisky.”

“In fairness I doubt it's any good; it's been open since the beginning of first year, and it was a cheap bottle.”

“Throw it out, then. Honestly...” I shook my head. “Anyway, spirits probably aren't the best idea the night before an exam. Not at this time.”

Theo didn't seem to be listening. “I suppose the off-licence might still be open...”

“Friendly hint, bud.” Harrison winked at me. “That was Claire-speak for 'get your backside into bed.'”

***

In the morning I was woken by Rosie thudding about in the room above me. I groaned and rolled onto my stomach. Some day I'd work out why she needed to open every drawer and closet in her room six times before she settled on an outfit, but it wouldn't be today.

Half an hour later I heard Harrison get up, and decided that was my cue to start on breakfast for whoever had time to eat it. Rosie appeared just before nine and refused my offer of porridge, instead hovering by the radiator and delicately nibbling an apple. 

“I get sick before exams,” she explained, then looked around. “Where's Theo?”

“Not up yet. When's his exam?”

“Ten, same as mine.”

I rolled my eyes. “Harrison, can you get Theo up?”

“Why me?” He started spooning porridge directly out of the pan.

I swatted his wrist. “Get a bowl for that! And because it's less weird for you to barge into his room.”

“Fair.”

A few minutes later Theo emerged, tousle-haired and yawning. His eyes lit up at the sight of the porridge pot. “Claire, you're an angel.”

I couldn't help smiling as I passed him a bowl. “Eat fast; you'll be late.”

“Yes, mother.” 

When the others were gone I curled up on the sofa with a cup of tea, relaxing into the cushions and savouring the peace and quiet. Tiny cold drafts fingered their way through the windows, sharpening and freshening the edges of the centrally heated air. I'd have to start another list of things for the landlord to mend – although there might not be much that could be done in this case, short of fitting double glazing, which was probably prevented by some conservation regulation governing the building. I tucked my knees under my chin and listened to the clunks and whistles of the boiler as it fought off the January chill.

I wondered how Theo, Rosie and Harrison were getting on. Their grades were normally good, although Theo's studying habits were hit and miss. I supposed it mattered less when your future career was managing the family estate. Harrison, I knew, had worked hard over Christmas. I felt a stirring of guilt that we hadn't done much to celebrate yesterday, and probably wouldn't for another week or so, when exams finished.

My eyes fell on the empty Doublewood bottle, and I grinned as an idea formed.

I showered and dressed and headed into town. Slits of white-gold sun peeped through the cloud bank, and a low breeze set the bare tree branches on South Street whispering. Shop windows were covered in signs advertising sales, but the town was quiet, as though still sleeping off its Christmas hangover. 

I spent a pleasant half hour in Luvians browsing the shelves and barrels. There were some intriguing bottles of red wine in the bargain bin, but I didn't really want to encourage the others to drink too much while they were supposed to be studying; there would be time for that after exams. I stuck to my original idea, and after wavering for a while between a sweeter whisky or a peated one, I settled on a bottle of fourteen-year-old Oban.

My next stop was the bookshop on Market Street. After splurging on whisky I'd intended just to browse, but I came across a sweet, cloth bound edition of Northanger Abbey that I couldn't resist. I paid up, slipped it into my coat pocket and brushed my fingers against its corners, excited to slip back into Catherine Morland's wild imaginings, the grandeur of Regency Bath, and the gothic splendour of the Abbey itself. Henry Tilney had always been my favourite Austen hero, too – sweet, honest and uncomplicated. Elizabeth could keep her tempestuous marriage to Darcy; Emma was welcome to the staid and serious Mr. Knightley. Despite being the silliest Austen heroine, I suspected that of all of them Catherine had the best chance at real, long-term happiness.

Outside the fish and chip shop I bumped into Ariana, and we stood chatting for a good ten minutes about dissertations, coursework and Les Mis before she had to catch a bus back to halls. As I waved goodbye to her I realised I was ravenous – probably thanks to the smell of the deep fat fryer, I thought, wistfully eyeing someone else's cone of chips. 

I couldn't justify eating a mountain of battered fish, not after the indulgence of Christmas. Instead I wandered further along the street to the Central, intending to order a sandwich and then spend the afternoon curled up in a booth with Catherine Morland and Henry Tilney.

There was no queue at the bar. I flicked my eyes over the blackboard listing the winter specials, and decided to be a little naughty. After all, I'd decided today was for me – a day of treats and relaxation after the chaos of revision week.

“Hot apple juice and amaretto, please,” I requested.

A light touch on my shoulder made me jump. “Happy new year.”

“Mark!” Pleasure ballooned in my stomach, and I felt the familiar magnetic pull of the corners of my lips. “Same to you – how are you doing?”

“I'm well enough.” He certainly looked better than when I last saw him. He was pale, but his answering smile was deep and genuine, and at least he looked like he'd slept. “What in the world are you drinking?”

“Rosie got me into it before Christmas. It's better than it sounds.”

Mark raised a disbelieving eyebrow.

“Hey, don't knock it 'til you've tried it,” I grinned.

The corners of his eyes crinkled. “I'm not sure those are words to live by.”

I turned back to the bartender to take my drink. “Could I get another one of those, please?”

“Certainly.”

“Don't look like that,” I added to Mark. “If you don't like it, I'll replace it with a whisky.”

That made him laugh. “It's half past twelve!”

“Which means it's half past five somewhere – as the song doesn't go.”

He shook his head, the smile slowly spreading across his features into its usual disarming blaze. “I think Harrison and Theo have corrupted you.”

I paid for the drinks and passed one of them to Mark. “I didn't take a lot of corrupting.”

“No. That I can easily believe.” He tilted his head towards a table in a booth behind the door. “Join me?”

The table was covered with books, notepapers and binders. “If you're busy...”

“I was about to stop for lunch.”

I looked at him again, properly. Dark shadows still sat under his eyes, and although the lost, haunted look had faded, he didn't look like someone who had spent a relaxing Christmas indulging in good company and festive cheer. “Then yes – thank you. That would be lovely.”

I helped him clear his things away to make space for drinks and sandwiches. One of the books was a beautiful, heavy volume with old thick yellow pages, bound in indigo leather and embossed with a design of eight-pointed stars. Something stirred in the depths of my mind, a kind of tentative recognition, like a familiar figure glimpsed through fog. For some reason I thought of Mark's burned hand, though I forced myself not to look at it. I remembered the image from my dream, the fist grasping a fierce white light, and the hairs stood up along my arms like they did when the Bilberry gave me a static shock.

I turned the book over, but there was no title or author on the cover.

“Are you interested in Philosophy?”

I gave a guilty smile. “I dabble, but only when I need background or context for something I'm studying.” I passed the book back to him. “I'm afraid it isn't my first love.”

“Nor mine – but you know that.”

I pushed aside my curiosity as to why he'd bothered obtaining several degrees in it, deciding that one of my new year's resolutions should be to stop putting my foot in my mouth around him. 

“How's Harrison?” he asked, sliding the indigo book back into his bag. “And the others, of course.”

“All fine. Harrison's cast came off yesterday – although they've all got exams today, so we haven't celebrated yet.” I straightened the edges of a pile of notes and handed them over. “Actually I'm really glad I bumped into you. It's been chaos at the flat, I was in desperate need of some sanity...”

I filled him in on their antics as we decided on food, pleased to get more than one genuine laugh out of him. The apple juice and amaretto quickly disappeared, and we switched to pints of ale when the sandwiches arrived.

“I take it you aren't doing exams?” he asked.

I shook my head, picking at crisps. “Perks of being an Mlitt – as I'm sure you know.”

“Oxford Masters courses have an exam component – or at least they used to.”

“Is that where you studied?”

It was automatic, the same follow on question I'd have asked anyone who made that remark, but for a moment tension flickered on Mark's face. “I spent time there.”

I decided not to push it. “Well, anyway, I've been on cooking and cleaning duty since the holidays, so the others can concentrate on studying.”

Mark tilted his head, a curious look on his face. “Aren't they in their second year?”

“Yes. Why?”

“How do you imagine they coped before you arrived?" he asked gently.

I blushed. “Fair point.” The juke box in the corner thunked from Blondie to James Brown, and I took a sip of Lia Fail. “I suppose I'm too used to looking after Harrison from when we were kids together – and Theo and Rosie don't score highly in either independence or common sense.”

“Hmm.” He smiled.

“They are getting better,” I admitted. “Theo even tried to cook for us at the end of last term.”

“Tried?”

I giggled. “He managed to set spaghetti on fire.”

Mark's eyebrows almost vanished into his hairline. “I won't ask.”

“In fairness it wasn't really his fault.” I swilled the remnants of the Lia Fail around in the bottom of the glass. “Maybe you're right, though. Maybe I should have left them to get on with their own lives; I could have stayed in halls, it's what most first year postgrads do.”

“That isn't what I meant.”

I shrugged. “I do think about it sometimes. I could have done my Masters anywhere, I didn't have to apply to the same university as my cousin.”

“You're not telling me Harrison didn't beg you to come up here?”

“Oh, he did. Our parents weren't keen, though. They definitely didn't want us sharing a house.”

“Why not?”

“They wanted Harrison to have his own space – find his own way. They were probably right. University's supposed to be about growing up, at least for the undergrads.” I downed the rest of my beer. “But if I'm honest, at that point I needed him far more than he needed me.”

Mark leaned back into the green leather cushioning stitched over the bench. “That sounds like a story that needs another drink.”

I looked up, realising I'd told him very little about my life in London, and nothing at all about the aftermath. “Maybe, but not now. If I'm not careful I'll fall asleep; I'm not sure ale and amaretto were a smart combination.”

“A walk, then?”

I met his eyes, a little surprised at the offer, after his disappearing act at the end of last semester. “What did you have in mind?”

We ended up meandering along The Scores to the castle, after leaving our bags at Mark's house. The clouds had bunched and thickened again while we were in the pub, and the light had dimmed to a strange yellowish grey. Mark didn't push me about London, and I didn't raise it.

“We should have worn our gowns,” I commented as we crossed the bridge to the portcullis. “We'd have got in for free.”

“No need.” Mark showed his wallet to the curator, and she waved us in.

“What was that?” I asked as we emerged into the courtyard. “Psychic paper?”

He gave me a strange look. “No, a Historic Scotland membership card.”

I blushed.

Last semester I'd deliberately avoided going to the castle with company; I preferred exploring the town's old ruins by myself, and I knew that if I'd gone with Rosie and the boys I'd have had no time alone to think and absorb the atmosphere of the place. Mark, though, seemed content to drift around separately. After a while I lost sight of him and made my way down into the old siege mine and its counter, running my fingers along the ancient stones, feeling the damp and the mess and grit of history under my nails. I imagined the castillians and attackers crammed into the passage together, Scottish and French and English, scrabbling over one another, unable to tell in the dark who belonged to which side – and even down here the sea whispered, its sibilant voice stroking along the passage walls like a wandering spirit.

“Hello?”

I jumped at the sound of the curator's voice.

She smiled apologetically down at me from the top of the junction between the mine and counter-mine. “I'm sorry to disturb you; we're actually closing in a few minutes.”

“Oh.” I gripped the iron ladder and clambered back up. “I hadn't realised the time.”

“You've been down there for a while; I was starting to think you'd lost your way.”

I followed her out into the castle proper. Night hadn't fallen yet but the street lamps had been lit on The Scores, and the wind had gained a sharp, bitter edge. “Gosh, it really is late – we haven't kept you, have we?”

“Oh, no, there's no panic; I've a few wee bits to do in the shop, but we can't stay open once we've lost the light, it's a safety issue...”

I smiled. “I can imagine.” I wondered how many drunken students had tried to scramble down the mine in the dark, or climb down the cliff face to the beach.

“The gentleman you came in with – did he leave?”

Something twisted in my gut. “I don't think so.” It seemed odd if he had – after all, he'd initiated the trip out here – but then again I'd seen his mood change quickly before, and that time he'd disappeared for weeks. “I'll do a circuit and see if I can find him.”

He was leaning against the railings behind the keep, limned in amber by the dying light. Plumes of froth crashed against the cliff behind him. Something shifted and rose inside me like cold air – a sense of longing, of loss and grief, but also recognition. I'd seen – or imagined – this strange, melancholy tableau before. I'd felt the same thing at Christmas, and again in the pub, that maddening tease of familiar images that refused to blend and make sense.

A sharp gust blew in off the sea and lifted his hair from his face, revealing one pale, pointed ear. 

Strands of excitement swirled inside me, knotting together, like my instincts were matching up pieces of a puzzle faster than my mind could follow. Again I felt that unearthly prickling in the air, smelled the scent of the earth after rain – but despite the clouds it had been dry all day. My heart pounded against my ribs, and my breath caught like the wind eddying through the cathedral spires. For one frozen moment I forgot the halogen lights behind me, the rubber boots on my feet, the mobile phone in my pocket. I'd slipped into a world beyond time and story, and it rolled over me and through me like a spell, a wave of enchantment, more real than anything I've ever felt, elemental, essential, terrible, ancient – starlight and silver and wine and blood and magic and stone and song...

The wind fell. His hair dropped back into place. The electricity and the scent of petrichor were gone, and the air settled and the world seemed to breathe again. 

He isn't human.

The idea entered my thoughts like a whispered secret – and yet it was mad, impossible, beyond reason. Like Catherine Morland, my imagination was being led down ridiculous paths by my surroundings. But it wasn't the first time I'd considered the notion, I admitted to myself, or at least strayed near it. I couldn't entirely blame the castle and the sea and the strange glowing light. I'd toyed with it at breakfast on the morning Harrison and I had left for Christmas, and drifted towards it again in the bookshop in Alnwick, before my cousin's common sense and the promise of toasted crumpets in the tea room had squashed my fanciful thoughts. And then there was the way I felt when he played, the things I saw, that deep, piercing look he'd given me more than once – and the uncanny way he often seemed to answer my thoughts rather than my words...

The lights went off in the visitor's centre, and the words of Henry Tilney echoed in my mind.

“Miss Morland, what have you been judging from? Remember the country and the age in which we live...consult your own understanding, your own sense of the probable...dearest Miss Morland, what ideas have you been admitting?”

I shook myself. I knew the curator would be back soon to find us – probably with a torch and a first aid kit. I padded down the grassy bank towards the railings.

“Mark?”

He didn't respond. 

I tilted my head but I could barely see his face – the light was almost gone now, and the wind from the sea knifed my cheeks.

Carefully, cautiously, I brushed my fingertips against the back of his hand. For a few more moments he was still, and then he sighed and turned reluctantly away from the sea.

“Forgive me.” I felt rather than saw his sad smile. “I was far away.”

“I could tell.” I wondered where his mind had taken him, but I didn't dare to ask – not yet. “I wouldn't have interrupted, but we need to go; we're about to get thrown out.”

He glanced around as though startled by how dark it had grown. “What time is it?”

“Half four, at a guess.” 

He nodded, and glanced back once more at the sea. “I'm sorry.”

“I was enjoying myself; I was down the old siege shaft.” I shivered. “I should be the one apologising, anyway. I abandoned you.”

Mark shook his head. “Not at all. Sometimes it's better to be alone in these old places.”

“Yes.” I felt the same rush of warm affection for him as I had when he'd understood Rosie so well, when we were finding him a costume for Pirates last semester. “Yes, exactly.”

We drifted back along The Scores to his house. The yellow lights in the windows made the harsh chill outside feel even crueller, and I sighed with relief when we reached his living room and the warmth of the central heating.

“Your lips are nearly blue.” Mark's voice sounded equal parts concerned and amused. “Can I make you a hot drink?”

It was deeply tempting. “I'd better not. The others will be back now; I need to start dinner.”

“'And indulge in the felicity of unbounded domesticity,'” he quoted, smiling. “Surely it must be their turn to cook for you?”

“We're celebrating Harrison's cast coming off – hence the whisky.” I held up my Luvians carrier bag. “Rosie can only make French toast, and if I leave it up to Theo we'll be on sandwiches and choc ices.”

“What's the matter with that?” he teased.

“Nothing, I suppose, but hopefully I can do a bit better.” I shouldered my bag. “Why don't you come back with me for a bit and say hi to them?”

He hesitated. “I'd hate to intrude if the four of you have plans together.”

Briefly I wondered if it was a good idea; if my thoughts out on the clifftop were even half of the truth, what was I doing inviting him into our lives? But it all seemed so silly back here, under the electric lights, with the faded watercolour hanging over the cheap gas fireplace – and I thought of his yearning gaze out over the ocean, what he'd told me about his family, my guess about how he'd spent Christmas. I dismissed the nagging feeling that there was still something obvious I was missing, one final leap to make. “Honestly, they'd love to see you. They've been in exams all day, they'll need cheering up.”

His lips quirked. “Well, if you're sure.”

I knew I hadn't fooled him, but I'd take it anyway. “We'll have to swing past Tesco's,” I said apologetically. “It'll be awful at this time, but our fridge is like Mother Hubbard's cupboard. There'll be nothing to eat otherwise.”

“Believe me, I've faced worse than Tesco's on a Thursday night.” He slipped his leather jacket back on. “'Lead on; I follow.'”

I folded my arms in my best Xander impression. “That's not your line.”

He grinned, and together we headed out onto the frozen cobbled streets.