9

Aplace this familiar should be a kaleidoscope of pretty childhood memories. Small adventures in the hollows of the trees, by the mist-dazed riverside, and by the leafy pixie houses that I used to sit cross-legged on the ground and observe for hours with my little cousin, Isa. Days full of laughter and imagination and possibility, time-bending and delirious with youth.

But all these golden boyhood memories were marred by the events of seven years ago. Now I saw the forest and thought of hunting down leads. I thought of loneliness and regret and things lost to me forever. Hundreds of miles of jittery anticipation: journeys East, fruitless and cold; expeditions West, feeling seasick and exhausted. My whole life was a lightweight stone sinking into deep water.

Gods, my life. What a mess I'd made of it.

I couldn't feel nostalgia anymore, so I couldn't really say that I had missed this. I hadn't missed the reassuring buzz of the cicadas. I hadn't missed the frothy sunrises of the North, the drowsy greeting of the day. I hadn't missed sitting in the alcove of the drawing room back home, the windows flung open, the honeyed air whipping inside while I read the morning newspaper, sipping bitter, black tea. I hadn't missed the solitude of my bedroom, the way rain lashed against the expansive windowpanes during the storm season. I used to cherish that solitude because it was easily shattered. I could just open my door and slip out of it whenever I pleased. People always yearned for solitude until they'd find themselves in places without doors to slip out of.

No, I hadn't missed anything. And Nepheli next to me, now, all light and beauty, felt more like a part of those distant childhood memories than a part of my present.

It was odd to be here with her like this. My head was heavy. It was full of her. I didn't like it. I didn't like it at all.