The Aurora Borealis Keeps Its Lament novel · Chapter 11 of 24

Chapter 11: What He Could See

"Put it back," Iker said.

He did not raise his voice.

He sat up on the cot, and his face turned toward the stove, toward the orange smear of light that was me.

"You can't see this," I said. My voice was a thread. "You can't see me."

"I see the glow of the stove. I see that you're kneeling. I see the shape of your arm." He lifted one hand and held it a little to the left of my face. "That's all."

"Since when?"

"Since before the warehouse. Since before you ever worked for me."

I got to my feet.

I was still holding the letter, and it shook so badly the paper whispered.

"Tell me," I said. "All of it. You owe me that."

"You said no debts."

"Then I'm asking, not collecting."

He paused.

For a long moment the only sound was the wind against the steel.

"It started at seventeen," he said. "Small things. A page that went grey in the middle when I looked straight at it. I thought I needed glasses. At graduation, the day I put on that shirt, I couldn't see anyone's face if I looked at it. I could see their shoulders and their hair, the room around them. When you stood in front of me I saw the edge of you, bright, and a hole where your face should be."

I put my hand on the desk to hold myself up.

"I knew something was wrong," he said. "I didn't know what. I was eighteen and terrified, and you smiled and said good luck, and I thought, I'll never see that smile again, and I said it out loud. That's what I said. I said it to you."

"You didn't mean it cruelly."

"I meant it as the worst thing that had ever happened to me."

"And I took it for eight years," I said, "as the worst thing you could think of to say to me."

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