Page 27 of Illuminated

“Good morning,” he said, catching me with his silver eyes.

“Good morning,” I said, heading straight for the coffeemaker and the fresh pot that was already waiting for me. I felt energized, and I wanted to move, do things. I turned to Auris, sipped my coffee. “Will you take me back to the house in the woods?”

He gave me a curious look. “Right now?”

I nodded. “I’d like to take a few photos of it, in daylight. Unless you mind?”

“Not a bit, so long as you tell people you found it somewhere in the wilderness and can’t quite remember where,” he said, a twinkle in his eyes. “I don’t want anyone finding it.”

I sipped my coffee noisily. “If anyone even cares to ask, that’s what I tell them, promise,” I assured him.

* * *

We took my car once more. The drive was a little over an hour, and I spent some twenty minutes doing email on my phone while Auris drove.

As we got closer, I saw that the last bit of proper road we took seemed weathered and disused. We hadn’t passed another car in a while, nor a town or even a house. I looked out the passenger window to where the wilderness loomed and stared right back at me.

When Auris pulled off the road and onto what was at best an overgrown hiking path, I turned to him. “We were really here the other night?”

He looked over at me. “Yes. Why?”

I shrugged. “It just looks so abandoned, like no one has been here in ages.”

“That’s the idea. And these woods are a lonely place that no one much visits. Even the hiking routes are farther inland,” he said.

I could feel the unevenness of the path as he slowed the car, eventually bringing it to a stop when the path vanished ahead of us. “Is that by design? Or is it just coincidence?” I asked.

He reached over to brush my cheek. “Design. Come on, get your things,” he said and was out of the car before I could ask him any more questions.

I unplugged my phone from the car charger, quickly checking only to see what I had expected: no signal. I still put the device in my camera bag.

Auris opened my door for me and held my camera case while I reached back and shoved the spare battery and a bottle of water in my bag. I slung everything over my shoulder before grabbing my tripod from the trunk. I quickly double-checked everything while Auris stood by. Everything was in order, but on a whim, I reached for the flash and stuffed the flashlight into my bag before closing the trunk.

When I closed it and turned around, Auris was smiling at me. “Let me carry some of that for you,” he said and reached for the tripod case and the camera case.

“Thanks. It’s nice having an assistant.”

“Don’t mention it. Ready?” He held out his hand for me to take.

“Yes,” I said, twining my fingers with his and allowing him to pull me along into the thick growth.

I soon had to pull my hand back, because navigating the forest demanded two arms to push branches out of my way and walk over tree trunks fallen and rotting. The other night, most of this had been left to the darkness, and I had relied on Auris leading me through it, but today, the sun broke through the cloud cover intermittently, and I could see the wilderness around me.

The silence and ease with which Auris navigated it struck me as wondrously strange all over again. At one point, I stopped and pulled out my camera to take it all in, even though nature photography wasn’t my usual fare.

The pale, almost glass-like mushrooms that grew evenly on the leaf dark soil near a large tree caught my attention, and I snapped a picture as the cloud cover shifted and sunlight seeped down and ran in glistening brightness over the near colorless caps. I turned my lens skyward before the sun had a chance to fade again so I could catch the faint light striating along the branches that were shedding their summer dress slowly but surely for the arrival of the cold season. There were even some metallic copper and pewter tones there already, heralding the end of the season.

The next picture I took was of Auris, half turned with the tripod case slung over his shoulder, eyes gleaming silver. His hair was smooth and perfect, the kind of hair some of the fashion stylists I had met on odd jobs would kill to work with.

I put the camera back in its case after that, and we resumed our journey deeper into the woods. It felt like we reached the house faster this time, but it was probably the absence of darkness that contracted perceived time.

The place was different in the daylight, but no less enchanted. I caught it from a little distance away, with two sapling trees poking into the foreground of my photograph and the light coming in to halo the building from behind. That made the moss and vines that were set on reclaiming the manmade structure look softer, like a painter had put them there with just the tiniest dip of their brush.

Auris stayed out of my frame, but I could feel his eyes on me as I approached the house, taking one picture of another part of it with each step.

The other night, I had walked around it to the front door, counter-clockwise. Today, I chose to go the other way. I caught the gaping windows through which moisture had crept inside and infested the walls. I caught the lichen-encrusted stones of the foundation, the weeds that had found purchase in the gaps between them. I caught the roof, just slightly slanting against the once more cloud-veiled sky.

I circled the building once, then came to a stop at the front entrance. I let the camera hang from its strap around my neck and looked to Auris, who still stood among the sapling trees. “Hand me the tripod?” I asked.

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