Page 33 of Illuminated

I spooned mayo on the bread and grinned at him. “Thanks for noticing.”

Auris chuckled. “You are so high maintenance, Ethan.”

After that, I moved to the couch, and I started out sitting on that like a normal person. After about an hour, I took a cushion and moved to the floor, so I could make full use of the low coffee table.

Auris didn’t say anything, but he did indeed bring me coffee and water.

I worked on the photos I’d taken of him in front of the fireplace, of all things. Those relaxed me, and I enjoyed that. He was so beautiful, and editing was a calming process for me, so the combination drew me in until I was single-mindedly focused on the work.

In that state, moving on to the photos of the church felt like a good idea, for whatever reason. Those photos were not as clean as the ones I’d taken indoors, so they took more time, more tinkering to make them show what I wanted others to see.

I absolutely loved when I succeeded in revealing the inscription on the headstones, when I cut a photo so that I felt in my bones it was just right.

For a few of this set, I knew exactly what I wanted to do with them, and the wordrevealflooded around in my head. I wanted to put them online, wanted to turn them into short animations that started with approximately blackness that just had some outlines, then lightened up until what I wanted to show was there. It would be a bit like using a flashlight to discover these, much like I had, and I ended up experimenting with a flashlight effect when I started turning my photos into short vids. For some of them, I had to add in the engravings on them to create the perfect final effect with the background and the flashlight.

I was having the best of times with this, and I was giddy, because I was sure this would hit the audience well. I’d talk to my manager about how to set it up, but with the pandemic, digital art had really grown, and I was pretty sure I’d find places that would want this. And if not, I had a regular newsletter and people who followed my work to the degree that it was absolutely possible for me to create this as an app or sell access to it.

A ring broke me out of my flow, and I looked up, only to discover that the evening was riding in on yet another sky drawn in shades of summer flowers.

“What’s up?” I said, then rubbed my eyes.

“I’ll have a look, my sweet. Stay right where you are,” Auris said and headed to the door to answer it.

I heard Gloria’s voice before she walked back into the house, her mask up. “Mr. Salek,” she said to Auris. “There are men in the village, asking about you. They don’t know your name, but they have a picture.”

My jaw dropped, and I looked at Auris.

“Interesting. Where did you see them, Gloria?” he asked.

Gloria cracked her knuckles and shifted from one foot to the other. “At the Seafront Bar. I dropped off some of my jam there -- you know I sell jam to the bar -- and I heard them ask.”

“Did they follow you or speak to you?”

Gloria shook her head. “I wasn’t in there that long, and they were eating. I stopped by my house before I came back here, though, and waited by the window to be certain.”

Auris nodded. “That was very good of you. How about you go back home now? I’ll let you know if there’s anything else.”

She nodded, looked at me and smiled before she looked back up at Auris. “Whatever I can do to help, I’ll gladly do it. I don’t want anything to disturb young love. We all need that at the moment.”

“Yes, we all do. Thank you, Gloria.” He led her back outside, then joined me on the floor, folding his long legs under.

“What was that?” I asked.

He didn’t look at all concerned. “I don’t know, but I’ll find out. Will you be okay on your own for a little while?”

I bit my lip. “It’s light out. You can’t… you can’t go out there. They are clearly here looking for you. Auris, you can’t.”

He leaned over and hugged me. “I won’t confront anyone directly, and night will fall soon enough. I’ll just watch from a distance, so I know who they are. Harold, who runs the bar, has been under entrancement for a long time, much like Gloria, and he’ll help with that.”

“But if they see you --”

“Shh. All I need is him taking a video, and if I need to get closer, I’ll stay in the bar’s kitchen so they can’t see me. I will be fine, and I promise I’ll only be gone for half an hour. Can you handle that, Ethan?”

“I… I mean…”

“Ethan, please.”

I breathed in, breathed out slowly. “A love prophecy is crazy but thinking that I’ll stay here is even crazier. Some religious fanatics had plans to murder you in a church only yesterday, how about maybe not going after them by yourself?”

---