Eliza used to dance. She went through the world so gracefully, so effortlessly, that her dancing would catch Thomas by surprise every time. She danced like she didn’t care who saw, like it was a secret between her and the music alone, like her limbs weren’t moved by her muscles and tendons but only by the force of the music. Then her dance became like a secret between her, the music, and Thomas.

There were nights of dancing in college, long nights which would leave Thomas bleary-eyed and smiling the next day. There, on that rocky mountainside at night, he wonders which of the lights in the valley shine from the college common room where they first danced. Eliza is no longer there in that common room, dancing. He is no longer there, dancing with her. She is still at that intersection, unfeeling and unthinking. He is here, on the upper reaches of the mountainside, catching his breath in the February night air as every exhalation blossoms into fog. There are tears on his cheeks. There is a lump in his throat so knotty that it hurts.

The hills are quiet.

He sits and sees the night and feels the cold and hears the quiet. All is clear. It is all blindingly clear. He sits and feels and he does not think.

He knows how time works. There is a part when he is alive, and there is a part when he is dead. This is the part when he is alive and Eliza is dead. He is no less alive for her being dead. This is not an easy fact to face. He spent many years shying from it. Yet it is true, and he still has so much to do.

Gently, he fishes around in his backpack for a wooden urn. Gently, so gently, he opens it. As if waiting for him, a breeze strikes up. The coffin’s ashes are scattered. They are gone.

Wren is waiting for him further down the hillside. Thomas wonders if they’ve gotten bored, or if they’ve found some way to entertain themselves in the wood. He absorbs the scene for one last moment.

Then Thomas Seton stands and makes his way back down.

There is a part when he is on that hillside on that night. There is a part when he is not. This is now that part.

There is a photo album in a drawer in a well-heated cabin. In it are years of accumulated photographs.

Thomas and Wren, hair windswept, newspaper-wrapped chips in hand, sitting on a pier by a pebble beach near Wesmarch.

Thomas and Wren in the Cailados, on a sandier beach under a warmer sun and the black sky, feet in the ocean.

Thomas and Wren in the cheapest hostel in Enku Metropolis, the view of the city’s glittering lights through the window three-quarters obscured by the block of flats directly opposite. Earlier that day they had crossed the border from Danyama district without having read that Enku had reintroduced its own currency the previous week. The currency exchange – and the idea of such a thing was itself a novelty – only had a few new Enkuan notes left. They had to survive for three days on a tiny pittance. That, itself, was an adventure.

Thomas and Wren in the Éllière Gallery of Fine Art, grinning in front of a painting by Rena which they had unexpectedly stumbled upon. Not shown in the photograph was the irate security guard who had told them off immediately afterwards, informing them that photography was not allowed.

Thomas and Wren in a rowing boat drifting down the river Kham in Khamvali, faces illuminated in red and green by the flash of fireworks overhead.

Thomas and Wren, Thomas’ hair more grey than not, Wren’s face now with a mature angularity, in the Lowerlee plain. A flock of horned sheep grazed behind them. They had spent the night in an isolated hotel, the place to stay open in a fifty mile radius. The hotel owners had explained that they had been born in that village and married in that village, and that they intended to die in that village even if everyone else had moved to the better-protected cities from fear of demons.

The drawer is opened, and an aged hand reaches inside for the album once again.

In a clearing in the woods of the Wesmarch-Éllien Union, there are three benches. Upon one is carved the letters TS. Upon another, ES. Upon the third, WK. Parents sit on the benches and rest while their giggling children run and play around them. Lovers rendezvous there at night. Nobody knows what the initials stand for. They only know the happy memories which have been accumulated around those benches over the years.

Some come from further away to see the cabin which lies in the woods not far from the clearing. Made of wood, its outside is elaborately ornamented with rows upon rows of carvings. Some of the rows of carvings are abstract; others are floral; others are of animals, especially of butterflies; others are scenes of people. Only a very few know what those scenes represent.

The present goes slowly. The past goes quickly.

It is 3953. A family of hikers climb a mountainous hillside near the college town where their eldest studies. At a mother’s suggestion and seeking the best view, they travel off the beaten track towards the peak. Following the animal trails and clambering over rocks, they pass through a perimeter of trees then stop and hesitate. Someone stands before a cairn. Upon a large, cubic stone in the centre of the cairn, there is carved:

Hearing them approach, the person turns and regards the family. The parents apologise for interrupting. The person shrugs. “It’s fine,” they say. “It’s been a year.”

The parents say that they’re sorry for their loss. The person smiles. “It’s alright. He had a good life.”

The person leaves the cairn and begins to make to make their way back down. The hikers, unsure what to make of them and watching them leave, cannot know how much the person meant their words, or the powerful grief which still weighed upon them and the tears which they had shed, or the genuine happiness which still lights their smile.

They have people waiting for them in the valley below.