Page 48 of Ex Somnis

“The other side of town.”

“I’m going to get changed,” Nevan mutters, unknots my jacket from his waist, hands it back, and walks past both of them, ducking under the frame and heading inside without looking at anyone.

As I watch him go, I feel watched, and when I glance around, I find Seraphine’s gaze already on me.

I know her by proximity, but we’ve never had a real conversation since I told Mabel about how I suspected neglect. Mabel took them in. The boys had the cottage, the stability Aunt Mabel gives freely, the closest thing to reliable ground available, and I told myself it was enough because the alternative was inserting myself into a family situation I had no standing in and no invitation to address.

That’s the clinical framing.

The honest one is that I had one hour of work a day and considerable time I didn’t know what to do with. I chose the version of helping that required the least of me personally. I filed my concern and moved on.

A sleeping bag and mittens.

I should have done more.

“Sometimes a mirror is just a mirror,” Seraphine singsongs. “Sometimes not.”

The blood in my veins stops moving. “I’m sorry?”

“You stand in front of a mirror alone. You see only yourself. And you might think, this is all there is. One reflection, but mirrors can hold more than one person. Stand two people in front of a mirror, and you get both of them. Stand three. Or four.”

“I don’t think I understand.”

“You think you’re alone in the glass. You’re not. You never were. People are standing in it with you who you haven’t turned around to see yet.”

“What people?”

“Stop looking at your reflection. Stop looking only at yourself, and you’ll see them. Turn, and you will see them next to you.” She looks past me then, at the middle distance, and when her eyes come back to mine, something in them has shifted.

“Hi.” She gives me a warm, polite smile, as if I’ve just arrived.

I stare at her.

What the hell was that?

“Good to see you, Paul.”

“What you said about the mirror—” I start but cut myself off when her gaze turns confused and flicks to Mabel.

“Could we have some more tea?”

“Of course, we can, Sera.” Aunt Mabel stands, looking at me over the top of Seraphine’s head with an expression I cannot fully read, which is unusual.

Mabel is normally very easy to read.

“Have a nice day, boy,” she says.

I watch them go inside, then stand there in the garden for a moment, in the cold, with paint drying on my face, my ruined jacket over my arm and Seraphine’s words echoing in my mind.

“Stop looking only at yourself, and you’ll see them.”

CHAPTER NINE

Lennon

“We should do our nails later.”

Tessa’s arm is hooked through mine as we walk the path between the rose beds outside our restaurant. The gravel crunches under our feet, and the afternoon light is doing something golden through the leaves overhead.