Page 161 of These Tears

I follow the direction with my eyes, turning towards the gap in the trees.

Beyond the last scatter of spruce, the land falls away in a clean, breathtaking slope, and a small town reveals itself, tucked so tightly against the water it looks as if the hill is possessive of it. Through the glare, I catch the pieces first: yellow and red houses, salt-stained sheds, thin piers needling into a lake, fishing boats nudging against broken plates of ice.

We’ve been travelling for almost half an hour since the break at the fjord.

Half an hour; mostly downhill. Two long bends I felt through his body. A flatter stretch near the end.

I file away every scrap.

Because yes – his eyes have the power to hold me here, but freedom has never stopped pulling harder.

The sun’s as high as winter seems willing to allow, its blessing turning the town below into something otherworldly.

‘Camera…’ I say, unable to look away, as I yank the face cover off and my hair spills in messy curls. ‘Please…’

I hear him shuffling, and the hatch beneath the seat creaks twice. A weight presses gently into my palm – my magic object. I lift it with reverence, fitting it to my eye as muscle memory takes over, and click off a series of shots.

The foreground blooms into solemn bokeh – snow turned to pearls – and beyond, the town pours into focus, basking beneath the sun like something newly blessed.

‘What’s so special about this?’ he asks curiously. I catch the genuine interest in the notes.

‘A dream that became real,’ I say.

Through the lens, everything softens.

‘The town sits like a handful of lights placed with care along the shoreline. The lake looks like a sheet of hammered silver. Endless. Precious.’ Click. Click. ‘It makes the boats look weightless.’ I adjust the focus, hold my breath. ‘Almost like…’ A deep breath, another shot of the boats. ‘The world below is floating instead of being anchored.’

I glance over the camera with my naked eye, absorbing the unfiltered view.

The silence that drags over the space is so complete it feels holy.

I blink back into the moment as I turn towards him.

He’s not looking at the town.

Those sharp sapphire eyes that have always made my knees shudder are fixed on me, burning through whatever frost was left in the air.

Heat creeps to my cheeks, blooming unwelcome and unrestrained.

‘Sorry,’ I mumble, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear. ‘I get carried away.’

He hums, gaze dropping to the snow near his boots. ‘You said you only hunt for the heavy kind of emotion. Wasn’t that why you were at the prison?’

I glance sideways at a tree, its shadow cleaving the space between us.

He’s right.

Before I started coming to the prison, I hunted damage. Cold concrete, bruises in the sky, faces that looked as if they had learnt things without asking to know.

I scroll backwards through the photographs in my mind. Lately, my lens keeps turning to the northern lights loosening over the sky. To snow caught in the hush before it lands. To this little town curled against the lake as if the world has finally gone soft. To ice preserving the present on our bedroom window.

And to Elias Crane.

My thumb grazes the edge of the lens frame.

He doesn’t belong in that collection – he isn’t safe.

Yet when I picture the last couple of days, there he is, among the aurora and snow and frozen glass, occupying shot after shot.