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The light was playing tricks on them, surely. That was the way this place worked. If it abided by any one logic, it was a defiance of means to measure and reckon: The whirling needle of a compass like a top set spinning over a dark cobble in the street. The way a towering mass of ice could appear to be a single hour's walk away, only for the light to shift and hurl the landmark against the far horizon when - painfully, every bit of flesh in his feet and knees begging for a halt - that hour had finally elapsed. It was the only possible way to explain how large the house loomed on the other side of the window, looking the same as he'd left it however many thousand miles ago, its lime walls a shade of white that made him realize: he'd forgotten how warm the color could be.
His gaze shifted to the near side of the window, and the head of ginger hair on the man who sat next to him, back turned, watching the house continue to grow larger within the window's frame. It was combed, and trimmed above the collar of his blue coat - neater than he'd seen it in months. The coat, likewise, had regained its lustre. It even fit better, as if it had been tailored. Somewhere in the distant fog of Sol’s mind, the question rumbled - was the lapel still sporting a constellation of boat knife holes? Much more present in Sol’s thoughts were a handful of straw-colored hairs, threading their way through the red like strands of gold. Sol imagined lifting a hand to the back of that head, maybe curling one finger through the length of those strands - but he scuttled the thought so quickly that it was basically as if it hadn't crossed his mind at all. Instead, he pressed the palms of his hands resolutely into the cushion of the seat beneath him.
Hickey turned his face away from the house to look over his shoulder at Sol. The orange of his hair and the pink of his skin were superimposed over the black and white patchwork of the house windows and walls, which now looked entirely spectral, filling the view out the train window as if projected onto its surface. The contrast made Hickey seem even more tantalizingly palpable; something living and warm to be felt, and smelled, and tasted.
Hickey spoke, and the sound of his incomprehensible words hung in the air of the compartment like cigarette smoke: rolling e’s, sibilant s’s like feet slipping on ice, consonants that collapsed in on themselves. Somehow, once they had wormed inside Sol’s ear, they all turned to English.
“Trying to make me into a proper little bride?”
His eyes flashed with ridicule over his smiling lips, which were bracketed by crescent-shaped dimples on either side. Like sun-dogs, Sol heard himself think.
It's not like that, he tried to say, but no sound came out. He stiffened his shoulders back, pressing his hands further into the nubby material of the seat. The thumping of the tracks below thrummed against his palm in response, pairs of knocks in a lazy, even rhythm.
Then the train was gone, and he was standing outside the house, alone. He had come all this incalculable way, but crossing the threshold was out of the question in this moment. He walked the length of the house, searching for a tinge of pink skin and orange hair.
He found Hickey at one corner of the house, laid out on his back over gravel, face turned over his right shoulder. He wore an expression of mild surprise and amusement, mouth open, brows arched; his eyes seemed to have traces of light in them yet. But erupting from the red of the jacket he wore was a black cavity, square at the edges like a page had been torn out of him. Sol went to put his hand to it. He wondered if it would be an abyss without bottom. Or instead, would it be soft? Like the thick jet pelt Hickey had kept off the captain's dog.
As his hand neared, he noticed movement in one corner of the dark square. He stayed his hand and watched, as a single white form wriggled into view, followed by one more, then five, then twenty and more, until there was a mass of the things bubbling up like a fountain of writhing hail, or maggots.
No. No, no no no no no...
Sol dropped to his knees alongside Hickey. He applied his hand to the edge of the mass and frantically attempted sweeping them back into the crater in Hickey's chest. There was no sensation as his fingers slid right through the crawling heap, and none of his frenzied swipes seemed to dislodge even a single one. Panic rang in Sol’s ears.
A sensation of contact sent a jolt through his body, and he heard himself take a deep, gasping breath. Sol’s eyes opened to the dim glow of midnight sun seeping through canvas. His right arm was draped over Hickey, who was knocking it angrily with the back of his wrist - the one that remained whole and unmangled. He lay back curled against Sol’s front, more solid than anything in the restless dream Sol had just escaped. The scowl on his face, though, warned that he was on the verge of fully waking and decamping to the other side of their meager shelter. Sol withdrew his arm but otherwise stayed as motionless as he could, sweeping his gaze up and down the length of Hickey. As each successive pass revealed Hickey to be sound - a relative term, of course, considering the aftermath of his failed attempt at becoming a shaman, and the ongoing toll being taken by this seemingly inexorable trek - Sol began to steady his ragged breathing as quietly as possible. When he felt stable enough, he held his breath to listen to the rhythm of Hickey's - waiting for it to even out its edge of fitful agitation, into the deeper sound of slumber.
The tension in Hickey's expression and breathing gradually eased, and Sol exhaled silently. He tentatively returned his arm to its place around Hickey, and paused, only allowing his full weight to rest against Hickey when he showed no sign of disturbance. His hand found Hickey's chest, and he splayed his fingers to flatten his palm there, seeking the thud of Hickey's heartbeat. It surged and ebbed in his hand, and Sol permitted the tide of relief he felt to exert its pull. He pressed himself closer against Hickey's back, burying his nose in the crown of Hickey's hair. Sol allowed himself to close his eyes, and inhale deeply through his nose. Hickey smelled of sweat, and tobacco - how the man still had a stash Sol could only guess - in a combination that, damn it all, washed over Sol in an intoxicating rush. In the darkness his closed eyes afforded against the gloam, he gave in to a moment's foolishness. He pressed his mouth into Hickey's hair until a lock of it fell between his parted lips. He closed his mouth around the strands, tracing his tongue over a wavy ridge. It was brittle, and greasy, and salty-sweet, though Sol had a vague awareness that the sweetness might be his own imagining.
Like toffee, he thought. And then, another thought, one he knew lay curled somewhere deep below his ribs, but that he doggedly pretended not to hear:
Like home.