04. Scintilla;
(n.) a tiny, brilliant flash or spark; a small thing; a barely visible trace
The hallway was dark but she could find her way thanks to the glow from her room lighting a path. She’d woken up in a sweat but with no memory as to what had disturbed her from her sleep.
The bathroom tiles were cold beneath her feet as she pulled at the cord, the bulb eventually flickered to life and she rubbed her eyes to clear the tired haze that blurred the corners of her vision.
She scooped water from the tap and into her mouth, the liquid cold and dribbling down her chin and down her arm but it didn’t stop her eyes from forcing themselves closed. She stopped to lean against the sink with her elbows, hands meeting in the middle.
Casi could hear the squeaking of wooden bed slats as she drifted in and out of the sleep that was hard to come by. He was having nightmares too, body jolting to the images that his own mind forced him to view. His own worst enemy, as she was hers.
She wondered what he saw when his eyes closed, nothing that he couldn’t imagine when they were open but haunted him as he slept. Casi thought it might have been the war or maybe what came after but with no memory to be able to tell the difference between reality and imagination.
When the house fell silent again, only the sound of trickling from the tap to be heard she guessed whatever he imagined became too real to sleep through. She stopped the water from running and turned to leave for her room again, hoping it would be kinder to her this time.
As she reached the door, knuckles rubbing at tired eyes, she walked into something warm.
“Oh.”
“Oh. Sorry.” He mumbled.
He was still in the hallway, the light bright on his face but his eyes were dull from sleep. He was wearing as little clothes as she was, and she studied his chest for the same goosebumps that had appeared on her skin from their brief touch, slight warmth in the cold around them.
“Nightmares?” Casi asked as he rubbed his face, bringing her eyes up to meet his when they opened again.
“Yeah. Sorry, did I wake you?” He asked, eyebrows high with worry.
“No. I had my own.”
They were silent for a little bit, listening to the clicking of old piping as warmth spread through the house from the fireplace downstairs which told her it was still early. Or late. Depending which side of midnight it might have been.
“Well, I’ll let you sort yourself out. You know where I am if you need me.” She said, placing a hand on his shoulder before brushing behind him towards her room at top of the landing.
“Good night.” He said and she could tell his eyes had followed her from the way his voice travelled after her.
“Nos da.” Casi called over her shoulder before closing the door to her bedroom.
01:23.
Three hours of sleep, if that. Too early to get up but too late for anything else.
Her hand lingered on the knob of the door, wondering if he was hungry like she was or wanted to talk about everything and nothing at all. She was bound to stare at her ceiling for hours if she did go back to bed, finally drifting back to sleep when she should have been starting her day.
She heard the floorboards at the end of the landing creak as he snuck back towards his room. Casi waited a few minutes until all she could hear was the house around her before grabbing the dressing gown off the back of her door and heading down the stairs.
She tucked her head between her shrugged shoulders as she left the house. The moon was bright tonight, helping light the way towards the shed as it stood high above the house. Not a single cloud tried to hide its shine. The stars were the same, flickering as they did as she looked for her favourite constellation, not that she knew what it was called.
Casi opened the padlock with her mind and let it fall to the floor, pulling the door open by hand. She didn’t bother with the light, making her way past the bike and towards the table before placing a finger on the scanner.
“It’s Casi.” She said, as she always did once the screens had settled.
“Good morning, Casi. I have some updates for you. Please let me know when you’re ready.”
“A name?”
“Yes.” He confirmed.
“I’m ready.”
“A Josef Franke.” Photos flashed onto the screen and she could almost see the man’s life play out in front of her. He was young and then he was old, and might have been responsible for the deaths of her parents somewhere in between.
“Where is he?”
“Romania. Constanța.”
“Romania?” Casi questioned the logistics of the entire thing, thinking of the man that stayed with her now. No mention of him leaving or plans beyond the next morning. They took it day by day.
“You have a visitor.”
Her hand had reached for the pistol beneath the desk before her head had even turned to see who was at the door. Her arm stretched in front of her as she spun on the spot, barrel pointing towards her lodger.
“It’s just me!” His arms rushed to surrender.
“Sorry,” Casi muttered, slipping the weapon back into the hidden holster. “Reflex.”
His eyebrows frowned at that before she watched a whole range of expressions flood his face as he looked in awe around him. The computer was the last thing he studied as he reached her.
“What did it say about Romania?” James asked, eyes darting across the pinboard above the screens.
She wondered if he recognised any of the faces, the names of her previous suspects.
“There’s a man. A Josef Franke. He might have killed my parents.”
“Franke?” His mind was working as hard as his eyes, too much for a man working on three hours of sleep.
“Do you know him?” Casi asked, not really knowing what she wanted the answer to be.
“I’m not sure.”
There were lots of these with him.
“I have to go after him.”
“When?” James asked, turning to face her now as she sent the information to her phone.
“Today.”
“Today?”
“Well, I’ll need to make some calls. But yeah.”
She watched him as things turned in his head, eyes not really sure where to settle as his brows furrowed in concentration. What about him. Where did he fit in all of this?
“Are you coming?” She asked.
“To Romania?”
“To Romania.” Casi confirmed. It had been nice having him around.
“I don’t know, I…”
“No one will even know we’re there.” He looked at her now, eyes locking. “I promise.”
She wasn’t sure if he trusted her but what else did he have? He arrived because of her surname. It was familiar to him somehow and he found her. She didn’t have anything for him, not really. Nothing he couldn’t read in a book or a museum. Casi didn’t have the answers to his questions, she couldn’t stop his nightmares. She could barely cook him breakfast.
But he stayed. Their hands brushed on the kitchen counter sometimes, skin tickling. She’d spoken more words to him in the couple of weeks he’d been there than she had all year. When the house would creak in the night, she wasn’t scared. Just pipes. Or him moving around not really knowing where to settle.
If he said he’d move on to whatever was next, she wasn’t sure she would be able to let him. For the first time in a long time, she had a reason to stay and he was staring right at her, blue eyes piercing even in the dark that surrounded them.
“Okay,” he said. “I’ll come.”
*