—and even now, and even with everything going on inside his head, it’s enough to make him feel lighter. Sweeter, like burnt sugar, and he has to stop himself from reaching out and tracing his fingers over the two of them, frozen on a diner wall in Amorea. That’s real, he knows. That’s real. Not the voices in the dark. Not the way that the road out of Amorea leads to the road into Amorea. Not the murmurations, though he knows those were real to him at one point.
But the pictures.
They cover the walls. It’s Walter’s hobby, it’s his habit, it’s his obsession. He takes that damn camera with him everywhere, that boxy thing that he lugs around and says, Say cheese, folks, say cheese. It’s an Ansco Speedex folding camera. Mike doesn’t know how he knows that, just that he does. But Walter’s always there, right? At every event. Every picnic. Every festival. He’d be smiling and folks would be smiling back at him and they’d say cheese and there’d be a bright flash. More often than not, they’d end up on the wall. Mike knows that if he looks hard enough, he can find every single person living in Amorea on that wall.
He thinks, And maybe a few that aren’t.
How foreign, that thought is.
How did he get here?
Wüsthof Ikon Damascus.
Angry woman.
Glass breaking.
Photos falling.
Daniel Houle and George Kettner.
They were fighting over… over what? Money. Daniel owed George money. And Mike was first aware of it because of raised voices. And pictures being knocked off the walls. There were two—
three
—of them, and he picked them up after the fight was over, wanting to make sure no one stepped on the glass.
The photo of sledding on Thrill Hill.
The Amorea Women’s Club Bake Sale.
That was it. That was all there was.
His wrist itches.
His brain itches.
Because was that all there was?
He picked up the sledding photo.
And then the Amorea Women’s Club photo.
And then Walter came in and… they… talked?
Mike wipes away the sweat on his forehead.
Yes, he knows they talked. Because Mike asked… something.
He pushes.
The pressure behind his eyes begins to build. He puts his face in his hands and rubs the sides of his head with his fingers. Maybe he shouldn’t push. Doc doesn’t think he has a brain tumor (What do you know about schizophrenia?), but that doesn’t mean he won’t force himself into an aneurism. Or a stroke. Because that’d be his luck, wouldn’t it? He shouldn’t push.
But he does. Just a little bit harder. Just to see.
He—
What about the woman?