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Fingers stroking his hair. A familiar voice, murmuring in his ear.
“Hush. Hush now.” Gurli Linder’s voice.
Why Gurli? he wonders. But then, why not her? And it could be worse. Better her than Mother. He does not think that he could bear that.
“I wasn’t looking for you,” he says, without turning. “People will say, ah, that is why he came here. To find you. But it was never my intention.”
“Was it not, my love?”
”No! I only ever wanted to know if it were possible, as a feat of engineering. I had to know if I could do it.”
He speaks emphatically but quietly. To admit that it does not matter whether he raises his voice — that, if he wanted, he could scream the words until his lungs burned — would be too much. It would fill him with terror and awe. He cannot avoid those emotions entirely, but he rations them.
Scattered bones under an indifferent white sky. Think of something else.
Nils, his face half-covered by rocks. No, something else.
“I did not come here looking for you,” he says again.
The kiss is gentle at the nape of his neck. “And yet I found you.”