Page 2 of Weight of Shadows
I walked further into the place, more on edge now than I was driving over here. The layout was strange, the walls meeting at angles that felt slightly off, a geometry that defied the standard boxiness of urban apartments. Everything I ever associated with Dominic, the leather-bound editions of Milton, the heavy mahogany desk, felt like they belonged to a different man than the one who had owned this hollow, shadowed space.
I reached the end of the hallway, where a door stood slightly ajar. Beyond it was the bedroom, a space I could only see in fragments of grey and shadow. I moved toward it, intending to drop my bag and collapse into whatever bed was there, but before I could reach the threshold, the door began to move.
There was no draft in the sealed apartment, no open window to catch the night air, but it moved anyway as if a hand had been placed firmly against the wood. It swung shut with a muffled thud, the latch clicking into place with a finality that made the hair on my arms stand up.
“What the fuck,” I muttered to myself.
I stared at the closed door for a long time, my heart hammering in my chest. I wanted to turn and run. I wanted to get back in the car and drive until the fog was a memory and the smell of sandalwood was scrubbed from my skin. But the thought of the highway, of the long, empty road back to a life that had already been hollowed out, was worse than the silence of the room.
I was a careful person, a man who had spent years learning how to navigate the moods of a brilliant, difficult husband by becoming invisible. I knew how to wait. I knew how to exist in the margins of someone else's darkness. So, I’d stay here and find out what Dominic had really been doing here.
Setting my bag down, I walked to the kitchen, a narrow galley with rusted fixtures and a tiled floor that had yellowed with age. On the counter sat a single object, a leather-bound notebook, its edges curling like dried leaves. I didn't touch it. I knew what was inside. I’d seen the siblings of that notebook on Dominic’s nightstand during the months before he died, pages filled with frantic, tiny script and symbols that looked like a language caught in a fever dream.
I turned away from it, my hands trembling as I reached for the tap. The water came out orange at first, a metallic sludge thatcoughed through the pipes before clearing into a shaky stream. I splashed my face, my gaze drifting to the mirror above the sink, but the silvering had started to rot, my reflection a blurred, distorted ghost of the man I used to be.
I wasn't Oleander Voss, the literary editor with a sharp eye for subtext and a quiet life. I was just a body in a room Dominic had built for himself, a man who had watched his husband descend into a private madness and had said nothing because the silence was easier than the truth. I was an expert at avoidance until it was too late to fix what was broken.
The apartment seemed to settle around me, the floorboards groaning as if adjusting to my weight. It was a beautiful rot, this town. I’d seen it in the way the ivy clung to the brickwork outside. Hollow Vale didn't feel like a place people lived; it felt like a place where things were kept.
I spent the next hour unpacking, trying to keep my mind from wandering to the closed door at the end of the hall. I folded my sweaters and placed them in the built-in wardrobe, the wood smelling of cedar and old paper. I lined up my shoes. I placed my toothbrush in the chipped porcelain holder. I was building a safe space out of habit, a desperate attempt to make the strange feel familiar.
But the familiar was what I was afraid of. Dominic hadn't just left me an apartment; he had left me the continuation of a story I thought had ended in a hospital bed seven months ago.
I finally walked back to the bedroom door. I reached for the handle, expecting it to be locked, expecting the resistance of the phantom hand I’d imagined earlier. But the knob turned easily. The door swung open to reveal a room that was surprisingly bare, a bed, a small nightstand, and a window that looked out over the woods at the edge of town.
I sat on the edge of the mattress, the springs creaking in protest. The silence was different here than it had been in thecar. It felt occupied, as if the air itself were listening to the sound of my breathing, waiting for me to say something that would break the spell.
Laying back, fully clothed, I watched the shadows shift across the ceiling. I thought of Lili, seven hours ahead, waking up to a sun I couldn't see. I thought of the gas station with the one light and the church with the broken steeple. I thought of the way the door had closed, a quiet, domestic gesture that felt like an ending.
“Welcome to your new home, I guess,” I muttered to myself.
two
OLEANDER
Morning in Hollow Vale arrived with a shift in the gray. When I opened my eyes, the bedroom was filled with a light that felt filtered through dirty wool. I lay there for a long time, staring at the ceiling, waiting for the familiar weight of Dominic’s arm across my waist. It took a full minute for the silence to remind me that he wasn't there. He was never going to be there again.
I got out of bed, dressed in layers, a charcoal sweater and my heavy wool coat, before stepping out into the hallway. The scent of his cologne was gone, replaced by the smell of damp brick and something vaguely metallic. I didn't linger. I needed to move, to see this place in the light, even if the light here felt like a lie.
Outside, the fog hadn't lifted. It had just changed altitude, sitting at knee level like the ground was breathing out a cold, white breath. It clung to my shins as I walked, turning the world into a series of floating silhouettes. The town was beautiful in the way a corpse can be beautiful, ornate, still, and undeniably ruined. The architecture was a fever dream of Victorian ambition, ivy eating through red brick, ironwork rusting into delicate lace, and gargoyles that looked less like decorations and more like they were keeping watch.
Nothing about Dominic being in this place made sense.
I found the main street by following the sound of a distant, rhythmic banging, a loose shutter, maybe, or a ghost trying to get home. I didn’t believe in the paranormal like that, but far stranger things had happened recently.
When I reached Main Street, I was surprised to find some semblance of activity in the center. There was a hardware store with dusty windows and a diner where condensation was so thick it looked like the glass was sweating. Further down, I saw a bar with no name on the front, just a dark wood facade and a door that looked like it had been opened ten thousand times.
The few people I passed didn't stare. They acknowledged me with small, tight nods that were friendly enough but didn't invite follow-up. It was the kind of greeting you gave to someone you expected to see again, whether you wanted to or not.
Continuing on down the street, I stopped in front of the bookshop, fond memories of earlier days being surrounded by books making me wonder what would have happened had things turned out differently. The sign was hand-painted, the gold leaf peeling away from the letters like dead skin. I pushed the door open, a bell chiming with a sound that felt too bright for the atmosphere.
A woman stood behind the counter, her hair a shock of white against a dark cardigan. She didn't look up from the bookshe was marking until I reached the register, her eyes a pale, startling blue.
"Oh, good morning! You must be the one in the Ashworth place," she said.
"I'm Oleander," I said, my voice sounding thin in the cramped space. "I just moved in yesterday. I didn't realize news traveled that fast here."
She smiled, but it didn't reach her eyes. "It’s a pretty close-knit town, Oleander. Someone saw you arrive last night and it’s spread like wildfire. The town’s glad to have you. It’s been waiting for that apartment to have a pulse again."
