Page 22 of Where Light Cannot Follow

"What do you believe is, then?"

"The Georgics."

His brows draw together, and I am not surprised. Very few remember them now.

"They are poems about pastoral life," I explain. "About tending bees and growing crops. About the honest labor of hands in soil."

His frown deepens, then he shakes his head. "I am no great reader of poetry. I am certain there are people who still know them as well.”

"Certainly," I agree. "But the reason you recognized my name when you stepped into this realm was because of the glorified war chronicle I penned for a man consumed by avarice and ambition." I let the words settle between us. "He arrived here—in this very place—not long after me, actually.”

"Did he make it out?" Dante asks.

"Some men never do." I nod toward a shape materializing behind him in the mist. "We have reached the door. It is just beyond you there."

He hesitates, studying me with such intensity I feel flayed open, his gaze searching for the truth beneath my skin. He has already witnessed it, of course—or enough of it. He simply does not wish to accept that some hero of his own private mythology, his notion that a man can achieve greatness sufficient to endure, and that such endurance is what grants existence meaning, results in nothing more than a wisp of regret and accumulated disillusionment.

He turns and opens the door.

As we step through the threshold, I steady myself. It is not like me to give in to bouts of passion-driven frustration anymore, and certainly not with a soul I guide through this place. I have my periods of melancholy, and they drive me into the swamps, through the murk and chirping insects and gray-green waters, the sandy-mud paths, the endless mist-shrouded inlets. It has been such a length of time since I've revealed so many of my flaws and fits of temper to another that I can scarcely remember the last occasion.

But there is something about this man that is like the pressure of falling beneath water. Words escape me seemingly without my control. I cannot name what it is about him, but it is the same feeling I had when I first watched him walking his endless loops through the empty streets of his city. As though something about his very presence compelled me forward.

It is with the discomfort of that thought settled upon my shoulders that we step into the next realm. My unneeded breath comes sharp, and I quickly divert my eyes to the path, fighting the urge to look again.

I am grateful, for once, that I lack other senses to draw me in.

"Gluttony," Dante scoffs. "This should have been my first temptation. It tempts me not at all."

"Surely that cannot be true?" I lift my face to ask the question. A mistake.

Beyond, I see the feast. There is bread—crust dark and blistered from the oven, dusted faintly with ash. Someone rips a loaf apart, and steam escapes in a soft sigh. Another person pours olive oil into a shallow dish scattered with crushed herbs and a pinch of coarse salt.

I can nearly taste it. Nearly feel the tingle of the herbs upon my tongue, the bread's warm and golden softness in my mouth.

There is cheese—fresh and white, still cool at its center. A hand drizzles honey over it, amber and slow-moving, pooling in the grooves. The sweetness clings, thick and floral, and I imagine how its viscous warmth would coat my throat, sweeten my lips.

Steam rises from a clay dish at the table's center.

It holds a stew, dark and fragrant, the surface shimmering with glossy fat. A hand ladles it into bowls, and the lentils and chickpeas spill out, swollen and tender, stained reddish-brown from rich wine and crushed tomatoes. Chunks of lamb land with them, simmered until they surrender at the slightest pressure.

Musa's favorite meal.

I am frozen, unable to pull my attention away. I do not even notice the rest of the feast—the roasted vegetables and free-flowing wine and honey cakes.

My eyes linger on that stew.

I imagine how Musa would close his eyes as he took a mouthful. How he would taste it with his entire presence. How later he would kiss me and the sweetness on my lips would mingle with the warm earthiness of his. His bright smile and shaking shoulders as he laughed at some other's joke.

It was the happiest moment of my life. One of the few snatches of happiness I possessed. Sharing a wonderful meal with Musa, who found such great joy in so many little things. I always had my eyes set toward some distant sense of greatness. He found greatness in a bowl of stew.

"Virgil!" Dante's shout is so roaring, so commanding that it snaps the tether I have found myself bound to. I gasp—out of surprise, not any need for breath—and look to where he stands so near to me, his dark eyes gleaming like coals. "Virgil?" he asks again, more quietly.

"Yes?"

"You were..." He frowns and glances out at the scene I refuse to look toward again, for fear of becoming caught in the loop once more. "Stuck."

"I apologize." Shame glides through me, an emotion that would heat my flesh were such a thing still possible. "It is not often the loops enrapture me anymore."