Half of the Grief

"Hold her by the shoulders. Nothing more."

Astou is speaking to the weaver, not to me. She sits on the crate, pulls off her gloves, pushes the jack into her temporal port without a tremor. The old man hesitates. I set my hand on the backrest, next to his, and we wait for her signal.

She nods.

The reel turns.

Nothing at first. The motor coughs, my solder joints hold. Then her lips shape a Wolof word. Her fingers trace the curve of a braid in the air. She smiles, and that smile turns my stomach because it belongs to a six-year-old sitting in kitchen light. The raw Resonance flows into her with no basin, no priest to file down the edges.

On the third turn, the smile breaks.

She folds forward. A sound leaves her chest, hoarse, without vowels. Her nails rake her thighs through the canvas. The weaver backs away into the water. I stay.

I slide my arm under hers and let the AQUA.SANCTUM open between our skins. The fluid drinks. The rest reaches me in bundles: cold coffee, windows under rain, a voice counting stitches that stops in the middle of a number. My teeth chatter. The water in the armor drops to a few degrees above freezing.

You see, my angel? This past heals no one. Come back.

Astou grips my wrist. Hard.

"Half," she breathes. "You take half. No more."

She takes her share back. I can tell from the weight leaving my shoulders, from her back straightening, inch by inch, while her eyes stay fixed on the cracked vault. Her breathing settles into mine, then pulls away from it.

HATHOR.∞ falls silent.

The reader's counter blinks. End of the first track. A second one lines up behind it, shorter, and its label bears a serial number I know by heart.

Astou's finger comes to rest on the stop button.

It does not press.