TOWLINE
Harper
I RUN MY HANDS DOWN my skirt, one that has an almost Victorian-era feel despite the hem landing just below my knees, its black-and-white stripes unusual and quirky, perfect for the evening’s festivities. With a short- sleeved black top and black tights and a pair of retro deep red velvet oxford heels, I’m cute as hell. Then I loop a red ribbon around my ponytail. Even cuter. I just wish Nolan could see me in something other than muddy or
bloody clothes.
No, I don’t. That’s fucking stupid.
Is it, though?
It feels like the most asinine thing I could ever do would be to put my trust—my real trust, not my tenuous “I have your skinbook and you will do what I want” trust—in a man who has explicitly said that he would hunt the deepest reaches of hell to find me. One who has come here to kill me. Of all the women in the world, I cannot be the one to roll over and say, “Take me
now, Murder Daddy.”
Fuck no. Not after what I’ve survived.
A deep sigh fills and empties from my lungs and I press my eyes closed, rolling my neck where tension has been endlessly building until it feels ready to snap. My head says I can’t do it. But my heart sees the hurt in his eyes when I told him I didn’t believe that he could care about anything other than the belongings Lukas hid on my behalf. It looked real.
But appearances can be so deceiving that they’re deadly.
I leave the floor-length mirror to open the top drawer in my dresser.
Beneath my lingerie is a small, nondescript jewelry box. One I don’t open often. I couldn’t bear to put it beneath the floorboards or on the makeshift gravestone in the Lancaster family plot of the cemetery. But I can hardly look at it either.
I take the watch out and lay it on my palm.
There’s no strap. Just the shattered crystal and scratched dial of a TAG Heuer Autavia. A faint smile passes over my lips as I remember Adam’s twenty-first birthday. We went to dinner with his parents. They gave him this watch. Adam was so surprised. He was always joyful, generous with his laughter and kind words. But that night, he was so vibrant he lit up the whole room. That was the day before we left on our adventure to live the
van life for the next two years.
My smile fades.
“I can tow you. I’ve got a garage. I’ll fix that van right up for ya,”
Harvey Mead’s voice echoes from memory, corrupting my mind like ink on pristine paper.
Adam had given him the same glowing grin he gave to everyone. “That would be so great, thank you.”
I remember Mead smiling at Adam in return, but it never reached the lightless abyss of his eyes. He walked back to his tow truck as I whispered to Adam, “Are you sure about this?”
“Yeah,” he’d said, running a hand over my hair before placing a kiss on my forehead. “He seems all right.”
I open my eyes as the image of scattering vultures flutters through my mind.
I blink down at the watch. It looks just the same as it did when I pulled it from the ashes of Harvey Mead’s house. Just the same as when I tried to give it to Adam’s parents. When Mrs. Cunningham’s hand folded around mine and she told me to keep it. She never once tried to make me feel guilty for being the one to survive that hell where her son was torn apart. But I still felt it anyway.
There were many times I wished it had been me who died there. Grief debrided me like teeth on a grater, shaving away every piece of me until
only ribbons of my life were left behind. And every time I tried to pick them up and mold them into something that looked vaguely familiar, they fell apart. I had to let go of the woman I used to be and glue my shredded pieces together with shadow and sin to feel anything close to whole again.
I can’t just give that up. I can’t force that broken woman back into the light. I can’t unravel this life I’ve created here in Cape Carnage. I cannot, I will not, let Nolan Rhodes take it from me.
I set the watch inside the box, staring down at it for a long moment before I place it back in the dresser and walk into town, forgoing the opportunity to ride with Lukas so he can have some one-on-one time with his grandfather. It feels good to just walk for the sake of it. Lately, it’s just been a constant swirl of gardening, refurbishing the soapbox racer, crafting a fake corpse, and, for the last three nights, ever since I dispatched Mr.
McMillan on my lawn, working in near-silence with Nolan to exhume Arthur’s long-buried victims.
I finally mustered up the courage last night to apologize for nearly getting him killed and then yelling at him, though he didn’t give me much of a reaction, unless a bottomless, indecipherable stare of molten darkness qualifies as tacit acceptance. At least I tried, I guess. It won’t be a bad thing to get a break from Nolan for a night. I should probably be getting ready to head to the river right now, but I just can’t bear to miss one of Arthur’s favorite annual events on his first day out of the hospital.
So on this warm, clear evening, I soak in the details of my town on a leisurely stroll instead. From the ornate wooden scrollwork on the peaked roofs of houses to the hanging baskets I take care of every summer, Cape Carnage is a place I finally feel at home. It looks after me. And I look after it, just the way Arthur has taught me.
Tonight kicks off the time of year when I need to be most vigilant. The official start of tourist season. The opening event of the Carnival of Carnage Festival.
There’s already a lineup outside the theater when I arrive on Maple Street. It’s a mix of visitors and townsfolk. Some of them are dressed in costumes aligning with tonight’s show. Others are like me, festive but not going so far as dressing like candelabras or teapots or burly nineteenth-
century hunters. Some, mostly tourists, are casual. I eavesdrop on conversations and soak in the atmosphere until my ticket is finally taken and I make my way inside, grabbing popcorn and a soda. I find a seat in the center of the seventh row, using my handbag to save the one next to me for Arthur. I settle in, reading the playbill as I wait for the auditorium to slowly fill up.
“Well, well,” a familiar voice says to my left after only a few moments of blessed serenity. I close my eyes for a beat and blow out a long, slow breath that does nothing to alleviate the irritation that seems to drown me from the inside. Okay, maybe a little excitement too, but I do my best to trample that. “What a surprise seeing you here.”
A waft of sandalwood and cedar drifts around me as Nolan Rhodes takes a seat at my side. I keep my eyes closed, unwilling to be assaulted by his infuriating hotness. “I’m sure.”
“Cape Carnage Theater presents Beauty and the Beast. That’s fitting, don’t you think?” he asks.
I crack open a single eye and glare at him. The instant I catch his gaze, one corner of his lips pulls back into a lopsided smile. I barely repress a groan.
“Since I’m so beautiful and all.” He runs a hand through his hair with
dramatic flair.
“And I’m such a monster, right?”
“You’re the one who said it, not me.” His smirk dissolves into an unflinching stare, a mirror of my own. It feels like it takes far too long for him to drop his attention to the paper in his hands. “What is this?” Nolan asks as he reviews the playbill, a crease notched between his brows.
“Do you have reading comprehension problems? You literally just read the title to me.”
Nolan rolls his eyes and reaches over for a fistful of my popcorn.
I slap his hand. “Get your own.”
“I got the title part. But what I don’t understand is why there’s a content warning for Beauty and the Beast. It’s Disney.”
“This is Cape Carnage. Nothing is Disney. This is the antithesis of Disney.” I scowl at Nolan, and he returns my irritation with a steely glare of
his own. “If you don’t like it, leave.”
A sardonic smile sneaks across his lips. “I’m comfortable right here, thanks.”
Something darkens in his expression, and it summons heat beneath my bones, deep in the cavern where my soul should be. There’s no light in his eyes. No air between us. The voices and laughter, people moving to their seats, the instruments warming up in the little orchestra pit—it all fades away. There’s only Nolan and the way he watches me, as though he would tear my heart out with his bare hands if I didn’t have his precious book hidden away. Like he would hunt me to the darkest hidden corners of the earth if I ever tried to disappear. I almost want to run, just to be chased by him. To be caught and bound, forced to face whatever fate is lurking in his predatory machinations. But I’m too ensnared by him to go anywhere.
And I’m too slow to react when he steals a fistful of popcorn from the bucket on my lap.
I blink as though clearing my mind from a haze and move the bucket, holding it on the empty seat next to me and out of his reach. When I face him once more, he seems quite pleased with himself, as though he’s fully aware of the effect he has on me, whether I like it or not. “Go. Away.”
“Too late. I paid the ticket price.”
“I’ll personally reimburse you.”
“There’s no amount of money that would mean more to me than your suffering, no matter how minute. Isn’t that what you think?” he says, that darkened, mocking smile of his still fixed on his face. I roll my eyes and lean forward to look beyond him before I twist in my seat, searching the patrons entering the theater. “What is it?”
“Stop pretending like you care, Nolan. It doesn’t suit you,” I mutter, leaning from one side to the other as I try to catch a glimpse past a small group of tourists entering the theater. “He should be here already. He hates
being late.”
“Who?”
I glance in his direction, and I’m surprised when I catch the faintest glimmer of concern in his furrowed brow. But I know him. The only thing he cares about is that fucking book, and the only reason he’d ask is either to
assess the risk to his prized possession or to explore the opportunity of getting it back. “It’s not with him, so don’t even fucking go there,” I warn, continuing my thoughts out loud. Nolan’s head tilts and he frowns as though he’s genuinely confused.
I slice him with a final glare and then shift my attention to the back of the room where I finally spot Arthur in an impeccable three-piece suit, one hand wrapped around the indigo handle of his black oak cane, the other gripped to Lukas’s bicep. I let out a long breath through pursed lips. “Thank fuck.”
I can feel Nolan’s gaze on the side of my face, burning beneath my skin.
But I don’t look his way. I turn my back on him instead, watching as Arthur and Lukas progress down the shallow steps that lead to the row where I’m sitting. When they get to my aisle, I rise, surprised when I sense Nolan do the same beside me.
“I was getting worried,” I say as Arthur takes my hand and we exchange a bise greeting.
Arthur grunts, casting a vicious glare at his grandson. “I despise being late.”
“We know,” Lukas replies as he leans around the old man to give me a brief hug. “You mentioned it no less than forty thousand times on the drive here.”
“Who are you?” When we separate, Arthur is sizing up Nolan, a look of suspicion folding his skin into wrinkles that seem even more menacing than their resting state, particularly with the stitched gash that’s still healing on his forehead.
“Nolan Rhodes, sir.” Nolan extends a hand past me, and though it takes Arthur a beat to move, he accepts the handshake. “Pleased to meet you.”
I suppress the urge to groan, but only barely. Of course Nolan would lay his accent on a little thicker and put on his most charming facade for Arthur.
All I need is for these two to suddenly become friends. “Nolan, this is Arthur, and that’s Lukas.”
“Good to meet you,” Lukas says, and though Nolan replies with the same, it feels cold, summoning a chill across my skin. When I peek up at Nolan, he’s closer than I thought he’d be, his presence looming only an inch
from my back. His attention shifts from Lukas to me, dropping to linger on my lips. Blood dances in my veins. I give him a quirked brow, an unvoiced question. When his eyes latch to mine once more, he backs up a step, then sits. The distance between us is a cold whisper in my flesh.
I clear my throat and give a little shake of my head. When I turn my attention back to Lukas, he looks puzzled. “All okay?”
“Of course,” I say, squaring my shoulders. “Just wondering what took you so long.”
A slow, sardonic grin slides across Lukas’s lips, summoning a ball of dread into my flip-flopping guts. “You must have put the house keys in the dishwasher, Harper. It took me forever to find them.”
Shit. “I absolutely did not—”
Arthur hits me with one of his lightless, menacing stares. “Why would you put them there? If you wish to clean them, Harper, use the silverware polish if you must. It was an infuriating search.”
Judgy bus, Lukas mouths over the top of Arthur’s head as he settles his
grandfather into the seat next to mine.
“But—”
Lukas’s eyes light with sparks of vengeance. “Judgy bus, Harper,” he whispers. “Just let it happen.”
“Harper,” Arthur barks, and I cringe. “The hedges need to be trimmed.”
I dart a glare at Lukas, whose smile only widens. I try not to look too petulant when I turn my attention to the old man, who glares at me over the rims of his reading glasses. “I can start them this week—”
“Into shapes.”
“W-what?” I ask, though Arthur has shifted his focus to his playbill, pinching the arm of his probably ridiculously expensive reading glasses as he skims the details. A thick swallow slides down my throat. Dread slinks down my spine. Lukas can barely contain his glee. I cast a glance to Nolan on my other side, though I don’t know why. He might look a little perplexed, but I’m sure he’s busy trying to devise ways to increase my future suffering. I return my attention to Arthur, my voice thin and tight when I say, “What kind of shapes?”
Arthur waves a hand toward me, not looking up from the paper.
“Animals. A swan for the boxwood in the center of the circular drive—”
“But—”
“And a series of native species for the yews in the front garden. Perhaps a bear. Maybe a moose, but it must be majestic. Befitting of Lancaster Manor.”
Lukas hides his laugh in his fist, barely keeping it under control when I reach past Arthur to smack him in the arm. “I’ve gotta go get ready,” he says, backing away toward the aisle. “Don’t want to be late for opening night. Have fun.”
“Break both legs. Maybe also your hands while you’re at it.”
“Doesn’t sound like such a bad idea. You’ll get to do the gutters next time if I do.” With a wink and then a nod to Nolan, Lukas turns and strides away.
“Arthur, I don’t know anything about topiary,” I say, clutching my popcorn to my chest as I lower to sit between the two men. “How am I supposed to make a moose?”
“Practice, Harper. Use your own garden.” Arthur takes a fistful of popcorn without even looking in my direction. “We nearly lost the best garden award to Sarah Winkle last season. We need to come out with something spectacular.”
He’s right, we do need to come out with something spectacular. Arthur is too curmudgeonly and I’m too taciturn to join something as sociable as the gardening club, and those fuckers have been banding together to take us down. I’m afraid there aren’t enough deserving dead tourists to win against their creativity on the quality of the blooms alone. “I’m just not sure a topiary moose is going to seal the deal for best garden of Cape Carnage, Arthur.”
Nolan takes his own successful swipe at my popcorn. “Especially not if it winds up looking like a hunk of ballmeat.”
When I slice a glare in his direction, his eyes brighten with amusement.
And while I’m distracted, Arthur takes his chance to steal another handful of popcorn. With an exasperated sigh, I shove the whole bucket in his
direction and stand, rogue kernels falling from my skirt. “Trade places with
me please, Arthur.”
“I’m comfortable.”
“If you move, you can more comfortably share your popcorn with this”—I wave a hand in the general direction of Nolan behind me—“thing over here, instead of both of you reaching over me. Plus, you’ll be smack in the center of the row. Best seat in the house.”
“Where are you going,” he demands, rather than asks.
I start moving past him, the patrons a few seats away shifting to make room for me to exit the aisle. “To get my own popcorn. Maybe I’ll go backstage and see if Lukas needs help with his costume.”
“Hmpf.”
“Trade places with me and I’ll bring you back Milk Duds. You know they’re contraband.”
I barely get out my last word and Arthur is rising just enough to slide into my vacated spot. When I shift my glare to Nolan, he’s leaning forward in his seat, watching me with an intensity that hums through the confines of my skull. I feel tilted from my axis. Off-center. Like someone has shoved me to the edge of reality.
I blink and turn away. I just got up too fast, that’s all it is.
With a shake of my head, I shimmy my way down the aisle until I reach the stairs. And though I don’t look back, I still feel his eyes on the back of my neck. When I touch it, there’s a current beneath my skin. It doesn’t leave until I’m at the top of the stairs. But even when I’m consumed by shadow, the electric murmur is there.
I head into the bright lobby, where people are still mingling and standing in line for refreshments. I join the line, deciding I’m going to get myself a cocktail along with my popcorn. I need something much stronger than soda to deal with Nolan. I’m watching the bartender make a pair of cocktails with gummy eyeball candies stabbed with cocktail sticks when I feel a presence behind me. Someone watching me with intense, obsessive interest.
But unlike the weight of Nolan’s gaze, which ignites a resonant pulse in my veins, this observer leaves only frost behind. I know who it is before he steps to my side and says, “You look so familiar.”
My heart lurches into my throat as I turn and give Sam Porter the most bland, unaffected look I can manufacture. “Really?” I squint and cock my head to one side. “I’m afraid you don’t look familiar to me at all, sorry.”
Like me, Sam also arranges his face into a mask. But it’s not infallible.
Though his smile is benign, he can’t manage to subdue the kaleidoscopic gleam in his eyes. There’s excitement there, and the anticipation of a hard- earned victory. But there’s urgency too. Maybe a bit of concern. He extends a hand to me, and I hesitate a beat before I slip my palm against his. “I’m Sam Porter. Pleased to meet you.”
I pump his hand once, and two of his fingers slip against my wrist as though he’s hoping to feel the beat of my hammering pulse, his eyes fused to mine. I slide my hand free. “Harper,” I say.
“Harper …?”
A beat of time seems to pull apart around us. All the sounds of the reception hall fade as my options are snipped away. “Starling.”
Sam nods, as though this is the response he expected. “That’s a unique name.”
“Is it?” I face forward, keeping my eyes on the reprieve of the ordering counter, which seems like a continent away with several people still in line before me. Sam stands at my side. I don’t know why it bothers me so much that people around us could think we’re some cute little couple on a quirky first date, me with my striped skirt and retro heels and red bow, Sam with his blond hair combed into place and button-up navy shirt and features that I qualify as “sensibly handsome.” Fuck, I hate the idea that people might think we’re together, though I don’t know why. It feels like a skin I need to shed.
I turn the opposite way from Sam to look over my shoulder, but I can’t see the familiar face I’m searching for. The person who would feel right at my side.
First, I can’t get rid of Nolan. And suddenly, it’s his presence I crave.
“You don’t look like a Harper,” Sam says, pulling my attention back to him. He leans a little closer to me as we move a step forward toward the counter. His voice is low and earnest when he says, “The only Harper
Starling your age was presumed dead when her car crashed into the sea after a hit-and-run accident in Maryland four years ago.”
“What a weird thing to say to a complete stranger.” Adrenaline siphons into my veins. My stomach churns. A swallow drags down my throat before I do my best to pin Sam with an unwavering stare. “I guess your data is wrong. Because I didn’t hit anyone and I’m certainly not dead.”
“Or maybe you’re just a different kind of ghost,” he says, his voice barely more than a whisper. He stares back at me as though trying to reach the most hidden crevices of my soul. “Maybe one who goes by an entirely different name?”
My lungs seize around air. “What do you want?” I ask, reining in the
sting in my throat.
“The truth.”
“My name is Harper, and Arthur Lancaster is not La Plume. There you go. Truth has been served. You can leave now.”
“From what I understand, you live in his cottage.”
“I’m his gardener. But I’m sure you know that too.”
“So you don’t have a vested interest in protecting him?”
“Arthur is an elderly man who is dying. He was just released from the hospital. Of course I want to protect him from anyone like you who’s clearly got him all wrong,” I hiss, managing to restrain my knowledge of whispers of McMillan’s disappearance. Those rumors already hit the Sleuthseekers Discord server thanks to one of my sock puppet accounts.
“Leave him alone. He and I have both been through enough.”
I feel the eyes of nearby patrons turn to me with the tension that hangs in the air, even if my words were too quiet to hear. Furious tears blur my vision no matter how hard I try to suppress them. Sam’s expression softens when he sees them, and for some reason, that angers me even more. I step forward to the counter and try to focus all my attention on calmly ordering Arthur’s candy, hoping Sam will leave. But he doesn’t. When I turn with the Milk Duds in hand to stalk back to the theater, he’s right behind me, blocking me in among the crowd.
“Look, I’m sorry. That was unfair. I don’t mean to upset you, truly. I’m just looking for answers. I know something strange is going on in Cape
Carnage. You’ve been here long enough, you must know it too. And you could be in danger here.” Sam slides a hand into his pocket and withdraws a business card, holding it up between us. “Please. I just want to talk. Even if it’s off the record. You could be the key to understanding what’s really happening in this town.” I stare at him, the card lodged like a white thorn in my peripheral vision. Someone in line behind us clears their throat in a wordless prompt to encourage us out of the way. But Sam and I remain unmoving. “Please,” he finally whispers.
I take the card and leave.
“I found some things that I think you might find familiar,” he says before I can move out of earshot. I turn and scrutinize Sam with a cautionary glare.
But the look he gives me is a warning in reply. “They were hidden in an old house on Clarke Road. I’ll keep them safe until you’re ready to talk about how they got there and why they suddenly showed up three days ago.”
“I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean,” I say. With a final nod, I give him my coldest stare, and then I walk away.
Breaths shudder in my lungs as I weave through the patrons and make my way back to the auditorium entrance. My hands are shaking. Sweat itches at the nape of my neck. I suck in air like I’m drowning, trying to calm my raging pulse. With a longing look toward the entrance of the ladies’ restroom, where I’m tempted to let tears fall in the privacy of a bathroom stall, I keep going, reluctant to leave Arthur alone with Nolan for longer than necessary.
And when I sidestep my way back to my seat, that concern is proven to be valid.
“Why are you there?” I ask, pointing to where Arthur sits. There’s an empty space between him and Nolan. “You’re supposed to be in that seat.
Next to him.”
“It’s the tourists. They kept trying to take that seat,” Arthur hisses at me in a whisper of disgust. He waves a hand in Nolan’s direction without looking his way. “This man suggested I move over one place and he would help me keep the one in between us free for you, so I obliged.”
“But I promised you Milk Duds,” I say, rattling the box.
“He offered me Maltesers.”
Arthur gives me a smug look as he digs into the half-eaten pack of Maltesers for another ball of chocolate-coated malted milk. My mouth drops open. Fucking traitor. This is the last thing I need after the encounter with Sam Porter in the lobby. My thoughts are already spiraling through my grasp, pinging through my brain as though my skull can’t contain them. I can’t even manage a cohesive retort. I just close my mouth and shimmy past Arthur to drop into the empty seat between him and Nolan.
“I thought you were getting popcorn,” Nolan says, though I barely register his words, my thoughts consumed by the encounter in the lobby as I
scan the audience in my hunt for Sam.
“Yeah … popcorn. I was …”
I don’t know where Sam went. Though I turn enough to dart a glance behind me, I face forward after only a moment, unwilling to let him see how much he’s rattled me if he’s still watching. I try to anchor my focus to the stage where the drawn curtains rustle, the stagehands on the other side finalizing their preparations for the show.
How do I keep my past out of this place? How do I stay hidden on the other side of the curtain when someone is gripping the rope, ready to pull back the darkness and force me into the light? What more will everyone be able to see if he thrusts me onto that stage?
“Harper.” It’s the concern in Nolan’s voice that shoves me out of the alternate realm I’ve dropped into and back into the real world. It’s as though he doesn’t even try to hide it. Like it’s real. Not part of a game, not a trick.
Not a lie.
“What?” I ask, though it comes out weaker than I wanted it to.
Nolan searches my face. There’s darkness in his eyes. It has an edge that will cut to the bone, if I let it. “What happened?”
“Nothing.” I try to break my attention away, but it returns to him as though I can’t fight the pull of his tide. He’s washing me out to sea. “I’m fine.”
“What happened?” he repeats. He lays a hand on my arm. I swear it sends a current all the way to the base of my spine.
I give him the slightest shake of my head. Maybe most people wouldn’t even notice. But I know he does. When I bite my lip, his gaze drops to the
motion. “It’s nothing you can fix.”
“Who are you?” Arthur demands on the other side of me. We both turn toward the elderly man sitting to my right. Suspicion is a thin veil for the confusion in the cataract haze of his cloudy gray eyes. “Are you bothering my daughter?”
A sting bites at the back of my throat. I can see Arthur trying to match up connections that don’t fit. Flickers of emotion pass across his face. He knows I’m not Poppy. But he also knows he loves me like the daughter who was stolen from him. Just like I love him like the father I lost. Like the friend I needed most when I was alone in the world. It’s fucking heartbreaking to know that someday soon, he won’t remember me at all.
But the hardest moments of Arthur’s dementia are the ones like this, where his most painful memories are dragged out to sea and muddled in the churning waters of time, only to crash in on him once more. It’s the cycle of forgetting life’s most devastating moments and jumbling them up with the present. And then, most cruelly of all, remembering them all over again.
When I return my attention to Nolan, his brow is furrowed, his eyes searching. They traverse every detail of my face, hunting through flesh and bone. I’m not sure what he sees. Maybe a wisp of panic, though I do my best to hide it. I hate the thought of him finding the chinks in Arthur’s formidable armor. I hate the thought of him finding a weakness in me. I know he sees something beneath the unyielding mask I’m trying and failing to maintain. There’s some kind of awareness blooming in his features. It’s in the lines that deepen between his brows. It’s in the curves and creases of his eyes. It’s in the flesh of his lips as they part to let a breath slide free.
And then, with a blink, his expression clears. His hand lifts from my arm.
He leans forward and extends it over my lap to Arthur with a faint but welcoming smile. “I’m sorry, I forgot to introduce myself. I’m Nolan Rhodes, sir. Pleased to meet you.”
Arthur looks to me as though searching for reassurance before shaking Nolan’s hand.
The lights dim. The two men settle back into their seats at my sides. A spotlight flicks on. The band starts up, wind instruments in a melody that weaves through hushed whispers and quiet coughs and shuffling fabric.
Nolan’s hand finds mine in the dark. He doesn’t look over to see a tear slide down my cheek. But he squeezes my hand like he knows it’s there. I close my eyes. And I can almost see it, the way a little light glimmers in my heart. His touch is a beacon in the night.
The curtains slide back from the stage.
And then the real show begins.
