quaked. Without saying another word, he turned around, took his umbrella, and limped out of Quatrang, the doorbell ringing behind him.
Devi followed Julian down the street.
“Julian, please come back. Let me help you.”
“You can’t help me. You said so yourself.”
“Where are you going?”
“Nowhere. You’ve made sure of that.”
“You’re not being fair. You have been too long with your pain, and it has brought corruption to your life. Come back. Let me heal you.”
“No. You’re all out. And I’m out, too. As Kiritopa told me, I’m bowed in the middle where everything that gave me life used to be.” Julian continued down the street, leaning on his umbrella. “Soon I’ll fall to the ground.”
“Please, Julian.”
“Leave me alone, Devi.” Let me fall.
Julian ended the lease on his Notting Hill apartment and sold or gave away most of his things. He kept a few clothes, a photo of him and Ashton, the Bob Marley poster, Josephine’s books, his old multi-tool, his journals, and the loose, chipped-off shards of what was left of Mia’s crystal in a small glass jar. Basically he took what was on top of his nightstand. The 37th gold coin that he had brought back with him years earlier from the Great Fire he returned to Ava. She shook her head, but he insisted. It was never his to begin with.
He turned off his cell service, threw away his phone, and left no forwarding mailing address. He moved to Greenwich, where he found a room for rent above the Junk Shop on the High Road, a full circle from Mrs. Pallaver’s on Hermit Street all those years ago, another tiny space with a twin bed.
Every single day without fail from October to the end of February, Julian had lunch at the Rose and Crown, where the barkeep would ask him what he was having today, and then hobbled through the park up the steep hill to the Royal Observatory and stood at the black Transit Circle with the crystal shards in his palm, waiting for the midday sun to give him a sign.
Every day Julian waited for the portal below to open to him again.
And every day it did not, as if it had never opened, as if it didn’t exist.
30
The One-Eyed King
IN EARLY MARCH, THERE WAS A KNOCK ON HIS DOOR.
It was Mark, the owner of the Junk Shop.
“Someone’s here to see you,” Mark said.
Devi stood on the landing.
Julian didn’t tell him to come in. He came in anyway. “How did you find me?”
“How difficult do you think it was? Were you hiding? How do you think you found this place? You don’t remember I told you my good friend Mark sold all kinds of junk out of his yard?”
“No.”
They stood.
“How have you been?”
“Great.”
“You know who I keep seeing in church almost every Sunday?” Devi said. “Ashton’s father. He comes, brings flowers to the graveyard. Brings lots of flowers. Almost looks like two bouquets.”
“Did you come to tell me about Ashton’s father’s weekend schedule?” Julian said. “What do you want?”
“What are you doing with yourself these days?”
“What do you care?” Julian grabbed his keys, his umbrella, the jar of her crystal pieces, the signed playbill from The Invention of Love, the books she had held in her hands, and pushed past Devi.
The cook followed him down the stairs and to the street. “You haven’t been to the gym. Franco and Ricks are upset.”
“They’ll manage.”
“Why haven’t you gone back?”
“I’ve been busy.”
Julian had been going to a gym in Greenwich, but he’d be damned before he told Devi that. He turned off the High Road to the Royal Park, trying to be brisk about it. Devi was surprisingly spry. Or was it Julian who was surprisingly slow? Nowadays he struggled to walk without limping, and he could no longer sustain the feats of endurance that used to cast him for miles around London. He still looked for the café with the golden awning, but only in Greenwich, and sometimes he looked for it in Sydenham, where Mirabelle used to live, but he stopped his excursions across the river.
“Please don’t make me walk up the hill to the Observatory with you,” Devi said.
“I’m literally trying to get away from you. You going with me is the last thing I want.”
“Slow down. Let’s have a drink first, let’s talk.”
“I have nothing to say to you.”
“Julian, please.”
Even a hobbled Julian managed to leave the elderly Hmong man behind.
Devi found him inside the Transit Room, standing in front of the telescope, palm out, shards in