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As they drove through Kamerger Street Yura noticed that a candle had melted a patch in the icy crust on one of the windows. The light seemed to look into the street almost consciously, as if it were watching the passing carriages and waiting for someone.

"A candle burned on the table, a candle burned..." he whispered to himself - the beginning of something confused, formless; he hoped that it would take shape of itself, but nothing more came to him.

-- Boris Pasternak, Doktor Zhivago

"... and I don't ever want to see you again!"

The front door slammed shut with an air of resounding finality, the crash echoing through the spaces of my house. I didn't move: there didn't seem much point. Before me the fire in the hearth sent golden fingers across the room, the light touching and caressing the sofa, the chairs, the coffee table and the curtains pulled tightly shut against the night. Dancing with their own shadows, the heavy drapes hung motionless and silent, absorbing the steady ticking of the long-case clock that drifted in from the hall.

I don't know how long I sat there. I don't know if I cried. Certainly my heart was heavy enough. So I probably did cry, at least a little, alone in my silent house. Tears are easy when I'm alone, and since I was alone they came. With each one, a memory: lips meeting for the first time, the last time, all the times in between; bodies caressing one another, learning how to share love; arguments that rose and fell, and rose and fell, leaving charged air and silences; soft touches, little moments of tenderness... the first shoots of the spring; the last leaves of autumn. The beauty of a young man's face in love; the fierce implacability of his hatred.

I can't remember what started it. Or what ended it. It's the way my relationships go. They rarely last. People come into my life, and things blossom, and then there's some fatal flaw that love and promises can't overcome and I lose them. Or, perhaps, whatever drew us together is no longer there. Sometimes we misread or misinterpreted what we saw, or saw things that we wanted to see. Sometimes I change beyond their ability to love. Sometimes they do. And sometimes they don't need me any more, the issue or requirement or problem that caused us to draw together is resolved and the tides of time move them on.

Flotsam and jetsam are we all, carried on the currents of life.

And sometimes we break up amicably, and sometimes we don't. Sometimes it ends with a hug and a kiss and a tender, wan smile, and sometimes it ends in bitterness and tears.

Tears. My tears. I can't speak for him.

My muzzle is wet and my throat is sore. Rising from the floor, pain in my joints assaults me and I'm reminded I'm not so young any more; that perspective is underlined by the grey I see in my muzzle fur when I catch sight of myself in the looking-glass in the hall. A slightly stooped older wolf, a bit of softness around the middle, a bit of stiffness in the step. And eyes red-rimmed from weeping.

I look away, open the door to the under-stairs cupboard and reach in. Without seeking I find, and I bring out a single tall candle, then head along the hall and over to the door to the front room. I rest my free paw on the wood and feel its solid coolness before leaning my head against it, just for a moment. There is almost the sound of whispering, murmurs coming from the room beyond. Then I stand straight once more, move my hand to the doorknob and turn it, and slowly, slowly, open the door.

The scent of burning wax hits my muzzle. Light, golden, lambent, soft and gay, floods into the hall along with a torrent of memories, good, bad, joyous, tremulous, sweet, sour, savoury and bitter. I stand for a moment and look at the room half-filled with candles, flames dancing in the momentary draught of air from the opened door, and my eyes close, and for the longest seconds I remember.

I remember friends... I remember lovers... I remember moments of joy and moments of heartbreak, moments of blissful union and moments of feral anger. Faces flash through my mind, faces and scents, images dancing like the muted light which shades pinkly through my closed eyelids. Bassoom... Tiresias... Algernon, with the long, thin cock... Zenin, the stag whose roar shook the house when he came, which was often... Julio, so tender and slow... Howie, who held me when I cried after Felipe --- After Felipe... Oh, Felipe, Felipe, my love...

My eyes are wet again when I open them, and I swallow. Felipe. My Felipe.

Unsteadily now I walk over to the far side of the room and stand by the table covered in candles, each one flickering brightly. Outside the window, curtains drawn back, it is night, dark night. Outside all is still; nothing moves, nothing is to be seen, here in the fringes of the forest and the moor. My little house, remote and lonely, tucked away far from life. The way I like it. My secret place. My bolt-hole from what others are proud to call 'civilisation', that place I go to only when I must.

And I must again, soon. But not now. Not for a while.

The young man who so recently stormed out of my house used to look askance at the front window every time he arrived. "Why d'you keep all those candles lit?" he asked. I remember it well: it was after we had mated on the day after his graduation; we were upstairs in bed, watching a storm come in.

"To light my friends home," I said. He frowned a little, not understanding, and I continued, "All my friends, all my loved ones... when they leave here and I don't know when, or if, I'll see them again... I light a candle for them. To be a light in the darkness... to guide them to a place of safety and love, even when all other lights might go out."

He stared at the ceiling, then huffed thoughtfully as his short tail flicked. "Would you light one for me?" he asked eventually, turning to look at me. His long, angular, delicate face cast partly into shadow by the firelight, spiralling horns glinting orange and red and gold.

"Would you like me to?"

He nodded, slowly. "Yes." And then smiled. "But... but you only light them for people who leave you, right?"

"Yes."

The smile warmed. "Then you'll never have to light one for me."

... The room comes rushing back. More tears; I can't stop them. I lean against the wall and let the sobs come. I believed him. Damn him, I believed him. For the first time since - since --- Dammit, dammit, dammit. The candle drops from my paw and rolls across the room; I sink down into a crouch again, arms wrapped around my knees, and sob, and sob, and sob, and sob, and sob, and sob, and sob, until there is nothing left. Not merely no grief, but nothing, and numbness, and the Lethe has gathered me wakeful unto her bourne.

Across the room is the candle. On all fours, tired and aching, I move to it, pick it up and slowly stand. There is a space at the back of the table; from another candle I light this one and set it into place. "Johan," I whisper, gazing at it, watching the flame grow tall and strong. "Johan... a light for your path, wherever it may take you."

I walk back to the door of the room, glance back, and go through, closing it slowly behind me.

I am climbing the stairs, one at a time, stiff from crouching so long on the bare floor, when the knock comes at the front door. It is rare for a caller to come, ever, and never at night, so I come back down straight away though caution is my guide. I don't bother to call out for a name. Anyone who knows would know that the door is unlocked if I'm at home, so this must be someone else. And so I wouldn't know them, so there's no point in asking. The latch moves silently and I open the door.

"Johan!" The name is out of my mouth before I can realise. The young buck is sitting on the porch, curled up as I was, and his head jerks up at the sound of my voice. His beautiful face is wet with tears and at the sight of me he swallows. "Johan, what... why did you knock?! You know the door is open..."

Darkness presses at us from outside, the night pierced only by the warm light from the candles shining through the window and the soft, fading glow of the firelight in the drawing-room. He looks up at me, blinking, and when he speaks his voice is tiny amid all that dark. "I... I didn't know if I was... if I was welcome..."

It hurts to crouch but I do it anyway. "Oh, oh Johan," I whisper, running my suddenly shaking forepaws over his arms, "oh, Johan... as if you had to ask..."

"I just... After what I said, I..."

"You what?"

"... I didn't think I could ever come back... didn't think you'd..."

My head tilts to one side. "Didn't think I'd want you any more?" A nod, then one more. "Come on. Come on. Come with me." Back up to my hindpaws again, more aching, and now a slender blackbuck leaning on me as I guide his cold, shaking body into the house and close the door behind him. Into the front room, now, and its warm light. I let him go, move over to the table and pick up the candle I just lit. It has barely burned past the point of the taper.

He looks at it. "Mine?" he whispers, and his face falls, ears drooping. "You... you really did it... you lit a candle for me..."

"Why wouldn't I?" I ask, putting it back down reverently. "I wanted you to find your way, wherever it might be."

There's a moment of silence and then hooves clatter across a wooden floor and he throws himself on me. "I'm sorry," he whispers, head buried in my chest, trimmed horns barely grazing my chin-fur. "Oh, Jarod, I'm sorry, I'm sorry... I'm so sorry... I was such a fool, I... I..."

"Sssh," I whisper, and lean down and kiss between his horns. "Sssh." He looks up at me and again I'm reminded just how young he is. Half my age, twice as wise sometimes and yet still a young man learning his way. Despite my aches I can feel my body responding, little by little; his nostrils twitch at the scent he catches, and I smile. "What can I say," I comment with a shrug.

"I'm sorry."

"No, I can't say that."

A little laugh, nervous tension breaking, shakes his body. "No, I mean... I'm sorry."

"It's all right, Johan. Really. It happens. Wasn't a couple yet who didn't fall out."

"No, I mean... I'm sorry I broke my promise. Made you light a candle for me."

"It's all right. That's what they're for. Besides," I continue before he can speak, "it brought you back to me... and that's all that matters right now."

He nods, a smile forming on his face. Outside, in the hall, the clock strikes five. I didn't realise it was so late. "C'm'on. Let's get to bed."

"Together?" he asks, hopefully.

"Together."

Carefully we disentangle from each other and begin to move across the room. At the door he pauses and looks back, then up at me. "Jarod... the candle..."

"Leave it."

"But ---"

"Leave it. Maybe..." I pause, then look at him a moment. He seems so boyish, so full of energy despite the bright fatigue in his eyes. "Maybe that one can be for both of us, this time. Just in case." And the energy in his smile carries me up the stairs and down the landing to our bed.