Hemlock & Silver

by T. Kingfisher

Regardless of why he’d helped me, he had. Not by pointing me in the right directions, but simply by being there. There is a crazy-wild delight that comes over you when you discover something new, something extraordinary. If you try to share that and people look at you blankly, it’s crushing. But if there’s someone else there to say really?! and take fire with enthusiasm alongside you—well, that will keep you going for a long time. Even though his great passion was optics and light and refraction, he had a good scholar’s joy in discovery, and he gave it to me unstintingly.

“But that doesn’t mean he was right. It just means that everyone has learned to repeat his errors.”

“If you keep asking questions, you will find answers. I promise you.”

It was much better than my attempts had been, and all it had cost me was a deeply inconvenient and misplaced arousal.