An Geimhreadh || Winter

For shame, for shame, do náire, náire,

the forsaken gave life to flames,

and could not stave their burn,

and bled our blood for rain.

“You don’t know me, Liam.”

He heard it over and over, an echo through the suddenly blank caverns of his mind, and lost track of just how long he stood with his hand on the doorknob. Why did that statement make his head spin? Why did it drop rocks and sickness into his stomach? It was true, after all.

But he had been making progress -- or so he’d thought.

William knew that he should not have said what he said next. “I can start.”

“No, you can’t.” She sounded pained, her tone at once empty and brimming with dark, ugly things; William imagined that the secrets she kept were what made her feel so heavy.

“Why not?”

“Believe me, you don’t want to. I’ve told you too much already. And stop trying to help me... it’s going to come back and bite you in the arse.”

“Ainsel --”

She stormed out of the washroom. He jumped back, catching himself before he stumbled. When she shoved past him, her shoulder bumped his. The impact released a spray of invisible sparks. Ainsel swept through the hall and into the guest room, where the door slammed by itself.

William was left shivering and shaken, rubbing where she’d hit him. His fear of Ainsel’s abilities had lessened, but in their place, fear for her had crept up on him. Whatever she was hiding from, there couldn’t be any possibility of it following her to London. The thought gave him a creeping chill.

He needed a distraction.

Thomas?

William pulled out his phone and called his friend, fingers shaking.

“Will?”

“Shh! Not so loud.” That was much too close to his real name, even if Ainsel was too far to hear it.

Thomas now spoke with distinct alarm over barking and voices in the background.

“What’s going on? Are you in trouble?”

“No, I’m fine. Just...” William realized mid-sentence that he hadn’t rehearsed an explanation, and was left stumbling for one. “I’m just watching something. On YouTube. My chemistry class is canceled.”

“Alright...” He could practically hear Thomas trying to rationalize his strange behavior. “Did you need something? Do you feel okay?”

“Yeah. I’m okay. Are you... are you busy today?”

“Got to leave the dog park and stop by the grocery store. Why?”

“Well, you don’t think I could come by today instead of Friday?” There was a pause, and William gave yet another lie. “My mum invited me to have dinner on Friday.”

“Of course you can.”

“But?” He knew there was a but, even if Thomas wouldn’t say it aloud.

“What about your allergies?”

“My -- Oh. No, they’re fine. Much better now.”

“If you insist. Anyways, walking or driving? Or the bus?”

William hesitated; though the walk was long, and a crowded bus was out of the question, he felt rather uneasy about leaving the house looking unattended.

“Actually, I’ll pick you up. We can go to the store together. When can you be ready?”

“Give me, um...” He glanced toward the guest room before turning the other direction. “Twenty minutes. Or twenty-five.”

“Twenty-five it is. And are you staying the night?”

“Might as well. See you soon.”

The moment William hung up, some feeling washed over him that he couldn’t pinpoint, and it stuck to him like humid air. He found himself wondering what Ainsel would think if she awoke to find him gone. But he couldn’t cancel on Thomas, and he couldn’t stay here. Beneath what he then recognized as guilt, William unearthed another sensation: awkwardness.

In his own room, he rushed the packing job, managing not to forget anything except for a toothbrush. He checked his reflection in the washroom mirror -- no pimples, no dark circles, and no flyaway hairs. William did not notice that his duffel, in the cabinet below the sink, had been moved.

There was one thing left to do.

On his way out, he plucked a stack of Post-Its from the junk drawer in the kitchen. As Thomas would arrive at any minute, William could only scrawl a quick note to Ainsel.

I’m sorry. Don’t steal anything, don’t break anything, don’t answer the door unless it’s me. I’ll be back tomorrow morning.

As an afterthought, and to be safe, he added, I’m not mad at you.

With that, he was off, standing on the front porch to await his ride. William urged himself to not look behind him, and to not want to, for there was no point in making the situation even worse.

❦❦❦

William sat tucked between crinkling grocery bags and a drooling mass of fur at his feet. If there were one smell he could delete from the world, it would be dog breath, and Arthur slouched with his head on William’s lap, tongue lolling. Thomas focused on the road. It wasn’t that William disliked dogs; they just stank sometimes, especially the large ones.

He gave Arthur a pat between the ears, sighing. “Thomas?”

“Yup?”

“It’s really no trouble that I rescheduled?”

Thomas chanced fleeting eye contact in the rear view mirror. “It’s really not. You want tea when we get there?”

William was well aware that Thomas had changed the subject for the sake of peace in his car -- the past week of deceit and almost-arguments wasn’t over. Arthur stared at him with round eyes and perked ears, as if sensing that something was amiss.

“Tea sounds great. Thanks.”

Nothing else was said for the rest of the ride, and when they slowed to a crawl down a cul-de-sac of brick houses slightly less well kept than William’s, he tried to feel to feel relieved or pleased or relaxed. He couldn’t.

They reached the end, where Thomas pulled into his driveway, where a plastic flamingo completed the front yard; it was there as a joke and made William at least smile every time he saw it, but right now, the concept of joking felt wrong. Arthur at least helped calm the tension, and William let him out first; the dog trundled from the car and made his meandering way to the porch, where he waited, panting.

Thomas followed, carrying all four bags inside in one trip. He was broad-shouldered and heavy bodied, not fat, but the sort who whiled his free time away at the gym -- while Willima’s free time was better spent delving down rabbit holes on the Internet. His height would be imposing if not for the easygoing slump of his shoulders and an expression that gave no sense whatsoever of intimidation.

As if immune to the chill of autumn, Thomas wore his usual band shirt and denim shorts, the back pocket of which had been ripped and never repaired. Where William was clean, Thomas was scruffy. Mid-length hickory hair lead into a beard that, while needing a trim, was about the only thing on his person for which Thomas cared about upkeep. There had been times when William envied Thomas’ beard-growing capability; that didn’t matter now as much as it used to.

He was the last one in, his overnight bag tucked under one arm, and closed the door behind him. Thomas had already begun to unload the groceries; Arthur lay sprawled on the floor, whining at every item that he wasn’t given.

William tugged off his shoes and placed his belongings at the table, quiet as he made sure not to say anything that would set off his friend’s lie senses.

“Do you need help putting things away?”

Thomas shrugged and crumpled the bags into a ball, stashing them under the sink with a heap of others. “I’ve got it. You want the air mattress or the couch tonight?”

“Couch is fine.”

“Alright. I’ll grab some blankets later.”

Before their casual conversation could morph into the serious one that he knew was coming, William retreated to the living room with his backpack. A wall stocked with photographs -- mainly of Arthur -- separated it and the kitchen. There was no door here, only an empty archway, and there was no carpet, either; Thomas had put down a flower-patterned rug not unlike the ones in elderly ladies’ homes. The furnishings here were as simple as his own: a sofa, a coffee table, a bookcase decorated here and there with rock memorabilia. The one major difference was a flat-screen television against the wall facing the sofa. Two windows let greyish light stream in from the right side of the room.

William slid his laptop from his backpack, which he then dropped in the corner. The moment he sat on the couch -- not plush, but pleather, minimizing the amount of dog hair that clung to it -- he opened his laptop to let the time pass by in a blur.

Once Thomas had seen to his own responsibilities and joined William with an entire plastic bin of snacks, the day had deepened into a velvet-sky night, clouds having scattered to reveal a full moon, and by its light, the yard was cast in silver. Arthur had curled up beside the window to nap, his fur shining with each rise and fall of his flank.

William pried open a tub of onion dip while Thomas flipped through the channels to search for the absolute worst reality program he could find. Watching spoiled teenagers snark over handbags and dates was, without a doubt, a respite from an ocean of worries.

If all good things must end, then the good things were a dam, and in ending, they broke, pouring forth all the bad that they kept at bay.

Out of nowhere, Thomas asked, “Will, you trust me, right?”

He lowered the dip and slowly, silently withdrew his hand from the crisps. “Yes.”

“Then... why do I feel like that isn’t true?”

“It is!”

“You’re keeping some secret --”

William cut in, and he couldn’t steady the tremble in his voice, or relax his dread grip on the couch cushion. “I’m just different, alright? It’s fine! You’re stressing about nothing!”

The pause before Thomas spoke was worse than if he’d shouted. He leaned with his elbows on his knees, forehead in his hands, and each second he went without answering was a jolt of fear.

“William. People who are different still have patterns of behavior. They have habits. And as of late, you have been way off your pattern.”

No matter how skilled William was in faking and avoiding, he had been caught. He forced a deep breath, hoping that his next words would not shake as much as his last. If they had warded off his mother’s analysis, then perhaps they’d serve him well with Thomas.

“People change. And -- and interests change. That’s okay.”

“Of course it’s okay...” Midway through speaking, he slouched back against the couch to stare at the ceiling. “Those changes don’t happen in a week, though. What’s wrong?”

Failure. Yet again.

“Nothing is wrong.”

“Are you having insomnia? Will -- is it night terrors?”

“I’m not having insomnia. Or night terrors. And regarding sleep, I really should get on that. Like, now.”

Thomas, with no more options, packed up their snacks and left for the kitchen. Alone at last, William set to work draping blankets over the couch and piling on the pillows; he drew the blinds shut and changed into his lavender fleece pajamas there in the living room. The heat was kept at a reasonably warm level, but without layers aplenty, the air would soon feel just cold enough to keep him awake.

Sleep was indeed fitful that night -- not from chills and not from Arthur’s rumbling snore, but from the dreams. They were filled with images that hadn’t played across the stage of his subconscious since childhood; he didn’t hear them, didn’t smell them, and didn’t feel them. He only saw.

A stream bubbling among stones. A ring of spotted red toadstools. A pointing finger, outstretched hands, a face that he couldn’t remember no matter how much he studied it. And dogs. Dozens of long, lanky, black dogs, muzzles to the ground, loping across a field under liquid metal moonlight.