Little Charlotte tugged at his pocket.
“Not now,” Miles said, folding sliced turkey into his mouth. He clicked the volume up on dollar-store earbuds.
She tugged again. “Please!”
Miles plucked out the buds. “It’s Friday night. Let me eat. Go color.”
“I want to see Willa,” Charlotte said.
“The babysitter?”
Charlotte nodded, quick and vigorous. “I want to see her fly.”
Miles turned. His sister’s thumb was in her mouth. “She can fly? She tell you that?”
“No.” Charlotte grinned. “I dreamed it. Can we see her?”
“It’s Friday night, her and her folks prolly aren’t home.” As he spoke, he realized it wasn’t the worst idea. The sitter was tall, raven-haired.
“Willa’s always home!” Charlotte said. “And she doesn’t live with her parents.”
“Can’t be true. She’s my age.”
“She lives alone! Out past the sledding hill!” Charlotte’s eyes had a stubborn squint. “And look, Ma forgot to pay her, and she’s not back till Monday.” An envelope on the island read Willa – Thanks Again! Char loves you! in Ma’s handwriting. Miles had dripped brown turkey water on it.
“Fine,” he said. “But we’re stoppin for supper on the way back.”
His sister jumped up and down, then ran to their room. She emerged thirty seconds later, triumphantly holding what looked like four one dollar bills. “Use this!” she said.
They piled on layers. Charlotte wore a yellow parka with tiny ice cream cones. Miles wore a camo coat from Goodwill with a persistent cigarette-smell.
Outside, he loaded her into the carseat. Snow blanketed the street. There were no neighbors out, no driveway shovelers or snowball slingers. The gray quiet made his chest feel hollow.
Two minutes later they were out of town. They turned left onto a backroad and Miles slowed to thirty below the limit. Each time his rusted red-and-white truck slipped on a patch of ice, his shoulders tightened and he further dropped their speed. Charlotte sang in the backseat, bobbing her blonde ponytail. Her high, clear voice was the only sound in the cab besides the engine’s rhythmic thrum.
She sang, “Rainbow stew, rainbow stew. Feed me feed me rainbow stew.”
Pines cast jagged blades of shadow on the road in front of them. There were no homes out here, just frozen forest darkening under a low, heavy sky.
“This is fun,” Charlotte said. “Miles, are you having fun?”
Miles grunted.
“Why don’t you ever smile?”
Miles stopped the truck at a T. The sledding hill was straight ahead. “Which way?”
“Right.”
“Do you know where after that?”
“Just go til the end,” she said, as if it was obvious.
“Okay. You got her check? Let’s drop it off and get the hell out.”
“Cuss!”
“Sorry.” They drifted deeper into the wooded valley. Miles fought the urge to wheel the truck around and haul home. Three miles passed in the rearview, then six. He tried the radio, but none of the Calgary stations made it this far out. He wanted a cigarette.
“Hey Char, I haven’t seen a single house. You sure we’re going the right way?”
“It’s down there,” she said, pointing. The road ended in a steep downslope. Miles slowed the truck to a crawl. Cracked stone pillars stood at the bottom of the hill, framing the entrance to a blacktop driveway. Lanterns sat atop the pillars; one was overturned and shattered, shards glittering on the ground. Wrought iron gates stood open. The driveway disappeared into pines.
“I’m not going in there,” Miles said. The place looked dreamlike in the predusk gray.
“Scaredy!”
“She lives alone here?”
“I think she’s married. But I never met him.”
“Were you here this week?”
“All week. Or like three days.”
“Ma took you?”
She nodded.
“Okay.” He eased the truck forward, avoiding a minefield of potholes.
The house at the end of the driveway was all tall windows and stacked logs. Blue shutters and trim and dark red wood.
Miles put the truck in park. They stayed in the cab.
“The front door’s open,” Charlotte said. Snow had drifted into the dark house, a foot deep at the door, tapering off into thin powder.
“We’re going home.” Miles pushed the clutch and shifted into reverse.
“Wait!” Charlotte said, pointing. Through the tall window, a silhouette rose from a chair, set something on what might have been a coffee table, and went to the front door. “Willa!” Charlotte shouted. She unbuckled her carseat, shouldered open the old truck’s heavy back door, and sprinted toward the house, leaving tiny boot prints an inch deep in the snow.
Miles opened his door and followed, slamming it behind him. “Char, wait.” His voice made puffs of vapor. At first he shuffled atop the packed snow, then his foot broke the surface and sank him halfway to the knee. He began to clomp, doing high-knees like freshman gym class to uproot a foot with each step. He’d almost caught his sister when Willa stepped outside.
She was slender, with lively green eyes and a curtain of jet-black hair. She wore a white long-sleeve shirt with loose sleeves that fluttered in the wind, and matching pants.
“Charlotte!” she said, kneeling to wrap his sister in a hug. The babysitter was barefoot, and despite her frosty complexion, her cheeks were unflushed in the frozen air. “I didn’t expect you!” she said. “You must be Miles.”
Miles did a pitiful wave. She came to him, moving silently over the top of the snow. He extended a hand; she ignored it and pressed in for a hug. With his feet buried almost to the knee, she was a head taller. He felt her thin neck against his cheek and his face started to burn. “I… this is you. This is for you, I mean.” He stepped back and held up the envelope. “There’s turkey drippings on it. From my sandwich I was eating.”
“You weren’t eating a sandwich. You were eating it out of the pack,” Charlotte said.
“Do you want to come in?” Willa asked.
“No. We just wanted to give you this. Here you go. Good to see—good to meet you.”
Willa took the envelope without looking. Her gaze dropped to the snow and stayed. Miles grabbed Charlotte’s hand and pulled. Charlotte pulled back.
“Can’t we stay?” she pleaded. “We can show you the Snowlight.”
Willa’s face brightened. “The Snowlight! C’mon, I’ll take you.” She grabbed Charlotte’s hand and walked through the doorway. Miles reluctantly followed. The trio entered the house. He reached to close the door.
“Leave it open,” Willa said.
“Why? It’s cold.”
“Brian likes it open.”
From outside, the house had looked like a simple home, modern and woodsy. When he walked through the front door, Miles was shocked. To his right was a waist-high bannister of black iron. He looked out over a twenty-foot drop to a space as big and barren as a hockey rink, furnished only by a faded brown couch and a matching coffee table. In the vast living room, the couch and table looked like ocean islands from an airplane. The entire far wall was seamless glass. The living room floor was also seamless: a single expansive sheet of soft reddish wood. Snow fell outside, though it hadn’t five seconds ago.
They stood in a hallway. A log wall ran all the way down the left side. There was a door every ten metres. The first was pink, the second gray, then green, white, and blue.
“The White Room is where we play,” Charlotte said. “There’s a dollhouse taller than you.”
Willa let go of Charlotte’s hand and floated down the hall. She put her eye against what looked like a spyglass, fixed to the bannister with black screws, pointed at an old brown clock tower in the corner of the living room.
“What time is it?” Miles asked. He didn’t know what else to say.
“Come see.”
Miles put an eye to the spyglass and flinched back. Willa smiled as if to say Go ahead. He went for another look. The clock was the same size it had seemed to the naked eye, but the rest was different. A dazzling palette of colorful gears spun at different speeds in different directions. Yellow, blue, red; all bold and bright like a child’s set of plastic letters and numbers. A silver ribbon snaked through the churning parts, dancing with light. Atop the mechanical workings, a flatscreen display read 4:57:58 in blue digital numbers. After a few seconds, it blinked off and back on, showing 4:57:59. Miles counted out eight seconds before it blinked to 4:58:00.
He pulled back. Willa was looking at him, chewing the fingernail of her left thumb. “What time?” she asked.
“I—is it trick glass, or something?”
“Not really.”
“It’s—I saw 4:58.”
“Brian gets home at 5:00,” Charlotte said. “Mom picks me up at 4:30.”
“You should leave,” Willa said. “Both of you. I thought we had more time.”
“But the Snowlight!” Charlotte said.
Willa kept chewing at her thumbnail and staring at the floor. Finally she nodded. “Okay, stay. Charlotte, which rooms have you seen?”
“White and blue.”
“Let’s pay pink a visit,” Willa said. Charlotte’s eyes widened in excitement and she popped a thumb into her mouth.
“Don’t do that,” Miles whispered. Charlotte stuck out her tongue.
Willa opened the first door. Charlotte gasped, and a smile lit her face. She walked in. Miles glanced back and followed.
The Pink Room.
Instantly he was soothed. The small room’s walls were pink masonry, a color like subdued bubblegum. Its warm brightness was tempered by a soft, chalky quality. Square bricks puffed out at their center like pillows. Drunk tank pink. Calming. Like the holding cells in the American cop show he watched. A folding table in the center of the room had been spraypainted the same color with a heavy hand; fat pink teardrops had dried on the legs. The bed in the corner was the same. Sheets, blanket, pillowcase. All drunk tank pink.
“What’s this?” Charlotte asked. She stood by the table holding a post-it.
“A note to Brian,” Willa said, hurriedly smoothing the pillowcase with her palm.
Miles took the note from his sister.
Welcome home, Bri! Everything’s nice and ready for you. Take your boots off and dig in! My advice is to go left-to-right. If you find yourself feeling drowsy, by all means—rest your eyes! There are a few movies over by the bed. Enjoy :)
Love,
Your Dove
Objects had been arranged in a neat line on the table. On the left, a blunt was overstuffed with weed, middle swollen and pregnant.
To its right, a greasy monster of a cheeseburger sat on a red plate. Light brown peppery sauce, a pile of crispy fried onions, leaves of lettuce, thick patties with melty double-stacked American cheese, and a beefsteak tomato, topped by drooping pickle spears. All slopped between two hunks of pretzel bun and circled by a heap of french fries. A bottle of ketchup was just above and left of the plate; to its right was a gallon jug of water with a smaller note taped on that said Drink up! It’ll help with your head. —W.
To the right of dinner, six white pills were neatly arranged on a napkin. Miles recognized four small aspirin circles from a lifetime of hockey pains. He didn’t recognize the two oblong caplets engraved with ‘AMB 10’.
Charlotte beelined toward the DVD case and Willa intercepted her, hoisting her easily. “There isn’t much to see in the Pink Room, is there?” she asked the seven-year-old. She was placing her body between Charlotte and the corner with the bed.
The DVD case had looked full from the table, but when he crouched he saw only three discs. The first was Sleeping with the Enemy, which Miles had seen. The second was Safe Haven, a chick flick, not Miles’ style but certainly something Ma had watched, red wine in hand. The third, Buttery Blonde Bimbos at the Beach Vol. 69, was certainly something Ma had not watched, wine or otherwise. Three nude women with waves of roaring blonde 80s hair and oily fake tans smiled on the cover.
“Put her down,” Miles said. “Charlotte, come here.” She hopped to him and he set a hand on her little shoulder. “We need to leave.” He thought of their room, with its welcoming green LED lights and his gaming PC. “We can watch whatever you want.”
Charlotte crossed her arms. “I want to see the Gray Room. And the Green Room. And you haven’t even seen the Snowlight!”
“Listen to me. I know I haven’t been a good brother, I know I haven’t paid enough attention to you. I’m sorry. It’s been hard on me, too, you know? Mom being—”
“Charlotte,” Willa said. “Can I talk to your brother alone?” She was suddenly kneeling to his left.
Charlotte ran across the warm room. Miles felt Willa’s green eyes on his face.
“The DVDs, and the drugs… It’s just, I’m sorry, I—she’s only seven, and—”
“I fixed it,” she said. He looked at the DVD case. It was full of Charlotte’s favorites: Tinker Bell, Frozen, We Bought a Zoo. No Buttery Blonde Bimbos to speak of.
“How…”
“This probably seems strange,” she said. Her hand went to the nape of his neck. It was cold. A pleasant chill trickled down his spine. Goosebumps broke out on his forearms. “You have to trust me. Charlotte is the only outsider in my life. She’s the reason I’m alive. And now you. Do you believe me?”
He wasn’t sure. “I… We just met. What’s going on here, with the house? Why’s it all confusing?”
“It makes it harder for Brian to find me,” she said. Her hand drifted to his cheek, scraping his stubble. He should have shaved.
“Who’s Brian?”
“My husband.”
“Your… how old are you?”
“Seventeen,” she said. Then, “Are you nice?”
“Am I… nice?”
“Are you nice? Or do you hurt people?”
“No, I’m nice, but… I guess I do hurt people sometimes, in hockey.”
She pulled her hand back. “Nice people don’t hurt people.”
He was starting to think he’d inhaled funny pot. Maybe he’d touched the blunt on the table and absorbed it through his fingers.
The drugs on the table.
He whipped around. Charlotte was in the chair at the table, feet swinging, eating something from a ceramic bowl with a spork. Miles ran and smacked the bowl from her hand and it broke on the floor. Mac and cheese and shards of pink bowl scattered.
“Miles!” Charlotte said.
“Sorry.” The table was bare. The pink door they’d come in through was gone. Not gone, actually; on the wrong side of the room. Miles itched an eyebrow, bewildered.
“Don’t worry about the mess,” Willa said, as if that was his issue. “It’ll take care of itself.” She opened the door and stepped through, into what looked like a hotel elevator. Miles glanced back and followed.
The Gray Room.
The walls and ceiling were mirrors. Miles looked up and saw the top of Willa’s shiny black hair, parted down the middle. He saw himself: camo coat, oil-stained jeans, black hair matted from his stocking cap. He bent his knees to brace for the drop to the living room. They bent more when the elevator rose instead. Charlotte gave him a confused look.
The elevator continued to rise. Willa stood in front of them, centered in the cab, biting her thumbnail. She was very thin, and Miles noticed for the first time a web of muscles through the back of her shirt.
They came to a smooth stop. The doors opened and light spilled in.
“A park!” Charlotte said. An overstatement. Rusty poles stuck up from faded mulch. The crossbar held two swings, which swayed gently in the breeze. A flat field of grass stretched as far as Miles could see in every direction.
“What is this?” he asked.
“Where I met Brian,” Willa said. “Someday he might see it and remember.” She brushed a strand of hair behind her ear.
“Where are the roads? And the rest of the park?”
“It’s really hard to make everything right. And this happened a long time ago.”
“You… made this?” Miles signed a cross over his chest.
Willa walked toward the swing, Charlotte on her heels. It was warm and the air smelled like rain. As soon as Willa sat, horns coughed out from the elevator’s speakers, scratchy like an old radio. It was the song that played at the races to call horses to the starting gate.
Willa’s head snapped up. She grabbed Charlotte by the hand and started toward the elevator. They walked briskly at first, then ran.
“Stop them!” Willa shouted. Miles turned. The steel doors were closing. He stuck a foot in and the metal pushed against his toes, then released, collapsing into their side-pockets.
Willa and Charlotte followed him in. Willa covered Charlotte’s ears and said, “Brian’s home early.”
“What’s the big deal?” Miles asked.
“He’ll kill you. And her.”
“Scuse me?”
When the elevator bottomed out, the doors slid open and revealed another door, this one green. Willa cracked it enough to slip through, and Miles was hit with hot air and an earthy, wet smell. “I’ll just be a minute,” she said, and closed the door behind her.
The elevator was quiet.
“How do we get out?” Miles asked.
Charlotte shrugged. “If Brian’s here we should maybe hide.”
“Is this place… real?”
The door opened. “Come in,” Willa said, and his sister slipped from his grasp and tottered out. Willa shot Miles an apologetic smile. Miles glanced back and followed.
The Green Room.
They stood in mossy undergrowth under a great dome made of glass triangles. When Charlotte was a toddler, Ma had taken them down to the Calgary Zoo, and there had been a big blue egg to walk through. This was a supersized version of that. Miles started sweating almost instantly in the damp heat.
Before them was a moat, and a rickety bridge over running water. Beyond, a rainforest. “Charlotte, c’mere,” Willa whispered. “I’m gonna pick you up and carry you, okay?”
“Over that?”
“You can trust me.”
Charlotte looked at Miles for approval; Miles nodded.
“You’re gonna hear some strange noises,” Willa said.
“I already hear them!”
“Right. You’ll hear more. No matter what you hear, you have to close your eyes, okay? Can you be brave for me and Miles?”
“It isn’t brave to close my eyes,” Charlotte said. “That’s easy.”
“Different things are brave in different situations,” Willa said. “It isn’t normally brave to hug your mom, right?”
“No.”
“Well what if she’s had a tough day, and she shouts at you? And she’s throwing things, or slamming the kitchen cabinets? Is it brave to hug her then?”
“I guess that’s brave.”
“Are you brave?”
Charlotte sniffed and nodded.
“Then can you keep your eyes shut, no matter what you hear?”
“Yes.”
Willa scooped her up. Charlotte squeezed her eyes shut and slung an arm across them for good measure, and rested her chin on the babysitter’s shoulder. Miles followed them forward. Willa turned. “Only step on the planks I step on, okay?”
“Okay.”
“After the bridge, we’ll run. There’s a path on the other side. Do not stray from the path.” They approached the bridge. The river grew louder with each step. Willa leapt to the second board and stopped, then the fifth and the ninth. She was a cat, on her toes, precise with each step. Her eyes stayed ahead, never down.
Which board had she stepped on after the ninth? And after that?
“The second,” Willa said, “then fifth.” She was halfway across, balancing on one foot.
Miles stepped on the second plank. The bridge shifted to the side and the air rushed from his lungs. Humidity had slicked the boards, and the bottom of Miles’ boots were worn smooth. One moment he was standing on the narrow floorboard, the next his body was tilting away, the cruel pendulum of balance swinging him out over the chasm; the brittle rope caught his waist, then it snapped and his weight was over open air, suspended, nothing between him and screaming death. Miles closed his eyes.
A great force yanked him back against his hoodie, and he was lifted. Willa was holding him with one hand, Charlotte in the other. She laid him on his front, draping him over five boards. He stared down through the slats. Jagged walls on either side plunged hundreds of metres. Scaly black creatures slithered in the water.
Miles carefully rose, heart thumping between his ears. The plank creaked and bowed in the middle. “I—”
“You’re alright,” Willa said. “Skip two and step on eight.”
“Are you…”
“I’m sure.”
Miles walked over eight, twelve. Willa directed him from the other side.
Miles reached solid ground and dropped to a knee, panting. Sweat dripped from the front of his nose. “How do you know… which, uh, which…”
“Instinct.”
They ran over a beaten, muddy trail. There were plants he’d never seen: big green leaves covered in white hairs like a tarantula’s back, tree trunks with black spines. Something slipped through the undergrowth beneath him, and he almost jumped into a bush full of needles. Willa’s bare feet sprayed mud flecks on his coat.
An almost-human shriek from above and a lemur swung across their path, grabbing at Charlotte. Willa ducked under its grasp. The animal’s hand grazed the top of her head. Miles stayed back a moment, staring the little monkey dead in its seedy yellow eyes and baring his teeth. The monkey screamed and flung itself away toward the high canopy.
And they were out. Another bridge over an abyss. Miles followed closely this time.
When they were across, Willa said, “We’re almost done. One more room. You can open your eyes, sweetie.”
Charlotte opened her eyes. A chittering noise echoed from the river, almost a laugh.
“No.” Miles took his sister from the babysitter’s arms. Wind whipped around them. “We’re done. We’re done. You act like you want to protect her, but you keep putting her in danger.”
“I know. I’m sorry. I didn’t expect anyone tonight, and I was…” Her eyes began to well up. “I was just getting everything ready for Brian to be home, and it was too late for you to leave, because he’d see you on the road… and I didn’t know you were gonna show up… and he’s home early, and he’s never home early, and… and I’m scared. If anything happened to Char, I would…” A tear spilled over and trickled down her pale cheek.
“Will you tell me what’s going on?”
“I will. I will. One more room, and I’ll explain. I’m sorry, Miles. The Snowlight’s the only room left.”
Charlotte gasped. “You get to see the Snowlight!”
“Tell me what’s going on now, or I’m turning back, and I’m taking my sister.”
“It isn’t safe. I promise, this is the only way.”
Miles turned back and looked at the bridge. It was swaying wildly.
He conceded with a sort of exasperated resignation. “One more.” Willa laced her fingers through his and squeezed, and rubbed her damp cheek with the back of his hand. Her tears were warm. She turned and led him over a dirt trail to the edge of the dome, where the triangular glass panels met green stucco forming a doorless doorway.
“Wait here a second,” Willa said. She let go of his hand and went through.
“Is the Snowlight safe?” Miles asked.
Charlotte shrugged.
Willa ducked back through the door. “C’mon. He’s in the Gray Room.”
Miles and Charlotte passed into the original hall. The black bannister was ahead of them. The spyglass was to their right. Far off, the front door led outside. Doors were fixed in the wall: green, gray, pink. Lightbulbs hung over each. The bulb over the gray was illuminated. Miles adjusted Charlotte over his shoulder and bolted for the front door.
“No!” Willa shouted.
The gray door slammed open. A man stepped into the hall, blocking their exit. Miles staggered to a halt. The man looked through him and Charlotte, seeing only his young wife.
“Hey honey!” he said. He seemed genuinely happy to see her.
“He’s… they’re…” Willa looked at Miles and said, “Go. The Blue Room.”
Miles hoisted Charlotte and ran through the blue door at the end of the hall.
The Blue Room.
More cave than room. Tall, with crystalline walls of dark blue ice like the underbelly of an Arctic glacier. A hole at the top let in soft light and lazy snowflakes. The light made a circle on the stone floor in the center of the room.
His little sister whispered in his ear. “That’s the Snowlight.”
“Figured as much.”
She whispered again. “You have to stand under the snow and say a poem.”
“I don’t know a poem.”
“Not just any poem. There’s a Snowlight poem.” Her whispering was louder than her speaking voice. Her breath smelled like a grape ice pop.
“Do you know it?”
“No.”
“But you’ve been here before?”
“Uh-huh. Willa holds me and reads it.”
“Okay.”
The door opened and Willa slipped in. “I bought us five minutes,” she said. “He has to go through green.”
“How does he know—” Miles started.
“How to get through the jungle? He’s clever, clever. And strong.”
“Say the poem,” Charlotte said. There was urgency in her young voice.
“Right. Miles, set Charlotte down. Sweetie, stand right under the light.”
“I don’t remember it,” Charlotte said.
Willa closed her eyes and concentrated. After a few seconds, she reached into the folds of her shirtsleeve and handed Char a folded piece of paper. “Can you read it?”
His sister pushed yellow sleeves to her elbows and read eight lines aloud. When she was done, freezing air blasted through the Snowlight with a whoosh. Snow tumbled down in a white pillar, so dense Miles couldn’t see his sister from five metres away. He ran at her, but snow sprung from the pillar and knocked him flat on his back.
When he stood, Charlotte was gone.
“Where’d she go.”
Willa had a hand outstretched with another folded slip. “Please,” she said. “Read. It’s the only way out. I make him say it because…” She chewed her lip. “Just read, please.”
Miles stared at the babysitter and tried to tamp down a flurry of emotions. Confusion, mostly, and resentment at the lack of explanation of… everything, at the evening’s surreality. He felt serene in this cold room, and a little sad for the thin girl with the pleading eyes.
He stepped into the Snowlight. All his feelings melted into muted euphoria. It was quiet, like the blanketed street when he’d left his house. Big, slow flakes drifted all around. He read.
“Snowlight, Snowlight, soothe my soul.
Lift me up and make me whole.
If my wife is here tonight,
Know she wants to play her role.
Putting on your favorite dress.
Nothing more, nothing less.
We can start again tonight.
All you have to say is yes.”
Snow exploded up from the ground. He caught a glimpse of Willa’s hair through the storm, then he was floating, weightless, feet dangling under him. Through black and gray and violet. Ghostly whispers came from the blizzard. Most were incoherent, but he heard his mother, and he heard an old man groan Feed me I’m starving! and a choir of children chant Rainbow stew! Rainbow stew! Rainbow stew!
Miles shivered and said his favorite prayer.
God help me.
The House.
The swirling snow thinned and gravity set Miles on his feet in a kitchen. Dull blue-gray dusklight spilled through the window over the sink. The big room was in perfect order. No dishes. Sparkling stainless steel. Dark wood highlights. Red silk placemats. Everything was clinical and cold, except a strange candle, like a metre-long strip of wax with ten flames in a line.
Charlotte was sitting at the kitchen table, feet swinging, ponytail bobbing. She was humming the rainbow stew song.
“You okay?” Miles asked.
“Yep.”
“Let’s get outta here.”
“Not without Willa.”
“I’m sorry for Willa, but we—”
“Not without Willa.”
Miles stared at her and breathed deep, then stepped through the door to the living room. This was what he’d seen from outside. A beaten leather recliner, a coffee table, an ancient box television. The front door was closed, but powdery snow covered the inside welcome mat. He saw his truck through the window. The tires were slashed, the rims bent.
“We have to try,” he said.
“We’re locked in. I tried to open the back one.”
“Serious?”
Charlotte nodded, grim. A white orb appeared at waist-level, then brightened, and Miles was forced to look away. He opened his eyes and saw Willa. There was a moment of quiet, then she crossed the room and hugged him, squeezing with some ferocity.
“You stayed,” she said into his cheek.
“I… well, we’re locked—”
“We stayed to help you!” Charlotte said.
Willa pulled back. “We have to get her out of here.” She made a sudden panicked sprint and slammed the back door. It didn’t flinch. She bounced back, clutching her shoulder.
“We all have to get out,” Miles said.
“You and Charlotte,” Willa said, and ran and crashed into the door. “I’m staying.” She winced. “It’ll be worse if I go. He’ll just find me and bring me back. Trust me.”
“Willa, why are you married to him?”
“He’s not too bad,” Willa said. “He’s just been in a mood.”
“He hurts you,” Charlotte said.
“It really isn’t so bad most days.”
Miles opened a cabinet and grabbed a heavy meat mallet and told them to stand back. He struck the window in the back door. The glass cracked.
“Don’t,” Willa said. She was wringing her hands. “Don’t. We can’t… if we leave…”
Miles swung again and the glass bent in. Small chips fell.
“He’ll hurt me bad.” Willa was hyperventilating. “I can’t… we can’t… defend our…”
A third swing shattered the window. Miles stood on his toes and reached for anything on the outside of the door. A lock, a handle. He found the former and flipped it like a sideways light switch. It clicked. The door opened inward. Outside air chewed Miles’ face with frozen teeth.
Willa staggered back and sat, hard. Her breath came frantic and rapid. Violent. She pulled at the white cloth over her chest. Miles started toward her, but Charlotte beat him there.
“Hey,” said his little sister. She put her hands on the babysitter’s shoulders.
“H… Heh…”
“You know you can fly, right?”
“I… wuh…”
“Charlotte,” Miles said. “We gotta go.”
His sister ignored him. “You can fly.”
Willa’s breath began returning to normal. She looked at the floor, deep in thought. Her hands left her chest and her thumbnail went to her mouth. “I can?”
“Of course!”
“She’s right,” Miles said. “I mean, if you can make all that with your mind, those obstacles, for… for Brian, those hurdles…” he shrugged. “I’m sure you can fly.”
“I never thought about it.” Willa stood. “I don’t know. It won’t work.”
“Why?” Charlotte asked.
Willa gave her a sympathetic look that said, You’re too young to understand. “It’ll just get worse. He’ll track me down.”
“Willa, you can fly. Can he?” Miles heard the insanity of the words tumbling from his mouth. He didn’t care.
“No, but it doesn’t matter. I have no one left. My mom and my sister have gone away. I made them, because they’re bad for me, and they want to tear down me and Bri’s marriage, and that’s… they won’t take me back. He made me make them go away.”
“They’ll come back,” Miles said.
“And you have us now,” Charlotte said.
“I don’t know. He really isn’t too bad, mostly. Some days he’s nice, like when we met. It was… I still remember that, you know? I was on the swings. He had a little curly forelock that kept falling over his eyes, and…”
“Willa, how long ago was this?”
“Four years.”
“How old are you?” Miles asked softly.
Willa dropped her gaze. “Seventeen.
Miles felt his stomach tighten. “Get out of here.”
“I don’t have money.”
“You made a rainforest in your fucking guest bedroom,” Miles said.
“Cuss!” said his sister.
“And I meant it, too.”
Charlotte grinned.
“I’m just saying, you created a… a biome with your mind. I think you can flip a burger. Or, you know. Babysit.”
Willa looked at Miles, then Charlotte, then back at Miles. “You think so?”
“Willa, c’mon.”
“Okay,” she said.
“Okay?”
“I’ll try.” Air gusted in through the back door and sucked away Miles’ breath. The sun was gone, and only a stripe of deep gray remained. The backyard was a vast frozen lake; a dark pine forest loomed at its far edge.
In the middle of the trio, a white orb began to glow.
“Go,” Miles said.
“I can take Charlotte with me, but not both of you,” Willa said. “I’m not strong enough.”
“Take her.” Miles lifted Charlotte into the arms of the babysitter. “Love you, kid. I’ll see you at home.” He kissed his sister on the forehead.
The orb brightened, a cold sun right there in Willa’s kitchen. She stepped onto the back deck, Charlotte in hand, and said, “There’s one more thing I can dream up,” and closed her eyes. She took a few tentative steps. The orb flashed, blinding Miles, and when the light died down, Willa and Charlotte were gone. Miles looked at the lake. For a moment there was nothing, then he saw it, so faint it might have been a trick.
A shadow. A silhouette. Racing across the ice, gliding through the air and over the trees.
Flying.
He turned. Brian was leaning against the counter, hands in his pockets. He had an average build. Late thirties. He was tan, with light brown hair and thick-framed glasses. He wore khakis and a red flannel.
“Willa leave?” he asked.
“She did.” Miles looked at the lake, thinking he could outrun Brian if needed, and saw hockey skates on the back deck, the same as his pair at home. Willa’s parting gift.
“She make those for you?”
Miles stared.
“My wife’s a creative, with a capital C. Especially when she’s upset.”
Miles couldn’t quite process the man in front of him. He looked like someone that helped you at the hardware store. Paternal, almost. In a comforting way. Miles itched to break for the door, but something kept him.
“Why do you hurt her?”
Brian tucked his chin back in surprise. “Did she tell you that?”
“You do.”
“Was she biting her thumbnail?”
Miles said nothing.
“She was, wasn’t she. That’s her tell.”
“What?”
“That’s how you know she’s lying.”
“I don’t believe you.”
Brian raised his hands peacefully. “That’s alright. Don't blame yourself for believing her. You aren’t the first. She’s good at it. Shit, she’s great at it. It’s part of her condition.”
“This won’t work on me,” Miles said.
“I promise, Miles. Do I seem like a bad guy?”
“Yes.”
“She really got to you, then. I’m sorry you feel that way. This must be scary for you, and confusing. She’s got… it’s a family thing, from her mom. Bipolar, some other shit, whole melting pot, really. Makes her persuasive. That’s why we’re married.”
“That’s why you’re married?”
“Mhm. She swindled me, my wife. Drowned me with love. Set me on fire. Electrified me. Then her true colors started dripping through. Screaming, throwing things. You know.”
“Not really.”
“But by then we were engaged. Her family had abandoned her.” Brian shrugged. “And I’m a moral man, a good husband, so I stayed. She’ll get better, I told myself. For years she was in and out of hospitals, ERs, therapists. Lost a lotta money, but I didn’t mind. I just wanted her to feel okay.” His voice was gentle. “I wanted my Willa back. But that’s the thing about people like her. Once she had me, she abandoned me.”
“You’re lying,” Miles said, but doubt was growing in his skull like a cave mushroom.
“Honestly, kid, I don’t mind if you believe her. I get it. She’s very convincing. She likes when people feel bad for her. She feeds on it.”
Something he said clanged in Miles’ mind.
“I love her,” Brian said, then dropped his voice to a near-whisper. “Truth is, I think she trusts you. Could you… talk to her for me? I’m worried about her. I’m such a worrier!” He flashed a grin.
“If you’re telling the truth, why’d she make all this… dreamworld shit? I mean… I feel like I stepped into some demented rabbit-hole, or ate DMT, or something.”
Brian laughed. The sound was pure, genuine. “It’s her delusion. Powerful, isn’t she?”
“Is it real?”
“I don’t know. Just as confused as you are, kid.”
That clang again. Miles realized what it was. “You’re calling me kid, but Willa and I are the same age.”
A flicker of something. Rage, maybe. Miles didn’t know exactly what gave it away; there was no clenching of the jaw, no slamming fist, but it was there, flitting in Brian’s eyes like a firefly. That charming demeanor flickered. Miles remembered the slashed tires.
What was he supposed to do? He couldn’t bolt across the lake and go about his life. Brian would track him down, and Char would be in danger. Could he…
Brian’s face changed. His jaw and brow clenched, sharpened. He drew himself up and bull-charged. Miles leapt to the side, but the man caught his waist and threw him into the table. The long candle spilled; a placemat started to curl and smoke. Brian charged again. Miles lowered his shoulder to hockey-check the advance, but Brian sent him sprawling. Miles struggled to his feet. Brian was standing, staring. Flames licked toward the edges of the table in ringlets.
“You’re just a regular guy, aren’t you?” Miles gasped. “You’re a regular guy, and she’s exceptional. She can make all this, and still you got your boot on her neck.”
Brian spoke in a new, hard voice. “I guess I’ve played my cards well.” Then he changed again. Subtle. His shoulders relaxed. A grin played across his lips. “I almost had you, didn’t I?”
Miles broke for the skates and beat Brian by half a second, grabbing one by the ankle and swinging blindly upward. The blade caught Brian’s cheek and tore a clean line to his nose. A hairy flap of skin flopped open. “Fuhh,” he said, trying to hold his face together with one hand. He stumbled backward and tripped into the burning table and began to writhe and scream, and the air thickened with a smell like burnt hair and brisket. His skin blistered and cracked.
Miles ran outside and vaulted the deckrail, falling ten feet into snow and landing flat on his back. He pulled himself up and walked onto the frozen lake and began shuffling out to the middle. Sweat cooled his back.
All was muted here, like the street by his house.
He spoke to the sky. “If you can hear me, I’m going home. There’s a place for you there. A bed. A meal.” The wind picked up. As Miles padded across the ice, he whispered another simple, three-word prayer.
“God, forgive me.”
He said it for the life he had taken, but he knew that was a sin God would understand. Nearly believing Brian, on the other hand… Miles wasn’t sure. I almost had you, the man had said, and he was right.
No matter what God decided, Miles knew that he himself would wrestle with that fact for a long time.
He reached the center of the lake and turned to face the blazing house. Plumes of orange flame and black smoke grabbed at the low clouds. Miles watched the flames cycle through colors. Pink, gray, green. They became white for a long time, then blue, and finally they were back to red-orange and yellow.
A pillar of flame, like the Snowlight pillar that had brought him and Charlotte and Willa back to the real world.
This pillar’s taking Brian somewhere too, Miles thought. Transporting him. Just like the Snowlight. The question was where.
As soon as the question came, Miles knew the answer. He signed the cross.
And smiled.
is a 25-year-old electrical engineer from Kansas City, recently married, dog and cat dad. He is currently working on his first novel: Orange Sky, Dark Sun.
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