Chapter 18
“What?”
“I’ve just never seen you eat quinoa flakes without complaint before,” Emily says placing her pot of barely tea in the middle of the kitchen table before taking a seat.
“Give her a break, Em.” Sandy, here for the weekend, says as she exhales a room full of cherry flavoured vape cloud.
Haley does not roll her eyes, she does not wince, she does not exaggeratedly fake cough, she does not make any comment back. She does continue to eat her bland quinoa flakes and lets her sister pour her a cup of tea.
This is temporary. This is not inescapable.
Last night, Alex leaning against the counter, holding back a grin like he has something to say but doesn’t know how to say it. She’d been in town for hours before she’d gone over. Hiding in her old room, “settling in”.
“What is it? You know I’m never above town gossip.” She pouts at him, trying to believe what she’s said.
“Ah...” He half laughs, ducking his head.
Her curiosity does peak. Is that sheepishness? She’s never seen Alex react like this when telling her about something. Immediately she’s alert – there’s no way this can be some Lewis/Marnie drama.
“I’m seeing someone.” Her mouth falls open but before she can say anything he continues, “before I tell you who it is I need you to know that it’s good. It’s really really good.”
“Of course, Alex would have nothing less than the best,” teasing, but behind it she’s suspicious. Why the warning?
“I’ve never had this.”
She doesn’t want to deal with the full meaning of that. “Who is it?”
“I’ve never felt this. It feels so right.” He’s clutching at his shirt, this pure look of relief coming over him and it’s making her antsy.
“Who is it?”
He pauses, biting his lip.
“I can’t take this dramatic build up. Who is it!?” She doesn’t have a single guess.
“Shane,” he says quietly.
Her mouth falls open. And then she closes it. She opens it again, nothing comes out.
He’s twisting a tea towel in his hands in nervousness, “say something.”
“Shane.” She says. She stands up, she paces a few steps not looking at him, turns back but he just gives her this stare she doesn’t know what to do with. She looks away. “He’s not still...”
“He’s sober. He’s been sober for years. He’s good, Haley. In every possible way-”
“Well I doubt in every possible way.” She says, somewhat snidely and the return to her usual bitchiness seems to relax Alex at the same time as it dismays him.
“You’ll see for yourself.”
She almost frowns. She doesn’t want to see for herself.
She doesn’t say this. Instead she forces a smile and sits back down. “Oh, how things have changed around here,” tossing her hair behind her back. “How’s Evelyn?”
Even before Alex’s announcement there was something different between them. There had been for years. She doesn’t stay long, making up an excuse that she promised Emily she’d keep her company at work, knowing Alex won’t follow her to the saloon.
“When are you leaving?” He asks, getting her coat for her.
“To be determined.”
“Not the usual 36 hours then?”
“Most likely not.”
“So I’ll see you again?” There’s a glad ring in his voice.
“Of course.” She gives a weak smile. He beams, engulfing her in another hug.
When she sits at the bar it is clear that her sister already knew what she’d just found out about Alex and Shane. She can tell by the way she sets a drink down in front of her without Haley ordering one, and sighs “how was it?”
“You could have warned me.” Haley glares, lifting the martini glass to her lips.
“I try not to feed into the rumour mill, you know that.”
“This is different.” Haley says, putting the glass back down. The cocktail is quite good. Emily does know how to mix drinks, Haley can give her that much.
“He’s happy. Nobody’s seen that since... well...” Emily trails off but Haley knows where she’s going. Since she’d left and barely visited. Since he couldn’t make it out of the valley himself. Since George died and she wasn’t there for him.
She feels herself freezing off. Emily can tell, is about to walk away and give her space, when someone pops up at the bar beside Haley.
“Hey Em! How’s it going?”
“Ry! It’s been awhile since I’ve seen you in here.”
“Ha. Yeah. Hectic fall, like that every year but I never learn.” An unamused and exhausted laugh. There’s something in the tone of it that catches Haley’s attention. Time in the city has trained her not to notice people, and she feels for a moment the oddness of that behaviour in this place. When she turns to see who had spoken her attention is pulled even more.
There is something graceful in this person, Ry’s, ruggedness. Something not unappealing.
Emily notices her staring.
“Ry, this is my sister Haley. Haley, this is Ry, our village farmer!”
The village farmer. They must have met, years ago, sometime when Haley had come back to visit. Vague recollections of Emily mentioning her.
“So you’ve stuck around, huh?” Haley says, finding herself having to look away from those dark grey eyes.
“I’m hanging on okay. Em, can you pour me two beers?”
“You got it,” and Emily hurries off to accommodate.
“So you’ve come back, huh?” Ry mirrors her question after a beat of silence between them. Somehow the pause doesn’t come off as awkward, it’s relaxed, collected.
Haley sets down her glass carefully on the coaster, purposefully not making eye contact now, feeling Ry search for it and feeling a thrill of power to deny it. “Seems that way.”
“You visiting Emily?”
“Sure, that’s part of it.”
“And the other part?”
Haley looks at her now, “not your business.”
Ry half smiles, tangling a sheepish hand in the back of her hair and it’s her turn to look away. “Right, of course.”
Emily comes back with Ry’s drinks but hurries off to serve some other patrons.
“I’m here with Leah, if you want to join us.” Ry offers casually as she picks up her drinks.
Haley isn’t expecting it. “I don’t know,” she says almost automatically.
“No pressure. I’m sure I’ll see you around,” and she nods and goes to sit at Leah’s usual table, back turned to Haley.
She can’t go over. She couldn’t. Talking to the farmer was one thing, but Leah? Too far, she thinks. How rude had she always been to her? And Leah, barely seeming to notice but in a way that just screamed I’m pretending not to notice to give you the impression that I’m above you. Yoba, that irked Haley.
So she finishes her drink on her own and then orders another one and talks to Emily when she’s got a second but mostly she just sits and ignores the eyes on her. Her coat is too nice for this place. So is everything she’s wearing and everything she owns. She used to love being set apart like that, back when it was all she had, the only thing to give her any sense of self. Now it feels uncomfortable, now it feels like she’s inserting herself where she shouldn’t be.
She keeps looking over to Ry and Leah’s table. Catching herself too late, already seeing the warm smile Leah gives the farmer, the both of them laughing. When Leah comes up to the bar for a refill Haley notices she’s only getting one drink. Rude Haley thinks, Ry was nice enough to buy the first round. Leah doesn’t even look at Haley. She wonders if that’s on purpose.
As Leah returns to the table Ry’s putting on her coat. Haley’s not exactly sure why a few seconds later she slips her coat on and rushes to follow her out.
“Heading home without buying me a drink first?” Haley asks, catching her on the steps.
Ry turns, surprise fading to amusement. “Can I get a rain check?”
“Hm, I don’t know about that.”
“Not the kind of person who works on someone else’s time?”
Haley scoffs and kicks at the fresh fallen snow on the ground. That remark was a little too close and she’s not sure how to respond.
“I can walk you home.” Ry offers, smiling over the top of a scarf she’s wrapping tight around her neck. “Best I can offer right now. Farmers schedule doesn’t mix well with late nights.”
“I’m not sure I trust you to see where I live.” Haley says as she crosses her arms.
Ry lets out a laugh and it takes Haley a second to realize her cheeky comment takes a different level of humour when she’s not in the city. Of course Ry already knows where she lives. People basically have their neighbours schedules memorized in a place like this.
They naturally fall into a pace together. It’s casual, light, Haley almost feels like herself.
When they get to her door the farmer asks, “will I see you again? Or are you taking off soon?” It doesn’t feel anywhere near the same as when Alex or Emily asks her the same thing. When Ry asks her it makes her heart beat a little quicker.
She raises an eyebrow, “you might.”
Ry grins as she begins backing away down the path towards Marnie’s, “I hope so.”
The farmer has a good smile. A shabby old scarf and a good smile. Haley’s smiling herself when she lets herself into her dark house. Her old home. Emily’s now. Turning the light on, being in that space alone... her smile doesn’t linger.
The festival of ice is not as cold as usual. In fact, the sculptures are dripping. Pelican town has always been miraculous in it’s overnight seasonal transformations, a fact everyone born here takes for granted and everyone who’s moved in learns to accept. Another drip slides down the mermaids body.
“The ice is melting.” Maru states.
“I think that might be because you’re standing so close to it.” Responds Penny, snuggled up in a thick layer of scarves, nose red.
“What?”
She rolls her eyes. “You’re breathing on it. Your breath is hot. Who are you trying to avoid?”
“What do you mean, who am I trying to avoid?” She takes a half step back from the sculpture as if to prove she’s not avoiding anyone.
“You don’t care about ice sculptures.” Penny, fidgeting with getting her layers as tight as possible.
“What? Since when do I not care about ice sculpture?”
“I don’t know. Since I heard you say ice sculpting is a waste of time every single year of this festival.”
“A person can change their mind. It’s kind of remarkable really, taking something so impermeable and creating something with it anyway.” Maru pushes her glass up, doing her best to ignore the fog in them.
“Right okay.”
“I’m not avoiding anyone.” Maru says blankly.
“Okay.” Penny says, rolling her eyes and walking away towards where Jas has given Vincent a rather fountain like nosebleed form pelting him in the face with a snow ball.
She avoids looking towards where the ice fishing competition is being held. She sees Alex and Shane, hand in hand closer to the outskirts. Haley stands rigidly beside them. She goes back to examining the ice sculptures.
She’d seen Ry once since the night she’d caught her talking – she tries not to think flirting - with who she now knows to be Haley. She had been cordial. A little curt. Or was Maru reading into things? She had seemed a little distracted, or had that been evasiveness?
She won’t look at him. Her ice queen facade is even colder than he remembers it.
Alex doesn’t seem to notice. He had grabbed his mitten clad hand so casually, without looking. Haley had been looking then. Not at him. Their hands, tied together, in not quite matching but close enough mittens Evelyn had been quick to make them. That he was actually wearing. They were good quality, what was he supposed to do?
Haley’s eye shift away, her expression the perfect mask of neutrality. She stares out at the cold snow, hair tangling in the wind.
Ry walks up from behind them, coming from the farm. She’s got a distracted look on her face, hands in pockets, seeming like the cold has no effect on her.
“Hey.” She says.
“Something wrong?” Shane asks, feels Haley’s inquiring eyes on them.
Ry shrugs, “no, why would there be?”
“I don’t kno-”
“So you stuck around, huh?” Ry interrupts with a smile, but she’s not speaking to him, she’s addressing Haley.
“Looks like I did.” Haley says, falsely coy.
“You already met?” Alex asks, pleased.
“The other night, yeah,” Ry’s looking over her shoulder, distracted.
“Are you entering?” Shane asks, thinking she must be looking where Willy is.
She shakes her head no, “I’ll be right back.” And she walks off. Alex and Haley start talking about if Willy still exclusively wears his same old worn fishing cap even though it’s rotting of his head, and don’t appear to notice anything strange about Ry or her behaviour. Shane doesn’t join them. He feels stung, that she wouldn’t fill him in, seemed avoidant. What was up?
Maru doesn’t know how she left the open field of the festival and ended up in the woods. Emerging from her black out she feels strange coiling in her stomach that pulls her forward, deeper into the woods.
She’s walking fast and she can’t stop. She’s moving too fast for someone stomping through snow, somehow she doesn’t feel it. She can’t seem to move anything of her own will but her eyes, which she shifts to examine her surroundings. The feeling of not being able to move in her own body – though it was moving, just not in her control – gives her a sense of claustrophobia. It feels hard to breathe, her heart beat out of control. At least that’s a normal reaction to a situation like this, she tells herself.
To not be overcome by panic she makes observations. They sky is the same overcast white as it was when she was examining ice sculptures. The air feels the same temperature. Maybe not much time had passed. What was the last thing she remembers? Her dad asking if she’d brought enough layers. Seeing Abbi and Seb laughing together closely off to a corner. Not looking at Haley. Penny smiling at a joke Jas made. Ry disappearing into the woods...
She never comes into these woods. Once when she was young her and Penny had come to examine the wizard’s tower. She’d thought it had been abandoned, probably just a crumbling old ruin people told stories about, this solidifying for her a lack of magical mystery in the world, a love of practical things.
She is rushing past the tower she now knows to be occupied. Hurrying into a deeper section of woods. As the air becomes still around her, thick with someone that she can only describe as some kind of energy. She is released from whatever it was pulling her forward. Her momentum is such and she continues forward a couple paces, stumbling as she regains control of her limbs, crashing into the soft snow.
The relief of having her body back is accompanied by a rising fear. Why here? What was waiting? She clutches herself, looking around. Footsteps in the snow. Voices up ahead. Should she move?
A voice gets louder, and it’s a voice she knows. It paralyzes her.
“I have other things to do than to be continuously fetching things for you. The farm is right on the line this year.” She has never heard this tone in Ry’s voice before. The annoyance, the rising and bare frustration.
“Your bad investments are not my concern.” Maru recognizes the wizard’s deep timbre. This again? She thinks. The eerie similarity to that night on Spirit’s Eve, though this was not her choice.
“Your weird errands are not my concern.” Ry repeats with disdain. Maru wonders if she’s going insane. She feels way too much physical discomfort to pass this off as dreaming, but she almost begs herself to wake up.
“They are all of our concern.” The wizard replies, unaffected by the tone he is being addressed.
“Stop being so cryptic. You expect so much and give nothing. Don’t you have some laws about that? Reciprocity and all?”
“Just because you fail to be able to interpret a return does not mean it hasn’t arrived.” A hint of tiredness.
A loud groan.
“The second planet is in the 9th house. Far from home. Uncomfortable alignments in the stars. This is a warning.”
“Thank you. Thank you so much for the warning. Can I go, sir?” Ry all but spits.
“You’re going to be distracted by becoming a distraction.”
Dead, “great.”
“You’ll be singed by a summer flower.”
“I’m leaving.”
Maru practically chucks herself behind a tree to get out of Ry’s line of vision. She pushes herself so far against it, trying to become apart of it. Ry passes shortly after. Maru only catches a glimpse of her face but she seems darkly preoccupied, too internal to notice if anyone else is around. Maru waits, heart hammering in her chest, for Ry to disappear back towards the clearing. When she’s gone Maru lets out a breath, as if Ry thinking she’d been followed was the worse thing happening here.
She lets her body relax and leans against the tree, slumping down. She doesn’t know what she’s heard, or why, or how. She feels less fear now and more a powerful exhaustion. Somehow her lack of control in this situation feels like a metaphor for life, she wonders if she should laugh. Her former self would be dying to figure out what was happening, find a concrete explanation. All she wants now is to go home.
A strange looking green blob appears and hovers near her, bobbing to it’s own rhythm. Maru stares back at it, wondering how such a creature could be moving in that way. It blinks, then lunges. Before she can do anything she is coated in a thick layer of green slime. She tries to get up, to move away from the thing, but the slime impedes her motions. It is like all her nightmares of trying to run but being unable to. Her panic begins to rise again.
She senses it’s about to lunge again and mentally she braces herself but before it happens there is a flash of purple and the thing dissolves.
The wizards looms above her, his dark eyes swirling in a way that makes her insides squirm. He extends a long gnarled finger with a purple nail, tapping it once on her forehead as he winks and then disappears. She is left alone in the strange old woods, breathless, confused, and covered in slime.