The Shuddering

by Ania Ahlborn

  Plucking his coffee mug off the deck’s railing, he lifted it to his lips and let the steam drift across his face. The fur lining of his trooper hat shivered in the breeze, the pelage snagging on the bristles of his day-old beard. Fresh laughter spilled from inside the house. He smiled against the edge of his mug, watching his sister through the window as she twirled in the kitchen, a spatula covered in frosting held above her head. She looked just like their mother: fair skin, dark easy curls cut short—the kind of girl who didn’t try too hard. The kind of girl Summer had been.

  Jane lowered the spatula, singing into it before slapping it against the top of a chocolate cake while Lauren stood next to the kitchen island, trying not to choke on her coffee. Ryan had offered to pay for retail space for Janey to open a bakery, knowing that she hated taking cash from their dad; offered to buy all the equipment and even a neon sign in girly pink font—Janey Cakes—but she refused every time. Her students at Powell Elementary were more important to her. She insisted that she was happier supplying sprinkle-covered cupcakes to her kids than to stuffy housewives who couldn’t be bothered to bake for themselves. She loved watching second graders smear sweet frosting across their faces, giggling in sugar-induced ecstasy.

  Lauren spotted Ryan watching them and gave him a ghost of a smile. A second later the music swelled when the kitchen door swung open and his sister’s friend stepped onto the deck with a chuckle, closing the door behind her. She tossed her blonde hair over a shoulder before shrugging against the cold.

  “Jesus,” she said, jerking up on the zipper of her hooded sweatshirt. “It’s freezing out here.”

  Ryan cracked a sideways smile and extended his free hand, swooping it outward as if presenting the snow-covered trees to Miss Lauren Harvey for the taking.

  “Yeah, yeah.” She ducked beneath the thin veil of her cotton hood.

  “You realize it’s, like, twenty degrees out here?” he asked. “Think that hood is going to help?”

  “I’m just waiting for chocolate cake,” she admitted, blowing into her hands before fishing a pack of cigarettes out of her front pocket. “I wouldn’t be catching pneumonia if Jane would let me smoke inside.”

  Had it been Ryan’s call, he would have let her smoke in every single room, if not just to stink up his father’s place, then to oblige his twin sister’s quite attractive best friend.

  Lauren tapped the hard pack against an open palm, her teeth clacking as she shivered. She noticed him looking and offered up a sheepish grin. “Bad habit, I know.”

  “You should quit. Three days.”

  “What’s three days?” she asked, lighting up a smoke and offering the pack to Ryan. He waved it away.

  “It’s how long it takes your body to get used to something. You know how diet soda tastes funny if you’ve never drunk it before?”

  “Tastes like a chemical dump,” Lauren brooded.

  “Drink it for three days and you won’t remember the difference. Same goes for quitting smoking.”

  “No shit?”

  “That’s what they say.”

  Lauren took a long drag. She gave him a wry grin, raising a shoulder in a shrug. “This is my last one,” she said. “I swear.”

  Ryan breathed a quiet laugh and looked away from her, surveying the endless wave of trees before them to keep himself from staring. He liked her. She was witty, charming, not afraid to crack a joke.

  The report of a gunshot echoed through the hills.

  “What the hell was that?” Lauren asked, startled.

  “Someone shooting their neighbor,” Ryan said. “Land dispute.”

  She gave him a look and he bit back a grin.

  “Probably just hunters,” he told her. “I think it’s turkey season or something.”

  Satisfied with his answer, Lauren sucked in a lungful of smoke. “So, we’re waiting for Sawyer?”

  “Sawyer and April.”

  Exhaling, she squinted at the burning tip of her cigarette, smoke and steam rising upward like a soul escaping a body. “You don’t think that’s going to be a little awkward?” she asked, plucking a bit of tobacco off the tip of her tongue, canting her head toward the kitchen. “Janey and him and some chick in the same house?”

  He drained his mug, coffee warming him from the inside out. “I asked her,” he said. “Like a million times.”

  “And she said she’s cool with it,” Lauren cut in, ashing her cigarette onto a patch of snow next to her feet. “But you know as well as I do that she’s lying.”

  “Yeah,” he said, looking Lauren over thoughtfully. “She is.”

  “But you still decided to roll with it.”

  “Last chance,” Ryan said. “It was either roll with it or never see this place again.”

  “Couldn’t come out here alone, just you and her?”

  “What is this,” he asked, “the Spanish Inquisition?”

  Lauren gave him an apologetic smile. “Sorry,” she murmured.

  Ryan frowned at the mountaintop in the distance, coiling his arms around himself for warmth as Lauren smoked next to him. “It wasn’t the original plan,” he offered after a long pause. “Sawyer bringing this girl.”

  Lauren quirked an eyebrow. “No?”

  Ryan shook his head. “I’ve never even met her.”

  “So, this was supposed to be some kind of, I don’t know, reunion or something?” Lauren pressed.

  “Is that stupid?”

  He watched Lauren’s face soften as he waited for her response. “Yes,” she said after a beat, “stupidly sentimental.”

  “I guess I just don’t want her to be alone, you know?” He shifted his weight from one boot to the other, his gaze fixed on the porch’s banister.

  Lauren leaned against the railing. “Ooh,” she said, a spark of realization crossing her face. “This is all because of Switzerland, isn’t it?”

  Ryan shrugged almost helplessly. It was an amazing opportunity, but leaving his sister behind wasn’t exactly easy.

  Sawyer had grown up with them. Sawyer and Jane had been together for more than three years in high school. It had been weird at first—his best friend dating his twin sister—but he’d learned to like it. Now, with Zurich in his not-so-distant future, it would make him feel better to know that his two closest friends were together again, taking care of each other. Without that assurance, Ryan would be stuck picturing Jane alone in her apartment grading badly colored drawings and fighting with her louse of a future ex-husband.

  “You know she’ll be fine,” Lauren told him. “Jane is always the brave one. Besides, what about me?”

  “What about you?”

  Lauren scoffed teasingly. “Well, am I good for nothing?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know you that well.”

  “Lucky for you, you have four uninterrupted days.”

  “I only need three,” he joked, and she blushed and turned away.

  A snap of branches pulled both Ryan and Lauren’s attention to the trees. Lauren opened her mouth to speak, her expression startled, when a family of deer stepped out of the trees and dashed across the steep driveway. She laughed as she pressed a hand to her chest, shaking her head at herself, only to jump at the scratching behind her a second later. Oona was standing behind the kitchen door, her nose smearing the glass as she waited to be let out.

  “Jumpy?” Ryan asked as he stepped away from the railing and cracked the door open to let the husky onto the porch. Oona bounded through the door, nearly skidded on the slick planks of wood beneath her paws, and launched herself off the steps like a furry missile.

  “I wouldn’t be if you hadn’t purposefully freaked me out earlier,” she complained.

  “Me?” Ryan looked flabbergasted at the accusation as Oona’s bark echoed off the trees. She did wild doughnuts in front of the house, her feet punching holes in the hard crust of snow, before looking up at her owner, wagging her flag-like tail, ready to play. Ryan didn’t hesitate. He excused himself with a smile, fishing his glo
ves out of the pockets of his coat as he descended the stairs. Oona bolted away from the cabin before Ryan’s boots hit the ground, barking up a storm as she sprinted through the trees. She leaped like a gazelle, then threw herself down to roll in the powder before storming back toward her owner. Scooping up a gloveful of snow, Ryan packed it into a loose snowball and launched it at Oona’s feet. She barked, burying her nose in the ground where it exploded, searching for the ball that must have been hiding there. Lauren laughed from atop the deck as Ryan packed another, letting it zip by the dog’s nose. Oona snapped at it with her teeth, baffled yet again when it vanished into thin air as soon as it hit the ground.

  Just as he leaned down to make a third, a low rumble cut through Jane’s muffled music. Oona perked, standing at attention, her big ears pointing straight up, her tail stark still. Ryan narrowed his eyes as he listened, realizing that it was the sound of an engine the closer it approached. But rather than facing the driveway, Oona was still facing the woods, a repressed growl roiling in her throat. Ryan clucked his tongue at her.

  “It’s just a car, genius,” he told her, but Oona refused to let up. “Oona, come,” he commanded, and eventually the husky turned and padded toward him, distracted by the black Jeep that rambled up the steep drive. Ryan crouched down, hooking a pair of fingers beneath her collar. Despite her unfailing obedience, he never risked it when it came to cars.

  The dog slipped away from Ryan’s hold as soon as the metallic zip of a parking brake accompanied Siouxsie Sioux’s melancholy vocals from inside Sawyer’s Jeep. Oona dashed across the snow, stopping a foot from the driver’s-side door. Plopping her butt down on the frozen ground, she waited to greet the occupants of the vehicle while they gathered their belongings. A second later she was excitedly jumping against a pair of black jeans, miring them with white powder.

  Sawyer bent down, gathering Oona in his arms as she decorated him with kisses, her tail whipping back and forth, little squeals of canine joy rumbling deep from her throat. Ryan’s gaze drifted to the girl still inside the car as she buttoned her coat and gathered her things. She was a beautiful waif, her short black hair bobbed in a style that reminded him of 1920s starlets—a striking contrast against her fair skin and eyes as blue as the winter sky. She was just the kind of girl Ryan pictured Sawyer ending up with. Dark. Mysterious. Also a fan of funeral attire. She looked glamorous in her military-inspired coat, a black scarf that matched Sawyer’s hat wrapped around her neck. But she was also the girl who was about to completely derail Sawyer’s life.

  Sawyer eventually straightened when Ryan closed the distance between them as he extended his right hand. Ryan caught it in a firm grip, pulling Sawyer forward into an embrace, both men patting each other on the back with their free hands.

  “You’re late,” Ryan complained with a grin, squeezing Sawyer by the shoulder before taking a backward step, Oona excitedly sniffing at Sawyer’s shoes. “Still forever attending funerals, I see.” Ryan raised an eyebrow at Sawyer’s all-black ensemble—a style Sawyer hadn’t been able to shake since high school.

  “They don’t start with ‘fun’ for nothing,” Sawyer said. “And we took a wrong turn.” He rolled his eyes at his own admission. “Ended up fifteen miles in the wrong direction before I realized I’m an idiot.”

  “At the lake?” Ryan asked as Sawyer ruffled the fur on top of Oona’s head.

  “That entire thing is frozen through. Have you seen it?”

  Ryan peered at Oona as she snorted. She was picking up a scent, exhaling a loud blast of air against Sawyer’s shoe.

  “Elvis,” Sawyer concluded. “April’s ferret.”

  Ryan wrinkled his nose at the news. “Please tell me you didn’t bring rodents.”

  “God no,” Sawyer muttered beneath his breath. “I’m not a fan either.”

  “They’re creepy as hell.”

  “Hey,” Sawyer lifted his hands up in front of his chest. “You don’t have to tell me. Try waking up next to one of those long-bodied fuckers at three in the morning; one wrong move and you get a face full of tiny fangs.” He moved a hand in front of his mouth, wiggling his fingers to imply teeth. Ryan shuddered.

  “You sleep with it? Sweet Christ.”

  Sawyer looked toward the house, its glittering facade blocking the view of the side porch. “Jane?” he asked, lowering his voice.

  “Kitchen,” Ryan told him.

  When the passenger door swung open, Sawyer gave Ryan a look, motioning to the girl who was making her way around the front of the Jeep. She kept one hand against the hood of the car, careful not to slip on the ice that had formed there. “Ryan, April,” Sawyer introduced them.

  Ryan found himself face-to-face with the girl Sawyer had told him about. She extended a delicate hand toward him in greeting, a reserved smile pulling at the corners of a cotton-candy mouth.

  “Nice to meet you,” she said, dipping her chin downward shyly as she shook Ryan’s hand. “I’ve heard a lot about you. Thanks for letting me tag along.”

  “The more the merrier,” he told her, smiling through a pang of annoyance. Their group minus April would have been perfect—he and Lauren could get to know each other while Sawyer and Jane reacquainted themselves on the opposite side of the house.

  Smiling at Oona, April crouched down to offer the dog a hand to sniff, ice fracturing beneath the soles of her combat boots. “Aren’t you beautiful?” she said, glancing up to Ryan after burying her fingers in the dog’s fur. “Is she yours?”

  Ryan nodded. “The only woman in my life,” he teased, and Sawyer choked back a laugh.

  “Here we go.” Sawyer waited for the punch line.

  And she’s a real bitch.

  Ryan cracked a stupid smile at his childhood friend and resisted the urge to finish the joke, motioning to the house. “Come on,” he told them. “The girls are inside.”

  Jane was sick with nerves. Standing over her half-frosted chocolate cake, a sugar-coated finger stuck in her mouth, she listened for footsteps while her stomach churned. She hadn’t seen Sawyer in more than five years, and their last encounter had been quick. He’d passed through Phoenix on the way to Los Angeles this past fall, and they had spent ten minutes of an early morning together in a sticky Denny’s booth before she excused herself; it had been a school day; she had kids to teach—and first loves to forget. The two of them hadn’t had an honest conversation in nearly ten years, their last one emotional enough to remain a vivid memory. But that had been high school. Nobody should be held accountable for the bad choices they made between freshman and senior years.

  And yet the sound of footsteps on the porch woke a flurry of sleeping butterflies, her pulse fluttering in her throat. She swallowed her anxiety, trying not to look nervous as she watched her brother and a pair of dark-clad figures drift past the window. Sawyer had fallen into an all-black phase the year he had discovered Depeche Mode, and had never grown out of it, but it suited his features well: sharp, Norse, desperately pretty even as he toed the line of thirty. Jane squared her shoulders when Ryan appeared at the side door, cleared her throat, and put on her best smile.

  A cold blast of air cut through the warmth of the room as the door swung inward and Oona padded inside, her tongue hanging out of her mouth, her tail whapping the air. Ryan stepped in after her, holding the door for Sawyer and his girl.

  Had Sawyer given her the chance, she would have immediately felt intimidated by the woman who stepped inside behind him. She was stunning—the kind of girl who demanded attention without saying a word. But before Jane could wrap her mind around the beautiful creature that tailed him, Sawyer closed the distance and Jane found herself in his embrace. Like a long-lost lover, she reflexively pulled in a deep breath to catch his scent: soap and clove smoke, the subtle spice of well-worn leather. She wanted to shut out the world, to hold on to that moment for longer than she cared to admit.

  “Hi, Janey,” Sawyer murmured against her hair.

  “Hi, Tom,” she said softly. Sawyer Thoma
s had a predictable nickname. He declared that if he was to be named after anybody, Tom Sawyer wasn’t a bad kid to have as a namesake.

  Jane was the one to step out of their embrace when Lauren came into view. She could feel Ryan’s gaze on the pair of them, sure that Sawyer’s girl was staring a hole into her spine. Jane flashed a smile at the pretty stranger standing next to her brother, sidestepping Sawyer to greet the girl she truly had no desire to know.

  “April?” she asked. Jane wrapped her arms around the girl in a casual hug, surprised at how small April was. Ryan and Lauren cast raised eyebrows at each other over April’s shoulder as they watched the exchange. Their shared glance made Jane feel awkward, but she was determined to be as welcoming as possible.

  “So good to meet you,” Jane told her, sounding a little too excited. She took a backward step, feeling as plastic as possible. “I like your coat,” she said, unsure how to continue. How’s it like to be with the guy I still think about? “God, sorry, this is Lauren.” She motioned for Lauren to come over.

  “And this?” Sawyer asked, standing threateningly close to Jane’s half-frosted chocolate cake.

  “That,” Jane said, stepping over to the island to save the cake from an early fate, “is not finished, so don’t even think about it.” She swept it up and moved it out of the way, placing it on the counter beside the sink.

  Jane was quick to notice the way April was looking around the place, sure she had expected some tiny two-bedroom shack in the middle of the woods.

  “Sorry,” Jane said, offering April an apologetic smile. “It’s…not really a cabin, I guess.”

  “Why are you apologizing?” Sawyer asked.

  “Because it’s embarrassing,” Ryan cut in. “This whole trip would be far more comfortable if we had rented a tar-paper shack.” He glanced at Lauren. “Complete with outhouse, so you have to go outside in the middle of the night.”