Aspect Of Winter

by Tom Early

  Glancing around, I spotted the ercinee perched atop one of the few trees at the top of the Hill. The stars glimmered behind it as it bent its neck down, doing… something. I approached quietly, trying not to startle it into fleeing. My fists clenched at my sides and I could feel the cold pooling behind me, waiting to be put to use. I squinted my eyes, trying to see what it was doing. A pool of silvery-white light lay on the branch at its feet, the same light I saw taken from Sam. It rippled gently in a nonexistent breeze and the ercinee began to fold its wings around it. I had a feeling it’d be a bad idea to let it do that.

  I crept up to the base of the tree, and placed my hands on the bark, focusing. Ice began to creep slowly up the base, moving to where the ercinee was perched in slow lines. I made as little noise as I could, the ercinee encircling the light in what seemed like ritualistic movements. It began to throw its head back, and I watched as the glow it let out began to pulse to the same rhythm as the pulse of Sam’s… whatever that was. I glanced back at the bark. The ice was close enough now.

  I clenched my hands like claws, and pushed them up at the ercinee. The ice that had crept to just a few feet beneath it suddenly separated from the tree, and shot towards the ercinee. At the last second, the dagger-sharp tips swerved around it, several bars forming around it on all sides like a frigid cage, and it let out a startled cry, thrashing about. I had one of the other strands of ice wrap around the end of the branch, just in front of where Sam’s light was pooled. I made a quick clenching motion, and the branch outward from the ice became brittle and snapped.

  I dove at the branch as it fell, and tried to catch the light. It glided smoothly into my right hand, giving off gentle but unmistakable warmth. I jolted in surprise. It felt like Sam was standing next to me all of a sudden, as the light gathered in my hand.

  A harsh bell-like cry broke my reverie, however. The ercinee wasn’t happy about being trapped, and its wings beat constantly against the ice, withdrawing each time from the cold. I glared at it.

  “You almost ate my friend, you stupid bird. Now shut up until I find a way to banish you.”

  I gestured with my free hand, and the ice bars began to send off smaller lines, forming gentle snowflake patterns between each of them, leaving only finger-size gaps for air in the cage. The ercinee quickly disappeared from sight, but not before I caught glimpse of an alien intelligence in its eyes, full of fury at losing an easy meal. I lowered the icy cage down slowly, moving it with the motion of my arm. When it touched the ground, I froze it in place so that I could deal with it after I had brought whatever this light was back to Sam.

  I jogged a bit more slowly back to Sam this time, following the trail of frost I had left in my haste on the way to the Hill, the pale glow of the light in my hands illuminating the path. I felt energized and alive this time, instead of in horrible pain like when I had strained my abilities in the fight with Aiden. I wondered what had changed. It was probably just the adrenaline and I’d be feeling the discomfort once it wore off.

  When I reached Sam, the light seemed to move of its own accord. It slipped in past her slightly parted lips, and her eyes snapped open.

  “Fay! What happened? Where’s the ercinee? Why am I on the ground?”

  I told her what had happened, and we both shivered at what might could have happened. Seeing her lying motionless on the ground was one of the most awful sights of my life.

  Sam pulled me into a fierce hug for (“Theoretically! You can’t prove anything!”) saving her life, and then asked me to take her to the ercinee. I agreed, and then promptly looked around for a light source, swearing when I realized my stupidity. Sam gave me a look, and we decided to try our luck following the light of the moon, very slowly. It was another hour before we made it to Red Hill. The cage was sitting there, undisturbed. We moved in closer to observe the creature that, while looking so beautiful, was in a way more deadly than the hellhound Sam had fought off previously.

  It was gone.

  ***********************************************

  The ercinee narrowed its eyes. The two-legged creature of cold was gone, taking the light-of-soul along with it, and sealing it into this accursed cage. Dark thoughts crossed the creature’s mind. To be summoned to such a plentiful hunting ground, with so much easy prey available, and then to be imprisoned like this? It wouldn’t stand for such an affront.

  Peering around once to make sure the icy manling was gone, the ercinee closed its eyes. It folded its wings in, bent its head down into its body, and curled its tails around as well. A soft fluttering of wings slowly became audible. Moments later, the soft light of the ercinee vanished as thousands of fireflies poured through the tiny holes in the cage of ice. The cloud of fireflies began to move out over the cliff, and then slowly condensed once more.

  The ercinee flapped its wings toward the lights of the manling village, smug in its victory. It would eat well for a long while.

  Chapter Eight

  We panicked. We spent at least half an hour searching the rest of the hill, screaming at each other and generally directing our anger with the situation at the wrong targets, and skip to when we started actually thinking again. It took an embarrassingly long time to get to that point, and I still had no idea how the thing had escaped. We sat down, breathing hard and still generally pissed off.

  I looked around the Hill one last time, and saw the lights of Owl’s Head illuminating the sky in the distance.

  A thought occurred to me and I frowned. “Sam, do you think the ercinee is attracted to light?”

  Sam followed my gaze. Her face paled. “You think it’s headed to town?”

  “And it’s going to go after people again, too,” I said, panicking. This was really, really bad.

  We found the path down from Red Hill that led back to my house at the edge of town. The moment we reached the yard I saw a light flicker on in my parents’ room. I’ve never been so unhappy to see them at home unexpectedly before in my life. We made our way around to the front of the house and my mom met us at the front door, frowning.

  “Feayr Hanson, I hope you have a really good reason for being in the woods this late.”

  I held up a hand to interject. “Mom, I swear I can explain but not right now. There’s a magic glowing bird somewhere in town and we’re afraid that it’s going to put people in comas or eat the power grid or something. I really don’t have time to stop, I’m really sorry!”

  I grabbed Sam and we sprinted to the Jeep, ignoring my mom’s “get back here!” I was so going to pay for that later. Sam slid in and turned the key in the ignition, speaking as she went.

  “So where the hell do we go? Do you have any better plan than just driving around, because that’s all I’ve got right now.”

  I hopped in next to her and we skidded out of the driveway, headlights kept off to attract less attention.

  “I’m guessing the ercinee is attracted to light, or energy. I’m just not sure which one. Maybe we could manufacture some kind of event to draw it out…”

  I stopped speaking and thought hard. Sam beat me to it.

  “The football field! If we turn the floodlights on, that’ll easily be the brightest place in town!”

  “Yeah, but that place is locked up after dark. How’re we supposed to get in?”

  Sam just raised an eyebrow at me.

  “Ah. Yes. The wire cutters in the trunk.” I frowned. “Are you ever going to get around to telling me why you have those in there?”

  “Nope,” Sam said way too happily. “A girl has to make her own fun sometimes, Fay. Let me have my secrets.”

  “That’s only mildly alarming. Let’s go.”

  Sam made a sharp turn onto one of the main roads, throwing me against the window. The route to the town’s football field took us through the center of town, meaning that we would have to be careful not to run into a speed trap because there was no way any police officer wouldn’t recognize Sam’s Jeep and tell her dad. And there was no way he’d let us get away
with this. Our only hope was to go unnoticed altogether which meant avoiding the main roads and circling through the residential areas. We skirted around Pond Road and followed Glen Street instead. I kept a close eye on the horizon for any lingering light trails. So far, none. We kept moving.

  When we turned the corner of Glen onto Harriet Avenue I spotted something. There was a fast-fading trail of light just beyond the row of houses near the park in the center of town. I pointed it out to Sam.

  “Do you think it’s in one of the trees?” I asked.

  Sam swore loudly. “Didn’t it only do that when it had taken my light from me?”

  “…Shit. Sam, turn off the car, we need to go straight there. I can’t let it eat somebody’s light, they might never wake up.”

  Sam slammed on the brakes, and quickly parked the Jeep at the side of the road. We got out and ran through the yard of the house between us and the park. Well, she ran. I just tried not to stumble or hit anything.

  A low growl stopped us in our tracks. One of the biggest dogs I’ve ever seen was lying down in the backyard with one of those ‘electric fence’ collars around its neck. Not that that was going to help much seeing as we were already inside the boundary. I froze immediately. I love dogs, but the giant ones freak me out, especially when they’re showing that many teeth. Sam, however, did no such thing. She kept moving forward, quietly whispering “Sorry, dog!” and pulled out a small can of pepper spray from the back pocket of her jeans. Before the dog knew what had happened, it received a blast of directly on the nose. I winced in sympathy as the poor creature whimpered, its eyes tearing up, and clawed furiously at its face to stop the burning. Sam kept on running, reaching the fence at the back of the house. She grabbed the top of the fence, and flipped herself over. I opted for the slightly less graceful option of hoisting myself up and awkwardly falling over the fence to the other side. I was just grateful that it had a flat top, and not some sharp tips. I preferred not to impale my crotch.

  Once I was on the other side I saw Sam sprinting into the park. Owl’s Head has a really small town park since it also has the Reserve. It has only a few tall pines and one massive maple tree in the center of the park. The rest is carefully maintained grass with a few park benches here and there. I ran to catch up with her. As it turns out, combat boots, while great for kicking ass, aren’t the speediest of footwear. I caught up with her after a few seconds.

  When we got to the middle, we started looking around. Sam grabbed my arm and pointed me to the really old gnarled pine in the far left corner of the park. The ercinee was emanating a soft glow from where it was perched up at the top. We ran to the bottom of the tree, and looked up. The bird seemed to be ignoring us in favor of enacting the elaborate wing ritual that I saw it doing to Sam’s light at Red Hill. We didn’t have much time to act.

  I didn’t know if I had it in me for another one of those ice cages, but since I had Sam with me I had an easier option. I raised my right hand and made a fist, freezing the water particles in the air in front of it. A baseball-sized chunk of ice formed in midair, bobbing up and down gently as I held it in place. I moved it towards Sam and she caught on immediately. Sam grabbed the ice-ball, hefted its weight a couple times to get a good feel for it, and launched it at the ercinee. With a startled squawk, the ercinee came tumbling out of the tree as the ice-ball caught it square in the middle of its chest. Sam ran forward and kneeled down on top of it, pinning its long neck down with one arm.

  I ran directly beneath the branch the ercinee had just been perched on and caught the liquid-like light as it fell from the tree. Like last time it contained itself in my hand, giving off a gentle warmth. The presence felt familiar this time, but I couldn’t quite put a name to it. What’s more, I saw several more orbs of light float softly to the ground around me. I looked back at Sam. The ercinee was well and truly pinned. There was no way it could somehow escape this time, unless it could...

  Oh.

  “Sam, it’s going to return to being fireflies again!” She shot me a panicked look.

  “Fay, there’s no way I can hold on to it if it does that! I think we have to kill it!”

  A soft, musical voice interjected then. It was like nothing I’ve ever heard before. There was light in that voice, as well as unutterably deep malice.

  The ercinee’s voice echoed in our heads. “Oh, poor manlings, I’m afraid it’s far too late for that. I’ve never met such curiously incompetent creatures. Do you truly have no conception of how to deal with my kind?”

  “We’re, uh, kind of learning on the fly here. Sam, snap the thing’s neck.” The ercinee narrowed its eyes at me, and its entire body just… dissolved. The fluttering of thousands of tiny wings could be heard as a swarm of fireflies emerged from the ercinee’s body. Guess this meant that it was my turn to do something.

  “Sam, catch!” I lobbed the now orb-shaped light at her. Her right hand snapped up, deftly snatching it out of the air.

  “Also, you might want to back away now.”

  Assuming these were at least somewhat similar to normal bugs, I had a way to deal with them.

  I had imagined the air feeling cold before this, as a side-effect of my run to get the ercinee the first time it escaped. I needed to remember that feeling, and more. I reached deep inside myself, feeling the sliver of winter at my core. Images flashed through my mind of blizzards roaring, icy winds rushing through trees, and of the glaciers themselves cracking and reforming over the millennia. I felt the cold, and channeled it through me.

  The temperature around me, around the firefly swarm, dropped rapidly. The grass beneath my feet turned brittle and was tinged in white. The old pine seemed to shiver, dropping needles beneath it. For an agonizing moment, nothing happened. I focused harder, and a howling wind sprung up out of nowhere, slamming down in front of me.

  Slowly, one by one, then faster, in clumps, the fireflies began to fall. The swarm began to mill around in a frenzy as more and more of them dropped lifeless to the ground. Half of its number was curled up, frozen to death. The rest of it swirled around madly, and in a final desperate lunge flew straight at me. I saw the terrible eyes of the ercinee staring at me with a burning hatred from within the swarm. I pushed, and the winds redoubled, forcing the swarm back.

  For just a moment, I saw the swarm once more take on the elegant outline of the luminescent bird, its neck thrown back and its beak open in a final mournful cry. Then the last of the fireflies fell to the earth, and a golden light illuminated the ground. We watched as what was left of the ercinee seemed to vanish. I didn’t get a sense that it was dead, though. Just… gone.

  I relaxed my stance, and the freezing temperature subsided, the icy winds relenting. I swayed, suddenly exhausted, but managed to stay on my feet. It was like I was building a tolerance to using my abilities or something, strengthening a muscle I didn’t know I had. That… was something to think on later.

  Sam looked at the mass of glowing orbs and frowned. “We kind of need to find out who the ercinee got all of these from. What do we do?”

  I shrugged. This was beyond me. Fortunately, Sam managed well enough for the both of us.

  “The police scanner! If someone’s been reported suddenly collapsing, there’s no way the force won’t hear about it! Come on, Fay, I have one back in the Jeep!”

  Sirens suddenly swelled in the distance, and a flicker of red and blue lights could be seen closing in on the park rapidly.

  “Sam, we need to move! Your dad can’t see you out here; you’ll be grounded for life!”

  “I know, dumbass!” Sam shot back, gathering all of the orbs into her hands and clutching them to her chest. “Less talking and more running!”

  We took off through the park, ducking and weaving through the shadows as best we could, Sam covering the light in her hands by holding it close to her chest. This time, we ran around the house with the dog, cutting through one a couple over instead. Sam managed to do a no-handed running leap over the fence (Seriously? How was t
hat fair?), and I did my usual shimmy-ow-fall-ow again-run that I did previously. A minute later, we threw ourselves into the Jeep and screeched away, just before a cop car turned the corner.

  Five minutes later, panting, we found ourselves parked in Sam’s driveway.

  “Okay,” I wheezed, “Turn the damn thing on. I want this night to be over with as soon as possible.”

  Sam fiddled with the police scanner, and after thirty seconds of adjusting, voices came crackling through. There were two reports going on. One of them was reporting some sort of disturbance happening at the park, and Sam’s dad was apparently the one who had gone to check it out. Jeez, it was a good thing we got out of there as fast as we did. The other report was of a teenage boy who had collapsed suddenly while he was letting his dog outside. It happened over on the Hill, the wealthy side of town. He wasn’t responding, and the panicked mother had called 911.

  “There’s one of our victims. I think we have to meet him at the hospital, an ambulance has been called in.”

  We took off in the Jeep again, this time with the headlights on, to Morse Hospital. Sam drove with her customary terrifying speed, and we arrived just in time to see an ambulance pull up at the emergency center, lights blaring. A group of EMT’s came out of the back, with a kid on the stretcher they were pulling along with them. I recognized the mop of messy blonde hair and wide shoulders.

  “Sam, I think that’s Tyler on the stretcher,” I said, surprised.

  “Yeah, it is! What do we do? How do we get the light to him?”

  “I don’t know! What are they going to do with him?”

  “I have no idea how hospitals work, you idiot! If he’s like I was, then he’s still breathing, and they’re probably going to rush him to an examination room or something to figure out what happened! Or at least I think so!”