by Sam Starbuck
It was the only footprint close enough to be in the way of my shoveling. I cleared the walkway, stolidly ignoring the rest of the ice as it began to melt and crack.
We didn't talk about it when he came back to the shop later, to browse. Not what I'd said, not what he'd said, not the ice footprints that had melted since that morning. We didn't talk about much, but he seemed less tense – not talking was something we were good at. He showed me the shirts he'd bought at the store, and that was about it.
Maybe we should have talked, but for once I had no idea what I would have said.
Chapter Nine
"Have you ever thought about how amazing hands are?"
I looked up at Lucas through the steam rising from my coffee cup. It was reassuringly hot, a nice contrast to the frost-patterned window of the cafe and the snow that still clung to my boots and trouser-cuffs. I'd caught him just ordering dinner as I came in for a little warmth and society on Christmas eve, and he'd actually invited me to come sit with him – though he'd interrupted Carmen taking his order as he called out to me. He'd been cringing about his faux pas for several minutes.
Things between us had settled back to normal again, or at least we were pretending they had. Lucas had stayed in town well past the "few days" I'd asked for. Snow had continued to fall gently most evenings, which made walking back to The Pines especially difficult. But, judging by the bags of clothing and groceries under the table and the snowshoes leaning against the wall, he was planning on going back tonight. Probably just as well. He seemed to be itching to make sure nothing dire had happened to his cottage and his masks.
"Hands," he prompted, and I realized I'd been studying him without really listening.
"Hands? Are you drunk?" I asked, raising an eyebrow.
"It's only six o'clock!"
"Some people drink early," I shrugged.
"No, I'm not drunk," he said. "I was just thinking about it. I was watching this dog, the one that lives in the department store? There's this itchy bit right here...well, here on a dog," he said, indicating a spot just below his ribcage on his right side. "There was just no way for him to reach it – front paws don't bend that way and his back legs weren't quite long enough. It just made me think, you know..." He held up his hand. "These spindly little breakable things on the ends of our arms can reach, grasp – scratch any place on our bodies, really – hold tools..."
"So can monkey's hands."
"Don't you think it's a little bit great? I just..." he shrugged. "I think about bodies, what they mean, what they do."
I looked down at his hands.
"Marvels of engineering," he said quietly. "A single part of the body which can reach nearly any other part. Pencils, doorknobs, pianos...mugs with handles – mugs without handles, for that matter," he said. He picked up his cup of coffee, left hand gripping the handle, right wrapped around the cup itself. "We invented them all because of hands. If cats were the dominant species on the planet, what do you suppose they'd invent?"
"Machines you can operate with your tail, I suppose," I said. "A little limiting, Lucas."
"No doubt," he answered, then changed the subject. "New Year's is coming soon. I suppose the village does something? Some kind of..."
"Pot-luck dinner," I said.
"Another one?"
"You knew you moved to a small town, Lucas," I said with a grin. "It's not fireworks and a rock concert, but it's nice. They hold it here, at the cafe. There'll be dancing. Tons of food. More than Thanksgiving, even."
"Idyllic," he said. "The whole village is a little like a postcard, you know. Sometimes I wonder if it's going to turn out to be some kind of horror novel after all, but I can't quite see it."
I smiled. "We have our problems, but I don't think there's anything that macabre. Unless you count the Straw Bear."
"Maybe the Straw Bear didn't used to be symbolic."
"Maybe not. Then again, most places have something in their past that's best left there," I said. It never occurred to me that it wasn't the false violence of the straw bear he meant, but rather the transformation. "It's all an eternal puzzle, Lucas. But you will come to New Year's?"
"Oh, I think so. It sounds like fun," he said. "Do I have to bring something?"
"Well, no one has to. I don't think anyone would care if you didn't. We all know how far away you live. Are you going back today?"
"Yes – just screwing up my courage," he said. "I'll see you on New Year's if I'm not back sooner."
"Quite a walk back to your place," I said. "Can't someone drive you down to the end of the asphalt?"
"It's out of the way for nearly everyone. I don't mind."
"You will, halfway there with nowhere to put your bags down. Let me close the shop and I'll come with you," I said.
Lucas glanced at me, then nodded nervously, setting out some money for the meal. "You don't have to come help, you know."
"It's been a while since I strapped on my snowshoes," I said with a grin. "Business is slow. I'll make sure your heating is still working..."
"I know how to re-light a pilot now," Lucas replied, but his grin was as wide as mine. "Come on then, but I won't tip you."
I was rummaging through the storage room, where I was sure I'd stashed my snowshoes sometime last winter – and where a wrapped package for Lucas happened to be – when the door slammed and I put my head out. Lucas was loitering near the home-improvement section again; my guest was the boy, who leaned on my counter and waved at me.
"Hiya," I said. "Looking for something?"
"Saw you come in," he said. "I thought I'd say hi."
"Well, hi," I replied, pressing the package into his hands and pointing at the bags by the door. "Haven't seen you around since school let out. How'd exams go?"
"Tell him about your History test," Lucas called. The boy quietly snuck the package into the bag.
"I was really fast, I was third done in History," he said, beaming hugely at me. "And I got done first in Art."
"You had a final exam in art?" I asked, rummaging under the counter.
"Had to write an essay about our favorite piece of art," the boy said.
"What'd you choose?" I asked, looking up.
"That one," the boy pointed over my shoulder at a poster on my back wall. It had come from Chicago with me, years before: a reprint of an old propaganda piece from the forties, extolling the virtues of riding the elevated train. "Lucas says it's early modernist graphic design repopularized by ironic nostalgia."
"Did you say that in your paper?" I gave him a startled look. He shook his head.
"Don't know what it means. I just said I liked the colors and shapes."
"Well, that'll probably earn you a B at least. Aha!" I added triumphantly, as the snowshoes clattered out from behind the glass door. "Found 'em, Lucas!"
"Great!" he said. He glanced up at the boy, who radiated innocence. "We're going out to The Pines. Want to come?"
"Can't today," the boy said. "Gotta go. Merry Christmas!"
"See you at New Year!" Lucas called after him, as the door banged shut again. "Five bucks says he gets an A on his art test."
"Not a bet I'd take," I replied, as I hooked the snowshoes over my shoulder.
"He got me a Christmas present. But I think you probably know that," Lucas added with a smile.
"I had hints," I agreed. "So, are we going or what?"
Ten minutes later we were at the edge of the village, on the last few feet of asphalt before it gave way to unplowed snow, still thick on the ground beyond us. We set down the bags and began putting the snowshoes on, Lucas with more care and deliberation – he'd used them a few times, I think, but I had two full Low Ferry winters on him and I was up on the snowbank by the time he had his first shoe on. I offered him a hand up when he was ready, and we were on our way again.
"It makes me want to keep a sled," Lucas said, carrying a bag in one hand and swinging his other arm for balance, like I was. "I'm surprised more people don't have a few dogs for s
ledding, with weather like this."
"And do what with them the rest of the year? Horses can haul carts or carry packs in the summertime. Dog-sleds aren't all that useful on mud," I replied. "Then you've got a handful of big, energetic dogs with no outlet all summer."
"Guess so. I wonder what it's like here in the summer. I suppose you know."
"Hot," I grunted.
"Still, they'd enjoy themselves well enough in the winter, don't you think?"
"Probably," I agreed. We walked on in silence until the cottage became visible, a dirty blot on the white surrounding it. Snow had piled up against the back, between the rear wall and the incline of the hill, spilling down on either side.
"You'll come in, won't you?" he asked. "You can't come all the way out here on the snow and not at least warm up a little before you go back."
"It's going to be freezing in there," I said.
"I left wood ready in the fireplace and I didn't turn the heater all the way down. I wasn't planning on staying in town this long."
He bent and scooped some of the snow away from the kitchen door, undoing his snowshoes. Before he opened the door he turned around, and I followed his gaze.
There was a band of blackish blue forming on the horizon above the town, where the setting sun's rays no longer quite reached. We were already standing in the shadow of the hill, the rest of the meadow and the edges of the town touched with gold. You think you never remember it right, that light doesn't work that way – that the world can't look so gold or blue. But once or twice in your life you catch it, and it is.
"Do you know what the French expression for dusk is?" Lucas asked, behind me. "The phrase is Entre chien et loup."
"That's not literal, surely?"
"No – it means between the dog and the wolf. Uncertain times," he said. "Not one way or the other yet. Come in," he added, opening the door.
The house was as cold as I'd imagined it would be, but Lucas went straight into the living room and lit the paper under the kindling in the fireplace. I switched the lights on and looked around while he watched the kindling begin to scorch and burn.
There were still masks everywhere, completed or in progress. There were still little boxes of feathers and trim, thread, glue, sacks of plaster, lumps of clay. Most of it, however, had been pushed aside or relegated to shelves, and on the main workbench there was a wide clear area with only one occupant, an odd armature of sticks held together with glue and string. A series of sewn-together scraps was thrown across it, leather and cloth with wide gaps here and there. No attempt had been made to hide the seams – they were done in thick black twine in an even-patterned diagonal stitch. Other pieces of leather lay nearby, apparently waiting to be added. Behind the workbench was a chair from the kitchen table, over which Lucas had thrown his thick gray coat. At the moment, the assembled parts looked like beginning of an animal's muzzle, shaped around the wooden mold.
"What's it going to be?" I inquired.
"I don't know yet," he answered. "I'm still working on it. It's taking some time; anyway, other things keep distracting me."
He pointed to one of the other tables, where a series of smallish oval masks were apparently waiting to be finished.
"Japanese?" I asked, recognizing the motifs vaguely.
"Yes – Noh masks. They're a sort of symbol," he said. "They say the mask unlocks the actor's talent. You join with the mask and all the learning you've done, the untapped potential, becomes manifest."
"You seem very interested in them," I said. There had to be at least a dozen – all different styles, some with horns or fangs, others with delicate painted accents, but all sharing a similarity of shape that was hard to define.
"I like them," he said simply. "They're a perfect fusion of use and beauty. One day I'll understand them. Those aren't real Noh, anyway, you have to do a lot more studying than I've done to make a real Noh mask. Cheap imitations, but pretty. By the way," he said, and dug a small package out of the desk. "I got this for you."
I looked down at it and grinned – it was plain brown paper, but it had a nice ribbon and Merry Christmas was scrawled in one corner. I tore it open and had to catch a handful of straps as they all but fell out. Beaded and bell-decked – some of the boot decorations the Friendly had sold when they were passing through.
"For your shoes," he said.
"I guessed," I replied, with a smile. "Thank you, Lucas, they're great – I'll wear them home. I have something for you..."
I rummaged the bag I'd been carrying and came up with the package the boy had hidden there for me – slightly better wrapped, but not much larger. He took it, looking delighted and amused.
"Book?" he asked, holding up the oblong packet and studying it.
"Might be," I answered. "Open it, go on."
He unfolded the ends carefully and pulled the paper away, running his hand down the smooth dust jacket.
"I thought you might not have that one," I said.
"The Book of the Werewolf," he read aloud. "I – wow. This is out of print, way out of print."
"You know it?"
"I tried to find a copy in Chicago, once. The library doesn't even let you take theirs out of the building."
"I have connections," I said, watching as he paged through it, then closed it and set it carefully on the edge of the workbench.
"Thank you," he said, and I found myself in a warm, wholehearted hug. He smelled like cheap soap, dust and plaster – not unpleasant scents at all.
"Well," I said, when he stepped back and looked overwhelmingly embarrassed. "Merry Christmas, Lucas."
"Merry Christmas. Can you stay for a while?"
"I shouldn't, it's getting dark," I said regretfully. "I don't want to freeze on the walk home."
"I'll walk you out," he replied. I noticed, pleased, that he took the book with him as we went. "Stay warm once you get back."
"I plan to," I replied, strapping the decorations he'd given me around my boots. They jingled, and we grinned at each other for a moment before I put the snowshoes on over them. "I'll see you for New Year's if I don't see you before, right?"
"Definitely," he said, and I stepped back out into the crisp Low Ferry night.
***
The first year I spent in Low Ferry, I really didn't get why people were so excited about New Year's. I'd already been forcibly welcomed by the Friendly and blindsided by the Halloween festivities, but I thought with Christmas I was on pretty solid ground. In Chicago – especially in Chicago, City of Big Retail – Christmas was the main event. Wasn't it that way everywhere? New Year's was just an excuse to drink and ride the El for free and watch fireworks. Which is all fun, don't mistake me, but not nearly as important as Christmas. And anyway, I didn't see how a potluck at the local cafe could really compare to Chicago for sheer entertainment value.
This is because I was still a city boy at the time.
Christmas in Low Ferry is a strictly stay-at-home event, except for the Christmas Eve service at the church. Everyone confided in me that it was really for the kids, and I'd get it when I saw the New Year's party. This didn't go far towards comforting me when I spent Christmas day alone in my pajamas, reading, but I had to admit that it was pretty relaxing. Still, it bothered me until that first New Year's, and then they were right: I got it.