Burnt Snow

by Van Badham

  I was still holding the handle when a metallic click vibrated through my palm. The door swung open from inside, and I tumbled in.

  Brody caught me between the open door and the ground. I was immediately embarrassed when his hands made contact with my body because I knew he’d be able to feel the angry sweat through my uniform shirt.

  ‘I’m okay,’ I said, pushing his hands away.

  I heard him shut the door behind me, and the lock snap shut.

  ‘Subtle,’ Brody said.

  The room’s musty smell of unread books caught at my lungs and I coughed. ‘You said ten past lunch,’ I wheezed.

  ‘I had to open the door,’ he said.

  ‘This is stupid,’ I said, looking around the space. The room was as tall as a classroom but less than a quarter of the size. All four walls were covered in bookshelves, apart from the corner, where a single desk was set up with a chair beneath a small frosted window. A two-sided standing bookshelf was in the middle of the room, effectively dividing it in half. The only other windows were at the very top of the walls, touching the ceiling. The room was dark, poky and full of dust.

  ‘Why couldn’t we meet in the Senior Quad?’ I said.

  ‘The Senior Quad has forty-four windows,’ Brody said. ‘I don’t mind having a conversation – I do mind having an audience.’

  Brody took some steps into the room and I turned my back on him, walking into the space between the shelves, under the windows.

  ‘Do you want me to switch on the light?’ he said.

  ‘Frankly, I don’t think my eyes can take another adjustment,’ I said. ‘What happens if we’re caught in here?’

  ‘We won’t be caught in here. That’s the point. As far as I know, it’s the only room in the school that you can’t unlock from the outside if it’s locked from the inside.’

  ‘Someone could still knock.’

  ‘Not in the last two periods of a Thursday. I can’t see the Design and Technology teachers desperate for a copy of The War in the Pacific. All the history staff have gone home.’

  I leaned against a bookshelf; Brody leaned against an opposite bookshelf with a sigh. He folded his arms. We didn’t look at one another.

  ‘So, do you come here often?’ I said in a voice sarcastic enough to break the silence.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I use the desk in the corner. It’s the soft room you get when you’re too old for a soft room.’

  ‘I don’t even know what a soft room is,’ I said, still not looking at him.

  ‘Anger management, 1919,’ said Brody, smiling but not making eye contact. ‘You know those rumours are true. A desk has been set up in here so that, when I need to, I have space to count to ten, imagine a big blue triangle and work in peaceful solitude. As far as this school’s concerned, by the way, I’m doing that now, which is why I’m not in Music. Of course, given the way you attacked the door handle, maybe they should give my key to you.’

  ‘I feel bad that you’re missing Music,’ I said, wondering whether to mention Hendrix and the other day.

  ‘I don’t,’ Brody said. ‘I’m supposed to be listening to Greg Shoal murder a Beatles song.’ I smiled, and he looked at me. ‘I’m not going out with Ashley Ventwood,’ he said after a moment, and with a quiet smirk.

  ‘Did you ever?’

  ‘Not ever.’

  Remembering her attitude in class today, I said, ‘She gave me a very different impression.’

  ‘One of the things I like about this room is that it’s Ashley-proof,’ he said. ‘She got to this school not long after I did and – wow, there’s Ashley Ventwood in English. There she is in History. There she is in Music. And the hallway. And the canteen. Everywhere – all weird glares and Goth eyeballs. That’s why I’m not in your English class. I asked to be put down. Two subjects I can stand it, three …’ He shrugged.

  I interrupted. ‘Are you seeing someone else?’

  ‘No.’ Brody still wasn’t looking at me.

  ‘Were you ever?’

  ‘Why ask me that?’

  ‘You totally wronged me at the hotel,’ I said. ‘What happened Saturday happened because you wanted it to, but it’s as though there’s someone you don’t want to find out about it.’

  ‘I’m a very private person,’ said Brody.

  ‘Oh, come on,’ I said, my anger returning.

  ‘I’m sure you’ve got more to lose with your friends, the elite, by being seen with the school psycho.’

  ‘The school psycho is Ashley Ventwood. She drew a picture in Art today of your shoes from Saturday night – your shoes on the road outside a street of burning houses. How did she know you were there? Why show that to me? Either she’s warning me to stay away from you for herself, or she’s doing it on behalf of someone else.’ Frustration made me sarcastic again. ‘Are you going out with Brett Heffernan? Or Nathan Riley?’

  An odd smile crossed Brody’s face.

  ‘Are you?’ I asked, fearful. ‘Oh my God – and you live with that guy—’

  ‘The guy I live with is a flatmate,’ he said. ‘And given what happened on Saturday, I think my preferences should be pretty well established with you.’

  ‘Please don’t humiliate me,’ I said, looking away from him. ‘Saturday was the first time something like that has happened and for me this stuff is very new.’

  I heard him breathe in. ‘Yeah,’ Brody said in a soft voice. ‘For me too.’

  44

  Maybe seconds passed, maybe minutes did. Brody and I leaned back on our opposite bookshelves and didn’t speak. When he said, ‘We were seen, you know,’ I was startled. ‘Ashley maybe heard—’

  ‘Kate Yarmouth’s brother was on the bridge,’ I told him. ‘Kate told Michelle in Biology. They didn’t know it was me, though.’

  ‘Maybe Ashley guessed. I had one of the idiots in Design and Technology hassle me about it yesterday.’

  ‘Did they know it was me?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘What did you say to them?’

  ‘ “Pass me the steel ruler”.’

  I laughed, a little nervous.

  ‘I’m sorry about telling Tripp about the fire,’ Brody said. ‘I thought you’d get something out of it. A nice medal and a free meal, or something.’

  ‘My family’s had some trouble and we’re trying to keep a low profile,’ I said.

  ‘I should have asked. I was trying to do the right thing. I’m sorry.’

  His eyes met mine but I looked away.

  It was slightly hard to breathe – the air of the tiny room was warmer for having two bodies in it and the temperature was rising on my skin. Brody cleared his throat and I swallowed. Talking about Saturday night was actually worse than just thinking about it, especially when we were standing within a metre of one another, and out of sight of anyone else. I felt my hair prickle with gentle electricity, and the sound of my pulse built from an imperceptible tremble to a subterranean bass.

  Brody’s hands rested on the thighs of his school shorts, his gaze hovering on the floor. Even in the brown light of the room, the visible power of his arms and shoulders made it impossible not to think of the rest of his body and the way it had pressed into mine on Saturday night. The shadow beard around his lips was thicker now; my cheeks burned with curiosity for the touch of his rough face against mine. My throat tightened.

  His eyes locked on mine and my voice went a few notes too high when I said, ‘How could Ashley guess you were with me?’

  Brody said, ‘Because I don’t think she’s blind.’

  We stared at each other. We were both breathing heavily.

  With one step across the room, I seized his face and kissed him.

  Brody’s arms wrapped around me, crushing my ribs. Our grabbing mouths collided, bruising our lips with the force of contact. The muscles of his chest were hard and his grip was tight; I snatched at his hair and tore at his shoulderblades as our tongues flicked and curled together. I felt the sides of his arms slide against the
bones of my hips and ribs and then I was weightless, lifted into the air, kissing him furiously, breathlessly.

  And then Brody ripped his mouth away and said, ‘No, stop,’ and then ‘Stop!’ and he wouldn’t look at me as he let me fall out of his arms. My feet hit the ground as his hands fell; my skin froze in the places that he suddenly wasn’t touching.

  He walked towards the furthest shelf away from me. I was weak, panting, sweating, trying to stabilise myself against a bookcase while his back was turned. Brody hung his head, clutching two parallel edges of two bookshelves in his hands and setting his shoulders. He panted through his nose like a bull, as though he was going to butt his head against a shelf.

  45

  ‘What’s wrong?’ I asked in a tiny voice, grasping for a piece of bookshelf to hold me up.

  His breath was still heavy. ‘This is a bad idea.’

  Overwhelmed, I let my body slide towards the floor, until I sat crumpled on the dusty carpet. ‘Brody, treat me better than this—’ I said.

  He didn’t turn around; his shoulders rippled as he gripped the shelf. ‘It’s dangerous,’ he said.

  ‘We’ll make it safe.’

  He half-looked over his shoulder. ‘That’s not what I’m talking about,’ he said. Again, he exhaled like a bull. ‘Maybe Ashley is trying to protect you – maybe all of this—’ He stared at his feet. ‘Sophie, I’m … bad luck.’

  My kiss-swollen lips fell open. ‘And that’s why you blanked me at Noah’s?’

  He turned around. His left hand clung to the bookshelf. ‘There was a fire.’

  ‘They said it was the storm.’

  He kneeled down in front of me, on the floor. ‘The broken windows?’

  ‘It just happened,’ I said, touching his arm.

  ‘But these things happen around me all the time.’ He pushed his fringe out of his eyes. ‘I don’t want them to happen – to you.’

  The fringe fell back into his eyes but his gaze was unbroken. We sat so close now that I extended my own hand and swept his hair behind his ear.

  ‘You’re not making this very easy,’ he said.

  ‘Much easier to sit alone,’ I said, ‘avoid everybody, not talk, sit in the Senior Quad and live through trashy library books …’

  ‘I’ve seen some terrible things,’ he said. ‘And deserved to see them.’

  ‘For punching some guy from Shoalhaven during a soccer game?’

  Brody shook his head. I could see that he was stopping himself from explaining too much.

  ‘I know you’re not a vampire, Brody,’ I said with a twisted grin. ‘Vampires can’t grow facial hair.’

  He laughed. ‘Is that so?’

  ‘Trust me – I read heaps of magazines.’ I traced my finger over the golden-brown bristles above his lip. ‘Vampires, no facial hair.’

  ‘Maybe vampires just remember to shave,’ he said, catching my wrist. The strength of his grip caused my heart to beat faster. Our faces were so close that I could see the irises of his eyes were patterned with a lattice of diamonds. ‘So I’m what, then? A werewolf?’

  ‘No, your teeth are too small. No dead-giveaway pointy incisors,’ I said, touching his jaw. He didn’t let go of my wrist. ‘And we both know you’re no fallen angel, magic elf or killer robot.’

  Although he smiled, his voice lowered. ‘You could have died in that fire.’

  ‘Because you’re unlucky?’ This close to Brody, the aura of his body itself was dragging me in, closer to him, closer. ‘If it’s true, you and I should’ve been killed by falling bookshelves by now.’

  ‘Yeah, but maybe I stopped it in time.’ Brody looked away, but he gave my wrist a squeeze. He swallowed; his throat bobbed.

  ‘Maybe you’re nuts,’ I said. ‘Either way, Brody Meine, whatever’s going on here, with you and me … It just doesn’t feel like bad luck.’

  He leaned his head towards mine, as if in submission, and our foreheads met. His breath was on my lips, and his hand slid from my wrist along my arm to my sleeve. As if waiting for a signal, his fingers hovered near the edge of the fabric. I nodded, and his hand climbed to my shoulder, stroking the skin under the shirt. His other hand felt under my shirt for my belly and caressed the skin. I let out a little sigh.

  Brody’s eyes closed, and I kissed him – an easy kiss, just to his lips.

  Where before everything had happened so quickly, now everything was wonderfully slow. The kiss lingered; his hand moved smoothly from my side to my back and my skin thrilled to feel his fingertips exploring these untouched territories of my body. I clutched the front of his shirt.

  I didn’t feel nervous, or fleshy, or exposed, even as his hands travelled under my clothes over the curves of my body, a body that only the mirror had ever seen. I leaned forward and slid my own hands under his shirt. The soft hair and skin of his chest were warm under my palms – I wanted to hold more of him, have more of him … I could feel his blood’s rhythm pumping through the hard flesh of his chest.

  Through the door, there was another world where a bell rang. Brody ignored it, so I did too. The school seemed very far away from the space we were in.

  His arms were tight around me and we kissed again. His wet tongue and lips slowly explored my swollen mouth. God, he was so beautiful – not just in the way he looked but in the way the fringe of his hair stroked my eyebrows, in the tight blades of tendons stretching in his arms, in the valleys of his smooth neck. As our bodies entwined, I kissed his chin and eyelids; he kissed my throat around the thread of my necklace.

  We kissed and kissed; every touch escalated the sensations that flowed between my skin and his skin, pressed together on the floor of a room that only locked from the inside. Brody’s mouth was rough, soft, all over my neck, and his thumbs were under the back strap of my bra. If he popped the hooks, I decided, I would rip the thing off myself. His kisses descended – from my chin, to neck, to collarbone, to—

  Brody hesitated, then stopped. His heart was beating so strongly I could feel it against my chest even as his eyes flicked towards the door. He dropped his hands from my back to the floor, his ears pricked towards a noise inaudible to me.

  ‘What is it?’ I said, confused.

  ‘Something’s going on outside,’ he said. Seconds passed in silence, then Brody said, ‘Get your stuff.’

  He yanked his shirt back into place, while I struggled to untangle the ruffled folds of my own clothes.

  ‘Something …’ said Brody, standing, walking towards the door. Behind it, I could hear some kind of muffled scuffling. I stood up, slinging my bag over my back. The air was suddenly cold – I grabbed Brody’s arm in fright. ‘What is it?’ I said.

  His skin was cold, his knuckle white around the doorhandle.

  The noise was building; it sounded like a storm or a whirlwind but the book room was still, even as the floor underneath our feet began to ripple with the thuds of running steps. Brody listened. The door shook.

  His eyes were dark. ‘When I open the door, you close it and you stay in here.’

  ‘I’m not leaving you.’

  ‘Don’t argue with me.’

  I heard things collapse, a roar that grew into something worse, and screeching.

  ‘It’s not going to be the way it was after the fire,’ I said to him, ‘not after today, Brody. I won’t.’ My breath was icy with fear.

  The noise was louder now, and even through the door, even through the echoes and the cloud of different sounds, I could hear it was children screaming – hundreds of them, screaming for their lives.

  ‘Brody, what is it? What’s causing it?’ I repeated, digging my fingers into his arm.

  I saw only the green flash of Brody’s eyes. ‘It’s bad luck,’ he said, and thrust himself through the open door.

  I lost sight of him at once as his body dived into the ocean of crows that churned in the corridor, black against the students who fought the screeching birds in terror.

  46

  Everywhere, black wings and black
beaks and black eyes ripped and darted towards the flailing limbs of people trying to flee them. The corridor was dark with the shadow of birds crashing into one another; the crows flew in every direction with the deafening noise of squawking and beating wings. I caught only glimpses of people – here, a wrist; here, a scrap of red hair and two eyes shut tight. On a grabbing hand I thought I saw a bleeding wound.

  I stood on the outskirts of the screeching cloud. The crows didn’t attack me but their sharp, frenzied movements whipped at the air and the air whipped me. My first instinct was to run to the stairs and somehow force my way outside – but I saw it was impossible. A mass of blackness gushed out from the stairwell as though from a burst pipe. I froze. Crying rang in my ears.

  I found the strength to shut myself back in the book room. I was sweating, panicked – the room was tiny, the air in it was dusty and thick and I started coughing again, hacking up fluid as I fought for shallow, terrified breaths. It took some seconds for me to stop coughing and by then my eyes were streaming. I forced my back against the door and tried to work out what to do. Behind me, in the corridor, alarm bells activated and I could hear the muffled instructions of Mr Tripp through the school PA system. The only words I could pick out were ‘fire assembly’ and I realised that if there was a school fire plan, I hadn’t learned it in the last two weeks.

  I decided that the only way out would be to throw myself into the storm of tearing birds and hope there were enough people battling down the stairwell to stem the flood. I stood taking deep breaths for minutes, trying to embolden myself to take on the corridor.

  There was a flutter – like the sound of book pages thrown into the blades of an overhead fan.

  On the top of the bookshelf on the wall with the windows sat a fat crow, preening its feathers.