Winterfolk

by Janel Kolby

  “He’ll be here,” I say. “I need to be patient like he says.”

  I pull King’s skullcap off my head, and my hair rests around me. I want to feel like a girl with possibilities.

  His face is blank, but he shuffles his feet.

  I hand the cap out to him.

  “You should keep it,” he says. He turns off the radio and climbs in the tent. “I’ll find myself another. Like you said. Soon, everything will be back to normal.”

  24

  “RAIN, ARE YOU AWAKE?” Jessiebel’s nose tickles against mine.

  I push him away. “Yes.” My eyelids are so dark that I know it’s the middle of the night.

  King breathes deep below us, and a high whistle ripples outside through the leaves.

  “Do you hear that sound?”

  “Tree wind.”

  His knees knock into mine. “Do you hear the twigs snapping? Can you hear it?”

  I settle into the night and smile. “Night birds.”

  “Night hellions, you mean.”

  “You’ll get used to it.”

  “How long did it take you?” he asks.

  “I don’t know. I can’t remember.” But that isn’t true. “A long time. When I couldn’t sleep, King would come in and tell stories.”

  “You’ve been friends a long time.”

  I rub my knuckles across my mouth. “Yes.”

  “How much older is he?”

  “Two years.”

  “Two years can be a lot.”

  “A lot for what?” I ask.

  King stirs.

  Jessiebel tucks a strand into my recapped hair and speaks softer. “I had my first boyfriend when I was fifteen. It’s normal to be feeling things. I’ve noticed.”

  I feel like the tent has opened up and bright lights shine on top of me. I turn my face to the pillow, even though I know it’s still dark and he can’t see. “Stop talking. I don’t know what you mean.”

  He pats my head. “All normal. Nothing is wrong with you.”

  “He doesn’t see me like that.”

  “He cares a hell of a lot about you. It’s not hard to see. He’ll be with you no matter what.”

  How can he know? Wishes change, and not even a star lasts forever. The world changes in our sleep, and sometimes when we wake up we have to start over.

  “Please be quiet.” I press the pillow to my eyes. “I want to sleep.”

  “I will. If you tell me a story.”

  “Fine.” I speak into the pillow. “There were three little pigs—”

  “Don’t be lazy. Tell me one of your stories. Start with ‘once upon a time.’”

  “There was never ‘once upon a time.’”

  “There always is,” he says.

  “Not for me. Now shut up and go to sleep.”

  “Shut up? Are you still mad about the wish? I told you it was for the three of us.”

  “How could I be mad? I gave you my shoes.”

  “So it’s the shoes? You should have them back. I want you to.”

  “I told you I’m not mad. Those shoes won’t ever fit me. I’m grown.”

  “I’m glad you have it under control.”

  “Yes, I do. And I don’t want the shoes.”

  “Great, I’ll keep them, but they’re not shoes, they’re boots. Perfect with a kilt, if I still had it. You know where I got my kilt? Once upon a time I got a package from a boyfriend who was Scottish. Getting a package is a big deal, especially if it’s a kilt from your boyfriend. And he loved me. He was actually from Scotland. I mean, he lived in Scotland. He lives in Scotland. I met him online. And we never actually met, but that’s where I’m going to live someday.”

  “Online?”

  “No, in Scotland. I met him online. On the computer—you know, that device like a radio you use to talk to people and send pictures.”

  “Oh, I know what that is.”

  “Seriously, you need to go to school. He’s the one who sent me the kilt. I never met him face-to-face, but once upon a time we could’ve. We so could’ve. And we will someday. He sent me pictures of him in his kilt, and OH MOTHER OF GOD.”

  “You loved him.”

  “I guess, yeah . . . What was that?”

  “What?” I ask.

  “The scratching on the tent.”

  “It was the grass. Maybe a rat. But rats are all knowing, you know?”

  “ONCE UPON A TIME. ONCE UPON A TIME. ONCE UPON A TIME. ONCE UPON A TIME.”

  “Hush.”

  “HUSH?!” he says. “You tell me there MAY BE a rat clawing its way in, and you want me to hush? Do you know what kind of diseases they carry?”

  “Hush, and I’ll tell you a story.”

  “Yeah, I’ll hush. ONCE UPON A TIME, ONCE UPON A TIME, ONCE UPON A TIME.”

  “Freaking hush!” King says. “Let her tell you a story.”

  The tent silences.

  I curl my legs away from King. He’s awake. I’d never be able to look at him again if he heard what Jessiebel was saying.

  I try to explain. “I was telling him it’s normal to feel scared with all the noises outside. I was going to tell him a story, but he wants a once-upon-a-time one. A real one.”

  “Then tell him,” King says with an edge to his voice.

  I reach back to find a memory, but I only see a castle with too high of walls. “I don’t have one.”

  “You do,” King says. “Everyone has a time. Everyone has a place. Including you. Tell him a story.” His voice softens. “Once upon a time.”

  I peer into the castle.

  25

  NOT ONCE UPON A TIME.

  ONCE.

  There was a home.

  With solid walls that never caved in and doors that swung open and closed. It had four panes of glass in front, four in back, and two on each side, called windows—so clear you might think their sole purpose was to dissolve the inside from the outside.

  In that house, not a drop of water seeped.

  A woman lived there. Tall with long, dark-brown hair. Each day she walked barefoot. Along a path of garden rocks that led from her front door to the ocean. She’d swim until the stars appeared, and ask her heart if it was ready to wish.

  She wasn’t selfish. She knew how the wishes of others burdened the stars. Made them sag and fall, then turn to rocks. That’s why she’d only make one wish, and it would be perfect.

  Each night she swam to the bottom and picked out a rock to give it her medicine. They’d never be as bright as stars again, but they still carried wishes. If she took care of them, they might come true. The stars above would see, and when it was her turn to wish, the stars would take care of her, as she’d taken care of them.

  The path grew wider until there was enough room for the woman to walk beside a man, and together they polished those rocks out to the ocean. He didn’t like how her heart looked to the stars. They were a pair, he’d tell her. And when she’d go out to swim, he’d go with her to remind her of the danger. Together, they’d collect more rocks to plant in her garden.

  The path grew wider. There was enough room for a woman, a man, and a child, and the three of them would tend the dreams of strangers. The man watched the child fill buckets for her sandcastles while the woman swam, and he worried.

  He worried so much he made his own wish. That the woman would stop looking.

  The next night the woman swam, she didn’t look for the stars. She kept facedown in the ocean.

  The man and child waited with the sandcastle.

  The sea churned, and a storm brewed.

  The man told the child to stay. He swam into the ocean.

  The child thought they must be lifting a very big rock if it needed both of them. The child walked into the ocean to help. She thought she could swim, but she couldn’t. Instead, she woke in the man’s arms by her castle. The tall walls had caved in, and the water had seeped.

  No inside, no outside.

  The child asked for the woman.

  The m
an’s watch ticked from one second to another counting the time since he last saw her. Never to look ahead again.

  “An accident,” he said.

  But the child believed the woman had wished—and she looked for her in the water’s foam.

  The man gave the child a rock,

  Black-and-white speckled,

  The last rock he had pulled from the ocean.

  The child looked inside,

  Saw the wish of a ghost,

  And planted it in her garden.

  26

  MY HANDS FIND MY locket in the dark of the tent.

  “Your mom?” Jessiebel asks.

  King rustles below us.

  “It’s a story,” I say. “But not a once-upon-a-time one.”

  “As mine was.” Jessiebel rolls closer and puts his arms around me. “Is that why you don’t wish?”

  “It’s just a story.” But my insides are caving like my sandcastle. “A stupid story about things that don’t exist.”

  “If they’re so stupid,” he says, “why do we tell them?”

  Jessiebel is asleep. King is asleep. I’m numb.

  Which is far different from being asleep. Sleep offers dreams. Numbness is nothing. I move Jessiebel’s hand off my arm and poke my toe against King’s shoulder. This time I don’t feel him. And he doesn’t feel me.

  Star medicine.

  Makes you remember. Makes you forget.

  I turn to the side of the tent and scratch it with my nails.

  The tent scratches back.

  I snap my hands to my body and scoot away an inch. Then three.

  It scratches again. Two tiny scratches near the floor of the tent. Something presses against the plastic door—the shape of a small ball or a knee.

  Scritch.

  Or a rat.

  I stick out my finger and touch gentle. The shape moves to the left. I wiggle my finger. The shape moves to the right. Rats aren’t playful.

  Scritch.

  I stand quiet to the door and check Jessiebel and King are both asleep. And then I unzip.

  The moonlight shines on Hamster 12, as black-and-white speckled as my first garden rock.

  I climb out. “You found me.”

  His nose twitches.

  I reach down to pet, but he skittles back.

  “Oh, you wanna play.”

  His nose twitches again and something sparkles near his feet. Tiny as a pebble.

  “What’s that you have? Did you bring me some food?”

  He backs up more as I pick it up. Glass, smooth and round.

  A bead.

  “Where’d you get this?” I look for figures in the dark. In my garden. Behind a tree. Or at least one who might be trying to find me, not wanting to wake the others. But no one calls out.

  I roll the bead in my palm. “Dad?”

  Rain.

  I’m not fooled. The wind carries my imagination.

  The hamster scrambles back, and I step toward it. Then it runs and looks behind. Checking I’ll follow. Which I do, of course, until I stop just to tease it. It runs back and forth to make me laugh until I take another step forward and it runs again. Down the hill and through the trees. My bare feet trample the sticks and dirt, but I don’t feel it, they’re still so numb. The hamster is fast, but so am I.

  I catch my breath as he dashes around another tree, and I swing about—the bark rough and chipping in my hand. Nearly fall on my knees, but I pull myself up to see him scurry.

  “Wait up!”

  Down and down.

  I go faster. Then stop when a figure steps through the shadows of branches. Not my imagination. Smaller than a man. Larger than a child. The shape of long hair.

  The hamster runs to it.

  The figure scoops up the hamster before it can get away. “Come here,” it tells me. A woman’s voice.

  When I don’t come, she moves toward me. Walks as if she floats.

  Her hair is thick brown, but light as spiderwebs in a wind. She wears her red dress how Mom’s hangers wore her empty ones.

  The Lady.

  It’s been a while since she’s spoken to me.

  “Why are you out alone?” she says.

  I look beyond, and my heart trips. The Winterfolk camp with its circle of blue tents and black garbage pit. I almost ran straight into them. My skin prickles. How could I lose track? I search for other Winterfolk, but the camp is silent as snow.

  I don’t think I even zipped our tent back up.

  Perhaps I’m asleep.

  I press the bead hard in my fingers, and the hurt is real. I hold it up to her.

  “The hamster brought this to me. Do you know where he found it? It’s a glass bead. One of my dad’s.”

  She holds out her palm. “He brought it to you, did he? He talks to you like the squirrels do? Like I do? Let me see the bead.”

  I walk to her slowly, in case she’ll disappear. She doesn’t. She stretches out a hand of bones covered in flesh, and the bead drops in. “It’s gold painted like my necklace. One of his originals.”

  She fingers the bead in one hand while she cuddles the hamster to her face with the other. “I recognize the workmanship.” She looks to me. “But why do you seek?”

  She breathes, and her breath covers me in emptiness.

  “He’s my dad.”

  “You’re not a girl anymore,” she says. “A young woman, it seems. Making your own decisions.”

  “I’m not. Not a real one. I haven’t used the box.”

  King got it for me once, and I’ve never had no use. He explained quicker than I understood at first. I asked questions until he slowed and told me about the shedding and changing, as if telling one of his werewolf stories under full moon and all. I didn’t believe him. But there were instructions inside for proof. Been a long time since I got that box of cotton. Now it’s gone with everything else.

  “Then maybe becoming one,” she says. “Late, but not too late. A technicality. You don’t eat enough.” She clamps down her mouth as if her words left without permission.

  “If I ate more, I’d be real?”

  She rubs the hamster’s belly. She looks to the sky, and her eyes brighten with stars. “Hold out your hands.”

  I do as she says, and she places the hamster back in them. Gentle. Its eyes watch me.

  “Do you dream? All this time I’ve watched you. I wonder if you dream.”

  “When I’m asleep?”

  “Not entirely,” she says. “The best are those between wake and sleep, when the impossible is possible. But here it can be hard to dream. Look above you. What do you see?”

  I stretch my neck up. “Branches across night sky.”

  She follows my gaze. “Yes. Branches across night sky. Dreams should go up and out, explore and be seen, but they can’t do that here. Ours get caught on all the branches. I tried. Do you see that one there, hanging in rags?”

  All I see are leaves.

  “That was my first dream,” she says. “My biggest. Easy to get caught when they’re big like that. They’ve gotten smaller to try and get through, but they still get caught—the bigger ones now part of the catching. You need a place to dream without obstructions. Where they’ll be seen. You should try the ocean. Would you like me to show you?”

  Her hair darkens. Moistens. Begins to drip.

  I try to take a step back, but my feet are too heavy.

  “That’s okay,” I say. “We’re leaving tomorrow. King said we need to leave.”

  “You follow him like a little puppy, don’t you?”

  “King?” I shake my head. “He’s my friend.”

  “Your friend?” She flips back a drenched lock, and it spatters my face. “You don’t even know that boy.”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Really?” The stars take refuge. “Did you know how he got here?”

  I wipe my face.

  “You don’t know,” she says. “I can tell by that dodo look on your face you don’t. A rat told me the story, because th
e story has many rats, and they like those kinds of stories. Plus, all stories are better with a talking rat, don’t you think? He’s fond of fire,” she says. “Did you know that?”

  “He’s not. He never lights them.”

  I do know him better.

  The Lady pauses and looks long at me. “You don’t want to hear the story? About the fire, and how he got his blade?”

  The hamster’s wet nose rubs against my palm, and I shiver. “Stop it.”

  The bead drops from her hand. “I know how to find your star.”

  My body shakes. “You’re not real. Everyone says so.”

  “I know a place. Where you will never be wet. You will never be cold.”

  “What did you say?”

  She reaches for me.

  Her fingers are the sea vines that strangle. Strong enough to pull me under. I rip from their stems, and the turning leaves of her dress blow away.

  27

  SPACES EMBRACE ME AS I run up the hill. I reach for the next space when the bushes ahead crackle. They break. And a body explodes from them.

  I dig my heels in the soil. The impact hits me, and I fall to the earth soft to protect the hamster. And then my hat is off, and hands in my hair.

  “Rain?”

  I lift my face.

  “God, Rain.” King sits me up. “What the hell are you doing? What are you doing out here? The tent was open, and you were gone, and I didn’t know what . . .”

  I lean forward to catch his breath on my neck. I nuzzle against his shoulder. He’s fresh from sleep, no shirt, his body warm against me. He was scared. That’s how tight he’s holding me. He shouldn’t have to be scared. The emptiness won’t take me.

  His neck tenses. “What are you doing?”

  “I don’t know,” I say, which is an untruth. He is real and alive. And here with me. “I’m sorry.”

  He hugs me hard. “Thought someone took you.”

  I want him to know he doesn’t need to worry. My lips are near his neck, and I lean to set them against him. Just a small pressure on the side of his neck. Not even a kiss. And it’s soft and salty as if he fell into the ocean with me. And then I do kiss, if that’s what the pressure of a want is called. Possible. Not impossible.

  I don’t care what he did.

  His hands reach to my shoulders and push me away. He’s shaking me. No, it’s my shoulders doing the shaking. “What are you doing?”