“Not as much now. When I was younger, it happened more often. Too many stories to tell. Kids can be cruel, ya know?”
Olivia suddenly felt heavy. A weight settled in her chest, tears pricking her eyes with the unexpected realization of what Isaac’s life had really been like all those years growing up in Woodlake.
At school.
The same school she attended. She was right there, all those years, and yet she hadn’t seen, or maybe she just hadn’t been paying close enough attention.
She stared at Isaac as if she was seeing him for the very first time, all over again, looking through him almost.
It was as if she could see right into his soul and the sorrow in her expression made his skin feel like thorny barbs were being dragged over the surface.
“Tell me about it, Isaac. Please. Tell me one of your stories.”
Isaac found the light and flipped it on. His grandfather was sitting at the table in the back room—the room he used for playing cards and cleaning his guns. He looked up when he heard Isaac’s feet moving toward him on the hardwood floor.
“I know, I know,” he started, holding up his hands in surrender when he noticed the horrified expression on his grandson’s face.
He’d spent the best part of the morning and most of the afternoon too, hand stitching the bottom half of a zombie costume to the top half of a werewolf costume, both outfits he’d picked up at a fancy dress store in Williamstown about a month earlier.
“You’re fourteen years old now. You’re too big for Halloween costumes. You’ve told me that a thousand times before, but just hear me out—”
“I’m not going to the school disco.”
“Yes, you’ve told me that a thousand times too. But—” Sandor held up his hand again before Isaac could interrupt him, rattling off all the reasons why attending the school Halloween disco was a horrendous idea. “This year is different. I’ve come up with a plan. Here, come look.”
Isaac scratched at his face. He wasn’t supposed to, he knew that. The doctors had reminded him repeatedly before he left the hospital—it opened him up to infection and secondary issues that might cause even more scarring—but his latest skin graft was slowly healing, and it itched like crazy.
Isaac gritted his teeth, walking toward the table. “I’m not going, Pa. Please don’t make me. It’s not because of my scars, I… uh… I just don’t like dancing.”
“Bullshit!” his grandfather said, in his usual rough and tumble manner. He knew his grandson better than anyone else. “You’re not fooling me with that crap, boy. But I had a thought. You used to love Halloween when you were little. Your momma sent me photos every year of you dressed up as different things—a pirate, a cowboy. And that one time you were dressed up as a sailor was absolutely priceless.” He laughed. “But since you came to Woodlake you haven’t wanted to dress up, not even once. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it sooner.”
“Think of what sooner?”
Sandor scooted his chair back quickly, making the legs scrape against the floor. He held up the creation he’d been working on—torn fabric covered in fake blood, shredded at the arms, and around the bottom of the pants. It was gory and gruesome. A hairy, gray werewolf mask hung from the shoulders of the blood-stained shirt, dropping backward with the weight of the head in the old man’s hands. “No one will know it’s you.”
Isaac rubbed his neck, staring at the monstrosity of a costume. No one will know it’s you. The words rattled around his head like they were inside a pinball machine—not sure where to settle, finding their grounding for just a split second, before they shot off again in search of some place new to land.
Isaac was instantly intrigued, and he took the costume from his grandfather’s outstretched hand, the material limp in his palm as he turned it over a couple of times.
Anticipation rose in his gut, making him feel winded. “No one will know who I am,” he said under his breath, taking his time, weighing up his words. “I could wear a mask. No one will know it’s me underneath. Do you think it will work?”
“Yes, absolutely.” Sandor’s chest lifted with an exaggerated, relieved breath. “Now come here and try it on. You’ve probably grown another two inches since I bought it.”
And so it was, that on the very last night of October that year, Isaac Stone walked into the school gymnasium and he sat on the bleachers right along with everyone else—his heart pounding, anticipation bubbling away beneath the plastic of his gaudy mask—and for the first time in as long as he could remember he didn’t stand out.
He wasn’t different.
He was just like all the others, watching swirling couples on the dance floor, making out beneath low hung fairy lights and black streamers that were supposed to look like spider’s legs hanging from the rafters.
Isaac fiddled with the neck of the werewolf mask. It was hot inside that thing. But it did the job, and not one person had paid an ounce of attention to him from the moment he walked through the balloon archway at the gymnasium doors.
His Pa’s idea had worked a treat—a trick or treat, Isaac thought to himself, laughing inside the mask.
He watched as couples rocked back and forth on the dance floor in front of him, their feet hardly coming off the ground, just a small sway from side to side that made Isaac look down at his own feet.
He was wearing the only pair of sneakers he owned. They were red, and a little grubby for a school disco, but he’d outgrown all his other shoes and his grandfather had said he couldn’t get any more until the next pension check cleared.
The red of his shoes worked well with the red of his blood-splattered costume though, and he scuffed the toe of his high-tops into the faded wood of the bleachers—flicking a piece of chewing gum off the edge and watching it tumble down onto the seat below.
“Want to dance?”
Isaac straightened instantly, looking up. It was Cindy Macmillan. She was standing beside him, wearing a cat woman costume, looking down at him nervously, swirling a length of her hair around her fingertip.
Cindy was a shy girl who went unnoticed most of the time. She’d been sitting on the bleachers not far from where Isaac sat when he first arrived, he’d seen her there earlier, but he’d been so preoccupied with his shoes just then that he hadn’t even noticed her approach.
“Uh, I…”
“Please?” she said, hopefully. “I hate sitting up here all by myself.”
“Okay.”
Isaac had no clue what he was doing or how to dance. But he knew what it felt like to be left out, to sit by himself, so he nodded and jumped to his feet, wobbling a little from the sudden movement.
Cindy linked her fingers around Isaac’s elbow, and he led her through a crowd of skeletons, ninjas, and ballerinas, delighted by the prospect that still no one knew who he was.
It was the first time since he’d arrived in Woodlake that he fitted in. He was just another kid looking to have a good time, and Isaac didn’t even care if it was by default.
No one was looking at him.
No one was staring.
They just danced around him—some even moved out of his way to let him through, possibly thinking because of his size that he was one of the football players—and Isaac couldn’t have been happier. Warmth spread through his chest and he smiled so big his cheeks ached.
Cindy followed him closely, and for a split second—as she wrapped her arms around his neck, his hands finding her waist, both of them swaying back and forth under the swirling lights to Michael Jackson’s, “Man in the Mirror”—Isaac was just a boy, dancing with a girl, and life couldn’t possibly get any better.
He was thoroughly enjoying himself, enjoying the way Cindy felt in his arm, soft and warm like girls were supposed to feel. And he was watching her so closely that he didn’t see them coming.
“Ohhhh, scary costume, Stone!”
Isaac looked up over the top of Cindy’s head, his vision obscured by the mask. The eyeholes were only small, and he had
to move his head in different ways so that the mask lined up with his own eyes.
And then he saw who it was, and in that moment, he knew his perfect evening was about to come crashing down around him.
Kyle Mason stood in front of him—The Joker—grinning back at him with a wide, bloody red mouth and a sinister white face. Kyle and his pathetic friends all laughed, and Isaac’s entire body throbbed with humiliation, his blood thrumming through his ears so loudly it drowned out the music.
“Here’s the twenty I owe ya,” Kyle said to Cindy. “Run along now like a good little girl and be grateful that I spoke to you at all.”
Cindy instantly dropped her arms to her side. She looked humiliated. And it took Isaac a moment to catch on when she snatched the twenty-dollar bill from Kyle’s outstretched hand and mumbled something under her breath that sounded a little like ‘I’m sorry’, before she disappeared into the spinning lights of the auditorium.
Kyle was surrounded by his usual posse of no-hoper sidekicks and Isaac’s heart sank. He broke out in a sweat, his skin boiling hot beneath the mask.
Until it wasn’t.
The cool air slapped his face like a bucket of cold water when Kyle ripped the hairy disguise from his head and waved it around like he was trying to lasso a baby cow.
“Did you really think you could get away with it?” Kyle’s voice held venom. “Your scruffy red sneakers were a dead giveaway.” He narrowed his eyes and leaned in close to Isaac when the rest of the boys laughed. “Take off the hideous mask, Stone. You look like a monster. Oh, wait. You just did. The hideous monster is all you!”
Isaac felt his chin wobble, but he bit down hard on his lip so the others wouldn’t notice. He wouldn’t give them the satisfaction. Pain stabbed at his chest, disappointment at his resolve, and when he took a step to leave, Kyle grabbed his shoulder and jerked him backward, making the raw skin of his recently operated neck scream in protest.
“You can run, but you can’t hide. Haven’t you figured that out by now? You’re a mess, man. Get home before you start crying.” Kyle laughed and shoved Isaac’s shoulder again, making him flinch from the searing pain it caused. “Now, if it’s alright with you, I’ve got a ladybug waiting for me out there somewhere on the dance floor. That girl’s all mine. And she always will be.”
And Isaac left the school for the very last time that night, never to return again.
Olivia covered her mouth with her hand, her blue eyes filled with tears. “Oh, my God. Isaac, I’m so sorr—”
“Don’t. Don’t feel sorry for me. Please, not you of all people.”
Olivia wasn’t sure what to make of his plea. She wanted to say more, to ask a thousand more questions. But she didn’t want him to leave. Isaac had a way of shutting down when she tried to open him up. And whether he’d meant to or not, he’d just opened himself up to her.
Just admitted something to her. You of all people.
But she wasn’t sure what that meant. She wasn’t sure what any of it meant.
Olivia looked down at her plate, embarrassed as understanding quickly dawned on her. “I was the ladybug,” she whispered. Closing her eyes briefly, she took a breath, and then looked up again. “The ladybug Kyle was talking about. That was me.”
“It was?”
“Yeah, I was there that night. But I was running late because Mom couldn’t make my wings stay in place. She ended up sewing me into the costume and Kyle was so pissed off by the end of the night because he couldn’t get his hands inside it.”
Isaac’s eyes darkened at the mention of Kyle’s name, but he didn’t say anything.
What was he thinking about? Olivia wasn’t sure. Did referencing her ex-boyfriend mean anything to him? Did it affect him in any way?
Isaac was rude and abrupt most of the time. But in fleeting moments he showed himself in a completely different light. It felt like he was trying to say something to her, without actually saying it. But like most everything else about Isaac Stone, it would probably remain a complete, unfathomable mystery.
Speaking of mysteries.
“Tell me more about the box,” he suddenly asked, taking another bite of chicken, all talk of high school and disastrous Halloween discos forgotten.
He chased down his mouthful of chicken with a large swig of beer. He did it casually, like he hadn’t just shared a terrible memory with her, hadn’t just shared a part of himself with her that would forever be etched in his memory.
He placed the bottle back down on the table again and used his fork to stab a potato. “Abe told me that Eleanor left you a box,” he continued. “But no one knows what’s inside. What’s that all about?”
Olivia pushed her chair back and stood, wandering over to the mantle above the fireplace where she’d placed the box the first night she’d arrived. She walked back to the table and handed Isaac the box.
“Here. Take a look for yourself. I’ve studied this thing for days now. Maybe you’ll have better luck. There’s something inside, you can feel it sliding around if you tip it end on end.”
Isaac shook the box gently. “Yeah, you’re right. Definitely something in there.” He placed his fork back down on the edge of his plate and held the box to his ear. “It’s not metal, or coins. Not loud enough. Perhaps documents of some kind?”
“That’s what I was thinking. Though what?”
Isaac studied the box carefully, his eyes taking in every detail of the carved sides and the intricate lock. He dipped his head and smelt the timber, as if the answer was hidden there somewhere in his heightened senses.
After a few seconds, he glanced across the table at Olivia from beneath his long, dark lashes. “We could just break it open.”
“No.”
“Wouldn’t take much, not with a pair of pliers.”
Olivia laughed and shook her head. “No. Don’t you think I would have done that by now if it were that easy?”
“Why not?”
“Because I promised Mayor Dell that I wouldn’t open it. Mrs. Ackerman was most certain about it in her letter. She left me a letter, as well as a house, and a box. Sorry, did you know that? About the letter. I keep forgetting you weren’t at her funeral. Do you want to read it?”
Isaac shrugged. “If you don’t mind?”
Olivia reached across the dining table and slid a piece of paper toward him that had been folded neatly and tucked under a fruit bowl.
Isaac took his time, taking in every word very carefully. He read Mrs. Ackerman’s letter slowly, trying to make sense of it all, wondering how Olivia fitted into any of it, but secretly grateful that she was. He couldn’t imagine sitting there having the same conversation with anyone else.
He read the letter, word for word, and then sat back in the seat, scratching his head.
“Jesus,” he muttered. “She was always a little eccentric, but this is next level.”
“I know, right? This damn box has been on my mind for almost a week now, yet I’m still no closer to figuring it all out. There’s just got to be something I’m not considering. Something that’s most likely right under our noses. Something we just can’t see for looking.”
“Seriously, it would take me like, two minutes to—”
“You are not smashing it open!” Olivia shook her head vehemently. “What are you, a Neanderthal?”
She laughed louder this time, her head tilted back, and Isaac laughed too, a deep, genuine sound that thundered around the room, apparently surprising the both of them.
Isaac’s laugh caused Olivia’s heart to crash to a stop. What was it about this man and his ability to make her feel weak?
“More chicken?” she asked, taking a slow breath to steady herself.
Isaac held out his plate, watching Olivia closely. “Yes. Thank you.” Their eyes met and locked somewhere in the middle, and his cheeks burned as their gazes clashed. He brought his plate back down again to the table and started eating, only looking up when Olivia said his name, just once, catching him off guard.
He nodded.
“Are we friends again?”
Isaac looked around the room, almost desperate to find something other than their conversation that he could focus his attention on. “Were we ever friends?”
His voice wasn’t harsh or bitter. He was just asking a question. Plain and simple.
Olivia smiled. “We are now.”
It was almost a week before Isaac and Olivia ran into one another again.
Olivia had woken to the sounds of birds outside her window and also the high-pitched pounding of what could possibly be described as Satan himself punching his evil fist through sheets of rock-hard metal.
Or maybe it was just an air compressor?
She stirred in her warm bed, rolling to her side so that she could see the clock on her nightstand. It was half-past-seven, and her muscles tensed instantly. She flung back the covers. Her bare feet hit the hard timber floor, and it was in that slight pause in time that she realized it was Saturday morning and she wasn’t going to be late for work.
There was no work today, and Olivia sighed happily, falling back into the mattress, then rolled onto her side and gazed out the window that faced the eastern side of the property.
The sun dawned in weak sprays of golden light that pushed through the clouds and made the meadows beyond the window look like thousands of tiny white diamonds had been scattered across the rolling landscape.
The first snowfall of the season had descended days prior, very light at first, just a smattering of white. But overnight it had increased, and now the whole of Briar’s Creek looked like a scene from a snow globe.
A blanket of thin mist hovered just inches above the snow. It was peaceful, ethereal almost. And Olivia’s eyes circled the property a couple of times before they landed softly on Isaac’s house across the way.
The Winter Before Page 11