by Dawn Sister
They were just about to stuff the last of the raked leaves into the compost, on top of the leaves Liam had cleared the other day, when they heard a voice calling from the house.
“Woohoo, Liam.”
Liam could see Mrs Appleby waving from her back door. He’d have to go and see her before she decided to come out, pick up a rake and join them in their task. With a glance at Jack, he indicated he would go and speak to her and left Jack to clear the last pile of leaves.
“Mrs Appleby. It’s cold, you should be indoors.” Liam told her as he reached her back door.
“So should you, for that matter, although, I am very grateful that you came.” She held out her hand as if testing for rain. “It’s considerably warmer than it should be this time of year, don’t you think?” She mused. “I’d say we were having a second Indian summer, except it’s mid winter.”
“It’s mild now, but that storm earlier on was probably an indication of more bad weather to come.” Liam commented, wiping his hands on his jeans before accepting the mug of tea Mrs Appleby passed to him.
“Storm, my dear?” She questioned, looking puzzled. “We haven’t had any storm. It’s been brilliant sunshine all day, sweetheart.”
“Oh.” Liam frowned.
Jack had been right. The storm appeared to have missed the village altogether.
“Goodness.” Mrs Appleby gasped, as she leaned over to look past Liam and down the garden path.
Jack was not clearing the last pile of leaves, as he was supposed to, but burying himself in them and jumping out with delighted whoops of laughter.
“Oh god.” Liam buried his face in his palm, trying hard not to laugh at Jack’s antics.
“I didn’t know you had company, Liam.” Mrs Appleby’s tone was one of amusement. “If I’d known that, I wouldn’t have called you at all.”
“Don’t worry about it, Mrs Appleby. Jack and I weren’t really all that busy.” He watched as Mrs Appleby’s wrinkled face broke into a broad, knowing smile.
“Is that so?” She grinned. “Well, thank you for clearing those troublesome leaves anyway. The job is appreciated more because of what you had to give up to come over.”
“Mrs Appleby.” Liam snorted.
“Will your friend want some tea as well?” She asked.
Liam turned, intending to shout, but Jack was close enough to hear Mrs Appleby’s question.
“Tea?” He asked, his head tipped to one side inquisitively.
“Er, a hot drink?” Liam made the information into a question, hopefully to make sure Mrs Appleby didn’t realise he was explaining to Jack what tea was.
“Oh.” Jack smiled. “Tea sounds lovely, thanks.”
He joined Liam on the doorstep as Mrs Appleby disappeared into her house to make more tea. Jack leaned against the door frame, pulled out an apple from his pocket and bit into it with a satisfying crunch.
“Where’d you get that?” Liam gasped.
“Found it.” Jack told him, with smug a wink. “It was just lyin’ on the ground back there.”
Liam made a face, screwing up his nose. “Urgh, it’ll be rotten, Jack. The apples were finished at the beginning of October.”
“Not this one. It’s fresh. See?” He held it out for Liam to inspect.
Sure enough, it was fresh, as if it just fallen from the tree.
“But that’s impossible.” Liam gasped. “I pruned that tree back as far as I could, just last week. There weren’t any apples on it, and there weren’t any lying about when I cleared the leaves.”
“Well, you must have missed this one.” Jack shrugged, continuing to enjoy his apple, seemingly unconcerned about the entire thing.
Liam was still frowning when Mrs Appleby reappeared with another steaming mug of tea for Jack.
“Hey, I remember you.” Jack said in sudden delight as he took the mug from her. “You’re the lady that leaves the apples out in that box thing.” Mrs Appleby always left out a box of apples for the neighbours to take what they wanted, but someone, or something had been pilfering them overnight before the neighbours could get a look in.
“I certainly am.” She regarded Jack with narrowed eyes. “Are you the young whelp that’s been scrumping them, then?”
Jack grinned, his natural charm seeming to gloss over the fact he was basically admitting to thieving. “Oh, they were the best apples. So juicy, Mrs A.” He licked his lips and Mrs Appleby looked on, smiling as if she were indulging a small child.
“Well now.” She grinned back at Jack, the expression taking years off her face. “As long as they found their way to someone who appreciated them, I can’t bring myself to mind so much.” She patted Liam on the back as he choked quietly on his mouthful of tea. “Just leave the mugs on the doorstep, boys. I’ll get them later, and thanks again for coming when you obviously had other things to do.” She winked at Liam, making him blush from the roots of his hair to his toes, and left them to it, closing the door after her.
“What a lovely lady.” Jack grinned around a mouthful of apple.
“Yes.” Liam scowled at him, willing his flaming cheeks to cool down and his whirling mind to stop whirling.
Mrs Appleby had talked about nothing else but those damn disappearing apples all autumn and most of the winter. She’d had all sorts of plans for the culprit if she’d ever caught up with them. Yet here she was forgiving Jack on the spot when he confessed.
The fact that Jack turned into a fox and seemed to have forgotten that he had, wasn’t the only weird thing to have happened that day. In fact, it wasn’t even in the top three.
“Could this day get any stranger?” Liam asked, mostly to himself.
Jack’s hand rested on his arm. “In this together, you said.” He reminded Liam, smiling gently but looking a little uncertain.
“Of course.” Liam covered Jack’s hand with his own. The man looked tired and Liam was reminded that they had just had a very near brush with death. They both needed to rest. “Come on, let’s get back up to my cottage and see if some rest won’t help you get your equilibrium back.”
Jack grinned. “Thought you’d never ask.” He winked as he placed his empty mug down and flicked his apple core, with unerring accuracy, into the distant compost heap.
He began to shiver as Liam ushered him out of Mrs Appleby’s semi-autumnal garden. They hadn’t taken more than a few steps when they were confronted by Raphael.
“Thank God you’re out and about, Liam.” He said as he limped towards them with purpose.
“What’s up, Raphael? We were just about to go home.” Liam told him, putting an arm around Jack’s shoulders to try to keep him warm.
Raphael made an “oh” shape with his mouth, before grimacing in apology.
“This is going to sound really selfish of me then, but remember we were discussing how dry my garden is and how well it drains?”
“Ye-es.” Liam stretched the word out, feeling yet another weird event was about to be revealed.
Raphael stood aside and indicated his garden gate. “I don’t think we have a dry soil problem now.”
Liam stepped through the gate and gave a cry of surprise. Jack squeezed his head beneath his arm and gasped as well. The bottom half of Raphael’s garden was completely flooded.
“The burn seems to have burst its banks.” Raphael explained needlessly, because that was made obvious by the fact that the garden, which had been dry as a desert two days before, was now a small lake.
“I tried to get down there to see if there was a blockage,” Raphael went on. “but I got stuck and almost lost my leg.” He pointed down to his right leg and Liam nodded. Jack, however, gasped, pulling away from Liam and bending down to examine Raphael’s leg a little closer.
“How can you almost lose a leg?” He asked, glancing up at Raphael. “It seems fine to me.”
“It’s a prosthetic.” Raphael frowned, giving Jack a strange, curious look. “Below the knee.”
“Oh.” Jack still looked none the wiser. Liam grabbed his hand
and pulled him to his feet.
“It’s okay, I’ll take a look at the burn, although, we’ve just been in Mrs Appleby’s and there’s no sign of flooding.”
“No.” Jack added with an enthusiastic grin. “Just a lot of leaves, which was fun, but a bit confusing.”
Raphael gave him a startled look, and then frowned in confusion as well.
“Didn’t you clear those leaves the other day, Liam?”
“Yes.” Liam nodded. “Wind obviously blew them back.”
“And that storm.” Jack said. “That was just weird.”
“Storm?” Raphael asked in shock. “When was the storm? Did I miss it?”
“See?” Jack turned to Liam. “I told you it was wrong.”
“It happened though.” Liam said, scowling now, because the conversation was getting back to weird and he didn’t want it to, especially not in front of someone else. “Let’s take a look at this flood.” He suggested. “Maybe the leaves have caused a blockage or something.”
The flood was far too deep. There was no way they could reach the stream without taking another swim in icy cold water. Liam was surprised and shocked that Raphael had even tried.
Raphael left them to it after arguing that he was willing to help and being talked out of it. Raphael retreated into his cottage in a bit of a bad mood. Liam hadn’t wanted to make him unhappy, but he worked better when he didn’t have to worry about people’s prosthetic legs floating off downstream.
Now he only had Jack to worry about, which was enough really.
“Liam, what’s a pros- a poro- a prospetic?” Jack asked after Raphael had gone, stumbling over the word as if it was unfamiliar. “And why was your friend so angry about it?”
“Raphael lost his right leg below the knee in a motorbike accident.” Liam explained with a sigh as he glanced in the direction his friend had disappeared. “It was long before I moved here. He doesn’t like to talk about it or to be reminded that, despite being fiercely independent, there are some things you just shouldn’t do. Wading about in a flooded garden is definitely one of them.”
Jack looked like he wanted to ask more but stopped himself.
“What should we do now, then?” He asked, obviously deciding to focus on the task at hand.
“The only way to get to the stream is through Mrs Appleby’s garden.” Liam mused. “I can see if there’s any blockage and remove it, get the stream flowing again.”
“Good idea.” Jack agreed, his enthusiasm not waning. “I’ll help you.”
“Are you sure you’re up for this?” Liam asked him, very aware that the man was already cold and exhausted.
“I’m fine.” Jack dismissed his concerns. “Come on, it’ll be dark soon.” Jack led the way to a gap in the fence that was low, and hardly big enough for Jack to fit through. Liam hadn’t even noticed it and certainly hadn’t known about it, despite having worked these two gardens for at least three years.
Jack squeezed through the gap with surprising ease. Liam shook his head as he followed, managing, with less dignity than he’d have liked, to squeeze through the gap after him. Just another thing to add to the list Liam had unconsciously labelled “Weird Shit About Jack”.
The stream ran through the bottom of both Mrs Appleby’s garden and Raphael’s. The bottom part of Mrs Appleby’s garden was left to go wild at her request, so Liam hadn’t ventured down there in order to clear leaves earlier. At the point where the stream left Raphael’s garden and moved into hers, there appeared indeed to be a blockage. Rubbish and debris had formed a pretty effective dam: used water bottles, empty drinks cans, plastic bags and about another village worth of autumn leaves.
“How can there be more leaves?” Liam asked in utter despair. “We’ve just spent an hour clearing an entire village load off Mrs Appleby’s bloody lawn.”
He climbed down into the dry stream bed and waved his hands at the wall of leaves that had managed to completely halt the usually fast flowing, shallow stream. They were a rainbow of autumn colours, from bright yellow through to a deep rich red, with some pinks and browns added in for variety.
“If they’d come from the compost, then they’d all be brown and rotting by now.” Liam continued.
Jack jumped down into the stream bed too, and examined the blockage more closely, poking at it with curiosity.
“If I could just pull this branch out.” Jack said, his tongue stuck out of the side of his mouth in concentration. He grabbed the branch before Liam could stop him.
“No, Jack, wait we’ll be….”
Liam was too late. Jack pulled out the branch, managing to dislodge the blockage in one swift movement. Before either of them could react, the blocked water cascaded over the leaf dam and over them, completely drenching them and sweeping Jack off his feet.
Liam caught his hand and pulled them both back to the bank as the torrent of water slowed to the burn’s usual calm trickle.
“Bloody hell.” Liam exclaimed, shaking water from his hair and jacket.
“Sorry.” Jack grimaced, shaking himself from head to foot and showering Liam with more water.
“Jesus, Jack, don’t make me any wetter. God, you’re like a bloody dog.” He stopped with a gasp, and regarded Jack with wide eyes, because of course he was like a dog, he was a fox.
“I’ll try not to take that as an insult.” Jack sniffed, giving Liam a haughty look, before grinning impishly. “Besides, I doubt I could make you any wetter than you are.” He wrapped his arms about himself and shivered. “M-Mother Earth, I’m cold.” He stammered, as his teeth began to chatter. “D-don’t know what’s going on with my teeth, either. They’ve never done that before. C-can’t s-seem t-to stop them.”
“Come here.” Liam stood and pulled him into his arms, rubbing his hands over Jack’s back to try to warm him up.
The man was shaking, and at first, Liam thought it was just from the cold, then he realised Jack was sobbing.
“Jack?” Liam gasped in concern and held him away from his body, so he could get a good look at his face. Jack’s eyes were filled with tears, but not of sadness. He was laughing.
“Oh, Mother Earth, Liam. Your face when I pulled that branch out.” He giggled.
Liam felt his lips twitch into a smile. Despite the drenching, the situation had been quite ludicrous. He started to laugh as well, pulling Jack to him and holding him tight.
“That’s the second dunking we’ve had today. We’ll catch our deaths if we stay out here. Let’s get you home.”
“Home.” Jack smiled up at him, snuggling into the taller man’s embrace. “That has a nice sound to it.”
Liam’s breath hitched as he met Jack’s crystal-clear gaze. He could lose himself in those eyes. He could almost forget the way they’d bleached of all colour as the man had changed from human to fox. He could even forget that fantastical fact too. He could forget all the weird shit that was happening around the village, and the fact it had started when Jack had shown up. He wanted to forget those things, because what he really wanted, more than anything, was to take this man home, warm him up and keep him safe forever.
He bent his head and pressed his lips to Jack’s. Jack’s arms wrapped around his neck and pulled him down into the kiss, his lips cold, as they had been that first day. Had it really been only yesterday? They soon warmed however, becoming feverishly hot as the kiss ended.
