by Abe Moss
“It’s snowing!”
Everyone gathered in awe. Emmett squeezed in to see for himself. Thick, fluffy flakes floated into the dark yard, gentle and serene. Tobie asked if they could go outside to see, to which Mrs. Holmes declined.
“Just for a second? Please?”
She crossed her arms, bracing for the cold. “Just for a second.”
Without coats, they stepped outside. They folded their arms around themselves—Emmett, Clark, Tobie, Jackie, and Tyler, huddled in a group on the porch steps, watching the dark, clouded sky shedding its icy flakes.
“It’s so quiet when it snows,” Jackie noted. Emmett listened for himself and found it odd just how true it was.
“Okay, that’s enough,” Mrs. Holmes said, standing just inside the door, though her eyes were fixed on the sky as well, similarly enchanted. “Come in before your toes freeze off.”
“I’m building a snowman first thing tomorrow morning,” Tobie announced, shivering inside. “I’m not even eating breakfast.”
“Hmmm,” Mrs. Holmes said, unsure.
Cold and eager, they slipped into their warm beds that night, each of them eager to sleep so that it would be morning already.
✽ ✽ ✽
The sky shoveled snow upon them all night long. When they woke, Tobie dashed to the bedroom window, climbing over Tyler’s sleeping body to see.
“Whoa.”
In a flash, he was dressed and racing into the hall.
“He wasn’t kidding,” Clark said.
When Emmett and the others eventually went downstairs and into the kitchen for breakfast, Tobie was indeed already outside, just as he’d promised. Mrs. Holmes stood at the stovetop, scrambling eggs.
“Did he really skip breakfast?” Clark asked.
“A man of his word,” she said. “Oh, and Eileen should be stopping by this morning. She’ll have a new coat for you, Bailey. I also asked if she’d pick up a few pairs of gloves and hats…” She took a sip of coffee, eyeing the windows across the foyer. “Hopefully her little Jeep makes it up fine.”
“Mrs. Holmes,” Emmett said, “Do I have gloves?”
“You do. They’re in your second bag. I’ll get them out for you.”
Emmett felt a mild pang of something he’d not felt for a while.
His mother always thought of everything.
✽ ✽ ✽
Tobie was on the far side of the clearing, pushing a boulder of snow over half his own height. Emmett was amazed to see an even larger ball of snow he was rolling it toward. They approached him, admiring his work so far.
“Think you’ll be able to lift that?” Clark asked. “Need help?”
“You’re all too weak to lift it,” Tobie said, panting as he rolled, rolled, rolled. “Tyler will help once he’s up, though.”
“Ha, yeah,” Jackie remarked. “Just like he helped dig our fort.”
“If you guys want to build something, start over there,” Tobie pointed to the other side of the clearing. “I’m using this snow.”
“You can’t claim snow,” Jackie said.
In the quiet, overcast clearing they heard what sounded like a car’s engine approaching.
“Do you hear that?” Jackie said.
Sure enough, a green jeep appeared through the trees, creeping around the bend into the clearing. Tobie threw his arms up as it passed.
“Watch where you’re driving!”
The jeep parked in the center of the clearing. The door opened. After a pause, Eileen stepped out into the snow, her hands full.
“That’s good snow you’re parking on!” Tobie whined.
She turned, squinting over the bright snow. “That’s good snow you’re parking on!” she mockingly threw back at him, grinning.
She headed inside and left them to their play.
✽ ✽ ✽
In no time at all, Clark, Jackie, Emmett, and Bailey were finished with their own snowman. Bailey offered a handful of rocks she’d picked out for the face.
“These are great,” Clark said. “Thanks.”
Jackie quickly found two sticks of irregular shape and differing lengths, which they stuck in as arms on either side.
As they admired their work, Tobie passed them by, stealing a glance on his way to the house.
“How’s yours coming along?” Jackie asked derisively.
“Fine,” he answered, grimacing. He muttered something else as he climbed the porch steps, which none of them quite heard.
Jackie shrugged, peering at his unfinished monstrosity across the yard. “One day he’ll learn.”
✽ ✽ ✽
After a midafternoon bath, Emmett returned to the boys’ bedroom. Alone, he shut the door behind him. He took a moment to peer out of the bedroom window, at the snow-capped trees outside, the white ground down below. It was already winter, he thought.
He remembered on days like this, when it was too cold to leave the apartment, his mother used to read her books until the sun went down. She’d read them to him on occasion, but they hardly made any sense. And if ever they did make sense to him, they made him uneasy…
…they’re going to tell you we’re crazy…
“I’m not…” he whispered, and his words turned to fog on the window.
He climbed off Tyler’s bed and returned to his own. On the floor, he dug through his bag. Past the toys, past the books, past the clothes. When he thought he’d gone through it all, he felt a painful tug against his heart. He dug through a second time, a little more carefully…
When the bedroom door opened behind him, his bag was empty, its contents upended on the floor in a wide spread.
“Oh.” It was Clark. “Can’t find something?”
Emmett didn’t answer. It was maybe the sixth time he’d looked at each individual item in his bag, the one he searched for nowhere in between.
“You okay?”
“I can’t find it!” he said. “It’s not here. I can’t find it…”
“What are you looking for? Maybe I can help…”
“It’s…” Emmett wiped his eyes, so blurry with tears he was merely simulating a search at this point, as he saw nothing his hands touched. “A necklace. It’s got a black stone with… with… a small white one… in the middle…”
Clark joined him on his knees. He sifted through Emmett’s things, sliding clothes here and there, going so far as checking inside a couple pairs of Emmett’s socks. He looked under the bed.
“I already looked under there,” Emmett said, beginning to calm down. “It fell off my bed a couple times before, so I thought…”
Clark sat up, stumped. “I don’t know, Emmett. When’s the last time you saw it?”
Just then Tobie entered the room. He paused as saw Emmett’s red, cried-out eyes.
“What, have another nightmare?”
“Just ignore him,” Clark said.
Emmett sighed, disappointed. “Thanks for helping. I’ll look some more later.”
Clark got to his feet. “Hope you find it.”
That was it, he thought. The one thing his mother told him not to lose. She’d asked him to keep it safe, to give it back when they saw each other again. Whenever that day would be…
Now he almost wished he’d never see her again, just so he wouldn’t have to let her down.
✽ ✽ ✽
“What are you reading that for?”
Tobie spied over his sister’s shoulder as she read at the kitchen table that evening, while Emmett and Bailey drew pictures beside them. Behind them, Mrs. Holmes, Eileen, and Tyler prepared dinner.
“Because, I don’t want to end up stupid like you,” Jackie said.
Mrs. Holmes looked over her shoulder, “I have lots of educational books to read, Tobie, if you’re interested.”
“No thanks.”
“Well,” she said, “maybe you’d like to help set the table, then. Dinner’s almost ready.”
Mrs. Holmes sent Eileen upstairs to fetch her father, and enlisted everyone e
lse’s help to get the table ready. In no time at all, the food was placed and most everyone was seated.
“I think we’re about ready to eat,” she said. She peered around the kitchen. “Is everyone—”
A hush fell over them as they heard what sounded like sobbing from upstairs. Mrs. Holmes lifted her eyes to the ceiling, listening, the rosy contentment disappearing from her cheeks.
“One moment, everyone,” she said. “I’ll be back.”
She left into the foyer, an urgent bound in her step. As she reached the stairs, the sound of Eileen’s sobbing grew louder, already on her way down to them. The children remained at the table, overhearing everything.
“What’s going on, what’s wrong?” Mrs. Holmes asked, her voice bordering on panic.
“He doesn’t…” Eileen’s sobs stole her breath away. “I…”
“What’s happened? Is your father all right!?”
“He doesn’t remember me!” Eileen moaned. “He… doesn’t recognize me!”
Eileen’s sobs thickened, rippling with grief. They muffled as Mrs. Holmes must have comforted her. The children exchanged fearful, guilty looks.
“Oh, honey…” Mrs. Holmes soothed.
“Why is she crying?” Bailey whispered.
Soon the food grew cold on the table. Still the children waited.
CHAPTER SIX
LIFE AND DEATH
Mrs. Holmes cut and handed out lengths of paper ribbon, blue and red, which the children hung as streamers wherever they pleased. They taped balloons to various surfaces around the kitchen and tossed them on the floor. Tobie dumped confetti in his sister’s hair.
“Tobie!” she shrieked.
It was Clark’s birthday. He was turning ten, the same age as Tobie. Tobie made sure to remind everyone on numerous occasions that day there was still a six-month difference between them.
As per Clark’s favorite meal, Mrs. Holmes made grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup for dinner. When they were finished, everyone eagerly helped clear the table, ready for what came next.
“Are you sure you all still have room for cake?” Mrs. Holmes asked.
She received a unanimous yes.
Paper plates were handed out. The children seated themselves once more, squirming excitedly. Tyler turned out the lights. The kitchen fell black. Blind and brimming with anticipation, the children quieted. Hands brushed the tablecloth, rustled in laps. Feet swished and kicked absently under chairs. Mrs. Holmes unpackaged a match at the kitchen counter.
“All right, let’s see here…” she mumbled, working in the dark.
As everyone waited with bated breath for the candles to be lit, to see the cozy flames swell to life… it was only Emmett who turned in his chair. He looked toward the foyer behind them, black and hidden as the rest of the house that evening, and tilted his head to listen. Someone stifled laughter at the table. He paid them no mind. They didn’t hear what he did. Beneath the sounds of Mrs. Holmes attempting to strike a match, there was… something else…
Strike.
Nothing.
Strike.
Not yet.
Something that sent cold goosebumps crawling across his arms. It was close. In the dark, his ears revealed to him something his eyes could not. In the doorway. It joined them in their festivities, watching, though no one but Emmett felt it. Heard it.
Strike.
It was music. Low, hushed. But it was more than that. Nothing Emmett had ever heard before. Not on the radio, or by any instruments he knew. It grew sharp, high, casting its cold electric tendrils through Emmett’s toes, his fingers, along the nape of his neck. Pinned him to the seat of his chair. Then it swept low, flat, brooding, full…
Emmett’s plunged. Falling in place. Stomach clenching.
The music swelled. It bloomed into an intricate chorus, chirped and spangled, alien and bitter, and it seemed to go on and on, though Emmett only sat listening for a moment. Time was still, and he gave himself to its hypnosis.
Strike.
The thing in the doorway breathed music. Emmett tasted it, its breath in the back of his throat, old and dry. His lungs filled with it, played a music of their own, drumming his heart, rattling his chest.
“Don’t lose me.”
A voice rippled in the doorway.
“Find me.”
The fifth and final strike yielded a flame, a weak glow, of which Emmett saw nothing with his back turned. Even as Mrs. Holmes spread that flame to the other candles, one by one, turning the cake into a delicious beacon in the dark, his attention remained fastened beyond the table and the others, on the presence looming nearby, in the doorway between the kitchen and the foyer.
“Emmett.”
Mrs. Holmes lifted the cake from the countertop. The candlelight danced across the ceiling.
“Find me.”
As she brought the glowing cake to the table, in its light the doorway was revealed, and Emmett glimpsed the darkness there. His jaw dropped in a voiceless scream. Oily and shimmery. Towering. It was spilling into the room, reaching a writhing hand to him, crusted and shadowed.
“HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU.”
His hands lay folded in his lap, nails dug into his palms. If the others weren’t so engrossed by the singing and the cake, they’d have seen him there, at the end of the table, in the fringes of the candlelight, vibrating like a cold, tiny dog. And maybe they’d have seen it, as well. The dripping, monumental relic bending into the room without a body, without a head, oozing a dark melody from its pores.
“HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU.”
Then, just as Emmett thought he might be fainting, vision blurring, darkness constricting… the formless entity began to recede from the light. Its musical odor lifted, fading, fading, fading…
“HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DEAR CLARK.”
It slipped gradually back behind the corner. Its glistening shadow made no sound. Only its tune… rising, falling… rising, falling… both sweet and repulsive. Then at last, before plunging completely into the black void of the foyer, Emmett found its eyes.
Smiling. Affectionate. Loving. Eyes.
“HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU.”
Their voices died down. Emmett turned in his seat. With tears streaming down his face, he watched vacantly as Clark leaned in and blew the precious light from the room.
In the dark, all but Emmett clapped.
✽ ✽ ✽
In bed that night, as the other boys whispered, Emmett listened and watched with distant eyes, distant thoughts. He focused on their words, but his outer-reaching thoughts were drawn to other places, and his attention pushed and pulled between the two until all he could manage was a mindless, neutral in-between.
“Think I could read some of your comics when you’re done?” Tyler whispered across the room.
“Sure,” Clark answered, admiring their covers as best he could in the dark. “When I’m done.”
Tyler settled into bed, beat his pillow into submission before putting his head down. “Cool.”
“So, what did you wish for?” Tobie asked.
Clark paused. “I’m not supposed to say.”
“Psh.” Tobie rolled over, bedsprings creaking. “Just say it. Wishes aren’t real, anyway.”
Clark thought about it. He tucked his comics under his bed for the night.
“I wished I could see my parents again someday.”
Hearing this, Emmett was finally handed a thought to conquer all the others, the horrors itching in the back of his mind. The fear melted away, and that familiar pang sprouted inside him. Something missing. He turned over, faced the wall, and gave himself to the feeling. He cried in secret, thankful just to be reminded of something that wasn’t a waking nightmare. Something real.
Without a hint of humor or snark—uncharacteristically somber, in fact—Tobie replied: “That’s a good wish.”
✽ ✽ ✽
One evening, just after the children had climbed into bed for the night, there was a knock at their door.
They each got out of bed and opened the door for her. She stood just outside between the two bedrooms. The opposite door opened up likewise, Jackie wrapped in a blanket in the dark, Bailey peeking out from behind her.
“I’ve just received an unfortunate phone call. An old friend’s mother has passed, and I’ve been invited to the funeral. I’ve asked Eileen to come here in my place, so she can take care of Lionel as well. I just wanted to tell you all now, in case I’ve left already in the morning.”
“When will you be back?” Tyler asked, sounding especially concerned.
“It’s a few hours’ drive, and I might be staying a couple days.”
“Sorry about your friend’s mom,” Jackie said.
“Thank you,” Mrs. Holmes said. “That’s very sweet of you.”
The children waited for something more, yawning and rubbing their eyes.
“Well, that’s all I wanted to say. Sleep well, and I’ll look forward to seeing you again in a couple days. Be good for Tyler and Eileen, please.”
With that, she waved them all toward their beds and shut their doors behind them.
✽ ✽ ✽
Just as she’d promised might be the case, Mrs. Holmes was long gone the following morning before any of them woke. Eileen was already there, sitting in her mother’s reading chair drinking coffee with a book in her lap. She’d brought with her several bags of groceries to last them the next couple days.
“Apparently they’re forecasting another storm rolling in tonight. Supposed to snow ALL DAY tomorrow. A blizzard!”
An excitement took hold of the children, Emmett included. With Mrs. Holmes gone, the possibilities for fun and freedom were endless.
“We’re gonna paaaaaarty!” Tobie exclaimed.
The others laughed. Bailey shrieked enthusiastically.
Eileen shrugged. “Probably not.”
✽ ✽ ✽
The children played outside in their light jackets that afternoon, enjoying the warm before the storm. Eileen sat on the front steps, her third or fourth cup of coffee in hand. Tyler sat beside her, talking in low voices as the others burned off their afternoon energy.
“Hey Tyler!” Tobie yelled. He clapped snow between his gloves, forming a ball. “How much you wanna bet I can’t hit that upstairs window?”
