Shades of Darkness

by A. R. Kahler

  “It’s going,” he repeated, and chuckled to himself. “Who’d have thought doing a dozen different surrealist landscapes would be tiresome?”

  “I could have told you that one,” I said. “Though the idea is rockin’.”

  He laughed again and slung his canvas messenger bag over his shoulder. “Did you really just use the word ‘rockin” ?”

  “I did. Is there a problem?”

  “Not at all. And thanks. I was worried it was pretentious.”

  I shrugged and held open the door for him. The hall outside was mostly empty as the school filtered toward dinner, which I would be skipping to go fishing. My stomach rumbled again, and I mentally assured it there would be plenty of dolmas and hummus to keep it from mutiny.

  “You heading to dinner?” he asked.

  Okay, what was going on? Was I just overthinking things, or was it honestly unusual for him to have lingered after class to chat when we hadn’t exchanged more than a passing hello all year?

  “Actually, no, I’m heading out with a friend.”

  “Oooh, is it a date?”

  My imagination, or did his smile slip just a little?

  “Definitely,” I said. “Though his boyfriend will always have dibs on him.”

  He raised an eyebrow and I realized where that mental train was going. Oh Islington, where sexuality was as fluid as the blood in our horny little veins.

  “I mean, no. He’s gay. Like, really really gay. It was a joke.”

  “Got it,” he said.

  We walked in silence for a bit, passing the works of other students and pausing to stare on occasion. I pretended Chris was Oliver. Cool, confident, sexually uninterested Oliver. It made the whole interaction much easier.

  “I can’t believe it’s in two weeks,” I muttered, staring at a student’s impeccable self-portrait. Two more weeks to finish my thesis and tie up my entire high school career in one neat little package.

  “Lucky. You’re getting it over with. I’ve got another four.”

  “More time to prepare?” Of course. His show was going up with Ethan’s—it would mean I couldn’t skip the opening.

  “More time to panic, in all honesty.”

  When we resumed walking, I couldn’t help but notice that he kept glancing over to me, like he wanted to ask me something. It just made me walk a little faster. Thankfully, Jane was coming down the stairs from the painting studio. She bounced over to us as she zipped up her downy aquamarine coat and grinned.

  “Hey guys,” she said. “Mind if I walk with you?”

  “Not at all,” I said. Maybe a little too quickly. I didn’t want to be alone with Chris, and I couldn’t tell if it was because I didn’t trust him or myself. Don’t be so nervous, you can trust me. I shoved down the voice before it could get louder, jabbing my finger with my room key to stay grounded.

  “How’s it going?” Chris asked Jane. If he was upset by someone else joining in, he didn’t show it. Maybe he was just being cordial.

  “Great,” she replied. “Just trying to get tomorrow’s homework finished up.” She nudged me. “Though Little Miss Amazing over here’s already done.”

  I shrugged and tried to fight down my second blush in five minutes. My heart was racing from the words that had bubbled up from the depths. I clearly needed sleep. And out of this situation. Where was Ethan? I needed his snark to keep me in balance.

  “It’s what happens when you don’t have a social life,” I said, looking everywhere but at Chris. “Work comes easier.”

  It was only a partial lie. The truth was, I could spend days painting and not notice the time. I’d finished the assignment two days early not because I was trying to be efficient, but because I’d seriously lost myself to the process. I almost missed sign-in because of it. There were reasons I set alarms when I went in to paint on my own.

  “So says the girl who’s ditching us for an off-campus fling,” Chris said.

  “Let me guess—Ethan?”

  “She gets me,” I said, gesturing to Jane.

  We reached the end of the hall. Chris opened the door for us and bowed as we exited. Five o’clock and the sky was already dark as death. Most kids complained about it, but I actually really enjoyed the short days. It wasn’t an emo thing; I just wasn’t cut out for sun or heat. Another reason I sent myself to boarding school in the northern wilds.

  “Anyway,” I said, wrapping my burgundy scarf around my neck. Chris buttoned the last few buttons of his tan duster and Jane pulled on a knit hat. It felt like it was going to snow. We already had two feet on the ground, but I seriously hoped for another flurry. The woods felt most alive in the silence and snow. “This is where I must bid you adieu.”

  Chris shook his head.

  “Don’t say that. Adieu is sort of a permanent farewell. It pretty much means ‘to God.’ ”

  How fitting, I thought, and shoved it back down with the rest of my past.

  “Oh well then,” I said, struggling to keep my wit in check, “since I don’t plan on overdosing on tea, I shall say . . . catch you later, alligators?”

  Jane laughed and gave me a quick hug. Chris just stood there awkwardly. “In a while, crocodile,” he fumbled.

  “Nice try, champ. Better luck next time.” Then I slapped him on the shoulder (holy crap, what was I becoming, a bro?) and turned before that itchy gravity between us could connect. I didn’t look back to watch them head toward the cafeteria. I kept my eyes on the road, but I had no doubt that the murder of crows on the power lines weren’t the only ones watching me depart.

  Get a hold of yourself, Kaira, I thought as I walked. You just need to sleep.

  Yeah. Tell that to my dreams.

  I shook my head and focused on the chill air, the way it made my nostrils freeze. This is what’s important. Where you are, not where you’ve been. Your past can’t hurt you unless you let it. I’d learned a lot in the last few years at Islington. The most important, though, was how to keep moving forward.

  There was something about winter dusk that made Islington look like an entirely different beast. Color seemed to seep from the landscape, and everything sharpened in shades of steel and snow, save for the warm lights flooding from the practice rooms and dorms. Kids wandering around in parkas and gloves held hands and threw snowballs and sang show tunes (drama kids). It looked like the cover for an admissions packet. Every single place on campus was an invitation to come inside and get warm and have some hot cocoa. I glanced behind me to where the Writers’ House beckoned at the lane’s end, a great A-frame lodge created just for the writing classes, and one of the many buildings I wished I could convert into my personal living space. And ahead, the five dorms housing all of Islington’s four hundred students waited.

  I trudged past the boys’ dorms and up the front steps into Graham. As expected, Ethan was already waiting at the front desk, perched on a stool with Oliver at his side, chatting with Maria. The rest of the waiting area was empty—no one checking their cubby mailboxes or watching TV in the lounge behind the front desk. Everyone was at dinner. My stomach growled again. One of the drawbacks of boarding school’s food schedule: It turned you into a geriatric in a week. Dinner by five? Please.

  “Hey boys,” I called.

  Maria—my hall’s RA, with red pin-up hair and a penchant for polka dots—looked past Ethan’s shoulder and raised one perfectly painted eyebrow.

  “And bombshell babe,” I corrected. “How was the rest of the day?”

  “Droll,” Ethan said lethargically. Oliver nudged him.

  “Ignore him. He’s channeling angsty art student hardcore today.” Oliver walked over and gave me a hug while Ethan slouched deeper onto his stool. “Poor boy says he’s dying of cabin fever.”

  “I can fix that,” I said. “You coming with?”

  It was hard to keep my question smooth. Oliver had never, ever come to one of our tea dates. It’s not that he wasn’t allowed, it’s just that . . . it was kind of Ethan’s and my time.

&
nbsp; “Nope,” he said. “I need to practice for the concert tomorrow. You coming?”

  “Of course she is,” Ethan called from his seat. He sat up a little straighter. “She’s my date.”

  “Speaking of, I’m starving.” I looked to Maria. “We all set?”

  Normally I’d have to sign out to be off campus, but it was rare that I actually signed anything. Ethan had probably already told Maria we were heading out and filed the necessary paperwork even before I’d left class. They were tight like that.

  “Yup,” she said. “Provided you bring me back a scone.”

  “Done.” I kissed Ethan on the forehead. “You ready, hot stuff?”

  “And eager.”

  He slid off the seat and took Oliver’s and my hands, then led us out the front door. The three of us walked together toward the parking lot behind the cafeteria. Somehow it had gotten even darker in the half second we were inside. The streetlamps along the lane came on, casting their fierce white light over everything. A crow, startled by the sudden light, took off with an angry caw down the lane and into the woods by the lake.

  “So what’s on the agenda for tonight?” Oliver asked. “We still on the hunt for the man who’ll melt Kaira’s icy heart? Or woman, I guess.”

  I nearly skidded on a patch of ice. “Um, homo say what?”

  “Smooth,” Ethan said, and I wasn’t certain if he was talking about my horrible comeback or Oliver’s question. They both knew that dating wasn’t in the cards for me. But Oliver seemed to forget that at times. “And no, tonight we’re going to escape the meaningless cycle of art and academic industry.”

  “By working on homework,” Oliver said.

  Ethan pointed to his boyfriend. “That . . . is accurate. But we’re working off campus, so it doesn’t count.”

  “What’s gotten into you today?” I asked, eager to turn the conversation back to him and away from talk of potential boyfriends. “You’re more broody than usual. Did you watch The Breakfast Club again?”

  Oliver snorted and flashed me a grin. Ethan’s lack of a laugh told me I’d hit somewhere close to home. Woops.

  “I got a C on my American Civ paper,” he muttered.

  In Ethan’s world, that was pretty much the equivalent of being shot in the kneecap. It had taken me a few months to understand that his perfectionism wasn’t just a facade—he really did need to be the best at everything he tried. Otherwise, he took it as a personal failure.

  “I’ll take some credit for that,” Oliver said, letting go of Ethan’s hand to wrap an arm over his shoulder. Ethan, being a good eight inches shorter than Oliver, leaned in to the embrace. “I feel like I’ve been distracting you too much, now that college apps are over.”

  Ethan just shrugged. “I don’t mind the distraction. Just need to get better at time management.”

  Oliver gave him a squeeze. And I knew, then, that Ethan wasn’t just upset about the grade. He was upset about why he’d gotten the grade. In a few weeks we’d be hearing back from colleges, and once that happened, the happy little dream of the three of us living in this Eden together would shatter. I knew Ethan was trying to make the most of the time he had with Oliver. And I knew it killed him that he couldn’t have the boyfriend and the best friend and still keep his grades up.

  Priorities, man. For some reason, art school fucked with them.

  We parted ways at the steps leading to the cafeteria. Oliver gave Ethan another quick kiss and pecked me on the forehead. Then, with a backward glance and wave and “Make sure you get her at least one number!” he bounced up the stairs and into the bustling dining room. From the smell that wafted out, it was Chinese night. Definitely a good reason to eat off campus. Islington couldn’t do fried rice to save its life, and the smell of soy sauce and General Tso’s stuck to you for days.

  “Sorry about that,” Ethan muttered as we walked down the drive to the parking lot.

  “What?” I asked, looking away from the crow perched above the cafeteria door.

  “Being grumpy. Oliver being . . . Oliver.”

  “It’s why I love him,” I said. Chris’s face flashed through my mind. Someone to melt my heart? No way in hell; my heart was perfectly fine on its own, thanks. I stuffed the thought down into the shadows. “And it’s why I love you. Tea will make everything better.”

  “You’re so British it hurts,” he said, and opened the passenger door of his old Lincoln town car for me. “But thankfully not with the teeth.”

  He was the only person I knew under sixty who had those beaded seat covers. The rest of the interior was, like him, a study in presented chaos: Papers and art supplies were strewn over the backseat, though there wasn’t any rubbish in the footwells or wrappers on the cushions. I’d spent so much time in this car that it felt like a second home, to the point where I kept a chunk of my art materials in here, just for occasions such as this. He sank into the driver’s seat and turned the ignition on, cranking up the frozen heat. Some whiny indie band came on, a “local favorite” as he liked to say, which just meant they played banjo and hadn’t had a tour outside of the state.

  “Shall we?” he asked.

  I nodded, and we pulled out of the lot and onto the narrow road leading into town. The birds in the branches watched us the entire way, and I couldn’t fight down the shadowy mantra in my mind, no matter how loud he blared his music.

  A murder of crows. A murder of crows. And the dream, like a stain in the night air—the face of my ex watching me through the bleeding boughs.

  Never ignore an omen.

  The teahouse was at the edge of the nearby town, down a small side street between a secondhand store and the organic supermarket. Fairy lights swayed back and forth above the alley like mutinous stars ready to fall. It was a good twenty-minute drive, seeing as Islington was settled far outside of civilization. I don’t know how Ethan had found out about this place, but I was glad he did; T’Chai Nanni was a second sanctuary, a more urban Islington. The café itself was a small house stuck in the side of a shopping center. A wooden porch stretched out front, covered by more fairy lights and a tin roof laden with snow. Empty chairs and cushions were arranged in circles on the patio, braziers and wine barrels in between. On warmer nights, they had live acoustic bands out here, or poetry readings, and the chairs would be swamped with hipsters smoking hand-rolled cigarettes and hippies smelling like patchouli and weed. Like I said, a more urban Islington, hipsters and pot smoke and all.

  By the time we pulled up, the first of the flurries had begun drifting down from the sky. I smiled as I stepped out of the car, tilting back my head and sticking out my tongue. I didn’t catch any flakes. Ethan trudged over to my side and held my hand and did the same. Silently. We stood there for a good minute or so, waiting for snow to drop and dissolve. The air was sharp and metallic and smelled of cumin and cold, a strange balance of ice and warmth from T’Chai Nanni. No matter what, the first moments of snowfall always made me feel like a little kid, like anything was possible and everything was beautiful.

  Lately, it seemed, I needed that reminder more and more often.

  After a while, Ethan squeezed my hand and stepped aside to grab our portfolios from the back of his car. I opened my eyes and stared up at the crows darting about like black comets. Dark omens. Shut up, Kaira, you’re being ridiculous. Then Ethan handed me my portfolio and began walking toward the café, and I followed, trying to push down the scent of blood lingering in my nostrils.

  T’Chai Nanni was warm and humid and smelled like cardamom and cloves, which immediately brought my brain back to reality. The birds were just birds, and everything else was my tired imagination trying to fill in the blanks. Chalk one up to the artist’s brain: always creating, and especially great at creating problems.

  Plinky guitar music drifted from the speakers. It felt like being in some hippie hobbit hole: The walls were all rustic wood, the ceiling exposed rafters and prayer flags; bronze elephant statues and paintings from local artists made up the eclectic de
cor. And—the first real blessing of the day—all the mismatched chairs and tables were empty. The coming snow must have scared people off.

  “Score,” Ethan said.

  The back curtain opened and Veronica stepped out. She was maybe forty, with light blond hair and green eyes and a willowy frame. As the owner, she also knew tea better than anyone else. On many occasions, Ethan and I had plotted how to steal her away to be our Tea Mistress in our future bungalow.

  “Evening, Veronica,” I said, hanging my coat on one of the cast brass fingers sticking out from the entry. An electric heater hummed below it.

  “Nice night, eh?” she asked.

  “Lovely,” Ethan said.

  “Hungry?”

  We both nodded. “Hungry” was an understatement.

  “On it.” She disappeared into the small back kitchen and Ethan and I took up our usual space in the far corner. The two sofas here were plush red velvet, the arms and cushions faded and threadbare. Ethan chucked off his sweater and threw it over the back, then unzipped his portfolio and began rooting through projects. I shuffled around in my own bag and pulled out a couple of papers, spreading them on the Tarot-card-mod-podge table in front of us.

  Veronica came by a few minutes later bearing a tray with two handmade teapots and thick mugs. There were also two bowls of soup and a steaming loaf of fresh bread.

  “You’re an angel,” Ethan said when she set the pot of faerie’s blood tea in front of him.

  “And you’re a fabulous brown-noser,” Veronica replied, reaching over to hand me my pot of spiced lemongrass chai. Our orders were predictable, but since she hand-blended the teas each time we came in, the taste was always just a little bit different.

  “What’s on the agenda for tonight?” I asked her. I poured a stream of milky tea from the pot; the scent was almost heavenly enough to make me forget my looming thesis. Almost.

  Veronica reached into one of her apron pockets and pulled out a novel with a half-naked man on the cover and a woman kneeling in front of him, hands on his chest.

  “The classics,” she said with a wry smile. Veronica had once admitted to doing a PhD in English literature; it had been enough to turn her away from reading “good” books for life. It also earned her another point in my eternal devotion department. That and her wicked-good chai.