by C. E. Wilson
“I’m sorry if this is weird,” he said aloud as he warmed his hand by the heater and slipped it around her cold body. “Come on, Brynne,” he muttered. “Warm up... warm up... warm up...” He removed his hand, re-warmed it, and gently held it against her again. She didn’t feel as cold this time.
The girl shifted for the first time in his grasp and a faint moan passed through her chapped lips. Her hand grasped weakly at his finger, then she pulled herself into a ball in his hand.
Simple words came before coherent thoughts.
Warmth. She was warm and being held.
Held. She was being held tenderly by something soft and warm and alive.
Words. Someone was speaking to her with a kind and pleasant voice.
Her name.
Say my name again, Brynne wished silently, and when she heard it she felt at peace and surrendered to the warmth.
Carter found that he could breathe again now that she was stirring in his hand. She grew warmer as he watched, her skin slowly becoming pink again and her lips losing their blue tint. A faded spot began to appear on her cheek. Soon her look was that of someone sleeping rather than dead.
Sunlight was beaming through the window by the time her head lifted and her eyes fluttered open
Where was she? She was warm, but where was her cart?
The cart was gone.
The warmth remained.
Something steadily beat all around her.
She blinked several times, realizing all at once where she must be. She was in a warm cave of grey fabric being cradled by a blessedly warm large hand. And the air smelled of bread and butter.
“Carter?” she croaked out. The mouth of the gray cave opened and a large face appeared.
Their eyes met and Carter could have sworn the world stopped.
“Brynne!” he squeaked in relief and embarrassment. He pulled her out from his coat and set her carefully on her feet. “Oh good,” he breathed. “You’re warming up.” His cheeks grew pink and hot. It must have been the heater. “Oh man, I was so worried. You were outside in that cold.” He frowned and looked at the heater again.
“Carter, thank—”
“You’ll want to stay right here where it’s warmest,” he interrupted, guiding her stumbling steps to a spot in front of the heater. Was she angry at him for touching her? “Here,” he said, tapping the floor awkwardly. “Warm up. You were freezing and I was so worried.” He flushed as he pushed himself further away from her, convinced that she was going to start calling him a pervert at any moment.
“Carter…”
“Face the heater,” he said, then sprang to his feet. “Warm up. You’re lucky you didn’t become a popsicle. I’ll go get some bread so you have something to eat.” He stooped over and tentatively patted her back with one hand before he walked to the main part of the shop.
She wordlessly watched him go as the heater beat upon her. She was hungry, she realized. Ravenous.
The rack of discounted bread for tomorrow was full, so he grabbed a loaf of chocolate bread and started tearing off chunks.
“Eat,” he said, holding out the bread towards her. “And don’t move. Stay close to the heater until your hands don’t feel like ice.” He itched to check for himself but was afraid to go near her suddenly. He set down a few chunks of the cocoa colored loaf and pulled away.
Her face was lowered and did not look up.
“Thank you,” she began to mutter, but Carter jumped up again.
“I’m going to lock up and make sure the closed sign is up,” he said. “You stay there until I come back. Uh, please.” He shuffled away, feeling awkward and invasive, and tried not to let it show on his face.
After he had done these things, he found her in the same position, head bowed in front of the heater. As he sat down carefully on the floor, he wondered if he had overwhelmed her. After all, Brynne was still sitting there stiff as a board with her back to him and her face towards the heater. He was also shocked to find the bread still uneaten.
“You should eat,” he said in a low voice.
“I will, then.”
“Something wrong with it? Is it stale?”
She shook her head. The silence made him more self-conscious.
“You’re being quiet, you know. Even for you.”
Her head lifted, but did not turn. “I’ve been trying to talk you since I woke up. You keep rushing around.”
“Oh.” He flushed deeply. “I’m here now. I’m settled. What did you want to say?”
She licked her lips. Only a few moments ago she was all but shouting to get his attention, but now that Carter was completely focused on her, the words wouldn’t come.
“I don’t know what to say,” Brynne spoke up, her quiet voice carrying in the empty store. Steeling her courage, she spoke again. “Did you say you were worried about me?”
“Uh, yeah, I was worried,” he said, growing shy. “It’s not often that you find someone sleeping outside in the snow in sub-zero weather.” He shook his head. “I’m sorry, by the way. About picking you up and not asking. That must have been horrible for you.” He took a slow bite from his bread and stared casually at her back.
She didn’t respond, the silence of the empty bakery broken only by a passing car. Why couldn’t she respond, yell at him, or thank him or something? He shifted nervously.
“Yeah, I was worried,” he admitted. “What were you doing out there anyway? Didn’t you see the reports? It was freezing! They’re calling for more snow later. You could have died out there if I hadn’t be there and did what I did.” As her shoulders tensed, his eyebrows furrowed and he dared to lean a little closer to her hunched form. “What were you doing out there?” When she didn’t answer, his frown became even more pronounced. “Were you really out there all night?” No answer. “Brynne?” he tried again, wishing she would turn around to face him.
She moved finally, sitting up straight, but still not looking back. “I couldn’t go home last night,” she said in a flat voice as she stared at the heater.
“Why not?”
“I couldn’t. He wouldn’t let me.”
Carter’s eyes widened. “He? He who?”
“My father,” Brynne said, a note of sadness in her voice.
“Why wouldn’t your father let you come back?” His voice hitched as he asked the question, suddenly realizing how little he actually knew about this girl.
“I was supposed to bring home two dollars in sales yesterday, or else. You of all people know how that must have gone. No one wants to buy anything from one of Santa’s Rejects.”
“He must have known you wouldn’t be able to sell that much so quickly,” he croaked. When she didn’t respond, his hand started to reach for her. Fingertips brushed her shoulder and she flinched so he pulled his hand away.
“Why would your father do that to you over two measly dollars?”
“Two dollars mean a lot to my family. They mean a lot to my father. You just don’t understand.”
“I understand that he’s your father,” he said incredulously.
Silence. Carter burned with questions. Was this common among elves? Hadn’t he just given her four dollars the other day? Why would her father leave her in the cold like that? Was this his fault? Had he somehow upset a delicate family dynamic and caused this? Acting on impulse, he stuck his hand out and turned her shoulder to face him.
“Talk to me, Brynne—” he started to say as she turned, but his voice caught. Blazing purple and red on her cheek was an angry bruise, now revealed in full by the warmth of the heater. His mouth worked soundlessly.
Brynne gasped audibly and clapped a hand over the mark. But it was too late. “I-it’s not what it looks like! I just ran into a wall!” Brynne sputtered as Carter found his voice again.
“Yeah, I don’t think so. Did he do this to you?”
Brynne remained silent. She tried to turn away again, and found that large hand insistently blocking her path and forcing her to look up at the owner.
“Brynne, does your dad hit you?”
She didn’t answer, and shakily ran one of her hands over the side of his, from the base of his finger to the tip. Then she gripped his finger in both arms and pulled it to her chest and began to cry.
He hadn’t expected that. Yelling. Screaming. Pleading. He had thought it all over in his head, but the last thing he expected or wanted was her tears. Hoping to calm her, he awkwardly stroked her back with his thumb as she clung to his finger and sobbed. He swallowed hard. He couldn’t understand why anyone would hurt her. She seemed kind – scared and shy – but kind just the same.
“I’m going to ask again,” he said after a few minutes when she had begun to calm down. “How long were you outside sleeping by the cart? And...” he swallowed again, curling his fingers a bit into her hair, “... did your father do that to your face?”
Better than any harsh interrogation was Carter’s gentleness. His soft voice was soothing and concerned, and Brynne felt the truth bubbling forth. “I was out there all day and all night,” she blurted out, releasing his finger. “It wasn’t his fault! It was the whiskey. The whiskey always makes him lose his patience.”
Carter’s eyes lowered. So that’s how it was. Her father was a drunk. It was one of the few things that Carter actually knew about elves, that they could get into trouble with the bottle. It made sense now, her having to stand out in the cold and sell matchbooks so her father could keep drinking. How many elf families had to deal with this? He never thought about it before, and looking at Brynne’s tarnished beautiful face, he suddenly realized how difficult her life must be. He relaxed his hand even more. The last thing he wanted was to be was another person in her life who would cause her pain.
What to do about this, though? The police? The police certainly didn’t care about the problems of the elves. One less elf was always a good thing, he had once heard a cop chuckle at one of his parent’s parties.
“I wish I could do something, Brynne,” he admitted, looking at the floor. “You know how the law—”
“I know,” she said. “I’m not expecting someone to come in and fix everything. It was one night—”
“Was it really?”
“I’m sure he’ll let me back again.”
“And if he doesn’t?”
“He will,” Brynne said. “He has to. That’s my home.” She shuddered a bit, pushed his finger away gently and turned back towards the heater.
Carter watched her with worried eyes. He felt so helpless.
“I have to clean the stockroom,” he muttered as he withdrew his hand. “I want you to stay here and get warm.” In that moment he felt so weak and disgusted with how little he could offer that he needed to leave the room. “Eat your bread. There’s plenty more if you’re still hungry. Stay by the heater too, okay? I want you to get warm. You’re still too chilly.” He stumbled over his words as he stood up and backed away from the counter. “I’ll be in the stockroom if you need me,” he found himself saying as he passed through the hallway. He reached for a broom and angrily started to sweep the floor with much more force than necessary.
“Smooth, Carter,” he muttered, shaking his head.
Chapter Nine
Brynne watched him go, feeling every tremor of his footsteps through the floor. The bread was delicious and after the first bite, she ate as much of the slice as she could manage without getting nauseous just in case he changed his mind about her.
Who knew when she was going to get a chance at another meal like this?
She stayed huddled close to the heater and even though Carter was in another room, she felt secure in the solitude, knowing the front door was locked and no one would find her there. Even so, at every unexpected sound her body tensed, as if ready to dive for cover at any moment.
The minutes ticked on, and after a while she began to look around. This certainly wasn’t how she dreamed their “date” would go. A date, she scoffed as she unconsciously ran her hand through her hair, trying to untangle the hopeless knots within. She straightened it out, but still, Carter was nowhere to be seen. She wrestled with herself for ten minutes before finding the courage to stand and approach the half-open door in the back of the bakery.
Carter was bent over with a dust pan, swiping up the rest of the dust.
“C-Carter?” she called down the hall. “Do you need some help?”
He looked over his shoulder and tried to suppress a grin. “Naw, I’m almost done here,” he said, turning back to his work. “Uncle Jeremy texted me what he wanted me to do if I was going to be here today and I was trying to get the worst of it done while you warmed up.”
“Oh… okay.” She watched curiously as he pushed the rest of the dust away, stood up and walked over to the large garbage pail near the back door and dumped the contents inside, slamming the handle a few times to get rid of every last remnant.
Wiping his brow first before turning around to look at her, he set the broom and pan down next to the garbage. “You look better,” he couldn’t help saying as he took her in. “The warmth did you well.”
“T-thanks,” Brynne said, flushing a bit behind a wave of brown hair.
“No problem.”
He strode over to the large table in the backroom and plucked his cell phone up from the surface. He pretended to read a text while sneaking glances at Brynne... she looked cute. Her hair was no longer matted and frizzy, and now hung around her shoulders. Her once-dull eyes looked brighter and her skin more flushed. She was cute. Really cute. He suddenly felt big and awkward again as the silence grew.
“So I’m glad you’re here, but I don’t want you to think I invited you here to do work,” he said haltingly.
“I’m not comfortable watching someone work while I do nothing.”
He thought this over, wondering if things would be easier if she had something else to occupy her mind with other than her nervousness. “If you really want something to do…” He looked around the backroom and his cell phone then Brynne again. “I need some help wiping down the kneading board.”
Brynne perked up. A task. Something to earn her keep.
He patted the huge wooden surface next to him. To Brynne, it looked bigger than the largest room in her house. “I can get you some soap and water and we can do it together.” He bit his lip and waited for her response. To his surprise, her face broke into a grin and she started down the hallway towards him.
“Sounds great!” she chirped. She came over to where he had indicated and stopped at the foot of the counter. It was easily at least three times taller than she was. “Um? Any chance you have a stool or something?”
Carter froze in his spot and his eyes drifted down to Brynne and then back up at the table. “Crap,” he choked out an embarrassed laugh. “I didn’t even think about that.” He turned away and scanned the backroom for a stepstool. “Uncle Jeremy used to have one for Ethel before she—” he cut himself short. He was already skating on thin ice about having Brynne in the shop in the first place. There was no reason to air his uncle’s business, and as far as he remembered, Jeremy had tossed all the little stepping stools a few months after it happened.
Sighing loudly, he came back to Brynne. “Close your eyes and don’t look down,” he muttered.
Quickly, he squatted down and grabbed Brynne by the waist and safely set her down on the edge of the table. He pulled away, red-faced.
“I’ll get the soap and water,” he said, turning away before she could see how embarrassed he was and strode over to the sink, grabbed the large pail on the floor and started to fill it with water.
And then something occurred to him. The pail itself was taller than Brynne. He pursed his lips and snuck a look over to her, still seated on the edge of the table. She was going to need something smaller, so he rooted around and came up with a small plastic bowl. He ripped off a large corner of his sponge and dunked it into the bowl.
“Here we go,” he said, coming back with what he hoped was an encouraging look. H
e set the large pail down first and then the smaller bowl. As he reached in to grab the sponge, he snuck a look at her through the corner of his eye. “Hey, I wanted to say I’m sorry,” he said, squeezing the excess water back into the pail.
“Sorry?” Brynne said as she shrugged off her sorry excuse for a coat and pushed up the threadbare sleeves of her old sweater.
He frowned at the tattered piece of fabric with a few oversized buttons which didn’t have holes to match and the mismatched patches on the sleeves. Surely there had to be a better coat out there for her than this?
“What could you possibly be sorry about?”
“I know this probably isn’t your idea of a fun Saturday.”
“It’s not a bad Saturday at all. Sure beats my usual day. I can’t remember the last day I’ve had a break from that wretched cart.”
“Just the same. For what it’s worth, I’m glad you’re in here and not outside in the cold. You don’t have to scrub if you don’t want to. Seriously, Brynne. You can relax.”
Brynne shook her head, dipping her hands into the warm water. She sighed happily, reaching in deeper to immerse her forearms and stretch out her stiff fingers. The chill was finally being driven from her bones.
“You really are cold out there, huh?” Carter mused quietly as he started to scrub the board. He noticed Brynne soaking her hands in the little bowl, flexing her fingers amongst the water. “You could have stayed by the heater.”
“I don’t mind,” Brynne said, quickly removing her hands. “I like the company.” She started to work on her own small portion of the table, scrubbing harder than Carter would have thought necessary, but she felt almost at peace. She couldn’t help sneaking a look over at him. He worked over the wood surface, slowing releasing caked up flour and sugar.
“Also, Brynne… sorry again for uh...” he pinched his eyes shut and started to scrub harder as though that would make his words less embarrassing, “... for grabbing you all the time.”
