by Neena Jaydon
"Thank you," she said, sounding pleased. "You can sit down at the table if you like."
"Wine?" Max asked, reaching for a bottle on the counter. "I opened a red, and there's a white chilling."
"Red's fine," said Theo, going for the first option because he knew nothing about wine. He sat down with a quick glance at the twins. He also knew nothing about children, especially at their age. They stared up at him as they munched.
Max helped his mother set food on the table, tugged the noses of the twins to make them stop stealing food, and poured Theo a glass of wine. Theo sat quietly and waited. His mind was lightning-fast at times, but rarely forthcoming with good conversation.
Finally, Max convinced his mother to sit down, then disappeared through the doorway. After a moment, he returned to announce that Anastasia was on her way down. Theo's ears picked up footsteps on the stairs, and his spine stiffened. Max took the seat at the end of the table, next to Theo.
"Oh, let Theo sit at the head of the table," Kaitlyn said.
"I'm fine," Theo said quickly.
"Mom," Max groaned, making eye contact with her.
Theo lost track of that interaction when a young woman, smelling of lavender soap and freshly laundered clothing, came into the kitchen. When he looked up at Anastasia, he had to blink. For a flash, he hadn't seen an attractive brunette woman in her twenties; he'd seen her pale skin, limp limbs, and soaked hair.
Now, however, she wore a tight smile that told him she also found this strange. Theo's neck prickled, and he glanced over to discover Max gazing at him with hazel eyes gently narrowed. It wasn't an expression he could safely look at for very long without getting flustered. He wondered if Max was straight.
Ashamed, he dragged his attention back to Anastasia. "H-h-how are you feeling?"
"Good," she said. "Sore, and tired, but good."
"Sit down and eat, Anastasia," Kaitlyn said.
"I will, Mom," Anastasia said patiently.
For Theo, who was a nodding acquaintance with every delivery person in town, the food was amazing. It helped distract him from his feelings about Max, which were unclear and yet strong enough to make speech even more difficult than usual. Anastasia ate tidily, seated across from him. He glanced at her slender fingers and tried very hard not to remember how they'd looked in weak moonlight.
"Did that magazine call you?" she asked.
"Yeah," he said. "They left a message on my machine. I…need to call them back."
"They called here a few times, apparently. I just talked to them today. It's nice that they want to do a story about this, but I'm glad Max wouldn't let reporters in to see me when I was in the hospital."
"You needed your rest," Kaitlyn said primly.
"I'm also just as glad we managed to talk Dad into going to his conference," Anastasia added.
"Oh my god, he was so close to not going," one of the twins said. "We had to practically shove him out the door."
"I didn't have the heart to say that him hovering around worrying wasn't doing either of us any good." Anastasia chuckled.
"I told him that," the other twin said.
"You would."
"Wh-what kind of training do you do here?" Theo tried changing the subject.
"Obedience training, mainly." Max reached out for a piece of garlic toast, shrugging one shoulder. "Problem dogs. Mom breeds and shows Weimaraners, and Anastasia does some show handling, but the boarding's the biggest part of the business."
"My husband sells real estate," Kaitlyn said. "We couldn't support this entire family on the dogs, unfortunately."
"I'm surprised you don't have more dogs in the house," Theo said, listening to the quiet panting of the greyhound lurking at the top of the stairs.
"We used to do that," Anastasia said. "Now we keep it to See-Bell and Delmer. Our kennels are heated, so the show dogs can live out there, and we don't have Weimaraners underfoot all the time. How's that Border Collie coming along, Max?"
From there the dinner progressed. Theo let the words flow around him as he filled himself up on home-cooked food. The room was warm from all the bodies in it, and the relaxed, comfortable voices bounced off golden walls. Theo's family had been himself, Ma, and Grandmother. Even when Ma had a boyfriend, it was always clear that he was not family.
Don't they find it stifling? He gazed down at his cheesecake as if it knew the answer. Sometimes this would be nice, but every day?
After dinner, Max helped Kaitlyn with the dishes while the twins went into the adjoining living room to watch TV. Anastasia pulled Theo into the hallway.
"Um, I don't know how to talk about this," she said. "Things are all muddy, and I don't remember anything about the accident. I know I was fine, I didn't have anything to drink, and I wasn't tired or anything. I have no idea what happened." She glanced up at him, her hazel eyes darkened in the dim light. "But it wouldn't be right if I didn't thank you."
"You don't have to say anything," he said. "I just reacted. You don't really…owe me anything for that."
"But I want to," she said, grinning. She didn't resemble Max strongly, but her grin was identical to his. "Thank you, Theo, for saving my life." There was a hitch in her voice as she put her arms around him. Startled, he froze; then, hating himself for that reaction, he carefully returned the embrace.
Anastasia left things at that, and Max helped extricate him from Kaitlyn's urgings to stay for coffee and cookies. When Theo got into his car, he saw from the dashboard clock that he'd been there for only three hours. It had felt like an eternity.
As he drove away, he glanced back at the pleasant country home with its lively family, and felt very dark, strange, and different.
*~*~*
Louis Wilson had lived his entire life in Fort Rivers. His job had occasionally taken him to other parts of British Columbia, but now that he was retired, he didn't see any need to be anywhere else. The gold, autumn leaves were already half off the poplars. That and the slow traveling of the beige river told him that it really had been a dry summer. It had made for a disappointingly short fall.
The walk was under doctor's orders. He'd been too sedentary since leaving the ambulance service. His plump little wife had gamely joined him in his exercise plan, but today she was bundled up before the TV, treating a case of the flu with rest and her Monday dancing show. He didn't mind being out of the house when that was on.
The river was a tributary of one of the two major rivers that gave Fort Rivers its name. The path took him out of the trees and along its banks. Almost immediately he felt a peculiar tingling across the back of his neck. He rubbed his nape and looked around, wondering if he was being watched by wildlife. Bears were a distinct possibility. He didn't see any big, black shapes, yet he grew nervous. The building dread stirred some very old memories. Memories of his childhood, of being told by his parents that he mustn't believe what he heard and saw.
Cold sweat sprang up on his forehead. Louis wiped at it, stumbling to a stop.
"What the hell? Am I having a stroke?" All at once his body seized up. He arched into a painful rictus as a place inside him opened up. At first the link, a strange thread connecting him from the inside to somewhere entirely other, was barely perceptible. Then it widened, and darkness began to spill through. It filled him insistently, in the back of his mind where he'd once imagined (heard) the voices of the dead, a space immeasurable yet being rapidly occupied.
He could do nothing about any of it. His body was no longer his own. As the darkness grew, it overtook his vision. Then came an animalistic groan that seemed far away, though it vibrated in his body.
All at once, the door slammed shut. The dark peeled away with an acid tear. It was both painful and a relief to have all that space inside emptied out. As the darkness receded, his vision returned. His body came back.
As the dark left, it took all his strength with it. He could feel damp ground under his cheek. He tried to lift his head and managed to raise it only a couple of centimetres. Ahead on the path stood a figure
, a pitch-black shadow in full sunlight. It turned, revealing its face had no features.
"What in god's name?" Louis croaked. The thing turned silently away and walked into the trees. Louis slumped to the ground as his consciousness melted away.
CHAPTER TWO
"Hey, what are you guys doing up?" Max leaned through Anastasia's door to find all three of his sisters inside. He quietly slipped the paper bag behind the vase on the stand next to Anastasia's door. Chrissi was on her stomach, a binder open in front of her; Charli was sprawled across her sister's back, texting on her cell. Even at twelve, the twins were still inseparable.
"Chrissi's getting help with her homework," Charli said, not looking at him.
"Yeah, but it is getting late." Anastasia swivelled her chair away from her tiny, wooden desk.
"What do you want?" Chrissi narrowed her eyes at Max.
"I was going to talk to Ana about Theo," he said, returning her challenging look. "Got a problem with that?"
Charli snorted, closing her phone. "Theo?"
"That guy's such a dork," Chrissi said.
"Guys," Anastasia complained. "He's sweet."
"He's a dork," the twins chorused.
"If he went to our school, I'd push him in a locker," Charli added.
"You guys are so judgmental. He's obviously just a little shy."
"No, he's a dork," Max said, making Charli grin and Anastasia glare at him. "Get to bed, guys. It's a weeknight."
Muttering, the twins untangled themselves. Max dodged Chrissi's pinching fingers as they came for his side, giving her a playful push in return. Once he saw that they were in their room, he retrieved the bag and held it up.
"Want a doughnut?"
"Sure." Anastasia stretched and moved to sit on her bed. Her small room was impeccably tidy. He didn't like a mess himself, but even their fastidious mother couldn't find anything to complain about in how Anastasia cleaned. Her bed was a single, making the room seem to belong to a younger person; the patchwork quilt on it didn't argue much with that impression. Her book collection took up most of the wall space. Light from the yard filtered through her pink curtains, warming the colour of the sandy carpet.
Max sat down on the other side of her bed and handed her the bag. He supposed most men his age didn't hang out in their sisters' rooms, but he and Anastasia had always been close. They'd been able to see the same things from a young age, so he'd taken it upon himself to teach her how to talk to spirits long before he knew much about it himself. After their biological father had died, he'd realized how important it had been to have Anastasia's presence in his life. Being the "man of the house" for his mother and little sister had kept him going until their stepfather came along to take over that role.
His family was probably thought of as strange by many. Both adult children still lived on the property, which wasn't uncommon these days but still frowned upon, and both parents preferred to have them there. It had taken a year of arguing before they had let him put his own trailer on the property; Anastasia's occasional suggestions she might be better off closer to town were always immediately dismissed. The kennel operation did need family around at all times to cover for absences like business trips, dog shows, and training clinics. But deep down Max knew the real reason: it was better for them to always have someone around who understood.
It also meant that Max kept his sex life in town as much as possible.
"Why'd you go to Jimmy's? I thought you were staying in tonight." Anastasia fished the doughnut out of the bag.
"The trailer got too small for me." Unlike how he would have treated that question from their mother, he simply told Anastasia the truth. "I needed to see a different space for a couple of hours."
"Jimmy's is a different space?" she asked dubiously. "You go there all the time."
"Well, it's not here." Max sighed. "I don't know, sometimes I feel like I'm missing something."
"Like a boyfriend?"
"Who are you to talk?"
"Well, I sort of have one." She glanced at her computer as she munched. "It'd be easier if he worked closer to home, though."
"Yeah." Max let himself fall back on the bed. "Things are still good with Lawrence?"
"I think so. It's kind of hard to tell, long distance, you know?" She brushed crumbs off her fingers. "So, what about Theo?"
"His sweater. I was wondering if you wanted to take it back to him, or if you wanted me to do it."
"Hm." Anastasia tilted her head.
"What?" he asked, irritated.
"Why did you make it sound like something you want to foist off on me?"
"Look, he's your knight in shining armour, not mine." I can't quite figure him out. Physically he's got all kinds of things going for him. If he was gay, I'd sure like to try him out in the sack. But then he goes all shy and quiet like a little kid, which he's way too old to do.
"Max, you know how sometimes you sound like a jerk? This is one of those times." She was gazing narrowly at him. "Especially when he obviously likes you."
"What?" Max laughed in surprise. "Oh, come on."
"I saw how he kept sneaking looks at you." Anastasia's eyes took on an eager glitter.
"Don't let your eyes go all shiny like that. Theo's not even gay."
"How do you know that?"
Max pondered for a moment. "No, I've never seen him at any of the LGBT events in town. I'd have remembered him."
"Oh-ho." She didn't quite snicker.
"I'm not saying he's not cute." Max turned onto his side, tracing patchwork with his fingertip. "But I think he's straight, and dogs don't like him. Those are turn-offs for me."
Anastasia put her hand next to his, leaning down to peer into his face. "It's weird. You don't usually latch onto stuff, but this quilt still brings back memories?"
"Well." Max felt his cheeks heat a little. "It's not like I remember anything about that. Just running into Deep Murky, then the next thing was me wrapped up in a blanket and Mom pale as a sheet." When he was ten, he'd met a particularly nasty spirit out in the weeds on the edge of their property. He hadn't known what it was called, but he'd nicknamed it Deep Murky for how it had felt to him. It had taken possession of him so firmly he'd fainted. He had no memory of it then walking his body out across the highway, probably trying to get to the forest on the other side. A neighbour had recognized him and swept him off the highway before he could get run over. The quilt had been a graduation present to Anastasia from that same neighbour.
Anastasia hadn't responded; her silence startled him out of his reverie. He looked with concern at her drawn face.
"Anastasia?"
"Eh?" Her lashes fluttered, and she straightened up, running her hands over her hair. "Sorry."
"What's up?"
"Nothing."
"Anastasia," he said, over-enunciating each syllable.
"What's wrong?"
"I've sort of remembered stuff about the accident." She hunched her shoulders; he abruptly sat up, putting an arm around her. "I remember seeing light. Weird, purple light." She reached up to rub at her chin, her gaze aimed downward. "A feeling of being pulled, really hard, but not in a physical direction. Like connecting to the spirit world but so much rougher." She bit her lip. "It almost felt like possession."
"Do you think that's what happened? Was it—it couldn't have been Deep Murky, could it?" Max squeezed her shoulders, chilled by the very thought.
"I don't know, Max." Anastasia rubbed her elbow, shaking her head. "I doubt it, though. I didn't get that boggy water feeling you told me about. I didn't get that feeling of greed. Just...blank determination. Like maybe something was trying to get through." She shuddered. "I'm sorry; can you take the sweater to Theo? I'm still working through this."
"Yeah," Max said. "Of course." He held out his palm, and she put the crumpled paper bag of doughnuts in it.
"Thanks," she said, smiling. "I will be okay, you know."
He smiled back, pretending to be convinced.
*~*~*
Max glanced at the sweater in the passenger seat, then sighed and turned on the turn signal. It wasn't such a great chore, but he'd been putting it off. He distinctly remembered Theo slipping out of it after dinner, mumbling about feeling too warm, pulling up the hem of his T-shirt at the same time. In that all-too-brief moment, Max had seen the lower cuts of a distinct set of abs and the top of Theo's happy trail. That very pleasant experience had been followed by an awkward time attempting to get more than a few syllables out of Theo's mouth.
So which is he? The hottie or the total nerd?
As Max turned onto Theo's street, a trio of children on bikes shot across the road in front of him. He gasped loudly, stomping on the brake. Time slowed to a crawl as he drew closer and closer to the little girl straggling behind the two bigger children. She seemed to shrink as the hood of the car obscured her body. She didn't seem to even be aware of the car. At last Max was thrown forward against the seatbelt. The tires gave a last little screech of protest before everything came to a stop. Except for the kids: they kept pedalling madly, up onto the sidewalk and away.
Max sat staring, his heart battering against his ribcage, while adrenaline surged through his entire body. It drew anger after it, fast and powerful. He slammed his hand against the wheel, then clenched it into a fist and punched the dashboard.
"You little idiots! You trying to get yourselves fucking killed? You trying to turn me into a murderer? Jesus!" He groaned, burying both hands into his hair, and bit down on the rage. After a moment, he spotted a car in the sideview mirror, coming up behind him. He moved his foot from brake to gas. He breathed slowly and carefully as he cautiously drove on. As the shock eased, he picked up on the tingling on the back of his neck. Max glanced next to him.
The elderly woman sat primly in the passenger seat, clutching what might have been a purse. She was nearly colourless to his vision, as well as translucent. He cruised down the street, keeping an eye out for more sudden appearances.
"Hi," he said.
You have a temper. He distinctly sensed her disapproval as her voice entered his head.
