Gloaming: 1

And here is the first installment of Gloaming. It's about teenagers, growing up, and what happens when magic begins leaking into your otherwise sane life. Each installment should be about 3 typed pages, with some variation. I promise to post one every two weeks, at least.

I'm currently writing #6 and haven't had to go back and change too much yet (though I finally figured out some things about Adrian's mom tonight that are pretty important for her). The goal is for the project to be from mostly Katie's pov (I hesitate to say all, because a scene or two may need to be from Duncan's.)

1.

Hello, me. I’m trying to remember you. They’ve give me paper and a pen. It took -- has taken -- over two weeks for me to come to grips with it not being that paper, and that pen. I knew it wasn’t at all, couldn’t be, but
        No, that’s not working.
        I promise to write more coherently, or at least chronologically.. I’m telling a story here, after all. All I can ask is that you don’t confuse the teller with the tale; I think that’s the best I can hope for anymore.
        Everyone has a story. That’s one of the things mom told me that winter. It was the winter of Moby Dick, which explains a lot of that. I plan to keep my story shorter, since I don’t know how much paper I have, or for how long.
        Writers are told to leave out the boring bits, so I’ll try and do the same. Make this just be about that winter and nothing else. But if not for this winter, my life would be just boring bits, the things left out of stories. This may limit some of the people I’m going to tell you about: you won’t understand my mom with just one winter to judge her by. So try not to judge anyone harshly, except me.
        This is a story, even if it’s my life. And all fiction is lies, even if it’s about things that happened. Even if I was there. There’s parts I remember clear, others not so much. Sometimes I get the feel of things, sometimes the think of them. Some conversations are verbatim, others are prose and not spoken words.
        I’m going to tell you some lies now, about true things.


        It started with the groundhog.
        It was February second, and it had snowed last night. I was seventeen, going on eighteen, and I like to think I was just that. Not thirty two in cynicism, eighty one in sexual awareness thanks to the internet and so forth. I was home-schooled, but don’t hold that against me. I like to think I was normal, is what I’m saying.
        The ground was slushy after the snowfall and I’d spent eight hours standing in the old Baker Street park staring at a hole on the ground. My shoes were soaked through, the rest of me getting there, but I didn’t actually feel all that cold. Mostly numb. Fogged up a little, in the head. I’d must have lost track of a couple of hours, because the ring of my cell phone jarred me.
        “Hey,” I said quickly, just managing to dig it from a pocket, check the time and open it before it went to voicemail.
        “Katie Gwendolyn Smith.”
        “Oh. Hi, mom.”
        “Where have you been? I called earlier.” And I had ignored the phone, since it was too early for Duncan to call about playing a video game together. (Things like this are why I never got call display on any phone my mom paid for.)
        “I was waiting for a groundhog.”
        A silence. “And?”
        “It’s Groundhog’s Day, mom. I’m testing the superstition.”
        “Since Seven a.m.?”
        “Yes?”
        “Well, it’s not getting you out of doing your math work. Your grandfather is going to be home within the hour; and it is also your turn to make supper, in case you forgot that as well?”
        “I’ll be home quickly,” I said, casting the ground a last look before hurrying to the road. I looked back from the road, just in case I saw the groundhog again, but I saw nothing.
        Feeling returned to my feet as I walked, and Duncan called a few minutes later, asking if I wanted to play a game with him tonight. I said I had school and he got into the usual ‘you homeschoolers get homework?’ mock horror, our old routine. We meant nothing by it, not anymore. It was just how we talked to each other, and I lobbed some fake insults his way, keeping it normal. Which was a lot more comfortable thank keeping it real. (I’m pretty sure I thought that then, or something close to it; it was a strange winter.)
        Supper was chicken surprise, the surprise being that I didn’t overcook the pasta. Grandpa said it was good, which meant it was. He never said if supper was bad, but that was because he insisted I learn to cook if me and mom were staying with him. Grandpa thought everyone should learn such things and since he had insisted I cook in the first place, he never complained about some of the results. I think he must have made grandma very happy, but mom never talks about her.
        I did the math quickly, trying for sleep after and failing. I kept imaging groundhog shadows and couldn’t shake the feeling I’d have terrible dreams if I slept. So I did English until I heard grandpa getting up and stumbled out of my room for some coffee.
        “You are far too young for all-nighters,” he said, looking over the paper at me. “You should save that for college.”
        “I wanted to get some things done this morning.”
        Grandpa just nodded; I hadn’t said what things, so he didn’t press.
        I had the coffee, porridge, left a note for mom and dressed warmer before getting out again. I made sure to leave my cell at home. The park was mostly empty except for old Mr. McClure feeding pigeons at the far end, but he pretty much did that most days all over the neighbourhood so I gave him a friendly wave and went to examining the hole after cleaning a rock off to sit on it.
        I knew the burrow had other entrances, but I figured I’d see them from the rock as well. Mom doesn’t get sarcastic often, but she definitely would have if I sprained an ankle looking for groundhog holes and waiting.
        It was a little past noon, going by the sun, and I was starting to get angry. I mean, I’d seen it yesterday morning, and it hadn’t shown up again. I was half-seriously debating a shovel when someone coughed behind me.
        I turned, almost sliding off the rock, and found myself staring at a kid in a bright pink snowsuit compete with balaclava, toque and scarf. A mittened hand waved awkwardly, followed by a soft, muffled male voice: “Hello?”
        “Hi yourself. Rock’s free,” I added.
        “I suppose.” He walked closer, moving as if he had almost no joints, and waved a hand behind him, a little to my left. “I came from that house. The one with all the trees,” he added before I could ask.
        “So, no school?”
        “Homeschooled. I have a medical condition of sorts.”
        “It involves clothing?” I said, because I wasn’t my grandfather.
        “Huh?”
        “Sorry, I thought --” I paused, not sure what I thought. “Do you need help getting home?”
        “Help?”
        “With, ah, walking?”
        “Oh, clothing. No. My mom is very protective sometimes. I’m wearing two snow suits, else I would be walking fine.”
        “I guess that explains why one is pink?” I said dryly.
        “Yes.”
        “O-kay. What brings you out here?”
        “You have been here two days: I wondered why.”
        I eyed the house, and then his clothing. “Must be some wondering, to come all the way out here wearing all that.”
        “Twice is interesting; more seldom is,” the boy said.
        “Is?”
        “Unhealthy.”
        I sighed, looking back at the hole. “Go home, kid.”
        “You are looking for a groundhog.”
        I didn’t fall this time. I turned carefully, and then stood and looked down at him. “That wasn’t a question.”
        “You are in a field with them, on the third of February. It seemed obvious. You want to talk about it?”
        “Get lost,” I said, no longer feeling friendly. I was feeling stupid enough as it was, but I also knew it wasn’t enough to make me give up.
        “I just --.” I took a step towards him and he stepped back, raising his hands. One mitten fell off to reveal a glove under it.
        We both stared at it, and I looked at him, then sighed. “I didn’t mean to startle you like that.”
        “I am okay. Can you pick up my mitten?”
        “Pardon?”
        “I think,” he said gravely, “that I would fall over and not be able to get back up.” And then he laughed, as soft as he spoke.
        I laughed too, surprised, and got it, putting it on him. “I’m Katie.”
        “Adrian,” he said, wiggling it after it was on his hand.
        Then he went home, making his almost-robot way back through the show and somehow never quite falling.
        And that was how I met Adrian.


The third day he showed up before lunch, wearing less layers than before.
        “Hey,” I said
        “Hello,” he said, still quiet even with the scarf undone. Some people just talk softly; Adrian was one of those.
        He sat down on the rock beside me slowly, having only the pink snowsuit, mittens, a scarf and whatever was under it on. It seemed enough, given he wobbled slightly when he sat.
        “What are you wearing?” I finally said.
        “Two sweaters, a t-shirt, undershirt, long johns, two pairs of sweats, one snowsuit, scarf, gloves, mittens,” he said, pulling the hood back off the snowsuit. Under it he was pale with dark eyes and curly dark hair framing a serious face.
        “How do you get out of that?” I said.
        “With help.”
        “And you don’t need to wear it?”
        “Not this much,” he said firmly.
        “So maybe this is a lesson to not come out and bug me?”
        He smiled briefly at that, quick and shy, and then looked grave as if it hadn’t happened at all. “Perhaps.”
        I sighed. “You should go home before you need to go to the bathroom or something.”
        “I mentioned the problem; my mother took it into account.”
        “Wait. What?”
        “A diaper,” he said, the tips of his ears turning pink.
        “Is your mother mental?” It slipped out before I could stop it.
        “She is concerned.”
        “Concerned is a little less than dressing someone in more than six layers of clothing,” I said. “There’s no wind, and it’s not that cold.”
        “Worried, then. I am, too.”
        “About what?”
        “You. Why you are waiting for a groundhog.”
        “Look, Adrian, just go home, okay? I don’t feel like being bugged.”
        “I spent an hour getting dressed this morning,” he said, raising his voice a little.
        I sighed. “What do you want me to say?”
        “The truth?” he said, soft again. “About why you are here.”
        “Kid,” I began, and he looked into me. I don’t have words for it, even now. It was as if his gaze went right into me, pinning me in place with an intensity that took my breath away. It was as if he looked and into me, and right through me at the same time.
        I took a breath, managed a cough, and the moment passed and was gone. I looked away quickly, trying to gather my wits.
        “Please,” he said, a little louder, almost sounding desperate
        So I told him.