Gloaming: 3

Apologies; the month was hectic, and the novel has been going oddly slow; still feeling my way around the plot.

3.

The important question to me wasn’t how I’d ended up with the groundhog’s shadow in mine, as much as: if you see a groundhog on February second with no shadow at all, what does that mean for six more weeks of winter or what? I’d have asked Adrian, but I was pretty sure he’d have just said that he had no idea.
        Duncan was shovelling the sidewalk outside his house when I went by and waved to me. I returned it.
        “Hey, you.”
        He grinned. “Sluffing off?”
        “A little,” I admitted.
        “So, what’s wrong?”
        “Huh?”
        “Normally, I make a joke, you make one, we get serious later. If we bother. So spill.”
        I had to grin at that. “Just something weird I saw.”
        “Huh.” Duncan looked at me, and he didn’t even bother with a joke about my reflection. “Want to talk about it sometime?”
        “Maybe later,” I said, a little surprised I’d been that easy to see through.
        He didn’t press it and went back to shovelling as his father yelled something out the door about wanting it done before the snow melted before slamming it. I winced, but Duncan just kept working. I left him to it, since sometimes being a friend is knowing when to walk away, when words just aren’t enough and don’t matter.
        We’d taken to playing the DS Lite at my place, after his dad had sold his. I’d asked why, not getting it, and Duncan had just shrugged, voice light. “Dad’s got a drinking problem.” And then he laughed. “Mom calls it that. But it’s not true. Dad has no problem drinking at all. The rest of his life, now --.” And he’d just shrugged and kept playing, and beat my high score.


Someone had already shovelled the driveway when I reached Grandpa’s house. It was probably mom, since the sidewalk was done as well. Grandpa’s sign was still in the yard, even in winter. Some neighbours had taken issue with Grandpa never mowing his lawn shortly after we’d arrived. I’d said I could, but Grandpa had said it was his lawn and a matter of principle. Hence the: ‘Caution: Dandelion Preserve’ sign he’d put up in September.
        I’d asked him how serious he was and he’d just smiled, told me all jokes were half-truth, and began learning how to make dandelion tea. Given that, the neighbours took my mother’s palm-reading hobby entirely in stride.
        Aside from it, the house was pretty normal all told. Yellow and brown, one level, and just one oak tree in the back (Grandpa hated raking leaves as well; I’d never been certain why he hadn’t moved into a condo and avoided a lawn entirely.) The interior was mostly country, even in the garage: lots of wood, warm colours and a homey feel to everything.
        Mom was making a stir fry when I came in from the garage, singing Billy Joel songs to herself. The kitchen had brick walls, which Grandpa apparently had insisted on, and more pots and pans than seemed remotely sane. I avoided using most of them to be on the safe side.
        “Singing means I was right about Ichabod?” I said.
        Mom looked over. “Maybe. Grandpa told me about your all-nighter. You want to tell me why?”
        “I made a new friend,” I said. “I wasn’t sure yesterday, when we met, but we met again today. He was wondering what I was doing in the park. Nice kid, but a bit too serious. The kind of homeschooling my mom warned me about.”
        “Flattery will get you nowhere,” mom said.
        “So I should stop?”
        “Heavens, no!” We shared a laugh and mom put the frying pan down on the stove, turning off the burner. It was only then that I realized she was wearing oven mitts on both her hands.
        “You burn yourself?”
        “Oh, no. I’m fine.” She took them off and showed me her hands. “See?”
        I looked at the bumps on her palms in confusion, about to ask, when the eyes opened up. The same green-brown of my mom’s, but on her hands. I stared down in shock, and mom looked down as well.
        “Is something wrong?” she said, or started to say, but I was already in the hallway, skidding across the floor. I remember reaching my room. I don’t remember bolting the door, but I know I did. I slammed it, locked it, and buried my head between two pillows as her questions outside rose into stern demands I ignored.
        Reading palms. It was almost funny. I made sounds that could have been laughter and hugged myself in the dark. My diary was on the desk with my pen beside it, but I couldn’t bring myself to write anything or even get out of bed at all. I was cold, and hot, and running a fever and terrified and helplessly sane.
        Somehow the shadows in the room were only shadows and I slept in fits and starts, wakening to the certain feeling I was being watched from the shadows even though the room was empty. Turning on all the lights just made it seem darker an d I eventually dug out my headphones and played show tunes under the covers until dawn.


Duncan locked his bedroom door all the time after his father stole his DS; I never locked mine before that night.