Page 23 of Clubs

“Who’s there?” They spoke louder that time, firmer.

Pulling back, he gave a teasing half smile. One that I could hardly detect in the dim light. “Drogo, Mum.”

“Fucking stars,” she called back. “You nearly scared me half to death, boy. Have you seen Anise?”

I pressed my lips together to keep the laugh that tried to fall out trapped inside. He did the same before clearing his throat. “I think I saw her out with Rion. I’m sure she’ll be home soon.”

Those were our names then. Drogo and Anise.

I liked the ring that had to it.

“Well, if she’s not back by the third moon’s rising, you’re going out there to find her!”

“Yes, ma’am,” he called. Lowering his voice, he came in for another kiss, this one softer than the last. “How about a walk?”

“I’m quite happy”—holding his face in my hands, I leaned in and kissed him softly, slowly, but deeply—“right here.”

“Even where my mum can hear us?” He chuckled, then kissed me again. “Come on.”

Carefully, he set me on the ground. My feet sloshed into snow so high it reached my knees, but he took my hand and ran. He ran, and I ran with him, and I laughed, and I smiled, and he did too, and I had never felt so free in my life.

* * *

“This is where you’re taking me?” Propping my hands on my hips, smiling, I eyed the igloo a few dozen strides ahead. That’s all there was. An igloo amid a snowy plane, and a mountain far in the distance. The red moon was our only light, and there was something sensual about it. A bit odd, but sensual all the same. “This’ll be a better place to kiss?”

“It’s warm inside. That’s gotta be better than kissing against a tree.” Grinning like a child, or perhaps, like the child he was, Drogo walked backwards toward it.

I say child loosely. Maybe, by technicality, he was. I didn’t know for certain. I’d yet to see or hear anyone mention his age in these visions, memories. But he couldn’t have been more than twenty, and I imagined I was around that same age.

“I didn’t mind the tree.”

“You’ll like this better.”

Breathing out a dramatic sigh, I followed him. “If I don’t?”

“You will.”

Not to my surprise, nor the girl’s mind I was in, I did like it better.

After ducking through the small, tunnel like entrance, vibrant blue and green and purple light shined. Heat all but boiled toward me. Boiling really was the word for it, because once inside, that’s exactly what we were in.

A steaming, blue, green, and purple, almost party lit, hot tub. That’s what it looked like, at least. Like something that, in the modern world, would be present at a celebrity house party.

What gave it that color? I couldn’t be sure—Anise surely wasn’t studying it—but it looked like some type of luminescent algae that lined the spring. Its glow wasn’t blinding, but bright enough to light a dark room, a bit like the flash of a thousand fireflies in an empty field on a spring day.

“You’ve been here before,” Drogo said.

“What?” I asked.

“You’re not surprised.” He gestured to the hot spring. “People are usually surprised when they see something like this.”

I gave a half smile. “People, eh? Or pretty girls?”

“Pretty girls, are, in fact, people, you know.”

Stepping past him, dodging an icicle as big as my head along the way, I basked in the heat that radiated from the steaming spring. As I sat, staring down at those vibrant lights, another image flashed.

Suddenly, I was in a hot spring like this, gazing down at the algae that glowed below, but my legs were smaller. Innocent, joyous laughter billowed from my lips and from those around me. A glance to my left revealed a little boy. He couldn’t have been more than ten. His hair was black, dangling to the middle of his back, pulled back in a braid. Against his pearly white skin, his blue eyes glistened bright in the illuminance of the algae. Although his eyes were striking against his dark complexion, what stuck out about him, were his pointed ears. An Elf, I had to assume.

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