Page 13 of A Killing Cold

For a moment he’s quiet. “It was an accident,” he says at last. “A fall. He slipped off a roof, that’s all. Random and meaningless. I wasseven years old. At least I remember him. Trevor was only three. It was hardest on Alexis, I think—she was fifteen. It really messed her up for a while.”

He takes my hand and runs his thumb over the dragonfly tattoo, as he often does. As if he’s trying to feel the shape of it beneath my skin.

“Your sister said you haven’t been happy for a long time,” I say. He looks at me with surprise, his fingers making a bracelet around my wrist. “Is it because of your father?”

“I think that’s part of it,” Connor acknowledges. “He was my hero. And then he was gone, and my mother—it just about broke her. She’s never had another relationship after him. I always felt like I had to fill the void he left. It doesn’t help that I look just like him. Anyone who knows my family knows who I am at a glance. It’s always ‘You must be Liam Dalton’s son.’”

“Well, I had no clue who you were when we met,” I said. “I assumed you were just one of Harper’s insufferable poet friends.”

“I am definitely insufferable. But not nearly talented enough to be a poet,” Connor replies seriously.

“And what about me? Did you think I was a granola-crunching James Joyce quoter?” I ask.

“The secret is that GranddadlovesJames Joyce,” Connor says.

“That bastard.”

“You’d better be careful. He’s going to invite you out hunting.”

“That’s a bad thing? I wasn’t kidding. I’ve done it before. Not bowhunting—but with a rifle, a few times,” I say. They’re some of my few positive memories, some of the only times I felt like I’d figured out who Joseph wanted me to be.

There’s a beat of silence. “Why did you let Alexis think you were from Seattle?” he asks.

Because when we met, I told you more of the truth than I should have. I thought you would vanish with the dawn.“I didn’t want to correct her in front of everyone. I already felt awkward enough.”

“I’d like to see where you grew up sometime,” he says.

“There’s nothing there worth seeing,” I say. I sit up, easing free of him.

“Come back to bed,” he urges. I shake my head.

“I’m going to sit up a little while. You sleep.” He’s too tired to protest much. I wrap a blanket around my shoulders and pad out into the main room, shutting the door behind me. I walk to the window, looking out at the snow-shrouded woods. The moon is nearly full—waxing gibbous, as I would have been sure to call it at thirteen, in love with the sound and specificity of the word. The snow reflects the moonlight, making the night eerily bright. A dark shape slips between the trees: an owl. The scene looks peaceful from here, but somewhere among the roots a mouse is scurrying toward soft wings and sharp talons.

I don’t know if I’ve never liked the winter because of the dream, or if winter infects the dream because I hate it. There isn’t always snow, but there’s always some element of the season—a cold wind, foggy breath, creeping frost.

But it’s only a dream, and there are no men with antlers sprouting from their skulls to chase me through these woods.

I start to turn away from the window, and then I pause. The moonlight shines over the snow, turning it to an unbroken spill of silver—but it isn’tentirelyunbroken. A staggered line of discrete shadows trails from the trees toward the cabin. Footprints. They lead toward the bedroom. Toward the window that looks in on where Connor is still sleeping.

They could have been there all day, I tell myself.

But I think of the crunch of footsteps in the dream, and the winter steals into my bones.

Before I have time to think better of it, I’m grabbing my coat and shoving my feet into my boots. I open the door and then pause, glancing behind myself, waiting to see if Connor will emerge—but there’s nothing. I ease the door shut.

Outside, the cold is biting, but I ignore the sting. There hasn’t been more than a dusting of snow all day. Our tracks leaving for dinner areas clear as the ones coming back. There’s no reason to suppose that this other set wasn’t here before.

I follow them.

My own footprints are smaller. At a guess, it was a man who walked this way. As I feared, they continue to the window that looks into the bedroom. The curtain is closed, but there is a gap an inch wide. Easy enough to look in without being seen.

The prints lead toward the window. Then they veer away. I keep following.

This is my problem. I can’t turn back once I’ve started. It’s one of the things the Scotts never really understood, what made them afraid of me. How once I had a notion in my head, no amount of correction could stop me from chasing it down. They tried prayer and patience, threats and lectures, but I wouldn’t bend.

In the end, what happened was entirely predictable. Everyone knows not to put your hand in a stray dog’s mouth. You’ll only get bit.

The sugar maple and birch near the cabin have surrendered to hemlock and pine. The evergreen branches shelter the ground, leaving only the thinnest skin of snow and blanketing it in shadows. Not far to my right, the ground drops off in an abrupt slope. If it weren’t for the moonlight casting its scant illumination, it would be easy to topple down in the dark. Not far enough to kill you, but enough to break an ankle, maybe, and I think of the way snow swallows sound, how loud you’d have to shout to be heard, out here in the cold.

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