Aspect Of Winter Read online

  Aspect of Winter

  By Tom Early

  Copyright © 2014 by Spencer Thomas Dimmick (writing as Tom Early)

  All rights reserved.

  [email protected]

  tom-early-author.tumblr.com

  Chapter One

  As it turned out, being wedged into the small space below the math wing staircase was exactly as uncomfortable as I’d imagined. Now I was in there of my own choice, sort of. I held still and listened, letting out a sigh of relief when I heard the boys’ voices fading. I decided it was safe, and did my best to wriggle out.

  Groaning, I brushed myself off and realized that I’d somehow managed to cover the majority of my backpack in a thick layer of dust. Rumor had it that years ago the staircase used to be green. Now it was gray. I looked at my backpack in disgust and let out a breath, concentrating. The dust glittered as a layer of frost covered it. When I hoisted my bag onto my back once more the dust slid right off, the frost preventing it from clinging.

  Clean backpack in hand, I trudged up the stairs, across the hall, and walked into the classroom. I took my customary seat in the back next to the poster detailing the derivative rules of calculus, feeling a flash of pity for Mrs. King as I watched her try to get anyone to listen, and grabbed my book of the day as the front row began its usual antics. Today they asked Mrs. King about her love life, which, while incredibly rude, was extremely successful in throwing her off-balance.

  I would never understand high school, even after nearly four years of it. It seemed barely tolerable for everyone involved; including the people that fit in. I didn’t fit in, and so every day was a new chapter in the purgatory of hiding what I could do.

  I sent a grateful prayer to the high school gods as class was interrupted by an announcement saying we needed to go to the nurse’s for a new immunization or something. Mrs. King pulled us out of the truly thrilling world of integrals and sent us down one at a time. I was one of the last to go.

  Stepping back into the hallway, I prayed that I wasn’t going to run into any of Logan’s crowd again on my way down. The number of times I’d heard “fag” muttered under someone’s breath was already too high.

  The school had two hallways running between the faculty area and the math wing, and most people took the lower one. I chose the glass hallway because it was usually empty (this surprised me as well, but apparently using stairs was just too much for many of my classmates), and it was pretty cool to be able to see the entire campus from what was effectively its highest point. I trailed a finger across the glass as I walked, leaving behind a fractal line of frost in the warm September air.

  I smirked. For as long as I’d been at Owl’s Head High School, there had been, in the eloquent phrasing of high schoolers, “spooky shit” in the fall and spring where kids would come across ice or cold areas in warm weather. I knew I needed to keep my head down, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t have a little fun.

  I made my way down the staircase behind the nurse’s office and walked over. After I knocked, a woman’s voice told me to come in. Inside there was an attractive lady with long auburn hair wearing a well-tailored suit. She looked bored as she tapped away at an iPad with a stylus. I didn’t see our normal nurse anywhere.

  “Feayr Hanson?” she asked, not butchering the pronunciation -- it sounded like “fear,” but with a long e. Fee-er.

  I nodded. Not many people could tackle Gaelic. Most people just called me Fay. It saved time, and I liked it better than Feayr, anyway.

  She motioned to a chair at the other side of the room with her stylus.

  “Sit down over there, please, and close your eyes. This’ll just be a moment.”

  I sat down next to the poster proclaiming the danger of STDs (like I had to worry about those) and closed my eyes.

  “Hold still.”

  The incessant tapping of the stylus stopped, and then she whispered something that I couldn’t quite catch. It felt like someone had just thrown me into the Arctic Ocean head first. I could practically feel my lips turning blue, and I don’t even get cold. There was no way that was a flu shot. I opened my eyes reflexively, gasping for breath as the symptoms vanished, and was greeted by the woman staring at me, one eyebrow raised and head tilted to one side.

  I held out my arms and clapped my hands against my face; I was completely dry, and no longer freezing.

  “What the hell was that?” I asked angrily.

  “Don’t worry about it,” the woman said in a brisk tone. “All part of the process. You just triggered one of the side-effects. You’re done. You can go back to class now...”

  I blinked. Instantaneous cold attacks didn’t seem like a feasible side-effect to anything. I opened my mouth to object, and her expression changed, daring me to speak. Her eyes were begging me to try something. I closed my mouth, swallowed my words, and slouched back off to class. Weird nurse stand-ins weren’t something I was able to deal with on a Monday.

  I met up with my best friend Samantha (though everyone called her Sam for fear of being punched) in English, where we sat next to each other and generally ignored everything else. Sam pulled out her ever-present sketchpad and flipped past the first few pages that were already full of surreal images to a page full of unfinished sketches. She presented them to me for my perusal, twisting her long black hair into a ponytail while I looked at them instead of paying attention to the teacher.

  There was a mountain of bones atop which stood a really satisfied goat, a pumpkin that was apparently ruling a nation, and a collection of interlocking spirals that hurt my eyes to look at, but in a good way. I picked the third one, and she began to add even more spirals as I watched.

  After class we headed off to break, our school’s way of appeasing the student body just enough to avoid riots from too much work.

  “Hey, have you been to the nurse’s yet?” I asked as we wove our way around the sea of underclassmen clogging the hallway.

  “No,” Sam replied as she hip-checked one of the slower freshmen out of the way, sending him flailing into a “no bullying” poster on the wall. “I’ll probably be called down next period.”

  She flipped her ponytail dismissively, and a few more kids moved to the side. We were headed to our usual spot under the tree out in front of the school.

  “Well, tell me if it’s weird,” I continued, following in her wake, “because it was for me.”

  “Weird how?”

  “It was, uh,” I said, “it was like I was being frozen, but only for a moment.”

  Sam gave me a look as she sat down and pulled out her sketchpad again. “My, you do have a way with words.”

  I scowled and sat myself down in the shade. “Shut up, I’m trying. It was just strange, okay? And I’m pretty sure other people would be talking about it if it had happened to them as well. I just wanted to see if it happened to you.”

  “Well, don’t worry. I promise to tell you if I feel like I’ve been frozen,” Sam replied lazily, her pencil making sharp strokes across the page. “Can you get me some food? I didn’t manage to get any before picking you up.”

  “You used the guilt card,” I whined. “Why’d you have to use the guilt card?”

  “Because I know it works,” Sam smirked, passing me a few dollars, and then paused. “Oh, hey, do you think your ‘icy’ experience had anything to do with your powers?”

  I frowned. “Uh, maybe? That’d actually make sense.”

  Sam grinned. “Thought so. Go mull over my genius while getting me cinnabuns.”

  I got up, grumbling. I hated going to the cafeteria. There were always people there, and they were always talking. Seriously, it was like getting hit by a wall of noise every time I went in. Human decency was a myth.

  My opinion was
validated as people tried to cut in front of me in line repeatedly. Fortunately, the line was short. I was big enough to shove myself in the way of the would-be line jumpers, so I was walking out the door again in a couple of minutes. Of course, at the same time three of Logan’s friends walked in. One of them, the brown-haired guy with a pug face and a frankly appalling smell, ended up walking right into me. I may have been tall, but seeing as I wasn’t built like a tank, I bounced off of him.

  “Hey, watch where you’re going, faggot.”

  I walked away quickly, my face flushing as I kept my head down. Coarse laughter filled the air behind me, and I sped up. I glanced back just in time to run into something. Hard.

  I fell to the ground. After taking a moment to clutch at my aching head, I looked up. There appeared to be two sturdy, blonde-haired and broad-shouldered boys looking down at me with concern. I shook my head, and they resolved into one person, still looking at me.

  “Are you alright, Fay? You hit me pretty hard there,” the guy said in a worried tone. He held out a hand to help me to my feet. I think his name was Tyler? I hadn’t had a class with him for years. I stood up shakily and pushed past him, muttering a quick apology as I went.

  I was shaking with anger. It was bad enough that I had to put up with brainless assholes coming after me because of my sexuality, but I couldn’t even fight back. I could have made them into the three ugliest ice sculptures ever if I didn’t have to hide my powers. All in the name of fitting in and being normal. Well, and in the name of not being dissected by the government or something. My parents had made it very clear what using magic where people could see would result in.

  I looked down and swore as I saw my footprints outlined in frost. That tended to happen when my emotions were out of control. Thankfully, nobody was there to see me leaving them, so I let out a heavy sigh and kept walking.

  Sam was waiting for me back under the tree, and I handed the cinnabun to her.

  “Did you have a good time?” Sam asked as she bit in. I just rolled my eyes at her and lay down in the grass until break ended.

  I spent the rest of the school day with completely shattered concentration, too busy fuming about yet another run-in with Logan’s friends. Even the peace and quiet of the library didn’t help.

  Sam ended up ambushing me later at lunch, looking like she was itching to tell me something. We were eating next to the stone wall by the soccer field. There was no way in hell I was going back to the cafeteria.

  “Seems I wasn’t the only one,” I stated.

  “Yeah, I’d say so,” Sam said, her voice a bit shaky. “You didn’t say it would be that intense.”

  “I said it was like being frozen. How is that not intense?”

  “It wasn’t like being frozen for me. It felt more like that time I put my hand on an electric fence, but way worse. Also, shut up.”

  “We’re such great friends,” I said, sighing. “But seriously, wasn’t that weird? Did you get anything out of the nurse lady?”

  Sam growled. “No, she shut me down completely.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “You? Really?”

  Sam looked at me agitatedly. “I know. It was really… urgh. She was hot, though, so that was a plus.”

  That was Sam for you. If it was pretty, she liked it. Gender never really mattered to her. I put down the remnants of my sandwich and stood up.

  “Well, whatever. It’s done now. Are we still hanging out after school?” I asked.

  Sam grinned viciously. “Definitely. I feel a need to make other gamers cry.”

  “You feel like that every day, Sam.”

  “And today’s no exception. I’ll see you in a few hours.”

  Sam stood up and threaded her way into the crowd of students migrating back from the cafeteria. I remained sitting by the wall a little longer. I didn’t feel like rushing to enjoy the company of my peers.

  Something moving in the corner of my vision caught my attention. I turned my head and saw the woman from the nurse’s office leaving the building. I supposed whatever weird testing she was doing was over now.

  I watched as she pulled out a cell phone and made a call, moving out of my sight behind one of the large maple trees on the path to the teachers’ parking lot, only a couple hundred feet away from me.

  I frowned in confusion. She hadn’t come out on the other side of the tree. And even though I looked in that direction for a solid minute, she didn’t reappear.

  I got up and walked the short distance over, wondering if she was still there. She wasn’t. I must’ve blinked and missed her. Shaking my head, I headed back to the school.

  Chapter Two

  It had been a week since the incident with the nurse, and I had managed to push the whole thing away. That wasn’t to say I wasn’t still freaked out by the event, it was just that after a week of thinking about it and getting nowhere I was beginning to move on. It was that borderline between weird and creepy that meant I’d talk to Sam about it, but not my parents. Both parties knew about my powers, but where my parents would tell me to be careful, Sam would tell me to have fun and to invite her. I preferred her advice.

  I showered quickly, and then threw on a pair of jeans and one of my less ratty sweatshirts. I didn’t spend much time on my appearance, other than keeping my hair dyed brown. For whatever reason it normally grew in white, and that was just another avenue of teasing I didn’t feel like allowing.

  At some point around the age of five my powers kicked in. I’d asked my parents about it, but they always told me they have no idea what changed, and I trusted them on that.

  My dad left my polar bear coffee mug filled with coffee, like he always did on his way out the door, and my mom left another smiley-faced doodle on a sticky note. As usual, both of them were already gone. I ate quickly, accompanied by the shameless attention of my dog Lexie. Soon enough the sound of screeching rubber announced the arrival of my ride.

  “Come on, Fay!”

  I gave Lexie one final scratch, walked outside, grunted in affirmation, and climbed into the bright yellow Jeep next to Sam. She drove us to school with her usual level of skill, which meant I only felt close to death on three separate occasions. It wasn’t that she was a bad driver; she just thought that speed limits were for lesser mortals. Seeing as her dad was the town’s police chief, they probably were. Ah, nepotism.

  When we pulled into the parking lot it was immediately clear that something was different. Most of the senior class was clustered in the far corner, blocking from view whatever was holding their attention. Sam pulled into her usual space, growled at a junior walking too close to her Jeep, and hopped out. I stepped out a few seconds later and saw her walking towards the blonde boy I’d run into last week. Since he wasn’t running away and screaming at Sam’s approach, he must have spoken to her at least once before.

  “Tyler!” Sam shouted, not bothering to wait until she was next to him. “What’s going on?”

  “Hey, Sam. Good morning to you, too,” Tyler said.

  His green-eyed gaze flickered over to me quickly, and then looked away even quicker. I guess he recognized me, though I still felt guilty about not having any clue as to who he was before this.

  “Yes. Hi. All that. What’s the crowd about?” Sam said, bouncing slightly on her feet.

  “New guy,” Tyler replied easily, jerking his thumb over his shoulder. “Flashy car. Apparently he’s a looker, too. You get the idea. I think everyone’s just surprised since this is the first time anyone’s heard of a transfer student coming here without any advance notice.”

  Sam peered over at the crowd. “Weird. Thanks, Tyler.”

  “No problem, Sam,” Tyler smiled, starting to walk toward the school. “I’ll see you later.” He cast another glance over his shoulder back at me, and I nodded, not sure if I should say thanks or something. I settled for trying a smile, and he smiled back at me. When I looked back at Sam, I blanched. Her grin was predatory.

  “I, uh, should I be running?” I asked
nervously.

  “You wanna take a look, or should we just head in?” Sam asked, ignoring me. She motioned towards the crowd and then the school.

  “Just take me somewhere I can sleep.”

  Sam walked over to me and flicked me hard on the ear.

  I yelped and glared at her, rubbing my ear. “Well, I’m certainly awake now!”

  “You’re welcome, Sleeping Beauty. Now get a move on.”

  A few minutes later, the quiet murmuring of sleepy teenagers congregating in the hall was broken by the shrill laughter of the Harpies. Almost every school has the Harpies, in one form or another. The Harpies was my name for the group of perfect popular girls, the queen bees of the school social life. The ones that were all carbon copies, always attempting to outdo each other with the latest outfit or male conquest.

  That’s not to say that was all they were, however. Leah was also the school’s best tennis player, and for the talent show, Cecily had played a song on the piano so beautifully that people actually started to cry. But if someone was going to play the popularity game, they needed armor. For those girls, looking and acting the same, hunting for something to give them an edge, was a necessity.

  New Guy was clearly the target now. If he’d managed to draw that much attention just from showing up, there was no way they weren’t after him. Thankfully, the sound of vapid giggling was cut through by the sound of the bell. I grabbed my backpack and trudged off to math. I took my usual seat in the back. As it turned out, being in the best seat to observe paid off. Just as Mrs. King was trying to regain control (again), the door swung open.

  Jesus. Living proof that genes really weren’t fairly distributed.

  Olive skin, perfectly gelled black hair, ridiculously broad and muscled shoulders, irritatingly mesmerizing dark eyes, wrapped up in an annoyingly snug black Henley and blue jeans. Also, cheekbones. I swear you could cut glass with those things.

  “Excuse me, but is this Mrs. King’s AB Calculus class? I am supposed to report here for first period.” He gave the piece of paper in his hand a puzzled look as he spoke.