Young Writers Society

As he sleeps, I watch him. Maybe for far too long than would be considered ‘normal’, but perhaps that was not the case. I take in every detail, from the quilt that hangs off of the spare-blanket-stuffed sack mattress he sleeps on, his slightly-parted lips as soft white steam pours from the corner of his mouth, the way his clothes are so covered in the dirt and moisture from a long day’s work—I know he didn’t change into bedclothes; he never does—to how his pale red-orange hair, looking nearly blond in the moonlight that filters in through the open tent-flap door, is knotting up because he didn’t take it out of that ponytail of his. Even though he scares me now, I can’t help it; I smile. It’s a slow, cautious smile, but still…

I pick my way across the cold ground carefully, pushing the wheels on my chair toward his bed. The rough wood of the wheels scratch against patches of ice that form in rebellion against the efforts of the iron stove in the corner, the sound too faint to wake him but loud enough to make him stir a bit. Taking the frosted quilt up in my hands, I pull it up from the ground and back over his shoulders, tucking it around his neck. Pinching my thumb and forefinger on the ribbon he uses to keep his hair up, I tug it gently until the bow collapses and his hair is set free. It falls over his face in thick, tangled locks, and he sighs something under his breath. I bite my lip to catch my own breath, blushing when I see the drool forming at the edge of his mouth. He’s adorable, even now.

Setting the ribbon on his bedside table, I turn and push my wheelchair as quietly as I can manage to one of many iron-bound wooden trunks scattered about his tent. I open the one with the iron angel carved into the lock and push the lid up carefully, making sure to avoid any squeaking of rusted hinges. Snatching up two more quilts out of the chest before closing the lid back, I shiver against the cold. Thick fur coat over thick fur robe, two scarves, double-layered leggings and shirts, and I’m still cold. I can’t imagine how Joker must feel, laying there in a half-open summer long-sleeved shirt, his chest bared to the cold. He must have a death wish or something.

Nibbling back a cough that rises in my throat, I set one of the quilts down beside his bed, spreading the other one on top him. I do the same with the other, silently laughing at the mountain of blankets I’ve created. Hopefully they aren’t crushing his lungs.

I should leave now. I know I should; my mind whispers it, pushes the thought, but for some reason I cannot respond. My hands grip the wheels so tightly my knuckles become impossibly paler, but my arms don’t move to push this shaky wheelchair out of his tent. His private space. His miniature, temporary home.

I feel the heat on my cheeks get a little hotter, my hands releasing the wheels without my realizing it. Or maybe I am conscious of the movement, but choose to be ignorant as my fingers brush his face. I push back the strands of hair, watching his eyes twitch as he dreams about whatever Joker dreams of. I never could guess, not even roughly. He’s too eccentric to try and predict, and I think it’s best that way.

My forefinger trails down his forehead, over his left brow, all the way to the tip of his nose. His skin is near frozen, and it makes my spine shudder. This is a cold fit for death; I should know. I’ve felt this before. Death, thick as the syrup children pour over griddle cakes, clings to winters like these. Embraces the ice, daring to kiss foolish mortals who give their coats to little girls abandoned in the snow.

Tears well up in my eyes as I think of that poor elderly woman from my past, my childish protests as she took off her shawl and coat and bundled me up. An aged, wise face broke the silence of the night, but not with words. She shattered it with a kind expression that I had once thought of as a gesture to a frightened toddler, but now I understand her true intention. Whether I had realized it or not, she had accepted her age and gave her last breaths to help a youth.

Joker’s hand startles me as it brushes my own, our eyes meeting each other lazily. He, dragged down by the chains of warmth and sleep, and myself drowning in the sadness of memory. Patting my hand gently, I hear the whisper, so quiet that I second-guess if it is his voice. “The cold is not so bad as it seems, as it tends to remind you that you are alive.”

I blink, trying to remember if I had accidentally whispered my thoughts aloud. Or maybe it was just Joker. Even if it was far beyond his knowledge, he always knew what to say. I hadn’t known people like him existed, and I still found it hard to believe. Even as age begins to wrap tendrils around his features, he still carries the happiness of youth and the wisdom of immortals. “The cold kills, you know. You should be more careful, Joker,”

“Why fear nature,” he sighs, shifting in his bed as he bites back a yawn. “When it does as it pleases?”

“Joker.” My voice is stern this time, and he chuckles sleepily as his eyes drift back closed.

Breathing heavily, he nods slightly. “I know, Vical. I know.” Turning his back to me, he slaps his hand against the bed space behind him. “Come on. It’s far too chilled to sleep alone. Charm’s buried somewhere at my feet; her breathing is tickling my foot.” He giggles—actually giggles—flinching his feet under the covers. “And I think Jester is with her. Stupid cat lays on my neck, teases me with warmth, then betrays me as soon as the prospects get comfier somewhere else.”

I exhale slowly, watching my breath bloom in steamy petals in the chilled air, fingers clutching the handles of my wheelchair till the cold that bit them turned into a burning fire. It wasn’t really wrong, was it? Charm was in there with him, too; so was Jester. So it wasn’t wrong to want to lay there with the two of them, was it? Just for awhile.

Joker chuckles, barely loud enough dust to so much as flinch, yawning once more as his hand lazily pats the spot beside him. His eyes flutter shut, frosty eyelashes creating ridiculously vivid shadows on his cheeks and the dark rings beneath his eyes.

I wait a few more moments, teeth grit tightly, until I hear a quiet snore drift from the depths of his throat. Smiling despite myself, I push the wheels on my chair until I’m right up against the bed, then use my arm strength--as it turns out, I have quite a lot of it ever since the accident--to lift myself onto the scratchy mattress.

Straining my muscles so that I adjust myself as quietly as humanly possible, I lift my legs, pull the quilts over my body, and lie down. It’s as if I’ve formed a protective nest; immediately, I feel warm and comfortable. Inhaling, I catch a whiff of that trademark scent Joker has. A dreamy, relaxing cinnamon that could soothe any beast, including my pounding heart.

In a last act of boldness, I slide my arm around Joker’s waist and snuggle against his back, feeling his chest rise and fall with each breath. He stirs--Lord knows my breath nearly slices my throat wide open with how sharply I inhale--and I lay, rigid, waiting for him to settle. When he finally falls silent, soft snores floating in the air like the Chinese lanterns we sometimes use to end summer performances, I realize there is a dull weight on my hip. Peeking under the quilts, I see his hand, respectfully placed well above my legs and below my upper waist, and I smile.

Lips curled in a beaming grin so wide I’m sure my frozen faze will shatter at any moment, I toss away any negative thoughts I might have for him. For whatever reason, Lith deserved Joker’s punishment for invading his personal life. Maybe I just needed to go back to trusting his judgement. Maybe…

My thoughts drift away as sleep overtakes me, and all I think of is sharp, lovely cinnamon and Joker’s tangled hair.

*****

Boots crunching on rough patches of grass, hardened flowers, shrubs, and an assortment of pine needles, I slowly pick my way through the brush to a pile of boulders some twenty yards away. As night quickly falls on the mountains, the eerie howls of wolves in the distance drifts up into the chilled air, driving the natural human instinct to run, hide, and find safety in numbers.

Bitterly, I realize for the thousandth time that I always get the majority of scouting and look-out jobs; I suppose I should be flattered, to a certain extent. Joker knows a soul intertwined with nature when he sees one.

Another howl erupts not far from me--to the east, by the sound of it--as my gloved fingers grip the rough stone of a massive boulder, moss and sand clinging to the front of my leather jacket as I haul myself up onto the first ledge the pile has provided. A few more simple lifts and I’m at the top, just in time to see the tip of the sun flash a last ray of light as it dips behind the tallest western peak in the distance.

As burning orange, luscious pink, and vivid red colors fade into sharp violet tones, stars flicker to life within minutes. Each burning sphere of light seems to be overjoyed that they have the sky to themselves, for there is no moon tonight. The temperature is already dropping drastically, forcing dainty flowers to pull their petals tight against dull green skin. Buttoning up my jacket, I tug at the garment until more of my neck and chin is covered; if I’m going to sit out here for a few hours, I can’t freeze right from the start.

Pulling out a ragged piece of twine I snatched from Lucky while he was unpacking crates earlier, I tie up my unruly raven hair, biting my lower lip as the tangles catch on my fingers and yank at my scalp. One of these days I’ll brush it. Not today, but sometime. Maybe next month, after we get out of these damned mountains.

Another piercing wail from a nearby wolf trails echoes through this valley created by several peaks as they embrace, making me shiver with the closeness of it. Sure, I’m a living miracle with animals--I have quite a few wolves of my own, tamed as a rich folk’s hound--but that doesn’t mean they aren’t still dangerous, unpredictable creatures. Especially that black one we saw a while back. That… thing?...couldn’t have cared less about my presence. It was intent on our very own Joker.

Rubbing my hands together, I blink a few times to make sure my face hasn’t frozen solid while I was distracted. The cold can be painful if you don’t know how to deal with it. A lot of people consider it more deadly than any rabid animal or stalking criminal.

All at once, at least thirty howls are released into the air, close enough to where it leaves my ears ringing. My blood freezes, my heart skipping several beats as my ears perk to the sound of pounding paws against frozen ground. Hundreds of paws.

“The Hell?!” I mutter, squinting into the thick, sickly darkness as the pines quiver and the undergrowth hisses with movement. I pull my small pistol from the hidden holster on my left thigh, clenching the handle as I bring up the sights so that the barrel of the gun is level with the roughest of the commotion.

More howls follow the others, creating a deafening thunder-clap of sound that rumbles through the valley like a crashing wave, making my knees give slightly. Then, one by one, furry, muscular bodies rip themselves from the density of the pines and out into the clearing.

I lose my nerve, and the gun bucks ferociously in my hand, stinging my wrist as a loud bang is followed directly by a blinding flash of light. Ten, twenty, thirty, forty wolves, piling up on each other unnaturally, sprint in a formation resembling that of cattle, their paths swaying to and fro to avoid obstacles. Soon there’s hundreds of them, their breaths forming a swell of steam that smacks me in the face, snarls and yips bouncing off of trees and stone as they move. Every now and then, a howl will rise up somewhere in this impossible pack, the eerie sound quickly gathered up by more animal wails. Bursts of wind bring their scent to me; that dense, foresty-smell that comes with hunting in the pines and sleeping in moist dens.

As the middle of the herd rounds my pile of boulders, a sharp pain slams into my head, right between the eyes. Pulsing, agonizing red flashes with an incredible intensity just behind my eyes, making my brain nearly melt with the pressure. I can barely open my eyes--when had they closed?!--as the pistol goes off twice more, my finger jerking as a result of bursts of energy coursing through my body. “Joker!!” I shriek, the gun falling from my hands as my fingers dig into my face till I can feel the imprint that the leather gloves leave. “Joker!” Falling to my knees, I grip my face till the cold and the pain nearly force me unconcsious.

I swear to the Heavens, someone slaps me then. Hard and brutal, the strike across my face clips my knuckles and slices my chin, throwing me onto my back with the force. In the split second my eyes spring open, arms flailing as I try to catch myself, I see the dark hair as it whips in the wind, hugging a slender female form as she laughs.

Red eyes flash in the darkness, a pale hand rising as tendrils of black smoke swirl from her fingertips, gripping my neck so tightly that I lose my vision once more. My breath is gone, though my mind continuously screams for Joker, as a cold, fatal feeling settles over me.

White explosions vividly flash beneath my lids as my frantic inhalations are stopped again and again by the black smoke that strangles me. As I slip beneath the surface of an unseen and unheard pool of tar in the back of my mind, I hear the familiar sound of a shotgun as the trigger is pulled and pellets are thrown from the barrel.

“Back away,” I hear Joker--I’d kiss the blessed fool if I could--and a smile unwittingly tugs at my lips. The loud clicking and clacking of a shotgun being roughly reloaded rings out in the silence, and I realize that the wolves have all gone. I don’t even remember the sound of them fading, let alone disappearing completely.

Red strikes me with a horrid, torturous pain as my throat is released and breath floods my lungs in sweet, heavenly gasps. “Come to me,” a melodic, angelic voice whispers darkly, demanding that my mind force my eyes open despite the pain that still lingers in my head. I see a delicate out-stretched hand, pale against the black, airy folds of the dress that clothes her, and Joker’s pale red-orange hair that hides a look of weighted suffering.

“I beg you, my Lady; back away, and I shan’t fire again.” Joker calls, voice stuff and emotionless.

The woman takes one step, and then another, back away from me. Black mist envelops her with every light, unheard step she takes, until she is at the edge of the boulder pile. “Ego deesset vultu tuo, Joker,” she sighs, almost silently, before the blackness consumes her.

The night returns to normal so swiftly, I swear I’ve imagined the whole thing. If it weren’t for Joker’s presence and his shotgun glinting in the light of the stars, I would let the bizzare memory fade.

“Joker,” I gasp, but I can’t recall for what. Fear grips me as rapidly lose memories; I can feel them drip from my mind like precious water, sinking into an abyss where they can never be found. “Joker,” I’m crying now, tears welling up behind my eyes and pouring down my cheeks as I stand unstably, falling from the top of the boulder pile and down into his arms. The shotgun hits the ground as he releases it to catch me, holding me close to him as I sob, struggling the remember the terrifying events that I know almost killed me.

“Shh, Tammy,” Joker whispers, stroking my hair. “You’re safe now,”

Safe. But from what?