Chapter Nineteen. Daye
Daye
Autumn stumbled into winter. In some ways, it was easier.
Wintertime always brought distance in its wake—Rory couldn’t withstand the chill outside for long, while the warmth inside always made Daye’s skin feel too warm, too tight, like she was holding her hand above a candle, just high enough not to burn but close enough to feel the lick of heat; not quite pain, but a promise of one, if she didn’t hold herself still.
Winter always meant nights apart and afternoons spent on opposite sides of the door.
It almost made Rory’s distance feel normal, a mere extension of winter’s small separations.
In other ways, it was worse. Even when Rory was there, he was somehow just out of reach—shut off in the back parlor with his tutor, or in the garden shed working on experiments, or writing in his notebook, the black cover already worn gray with use, lips shaping words too low for Daye to hear.
“I can’t,” Rory said apologetically when Daye held up the skates. The lake had frozen two weeks before, smooth and shining. For two weeks, Daye had been raising and lowering the skates in question. For two weeks, the answer had been: Not right now.
‘Why?’ she asked, hand splayed, mouth round, brows arched.
“I have to finish reading this stuff.” He gestured at the books and papers circling him like a mushroom ring.
‘Why?’ she asked again. Their language, the system of hand gestures and facial expressions they’d developed, wasn’t one for nuanced expression.
“I want to finish going over this before I go to the city tomorrow.”
Daye arched her eyebrow higher, trying to ignore the clench in her chest at the thought of him leaving.
Again. His absences kept stretching longer—from those first three and a half days in September to four in October and November and six in December.
Now, in January, he planned to go for eight days.
Eight full days of empty rooms and empty days and an empty, vacant hush where Rory used to be.
Rory sighed. “I’m sorry, I know I’m always busy lately.
” His mouth twisted in solidarity. “But it’s only for now, just until I find the answers I’m looking for.
It won’t be long now, I’m sure of it.” His eyes got that faraway look, as if he could see the answers he was searching for waving on the horizon, just out of reach.
He shook his head. “Go ahead and skate without me. There’s no reason to keep waiting for me when I don’t know when I’ll be done. ”
So, Daye went skating on her own.
It was a thirty-minute trek to the lake.
It had never seemed like a trek before. An amble, towels thrown over shoulders, or remnants of a snowball fight melting in her hair.
Rory’s chatter in her ears, his hand tugging hers.
All she could hear now was the grind of frozen snow under her boots and the thump of Wynne’s old skates against her chest, a staggering, halting heartbeat.
At the lake, the powder white of snow met the blue-green of ice. She tested the ice with her toe. Gave a little jump. The ice held. She pushed off.
A loop was forming under her feet. Then another. She stopped in the middle of the lake. Turned around. Behind her: a single set of tracks, leading to the lake; a single line, swirling and dipping toward her. Her breaths were the only ones clouding the air.
She skated east, the wind making her eyes sting, then, mid-movement, whipped around and skated west. There was no one to check with over her shoulder, nobody to match her pace to.
She lengthened her stride. Her hands were rising at her sides, like wings ready to take flight.
And then she flew. Or at least it felt like that—once she stopped holding back, measuring her stride against an absent Rory.
She never knew she could go that fast. Never had a reason to—why would she want to outpace Rory?
Daye pushed herself even harder. The ice was growing blue with shadows.
A couple of geese thundered from the reeds at the bank, honking into the sky.
She was faster than birds. Faster than the snow.
Faster than the wind. Flying, flying, flying, the shush of blades on ice and wind in hair the only sounds for miles—
And then she was flying in earnest—arms windmilling, legs tangling, until her chin collided with the surface with a crack, and she skidded sideways, cheek to ice.
She came to rest with her arms curled around her head and her knees tucked to her chest, a lone huddle of flesh in the middle of the frozen lake.
It took her lungs several moments to remember how to breathe.
The blue-green ice was sleek and damp against her skin. As if on cue, the first snowflake fell.
She sat up, pressing her palm to her chin, to her cheek, to her ankle.
She knew Rory would be bleeding right now, his chin cracked open and leaking red, his ankle twisted and swollen.
Her fingers came away clean. Her whole body hurt, her tights were ripped, and the hem of her dress was in tatters.
But her skin was whole and unmarked, as if she’d never fallen at all.
I wasn’t built to break easily. Daye chased that thought away. She gingerly stood up. Her ankle protested but held. I was built to fall apart only when the time came. She chased that thought away as well. She could taste leaf dust in her mouth. She swallowed, but the taste remained.
Rory had never asked her how it was, unbeing.
Whether she remembered it. Even if he had asked, she didn’t know how she would have answered.
For once, her inability to talk felt not merely inconvenient but insurmountable.
In her head, she tried out words like dry and brittle and motionless.
Dark. Suffocating. Frangible. None of them encapsulated it.
All they did was make her realize how little suited she was to Rory’s version of language.
How her fluency ran only skin deep. Her mouth, her hands, her thoughts, all suited for understanding, not expressing.
She skated back to the bank, changed into her boots, and trekked home in the swirling snowscape. The snow covered up her footprints, the loops she’d left in the ice. Like she had never been there at all.
She let herself in through the back gate.
Through the frosted window of the garden shed, she could see something moving restlessly.
A hint of a wing, feathers ragged green, beating against the windowpane like a jagged heartbeat, wiping clear patches in the condensation.
A beak opened and closed against the glass, a grinding, serrated sound.
And then a hand closed around the green body, and it was gone.
Daye looked away.
She tried to avoid the shed as much as she could.
The things inside were always moving restlessly, agitatedly, even when Rory wasn’t there.
Birds made of ivy and rosemary, their lopsided wings crashing against the windowpane whenever Daye walked past. Tiny green mice, their whiskers trailing grass blades, their paws the delicate pink of dog roses as they scrabbled for a way to escape.
Rabbits made of winter berries, their eyes the red of holly, their ears vibrating with fear.
Every time, she tried not to think about the fact that all that separated her from them was shape and goodwill. Every time, she failed.
Daye turned her head and hurried back inside.