Chapter Two
David watched the approach of the slim black-clad figure in the distance. Rather, mostly black-clad: with its wide black and white stripes, Meredith’s absurdly oversized sweater billowing in the spring breeze gave him the effect of a great magpie flapping its wings.
Yes, a magpie was just about right, David decided, the way he always came swooping in with a jangle of bracelets and rings that he’d scavenged and traded and otherwise acquired from God knew where.
It wasn’t only the jewelry or the sweater that annoyed David.
It was everything about Meredith from head to toe, from his perpetually disheveled hair to his chipped nail polish to his indecently tight trousers that left nothing to the imagination—from the vacant half grin displaying slightly crooked front teeth right down to the mismatched laces of his modded Doc Martens (under which there was a high chance of finding mismatched socks as well).
And as an added affront, lately he’d taken to wearing muttonchop sideburns that didn’t suit him at all.
A white Chihuahua trotted at Meredith’s side, her lead looped around one wrist; from his other arm dangled a basket. Spotting David, the dog yipped in excitement and darted forward.
“Morning, David!” called Meredith. “And Bianca says good morning, too.”
Bianca was the Chihuahua.
#11: His accent.
David didn’t know where to begin with Meredith’s accent. It had layers, like a fine perfume or a wall that had been painted over many times. Or—here David settled on a more familiar comparison—rather like a spreadsheet running numerous functions at once.
The base was itself a mélange, as if someone had taken the accent of the Rust Belt cities lining the Great Lakes, the so-called Pittsburgh dialect that bled into eastern Ohio, and the odd few markers of Appalachian speech that persisted into the northern foothills and whisked them all together into a precarious and improbable meringue of twisted vowels and swallowed consonants.
That combination was overlaid with an obvious effort to correct certain peculiarities of pronunciation—an overemphasis of the letter T, a deliberate and distinct rounding of the O.
As a finishing touch, there were sprinkled in bits of other accents, words and phrases and pronunciations borrowed from people he’d known and places he’d been—Toronto and New York and a hint of the cadence of old East London.
The result was a soft, vaguely plaintive singsong that was somehow less grating than it had any right to be.
(David had never before heard someone manage to sound both American and British at the same time, yet Meredith had somehow accomplished it.
Most people split the difference and guessed he was Canadian, but David knew better: Meredith was from the nearby hills to the southeast, much as he might try to disguise that fact.)
At last they met on the path. To David’s chagrin, but, unfortunately, not his surprise, Meredith leaned in to give him a one-armed hug and a kiss on the cheek.
It was only an air-kiss, the briefest touch of cheek to cheek, although on occasion Meredith did get carried away and give him a brief peck.
David minded this less in practice than in principle—he had no objection to the gesture itself, only to its sheer extravagance.
Such affection was hardly necessary toward a housemate one saw every day, but of course Meredith greeted nearly everybody that way, and somehow had the unerring ability to gauge whether they’d let him.
#12: They almost always let him.
“Morning,” muttered David morosely. “You’re up early.”
Come to think of it, it was unusual to see him out and about at this time of day.
Meredith was a nighttime creature, strange and pale under the sharp early sun.
His windswept hair, somewhere between dishwater blond and mousy brown, hung to his shoulders in loose waves and shimmered faintly in the morning light.
So, too, did the fuzzy material of his sweater and Bianca’s rhinestone collar.
#13: He persists in outfitting his dog in this humiliating fashion.
“I went down to the shops,” said Meredith, and added, “The bread is out.”
“Yes,” said David. “I know.” And then, because although ordinarily the answer should be obvious, but with Meredith, nothing was ever obvious, he asked, “You picked some up, then?”
#14: One must regularly ask such questions of him.
“No,” he said, quite cheerfully.
#15: Because this is the answer.
“I—” David wiped a hand over his face and contemplated this for a moment. “I think I’m going to kill you.”
Meredith giggled. He was always giggling at things that, to David, weren’t funny at all, just as he went around with a foolish grin plastered on his face no matter the circumstances.
“I got rolls,” he explained, holding out the basket. “And soap, and oranges, and straight pins for Mrs. J, and Bednarek asked me to pick him up a pound of coffee, and—”
David stared.
“Rolls isn’t bread,” protested Meredith.
That was enough to snap David out of his disbelief. “You watch your language, young man.”
He actually wasn’t sure of Meredith’s exact age, and had never had the inclination to inquire. From early on, though, it had been clear to David that he himself must be the elder of the two by at least a few years, and he’d turned twenty-nine that winter.
Meredith giggled at that admonition, too. “Yeah, all right, rolls aren’t bread, are you happy? Actually, no, you don’t look happy at all. Is it the rolls?” he inquired anxiously. “I thought you liked the little buns with the egg glaze and the—”
David pinched the bridge of his nose. “It is not the rolls.”
#16: The man is impossible to have a conversation with.
Trying again, he said, “Brian’s flown into a jealous rage.”
“Has he?” said Meredith with apparent interest, but at that moment, they passed by Mrs. Jupiter’s cottage as she came around the corner from the back garden with a basketful of brown eggs, surrounded by a swarm of mismatched cats.
Mrs. Jupiter was a heavyset woman with dark brown skin and braids twisted into a towering, elaborate updo atop her head.
She wore a great many pieces of crystal jewelry that David suspected were more for style than function, though she was a well-respected witch by all accounts.
“Good morning, Mrs. Jupiter,” called David.
She smiled. “Good morning, Mr. Carew.” And then, with a different sort of smile that showed quite an immodest number of teeth, she said, “Morning, Meredith.”
Even though there was no discernible change, some shift occurred, some indication of intimacy that made David feel like an obscene voyeur when Meredith returned, “Morning, Liz.” He rummaged in his basket and presented her with a card of bright new pins.
“Here’s them sewing pins you wanted, by the way. ”
Mrs. Jupiter beamed. “Thank you, my dear, most kind of you. If you’ll forgive the imposition, I do have another favor to ask—if you happen to have a moment, that is.”
“Actually,” said David, “we were in the midst of quite a serious—”
“Course we do,” interrupted Meredith. “Anything for you, Mrs. J.”
Unbelievable.
(David wondered whether the reversion to her title was an intentional downgrade or merely force of habit.)
“Oh, thank you,” said Mrs. Jupiter. “You remember the stray that showed up on the doorstep this morning?” Stray was a euphemism.
People often abandoned unwanted pets at the edge of town.
The lucky ones found their way to Mrs. Jupiter; the rest wandered into the Midnight Wood, which, as far as David was concerned, was hardly a stroke of good fortune for them.
Bianca had been one of Mrs. Jupiter’s rescues, but as a witch, she specialized in cats.
As the Chihuahua had been unable to see her way to a peaceful coexistence with housemates of the feline persuasion, she’d ended up being adopted by Meredith.
(Currently, she uttered a low growl from between his ankles as she turned her baleful gaze on an orange tabby.)
“Do you mean the big round stripey one?” asked Meredith.
“That’s the one. She’s having kittens,” said Mrs. Jupiter, “and having a pretty rough time of it. The trouble is, I’m fresh out of bloodroot—type A—and nearly out of slattern’s comb. I didn’t want to leave her to go hunting for it myself.”
“That’s all right, Mrs. J, you can count on us,” said Meredith brightly.
He leaned down to unclip Bianca’s lead from her collar, straightened up, and ran a hand through his hair, getting his rings tangled with his bangs, as usual.
(He’d once confessed, after an evening of smoking false prophet’s balm, that he cut his hair that way to conceal a scar, but the subsequent half-second display of his forehead had revealed no evidence of one.) Stowing the lead in his shopping basket, he handed it over to Mrs. Jupiter.
“I’ll just leave this with you for the moment, if you don’t mind. C’mon, David.”
David opened his mouth to protest at being roped into this little expedition, then reconsidered.
Though there were countless sensible reasons to avoid setting foot in the Midnight Wood, Meredith still remained cheerfully oblivious to his own role in Brian’s imminent departure—a most unsatisfactory state of affairs, and one that David intended to rectify at once.
Mrs. Jupiter inclined her head. “I owe you a debt of gratitude,” she said. “Do be careful, you two. And be sure to stick together. The Midnight Wood is no place to walk carelessly.”
“Oh, I’ll be all right,” said Meredith. “I always am.”
#17: He always is.
David fought the urge to roll his eyes, but it was true. Meredith could go prancing through the Midnight Wood unharmed, whereas other people—well, it was best not to consider what sometimes happened to other people.