Chapter 3
Everett’s magic required a lot of energy.
One time in university, he’d been so exhausted after making a large snow woman with big boobs—he blamed this on being a teenager—that he’d nearly passed out. He’d needed to wait an hour before walking home.
The key was to eat a lot beforehand. To eat until he was about to burst.
And so, for dinner tonight, Everett had gotten beef and broccoli, beef with black bean sauce, seafood chow mein, and wonton soup, all from a restaurant that he knew was generous with their portions.
He ate every last bite—as well as half the chocolate in his extra advent calendar—then headed outside.
Before going to tonight’s park, he went to a nearby house, where an older Chinese lady lived.
He’d gotten to talking to her one day last winter when he’d helped with her groceries.
After noticing that the previous day’s snow was still on her driveway, he’d shoveled it and promised to take care of it from now on.
And he had. Sometimes he shoveled, but other times, like now, he used his ability to magically manipulate snow. It took him all of a minute, and once he was done, he got on the TTC and headed to tonight’s park: Trinity Bellwoods.
At 10 p.m., this park was busier than the last one. He passed a group of teenagers doing who-knows-what and arrived at the spot he’d picked out years before. He could see the CN Tower in the distance.
Everett held up his mittened hands and moved them through the air, willing the snow to gather into a large pile. It was a bit like conducting an orchestra. Though it would take an awful lot of time to do this manually, with his powers he could create a sufficiently large pile in about ten minutes.
It truly was magical to watch as the snow appeared to defy gravity, as it swirled and sparkled under the light of the street lamps.
While he was used to seeing snow move at his will, it hadn’t lost its luster; he still enjoyed the experience.
He had no idea if anyone else could move snow like this.
If so, he’d never encountered them, and the thought made him feel rather lonely, but he quickly brushed it aside.
Once he’d gathered the snow, he pulled a folded sheet of paper out of his pocket and looked at his design. He had it memorized, but it was still comforting to have a look before he began the sculpting process.
He had to concentrate very hard to smooth the snow, to get those tusks just right, to make it look like the walrus was smiling. He’d once read an article about a similar sculpture, which had taken someone almost a hundred hours to create.
Everett, on the other hand, could do this in under two.
Finally, he finished the tail, and he stood back to admire his work. He snapped a picture before heading home.
“Not again,” Nora muttered as she sipped her morning coffee.
A “photo” of a large, smiling walrus made of snow was circulating on social media. Supposedly, it was in Trinity Bellwoods and had suddenly appeared overnight.
Why did someone want people to believe that snow sculptures were popping up across the city like magic?
She had no idea, but she looked at the comments to see if anyone else was calling out the lie. Sure enough, one of the top responses said it had to be generative AI.
But the top response to that was a picture of the walrus from a different angle. Someone had posted a photo of a woman touching one of the walrus’s tusks. Another person had a video. There was additional photographic evidence of the hockey-playing bears, too.
Nora felt guilty that she’d dismissed the initial image as AI, but when so much stuff wasn’t real, genuine things occasionally got caught in the fray. Why, someone probably thought her own writing was AI, although that could happen just because she loved em-dashes and the Oxford comma. Ugh.
People looked for any reason to dismiss something, and she was no exception, though her reasoning had certainly been better; she wouldn’t write something off because of a legitimate punctuation mark.
As she finished her coffee and got to work, her mind kept drifting back to that walrus, and she decided she had to see it for herself. It would be a good way to enjoy—or, at least, attempt to enjoy—the Christmas season.
After finishing her work for the day, she put on her winter gear and headed to Trinity Bellwoods.
She hadn’t been to the park in years, and she wasn’t sure she’d ever been in winter.
Why would she have? She’d never lived in the area, and the last time she’d come, it had been to see the cherry blossoms.
Nora entered by the gates on Queen Street. Once upon a time, Trinity College had stood here. It had been demolished before she was born, but she’d seen black-and-white photos. It looked rather grand.
She’d been wandering through the park for several minutes, no walrus in sight, when she started wondering if maybe she’d been duped after all. She wasn’t sure how—there had been multiple photos and videos from various accounts—but why couldn’t she find it?
She took off her mittens and looked at her phone to see if anyone had posted information about the walrus’s location. Sure enough, they had—it was closer to Dundas.
“Hi.”
She looked up. A young man was standing in front of her, and he appeared to be with a young woman who was a few paces behind.
“Could I borrow your phone?” he asked. “Mine’s dead. It’s an emergency. Please.”
Nora was instantly on alert. No way in hell was she giving a stranger her phone. She suspected this was a scam, and while she doubted things would get violent if she declined—there were lots of people around—she still stepped back before shaking her head.
“If you tell me the number,” she said, her voice wavering slightly, “I can call and put it on speakerphone.” Just in case he was telling the truth.
She knew what it was like to have a family emergency, after all.
“Or if it’s not a phone call you need, you should be able to charge your phone at one of the coffee shops on Queen. ”
The man and woman simply turned away.
She blew out a breath. What had been their plan? She vaguely recalled hearing of a scam where someone asked to borrow your phone, then bolted. She swore she’d heard of others, too, but she couldn’t recall the details now—she was too rattled.
Nora took several steps before realizing she was going in the wrong direction. After a few deep breaths, she reoriented herself and quickened her pace. She soon found a small crowd and saw a smiling walrus head rising above all the toques.
“Thank god,” she muttered.
The sculpture was definitely real.
She stopped a couple of meters away and snapped some pictures.
“Hey, Nora.”
In her surprise, she dropped her phone in the snow. She turned and saw Everett, dressed in a big red jacket. She exhaled slowly and picked up her phone.
“Sorry for scaring you.” He gestured toward the giant walrus. “What do you think?”
It took her a moment to finish composing herself.
“It’s impressive,” she said. “Apparently, it just appeared overnight.”
It was strange to encounter Everett somewhere other than the hallway of her building.
Maybe that was why she found herself thinking he was rather cute, something that had never occurred to her before.
It was a weird thing to think when she could see so little of his face.
His hat was pulled down to his eyebrows, and his scarf was pulled up to his lips.
She shook her head, hoping to clear it of that thought, but it persisted.
She looked away from Everett and focused on the snow sculpture.
On her trip down to the park, she’d seen some people arguing online about whether walruses could smile, of all things.
But whether or not real walruses could smile, she liked that this one was doing so.
It added to the whimsy of the sculpture.
And however it had been made, this snow walrus actually existed.
It was almost magical.
Nora felt a smile coming to her lips. Not quite as broad as the one on the snow walrus, but a smile nonetheless. Her wonder was amplified by all the people around her, everyone staring in amazement at the walrus.
“Can you take a picture of me?” Everett asked.
When she nodded, he handed over his phone, and she snapped a few pictures of him standing next to the walrus’s right tusk. Then he moved out of the way so a little girl could take his place for photos. She wore a neon green snowsuit and was missing a front tooth.
“Want to see the other sculpture? It’s a ten- or fifteen-minute walk from here, if you’re up for it.” Everett named the park.
Nora hadn’t realized the other snow sculpture was so close, and she did want to see it, even if dusk was falling.
The days were so short at this time of year.
But she wasn’t sure how enjoyable it would be to walk with Everett…
and could she trust him? He wasn’t a stranger, but she didn’t know him well.
“All right,” she said, wrapping her hand around the keys in her pocket, just in case.
She let him lead the way, and they traversed slushy streets toward the second sculpture. Everett didn’t say much, but after they’d been walking for a few minutes, she felt herself relax. There was something comforting about the bulk of him next to her.
The second sculpture was smaller but more intricate than the first. It was also less crowded. There was one other couple taking photos, but otherwise—
Wait a second. Why was she thinking of them as a couple?
She wasn’t. They were a couple of people standing together in a park, that was all, not an actual couple.
“What do you think?” Everett asked. “Which one do you like better?”
Maybe it was her imagination, but there was something odd about his voice. Like he really cared about her answer, and she couldn’t understand why it would matter to him.
Yeah, it was probably her imagination.
Still, she considered the question seriously. “I’m not sure. They’re both good, and they do look like they were made by the same person. Well, designed by the same person—multiple people might have been involved in the actual construction.”
She could have sworn his lips twitched, but given the position of his scarf, it was hard to tell.
She pointed at one of the bears. “Do you play hockey?”
“No. I can skate, though not well.”
“My sister played as a kid, but I was never interested.”
Nora walked over to the bear and gently put her hand on its paw.
It was nice to be able to touch it. She could see it was real with her own eyes, but still, the tactile confirmation was good.
She was careful not to ruin anything; she wanted other people to be able to enjoy the bear.
It had been sculpted a few days ago, and it was covered in the light dusting of snow that had fallen since then.
She and Everett walked away from the park together.
“You heading back to the apartment?” she asked.
“No, I’m going to have ice cream.”
“In this weather?” As far as winter days went, it wasn’t the worst, but it definitely wasn’t ice cream weather. She shivered just at the thought.
“It’s near Ossington Station.” He inclined his head to the north. “I’ll eat the ice cream indoors, of course.”
Still, it didn’t sound appealing to her.
“It’s a bakery,” he said. “They have other things to eat, plus hot chocolate and tea, if that’s more your speed. I mean, if you’re interested,” he added. “Not that you need to be.”
Hm. Drinking hot chocolate with him was tempting. Not that he, himself, was tempting, but the promise of a hot beverage sounded nice. And if it was near the subway station…
“Sure, why not,” she said.