Snow

The animals' snarls faded, their bodies drooping and bending low to the ground. Ice started to cover their muzzles. David kept singing, caught up in the song and feeling a dark heat curl inside him, beating strong and fierce. One of the animals twitched, a full body shiver, and then collapsed heavily, falling into the snow with a peculiar cracking sound. David stopped singing.

The animals were staring at him with wide eyes, their bodies quivering. He got up and looked at the body in the snow. It had shattered, become nothing but tiny frozen pieces the wind was already trying to pick up and carry away.

"I'm sorry," he told the animals, but they backed away from him anyway, still shivering, and he could see the ice coating their faces was still there. "You don't have to go," he said. "I won't sing anymore, I promise."

They didn't listen to him and soon he was alone again. He tried to lie back down but the ground around him had frozen solid. He lay down anyway and watched the sky, pictured himself floating up into the stars. He wondered if his nurse was up there and decided she was, pictured her sitting by one of the bright stars twinkling down at him, smiling and telling him it was time to sleep.

"I'm not really tired," he told her, and she laughed and said he was and just didn't know it. She patted the ground near his head and he sighed, stretched out and sank into snow. He slid his hands under it, felt it cradling his skin, covering him, and closed his eyes.

He woke up when something hit him in the shoulder.

"So considerate of you to die right in the middle of the path, really," a voice said, and then sighed. "God, I'm going to have to get the shovel out. I thought the wolves around here were supposed to be especially vicious. ' Don't travel at night, the wolves will eat you.' Ha! I should have known better. Next time someone tells me that I'm going to tell them where they can stick the flea-infested mattress they're trying to overcharge me for." Something kicked him in the shoulder and he opened his eyes and saw a boot with a hole at the toe. "You'd better have some gold on you when I dig you out. No, make that gold and jewels. A lot of gold and jewels."

The hole was filled with a bright red piece of fabric. It looked brighter than fire. David touched it cautiously. It wasn't hot. He pulled at it a little, just to make sure, and it fell out of the boot and into his hand.

"Oh hell," the voice said, and suddenly two hands were grabbing him and pulling him up out of the snow. "Just great. A thieving corpse. My day could not get any better."

David blinked and brushed snow out of his eyes. Someone he'd never seen before was standing scowling up at him, a man with dark eyebrows drawn together over equally dark eyes.

"Here," he said, and held up the piece of fabric. "I was just seeing if it was hot."

The man opened his mouth and then closed it. "Of course you were," he finally said. "I suppose you always sleep lying in the snow in the middle of the forest too."

"No," David said. "In a castle. There isn't any snow inside it."

"Right," the man muttered. "A castle. I should have guessed. I tell you what, you help me dig my cart out and I'll leave you right here to do...whatever it is you're doing."

"All right," David said. The man's eyes widened and then he scowled. David smiled at him tentatively, and the man scowled more.

"Oh," David said. "I'm sorry." He held out the piece of fabric. "I suppose you want this back. I didn't mean to take it."

"Fine!" the man shouted. "I'll give you a ride to the next town, but that's it. And you have to get the cart out of whatever it is I drove into so I wouldn't run over you. Go get the shovel and get started."

"What's a shovel?"

"Oh hell," the man said, and rubbed his hands across his face. "This is going to be the worst day ever. No, scratch that. This is already the worst day ever."

***

The man's name was Alec. David learned that while he was sitting, watching him shovel snow.

"I should have just run you over," the man had muttered. "I mean, I thought you were dead. I even said to myself 'Alec, whoever is there is already dead so they won't care' but what did I do?

I tried to go around you. Next time I'm just closing my eyes and --"

"Your name is Alec?"

Alec stopped shoveling and looked at him. "No, I just always call myself that. My real name is far too long for most people to say."

"Mine too!" David said, and smiled at him. "I can't even remember all of it, actually."

"That sounds about right," Alec said, and started shoveling again. David watched him for a while. Alec's hands were dark at the ends, all his fingertips turned black like night. His hair was dark too. Looking at it was like seeing nighttime even though the sun was actually shining.

David looked up at the sky. He hadn't realized the sun was so bright.

"You do realize my name really is Alec, right?" Alec said after a few minutes. "And that you're staring directly at the sun."