My Old Friend

Christian Mott

Winter had come too early, harsh, and cold, too eager to turn the wood of bright fres into dying grey embers, and bones to mere shards of layered ice beneath our skin. Regular nights were spent feeding logs into the freplaces of the rooms in our cottage, with little to no sleep, and Papa struggled to keep his pipe lit—something he’d never had trouble with before.

Little brother and I kept up with the pace. Only our sister didn’t work, she too young, too fragile for labor. She played by day and amused our bruised hearts with her unabashed laughter. By night she slumbered in the back room while the rest of us four endeavored to keep the house warm, to keep each other company, motivated, and not so aware of our own hunger. Yet bread comes in many forms. Too does starvation.

Tere had already been too few songs that season, and the ones Mama did utter were more crooned than sung, yet more moaned than hummed. Tey were mostly groanings from deep within, audible pinings for milder, happier times. We had all come down with something the week of the winterberry harvest, and Mama sadly forwent her trip to town for the market. She brought home no mulled wine to encourage merriment, nothing to dilute for us to inspire warmth into our small toes. No juice of tart huckleberries spilled sweet down our throats, no red-berried holly leaves lined the mantel to prick our curious fngers, no little white fowers gladdened the dark windowsills.

Neither was our cellar full, but the road had became too dangerous once we were all well enough to travel it. Te only one of us who could’ve sufered it safely was Papa, but even then Mama wouldn’t let him—we needed him at our cedarn table more than delicacies, she’d said. Tere had been even fewer stories, still. Papa only sat down to spin a thread when he could sit down, when the cold wasn’t so greedy, when we could cozy up around the hearth, and he could sip his whiskey and light his pipe. Only afer he took a few draws would he get that twinkle in his eye, that curl in the corner of his mouth, and ask if we’d ever heard the one about the lost girl, the deer who spoke, and the whittling old man in the cabin with “a laugh like a bellow”.

No, we’d had no such grand stories that season. I didn’t see Papa sit down for three weeks, I reckon, and if he’d fought the winter hard enough to win a moment to light his pipe, the pipe itself wasn’t so easily won. Brother and I threw no snowballs, and our sled had rotted in the muddy wet underbelly. I stuck no icicles in my hair, and no one called me Her Majesty. Our home was no place to live, but only our sister knew it.

Te longest night that year had come too unexpected, too harsh, too cold for any of us to bear. Winter stole the fre from our sister’s room on that frigid eve, and closed the latch to the fue.

Te billowing hands of black smoke had nowhere to go, so they gripped open the window and escaped into the night, exchanging themselves with frosty winds.

Chill took my sister’s breath, and in the morning, she didn’t wake. Te entire room was coated in black soot, like a chimney-sweep’s nightmare, and they said her bones had turned to ice. Afer she was laid to rest, Papa shut her door, and we never relit her fre—that room didn’t exist anymore. Out of sight and mind, it remained black and cold, but not altogether empty.

Papa couldn’t get his pipe lighted that week. Every match he set to the brim of the bowl, when he drew on the stem, the fame was sucked down into the chamber. He’d try a few sticks here and there, but would give up, unwilling to waste them all before spring. He called it a bad sign, but wouldn’t tell me what he meant. I only know the nights got exceedingly worse each night for six nights, until we had burned through the last of our stock of frewood. Father and I went out one rimy morning to bust up the dining table with his ax, and we discovered nobody had closed her window. It was still open, and I was lef alone to fnish chopping.

Winter subdued its roar that nightfall. Te air grew quiet, still, and so bitterly stale I could taste it like paper on my tongue.

I didn’t tell anyone what I was doing. Mama coddled brother in her bed, both asleep, and Papa sat brooding in his chair with his dry pipe hanging out of his mouth, its bowl as dark as his eyes, as empty as his stare. He held a careless match in his fngers, watching the glow of our family table burn in the freplace.

I crept back to our sister’s old room, and prayed the door wouldn’t creak. It smelled like moist darkness and ash, like an old cabin that had burnt black, with a tinge of sweet, crisp wet-rot. Te freplace remained gloomy, the only light a sof blue fading in through the open window. Tufs of icy sludge had frozen down the wall to a glacial mound on the foor.

I closed the pane, shutting out the winter, and all fell silent—until the inhale, exhale behind me. None of my family stood in the doorway, no one to inquire as to what I was doing. A thrill came over me, and I made for the door, making sure not to glance in either direction. I turned to pull the door shut, and a fgure stood next my sister’s bed, not an obvious silhouette, not the form of a human—just a shadow much darker than the rest of the room. Papa’s watery red eyes met mine as I returned. “I know what you saw.” He struck the match. “What did I see?”

He set the fame to the brim of his pipe bowl, and drew on the stem. Te fame slipped down deep into the chamber to where all the other fames from that week had hid and collected into each other, ever growing and strengthening, and waiting until they couldn’t hold back any longer. Now that the window was shut, the heat of the fames released all at once. With a sound like Papa’s shotgun, the fames expanded each of their lights and heats, and exploded forth from the bowl into a magnifcent torch of red and orange and singed bits of tobacco.

His beard caught part of the fame, and was lef black and bare in patches. Te tip of his nose and skin of his cheeks were red and shiny. He lef his chair to trim his beard down and wash his face, clearing away the smell of burnt hair, as he said it made him sick. He coaxed Mama and brother back to bed while I fed the fre, awaiting his return. When he sat down again, he immediately reflled his bowl, and relighted his pipe, determined to reestablish his authority and reclaim his mastery over it.

Tis time the pipe lit without trouble, and he took a few draws without losing the cherry. Te only twinkle in his eye was a tear, the only curl in his mouth a subtle quiver. With smoke wreathed around his head, Mama and brother in bed, our sister buried dead, I sat crosslegged next the freplace on the hearthrug before him. Fire dancing in the hollows of his eyes, it was the frst story he’d told that season. “Darkness found me when I was young . . .”

He told me a story I’d never heard before, a story of boyhood, of sorrow and solitude. It was a story of never being good enough, never as smart as the others, nor as handsome; never quite as clever, nor as eager for adventure, danger, and reckless abandon. An unsafe story of never being wanted, nor worth it, and keeping a safe distance while thinking too much. Of sticking to books without enjoying reading them, of isolation to the point of never speaking without difculty. Of anxiety, of loneliness and being alone.

Alone, this is, until Darkness came. Papa had only ever heard stories of him, of this Dark man the old ones called Grippe, so he never believed he was real.

When this Grippe did come, he told Papa his name was Friend. Papa attached himself to Darkness, who taught him to feel strong when he wasn’t, to be arrogant and feel angry despite himself. Darkness taught him to mask his emptiness in order to fool others so well he would eventually fool himself, to resent others so much it was difcult to forgive them for even the simplest of mistakes.

It wasn’t until he met Mama that he realized how empty and weak he’d become, when he tried to be full and strong for her, but couldn’t. “If Grippe was my winter, your Mama was my spring. She was a fower of the perfect hue, but when I’d asked him for help, he only tried to stop me from admiring her.

‘Her petals are too delicate,’ he said, ‘you’ll only break her.’ But when I saw how strong she was, I knew then I’d been deceived, betrayed by this Dark beast with whom I’d shared all of my most wondrous desires. When I told him to leave, he said he would return. He would wait, he said, until the day I thought I had everything I could ever want, until I thought I couldn’t be happier. ‘When all of this fails you,’ he said, ‘we’ll be friends again.’

“So I’ve been expecting him, and I know that time has now come. And I know you saw him in your sister’s room, but for some reason I can’t explain, I know he hasn’t come for me . . . My dear, he’s come for you.”

In the back room, my sister’s bed scraped across the wood foor and crashed against the old dark freplace that had failed her. Te sound woke my Mama and brother again, but Papa rose to comfort them and beseech them return to their sleeping. When all had calmed, he stood before the door to my sister’s bedroom. “My old friend . . .”

Footfalls thudded to and fro from the other side, pacing, waiting for him to step inside—and the door closed behind him. I tossed in a few more table pieces, bundled up tight in Papa’s chair that smelled of leather and whiskey, and tried my best to fall asleep before the fre’s light went out.

When I awoke, Papa had gone. His traveling cloak was missing from the rack. In the bravery of sober morning I stuck the stem of Papa’s smokey, sweet pipe in my mouth, and faced the door like he had. Where sunlight should’ve glistered beneath it, a prominent darkness held its place like the taut line of a pursed mouth. I reached for the knob, but when it twisted slightly, I felt unwell and afraid.

When night fell, and Mama and brother went to sleep again, it became clear to me that Papa had abandoned us. He’d crumbled under the weight of Darkness and lef us to defend ourselves against it—and defend myself, I would. I stood before the door, a tingle of excitement at what was behind it.

Your Papa said you and I can’t be friends, a voice said from within the room. But we don’t have to listen to him, because he isn’t here anymore, is he? No, come inside. Your Mother loves your brother, and you have no one. But if you come inside, my dear, I’ll be your Friend

I swallowed my fear and tried to accept that afer that night I would never again be the same—but then the front door bursted open. Papa blew inside in a furry with a large burlap sack thrown over his shoulder. He plucked me from the doorknob, woke Mama and brother, and gathered us all together, paying no attention to the angry scratching at the back room’s door.

With his blue and windburned hands he frst took from the burlap a few bottles of mulled wine. He poured us each a mug and drank a number himself while handing out cases of huckleberries and sof winterberry holly that wouldn’t prick our fngers. He gave us storybooks full of woodcuts, and read the frst couple lines in funny voices to make us laugh. He put a wreath on my head and called me Her Majesty. He tied a string of white fowers around Mama’s neck, and pulled her close and kissed her. He let her go, his eyes glistening, and wildly continued to dig for more things from the bag.

He gave brother a new sled, pulled out loaves of sweet breads and meat pies to fll our stomachs, as well as numerous other delicacies, including a new case of matchbooks with a satchel of fresh tobacco. But the last thing he removed was a mandolin—it was used and rusted and worn, but it was perfect in my eyes. Although its cords were in tune, Papa had long been out, yet his fngers plucked mightily away. With tears wetting his ruby cheeks, his straining voice rang out, deep and reverberating throughout the cottage, as he sang of our sister’s laughter, loud and triumphant.

We followed him around, marching merrily and singing boisterous songs with him, until our voices nearly gave out. He smoked his pipe as we told stories around the hearth, including the one about the deer leading the lost girl to fnd the whittling old man, all the while ignoring the sounds of distant unrest in the back room growing ever-fercer.

We told jokes late into the night and laughed together until the window in the back room shattered, and Darkness lef us.

Sleep came easy as we forgot about the harsh winter outside the cottage walls, as we neglected to feed the cold and every sort of shadow. We found a diferent kind of frewood we never knew we had, and once again become a family, the crackling in the hearth we’d needed all along. We were together, no longer starved, and our toes were warm.

We were home, and it was ours.