Alex Barrow had streaked into Corbin’s life like a shooting star through a dark sky. Things that had long dwelt in shadow were illuminated. Things that had been buried deep could no longer be ignored.
The morning he met Alex, Corbin had woken from a dream of swans roosting in the eaves, their feathers falling like snow. He’d pushed the window open and smelled apples on the air. Green apples and moss. They were the scents of possibility, and he’d set out walking without knowing where they’d take him.
When he’d gotten to Helen’s place and the scent dissipated, he was a bit disappointed. Not that he didn’t like Helen’s coffee shop—it was where he always went. But the smell had been so fresh and sharp that he’d thought it meant something different. He’d told himself it had just been a sign that the coffee shop was open again, after weeks of being closed. At least, he’d thought it was weeks. Corbin wasn’t great with time.
It was only when he’d walked in that he’d realized everything was different. The man at the counter had a warm glow around him. It felt like kindness and nature and energy and something Corbin didn’t quite recognize. Something he couldn’t look away from.
It was like desperation but with none of the darkness.
Now, Corbin knew that his first impression of Alex had been correct. He was kind to his core, with boundless energy to take on a project, and he savored fresh air and trees as if each breath were the first he’d had in a long while. He reminded Corbin a little bit of Wolf.
But there was still the quality he couldn’t figure out. It wasn’t sadness—not exactly. Nor loneliness. There was no pity to it, no regret. The closest Corbin could name it was something like potential. An unused resource. Something waiting for . . . something.
Corbin floated home at the end of his first week officially working as a baker at And Son, mind still on the transformation of heat and yeast. Wolf bounded up to him excitedly and nuzzled him, taking in all his new scents.
“Come walk with me.” Wolf fell into step with him.
They walked into the woods, Corbin trailing his fingers along pine needles and pressing close to smell bark and berries. It was the smells he missed most in the winter. The cold dulled them down so his world felt smaller, closer. He had to get right up close to things to get their full picture in winter.
He wondered if Alex liked the winter. If he’d bundle up and keep walking outdoors, or shiver and complain about the cold. Did he turn up the heat or pile extra blankets on the bed? Did he do what Corbin did, and leave the window open even through the deepest snows and most biting winds?
When his stomach growled loudly enough that Wolf turned to him with perked ears, Corbin realized he’d been walking a lot longer than he’d intended. The paths he’d worn through these woods over the years snaked into one another so that, if you weren’t paying attention, you could move through them for hours without coming out the other side.
He’d been so lost in his thoughts about Alex that it had grown dark without him noticing.
“Let’s go home.”
Wolf barked once, and turned to the right. He would lead them unerringly home.
Corbin fixed dinner and ate at the kitchen table where he’d eaten thousands of times before. His aunts had never kept regular schedules, so cooking smells would waft through the house at all hours of the day or night, and Corbin would come to eat. Sometimes he’d awake in the middle of the night to find every pan and pot dirty and the aunts feasting at a table covered in dishes; sometimes it was freshly baked bread and butter, sometimes ice cream for days.
Whatever the whims of his aunts, there had always been food in the house if Corbin wanted to make what he liked. But he enjoyed the surprise. He would stay in his room until the last possible moment, tasting the air and making guesses about what he’d find in the kitchen.
After dinner, Corbin settled into the armchair in the living room where Stick dozed in front of the fire, paws twitching in her dreams. He opened his sketchbook and unzipped his pens, flipping pages. The last five pages featured a new subject.
Alex.
One he’d let Alex see—him smothered in dogs, alight with the joy of them. Others he hadn’t.
Alex baking, strong arms tensed as he worked the dough.
Alex holding out the perfectly frosted cake that he’d made just for Corbin with a smile. Corbin had put the cake in the freezer to eat bites of when he wanted.
Alex walking with Corbin and Carbon, Lex, Jasmine, Finnian, and Wolf in the woods behind his house, as if he’d always been a part of the group.
And one that he’d never show him. One he could hardly bear to look at, himself. He’d woken from dreams of Alex and drawn it half-asleep, in the middle of a long, dark night. Alex, in Corbin’s bed, arms wrapped around him, chin on his shoulder. Alex holding him, wanting him. Cherishing him.
Corbin flipped to a new page. It would never happen, so it was better to put it out of his mind. That way lay madness. Better not to want things. Better to focus on what he had instead of what he never would.
He began to draw. His tougher twin, Carbon, emerged first, glaring at him as she played with Wolf. Then elfin, blonde Lex, who’d stayed child-sized even after he’d grown up. She smiled at him like she always smiled at him. Tall, placid Jasmine strode through the woods toward them, hand raised in greeting. She didn’t seem upset, just in a hurry.
Finnian was last. His handsome face held concern, but no resentment, and his hand reached out to take Corbin’s. It was a relief.
“I’m sorry I haven’t been around as much lately,” Corbin said, running his fingertips over them once the ink was dry. “I got a new job. I think this one might be different. Well. Alex is different. So maybe that means the job will be too.”
The fire crackled and Stick wheezed peacefully in sleep. The wind outside rustled dry leaves and the air inside smelled of pine and dried sage and tomato from his dinner. He was warm and comfortable, and he lost himself in the world that unfolded in his sketchbook.
He’d begun drawing them when he was twelve, the year he started sixth grade and his aunts were forced to send him to a real school. He should be excited, the social worker had told him—all those other kids his own age to play with, and all those things to learn! And he had been excited initially. Corbin liked new things, he just didn’t get the chance for them very often.
But his excitement hadn’t lasted long. His classmates were curious at first, but curiosity transmuted so effortlessly into suspicion, and What’s his deal quickly became What a freak.
He could see their anxiety spike when he came near them. Not fear of him but fear of having to interact with him. Fear of the awkwardness that would come from being seen with him. And if curiosity became suspicion, fear became anger. If he sat at their lunch table and they didn’t want him there, then they had to be mean and tell him to leave. And they hated him for it. If they were paired with him in history class and their friends made easy jokes about it, then they were angry with him for providing the fodder.
It was misplaced anger at themselves, but then, it nearly always was.
And it didn’t matter anyway, because it affected Corbin the same. Made him feel jittery and jangly and too full of the world. Made his feet clumsy and his fingers shake and his eyes unsure where to land. Made him want to crawl under the covers where no one could see him and stay there until things were different.
He said nothing at home, until one day, Aunt Hilda found him in the forest when he was supposed to be at school. He’d left the house at the usual time, then doubled back to spend the day in the woods. Hilda never ventured into the woods alone if she could help it, but Ramshackle, one of her older and more esteemed cats, had run into the tree line, and Hilda had deigned to follow and lure her home.
It hadn’t been difficult to get out of him what the trouble was, and Hilda took him home and settled him at the kitchen table while she mixed teas.
“Fear,” she’d said, “is natural. But anger is the weak mind’s attempt at inoculation against fear. Don’t pay any attention to them. They have small minds and they’ll have small lives.”
“Don’t we have kind of a small life,” Corbin had asked, indicating the house, the garden, and the woods, which were the extent of Hilda and Jade’s world.
“First, we have three lives because we’re three people. And second, don’t believe for one second that scope is measured in square miles.”
Corbin had sighed. He’d known what she meant. Corbin wasn’t as literal as people thought he was. Sometimes he just needed to limit the number of options his mind processed at one time. But he’d hoped that maybe, just this once, Aunt Hilda would empathize instead of prophesy. Exclaim, Those little assholes! Or say, I’m sorry, Corbin. I’m sorry that happened to you.
But his aunts were never sorry for anything. They didn’t believe in regret. And sorry was just a wish about something that had already happened. Just a regret on someone else’s behalf.
He’d drawn Carbon that night. He’d begun sketching himself. Had meant to draw himself differently. Not because he wished he were different (regret is useless), but because he wondered what his life would be like if he were.
They teased him for being scrawny and clumsy, for looking like a girl; they teased him for staring too much and for not making eye contact. They made fun of his clothes because they were all the colors of the forest. They teased him for not talking, and for anything he said.
So he’d meant to draw a different version of himself, just to see. But what he’d drawn was Carbon. She wrenched herself out of his pen and onto the page, and she stared at him with her hands on her hips and her head cocked, a mirror image of his own. And she said, Screw those little assholes, bro. Screw them and their boring-ass friends. Then she smirked and her teeth were even sharper than his.
He slept that night with the drawing under his pillow, as if perhaps in dreams she might merge with him and make him fiercer.
But come morning, she was still there, if slightly wrinkled, and when Corbin looked in the mirror, he saw what he’d always seen. Too-large eyes, a too intent stare, and delicate bones that made him, yes, look like he could be a girl. He sighed. He hadn’t thought anything would be different, but he realized in that moment that he must have hoped.
And then he heard Carbon’s voice in his head (though she hadn’t called herself that yet), and she said, Duh, you look like me, bro. Which is awesome. Lucky you. Corbin felt lighter immediately, and when he smiled, he thought his teeth were a little sharper too.
He’d put the drawing in his pocket and carried it to school with him that morning, and had ever since.
With Carbon there, he had someone to talk to, someone looking over his shoulder who could roll her eyes and laugh with him. She wasn’t there all the time. Why the hell would I want to chill at math class, bro? But she was there enough.
Jasmine came next, about six months later. Corbin read a book featuring her, Melt Away Homeward. In it, a woman—Jasmine Aweke—hid on a spaceship bound for the planet where her sister, who had disappeared the year before, had last been seen. She fought in an interplanetary war, only to find that her beloved sister was leading the army for the opposing side. She was strong and confident and loyal, and Corbin admired her completely. He read the book a dozen times and images of Jasmine began working their way into his drawings. He went to her for advice and liked to walk with her in silence.
Next were Wolf and Lex. They appeared at the same time because Wolf was dragging Lex out of a stream when Corbin found them. She was giggling too hard to grab at the shoreline, jubilant and unafraid. It had been Carbon who wanted her. Carbon found Jasmine stern and distant, and she thought Lex seemed fun. But Corbin had warmed to Lex too. She was forever laughing, and when she was laughing, nothing in the world could harm her. She made Corbin laugh at himself, and in those moments, he felt impervious too.
Wolf quickly became Corbin’s companion, rarely leaving his side. He was a guardian and a protector, and whenever Corbin needed him, he was there.
They got on like that for a few years. Then, when Corbin was fifteen, Finnian came. Finnian didn’t talk much, but he was handsome and brave and he listened to what Corbin had to say.
He held Corbin’s hand, even when Corbin’s fingers trembled, and he kissed Corbin’s cheek at night before he fell asleep. One night, Corbin asked where he went when Corbin was sleeping, and Finnian tapped Corbin’s temple and said, I’m always in here with you. “Then stay tonight,” Corbin had said, patting the bed beside him. “Please stay.” And Finnian had stayed, a warm weight next to him while he slept. Not every night, because he didn’t want the pleasure of it to wear off. Just when he really needed it.
After that, they were always together. Carbon, Jasmine, Lex, Wolf, Finnian—there, with him in his pocket everywhere he went.
When people at school teased him, he went away in his head where Jasmine would calm him down, or Carbon would curse them out. Where Lex would jolly him into good humor, or Wolf would run him ragged in the woods. Or, best of all, Finnian would kiss him sweetly until he forgot that anything else existed.
He didn’t tell his aunts about them—especially about Finnian. Not because they would think what his classmates thought—that he was a freak who talked to people who weren’t there—or what was quickly becoming clear his teachers and the school counselors thought—that he was mentally unstable. No, Corbin didn’t tell the aunts because he knew what they’d say.
They’d tell the same stories they’d told since he was a little boy and he first asked why they weren’t married. The same stories they’d told when he asked what happened to his own parents.
Davey, the love of Aunt Hilda’s life, had died in the Marines, when he was twenty-two. Aunt Jade’s wife had died six months to the day after their wedding, even though they’d had it in secret so no one—not even Hilda—would know. She’d been twenty-seven, healthy as anything, and had died of a heart attack in her sleep.
His parents had met canoeing around the Pictured Rocks, and fallen in love on the banks of Lake Superior. They’d shared whiskey, a tent, and a week of canoeing, and, drunk with love but restless, had planned to meet at the mouth of that same river the next year and do it all over again. Two months after their trip, when Madeleine had realized she was pregnant, she’d tried to find the man she’d met. And find him she had. In the obituary section of the Detroit Free Press. He’d died of an aneurism the week before.
Corbin, you see, was a Wale. And the Wales were cursed. Anyone who loved them, and whom they truly loved, died within a year.
So there was no point telling them about Finnian, nor about any other man, because Corbin could never fall in love. Not with someone who might love him back, anyway, because falling in love meant dooming his beloved to certain death.
He’d had a few encounters here and there—a few kisses, a few offers. But though he craved closeness and the feel of another’s hands on his skin, the encounters left him jangled, and wanting something else entirely, and he’d stopped even considering them years ago.
In that way, the fact that most people thought he was a freak made it easier to keep his distance. Not to accidentally connect. Besides, he had Finnian when he needed him, and Finnian was lovely. Lovely and impervious.
No one else had ever really caught his fancy in that way. No one had made much of a positive impression. No one had made their way inside the walls of his attention, or his home, or his dreams. No one had begun working their way into the fantasies where only Finnian had dwelt for over a decade.
No one until Alex Barrow.