“Jesus,” I whispered. “When they call for snow they aren’t fucking around are they?”
I didn’t know why I was whispering. Of course, it was night time and we were outside and something about being in the dark underneath the moon in the stillness of the night made me feel that I had to be quiet. Reverent, even. Lucas and I had decided, once the snow stopped, that we would take a walk down to the lake. The snow had started right as we were finishing up breakfast and had continued on at a fairly steady rate until just after dark. Oma guesstimated that we had gotten a foot of snow, and when the six o’clock news had come on, with the three of us still huddled in front of the fireplace, she was confirmed to be almost on the nose with her guess.
All day long, the three of us had taken turns adding logs to the fire, stoking it, keeping it blazing warm, as we sat and shared stories and just talked. When lunch came, Lucas and I had gone in and made all of us lunch to take into the living room. At dinner time, Oma had gone in and heated up leftovers from the day before and brought it into the living room as well. All we had really needed was for it to be Christmas time so we could have a lighted tree and it would all have felt as cozy as possible. But, since it was late March, we had to settle for things such as they were.
Oma had regaled us with tales about growing up in Ohio—when the winters were really awful. Obviously, Lucas and I knew nothing of a really harsh winter. Lucas told us about going to NYU and studying in the city. After much prodding, I shared stories of acting gigs and performances and maybe a few insider pieces of gossip about certain celebrities. I didn’t have much else to share, story-wise, that the two wouldn’t have known already, so celebrity insider stories it was.
Once the snow stopped, shortly after dinnertime, Lucas asked if I wanted to take a walk down to the lake. Of course, I didn’t want to walk down to the lake in the freezing cold in nearly knee-high snow. However, I really wanted to put my mouth on Lucas’—and I really didn’t want to do that in front of Oma. Even though she would have thought nothing of it, I just didn’t feel right doing it. No one wants to kiss the guy they’re involved with while their nearly seventy-year-old grandmother looks on.
“When it rains it pours,” Lucas responded in a normal tone.
Obviously, he wasn’t intimidated by the haunting silence of the snowy night around us.
“You’re using that wrong,” I replied in a sing-song voice as we trudged through the snow.
Suddenly, Lucas’ fingers were sliding between mine and he was holding my hand in his as we made our way through the woods towards the lake. I looked down at our intertwined fingers, wondering if I should take issue with this or not. I decided that it was a perfectly acceptable thing for two guys in a situation like ours to do and just went with it. We trudged through the snow and the woods for a few moments, our hands keeping each other’s warm for several long minutes before I couldn’t take it any longer. I turned and pulled Lucas into me and lowered my head to shove my mouth over his.
Lucas’ mouth responded to mine as he pushed the length of his body into mine and his hands went up to my face. His fingers were ice cold but I didn’t care. I just wanted to kiss him and I would have taken that at any temperature I could have gotten it. The whole situation was so surreal for me. I never wanted to kiss and have someone be so close to me as much as I wanted that of Lucas. Running my fingers through the silky waves of his hair, I let myself melt into him as we kissed in the snow and the dark quiet of the woods and let myself just be in that moment, not worrying about what it all meant. If it had been warmer, and there wasn’t snow on the ground, I know I would have pushed him to the ground and done other things. Instead, I found myself finally pulling away from him, a smile growing easily on my face.
“That wasn’t half bad.” Lucas smiled up at me.
He slid his arms inside of my coat and around my middle, his body pressing up against mine. It was if he was trying to crawl inside of me, to join the warmth of our two bodies. To become one being. Under the darkness of the inky, early spring sky, within the cocoon of quiet that the snow-laden woods provided, we held each other and dreamed of a life that hadn’t quite developed in our imaginations yet.
“Do we talk now?” I asked softly, obviously having to ruin the moment.
“About what?”
“Don’t do that, Lucas.”
He sighed and gently pulled away from me, his arms sliding from around my middle hesitantly.
“What do you want to know, Rob?” He looked at up at me with a placid expression.
“What are you?” I asked the first question that came to mind.
“I already answered that.”
“Not fully you didn’t.”
“Why do you say that?”
“You saw me coming,” I whispered. “That’s what Oma told me.”
“What does that mean?”
I just stared at him. He sighed again.
“Okay.” He shrugged. “So, maybe I have premonitions. So what?”
“I don’t know.” I shrugged back. “That’s not normal though, right?”
“I guess not.”
“How long have you had premonitions?”
“Long as I can remember.” He replied evenly. “But I didn’t recognize what they were, or that I was even having them until I was in college. So I’m still adjusting to it myself.”
“What does that make you?” I asked. “Clairvoyant? Psychic?”
“Why does it make me anything?” His brow furrowed. “You seem awfully concerned with the arbitrary characteristics of everyone around you.”
“I wouldn’t call that arbitrary but a very big part of who you are and what makes you who you are, Lucas.”
“What are you?” He actually snapped.
My neck jerked back.
“Sorry.” He looked down.
“I don’t know who I am,” I said evenly. “I couldn’t even begin to tell you who I am, Lucas.”
With that, I turned and continued the journey towards the lake. After a few moments, I heard the shuffle of other footsteps through the loose snow and I knew Lucas was following. We didn’t speak again on our journey through the snowy woods, but once we exited the other side, the shore less than ten yards away, Lucas came to stand beside me.
“Do you ever feel like Robert Wagner and Jacob Michaels are not all you are?” Lucas asked gently. “But you can’t put your finger on it?”
My head turned of its own accord to look at him.
“Yes.” I shrugged. “And no.”
“Explain. Please.”
“I’m Robert Wagner. Robert the youngest.” I said. “My parents are gone. My Oma raised me. I grew up in a household with weird shadows and weird happenings. I ran away at sixteen to join the circus, essentially. When I don’t know who I am—it’s a developmental thing. A personality quirk. I don’t know how I feel about relationships and love and sex and whether or not I know the people nearest and dearest to me as well as I thought. I don’t know what I want to do with the rest of my life. I don’t wonder if there’s a hyphen at the end of ‘human’. That’s what I mean.”
Lucas looked out towards the lake, thoughtfulness and concerned etched on his face. Maybe he was starting to get a hint at the mess of a guy he was trying to build a relationship with. Was he concerned that he was making a bad choice in trying to make our relationship into something more—or was he just concerned for me? I didn’t know. And I wasn’t sure that I wanted to know. Nothing would have upset me more in that moment than knowing that he had changed his mind about caring about me in that way. I didn’t want my own hang-ups to make Lucas run away. I wasn’t sure that I cared for Lucas in the same way that he said he cared for me—but I didn’t want to lose him either. Which was crazy. I barely knew him, after all.
“Why can’t you just accept that you know who I am, Rob?” He asked softly, his face still turned towards the lake. “I mean, why does it matter if I have some weird premonitions? I don’t turn hairy at the full moon. I’m not going to try and attack you. I don’t have any ulterior motives. I’m not some creature of the night. I just have some quirks. Just like everyone else.”
“Because I haven’t lived with this knowledge for as long as you have, Lucas,” I replied. “I didn’t know werewolves were real. I didn’t know that Oma was a witch. I didn’t know that one day I would say those words so casually and not mumble incoherently at the craziness of it all. I’m trying to adjust. And the only way I can do that is by asking questions. Trying to quantify and validate all of this new information.”
“I suppose so.” He sighed.
“Staying with me…I mean, doing this…is not going to be easy for me.” I shivered at the feeling of being nearly knee deep in snow as we stood there. “Or for you. You seem to have knowledge about a world I’ve only just discovered. It’s normal for you. It’s not for me. It’s going to be confusing and weird for a while. If that bothers you…”
“What is that?”
“I just meant that—”
“No.” He interjected. “That.”
Looking over at Lucas I saw, even in the low light that the moon provided, that he was staring off west along the shore of the lake. With a frown, I followed his gaze, looking for whatever it was that he was seeing. Finally, my eyes landed upon a figure standing out all alone on the shore, on one of the higher overlooks over the lake. It was about twenty yards away from our position on the shore. All alone and cast in shadow, the figure seemed to be doing a weird jig of some kind or thrashing uncontrollably. My eyes grew wide as I watched the gangly figure doing its weird dance on the overlook, wondering who in the hell, besides Lucas and me, would be out by the lake on such a cold, snowy night.
“What is he…”
“I don’t know,” Lucas whispered back.
We both watched with morbid fascination as the figure “danced” a few moments longer, then seemed to lose its footing. As if in slow motion, the figure tumbled off of the overlook and plunged towards the water as Lucas and I both yelled out. The figure hit the icy water with a resounding splash and then Lucas and I were running through the snow towards the overlook. Snow pulled at our feet but we ran as fast as we could until we were standing on the overlook, looking down at the dark, glassy water—which was surely just shy a few degrees from freezing over.
My breath was caught in my throat as we gazed down at the water in horror, wondering who had fallen into the water and if they could swim. The water surface was still rippling, but there was no sign of the person who had literally danced off the side of the overlook. Lucas and I glanced at each other before looking back down at the water below us. We both gasped as a shockingly white arm breached the surface of the water, flailing, as though begging for help.
Without thinking twice, I stripped off my coat and pulled my shirt off over my head. Lucas grabbed at me, trying to stop me.
“Rob, don’t be ridiculous!” He pleaded. “There’s no way that you won’t freeze to death before you can save them.”
“Are you kidding?” I scoffed as I started to unbutton my pants. “I can’t just let them drown in front of us.”
Lucas sputtered for a retort as I stripped off my pants and kicked off my shoes, standing there in only my boxer briefs and socks. Without another thought, I leaped from the overlook towards the water below. When I hit the water, my whole body screamed out in pain and terror. The water was so cold it was suffocating. Every breath I had left my body and my instinct was to kick towards the surface, to get out of the water any way that I could. Pins and needles stabbed every inch of my body. It took several moments before I could clear my mind of all instinct to merely survive and I began groping for whoever had fallen into the water.
Seconds ticked by as the iciness of the water stabbed and pricked at my body and made me feel like I’d never be warm or breath again. Finally, after several painful seconds, I felt my hand wrap around another smaller hand. I grasped it tightly and pulled it towards me. Then my other hand had ahold of a forearm, then a bicep, and I was pulling the person towards me. I couldn’t see under the water, even though my eyes were open—I think—but I pulled the body into me and kicked towards the surface. This was a child, not a man or woman. The body I was holding against me was too small to be an adult.
When I breached the surface of the water, I gasped for air, my lungs burning as I did my best to keep mine and the other person’s head above water. I glanced at the person I was holding and could only make out a mop of hair in the darkness. Lucas was screaming from twenty feet above, still up on the overlook. Glancing around in the water, looking for the nearest shore where I could drag the person out, I began to swim, pulling the person with me.
The other person wasn’t moving, at least as far as I could tell, as I pulled us towards shore. When I finally got into shallow enough water, I grabbed the person under the arms and drug them towards shore through the shallow water. My body felt numb and so cold that even laying down in a lit fireplace wouldn’t thaw me out. Shivering violently, I pulled the person up onto shore and laid them down on their back. I fell to my knees beside the person and looked down. My whole body froze, but in a different way, when I saw what I was staring at on the ground before me.
This person was me. The way I looked as a kid.
Then the person’s eyes shot open. I jumped back, falling to my ass in the dirt and sand covered shore. The person jumped to his feet, laughed maniacally, and dashed towards the woods. I began babbling to myself as I watched the person disappear into the woods, wondering if I was going crazy, but also terrified that I wasn’t. Then I heard Lucas shouting in the distance, getting closer. I looked up, my face twisted in horror, icy water dripping off of me, threatening to freeze at any moment against my skin.
Lucas was suddenly next to me, squatting down and pulled me up. He pulled me into his body and I was babbling yet incredibly grateful for the warmth that his body provided against mine. As he began shoving me back into my clothes, haranguing me with questions, I got myself under control and managed to stop babbling.
“What the hell were you thinking, Rob!?!?” He admonished me. “You could have fucking died!”
“I duh-don’t nuh-know.” My teeth chattered as he pulled my shirt on over my head and began pulling my coat on around me. “I juh-just duh-did it.”
“Where is he?”
“Huh-who?” I chattered.
“The guy you pulled out of the water!”
“He ruh-ran into t-the wuh-woods.” I pointed a brittle finger towards the woods near the shore.
Lucas frowned and looked off towards the woods. Then he was putting my shoes on me as I did my best to balance and keep on my feet. I looked off towards the woods, wondering how crazy I could be. Was I going crazy bit by bit the longer I stayed in Point Worth? How was it possible that I had pulled my younger self out of the lake? The nearly frozen lake.
“How the hell did he just run away?” Lucas grumbled as he stood up and pulled me into him again, trying to share his body warmth.
“It was me,” I said.
“What?”
“Th-the puh-person I pulled out of the lake.” I shivered violently against Lucas. “It was me. As a kid.”
I felt Lucas’ body tense against mine.
“What are you talking about, Rob?” He pulled back just enough to look me in the eyes as he held me.
I shivered and shrugged. Then a maniacal cackle sounded from the edge of the woods. Lucas and I both turned our heads violently towards the woods. A pale face peeked out from the tree line, finding the light of the moon perfectly. I gasped at the sight of my younger face staring out at me, an evil grin on his face. Lucas jumped against me at the sight of the face. We held onto each other as the younger me laughed maniacally again, its face twisting up grotesquely, then disappeared into the woods once again.
“What the fuck…”
“I don’t know,” I whispered in fear.
“What is going on, Rob?” Lucas gasped. “Where is…it…going?”
I stared off toward the woods for the space of a few breaths, then my eyes grew wide in terror. It was heading in the direction of Oma’s.
“Come on!” I shouted as I grabbed Lucas’ hand and drug him towards the woods.