Cold Tomorrow

[2]

CHAPTER TWO

When dinner's finished, Sarah's the first to leave the table. I follow her with my eyes as she walks out of the dining area and down the hall, and when I look back, I see that Caden's watching as well.

"I don't get it," he says. "Why would she want to be home-schooled?"

I look down at my hands, all too conscious of my mother's eyes burning into the top of my skull.

Katherine sighs. "She has her reasons."

"She's told you?" Caden asks.

"No, but I have a pretty good idea."

I can't take this. "Excuse me," I say, standing up. I'm not questioned as I leave the table, nor spoken to before I leave the room. They let me go, and I slip down the dark hallway, my feet leading me to Sarah. I don't even look as I pass our room; I know she won't be there.

Down, down, down, further and further, until I'm at the back door, on the steps, in the sharp night air, melting into the dark. There by the fence – an oak with thick, steady branches. And attached by a pair of knotted ropes, a two-seater wooden chair hangs, rocking gently in the breeze. It's too dark to make much out, but I can just see the shadow of her form, sitting silently in the cold.

I approach the tree, already shivering in the fierce evening weather. "Mind if I join you?" I ask, and the darkness is so thick, so heavy, that I imagine my voice getting lost in the night, stumbling through the blackness as though blind. There's the slightest hint of movement, caught by the dull glow emanating from the house, and I take it as a yes.

I sit down beside her. In the darkness, it's easy to trick my mind into seeing Sarah as I always have: blonde-haired, blue-eyed, fair and happy. I see her smile hanging like a ghost in the air before me. I see her eyes, light with laughter. I see her happiness, like a tangible presence, brushing its fingers across the sky.

Then the ghost of her face morphs ever-so-slightly into something different, something new: me. Me, standing in front of the mirror, tears turning my eyes red. Me, curling my hair around my fingers and staring aghast at the ash blonde colour. Sarah's face, now mine, stares back at me from the night and I flinch. Nothing has ever looked so wrong.

The wind blows, the trees above us chattering like a crowd of people, and I watch as the image scatters, frightened off by the breeze. Sighing, I look down at my feet, or what I think is my feet – it's too dark to tell – and let go of the words building up in my mouth like rocks. "I'm sorry."

She doesn't reply for what seems like a long while, but just as I'm about to repeat myself, assuming my voice got lost on the wind, she speaks up. "For what?" Her voice is a whisper, and it reminds me of leaves tumbling across the earth.

"For everything. For stealing your body. For giving it back. For being the reason your life is so screwed up."

"It's not your fault. You didn't ask for this."

"You're right, I didn't. But if it wasn't for me, none of this would have happened."

Silence.

A good minute later, I say, "I'm the reason you want to be home-schooled."

"No," she says.

"But I am. You want to be home-schooled because your face is too recognisable, because anyone who saw you would automatically associate you with me, the girl who chased away the summer. Who freezes people to death and acts like she doesn't have blood all over her hands. You know it's true."