Dance of the Will'o'wisp

Winter burns

It was winter when Bree Teller's parents died. The air was cool, despite the blue skies and slight sun rise in the morning. It did not speak of light, the way it did in the summer, but of bitter cold kisses and the promise of death.
She had been wary of their departure, nervous to be left in the hands of the older brother she'd never met. Rowan Teller was two years older, and his hair was much like hers; silky black and curly in odd places. It stood up in irritating loops, and framed his pale, awkward looking face, as if it needed any more encouragement to point out the jut of his cheekbones and flimsy set of his jaw. He hadn't gotten his father's looks in the way that Bree had. Rowan was tall, like his mother, and his hair came from his father's side, but everything else was his individual creation. A strange human being, Bree had thought when he had turned up at the door of their old cottage and nervously fiddled with the hem of his green sweater, asking for her father.
Their father, she had to remind herself firmly, stepping out of the way to let him through. He had walked past gingerly, prying with his eyes through the open crack of the study door. She had made a show of shutting it in his face, watching him flinch as though she had hit him.
The most peculiar human being.
Her father had insisted that it would do good to spend some time around Rowan. They were, after all, brother and sister. Although she hadn't known until two weeks ago, when Fillip Teller had randomly decided to confess the affair he had performed on his wife at the time they were trying for a baby. It had only been innocent, he had stressed, he hadn't expected a child from it.
Though Bree had been familiar with the affair, she hadn't known a son had come from it. Apparently, neither did Fillip. Rowan was from Switzerland, and his heritage was apparent in his pale features and honey coloured eyes. He had the face of a distorted, awkward lower class boy on his first day of middle school. He wasn't much of a talker, either, unlike their father, who had spoke until he had to break off, gasping for air.
Sometimes Bree thought of her father as a weak man, someone so caught up in his own affairs that he was barely conscious of Bree and her younger brother Birch. Sometimes, he would even forget the important occasions like Christmas, which Bree was used to him forgetting, but Birch was not.
At just four years old, he was somewhat grasping the concept of 'the barely there father.' He was a mothers boy, and Bree a mothers girl, though the custody files claimed them to technically belong to both parents. The one thing they had in common, Fillip Teller and May Collins, was their love for adventure. Bree couldn't remember the last time she'd spent more than a year in one country. Even before the divorce, they had always been on the move, out and about constantly. Things were different now. Money was tight, their mother was always saying, we have to stay here just a little longer.

There was a knock at the door.
Bree sighed and whirled around to Rowan, who was perched on the counter, looking curiously at his finger nails. As if he could sense her looking, he glanced up, his honey coloured eyes reflecting in the soft light dancing off the kitchen Windows. It was odd, she thought absently, how light could move so freely but humans stayed in one place.

There was no use in trying for conversation with Rowan. He was practically immobile with everything. He didn't move, or speak, or do anything remotely interesting. Sometimes Bree would catch him looking at her and Birch with a mild sort of curiosity, but a sharp glare would send him scurrying away, back to whatever awkward boy hole he had come from.
Two days had been almost too long to be around him for. Fillip Teller was expected back late that afternoon, with a handful of maps and more research to complete, along with moans and groans about his previous wife, who was also the mother to his children, and how working together on these projects was like co ordinating with a living headache.
It was the same each time.
But this time was different.
Different wasn't always good, Bree thought as she strode towards the door, feeling eyes on her back, twisting the handle and studying the man in a black cloak and twin sword sheathed to his back.
Sometimes, different was very, very bad.