Frosted Dust

Act I

"The end is only the beginning of the best friendships."

Frosted Dust

Act I

The End

*

Somewhere far away in the chilly and misty morning, a train whistle was blowing.

Glancing lazily at a years-outdated calendar as he passed by it, and knowing all too well the reason why he had looked at it, the gaunt young man moved on through the rambling old house with no real destination in mind.

At least, with no conscious destination in mind.

He didn't linger in the parlor, where once there had been singing and life. Frosted dust covered the grand piano, its keys icing over with a soft crackle as he passed. But the dancers had all long since gone away.

Passing through the darkened dining room, where all the tattered curtains were drawn over windows etched in odd, frosted designs of ice, he dragged his pale and cool fingers across the surface of the ornately carved table that could easily serve a feast for forty or fifty. Designs of frost, at one time resembling flowers and leaves, spread over the table, covering it, as it already did the windows. Now, however, the patterns resembled something that might have come from a nightmare. Something rustled in the curtains, but he paid no mind to the slight sound. Years ago, perhaps, he might have thought that it was someone finally seeing him and taken action.

But not today.

Not on this day.

Just enough gray, morning light leaked through the remnants of the curtains to give the room an almost ethereal glow. But the curtains were ever drawn, never allowing much light to enter. Neither sunlight, nor moonlight. Especially not moonlight. Not that he would have lit a candle anyway; he knew the room, as he knew the rest of the house, so very well that he could navigate its corridors in the dark. No, the light was too painful, he knew, as the tip of his staff tapped along the floor, leaving little heaps of snow in its wake.

Indeed, in years past, that frosty table had served many a feast when it had shone with all the radiance of new and polished, fine and expensive wood. Absently knocking a tarnished silver fork off onto the floor, the man sighed and continued on without stopping to pick it up. He didn't even notice the subtle shimmering sound as the silver utensil frosted over. There was no reason to retrieve it. The last meal served on the table had long ago frozen solid, forgotten, with not even a mouse to come and carry it off. Not that it would have wanted, or even been able, to.

"The table is set, but the glasses all dry," he mumbled, suddenly recalling all of the happy times, surely from another lifetime – that he knew – when he'd sat there himself, straining to see up over the edge. But no, that table has been much smaller. He'd even tried sitting on a section of a cut log to be able to reach the wonderful smelling (if not meager servings of) foods and treats that he knew he would find there. Laughter had once filled the room at the sight of cream smeared all over his nose; he hadn't known it was there. And why were they laughing at him? He'd just sat there, perplexed to be the subject of such looks, a spoon in each hand, and had later burned in embarrassment when he'd had his little round face wiped with a scrap of rough cloth.

But then he'd laughed.

And so had she.

How long ago, he wondered, had that little boy and girl sat at that smaller table? How long had it been, since that other boy had sat at this very table, the very first house guest to the new 'secret hideout'?