hides the stars and the moon.
Zachary turns and there is a door behind him, a rectangle standing freely in the middle of the field, opening into a crystal cavern. Firelight flickers far beyond it, reaching out toward the snow, but the torch that was in Zachary’s hand a moment ago has vanished along with his owl.
The air in his lungs is crisp and bright and difficult to breathe.
Everything feels too much. Too wide and too open. Too cold and too strange.
In the distance there is a light and as Zachary walks toward it through the lightly falling snow it becomes many small lights strung along the facade of a very familiar building. A plume of smoke curls up from the chimney, winding its way through the snow and toward the stars.
He was just here. Was it only weeks ago? Maybe. Maybe not. It looks the same, year after year.
Zachary Ezra Rawlins walks past the indigo barn that looks black in the light and up the snow-covered stairs of his mother’s farmhouse. He stands on the back porch, cold and confused. There is a sword strapped to his back in an ancient leather scabbard. He is wearing an antique coat that has been lost in time and found again.
He can’t believe Mirabel sent him home.
But he’s here. He can feel the snow on his skin, the worn boards beneath his feet. There are twinkling lights strung around the railing and hung from the eaves. The porch is strewn with holly branches wrapped in silver ribbons and bowls left out for the faeries.
Beneath the scent of the snow there is the fire burning in the fireplace and cinnamon from the cookies that have likely just emerged from the oven.
The lights are on inside. The house is filled with people. Laughter. The clinking of glasses. Music that is unmistakably Vince Guaraldi.
The windows are frosted over. The party is a haze of light and color broken into rectangles.
Zachary looks out over the barn and the gardens. Cars are parked all along the driveway, some he recognizes and others he doesn’t.
At the edge of the woods beyond the barn there is a stag, staring at him through the snow.
“There you are,” a voice says behind him and Zachary goes warm and cold at the same time. “I’ve been looking for you.”
The stag disappears into the woods. Zachary turns toward the voice.
Dorian stands behind him on the porch. His hair has been cut shorter. He looks less tired. He’s wearing a sweater patterned with reindeer and snowflakes that manages to be both ironically festive and incredibly flattering. On his feet are striped wool socks and no shoes.
There is a glass of scotch with star-shaped ice cubes in his hand.
“What happened to your sweater?” Dorian asks him. “I thought keeping them on even after the winner of the ugly sweater contest was crowned was a rule?”
Zachary stares at him mutely. His brain cannot comprehend the appearance of this familiar person in this very separate, equally familiar context.
“Are you feeling all right?” Dorian asks.
“How are you here?” Zachary asks when he finds his voice.
“I was invited,” Dorian answers. “The invitation has arrived addressed to both of us for several years now, you know that.”
Zachary looks back toward the door in the field and he cannot see it through the snow. It seems as though it was never there. As if all of it was a dream. An adventure he imagined for himself.
He wonders if he’s dreaming now but he doesn’t remember falling asleep.
“Where did we meet?” Zachary asks the man standing beside him. Dorian looks askance at the question but after a short pause he indulges him.
“In Manhattan. At a party at the Algonquin Hotel. We took a walk in the snow afterward and ended up at one of those dimly lit speakeasy-style bars where we talked until dawn and then I walked you back to your hotel like a gentleman. Is this a test?”
“When was that?”
“Almost four years ago. Do you want to go back? We can do an anniversary thing if you’d like.”
“What…what do you do for a living?”
Dorian’s expression turns briefly from skeptical to concerned but then he replies, “Last time I checked I was a book editor, though now I’m regretting admitting that because if you’d forgotten I might have been able to trick you into finally showing me the project you’ve been toying with that you’re not sure if it’s a book or a game, the one with the pirate. Have