[Thin Ice V2] Chapter 4
”Oh,” Cale muttered under his breath and began to frown heavily. He eyed the woman wearily as he turned fully to face her, furrowing his eyebrows as he watched her quietly sniffle into a purple handkerchief. His heartbeat stuttered in his chest, his hands clenching on the railing.
Calla Frosthaze was a character that died in the book Fire & Ice.
He was simply male character that appeared in the popular book series Fire & Ice; he was young, sickly, and had powerful ice magic—but no real control over it due to so often being bedridden from various illnesses. In the end, he died from poisoning when he accidentally ate food from the male protagonist's plate.
The protagonist was never in any danger of dying. He had powerful fire magic; any poison that entered his system was simply burnt to cinders. Calla had died for nothing, his presence and absence equally having no affect on the plot of the story whatsoever.
In short, he was a cannon fodder.
And Cale now inhabited (if his horrible hunch was right, oh how he prayed he was wrong) that body.
Cale stared at the woman as she sniffled to herself, holding her hand over her mouth and her handkerchief pressed to her eyes, his own eyes nearly burning from the lack of blinking. Her whiteish hair was in a complicated updo at the back of her head, long bangs framing her face. If he remembered correctly, this was Calla’s mother; the woman that only appeared once in the entire book series—at his funeral, and without a tear to be shed. Mariana Frosthaze, the woman who got into a verbal fight with the female protagonist that didn't think she was sad enough at the passing of her own son.
But if she was crying of relief just because he was outside, that probably hadn’t been the case.
She sniffled quietly again, blowing her nose into the handkerchief with a loud sound, and waved at him. "Come, my son, sit down. You need to be careful of your health,” she said, moving back to flop down on one of the chairs, her pale pink dress swishing around her feet.
Cale sat down. He glanced a her puffy cheeks, her eyes big and watering. She stared at him like she couldn’t believe what she was seeing, constantly looking him over from head to toe. Her hands fumbled with the handkerchief in her lap, tying it into knots while she bit down on her bottom lip.
The constant attention look scared him, made him lean back in a futile attempt to get away from it, but he did his best to bear it. He had seemingly taken over the body of her sick son, the absolute least thing he could do was to get along with her.
She wrung the handkerchief again in her lap, her fingers picking at the edges. Leaning forward and furrowing her eyebrows, she asked, ”How do you feel? Are you sure you should be outside?” rushing the words out so quickly that he almost didn’t understand them.
Cale’s gaze drifted back to the beautifully green garden as he tried to think of the right thing to say. He licked his lips, opened his mouth, closed it. Scowled slightly, and finally said (still staring at the picturesque garden), "I feel alright, mother. And I want to be outside. It's a beautiful day, after all."
He could feel her burning gaze searching his face until he finally saw her scrunching up her nose out of the corner of his eyes. She said, "If you are sure. But don't do anything strenuous, please, dear,” she added, her voice trembling. She rose the handkerchief up to dab at the wet corners of her eyes, looked at it when she was done, and frowned. Letting it go, she placed it on the table and bent over to retrieve her book from the floor. She dusted it off, her gaze quickly settling back on Cale.
He turned his head to look straight at her again. Looking at her in silence for a moment, he scratched at his nose before he smiled stiltedly and said, "I won't."
Smiling at him gently, her eyes glittering, she stretched out her hand over the table to grip his hand with a tearful gaze. Cale allowed this, taking her hand and staring at the sight they made, connected—unable to deny her anything when she looked at him like that, and he was achingly aware of the fact that he had essentially stolen away her son.
She squeezed his hand, the warmth scorching his cold skin. Clearing her throat, she sniffled one last time and shook her head slightly. Then she smiled and asked in a much more lighthearted tone, ”Now tell me, how are your magical studies coming along?"
He gulped, lowering his gaze to the patio’s floor. Without a clue what the approbate response would be, he mumbled a sullen, "Not that well, mother."
She searched his face, her gaze terrifyingly intense. It felt like that she could see into his very soul, like she could see the cracks in his mask. Could see the seams where he’d been sowed into Calla’s body, and knew the flaws for what they were. It made him shy away from her, made him curl up his shoulders to his ears and turn his body to face the garden again. They were still holding hands.
In truth, he had no idea how Calla's studies were going. That was never revealed in the book; only that he had a hard time controlling his magic. Cale could only hope that he had answered correctly.
She hummed, letting the sound hang in the air for a moment, and said in a thoughtful voice, "School will start up again come autumn. Perhaps we should hire you a tutor until then to get you caught up with the rest of your class? This is your final year, after all, and you're already two classes behind.”
Cale exhaled, shuddering, and said,”That… could be a good idea, mother.”