[Thin Ice V2] Chapter 7
It seemed like he’d transmigrated during a particularly sunny period, as there hadn’t rained a single day since he had arrived. The sun was always shining, the birds were always chirping, the wind was always a pleasant breeze below the midday sunlight. Today, too, was a perfect day.
Cale kept his eyes peeled to the ground as he walked along the uneven path winding through the entire garden. It was a big garden. The path was made of gravel, the stones uneven and digging into his feet through the thin sandals.
”Here, turn left,” Ginny instructed from his left side. She was keeping pace with him (it was an incredibly slow one that he had settled into), securely holding a white parasol over his head. He had about a thousand questions that he wanted to ask about it, but he couldn’t think of a way to phrase it that wouldn’t immediately reveal his ignorance.
He turned where she indicated, raising a hand to cover his eyes as he looked ahead. This path put them squarely in the sun’s way and it was now glaring at him from the sky. Ginny angled the parasol to grant them some more protection. ”Thank you,” muttered Cale.
”No problem,” Ginny said, grinning at him.
They walked for another twenty minutes or so, going in a large circle across grounds, before they met another worker. They’d met some during the trip, of course, but none of them had stopped to chat. They smiled at Cale, nodded, bowed, some even called out greetings. But they were all too busy working to talk with him.
This one was tanning in the sun, lying on the grass and humming a tune below his breath. ”Billy!” Ginny called disapprovingly, frowning. She stopped on the path and Cale did as well, not wanting to leave the parasol’s shadow. Huffing, she handed the parasol to Cale (he fumbled when he grabbed it) and stalked over to Billy, kicking him lightly on his shin.
”Ow!” Billy shrieked and rolled away from her. Ginny, puffing out a large breath, merely followed and kicked him again.
”Get, up,” she ordered sharply.
She rose a threatening leg and Billy climbed to his feet, skipping away from her and dusting off his hands. ”What’s wrong with you?” he demanded, his hands settling on his waist and glaring at Ginny.
Ginny rolled her eyes. She walked back to Cale and took the parasol back, standing so it once again properly shaded him. ”It’s alright now, Young Master,” she said, casting a furious look at the young man now beginning to panic. ”Billy is an idiot, but he’s very good at his job or he wouldn’t have been hired in the first place.”
”I didn’t—” Billy started and slammed his mouth shut at the glare Ginny shot him. He turned to face Cale properly and bowed, ”Well met, Young Master Calla. I am Billy, your family’s humble gardener.”
”Junior gardener,” Ginny coughed out, poorly hiding the words.
Billy grimaced but consented, ”Junior gardener.”
Cale’s eyes switched between them, but it didn’t seem like they were going to say anything else. Thus, he smiled at the young man with the slender build and wild red curls atop dark brown skin. ”It’s a pleasure to meet you, Billy,” he said and held out his hand before he smoothly transitioned and pointed to the flowers lining the path. ”Do you take care of these?” he asked, ignoring his earlier miss.
”Yes, Young Master,” said Billy. He picked up his hat from the ground and plopped it onto his head. Grinning, he visibly shook off his bad mood and approached Cale. ”You like them?”
”They’re beautiful,” Cale said. He bent down to his knees and fingered the edge of a purple flower. Pulling it a little toward himself, he leaned forward to smell it. His eyes closed, the scent invading his nostrils reminded him of his mother’s perfume. The one she wore to her sixtieth birthday party, the one that had made her so happy.
Blinking rapidly to clear his eyes from the water pooling at their edges, Cale sniffed quietly and stood back up. ”You’ve done a really good job,” he said, sticking his hands into his thin jacket's pockets. He stepped further under the parasol’s protection.
Billy beamed at him. ”Thank you, Young Master!”
Cale nodded jerkily. He glanced around the area, quietly gazing at the tall fruit trees dotting the landscape and the flowers orderly lining the path. The grass was cut neatly, but far higher than he was used to. The flowers were many different shapes and colors and they danced in the faint breeze, just like the tree’s leaves. Ginny stood silently next to him.
Billy wasn’t saying anything. Cale stole a look but the young man had bent down to fiddle with the flowers Cale had just touched. And, well—he didn’t even know what he wanted to say to him anyway.
He sighed. Resisting the urge to hunch down and bend his back the way he always did because he kept forgetting to pay attention to straightening his back, Cale instead placed a finger high on his nose. Then he sighed once more, switching so he wasn’t pushing up air and was instead softly messaging it.
”Young Master? Are you alright? Do you need to sit?” Ginny asked, stepping closer to him and angling the parasol better.
Cale shook his head and said, ”I’m fine.”
Ginny frowned, her freckles standing out even more in the sunlight. She furrowed her heavy brow and stepped closer to him, pressing the back of her hand to his forehead. Cale was too stunned to avoid it, and then she was saying, ”You’re getting too warm, I think. We’ll take a break and I’ll get you some cold drinks.”
”Okay,” Cale said. He cast one last glance at Billy and was rewarded with a bright smile and cheerful wave, and began to walk again. He followed Ginny’s direction, veering to the right and into the tree’s shade.
The sound of his pencil scratching in the notebook was surrounding him when Isaac Frosthaze—Calla’s father—knocked on Cale’s door. Cale took a solid four knocks before he realized that the sound came from outside his head and when he did, he started and swirled his head to stare at the door with trepidation.
Throwing his gaze around the bedroom, he tried to spot anything suspicious in plain sight. He fumbled with his notebook, closing and pulling another open while he shoved the first one below an eternally growing pile of books. ”Yes?” he squeaked, coughing lightly to clear his throat.
”It’s your father,” Isaac said from the other side of the thick door.
Cale’s eyes widened. ”Come in,” he called, his voice rising uncomfortably. He cleared his throat again, spinning around on his chair to face the door. He didn’t look at the pile of research he’d been doing, knowing full well it’d only make it more noticeable and that wasn’t what he wanted. The goal was to be invisible.
The door opened. Isaac stood tall in the doorway, spindly arms hanging by his sides. He frowned when he saw Cale, quickly stepping into the room and gently closing the door behind him. ”You’re still studying?” Isaac asked, walking over to Cale’s desk.
”Yes,” Cale answered. He looked down to the notebook; it was opened to a page about magical theory; unlike the notebook he’d actually been writing in. ”I need to,” he added.
Isaac sighed. He furrowed his brows and sat down on the wide armchair beside the desk, looking squarely at Cale. After a beat, he looked down at the books and said, ”I’m happy you’re working hard, but I’m worried you’re working too hard. I don’t want you to accidentally hurt yourself.”
Was Calla’s health really that bad? The headache that had been brewing at the back of Cale’s head for the last four days implied it might be. ”I’m fine,” he insisted, furrowing his eyebrows and fingering the edges of his notebook. They were uneven and sharp enough that he could easily cut himself if he wasn’t careful.
His eyes stayed on those edges a little too long.
”I know you are fine now but if you continue to work like this, you won’t be for long.” Isaac pursed his lips and looked out the window. Cale peeked at him, saw the stiff way he held himself and how straight his back was. Isaac continued, ”If you work like this, you’ll be too sick to go to school in the autumn.”
Oh. Pressing his lips together tightly, Cale forcefully closed his lips around the sound. He had been trying not to think of the future. If he thought about it, he would have to confront… so many different truths. Truths that he would like to ignore for the benefit of his sanity.
He had so many questions. About everything.
Pressing his hand to his forehead, he nodded. He wouldn’t argue—Isaac was probably right. He knew this body far better than Cale, after all.
”This wasn’t what I came here for,” Isaac said, frowning when Cale looked at him. The older man shoved his hands in his pants pocket. He was wearing dark pants and a long-sleeved, white shirt under a grey vest. The top buttons of his shirt had been undone, and he had no tie or bow-fly.
Cale asked, ”What did you want?” to get the conversation to go on.
Isaac tilted his head. ”Magdalena sent a letter that she’ll be visiting soon, if you’re up for it,” he didn’t sound very enthused.
Cale wasn’t either.
Magdalena was Calla’s former fiancé; she knew him as well as Calla’s family did. He was already surrounded by people that knew Calla well, that could see right through him as soon as he did something out of character. Frankly, he didn’t know how that hadn’t already happened. But the idea of one more person coming, just one more person able to recognize that he wasn’t Calla—
Dragging in a ragged breath through shaking lips, Cale turned away from Isaac and stared at his notes. He picked up his pen, doodling on top of the notes that he’d already made; the pen pressing harshly to the paper and the lines unsteady. His eyebrows furrowed, his mouth pressed down into a frown, his heart sped up and his stomach rolled.
”I don’t—” Cale bit down on his words. He didn’t know how to say that he didn’t want to meet Magdalena. They were friends in the book, on good terms all the way until Calla’s death.
So how could Cale say otherwise?
(That, too—suddenly cutting off a friendship that was doing more than fine—would be a warning that something was wrong. And he couldn’t afford that.)
He inhaled sharply through tense lips and curled over the table. Letting go of the pen, he pressed his hands over his face and bit down on his bottom lip to keep from saying anything wrong. His shoulders drew up to his head, his fingers clenching in his hair. He closed his eyes, trying to breathe around the stone in his chest.
It felt like his chest was rattling, like his breaths were one wrong step from going down the wrong path and choking him.
”Are you alright, Calla?” Isaac asked.
Cale shuddered on a breath. He shook his head, laying his head down on the table. When he peeked through his fingers, he saw Isaac had stood up, was standing next to Cale with his hands held out like he wanted to touch him but wasn’t sure where. Cale closed his eyes again before he had to see more.
”I’ll tell her not to come for a while,” Isaac eventually said. Cale was still keeping his eyes closed, still concentrating on breathing at a steady pace. He counted the breaths in his head, forced them down his throat even when it felt like he’d choke on them.
Isaac didn’t touch him, didn’t come any closer to him. But he sat on that chair for two hours, until Cale stopped trembling.