Winter's Cold Breath

Oskar and Eli are not my characters, but I love them enough to write about them.

Winter's Cold Breath

The events in this story take place just a few days after the end of "A Song at Night"
Somewhere west of Östersund

The weather had changed in the hours shortly before the sun had risen. A cold front slipped slowly southeast out of the Arctic Circle, it's growing winds swirled a sea of clouds across the sky as silent as a distant avalanche.

The temperature dropped like a stone and the twisted front flowed over the mountains, it's winds whipped flakes of snow like hard grains of white sand and blew them with a whistle through the dead grasses of the fallow fields until they were stopped by the inevitable immovable object. A single flake was an entity in itself, until finally it found and bonded together with a companion, two becoming one again and again until they became drifts that snaked across the open grounds.

On a sloping hillside a few hundred metres from the edge of the forest, built against a sheltering copse of birch trees was a hay barn.
The wind had yet to find a way to blow drifts of snow against its sides, though as the morning brightened and the edge of the cold front passed, the flakes grew to monstrous proportions and soon swirled downwards blown through the sparse branches until they finally found purchase on the windward side of the barn.
The three-sided barn's open side faced downhill overlooking miles of the quickly whitening countryside. Hay bales were stacked neatly to the roof of most of the structure though loose hay spilled out of a large mound at one end.
By early afternoon the heavy snowfall collects steadily, piling over the open landscape around them as the clouds darken, thicken and drop low in the sky.

In an old, army-issue sleeping bag buried beneath that hay, two children are bundled together in slumber. Oskar lay twitching in a dream curled on his side with Eli wrapped protectively around him. Eli's hand holds her bunny to her chest squeezed between the two of them; her other hand reached under Oskar's arm with her palm loosely curled above his heart.
Eli slept her deep, dark slumber unaware of the world around her, though something about her was awake as her brow furrowed and she pulled Oskar a bit tighter when a groan rumbled out of his throat. He curled his body tighter still in his troubled sleep, pulled his knees up to his chest and trapped his hands between his thighs.

Over the year they had been together he had adapted his sleep patterns to Eli's and had become a night owl, revelling in a life with little responsibility.
Oskar usually woke before Eli. Some evenings he would get up and watch the sun set then climb back into the dark with her, or they would make a game of it and try to lie in as long as they could. First one to get up loses.
Oskar dreamt often and Eli liked to hear him tell her about the ones he could remember, especially the ones that made no sense. He would ask Eli once every so often about her dreams and she would tell him she either didn't dream or didn't remember. He thought that wasn't entirely true.
Dreams usually come in the last few minutes of sleep before waking and most last only a matter of seconds.
This is the third day running that Oskar has dreamt more vividly than ever before, today he hasn't stopped dreaming since he closed his eyes. His mind raced on and on.

Oskar is flying, soaring over the suburbs of a city. He follows the lights strung along a pathway next to a snaking river.
Hunting.
A lone man walks out of a foot tunnel onto the path, tall with long black hair that hung over his broad shoulders and tangled into his black beard.
He sees the size of the man, but the hunger rules him now and he decides on a strategy. He circles round and behind the man coming down from high into a sweeping glide. At the last moment he tucks into a ball and hits the man high in the back. Bones break as the man is launched forward his face coming down hard and scraping and smearing blood along the path. One of his large hands clutches weakly at the pavement.Oskar leaps on the big mans back. Hands, Eli's hands, reach down and pull the hair away from the man's neck and tear his thick leather jacket open down his back like paper.
Then her head darts forward and down.

They walk along the lip of the roof of a tall skyscraper leaving footprints of blood on the concrete. He pulls Eli along behind him by the hand.
The yellow moon that is the only source of light shines down, casting shadows across the darkened cityscape. They sit together, their feet hanging over the edge, and look out across the city to the horizon where moonlight sparkles on the distant sea. The wind whistles through the wires that hang between the buildings.
They watch and wait, until the sound of glass breaking echoes from between the buildings. It comes again, along with the sound of harsh laughter.
After a silent glance, they smile and nod between them, they leap together and glide off toward the sounds.

A dog is barking loudly as they are being taken from home.
A strong arm carries them away from the farm over a shoulder, and their arms and voices reach out to mamma.
The wind pulls mother's simple white head-scarf free as she struggles in fathers strong grip, her dark hair blows wildly in the wind.
Grim anger clouds their fathers brow, but he doesn't move to help.
The dog is barking angrily, straining at the end of leash held firm in father's other hand.
A man on horseback rides past in front of them and there is a click-twang and the dog begins to shriek.
The man rides past and the dog is doing somersaults, biting frantically at something that pokes out of it's side.
They see sister hiding behind pappa, her dirty face streaked with tears she holds on to his trouser leg.

Oskar dreams of drowning in blackness, his lungs aching as he holds his breath struggling against a force that pushes/pulls him downward.
He opens his eyes and sees a receding circle of light. Through pink-tinged water a disembodied arm floats past, streamers of blood trailing from it's ragged stump as it's fingers grope blindly.
He sees a shape move into the light above, head and shoulders he knows to be Eli's, but she is too late to save him this time. A head floats past, Connie's head, and his mouth moves squeezing out bubbles.
There is no sound, but he can read Connie's lips.
What a good piggy you are!
The head tumbles away into the dark.
The light from above is fading and he thrashes as his air bursts from his lungs, bubbles rising to obscure everything.

Then he is Eli again and she is on the back of the man in her bathroom thrashing about as her arms and legs squeeze, and warm pleasure pours down her throat! He feels a double pop between her legs as two of the mans ribs snap and they fall to the floor; her stomach makes long groans as he drains and swallows and drains some more. Oskar sees their hands grasp the mans head twisting it round with a sharp crack and Oskar's father stares up at him, the life fading from his eyes.

"NO!"
Eli came awake with Oskar pressed against her chest, her cheek against his shoulder blade.
She heard his teeth chatter. Heard the wind blowing against the wooden building around them.
Oskar held her hand clutched tight to his heart where she had put it before morning.
Eli felt him quake as a shiver shook through him. Her fingers felt his heart as it shuddered weakly in his ribs. Eli opened her eyes in the darkness of the sleeping bag and felt Oskar as he shivered again and cried out.
"No, Eli! Not pappa!"
Shaking him gently she put her lips to his ear.
"Hey, Oskar?".
She climbed over his shoulder shaking him again, pulling him toward her she saw how his jaw quivered clacking his teeth together. A slight wheeze accompanied each of his vaporous breaths.
"Oskar, wake up!" She patted his face gently.
What's wrong with him? Why won't he wake up?
Oskar curled himself tight again.
Is he sick? What do I do?
Eli pulled the head of the sleeping bag open and stuck her head up and through the covering of hay. She expected full darkness but recognized the quality of light to be that of a snowy night.
Cold...Is it the cold?
Eli pushed the hay off them and looked out the front of the enclosure.
A thick blanket of snow as high as her shins covered everything outside.
The evergreens outside whipped and thrashed about and the shelter creaked and snow streaked sideways through the air.
Eli inhaled deeply, then exhaled a plume of thick white vapour.
No, no, no, no! It's must be too cold!
She turned and pulled at the sleeping bag, peeled the zipper apart and turned Oskar onto his back. As she sat on his stomach she took hold of the front of his coat and began to shake him vigorously calling out his name.
"Oskar. Oskar!"
She took his cold hands in hers. She had loved the feeling of his warm hands before, how he would try to warm one of hers in both of his using his breath. She had felt his warmth on the skin at least.
"Wake up! Please wake up!"
Why can't I be warm for him this time?! Just this once?
She put his cold hands to her mouth exhaling as deeply possible on the ends of his fingers again and again. She rubbed them briskly between hers then reached out and put a hand to the side of his slack face. She didn't know she was crying until a tear fell onto his cheek.
What do I do? How can I make him warm?
Eli patted Oskar on the side of his face harder and harder calling out his name until she was almost shouting. Crouched over him she gave him, over and over, the warmest thing she had, her breath. She exhaled over his face and eyes she placed her lips gently to his then sat back, slapping her tears gently into his face.
"Oskar! Please wake up!"
His head moved, jerking to the side. His nose wrinkled, creasing his brow and exposing his top front teeth.
"Ah! Oskar!"
"I'm awake, Mamma! I'm awake. No school today, don't feel well." He tried to turn on his side under Eli again but she grabbed him by the wrists and pushed them to the ground either side of his head.
"Mamma. Your breath smells funny."
Is he awake?!
"Oskar! It's me, Eli! Wake up please!"
"Eli? Oh, Eli! Once, I dreamed I was Eli." His voice was thick with sleep.
Oskar smiled faintly and opened his eyes.
Eli saw the glint of light twinkle through the slits of Oskar's eyes and laughed. He blurred through her moist eyes and she wiped her sleeve across them.
Oskar shivered weakly and she moved her hands from his wrists to take his hands instead.
Thank you? Thank you!
"It's Eh-lee, not Ee-lee! Will you never say my name properly?" she dropped her forehead onto his with a thunk.
"Ouch! OK, EH-LEE." He said exaggerating the true pronunciation of her name.
"Are you cold? Because I am freezing."
"Yes, Oskar I am cold. Very cold! I have never been so cold in my life and neither have you. I need to warm us up and I don't know how to do it. Help me."
"There are matches in the boy scout kit in my pack. In a green tube."
"Fire?" Eli asked with a slight quaver to her voice, a faraway look in her eyes.
FIRE!
"Hay burns really, really good." Oskar whispered with a wheeze.

Eli grabbed the sleeping bag by Oskar's shoulders, pulling him out of the hay and into the snow a short distance from the structure then sat him up creating a windbreak with the sleeping bag. She rushed back to the hay and pulled out their packs bringing them back to where Oskar sat hunched over, already collecting a layer of snow.
Kneeling in the snow next to him, Eli dug through Oskar's backpack. He had taken up drawing some months ago and carried pads of paper filled with sketches and landscape drawings of places they had been, as well as various charcoal sketches of Eli. He was talented and that talent had grown more and more each day.
She found the boy scout kit behind his latest sketch pad.
Eli opened the plastic box and removed a sealed tube, turning it over in her hands until she found the capped end and pulled it off. Her thumb passed over the roughened end of the lid as she twirled it in her palm while she stared at the four waxed wooden matches inside. She shook the tube and their redheaded tips rattled about. Then Eli stood and moved slowly into the shelter, staring at the matches in the tube the whole time.

With her feet and legs she pushed the loose hay up against the solid bales and with exaggerated care pulled one of the matches out and replaced the cap. Squatting down over the hay Eli put the match to the striker pad and scratched it awkwardly across, her arm held well away from her.
Nothing happened.
With a short, exasperated gasp Eli struck the match a second time and it flared brightly in her eyes startling her enough that she dropped the match and leapt back.
Eli stared at the hay a moment, watching for fire or smoke, before she stepped forward again to uncap the tube and pull out another match.
As she crouched down to strike the second match there was a whump and the hay erupted below her.
With a frightened bark Eli sprung away from the flame and out of the shelter to roll needlessly in the snow.

Oskar's head jerked up at the sound of the bark on the wind and noticed the fire sending licks of flame and wisps of smoke curling through the hay.
"ELI?!"
He'd already forgotten his pronunciation lesson.
He saw her in the snow, crouched over on all fours like a panther. Firelight flickered in her eyes and she seemed mesmerized by it.
"Eli? Are you ok?"
Eli snapped her head in his direction and purred his name on a breath that was sucked away by the winds.
With a bound and a tumble she was behind him. She grabbed him and wrapped her arms tightly around him and Oskar heard the gurgle of her animal breathing, felt the tips of her claws where they pressed hard into the chest of his jacket.
When her warm breath panted into his ear his heart quickened in his chest. A little bit frightened yet excited as well, he knew Eli would never hurt him. Though sometimes she made him feel as if he were a lion-tamer.
He enjoyed the feeling.
"Eli." Oskar felt the heat of the growing fire warm his face. "Eli! Come round front where it's warm."
The pressure from her claws eased and he took one of her hands in his numbed fingers.
He heard the gurgle fade from her breathing, then the liquid sound her teeth made as they retracted next to his ear.
"You need it, not me." He felt her mouth move the hair by his ear.
He pulled Eli by the hand to sit in front of him anyway, then wrapped her in his arms with the sleeping bag as the warmth and light of the burning hay barn glowed over both of them.
After a while he glanced down to see her bare feet scrunch the snow between her toes.
"Are we too close for you?" He asked, knowing her fears.
"No. Maybe. But you know I like to watch the flames."
He knew. He knew fire was dangerous to Eli, that it frightened her, and that it fascinated her.
"Thank you for making the fire. I know it was, hard."
He knew that Eli liked to feel like a lion-tamer sometimes too.

Eli stared as the flames grew up the sides of the bales of hay and melted through the corrugated plastic roof. Streams of white liquid fire dripped plastic down into the hay adding to the fire, and flames that were spreading under the roof escaped up into the storm.
The liberated flames climbed well into the sky and sparks and stray stalks of hay were carried upward on the draft for them to burn then fade away.
The remaining leaves of the branches of the few sheltering trees became tiny, white flashes of light in the midst of a glowing yellow pillar, the branches they had hung upon glowing hotly as they waved in the wind.
The majority of the heat from the fire was blown away by the wind, though occasionally the wind changed and washed a wave heat over them.
Eli heard the occasional hiss as a snowflake died.

Oskar shivered and dropped his cheek onto the hair on the top of her head. A vibration of pain had begun in his head that morning before they'd gone to sleep, and now it had returned. He rubbed at his temple thinking of bees.
"I dreamt I was you last night...day."
"Yes. You said something like that when you woke, only more poetic."
"Not just last night, either, the last three nights."

Eli had stared into the fire, mesmerized, now she sat up silhouetted by the fire and turned toward him on her knees.
"That's OK. They were just dreams." He shivered, pulling the sleeping bag tighter around him.
"Are you sure? Oskar, what's wrong?" She cocked her head to the side, frowning.
"I...I don't know. I don't think so."
Oskar saw Eli raise her right hand to tuck some hair behind her ear, still frowning.
"What is it? What's wrong?"
"I feel weak, and sore all over. Like I've been beaten with a stick. Even my head."
"I don't know about being sick, Oskar. Have you got a cold?" She asked.
He smiled. "No. I think it's more than that."
He inhaled as deeply as he could and felt the cold bite into his lungs. He blew out a thick cloud that was quickly whisked away on the winds.
"It's getting colder again."
"Hmmm...?"
She doesn't know about cold.
"Eli, I need to move closer to the fire, I can barely feel my toes."

Eli fought down the compulsion to get as far away as possible, and instead helped Oskar get as close as possible to the fire.
She helped him to get comfortable and held the sleeping bag as a windbreak while he tried to warm his hands and feet.
When the fire had died down and Oskar felt ready to move she helped bundle him in the sleeping bag, shouldered both their packs.
Then Oskar stepped closer to the fire and they on each other awhile, Eli hugging him from the shaded side of the hissing hump of coals that was the remains of the fire.

"Are you warm now, Oskar?" Eli asked.
He dropped his head, "Warm enough, I suppose,..."
He didn't consider it a lie. He was warmer.
"...but it won't last." Oskar continued. "We...I, need to find proper shelter."
He pushed his hands tighter into his armpits under the sleeping bag. He didn't tell her that he couldn't feel the edges of either of his hands, from the wrists to the ends of the fingers.
I'm so weak.
Eli took his arm through the sleeping bag, then wrapping her other arm around his waist she turned them downhill away from the fire, the wind at their backs.
"We will, Oskar. Let's follow the wind."

For a long while they walked together side by side. Eli supported a good portion of Oskar's weight, though she never thought him a burden.
Letting the wind push them downhill made things easier for Oskar, but not for long, the cold steadily sapped his strength and his footsteps began to drag through the thick snowfall.
As snow built up on their backs, Eli tried to use the landscape to shield them from the worst of the winds. She moved them from trees to trees and along the low side of any ridges, out of the wind.
She saw no sign of a house or farm , and when Oskar tripped, his legs to weak to continue, she realized that they had to move faster, more direct.

Oskar jarred awake, another red dream fading from his mind, to the feeling of being bounced on his stomach. Wrapped in the sleeping bag he realized Eli was moving quickly along, with him thrown over her shoulder. His cheek bounced rhythmically on the top of her backpack, his legs were locked by an arm round the back of his knees as she nearly ran through the blowing storm.
She's carrying me?
"E..e..e..li..i..i.." he puffed out over the noise of the wind as she trotted along.
"Oskar!" she slowed.
"Help me to walk, please. You need a break."
"I'm OK." Eli shouted over the wind.
"Please!"
"Are you sure?"
Don't let his pride be the death of him!
"Yes, you can hold me up if you like." A grimace of pain flashed across his face and he groaned.
"You can even carry me when I pass out again!"
"Alright then."
Eli dropped Oskar gently to his toes but held him to her chest, his arms pinned to his side. She supported his weight while looking into his eyes, then let him stand carefully. She shook the sleeping bag out throwing off the layer of snow then recovered Oskar pulling the bag over him and down around their heads.

Oskar kept his hands tucked into his armpits, held himself while he swayed in the wind. Eli tilted her head back to look up into his eyes and felt his wet hair brush the skin of her face as it hung down.
"You're so tall now, Oskar!" she told him.
He grinned weakly, puffed out his chest a bit.
So handsome!
Eli saw his smile widen, as if he had heard her.

Oskar stared back, a grin twitching at the corner of his mouth, and looked even harder to faintly see his white face reflected in her luminous eyes. In the light from the snow he saw her pupils were like a cat's and as she smiled he thought of a panther once again.
Look at those eyes! Why don't cats like her? She's just like them!
Was this the hundredth time he'd felt himself drifting like this, about to lose himself in those eyes forever?
Does she have a power she's using on me? Can her eyes really be that big, that deep?
I don't want to look away...ever!

"Can you walk?"
"What?" Oskar missed the question.
"Oskar. Can you walk?"
Oskar nodded yes to her question after a moment and Eli let him support himself again, yet quickly moved her hands to the sides of his face, holding him still. He pursed his lips and chewed the air as he did when embarrassed.

Eli remembered their first kiss, how Oskar had done that thing with his mouth then as well; how he looked up at her from under his brow while doing it. It was her favourite memory of Oskar's face, that first kiss, and his embarrassment.
Then she would remember the blood she had marred his face with.
Blood on his face. His lips. No! So careless of me.
She wished it were possible to erase the blood from that memory; to be able to remember it cleanly. She wished their first kiss was the one they shared that night on the train, when they finally opened the double locks of her trunk just after sunset. Just as the train had crossed the border into Norway.
But no, she had no control of her memories. She would remember whatever she could when she awoke from her next long sleep.
I'm lucky to remember anything.
Eli knew she could never change her memories, only make better ones. Over the last year they had done just that.

Eli focused when she felt Oskar's head tremble in her hands. She saw that Oskar's once-red lips were pale, paler than ever before.
His cheeks with their usual pink glow were white, as was his entire complexion.
He looks like a marble sculpture!
Eli felt the pressure in her hands as he again tried to turn.
"Are you going to kiss me, or what?" Oskar asked.
"Sorry, Oskar. Maybe later. Are you well?"
He shrugged.
Eli knew better. Oskar always tried to hide his weaknesses.
"Oskar! Do you need a doctor? A hospital? Tell me!"
Tell me! TELL ME!

Oskar didn't feel the compulsion, though it was there. The words poured out of his mouth like a long exhalation.
"Yes, Eli. I need a doctor. I can't feel my feet, or my hands. It must be really cold out, because my head and my throat feel like they are about to shatter!"
He was tired of being the weak one.

A short time later, as Eli supported Oskar through the storm, geometric shapes emerged out of the white chaos and Eli made out a fence. The first sign of anything in miles since the hay barn.
Struggling against the howling wind and snow Eli carried most of Oskar's weight along the fence line up an incline that topped a hill and down the other side into a wide, curving gully.
As they moved down the other side Eli heard a distant growl.
A vehicle! She saw a brief flash of light over the rise on the other side.
She lifted Oskar into her arms, slid with him gracefully down into the gully at the bottom of the incline, then lowered Oskar onto the blanket of soft snow at her feet.
Out of the worst of the wind, Eli crouched down and pulled the sleeping bag around Oskar's shoulders, put her mouth next to his ear.
"People are coming Oskar."

The Rover laboured over the last shallow rise and Sten readied himself for the slide. He knew this road like the back of his hand, the vehicle as well. The big dip before home was coming and he reached over and twisted the volume knob on the stereo until it clicked ending the music and causing a wail of "Daaaaaad!" from the back seat.
"Whaaaaat?! We're almost home and you can both run up to your rooms and listen to whatever you like."
He looked briefly in the rearview, seeing his two daughters, Birgitta, a teenager with hair the colour of a roaring fire, and Anna the Barbarian, a dark-haired five year old currently surrounded by stuffed Vikings, two of which she had forced into a passionate kiss.

The windshield wipers slapped wildly back and forth. Crusted with ice and snow they couldn't keep up with left wide icy arcs across half the windscreen, rasping across the rougher chunks.

Get ready, here it comes!
Sten loved winter and always looked forward to the first snowfall of every year. It turned their home into a fairytale cottage, as his wife Lyssa had designed it that way. Some of her renderings from before they built their home were framed and hung in their bedroom.
Coming to one of the last rises before the straight stretch that lead home Sten gunned the engine slightly, then smiled to himself as he felt the back end slide. He heard the engine race and feathered the gas pedal a touch.
In the passenger seat, with long dark hair framing her pretty face, his wife Lyssa simply put her left hand out to steady herself on the dashboard. Confident in Sten's driving skill, (and knowing the game) her eyes never lost their place in the lines of text she read from an architecture magazine held folded in her right hand. She knew the timing of the game and reached out to flick the overhead light off, closed the magazine and put it in her bag with a smile.
"Oh my god! I've lost control!" He glanced at Lyssa who was smiling at him, shaking her head at him.
Sten smiled back at her.
"HEY! Sten!" Lyssa yelled pointing out the front window.
At first he thought she was joining in the game. Then from the corner of his eye he saw a shape move in the headlights.
"SHIT!" he yelled and twisted the wheel as Lyssa's hand pointed out the windscreen, her eyes widening.
"Lookout!" Lyssa cried.
His loss of control this time was genuine and instant. The Rover went into four-wheel drift, sliding sideways and suddenly there was a thump, as something bounced off the Rover's left-rear side.
"NO!" Sten yelled out as they slid through the snow. He steered into the slide until the Rover canted slightly where it slid into a dip, compacting snow as it came to a stop.

"Do it again! Do it again! Do it again!" Anna bounced her raven curls.
"Quiet Anna! Please!" Sten didn't like to yell at children, his or any children. But an image was frozen in his mind of a child frozen in the headlights, her arms raised in defence.
"What was that?!" He asked Lyssa in a whisper and opened his eyes.
Lyssa's hands relaxed out of the hair at her temples, a stricken look on her face.
"I think, it was a little girl!" she whispered back.
"FUCK!" Sten yelled, pounding the steering wheel.
Lyssa grabbed him by the arm, squeezing hard with a stern worried look.
Sten turned to the girls in the back, Anna had gone quiet and looked at him wide-eyed with a Viking held in front of her lower face. "I'm sorry! Anna, I'm sorry I yelled! Are you alright?" He saw her nod and saw she was still buckled up, but Birgitta was turned, looking over the back seat out the window. He tapped her on the back and when she turned he signed. "OK?"
Birgitta's eyes were wide, scared, but she nodded.
Sten held up an open palm to her.
"Stay here." he then climbed out of the vehicle into the storm.
Lyssa jumped out of the vehicle as well, warning the young girls to stay inside the Rover with just a look and a single raised finger. Her hands signed briefly at Birgitta through the snowy windows.
Stay with your sister!
Birgitta nodded, she could read the faces and didn't need to see the hands.

Running to the back of the Rover Lyssa caught up with Sten who was moving with an arm thrown up to block the wind and snow from his face. She grabbed the back of his heavy sweater, used him as a shield as they walked. She bumped into his back as he suddenly stopped.
A shape moved toward them out of the snow. A young, dark-haired girl materialized with the limp body of a blonde boy in her arms.
Sten rushed forward.
"Are you alright?!" He yelled over the wind.
Some instinct caused him to hesitate, something had him throw an arm out to stop Lyssa running forward, as well.
What is it? What's wrong? Sten thought.
She shook her head, no. "Help him! Please!" the girl cried, falling to one knee.
The plea in her voice drove him forward and he took the boy from the arms of the girl.
"Lyssa, open the back!"
Lyssa ran back ahead of him and opened the tailgate of the vehicle while Sten followed her and moved to place the boy in the back. She watched the girl run next to Sten through the snow and thought she seemed unharmed. The girl came to a stop a few yards behind to watch as Sten place the boy inside the open hatch of the Rover. An expression of painful longing was plain on her face.
"Come on! Get in. I'll help you." Lyssa extended her hand but the girl ran to the back and climbed in on her own.

Sten was surprised as the girl slithered quickly past him and into the corner. He thought of a dog, desperate not to be left behind. Then as the girl dropped the packs from her shoulders and pulled the boy into her embrace, wrapping him into her arms, he saw the stricken look of worry on her face he felt guilty comparing such a beautiful child with a dog.
Sten glanced at Lyssa's worried face and moved to shut the tailgate but Lyssa moved first, climbing into the back with the girl and the injured boy.
Sten hesitated then shut the gate and jumped into the front. He forced the gears into low and rocked the Rover out of the dip and along the snow-covered road.
He glanced quickly into the rearview mirror but saw only the backs of his daughters heads.
"It won't be long now, we're not far from home." Sten heard his wife saying and kept his attention to the driving.

"Can I look at him?" Lyssa asked.
Lyssa saw how the little girl, her muscles tensed, protected the boy.
"Don't worry. We'll help you. What happened? Was your friend hit by the car?"
A hesitant shake of the girls head and Lyssa saw big, blue-grey eyes with long dark lashes glance quickly at her then away.
"We felt the car hit something."
The girl's small voice barely rose above the sound of the wipers slapping.
"That was me, but I'm alright."
Lyssa watched as the girl pulled her fingers absently through the boys long blonde hair and saw a tear gather on the end of her nose, falling to splash on the boys exposed cheek. She couldn't help but notice the girls tiny naked toes where she curled her bare feet beneath the ragged ends of her trousers.
My God! It's so cold out there!
"Aren't you cold?"
She saw the girl freeze a moment, then she just shook her head no.
"Please?!" She suddenly cried out, "Can you help him?! I don't know what's wrong."
"Of course we'll help him. It will be alright. You hold his head up now while I look at him."
Lyssa moved forward, pulling the sleeping bag back from around Oskar's shoulders. She put the back of her hand to his pale cheek, then his forehead and leant over to listen to his chest.
So hot! And cold too, but he's so pale! If he has such a fever, his cheeks should be flushed.
She reached in to put fingers on his neck feeling a weak pulse that fluttered like a birds. Then she saw his hands and couldn't help but gasp.

Eli heard the gasp and looked at the woman's face.
"What? What is it?"she asked, but the woman was looking over her shoulder making a series of strangely intricate gestures with her hands.
Puzzled, Eli turned her head quickly and saw the two girls looking over the back of the seat at her and Oskar. She wiped her sleeve across her eyes and looked again to see a young dark-haired girl shyly regarding her holding a doll carrying an axe.
The frown on her brow deepened when she locked eyes with the older girl with the fiery hair. Something she saw in the girl's eyes had Eli hold her breath. She felt a spark pass between them, something intangible, indefinable, and Eli saw the redhead girl's eyes widen as well.
Eli dropped her head again, turned away.
She didn't hear the younger girl ask her what her name was.
What?! What was that?
She saw the woman pulling off Oskar's boots.
Who is she?
She watched the woman's hands slowly peeling down one of Oskar's socks and take his naked foot in her warm hands, rubbing it briskly between them.

"My name is Anna, and this is my sister Birgitta. She doesn't talk, or listen. What's your name?"
Eli glanced back at the younger girl, Anna. Tight black curls tinted with a hint of auburn, fell over the child's shoulders and spilled out of the hood of her parka. She hugged the doll to her chest as Eli hugged Oskar to her's.
"We're here!" the man in the front announced.
Eli turned her head to see a snow-covered house of logs through the snow move across the windscreen as they turned.
"Anna?" Lyssa got her attention. "As soon as we stop, Birgitta is going to run upstairs and start a warm bath. Would you please get the heavy blankets from the downstairs closet and put them on Birgitta's bed."
"OK, mamma. But where is Birgitta going to sleep?"
Eli felt something warm on her hand and pulled back with a start, turned and quickly backed into the corner.
What is happening?
The woman, Lyssa, reached out again, took Eli's wrist and looked her in the eyes with a strange frown.
"He'll be OK. Don't worry."
The Rover pulled up in front of the house.

Sten opened his door as his girls got out, ran up the front steps and in the door to do what was asked of them, only Birgitta hesitated to look back momentarily.
Sten rushed to the back of the Rover and opened the hatch letting Lyssa jump out first to run into the house after the girls.

Eli kept her head down as the man reached in and took Oskar from her lap. She jumped out and followed him closely yet warily, her hand grasped Oskar by the leg, to maintain contact.
They hurried up the porch steps and Eli saw the barrier in the front door. A hint of something insubstantial shimmered at the edges of where the portal stood and Eli hesitated.
The woman shouted from upstairs, "Hurry up, Sten!" just as the man crossed the threshold and hurried up the stairs disappearing into the upper level.

"Wait!" Eli's voice cracked. She moved to the threshold, "Wait! You have to invite me in!"
Eli pounded on the doorframe with her frustration and a great slab of snow slid off the roof behind her piling onto the snow on the ground with a soft whuff. She put a hand to her stomach trying to suppress the quiet rumble there then turned and paced back and forth in front of the open door, watching the top of the stairs.

Birgitta emerged from the gloom of her bedroom doorway at the end of the hallway.
Her father angled the blond boy quickly around the corners from the top of the stairs and through the door into the bathroom.
Mother rushed into the hallway from their room carrying an armful of towels and Birgitta sensed the urgency in the tension of her body, the brief eye contact.
Trailing her fingers along the wall as she walked a vibration passed into her sensitive fingertips. She slowed and glanced into the bathroom as she passed.
Her parents were removing the poor boy's clothing while he lay in the warm water of the filling bathtub. The skin of his chest was stretched white over hollow ribs with a tracery of blue-tinged veins beneath. The boy's body shivered and tensed and Birgitta watched his mouth cry out a single word several times.
He wants his friend, the girl.
Embarrassed, Birgitta averted her eyes and moved along to the top of the stairs.

Looking down over the railing she saw the strange, dark-haired girl moving back and forth on the porch outside beyond the doorway. The girl stopped and looked up and as their eyes locked once again she stepped to the doorway speaking up at her.
She doesn't look well.
The pleading look on the girls face touched Birgitta, puzzling her.
What is she saying? A name?
She tried to read the girls lips, her skills competent and growing yet there was something odd about the girls mouth.
Please..? Let me in!
She lifted her hand, waved the girl in.
Come in then. He's up here.
With her hand on the banister Birgitta's mouth dropped open when the rail beneath her hand twitched as the girl pounded the doorframe with her little fist, frustration plain on her face.
Why won't she come in?
She tried signing to the girl to come in, but was met with a puzzled look of confusion.
Then the strange girl dropped her head her arms falling to her sides, she took a step, crossing the threshold.
Birgitta felt something change in the air, something electric and dangerous made Birgitta move, not away from, but a few stairs down and toward the girl.
What's happening?
The strange girl looked like she was about to launch herself up the stairs when her head turned toward the kitchen and she suddenly backed out the door again. Then Anna suddenly ran in carrying heavy blankets under one arm, her doll dangling by the arm from her other hand.

Eli had felt the child's footsteps through the bottom of her feet.
Get out! Don't be stupid!
She turned and moved away from the door along the porch. The pain snapped off like a light switch.
They're trying to help. Calm down.
She heard the young girl's boots clump to the doorway.

Anna dropped the heavy blankets to the floor and stepped forward intending to follow the strange girl out onto the porch. She heard Birgitta's feet pound down to the bottom of the stairs to catch her by the shoulder and pull her back from crossing outside.
"I heard you, you know. I heard you asking." she spoke loudly to be heard above the wind.
"I know your friends name is Oskar. Why won't you tell me your name? I've asked you three times now!" The five year old stomped her foot.
Anna saw the dark-haired girl move into view of the doorway, though she stood with her head down and out of the light that spilled onto the porch from indoors.
"Forgive me. My name is Eli." The strange girl looked up at Anna and her bright eyes flashed reflected light. A liquid groan bubbled in her stomach.
Anna thought she heard something strange in the girl's voice.
"Hello, Eli. That's a nice name."
She looked hard at Eli, at her pallid face and sunken eyes.
"Are you sick?"
Eli dropped her head again.
"I'm sick, yes. But I'll,...get better."
Anna heard a strange trickle in the girl's mouth as she spoke, noticed her curling her toes in the snow that filtered onto the porch with one hand clutching the belly of her jumper in a fist.
"I like walking in the snow barefoot too, but not for as long as you."
Eli stepped forward and the wind whipped the screen door against the wall outside with a bang.
"Anna. My...friend, Oskar he's sick. I need to see him. Please, won't you invite me in?!"
"You can come in, Eli. He's upstairs in the bathtub."

Eli saw the barrier disappear, the shimmer faded away from the edges of the doorway.
She wanted to leap the stairs in one jump, wanted to fly up them. Instead, she took a breath, calmed herself and stepped over the threshold.
Her eyes and ears were focused on the upper floor where she heard the splash of water, yet she slowed and turned her head to where Birgitta held Anna back against her.
"Thank you." Eli croaked, her voice catching.
She heard Oskar as he cried her name feebly upstairs.
"Thank you, Anna." she said again louder then bounded for the stairs slowing to take them in three leaps rather than one.
Birgitta watched her as she moved to close the doors.

Eli rushed to the doorway of the bathroom and saw the man and woman kneeling next to the tub. The woman peeled the last leg of Oskar's trousers off, piling them wetly on the rest of his clothing in a hamper behind him on the floor.
The man was putting a floating pillow behind his head to keep it out of the water.
Eli pushed her way between them to kneel at the side of the tub. Putting her back to the man, she bluntly cut him off from Oskar.

Sten almost fell over when the girl pushed in front of him, if not for the wall he would have. He was opening his mouth to say something when Lyssa caught his eye shaking her head. She got up to sit on the toilet seat and motioned for him to shoo, leave the room.
Then as he rose he sniffed. Was that smell the girl? Was it her clothes?
How long have they been out there?
Lyssa nodded as she wrinkled her own nose and shooed him again.
He raised a hand to the side of his head as he stood, making the universal phone-call gesture as he mouthed "ambulance" at his wife, then reluctantly backed out of the room with a last glance at the back of the kneeling girl.
Then he thumped down the stairs and ran for the kitchen.

Lyssa watched the girl slump down, using the edge of the tub for support and put a hand in the bath water gently taking Oskar by one wrist. The fingers on his hands were swollen and red, skin peeling away from several blisters.
He shivered hard.
Lyssa studied the girl a moment, her clothes and hair were dripping wet, no shoes on her feet. She looked as sad as anything Lyssa had ever seen before, staring down at the young boy with tears in her eyes. Something was wrong with the colour of her pale and narrow face, bags hung under her eyes,
"You must be Eli. Oskar, he called your name a few times, like you were calling his."
A slight nod of dark curls and teardrops fell from Eli's face into the bath water.
Lyssa watched as Eli worried over his hands, turning his wrist. Her hand moved as if it would take Oskar's hand in hers, but she knew better.
"He's an artist." whispered Eli.
"Is he? Well, don't you worry about his hands, they aren't as bad as I first thought."
Lyssa saw Eli start and glance up with her brows raised.
"Will he be well again?"
"I don't know. He is getting a little colour back, not much, but I suspect he was pale to begin with."
Eli nodded yes, a memory tugging the corner of her mouth.
"We'll warm him up in the tub then put him in a nice warm bed. Sten is calling for an ambulance right now."
Lyssa saw the girl stiffen at this, then relax again dropping her forehead on her arm on the edge of the tub.
Yes, best.
"What happened? Why were you out in the storm like that?" Lyssa asked.
"We got lost, in the woods. I didn't know it got so cold...I can't feel it." Eli's voice was muffled by her arms.
"Lost in the woods. Just like the fairy tale then." Lyssa knew there was more to it than that.
"Hmmm?"
"Hansel and Gretel."
"I don't remember that one." Eli replied.
"Where are your parents?"
There was a quiet pause before Eli answered.
"I don't know." She shook her head on her arms.
Lyssa saw Eli's hair shift as her head moved and noticed a trail of dried blood that ran down her neck into the collar of her jumper.
"Oh! You are hurt!"
She reached out to move Eli's hair off her shoulder, but Eli flinched away.
"I'm alright!"
"But we hit you with our truck! Are you sure you're not hurt?"
"I'm fine, really."
Suddenly Oskar shifted his body in the water and tried to lift his head Eli saw his eyes open and look at her.
"Hey, Eli. I was dreaming again." He grinned weakly.
"Hey, Oskar!" Fresh tears fell from her face into the water.
Lyssa stood up, "Hello, Oskar. My name is Lyssa. Nice to meet you." Lyssa smiled down at the confused boy.
Oskar nodded shyly, "Hey."
They all heard Sten yelled up from downstairs, "Lyssa I need you!"
"I'll give you a few minutes with Oskar."
"Thank you."
"Then you can have a shower while we get Oskar into a nice warm bed."
Eli nodded.

Lyssa picked up the hamper of Oskar's wet things, stood and walked out pulling the door almost closed, then hurried down the stairs.
Entering the kitchen she saw her daughters seated at the table, Birgitta looked deep in thought while Anna snacked on pudding.
Sten leaned against the countertop by the phone, his attention on the radio in the corner reporting on how the storm outside had intensified into a blizzard.
"Did you call?" she started to ask Sten as she pulled apart the cardboard.
"I couldn't." Sten replied. "The phone is dea...not working. Must be the blizzard. How is the boy?"
She took Oskar's clothing to the washing machine and started going through the pockets of his trousers, placing the contents on a shelf above the machine; a Swiss army knife with every attachment you could ask for in one back pocket; a handful of coins; a key ring with one key on it and a wad of cardboard folded in another.
"He's awake and talking, but very weak." Lyssa separated one of the slips. "Oh my God!"
"What is it?" Sten asked stepping forward.
She flipped it to him with a smile and he saw a love note written in a child's hand. It was a quote from Shakespeare that ended with a cute heart and "Your Eli".
"They're all like this, love notes from Eli to Oskar."
"Those are a little private don't you think?"
"Right. You are right as always." Lyssa put the notes on the shelf and put her hand in the last pocket.
"Whoa!" She pulled out a thick wad of damp cash, showing it to Sten who just raised an eyebrow.
Birgitta slapped the table, caught Lyssa's eye and began to sign to her, that was the moment the lights went out.
"Damn phone and now the power?! I'll go start the generator." The girls heard Sten fumble in a drawer coming out with a flashlight, he lit the wall next to the back door and the beam illuminated a few sets of keys. He picked a set and held it to the light, his head silhouetted against the falling snow outside the window. When he found the key he needed he opened then went out the back door into the howling winds.
"I can't see my pudding!" Anna said as the door slammed shut.

Lyssa felt through a drawer for a candle but the lights came on again a moment later before she could find a match.
"Mmmmm, pudding!"
Birgitta slapped her hand twice on the tabletop to get her mother's attention, then began signing to her. 'Do you think there is something strange about them?'
"I think there is something strange about the both of them, being out in the hills alone in a storm like this. I asked Eli about her parents but she said she didn't know where they are." Lyssa spoke aloud as she signed.
'No!' Birgitta's hands moved quickly. 'I mean did you feel anything strange?'
She remembered the spark she had felt in the Rover but it was just a static charge in the winter air. Wasn't it?
"No , I don't feel anything strange about Eli."
"I think he's nice!" Anna interjected dropping her spoon into the bowl with a clatter, wiping chocolate from her lips with a napkin.
"It's obvious something has happened to those two. Eli says it was her we hit with the Rover, not Oskar. There's blood on her neck but she won't let me look at her. I know they need help and we'll help them until the authorities can."
A few minutes later Sten came back in through a gusting wind, snow patches in his hair and on his shoulders.
"I think I'd better start a fire. Lyssa will you help me?" Sten nodded out to the front room.

Sten busied himself with the building of a fire as Lyssa watched, crumpling old newspapers as a base for the kindling, finally pulling a long match from a container on the mantle.
"You know the stacks of newspapers piling up out in the shed?" Sten asked her as he struck the match, igniting the paper in a few places.
"The ones I've asked you several times to recycle? Yes."
"Well, I knew my laziness would prove useful one day." Sten pulled another newspaper from where it was rolled, hanging from his back pocket and handed the paper to her.
"Page four."
Lyssa noted the paper was dated December 17th of the year before and opened the paper to page four and there he was. The boy in the tub, Oskar, his innocent smile from a school photo stood under the byline, STILL MISSING!. The short story had no photo of Eli, but mentioned that Oskar was last seen in the company of a young, dark-haired girl.
"When Eli was calling Oskar's name up the stairs, I remembered a news story about a boy named Oskar. It was all over the papers about a year ago. He was taken from a Bath in Stockholm."
She had finished reading the brief article.
"Three boy's were killed?" She kept her voice quiet.
"That's what it says. I remember there were witnesses, conflicting stories. One boy apparently ended up in an institution."
"You don't think those children are dangerous, do you? How could they be?" Lyssa asked, looking him in the eyes.
"No, it's more likely that whoever did the killing may be after them still. Why else would they still be on the run? How do two children get by on their own for a year?"
"By the smell of them, they've been in the wilds for some time. Maybe they just ran away and stayed away. I don't know. They're obviously in love, though. In any case, I don't think we should leave the girls alone with them."
"No, of course not. Should I go try for help now? I don't know if even the Rover could get through this storm." Sten didn't think it would, and didn't want to be marooned in a blizzard.
"Tomorrow somehow, we'll contact the authorities. Maybe the phone will be working again in the morning." Lyssa sounded hopeful.

When Lyssa knocked and opened the bathroom door with a change of clothing for Eli, she found her gently rinsing a lather from Oskar's hair.
She carried in a pair of Birgitta's worn trousers, a sweatshirt and T-shirt, underpants, an old pair of trainers and two thick pairs of socks she paced in a pile on the lid of the laundry hamper.
"Here you go Eli, these might be a bit big on you but they will be warm."
"Thank you." Eli said quietly.
"How are you feeling, Oskar? Are you warm?"
"Warmer yes. A little better, thank you." He replied quietly, shyly.
Lyssa thought Oskar looked frail, malnourished, and his voice sounded so small.
He held his hands crossed over his chest, and she saw them shake with pain that showed on his face as an occasional tightening around his eyes.
God! Both of them are so quiet. What's have they been through?
"Sten will be here in a moment to help you out of the tub. Eli, would you please pull the plug?"
They heard the sound of someone coming up the stairs.
"Here he comes now. He'll get you dried off and into bed then we'll get your hands bandaged. I don't have anything stronger than aspirin for the pain, though."
"Thank you." He shivered some more.
The sound of water swirling down the drain started as Sten stopped outside the bathroom doorway holding a huge fluffy towel. There was a red flash as Birgitta passed behind him with the forgotten blankets.
"Hello,..." Sten said, "...you must be Oskar. Are you well?"
Oskar nodded his head on the inflatable pillow and grunted not looking up.
"If you ladies will excuse us men, I'll get Oskar out of the bath and into a nice warm bed."
"Come with me, Eli, and I'll show you where you and Oskar can sleep." Lyssa suggested.
Eli hesitated at the bathroom door, looking back at Oskar as the man spread the towel on the seat of the toilet then bent and lifted him out and sat him on the towel.
"Careful of those hands, son." Sten softly spoke.

Eli heard her name called again and followed Lyssa to the room at the end of the hall where Birgitta was gathering a few items into her arms.
Posters covered the walls and even the ceiling. Eli's head moved from a poster of a long-haired guitarist, to a man in black and white make-up and a top-hat holding a microphone while a huge snake wrapped itself around him.
"Do you like them? The posters?"
Eli shook her head, no.
"I don't either, some of them scare me! You and your friend can stay here in Birgitta's room tonight. Someone needs to keep an eye on him. Birgitta will stay with Anna for tonight."
Eli hung onto the frame of the door and lowered her eyes as Birgitta hurried past with an armload.
"OK. Come downstairs with me now, Eli. You must be starved." Lyssa turned out the light and brushed a hand across Eli's shoulder as she walked past.
Starved, yes.

Eli fell behind Lyssa in the living room, moving into the flickering shadows of the large, wide-open room that rose to the peak of the roof on the front half of the house.
Where there wasn't a window or a fireplace there were shelves and Eli saw all kinds of interesting items filled them. Textbooks, reference books, children's books and novels; along with a sound system, vases, photographs and peppered everywhere through it all were various pieces of crystal. Flowers of many shapes and sizes, unicorns, dragons, trolls and castles and everywhere birds, mostly birds.
The only light came from the softly glowing fire, but it was caught and reflected through crystal everywhere. A thousand flickering orange stars.
Moving slowly along the shelves Eli came to a section that was filled with photographs in frames of various shapes and sizes. She scanned the faces, most were of the four from the vehicle, yet there were many other smiling faces she guessed were the extended family.

Eli heard the girl's quiet steps come down the stairs behind her and into the front room. She didn't move as Birgitta approached but turned her head slightly and saw her stoke the fire with the metal poker before adding another log.
Eli returned her attention to the photographs displayed on the shelf.
The lives of the family were on display here. A happy wedding, school photo's of the girls, and various stages of the lives of the four of them. The most recent photo seemed to be of the redhead, Birgitta, standing with a bow and arrows, a silver medallion hung from her neck. It looked like Birgitta had tried to keep a serious face when the photo was taken, but not by much, you could see happiness in her eyes, the smile waiting in the corners of her mouth.

Eli had kept her hands at her sides up until now touching nothing, but something in the photo captured her complete attention. She reached out, running her thumb down the side of the red-haired face in the photo.
What is it about these people?! Who are they?

Eli pulled back quick, snapping her hand guiltily behind her back as Birgitta tapped the poker on the fireplace mantle to get her attention. Eli turned to see her hang the poker back on it's stand.
Eli was hungry, it had been three nights since her last feeding, she had seen her hungry face in a mirror before, lit by firelight, and angled herself away from the fire. Looking at Birgitta from the corner of her eye, she saw her smile nervously and point at the photo that Eli had touched, then high over the fireplace.
Eli followed her finger and saw the bow and quiver from the photo hung proudly from the stones above the fire, the silver medallion hanging from the quiver.
Eli nodded, even offered the girl a slight smile.
"Thank you, for the clothes." Eli spoke.
The redhead signed at Eli again.
"What is that?" Eli asked confused, then repeated the hand gestures back to Birgitta, perfectly.
Birgitta held up a hand, made a 'wait here' gesture and Eli nodded yes.
Going to a drawer, she rummaged about and pulled a pencil and a pad of paper then came back to kneel between the sofa and the low table indicating Eli should do the same across from her.
Eli hesitated, glanced at the top of the stairs.
She then knelt across from the redhead, her head down, her back stiff and straight.
The girl tapped the table with the pencil in front of her and Eli looked up at her.
Birgitta pointed at her own eyes then Eli's mouth and made talking mouth motions with her hand, then repeated the motions again.
Eli nodded, "You want to see my mouth move when I talk."
Birgitta nodded her head yes.
Eli tensed and turned her head as something crashed loudly in the kitchen, but Anna giggled loudly in there and Lyssa called out an apology. Her hand went to cover the soft growl in her stomach as the lines near her eyes tightened.
The tapping came again next to her fingers, she turned back to Birgitta and sat down onto her heels.
Eli raised both her hands and repeated the hand gestures she had made earlier.
"What does that mean?" She asked.
Birgitta grabbed the pad of paper and wrote quickly then tore the sheet off pushing it across the table,
It means...
'You are welcome.'
For the clothes I meant.
Eli smiled shyly, nodded.
Taking the first note back her red hair hung down momentarily as Birgitta added a line at the bottom then turned it back to Eli,
'Do you like them?'
Eli looked down at herself, stretching out her arms she nodded.
"They are nice, yes."
Birgitta wrote some more on a fresh piece of paper,
You learn very quickly.
Have you signed before?
Eli shook her head no.
"Can you show me more?"

Lyssa came in from the kitchen a few minutes later with a plate of sandwiches and a glass of milk which she put down next to Eli.
She noticed there were a small pile of notes on the table between them.
"Birgitta has already had a snack but you must be starving."
Eli looked at the meal a moment. She lifted her hands and signed thank you to Lyssa.
"You are doing well! Birgitta is a good teacher, isn't she?"
"Yes, she is. Thank you, I'll eat it, after I shower."
Eli got up, signed her thanks to Birgitta then took the milk and sandwiches slowly up the stairs.
She took the food to Birgitta's room, put it on the dresser and watched a moment Sten gently wrapped Oskar's hands in clean white bandages, then she moved to the bathroom.

After her shower Eli dressed in the clothes Birgitta had provided and took her old things to the room where Oskar waited.
She found Lyssa sitting next to Oskar on a chair, two fingers pressed to the big vein in his neck. There was an untouched bowl of soup on the bed stand, and the smell of vomit in the air.
"Is he OK?" Eli worried.
"He's weak. He won't eat, says the smell makes him sick. He even coughed up the aspirin I gave him. But I think he'll be alright."
She's lying!
"Can we be alone, please?" Eli asked.
"Of course." She picked up the bowl as she got up, "Do you want the soup?"
"No, thank you. I still have the sandwich."
"Will you bring your dishes to the kitchen when you finish?"
"Yes, thank you."

After Lyssa pulled the door shut, Eli leapt lightly onto the bed without disturbing Oskar. She moved to lay beside him and lifted his arm carefully over her shoulder. Then as she rested her head on Oskar's chest she heard him inhale deeply through his nose.
"Mmmm, you smell like strawberries!"
Eli just raised her eyebrows and pulled the blanket down off his chest to better listen to his heart beat, catching an occasional misstep in it's rhythm.
"So do you." She replied.

They lay together, comfortable in their closeness and not speaking for almost an hour. Then Eli carefully got up and opened the window quietly. She got the sandwiches and tore them down to the crusts, throwing the soft middles out the window into the deep snow. She even made a peanut butter smile on her face like Oskar sometimes ended up with. Taking the glass of milk she poured it out the window where it melted through the snow and slid down the cedar shingles underneath where it would freeze quickly. She pulled the window closed.
"I'll be right back, Oskar." She told him as she took the plate and glass then moved to the bedroom door.
"Eli!" Oskar called out. "If I'm sleeping when you come back, will you wake me please?"
"I will, Oskar." She slipped out.

Downstairs the fire had burned low and the lighting was subdued. It was quiet but Eli heard someone move in the kitchen and she carried the dishes, placing them next to the sink.

As Eli got to the top of the stairs, she saw Birgitta standing in the half-open door of her sisters darkened room. She saw her hands move as she signed something to Eli.
Downstairs she had taught Eli to sign 'hello' and 'goodbye' and a few other basic phrases, and was astonished at how quickly Eli learned them.
Eli soon realized Birgitta was signing 'goodnight' and signed it back to her with a sad smile and a wave.
She turned to go to their room and said "Goodbye." aloud as she walked. She knew the girl couldn't hear her but she couldn't leave without saying it.

She eased into the room and shut the door before leaping onto the bed again.
Oskar raised his bandaged hands weakly.
"Good, Eli sit on my stomach."
She did remember a few times she had pinned him like this and tickled him until he got mad.
He face winced as he rested his forearms on her thighs.
"It's time, Eli."
"Time?" Eli what he might be talking about.
"Time, to make me like you."
"What! But Oskar! When I asked you before, you said you didn't want this."
"I know, but that was a long time ago. Things are different now."
"Oskar, no! The people here, they will take you to a hospital tomorrow. The doctors can make you well again."
"I don't think a doctor can fix this, Eli."
"What Oskar, what's wrong?"
"Something is happening to me, Eli! I can feel something coming, getting closer all the time, like the rumble of a train about to come into the platform. I've felt something different since the other night when you sang, but it only really affected me last night."
Eli carefully pressed her hands gently onto his chest.
"Since that night, I've been dreaming weird dreams. I remember some of them. First I thought I was dreaming I was you, only now I think they were your dreams and I've been watching them."
"I don't dream, Oskar!" Eli protested quietly.
"I think you do, you just don't want to remember them. Or the thing inside you doesn't want you to. I think I'm in your dreams because that night you were so sad after you, drank, and your tears fell onto my arm. I remember wondering what they would taste like, so I tasted them, and I realize now that I tasted a little something else. I think I got a little of you in me then and knew it at the time, I just didn't care."
Eli looked him in the eyes, then dropped her face into her hands.
Oskar could see her mind work, could see her trying assume guilt.
"Eli, look at me!"
Her hands came down, and he did indeed see her guilty face.
"There's no blame Eli. I decided to come away with you. I licked the blood on my arm and I decided to ask you this. Don't take the blame for me!"
She looked down
"Oskar. We've been together for a year. You know what it's like, to be me, better than anyone ever has. Do you know what you're asking me to do to you?"
"I've had a year to think about this Eli, and I have thought about it. When we first met I was just a little taller than you. Look at me now! I don't want to outgrow you, Eli! I don't want to be an old man getting you blood!"
"Oskar! I would never ask you to do that!"
"You wouldn't have to. I would end up doing it anyway, as soon as I could, just to keep you from being sad."
"Oskar, I don't want you to change."
"Eli, nothing will ever change how I feel about you. But, I can feel myself winding down. I'm going somewhere...soon. Tonight! I can feel it, the trains almost here. If I go I'll be alone, and after the year I've had with you, I don't ever want to be without you!"
Eli heard a wheeze in his voice, saw him swallow hard, and watched as tears tracked down the sides of his head, soaking into his hair.
"Eli, you didn't have a choice in what was done to you, but you did choose to live on. That's my choice as well. Eli, I love you!"
Eli sat back on his stomach, a little harder than she should have. But a hint of a smile brightened her face for a moment.
"You've never said it like that before."
"You knew it though, didn't you?"
"Yes."
"Will you do it?"
"Yes, I'll do it. But first, close your eyes."

Eli quickly jumped off to the floor, disrobed in the dark then climbed back into the bed with him under the covers. There was no complaining from Oskar about cold skin or cold toes this time, but Eli could feel no warmth coming from him anymore.
She carefully arranged herself comfortably for the both of them, taking care not to disturb his hands. Her dark hair spread out on his chest, tickling where it fell down his sides.
After a comfortable silence Eli stroked Oskar's forehead with her left hand while she kissed him once on the lips, then behind the ear and once on the nape of his neck. She let her breath warm the sweet spot and her tongue lengthened and pushed out to lick all around the fluttering vein beneath. Her stomach grumbled with the anticipation.
Her mouth closed over the spot. A weak smile flickered across his face.
"Wait!" Oskar whispered and Eli paused, though it was a struggle, and her stomach protested loudly.
"You've got to...I have to, drink some of your's at the same time."
"Whad?!" her long tongue tripped.
She raised her torso up, her vampire features mostly hidden by her hanging hair as she looked down into his eyes.
"Bite your wrist!" He said.
She just looked at him, her eyebrows raised.
"Are you sure about this?"
She contemplated his eyes a moment and he nodded, then she brought her left wrist to her mouth and bit deeply into the veins underneath. She watched his expressions as she brought her arm down, the slow, sluggish trickle dripping from her wrist and onto his chin.

Oskar closed his eyes tightly and wrinkled his brow as the wetness of her arm touched his lips. It was the smell that opened his eyes, then her blood passed through his lips and mingled with the saliva that instantly flooded into his mouth.
He didn't expect the taste to be so sweet.
His used his wrist to trap her hand against his mouth and sucked harder.
Something's missing.
Eli lay on his chest and Oskar felt her breath again on his throat. His eyes stayed closed as he lapped at her wrist, then felt her body twitch against him. There was a sharp tug and a quick pain in his throat as she lunged.
Oskar pulled his mouth away from her arm and hissed in a breath of pain, though it definitely wasn't as bad as he thought it would be. He felt the vacuum of her lips, felt the flow of his blood pulled through the flesh of the wounds in his neck as Eli's mouth worked.
Blood spattered freshly across his face and he closed his mouth over the wound on Eli's wrist again, and the taste was complete.
He tasted what had been missing, the secret ingredient...life. Eli's blood had almost none of that spark when he started, but had tasted sweet nonetheless. Now it was filled with life.
HIS life!

Eli drank deep but not for long and kept stopping to lick the wounds as much as possible. If Oskar had been infected for three days without turning, something was happening here she that knew nothing about.
This was the only time she had tried to make a vampire.
Eli worried that Oskar would turn out like...him, Håkan. Like the other mindless creatures, mistakes she had allowed to come back. Or worse, changed in his heart, evil like the one who made her. She couldn't bear to let that happen, to Oskar.
She couldn't talk directly to the thing in her heart, so she willed it to put as much of herself in Oskar as possible.
She felt how weak his blood pulsed now pulled back from his neck, pressing her fingers firmly over the wounds, then pulled her wrist easily out of Oskar's mouth. He just smiled weakly through the blood on his face.
Eli whispered into his ear that she loved him, that she would take care of him. She told him to sleep and let it happen, that she would be there when he woke. She tried to sound hopeful, though she heard doubt in her voice.
He kept a peaceful smile on his face, and she silently thanked him for it.
Brave, brave Oskar!
She began to lick the blood from his face and the corners of his mouth, her long tongue tickling his face as she purred.
Oskar drifted, closing his eyes as she licked him clean, but before he went he whispered something Eli heard perfectly.
"Now we'll be together, forever!"
Eli pressed her bloody cheek to his chest and his heartbeat slowly double-pumped into her ear. The flutter was gone now, the beat slow.
He chose me, again.
After counting one hundred beats Eli sat up and pulled the curtains wide open looking out on a dark winter night.

The sun was slowly coming, but she had plenty of time.
Kneeling carefully over Oskar's chest she brushed his long hair off his forehead, took his face between her hands and leant over to kiss his forehead. She sat up and looked towards the heavens.
Please? If you are up there, bring him back as Oskar?
Getting up quietly she opened the window and stepped onto the frame where she paused and looked down at him.
"I'll be back soon, Oskar." Eli whispered.
She jumped out onto the roof. Sliding down the slope she jumped off the edge, taking as much snow as possible with her to land in a flurry on the ground, the ran round the corner of the house.

A few minutes later Eli came soundlessly through the front door moved into the kitchen, coming back with Oskar's laundered clothes she flew up the stairs. She opened the bedroom door, slipped in, and realized someone had been there while she was out.
The bedroom window had been pulled shut.
Looking at Oskar where he lay on the bed she noticed a small book placed next to his feet. She dropped the clothes on the floor, reached over and picked it up.
'Finger Spelling - Sign Language for Beginners' was the title on the front.
Eli opened the book and found each page was a well drawn hand sign with the corresponding letter on the opposite page.
A sad smile crept onto her face for a moment.
Who are you, Birgitta?
She jumped up and pulled the small knob on the trap door she had seen there earlier.

Oskar was usually the first to wake, this evening it was Eli first again, the second night in a row. She kept her eyes shut, using her other senses.
Daylight? It had been some time since she had woken in the day, just over a year.
She felt the sun's power dip as it's rim touched the horizon and wondered why she had awakened early, when the rumble of a hungry stomach echoed hollowly on the wooden floorboards, but it wasn't her stomach.
Her eyes opened and there was Oskar's face, slack and peaceful.
She took his arm where she had placed it over her shoulder before sleep and pulled it gently in front of her face. The bandages were mostly white, discoloured in just a few places by seepage from his blisters, but they hung loosely and Eli saw the fingertips of three fingers poking out, clean, unblemished and pale. She gently pulled the wrappings from his hand, piling them in the dust on the floorboards between them. All the damage was gone leaving a perfect, undamaged hand. She pulled it to her mouth kissing the back of it.
His stomach rumbled again, long and low and Eli closed her eyes again holding the back of his hand to her forehead. She felt no hunger herself.
Because you've fed, haven't you? What have I done to you, Oskar? Have I ruined you?
The sun fell behind the horizon and the dim room darkened perceptibly further.
Have you changed? Are you still an artist?
An answer came then, though unspoken, Oskar's voice sounded in her head, strange and with an echo.
I am.
Eli opened her eyes again and saw Oskar looking at her.
That handsome smile spread across his face revealing his teeth and crinkling the corners of his eyes.
"Oskar...?"
You don't have to say it, Eli! Think it!
Eli heard him in her head again, his lips unmoving, she thought something back at him, willing him to hear her.
Yes, Eli. I do hear you. I love you too!

She squeezed his hand in hers as they stared each other in the eyes and felt a sudden spark. An electric charge passed between them and something moved behind the corners of Oskar's mouth. His face brightened with a look of surprise and his eyes widened.
His pupils were cat's eyes at the centre of huge blue-grey corneas.
"Oskar! You've got my eyes!"
That's not all.
He smiled his brilliant smile again, showing a pair of pearl-white fangs that grew a little longer as she watched, and a little longer.
Instead of a smile Eli frowned.
"Eli!" Oskar whispered aloud. He quickly unwrapped his other hand and grasped one of hers.
"Whatever happens from here on, it's going to be you and me, like you said."

They lay there on their sides until Oskar let out a playful hiss with a toothy snarl and Eli laughed aloud, clapping a hand to her mouth as she realized where they were.
She quickly leapt onto Oskar and grabbed him in a fierce hug and knew she needn't ho ld back anymore. Her strength was his and he returned the hug just as fiercely until both their ribcage's were creaking.
"Oskar! We have to go away! Now!"
Oskar picked the concern from her mind and reassured her.
"Eli, I know. These people saved us...me. I couldn't hurt them."
"Oskar, you're new. When I was new, I had very little control. I'd feel better if we were a hundred kilometres away from here. But there's something else, about these people, the mother and the daughters. Something strange, scary."
"Your scared...of them?!", he smiled and rose to a sitting position.
"I don't know what it is, but when I look into the redhead girl, Birgitta's eyes...there's something there. The mother as well."
Oskar reached out and moved a stray strand of black hair away from her eye with a finger.
"We'll go now then. The farther we go, the safer they are."
Eli nodded.
They got up and moved toward a small window at the peaked wall.
"Through there?!" Oskar asked with uncertainty.
"Don't worry, you'll fit. I moved our packs to the trees out back last night."
He opened the window, pushing the mesh screen easily off the outer window and stuck his head through.
Eli waited behind him silently, feeling Oskar's gasp in her mind.
It was a different night. The storm was gone, the winds nonexistent, and the snowflakes fell lazily
out of a multi-coloured sky.
What was night time once, all grey and white to him, was now an entirely new palette of moving, shifting colours. Where there was no snow on the trees he saw the sap green of evergreen, where the snow curved away from him he saw the deep blue reflection of space.
Something shifted green and blue across the sky behind the clouds, flashing through the thinner clouds and reflected softly across the landscape. He realized it was the shifting colours of the Northern Lights moving behind the clouds.
The sound of a vehicle labouring along a road in the distance caught his ear, he the wheels of it slipped in the snow as the engine raced, he thought he even heard the song playing on it's radio. An owl hooted softly in the forest a mile to the north.
Eli grabbed him by the back of his shirt and pulled him back into the attic. She turned him aside from the window and pushed him up against the wall.
Rising up on her toes she stepped into him and took his face in her hands. She had to tip his head down even further for a kiss.
To Eli's relief, Oskar closed his eyes as soon as their lips met.

To be continued....