The impulse to say no that Zachary has for pretty much anything that involves talking to people arises automatically, but as Kat bounces on her heels to keep warm and he considers the proposal, it sounds like a good way to get out of his head and away from the book for a little while. This is what Kat does, after all. It is good to have a Kat.
“Sure, why not,” he says. Kat whoops. The whoop echoes over the snow-covered lawn, prompting a pair of disgruntled crows to abandon their perch in a nearby tree.
“You’re awesome,” Kat says. “I’ll knit you a Ravenclaw scarf as a thank-you.”
“How did you know—”
“Please, you’re so obviously Ravenclaw. See you tonight, we meet in the lounge in Scott Hall, the one in the back on the right. I’ll text you details when my hands thaw. You’re the best. I’d hug you but I think I’d fall down.”
“Sentiment appreciated,” Zachary assures her and he considers, here in the snow, asking if Kat has ever heard of something called the Starless Sea, because if anyone would have heard of a possibly fairy-tale, possibly mythical location it would be Kat, but articulating it aloud would make it too real and instead he watches as she trudges off toward the science quad where the Emerging Media Center is housed, though he realizes she might very well be headed to the chemistry labs instead.
Zachary stands alone in the snow, overlooking the slowly waking campus.
Yesterday it felt like it always does, like almost not quite home. Today he feels like an impostor. He breathes in deeply, the pine-scented air filling his lungs.
Two black dots mar the pale blue of the cloudless sky, the crows that took flight moments ago in the process of disappearing into the distance.
Zachary Ezra Rawlins commences the long walk back to his room.
Once he has kicked off his boots and peeled off his winter layers, Zachary takes out the book. He turns it over in his hands and then puts it down on his desk. It doesn’t look like anything special, like it contains an entire world, though the same could be said of any book.
Zachary pulls his curtains shut and is half asleep before they settle over the window, blocking out the sun-brightened snowscape and the figure watching him from across the street in the shadow of an unruly spruce.
Zachary wakes hours later when his phone chirps a text alert at him, the vibration rattling it enough that it falls off the desk and onto the floor, landing softly on a discarded sock.
7pm scott hall first floor lounge—from the front entrance go past the stairs & turn right down the hall, it’s behind the french doors & looks like the postapocalyptic version of a room where fancy ladies have tea. i’ll be there early. you’re the best. <3 k.
The clock on the phone informs him that it is already 5:50 and Scott Hall is clear across campus. Zachary yawns and drags himself out of bed and down the hall to take a shower.
Standing in the steam, he thinks he dreamed the book but the relief that this thought brings slowly dissipates and he remembers the truth.
He scrubs his skin near raw with the homemade almond oil and sugar mixture his mother gifts him every winter, this year’s batch is scented with vetiver to promote emotional calm. Maybe he can scrub off that boy standing in that alleyway. Maybe the real Zachary is under there somewhere.
Every seven years each cell in your body has changed, he reminds himself. He is not that boy anymore. He is twice removed from that boy.
Zachary spends so long in the shower that he has to rush to get ready, grabbing a protein bar when he realizes he hasn’t eaten all day. He tosses a notebook in his satchel and his hand hovers over Sweet Sorrows before grabbing The Little Stranger instead.
He is halfway out the door when he doubles back to put Sweet Sorrows in his bag as well.
As he walks toward Scott Hall his damp hair freezes in curls that brush crunchily against his neck. The snow is crisscrossed with so many boot tracks that there is hardly an untouched patch on campus. Zachary passes a lopsided snowman wearing a real red scarf. A line of busts of former college presidents is mostly obscured in snow, stray marble eyes and ears peeking out from beneath the flakes.
Kat’s directions prove helpful once he arrives at Scott Hall, one of the residences he’s never been in before. He passes the stairs and a small empty study room before finding the hallway and following it for some time until he reaches a half-open pair of French doors.
He’s not sure he has the right room. A girl sits knitting in an armchair while a couple of other students rearrange some of the postapocalyptic-looking tea-party furniture, velvet chairs and settees worn thin and wounded by time, a few repaired with duct tape.
“Yay, you found us!” Kat’s voice comes from behind him and he turns to find her holding a tray with a teapot and several stacked teacups. She looks smaller with her coat and striped hat removed, her buzzed-short hair a fuzzy shadow covering her head.
“I didn’t realize you were serious about the tea,” Zachary says, helping her move the tray to a coffee table in the middle of the room.
“I don’t jest about tea. I have Earl Grey and peppermint and some sort of immunity-boosting thing with ginger. And I made cookies.”
By the time the tea and the multiple trays of cookies are arranged the class has filtered in, about a dozen students, though it feels like more with all the coats and scarves flung over the backs of chairs and couches. Zachary settles into an ancient armchair by the window that Kat directs him to with a cup of Earl Grey and an oversize chocolate chip cookie.
“Hi everyone,” Kat says, pulling the attention in the room away from baked goods and chatter. “Thanks for coming. I think we have some newbies who missed last week, so how about we do quick intros around the room, starting with our guest moderator.” Kat turns and looks at Zachary expectantly.
“Okay…um…I’m Zachary,” he manages between chews before swallowing the rest of his cookie. “I’m a second-year Emerging Media grad student, I mostly study video-game design with a focus on psychology and gender issues.”
And I found a book in the library yesterday that someone wrote my childhood into, how’s that for innovative storytelling? he thinks but does not say aloud.