Zachary looks out over the barn and the gardens. Cars are parked all along the driveway, some he recognizes and others he doesn’t.
At the edge of the woods beyond the barn there is a stag, staring at him through the snow.
“There you are,” a voice says behind him and Zachary goes warm and cold at the same time. “I’ve been looking for you.”
The stag disappears into the woods. Zachary turns toward the voice.
Dorian stands behind him on the porch. His hair has been cut shorter. He looks less tired. He’s wearing a sweater patterned with reindeer and snowflakes that manages to be both ironically festive and incredibly flattering. On his feet are striped wool socks and no shoes.
There is a glass of scotch with star-shaped ice cubes in his hand.
“What happened to your sweater?” Dorian asks him. “I thought keeping them on even after the winner of the ugly sweater contest was crowned was a rule?”
Zachary stares at him mutely. His brain cannot comprehend the appearance of this familiar person in this very separate, equally familiar context.
“Are you feeling all right?” Dorian asks.
“How are you here?” Zachary asks when he finds his voice.
“I was invited,” Dorian answers. “The invitation has arrived addressed to both of us for several years now, you know that.”
Zachary looks back toward the door in the field and he cannot see it through the snow. It seems as though it was never there. As if all of it was a dream. An adventure he imagined for himself.
He wonders if he’s dreaming now but he doesn’t remember falling asleep.
“Where did we meet?” Zachary asks the man standing beside him. Dorian looks askance at the question but after a short pause he indulges him.
“In Manhattan. At a party at the Algonquin Hotel. We took a walk in the snow afterward and ended up at one of those dimly lit speakeasy-style bars where we talked until dawn and then I walked you back to your hotel like a gentleman. Is this a test?”
“When was that?”
“Almost four years ago. Do you want to go back? We can do an anniversary thing if you’d like.”
“What…what do you do for a living?”
Dorian’s expression turns briefly from skeptical to concerned but then he replies, “Last time I checked I was a book editor, though now I’m regretting admitting that because if you’d forgotten I might have been able to trick you into finally showing me the project you’ve been toying with that you’re not sure if it’s a book or a game, the one with the pirate. Have I passed the test yet? It’s cold out here.”
“This can’t be real.” Zachary reaches for the porch rail, too afraid to touch the person beside him. The rail is solid beneath his fingers, the snow melting against his skin, gently numbing.
Everything here feels gently numbing.
“Did you drink too much of that punch Kat made? She did hang a warning sign on it, that’s why I stuck to this.” Dorian lifts the glass in his hand.
“What happened to Mirabel?” Zachary asks.
“Who’s Mirabel?” Dorian takes a sip of his scotch.
“I don’t know,” Zachary says and it’s true. He doesn’t know. Not entirely. Maybe he made her up. Conjured her from myth and hair dye. She would be here if she were real, his mom would like her.
The concern returns to Dorian’s face, mostly in the eyebrows.
“Are you having another episode?” he asks.
“Am I what?”
Dorian looks down into his glass and takes a too-long pause before he says anything. When he does every word is calm, his tone even and well-practiced.
“In the past you’ve had some difficulty separating fantasy from reality,” he says. “Sometimes you have episodes where you don’t remember things, or you remember other things that never happened. You haven’t had one in a while. I’d thought your new meds were helping but maybe—”