Episode 249 · Colder Water

Three months after he found the blade, on a Thursday afternoon, Varren waited above the pontoon in Vatra with Zora’s gloves in his pocket while she measured the river again.

She had taken the thermometer into the hut, checked it, and brought it back. Now she stood by the railing with the cord running through her bare fingers. Beyond her, houses that had been hidden behind steam that morning showed clearly on the opposite bank.

— Your hands are blue, Varren said.

— I’m being thorough.

She glanced up at him. He smiled before she turned back to the water. There had been a time when she checked whether he was still waiting. Now she left things in his pockets.

She drew up the thermometer and held it against the pale sky.

— Lower again.

— Since this morning?

— Since I went inside.

He looked across the river. The measuring board stood at the same depth; the water moved as it had before. He had no explanation for the change. Zora climbed the steps and held out her hands for the gloves. He kept one between his palms until she curled her fingers against his.

— Is it hurting you? he asked.

— No. But I want to check the old readings. Come with me?

They crossed the bridge to Halloran’s bakery. She had left her earlier notebooks there when they spread the months of figures across his table the night before.

In the back room, Noct sat beside the outer door with his coat on, his damp cuffs tucked into his sleeves. The chair let him leave without asking anyone to move. He had chosen it himself.

Varren had stopped checking his breath when they met. Noct came for bread now, stayed to complain about the price, sometimes carried a sack for Halloran before being asked. The bottle still traveled with him; he had begun forgetting to use it. Yesterday he had put a loaf aside for Varren, claiming it was too misshapen for a paying customer. Varren had found nothing wrong with it.

Halloran stood at the worktable with a tray against his hip. He looked toward the ovens, then at them.

— Did you call me?

Zora shook her head. He set down the tray and looked toward the ovens again.

Noct watched him. His right hand had disappeared inside his coat.

— Don’t ask me. I’ve got enough people lying to me already.

Varren stopped beside the table.

— Since when?

Noct took out a small bottle. The cork squeaked against the neck; his hand was shaking too much to pull it free.

— Started before you came in, Halloran said. I thought he was cold.

— I am cold, Noct said. Glad that’s all it is.

The cork came out. He raised the bottle, stopped, and turned sharply toward the door.

Nobody stood there.

Zora put her notebooks on the table. Varren knew the attention spreading through him, the old woman’s patient search for what a person lacked. Noct needed something steady to answer. He moved into the young man’s line of sight.

— Noct. Who are you hearing?

— Same one.

— What’s changed?

Noct looked at his mouth.

— Say that again.

Halloran came around the table.

— Give me the bottle a moment.

He reached for it. Noct recoiled against the chair, his arm coming up between them with the bottle clenched in his fist. Varren put his palm against the forearm before it reached Halloran’s face.

The arm stopped. The force pressed back through Varren’s shoulder; he set his feet and held the contact. Noct’s free hand caught the edge of the table. The chair scraped behind him.

Then Noct was out of it.

He came up inside Varren’s reach, and the forearm under Varren’s palm turned, not away but around, so that for an instant it was Varren’s wrist that was caught. Noct’s free hand came short and flat into the hollow under his ribs. It was not a drunk’s blow. It was the one from the pontoon steps, economical, almost bored, and it emptied Varren’s lungs.

I could close my hand. The bones would go like bread sticks.

He did not close it. He took the second blow on the forearm and the third on the shoulder, and gave ground only where Noct’s weight sent him, and Noct read every step before Varren took it, the way a man reads a road he has walked for years.

Then Noct’s heel struck the wall.

Varren saw it reach his face: whitewashed brick at his back, flour sacks against his legs, nowhere behind him to go. The eyes went wide and blank, and the bottle came up again, not at Halloran now, at anything.

Away from the wall. I told him.

Varren let go of the wrist, took Noct by both lapels and turned them, half a circle across the floor with the table edge biting his hip and the bottle glancing off his ear, until it was his own back that met the oven door, and the iron, still hot from the morning bake, came through his shirt like a hand pressed flat, and Noct stood in front of him with the whole room open behind him and the outer door at his shoulder.

Varren did not move off the iron. He put his palm back on the forearm.

Noct found the chair behind him and sat, as if someone had cut the strings.

— Leave him room, Zora told Halloran.

The baker stepped back. She held out her hand where Noct could see it.

— I’ll put it beside you. You can have it back.

His fingers loosened. She took the bottle and set it on the table.

— Let go, Noct said.

— Sit back first.

— I’m in a chair.

Varren kept his hand there. The bottle was gone; Halloran had moved away. But Noct was still trembling, and Varren wanted to be sure before he released him.

Noct tried to turn his forearm. His eyes came up to Varren’s face.

— You can let go now. Or we can get engaged. Your call.

He put his free hand against Varren’s chest, pushing himself and the chair sideways. Varren shifted to keep the contact.

Zora touched his sleeve.

— He asked you to let go.

Varren lifted his hand. Noct drew the arm against himself and rubbed it. For a moment the only sound was the draft pulling through the oven.

— I thought you were going to hit him, Varren said.

— I nearly did. Then I gave her the bottle.

Zora moved the bottle within Noct’s reach and brought him water as well. He chose the water. Halloran went to the ovens, checked through the open mouth, and came back with nothing in his hands.

— It keeps sounding as if someone’s calling from there, he said.

Varren looked at Zora. She was standing beside Noct, still wearing only one glove.

— Did yours change too?

— By the river. I kept losing the reading.

— You should have told me.

— I’m telling you now.

He wanted them all here, where he could reach them. The urge was so immediate that he had already looked toward the door before he saw Zora watching him.

Noct put down the glass.

— Open that, would you?

Varren stepped aside. Zora opened the outer door. Cold air moved across the flour on the table, and Noct turned his face toward it.

The river had cooled. Halloran was hearing calls from an empty oven; Zora had lost her place in work she did every day. Varren could put them together. He could not yet say what joined them.

He drew another chair beside Noct’s, leaving the doorway clear, and sat forward, his back stinging where the oven had touched it.

— Look at me.

Noct did. His breathing eased. Varren asked him to describe what he heard, and waited through the pauses without filling them. For a little while, the answers came more easily.

Then Noct leaned forward.

— Keep talking.

— About what?

— Anything. I’m having trouble telling which one’s you.

Varren began again. Halfway through the next sentence, Noct asked him to start over.