“What’s goin’ on here?”
At the sound of Boone’s voice, Mairead and I turned at the same time and smiled wickedly at each other. Hurling our collective arsenal, Boone let out a surprised oomph as snowball after snowball collided with him. His arms flailed, and his boots slid back and forth as he tried to keep his balance.
“I surrender!” he cried, then promptly slipped and fell on his ass.
We burst out into fits of laughter, and I skidded my way out from behind the fence. Holding my hand out for Boone, he grasped it and yanked me down. We fell in a heap as Mairead held her side, obviously finding our predicament the funniest thing she’d ever seen.
I squealed as snow found its way down my top, and I managed to find my feet again. Boone sprang up beside me like a professional, and I pouted. Shaking myself off, little clumps of ice flew everywhere.
“You’re both on the hit list,” I declared. “I’ve got wet knickers.”
“Eww,” Mairead shouted. “That’s me cue to leave.” She feigned throwing up and darted across the lawn, skidded across the path, smacked into the side of the shop, then disappeared around the corner.
“She’s too easy,” I said with a laugh.
“You’re as bad as each other,” Boone said, swatting at his jumper and knocking off clumps of snow. He had on a thick, grayish woolly sweater with an elaborate, and slightly dorky, cable-knit pattern. He looked different without his trademark red and black checkered shirt.
“Well, that was a way to wake up.” I pressed the backs of my gloves against my flushed cheeks. “I’ve cracked a sweat.”
“Are you sure it’s sweat?”
“Stop it.” I swatted at his arm.
“Ack,” he grumbled. “I thought you’d be stayin’ in today.”
“We’re starting stocktake today,” I replied, helping him brush himself off. “What kind of jumper is this anyway? Cable knit? Wasn’t that big in the eighties?”
“’Tis Aran wool,” he stated, puffing out his chest. “And it’s a sweater.”
“Is that meant to be special?”
“To be sure. It’s wool from the Aran Islands off the west coast of Ireland. ’Tis famous.”
“If you say so. You look like a fisherman.”
“They’re known as Fisherman Sweaters, too.”
“You’re not selling me on it.”
“So, I just came to see how you like the snow,” he declared, changing the subject.
“Nice save.”
He grinned and pulled down my beanie.
“Hey!” I yanked it off and smacked him in the chest with it. “I’m dealing with the snow just fine. For all of the five minutes I’ve been outside in it.”
“Aye, we got quite a bit of it.”
I frowned, glancing over the yard. “More than usual?”
“We get maybe two or three falls each winter,” he explained. “This is more than I’ve ever seen, and earlier, but I have limited memories to pull from.” He knew so much about everything that it was easy to forget his collective life memories were barely four years old. “I suppose it could happen naturally.”
I didn’t want to say what was on my mind, but I didn’t have to. Boone looked troubled, too. He had that forehead crease thing going on.
“The weather is weird all over,” he went on. “It doesn’t mean anythin’. El Niño?”
“La Niña,” I replied, hoping it was some freakish weather thing and not a smoke screen for Carman’s advancement toward the ancient hawthorn.
“What’s the difference?”
“El Niño is dry. La Niña is wet.”
Boone smirked.
“Don’t be dirty.” Suddenly, my mood had dampened along with my knickers.
“I’m goin’ to help out Roy today,” he went on. “It’s too slippery on the roads to be drivin’ for Mary.”
“Give me a kiss before you go, then.”
He slid his hands around my waist, pulled me close, and planted one right on my lips. As an added bonus, he tilted his head to the side and gave me a little tongue to go with it.
“What a treat,” I murmured. “Now my undies are sopping.”
“Don’t yell at Mairead too much today.”
“So not the time to talk about Mairead.” I rolled my eyes and rested my forehead against his.
“I’ll cook you dinner tonight.”
“You say all the right things.”
He grinned and let me go. Walking across the lawn, his boots squeaked on the snow.
Glancing up at the sky, I didn’t like the color. It was gray and heavy, and nothing broke it up. Not even swirls or loose puffs of cotton wool. It was like one giant cloud was sitting over the entire country like a creepy blanket come to suffocate us all.
“Boone?” I called out, a wave of nausea rolling through my stomach.
He turned, and I decided his fancy Aran sweater wasn’t so dorky after all. As if he could read the uneasiness in my mind, he smiled.
“We’re too few to be proactive,” he said, his voice slightly muffled by all the ice. “We’re doin’ all we can.”
I nodded. No matter how many times he kept telling me, there was a part of me that still needed to hear it. I watched him move off through the winter wonderland, his breath puffing up in plumes as he went. Once he was gone, I began to feel rather alone.
Brushing off my jeans, I slipped and slid around to Irish Moon, the hairs on the back of my neck prickling. Not from the cold but my brewing paranoia. Opening the door, I stepped into the blissful warmth of the shop. Mairead was behind the counter, scrolling on her mobile phone.
“While you were playing tonsil hockey, Maggie dropped this off.” She waved a bit of paper in the air, not even glancing up from Snapchat or Candy Crush Saga or whatever app was the rage with the kids these days.
“What’s this for?” Reaching over the counter, I snatched it out of her hand and read the front. It was a party invitation.
“Samhain,” she replied. “Molly McCreedy’s.”
“Sowin?” I made a face.
“S-A-M-H-A-I-N,” she spelled out. “Halloween.” She punctuated the end of the sentence with a dramatic roll of her eyes.
“Oh, Sam-hain.”
Mairead
