The Forest

-6-

The night was merciless. For hours the sky was bleached white as winter assailed the forest, the roar of collapsing trees barely audible over the howling wind. It was hardly a surprise to Aspen or Azure when their bedroom door creaked open sometime after midnight.
They both sat up off the cotton-moss pillows. First her, then him. A figure stood ghostlike and fragile in the doorway, white as the world outside, her voice small as she tearfully informed them that the trees were making loud noises, and the house felt all rickety, and it was still really cold even with all the windows shut and her blankets drawn over her head, and could she maybe please stay with them tonight?
It goes without saying what the answer was.

Those who managed to achieve any sort of sleep were lucky, few and far between. Most spent the night in uneasy insomnia, huddled beside a fire or padding moss around draughty windows.

Tree boughs shuddered, crackled. Billows of northernly wind whistled in the eaves and dragged whirls of snow in their wake. Beyond the forestlands, humans dozed indifferent to the weather, while the tribe people like Wren remained awake throughout the entirety of the white-out. Wren heard the full evolution of the ruckus, from the initial swell right the way through to the eventual softening of the wind. It was around a time that was usually daybreak when they eventually slipped into an exhausted sleep on the windowsill, but even then the sun was still refusing to show its face.

Sunrise came two hours late that day, and the entire forest heaved a great sigh of relief when morning finally broke the cloud. The rocking canopy calmed and allowed the world below to rest with it. Light lifted over the distant London skyline before stretching out to the woodlands, setting the untrodden snow twinkling, trying and failing to pull the air temperature up from negative numbers. How many little bodies were buried beneath the snow would never be known. Lost cubs and tiny mice that hadn't been able to brave the night. They would all be nothing bones by the time spring melted the white carpet.

The sky was a frosty lilac when Avery finally wrestled the tent's zip open (the entire tent was halfway buried in snow) and he had made such a sound at the sight of the snow that Lucius had awoken with a cry of what's wrong? Neither of them had got much sleep, so he collapsed straight back onto his pillow after that.

Lucius didn't actually have a pillow. That he had given to Avery, so Lucius' pillow was actually just the jumper Mike had left for him. Still yet to be worn. And he fell back to sleep just as easily as if he still had a real pillow, snoozing with his face buried in grey fabric to block out the morning sunshine.
Leaving Avery to sit outside.

—

On the rare occasion the sky turned white over the city, any falling snow tended to melt into a sludge not a few seconds after touching solid ground. There was too much heat radiating from the knots of insulated buildings, too much salt and grit sprinkled over the pathways. Avery had only ever seen snow in an old VHS Christmas film. Winters and Christmas at the boarding school had always been a peculiar time; happy but sad, bustling but soulless, all of the festive decorations had somehow only served to make the walls seem greyer. It was a week he usually spent hiding out beside a window that was away from the action of visitors and games, where he would sit staring up at the sky with shiny eyes, holding his breath in hopes of a snow carpet that would never come.

Snow. Though it sort of hurt to breathe and his nose was going numb, he couldn't go back inside the tent. Couldn't. Just like he couldn't get the smile off his face— It didn't feel real, this snowy hideaway that he and Lucius had. Overnight the whole world had gone spectral and quiet, its every feature blanched, like it was only the two of them left. Them and their secret campsite.