No one asked about David.
Joseph arrived home safely. He did not sleep well his first night home. He didn't sleep at all on the second night. His family chalked it up to amazement over the snow finally stopping. They hadn't slept well either. It was hard to since they were in the midst of a miracle. Everyone kept racing outside and staring at the clear sky. The town priest proclaimed a new world had arrived, God returning what was and always should have been to his faithful and a few people even whispered that the snow would melt soon, that soon things would return to how they used to be.
Joseph no longer wanted to go into the forest. He sat at home instead, sat always watching the door and moving eager-eyed whenever a knock sounded, racing to open the door as if his life depended on it. His eager eyes always faded though, as if every visitor was not the one he was waiting for. His mother made him broth and patted his hand, kissed the top of his head.
"It's so beautiful now," she said, and strained to look out the window. For the first time in so long there were things to see in the sky besides snow. She didn't want to miss anything. "And they say the snow might melt soon. Can you imagine that? God has truly blessed us. You should go outside. The sky is so blue it's a miracle."
"It's not a miracle," he muttered. "Why haven't they called for me?"
"What did you say? I didn't hear you."
"Nothing," he said. "I'm tired, that's all."
"Go sleep," his mother said. "You'll feel better once you've rested, I promise."
Joseph went and lay down on his simple wooden bed. He thought about golden skin and voices whispering his name. He thought about promises.
He didn't sleep.
***
When it grew dark David knew Joseph wasn't coming back. He opened his bag and looked through it. His nurse's shawl wasn't there. The servant hadn't packed it after all. David knit his fingers together and thought of it sitting faded on a shelf in his room, of how it was there for him to touch whenever he wanted and how whenever he did he thought about her and didn't feel so alone. Around him the snow crackled, crisping into ice. He took a deep breath and looked up at the sky. Clouds were starting to fill it, shading out the stars. He took another deep breath and thought of his nurse's face. He thought about gingerbread and the trees in front of him, watched their scratchy tall shapes move in the wind. He lay down and felt the snow sink around him, welcoming him. Overhead the clouds shifted, drawing back, the stars shining brightly again. He found all the ones his nurse had told him about, watched them grow brighter as the night grew darker, stiller. They seemed so close, like he could just reach out and touch them. He liked that.
He heard the trees moving, singing a peculiar moaning song as the wind scraped across them. He tried to sing along with it but the song kept changing, becoming new every time the wind shifted.
He heard other songs too, songs that didn't sound like any he'd heard another person sing, strange wordless cries that he thought sounded like a plea, like how he'd felt when his nurse died. When they grew close he sat up and sang along with them. They grew louder and he saw eyes watching him, saw animals like the dogs some nobles kept sitting watching him, lean and shaggy-haired and eager. When the song was done a few of them sang another song, meaner and lower, all snarling sharp teeth, and moved closer still. He thought of his brother and sister and sang back.
The animals' snarls faded, their bodies drooping and bending low to the ground. Ice started to cover their muzzles. David kept singing, caught up in the song and feeling a dark heat curl inside him, beating strong and fierce. One of the animals twitched, a full body shiver, and then collapsed heavily, falling into the snow with a peculiar cracking sound. David stopped singing.
The animals were staring at him with wide eyes, their bodies quivering. He got up and looked at the body in the snow. It had shattered, become nothing but tiny frozen pieces the wind was already trying to pick up and carry away.
"I'm sorry," he told the animals, but they backed away from him anyway, still shivering, and he could see the ice coating their faces was still there. "You don't have to go," he said. "I won't sing anymore, I promise."
They didn't listen to him and soon he was alone again. He tried to lie back down but the ground around him had frozen solid. He lay down anyway and watched the sky, pictured himself floating up into the stars. He wondered if his nurse was up there and decided she was, pictured her sitting by one of the bright stars twinkling down at him, smiling and telling him it was time to sleep.
"I'm not really tired," he told her, and she laughed and said he was and just didn't know it. She patted the ground near his head and he sighed, stretched out and sank into snow. He slid his hands under it, felt it cradling his skin, covering him, and closed his eyes.
He woke up when something hit him in the shoulder.
"So considerate of you to die right in the middle of the path, really," a voice said, and then sighed. "God, I'm going to have to get the shovel out. I thought the wolves around here were supposed to be especially vicious. '
Don't travel at night, the wolves will eat you
.' Ha! I should have known better. Next time someone tells me that I'm going to tell them where they can stick the flea-infested mattress they're trying to overcharge me for." Something kicked him in the shoulder and he opened his eyes and saw a boot with a hole at the toe. "You'd better have some gold on you when I dig you out. No, make that gold and jewels. A lot of gold and jewels."
The hole was filled with a bright red piece of fabric. It looked brighter than fire. David touched it cautiously. It wasn't hot. He pulled at it a little, just to make sure, and it fell out of the boot and into his hand.
"Oh hell," the voice said, and suddenly two hands were grabbing him and pulling him up out of the snow. "Just great. A thieving corpse. My day could not get any better."
David blinked and brushed snow out of his eyes. Someone he'd never seen before was standing scowling up at him, a man with dark eyebrows drawn together over equally dark eyes.
"Here," he said, and held up the piece of fabric. "I was just seeing if it was hot."
The man opened his mouth and then closed it. "Of course you were," he finally said. "I suppose you always sleep lying in the snow in the middle of the forest too."
"No," David said. "In a castle. There isn't any snow inside it."
"Right," the man muttered. "A castle. I should have guessed. I tell you what, you help me dig my cart out and I'll leave you right here to do...whatever it is you're doing."
"All right," David said. The man's eyes widened and then he scowled. David smiled at him tentatively, and the man scowled more.
"Oh," David said. "I'm sorry." He held out the piece of fabric. "I suppose you want this back. I didn't mean to take it."
"Fine!" the man shouted. "I'll give you a ride to the next town, but that's it. And you have to get the cart out of whatever it is I drove into so I wouldn't run over you. Go get the shovel and get started."
"What's a shovel?"
"Oh hell," the man said, and rubbed his hands across his face. "This is going to be the worst day ever. No, scratch that. This is already the worst day ever."
***
The man's name was Alec. David learned that while he was sitting, watching him shovel snow.
"I should have just run you over," the man had muttered. "I mean, I thought you were dead. I even said to myself 'Alec, whoever is there is already dead so they won't care' but what did I do?
I tried to go around you. Next time I'm just closing my eyes and --"
"Your name is Alec?"
Alec stopped shoveling and looked at him. "No, I just always call myself that. My real name is far too long for most people to say."
"Mine too!" David said, and smiled at him. "I can't even remember all of it, actually."
"That sounds about right," Alec said, and started shoveling again. David watched him for a while. Alec's hands were dark at the ends, all his fingertips turned black like night. His hair was dark too. Looking at it was like seeing nighttime even though the sun was actually shining.
David looked up at the sky. He hadn't realized the sun was so bright.
"You do realize my name really is Alec, right?" Alec said after a few minutes. "And that you're staring directly at the sun."
"It's very bright," David said, and looked back at Alec. He looked like a blur now. "I've never really seen it before."
"Because you live in a castle. And they don't have windows in them or anything."
"It has windows. They're just always covered with ice."
Alec snorted. "I did mention I'm only taking you as far as the next town, right?"
***
After Alec dug the cart out he said they were ready to go. "Check on the horse," he told David, who walked up to the front of the cart and looked at the animal standing there. It looked disinterestedly back at him. David patted the side of its head tentatively, thinking of the animals he'd sung to last night and feeling fear trickle through him.
The horse twitched its tail and snorted. David patted the horse again. It was very warm and its fur felt nice on his fingers.
"I said check on him, not pet him," Alec said. "You live in a castle, right? You must have a horse. Probably a magical horse, but still you must have learned how to check and make sure it was harnessed properly."
David shook his head. "My father has some. I saw him riding one once."
"Just the one time, huh? You two don't get along?"
"He doesn't--he doesn't want to see me."
"Uh huh. Let me guess, you're a forgotten Prince who was locked in a tower for years and who's just escaped the clutches of evil relatives who are out to kill you. Am I close?"
David looked at him. Alec's eyes were even darker up close. He was smiling, but as David looked at him his smile faded and he looked off to the side, as if seeing him was something he didn't want to do.
"No," David said softly. "I'm just--I'm--I'm sorry I didn't know what to do with the horse."
"It's all right," Alec said. "Go get in the cart."
As the forest thinned they began to see homes. David stared at them, tiny stone houses made wet, dark by the snow. There were people too, and not one of them looked like anyone he'd ever seen before. He was used to the glow of pictures, saints in a prayer book or portraits lined up in hallways, to the drape and colors of the castle and the people who swept through it, even the servants dressed in bright colors that showed who owned them.
The only color he saw now was on the faces of slow-moving children whose cheeks and noses were red from cold, in the dark circles under most everyone's eyes, in the white circle scars that pitted almost everyone's face. Everyone was shrunken and grayer than people he'd seen in the castle or in pictures, as if they were sketches waiting to be filled in. He looked over at Alec.
Alec's lips were cracked from the cold and he had circles under his eyes and his fingertips were still cracked dark. He had two white circle scars on his neck, just below one ear, and another one high up on one cheekbone. He didn't really look any different from anyone David had just seen.
But he was different somehow. Maybe it was how he was sitting. He sat--not like anyone David had ever seen, not languidly like everyone in the castle, not wearily like everyone they'd just passed. He sat as if he was ready to move, as if everything around him wasn't enough to contain him and he knew it. Or maybe it was how he looked at things. At him. Not with fear or sorrow or strange heated expectation or as if past him was someone or something else. Just looking at him, directly at him. He liked it. He smiled at Alec.
Alec turned away. David was used to that from people so he didn't mind. Not really. He went back to looking at the houses, the people, the slowly fading forest.
It started to snow.
Alec wrapped the horse's reins around one hand and reached under the seat, pulled out something dark and shapeless. As David watched he pushed it down over his head, the fabric fanning out around and over him. It wasn't like any coat David had ever seen. It was covered with pockets around the hem, neat little rows of them, and the whole thing was covered with something, small shining flakes like starlight.
"What is that?" he asked, pointing at the flakes.
"Mine dust," Alec said tightly. "You have a problem with that?"
"No. You have some in your hair too. It--"
"Put on your coat."
"It shines," David said, still looking at Alec, who was determinedly looking straight ahead. "It looks like stars."
"Just put on your coat, will you?"
"I don't have one."
Alec's face was now flushed like the scullery maid's had once been, stripes of color across his cheekbones. David wished he could see his eyes. He moved a little, so he could see them, but Alec moved too.
"There's a blanket in the back," he said shortly, and his voice was another different thing about him, David thought. Looking at him you'd think--you wouldn't think about his voice at all. You wouldn't expect to notice it. But it was impossible not to. Everything he said came out quick and light and edged sharp. He moved closer again.
Alec shot him a glance then. The color was gone from his face and he just looked exasperated.
"Grab the damn blanket and wrap it around yourself so you don't freeze to death. And please don't tell me you don't know what a blanket is."
"I know what a blanket is," David said, and smiled.
Alec's mouth parted and his face flushed again. "Then stop talking and get it already." And the words sounded angry but his voice--his voice didn't sound angry at all. David grabbed the blanket out of the back and wrapped it around himself. It smelled like the horse and Alec. He felt--awake, he thought. Real.
"And now, of course, it's not snowing," Alec said. "Never fails. Get out the jacket and all of sudden it's sunny and..." He kept talking. David tucked the blanket tightly around himself and looked up at the sky, watched blue push past gray. He felt as light as the clouds racing across the sky. He liked the feeling.