A Game of Colours

Chapter 43: Surprised?

"I'm going to ask you one last time, Alice," sighs Lewis, stomping the snow off her laced boots as we sit at the kitchen table.

"It was nothing to concern you, alright?" I seethe for the eighth time through clenched teeth.

"Alice, you can't just drag me through an alley, have a cryptic conversation with an old woman who may or may not have been a witch, and say nothing to concern me."

"Yeah, well you haven't told me a lot of things either."

"Who was she? Can I at least know that? And who was the man that left Preston? I thought you didn't know anybody in Preston."

"Well, I wanted to change the way we get our food," I lie, "and I made contacts with a man who could supply us every month as long as we ran some errands for him. It seemed like an honest way to do it, but he ran off when he realized that I was a thief."

She laughs. "You're no thief, Lissy, you're just a distraction for the master--" she cracks her knuckles, "to do her job."

I plaster on the best smile I can. "I guess."

"Well, you're no Alex Sawyer, but I reckon I'll keep you around," she sighs, placing her hand on my shoulder.

"Thanks," I say sarcastically, though I see her eyes falter.

"So that's it? That's your great big secret?"

Lying to my only friend Lewis is not an easy thing, and I feel her eyes calculating every word I speak, judging them for merit. I look away, trying not to let her see through me.

"Yup, it was supposed to be a surprise. Extra food for the winter. Sorry it didn't happen," I mutter, leaving the room quickly.

My only chance at really making Lewis happy...and I ruined it for her. If I hadn't approached Alex so suddenly, he'd still be here. Maybe she would have run into him one day...but now he's gone, forever, and there's nothing I can do.

Him and Jarrah would be the best of friends, I think sarcastically. In fact, they probably attend the same knitting club and talk about how great they are at leaving people when they're needed the most.

I roll my eyes and bury my head into my pillow, yearning for some much needed sleep and trying to drown out Lew's quiet sounds of crying from the room next door.

***

I wake up early as usual, shaken by the same guilt that haunts my dreams nightly. The house is freezing this early in the morning, and the sun hasn't even pierced the horizon yet, making the night sky shimmer with thousands of little diamonds brighter than the deep, fallen snow that glistens beneath them. I make my way up to the main floor, careful with my footsteps not to wake the others. 

I grab some kindling and light up the wood stove in the parlour to bring some much needed heat and light to the house, something that was not necessary back in Mississippi. 

Distracting myself from the cold emptiness of the room, I stare at the flames dance across the wood. Christmas is approaching, but the festive feeling that has enveloped Preston seems bitter and uninviting to me.

I used to celebrate, too.

It was my brother, my mother, and my father, in our little apartment more than a decade ago, singing carols a little too loudly for our neighbours' taste, attending Sunday Church, and listening to my father play his saxophone like no other man could. 

We were free, then.

In a way, I'm free too, now.

It turns out that freedom isn't just the ability to make decisions on your own. To live life the way you want to, to say what you want and be who you want. No, there's more to it.