Page 16 of Light Up
“Yes.” Tal tried to sound confident, though he didn’t feel it, but he was still moving, shuffling forwards.
The further they went up the lane, the slower their progress. They both kept slipping. Tal was tempted to dump his suitcase but he was fairly sure the glove was frozen to the handle. Hopefully not his fingers. He ached so much. His arms, his legs. He stopped walking again, struggling to catch his breath, only for Corey to come back once he realised Tal wasn’t at his side.
“You really have to keep going. I think I heard a sheep baa. We don’t want to risk them snuggling up to us. Remember the headline? Might beTwo Dead After Lewd Acts With Sheep.Could even be a Netflix movie. Not the epitaph either of us want.”
Oh God. How can you make me smile when I feel like I’m about to die?“Bit long for a headline.”
“Yeah, you’re right.Sheep Survive. Men Don’t.You do know I’m joking, right? I like sheep but not in that way.”
He thought Benjamin would like Corey, in spite of his age. How old was he? Tal didn’t want to ask and discover he was old enough to be his father. He had to be at least seventeen to be behind a wheel.Please let him be older than that.
They reached the brow of a hill and stopped.
“That’s not just one light,” Corey said. “Is it a…Christmas tree all lit up?”
“I think it is.”
“North Pole then? Santa’s house?”
After a slithery descent, during which they both fell, Tal first, then Corey, they were faced with another climb. But at the top, stood an impressive Christmas tree.
“Could there be a hotel with it?” Corey asked. “I mean people don’t put illuminated Christmas trees in the middle of nowhere, do they? What would be the point? It has to be a big house or a hotel.”
Now Tal was thinking of a hot shower and a warm bed too. Every inhale was painful, pulling icy sharp needles into his lungs.
“My feet and hands are so cold,” Corey whispered. “I’m not someone who moans, well… I did think I’d heard a werewolf earlier but turned out it was only me. I moan when I’m…happy. And apparently when I hurt because I can’t feel my toes at all. Or my legs for that matter. Even the Bates Motel is sounding enticing. But you can shower first.”
“Thank you.” He’d never met anyone like Corey before. He had no idea what to make of him.
“Keep going,” Corey said.
They kept going.
Four
Corey was worried about Tal who was moving more and more slowly. He wasn’t exactly sprinting himself but he needed to keep Tal walking, keep him focused. That was part of the reason he’d kept chatting, and it had helped him too. They were so close now. Just this final hill to climb.
“I hope there’s actually something there,” Tal said.
The tree was there, right? “Mirages only happen in deserts, don’t they?”
Corey knew they didn’t but maybe this was the distraction they needed. If Tal didn’t know about arctic mirages, Corey did and he could talk about them.
“There are such things as cold weather mirages,” Tal said.
“Really? Tell me about them.”
Geography had been Corey’s favourite subject, largely due to his insanely hot teacher.
“They can occur when there’s a significant temperature inversion. Cold air is trapped close to the surface by warmer air above and light is refracted downward.”
“What else do you know about mirages?”
“Desert mirages are upside down and lower than the original object. Arctic mirages are the right way up and higher than the original object.”
“So they look like they’re floating?”
“Yes. Arctic mirages are usually images of a distant land mass, but desert mirages are generally images of the blue sky so it looks as if you’re heading to shimmering water.”
