Page 23 of Night So Silent
Four Days Until Christmas
Sergei
Sometimes I forget that other people find the tone of my voice abrasive and my stoic demeanor off-putting. Out in the field, Lutz used to say that I could make pancakes and sausage over a campfire seem terrifying. I don’t notice. This is just how I am. But it doesn’t seem to bother Barrett.
“So, your parents took you away before your country could take you from them.” It’s a statement more than a question.
“I couldn’t appreciate it at the time, but I stopped speaking to anyone. Long enough that my parents thought there was something wrong with me.”
“I mean, therewassomething wrong with you.” Barrett glances up with a smile. “But silence gets a bad rap. Honestly, it’s a safe response when you don’t know what else to do. And often times it can speak louder than words.”
“Apparently, loud enough.” I tilt my head, studying the board while the sweet smell of her hair drifts across the space between us. “I stayed out in the woods because it felt familiar. My parents didn’t like that, either, even though that’s all I did back home.”
“Is that why you went to Canaan?” she asks.
“Yes.”
“Wait.” Barrett peers at me over the chess board. “Was this basically a school-sponsored way for you to run away?”
I let out an unexpected laugh, grateful for her levity. Unbeknownst to many, humor—especially the dark variety—helps me through difficult situations. It seems that she might be the same way.
“Kind of,” I admit. “It was two months before the school realized that I already knew how to speak English.”
“What!” Barrett shrieks, the sound of which forces another smile across my cheeks.
Barrett gasps. “Do you need a minute? Are you OK?”
I furrow my brow in confusion.
“You just laughed.” She moves another pawn. “I need to make sure you’re not going to have some kind of cardiac event. We’re kind of stranded, in case you forgot. I don’t think an ambulance could get here quick enough.”
“It would appear not,” I agree. “But you should probably lose your humor if you’re worried about being stranded with my corpse.”
“Fine, consider me just another potted plant. No wonder your cat wants to chew on me so badly,” she says just as Edie jumps up on the sofa next to her. “Did your stint in the Midwest help any?”
“I just ended up in the woods there, too. Even in Canaan, the forest felt the same. That’s where I met Evie.”
“Brett mentioned that you were friends.” Barrett arches her brow. “That’s pretty wild.”
I nod. “I didn’t know who she was. She ran after me on a trail and said we had a class together. After that, she wouldn’t leave me alone. Every day, she tried to do something that would make me talk, laugh, even get angry—making faces, yelling crazy things, even trying to kiss me before I could turn away. Just kid stuff.”
“ThatI would’ve paid to see.”
“If you think that’s entertaining, you should’ve seen the places she convinced me to go. Sporting events, parties in somestranger’s barn, and what’s that event called where everyone dresses up for a party at school—House Warming?”
Barrett pauses, her fingers on the head of a bishop. Moments later, her eyes pop and her mouth breaks into a wide grin. “Homecoming?”
“Is that what it’s called? I didn’t know what home they were talking about.”
“Is that what made you decide to flee to the Arctic? Too much socializing and school spirit?”
“Has anything as terrifying ever happened to you?”
Maybe it’s too forward of me to ask. I can talk about the dark parts of my life with relative ease. It is what it is. Other people tend to have a more difficult time doing so.
“No,” she sighs as she moves her bishop. “Nothing truly terrible has ever happened to me.” But then she hesitates. “Except for when Bowen almost took Brett from me. I think that’s the most scared I’ve ever been because I knew what he was doing, but I still couldn’t stop it.” She glances out the window with a distant look.
“You saw him for what he was.”
