The Lil' Big has Frozen

“Why am I doing this again?” I grumbled.

Wallace snickered and let go of my hands, heading the few paces to where the ice began. Much to my horror, his intentions of standing on the ice were clear.

“But what if you fall?” I protested nervously.

“I’ll get back up,” he said confidently before stepping back onto the frozen body of water.

My body was tight from the fear and wobbling I would experience due to the preposterous blades attached to my feet. I glanced down at my boots, and he did the same, taking a deep breath, which felt like it was much more for me than him.

“What if I fall?”

He looked up at me and gave me a wolfish smile. “Then you’ll get back up.”

The wind picked up a bit and swirled the snow around us in the loveliest way. I peered around the wonderland that had become of my Lil’ Big. There was something very safe about the frigid, dead beauty that surrounded us. Amid all that glorious death, I was alive. At least for now, that was. I was getting better, and with the help of Wallace, confidence bloomed in my quiet, tarnished soul that I could continue to get better. I finally took his outstretched hands. He gripped me tightly, and I slowly shuffled forward.

“That’s it, girl—baby steps to me. Now don’t take steps when you get on the ice, though. You’ll fall something awful if you do. You gotta remember to slide. Don’t be scared. I won’t let anything happen to you. I won’t ever let anything happen to you, Trixie-girl.”

I nodded mechanically at his kind words. The moment my blade touched the ice, I froze up and flinched violently at the unfamiliarity. I flinched harder as the feeling of falling backward seized me. He clenched my hands, and in that sturdy, constant grip of his, I found a calm sense of center and ceased with my jerky movements.

Wallace laughed. “Hardest part is over.”

I peered into his eyes, too scared to look down.

“Okay. I’m not going to let go of your hands, but you’re going to come with me, alright? Bend your knees a little. I’ll pull you.”

I held myself taut so I wouldn’t flail about and knock us both down but couldn’t help jumping at the sensation of sliding on these blades of his. Despite the winter chill, a trail of sweat ran down my spine from what had to be nerves.

Wallace kept my eye and matched his breathing with my own inaudible huffs. I slid over the frozen Lil’ Big effortlessly while a cry of surprise and joy escaped my lips. He kept us close to the bank, making a pathway of long, skinny ovals as my legs warmed from the continued bend of the knees.

“Okay, Trix, I’m going to start to let go of your hands,” he said all too quickly.

I bubbled a protest, and he laughed as he carefully turned us so that he was walking/sliding back toward a solid ground with more traction.

Wallace slowly scooted backward with his arms outstretched. He was awkwardly crouched, a creature, as he crept to solid ground. I clenched my hands into fists and gawked like a deer caught in a damning snare at Wallace’s retreat. He laughed at the expression on my face, and I gritted my teeth. He was playing me the fool, dolling me up in these contraptions, and abandoning me. As I unclenched my jaw to tell him that, his eyes went wide.

In a rush, his arms flailed outwardly as mine had as if there was something to grab onto. Somehow his creeping failed him as his feet slipped out from underneath him comically and he fell to his rear. I instinctively reached out to aid him only to freeze, understanding once again how unstable I was.

Wallace sat on the ice, legs sprawled out and gasping a bit before watching me in my frazzled state of concern. I shuffled on the ice with a little bit of rocking back and forth but somehow kept myself upright. He lifted one hand as if that could stop me, and his eyes shifted side to side, his face the image of concentration. He looked as if he were waiting for something. The sun sunk slowly around us, painting the scene an eerie bright in its fleeting moments. I fretted over a potential injury until he finally met my eye.

Wallace burst out laughing. He sat with his legs sprawled out, leaned back, and let out the longest, most beautiful string of high-pitched giggles I had ever heard from him. I stayed frozen at the sound for a beat before finally joining him with a sense of relief. He lay down on the snowy ice and made snow angels as he continued to laugh at his clumsy self. The man was indeed the most ridiculous human being I had ever met.

My laughter ceased before his, and twilight drenched us. The last rays of the sun had glimpsed all the carefree, childlike wonder my dear Wallace and I had, and the sun was caught turning on his heel, running to join with a pair of his own ice skates clenched between a glowing yellow fist.

Wallace sat up and brushed the snow from his gloveless palms before arranging himself in a more mature, contemplative seat. One hand fisted beneath his chin as if he were thinking on something quite draining before he lifted a finger and swirled it.

“Proceed.”

I giggled before confidently placing my hands on my hips.

“How do I do it again?” I asked, feeling light.

He told me exactly how to move my body, and I pushed myself forward.

I glided roughly, just as Wallace said, “Now your other foot, girl.”

He called out a soft cheer as I slowly but surely skated across the frozen Lil’ Big. I slid back and forth, nervous on the turns, until my body found a timid familiarity in the repeated motion. It was lovely to feel in control of my body after spending the past couple of months a mere victim of it. I was getting better.

I came to a jerky stop before lifting my arms above myself in a proud show of victory. He clapped his hands together reverently, and I gave a wobbly bow before jerking upright and nearly landing on my rear just as he had. Wallace’s face shone in the moonlight, and the air was too thin. I bit my lip and surveyed the dark yet somehow shining, solidified body of water from my childhood. To my left, in a looming shadow, sat the boulder where Wallace and I first met.

With Wallace came strength. With him came the expectation of being more than I was and accepting the skin I was born into. It was a fire beneath my heels that was pushing me forward daily. It was warm without being hot. I could touch the cast iron and not burn but absorb from the surrounding heat. The walls I had always been told surrounded me, that could only be penetrated through quiet, consistent lies held no foundation in a world with Wallace. Shame for being born outside of what was considered right did not exist between us.

I should have told him that I loved him then.

But he interrupted any chance to. “I thought it had all come to an end.” He gestured to the boulder with his chin and looked back at me. “The day I met you. I thought I must have finally died and gone onto whatever came next.”

“I had shown up in another place, tail probably tucked between my legs, ready for another bout of great, soul-crushing nothing. I was sitting on that rock of yours, a fact which was unbeknownst to myself at the time, shaking the gates of Saint Peter and demanding entrance. Then, out of the glittering sludge you now stand upon like a half-assed depiction of Jesus Christ, emerged a nymph. Slick and naked and glittering with droplets of water that clung to your perfect flesh, that I envied most earnestly. You opened those eyes that I swore—no, I swear—were a gift from the devil himself to help tempt man. For though he is a fool, man is not fool enough to fall for another ruby red apple of temptation. Any man with anything between his ears would know to run from you because your eyes are the warning of the second coming, my most terrible love. You’re a trap. Temptation itself. And I sat there, watching you, thinking how on earth, after all this time, had I earned an afterlife so glorious it could involve even the mirage of such a thing.”

“Why did you come here?” I finally asked as Mary Moon entered our conversation to shine proudly on us.

“A debt needed to be called in,” he answered. His voice altered from something so soft and loving to hateful malice.

I never could let sleeping dogs lie. “What does that mean?”

The burn of his gaze tempted me to match his eye as the equal I felt I was. “I do not wish to discuss...that.”

It was a dirty accusation, and my eyes flashed to him. Frustrated heat built where my crummy lungs were supposed to be. “If you have such a distaste for him, why did you decide to work for him?” I shot back.

“With.”

“Huh?”

His eyes burned until I realized my mistake and mouthed a dumb oh.

“I did not know then what I do now. I did not understand. If I had—”

“If I had, I would have come sooner.” I took a deep breath at his confusing words.

“I don’t know what that means.”

“I know,” he whispered sadly.

“I wish you for once would just tell me what you mean.” He let out a crude laugh.

“Will you ever explain it to me?”

“When you are better.”

“I’m getting better,” I retorted like a small child.

“I know ye are, girl. But ye ain’t better yet. I will explain it all to ye once yer better, and we can get ourselves outta here. Put a couple o’ oceans and countries between us and him.”

My breath stuttered. I knew we would go.

I had wished for freedom. I had demanded my wishes with the pride of someone who had a right to them. Those wishes were the debt God owed me. Or, at the very least, would cancel out the debts He had let me be born into. But I had not known how heartbreaking those mutinous wishes of mine would become, should they ever be granted. No one ever warned me that life’s bittersweet moments wouldn’t be balanced on the golden scales of justice. Sometimes the bitter outweighed the sweet.

“Wallace, what if...” I began. Or at least I tried to. Just as the confession took root, a handful of interruptions coincided.

Firstly, a loud noise like the splitting of a tree rang out, jolting through me. Secondly, a searing pain bit through my left palm and threw me off my skates, onto the ice with a mighty tug. Thirdly, the ice I so violently landed upon gave a low, odious groan before collapsing beneath me. It happened all-too-quickly as I searched in shock for the face of a terrified Wallace. He scrambled to get to me as I sunk into the surprisingly turbulent waters below.

I was sucked below the surface, and the water’s sharp teeth bit into my skin, causing me to gasp and take in more of the razor-sharp water. As the water sucked the mobility out of me, my fuzzy mind clung to one singular realization. After the hellfire of a fever I faced months before, I had always thought death would be hot. I was wrong.

Death was cold as ice.