Delivery

I got there first, and I picked up the ax.

“Hey!” Aureylia barked, but her crooked teeth were smiling. “Not so fast!”

Aureylia was so beautiful, it was like she wasn’t there. Like those weren’t really her clothes; some designer had paid her to wear them. Like she wasn’t really cold; a talented make-up team carefully applied rouge to her cheeks, her tiny nose. Like the minute they captured her long stride through the snow-censored landscape, someone would yell, “Cut!” and she would disappear.

Or, someone would yell, “Strike the kid!” and then I would.

But when she smiled with her wonky teeth, with the joyful snorts and guffaws that barely passed for laughter, then she was my friend again.

“You’re too young to hold the ax!” she scolded, taking it from me. “You will chop off all your fingers, and then who will play with your knobs?” She means the Nintendo.

I set the logs up on the stump, and she brought the ax down to split them into firewood. Heavy snowfall was coming after midnight that night, and it would be a struggle just to get out to the woodshed, let alone town. It would fall and then freeze, temperatures down to minus twelve, before wind chill. Maybe days before we got the road back. “Sorry about the weather,” I felt compelled to say.

“You are god of weather?” Aureylia grinned. “It’s okay. We have a warm house and lots of firewood. And, we have each other.”

I carried the firewood as we walked back toward the house, over the footbridge that spanned the stream. Aureylia stopped on the bridge, reaching down with a gloved hand to test the ice. She pressed against the surface, staring into the flawed veins of glassy white with eyes that refused to burst into flame. I shifted under the weight of my burden, and Aureylia stood up again, putting a wet glove on my shoulder as we walked back to the house.

“Aureylia,” I ventured, while she was taking off her boots. “Does my dad…treat you right?”

She looked up at me with her deep, dark eyes. “Of course, Jamie. I’m very lucky.”

“But you’re not happy.”

She took my hands in hers while she thought about it, our oversized sweaters sandwiched between the skin. “Maybe it’s like this,” she said. “You like pizza. Pizza is your favorite. And you can have as much of it as you want. But someone else must feed you.”

I frowned. “Why?"

“You cannot feed yourself,” Aureylia said. “Someone else must feed you. But they will always feed you pizza. And pizza is your favorite. You are lucky. You can have as much as you want.”

“But someone else has to feed me.”

“Yes.”

“Can’t I get it for myself?”

“You cannot. But someone will always feed you,” Aureylia said. “All they want is to feed you, and make sure that they have fed you.”

My hands were getting sweaty in my pinioned sweater sleeves. “What if I want something else instead?”

Aureylia shook her head. “But someone is feeding you pizza. It’s your favorite.”

I tugged a little against her grip, but she didn’t let go. “What if I don’t want pizza anymore?”

“What do you mean? You love pizza. You wanted pizza. You asked for pizza. You are lucky; some people get no pizza at all. Someone has taken all the trouble to feed you pizza, because you love it. You asked for it. What do you mean you don’t want it? What’s wrong with it? What’s wrong with you?”

She let go of my hands.

A friendly, crooked smile dawned across her face, and she ran her fragile fingers through my hair. “The house is warm, and we have each other.”

I still felt cold. “And pizza.”

“As much as we want.”

Aureylia went to the kitchen. I could hear the TV on in the den, where Dad was watching the weather report. I sat down on the other end of the couch, the space heater wafting over fumes of stale beer. “Looks like we’re grounded, kiddo,” said Dad.

They were calling for sixteen inches, but I didn’t believe it. “Looks like.”

Dad nodded toward the window. “Maybe we could take the old boomstick out.”

My heart jumped in my chest. “You think I’m old enough?”

“Sure you are,” Dad shrugged. “Who cares what your mom says? It’ll be fun, out in the snow. World to ourselves. Maybe get yourself a fox.”

“To keep?”

“Well, the tail, anyway.”

Oh. “Can I drive the ATV?”

It was too dark in the den for me to see Dad’s face. “Nobody’s driving the ATV,” he said, crushing the empty can in his fist. “Not until fucking spring.”

He levered up off the couch, lumbering toward the kitchen, where Aureylia suddenly ceased singing.

What I like about foxes is the way they move. Their bright fur flashing through a grey landscape. Their fuzzy heads emerging curiously from burrows. The way they sometimes stop, still, staring, with amber eyes so intense you forget you exist. I even like it when they holler in the night, those screams that are almost human.

Then I get to pretend that human screaming is just a fox.

* * *

I had my boots pulled up over my slippers, my down coat over my pajamas. I turned off the alarm and stepped outside, cupping my hand over my flashlight. The big snow was still a few hours away. I could smell it in the air.

I hurried over the footbridge and into the woodshed, shivering in the dark. I looked back up to the house, but no lights were on, no angry voice carried on the breeze. I braced my foot against the stump, and wrenched out the ax.

There were three vehicles on the property. The riding mower was tarped until summer, the gas put to better use. The truck was registered in Dad’s name, and wouldn’t get too far once the snow covered the roads. That left the ATV, with winter treads and a full charge that could go at least fifty miles before dying on me. Or anyone else who didn’t have a driver’s license.

I would never dream of taking the ATV without Dad’s permission, but it looked like someone else dreamed exactly that. Because when I opened up the combi lock next to the garage, one set of keys was missing.

Aureylia woke with a start when I touched her shoulder. I put a finger to my lips, then beckoned her to follow me out into the hall. In hindsight, I should’ve put down the ax first.

“What are you doing?” Aureylia hissed, belting a robe around her waist. “If your father hears you—why are you wet?”

I was an idiot, is why. I spent a full fifteen minutes hacking up the ice with my ax, didn’t once occur to me that there was water underneath. Freezing water that chilled me in places that very much wanted warming up again. I'd plunged my hand through the hole in the ice and dredged up the ATV keys from the bottom of the stream.

I held them out to Aureylia, glittering silver in the vanishing light. I whispered, “Go get your own pizza.”