Fireworks

This year, I’m too far away to hear the fireworks.

I used to stay up late to hear them, pressing my face to the window in the hope I would catch a glimpse of some faraway spark. Sometimes I did, sometimes I didn’t. But I always stayed up to listen for them with Mother.

Here, the world is quiet. My breath fogs up the glass, obscuring the snowy trees outside in a film of mist. I wish I could open the window, smell the night air. The real night air, not the sort that burns your lungs with every breath. The air down in the valley.

I shiver. I can’t stop shivering. I’m perched on the wide windowsill, my body pressed against the glass. If Marilyn walked in now, she wouldn’t see me because I’d drawn the curtains, enclosing myself into a safe little box. I shouldn’t really be sitting at the window out of bed. But tonight I simply couldn’t force myself to try and sleep. I have to watch for the fireworks that I know I’m too far away to see.

The grandfather clock in the hallway below my room booms. Each peal of the bell sends shudders through my bones. I wrap my arms tightly around myself as I stare out the window, wishing once again that I had a robe like Marilyn’s to keep me warm.

That grandfather clock always keeps me awake. After my bedtime at eight, I don’t bother trying to sleep until nine. Once I get to sleep, I’m woken up at ten. Eleven. Twelve. On and on, until I’m so exhausted that in the early hours of the morning, I might manage to sleep through the booms.

Mindlessly, I count the number of booms. I know the final number already.

Seven. Eight. Nine.

The booms distort. They sound like a voice coming from the depths of the earth, calling out to me. I can’t make out the words.

Ten. Eleven. Twelve.

The world falls silent again.

No fireworks.

I knew I was too far away.

I don’t realise I’m crying until my nose begins to run. I grope around in the dark for a tissue, then I remember the only tissues are downstairs in the lounge, and in Marilyn’s room. I wipe my nose on my pyjama sleeve instead.

I know since the year has changed over, I should feel something. Mother used to tell me that on New Year’s Day, we were in the future. Because it was midnight for us first. Everyone else in the world was only a few hours behind, yet for those few hours they were in the year before us.

She told me that we were in the future. That the new year is the future. And that the future can only be what we make it.

I sniff loudly, then automatically glance at the curtains. I know there’s no one else in my bedroom. There is no one watching. I mustn’t go imagining things. I must be mature. Maturity is a virtue.

I turn back to the window. There are so many stars out there, the entire sky looks like it has Mother’s silver eyelid glitter spilled all over it, the one she sometimes used when going to special events. Like my tenth birthday party.

She said I could have a birthday party because I was getting two numbers in my age. I said it might be too expensive. But she smiled at me and told me that the next time I’d get a new digit would be when I turned a hundred, so we needed to make this birthday special.

We did make it special. It wasn’t a big class party like the ones that Sophia always had, but I was allowed to invite all my friends. Amara, Elsie, Zoe, Willow, and Evie. We had ice cream, and cake, and delicious expensive things that Mother buys for parties. We built pillow forts, destroyed them, played with my Guinea pigs, then put on face masks with cucumbers over our eyes just because it was fun to be so grownup. Then they all slept over at our house, crowded on my bedroom floor. We stayed up late, and in traditional sleepover style, we ate too many marshmallows.

It was the most fun I’d ever had.

I miss my bedroom. And my Guinea pigs. Of course, they’re all dead now.

After I arrived here, Marilyn wouldn’t let my Guinea pigs indoors. I tried to keep them warm outside. I even snuck outside to sleep in the hutch with them shivering and squeaking miserably under my coat. It didn’t work. They all died and I had to miss lunch for a week.

My tummy growls angrily. I didn’t eat enough at dinner tonight. I tried to eat faster, but Marilyn eats faster than me, so she got more food.

I begin to drift away at the window. I’m so exhausted. So, so exhausted…

I don’t wake up for a little while. Eventually, I’m rested enough that I wake up on the final boom of five am. The pale winter sun peeks over the horizon, the snowy ground glowing pale blue in the morning light.

Breathing in deeply, I stretch a little. I catch a glimpse of something suspiciously pinkish in the corner of my eye. I bring my arm up to my face, and realise it is red and raw from being pressed against the cold glass all night.

I push the curtains aside, lightly hopping down from the windowsill. I stumble a little on the cold wooden boards. I strip off my thin pyjamas and pull on my thermals and socks. I yank my jeans and t-shirt over these. After a brief pause to make my rumpled bed, I put on a fleece jumper, and bundle my jacket into my arms.

I’ve memorised where all the creaking boards are by now, since I can never sleep past five but aren’t meant to get out of bed before seven. I skip over a particularly creaky board and pull open the heavy oak door. I dance down the steep flight of stairs, sliding down the banister for the last few steps since those creak so loudly they could wake a sleeping giant. They have before.

Once I’m downstairs, I head to the living room and place my jacket on a couch. There is no fire in the hearth. This is my job. I toss a few nearby bits of wood into the cold fireplace. I grab a match from the matchbox on the coffee table, striking it. Kneeling down, I touch the tiny flame gently against a carefully positioned pinecone. Once it is alight, I throw the match in and leave the fire to start.

Over the next hour and a half, I sweep the kitchen, wash last night’s dishes, fold Marilyn’s laundry, fold my laundry, dust the shelves, and retrieve a sock out from under the couch.

Its tiring, as always, to do chores this early in the morning. But at least I got five hours of sleep last night. Usually I get three. Plus, it’s better to get the chores out of the way sooner. It teaches diligence.

There’s nothing else to do until Marilyn wakes up and makes breakfast, which won’t be for a while. So I slip my jacket on and zip it up. I pause to lace up my boots at the back door. Then I plunge outside.

The frigid air slaps me across the face, freezing the insides of my nostrils. I breathe deeply, enjoying the burning in my lungs. In the morning, the burning isn’t deadly, but pleasant. My ears are burning too, and I’ve forgotten my beanie and my second layer of socks, but I don’t care anymore.

The snow is crunchy beneath my boots. I trudge through the white. With each step I take, I sink in almost to my knees.

There are a few Christmas trees around, branches laden with snow. Of course, they’re much bigger than real Christmas trees, and they have no decorations. But during Christmas, I was glad to have them there because it turned out that Marilyn never decorates the house and doesn’t even own a Christmas tree. So I had to make do with the pines.

I flounder away from the pines. Across the covered driveway which Marilyn doesn’t use except to drive me to and from school at the start and end of terms. And to the Edge.

I stand on the Edge. Below me, the city is laid out like a map. The mountain isn’t very high, and I can make out a few places that I used to know well. The grocery store. The cinema. The boarding school.

Zoe’s house is close to the foot of the mountain, and I just make out its shining tin roof. Zoe would be down there, having a lovely Christmas holiday with her family and the rest of my friends. I am stuck up here with a grouchy aunt who refuses to take me down to the city for the whole six weeks.

I miss my friends so much.

I scan the city for my old house, like I do every morning. I know where it should be. Halfway between the cinema and the shopping centre.

I can’t see it.

I close my drying eyes.

The icy wind whips my face, my hair streaming backwards. I smile, laughter escaping my chapped lips. Standing on the Edge with the sunrise behind me and my arms spread wide, I feel like that titanic lady if she had been the Queen of the Light.

I open my eyes to find myself bathed in sunbeams. They dance around me on the Edge. They transform into rays of glitter showering over me. As each fleck of glitter touches my skin, it makes my skin glow. I look at my shining hands in wonder. They no longer look flaky and thin. They look like the hands of an angel.

I can see angels. They’re shining brighter than the sun, but I’m not afraid. They are so beautiful, soaring on their feathery wings. Maybe they’ve come to finally take me back home.

I feel myself being lifted off my feet, the snowy ground receding. The wind howls louder than ever. I realise the angels are gone.

Then I am flying.

Falling.

Crashing back to the ground, gasping for breath. I open my eyes, realising I had never opened them at all. I am collapsed in the snow only a metre from the Edge. My throat is sore and ragged, the air mercilessly burning it raw.

I lie there, face down into the snow. I’m not shivering anymore, but I am sore. Sore like my skin wants to shrink but my bones won’t let it, being pulled tighter and tighter…

Marilyn is calling me. I wonder how long I’ve been lying in the snow, emotionless. It must be at least eight o’clock if she’s awake.

It takes so much effort to move myself, that I think my blood is frozen solid. By the time I struggle into a sitting position, Marilyn is yelling for me to hurry up and get inside. Because she doesn’t have time for useless girls who play in the snow and I must come inside and eat my porridge so I will grow big and strong.

I stumble back inside like a ghost, the wall of heat almost making me faint. I am so exhausted.

Oh. Marilyn is telling me that I forgot to change the tablecloth.

My fingers are as much use as frozen sausages tied to a rusty shovel, but somehow I manage to change the tablecloth and set the table.

Marilyn plonks down the bowl of porridge in front of me, silently giving me a nod. My hands are on fire now with pins and needles. My whole body is. It’s agonising, but I still shovel the porridge into my mouth.

After breakfast, Marilyn tells me to get changed before I get hypothermia and she has to look after me. I head upstairs to get changed.

Only I don’t.

I automatically walk to the windowsill, slumping down on it and pulling the blinds shut behind me. I lean against the glass, closing my eyes.

Mother and I always listened for the New Year’s fireworks. She joked to me that it was a good luck charm for the year ahead. Neither of us really believed it back then.

But I’ve found myself holding onto any scrap of hope I can reach. Anything that could be true. And so I listened for the fireworks.

But this year, I was too far away to hear the fireworks.