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They were all at Monmouth when the first snow of the year hit. Noah shouted, “Look!” and they ran to the window. As Blue watched a curtain of fat snowflakes fall around them, she remembered a conversation from earlier that week, when Ronan had observed,
“It feels like fucking fall.”
“That’s because it is fucking fall,” Adam had answered. “We still have nine days to go before winter solstice.”
Ronan had muttered something, almost smilingly, like, “smartass,” and everyone gave up talking about the weather.
Regardless of when the seasons changed, it didn’t look like fall now. The ground was swallowed up by white before their eyes. Even from inside, goosebumps sprang up Blue’s arms. Gansey watched next to her, close enough that the fog on the window from her breath and the one from his almost overlapped. She chanced a sideways look at him, his eyes alight with a sense of excitement, however mild, that Blue realized she saw less and less in the past few months.
When at last they lost interest and backed away from the window, his face was again pinched with concern. He looked at something on his phone and then looked back up at Blue and Adam. “They’re calling for at least seven inches,” he warned, or, rather, pled. Adam was Blue’s ride home, but Blue doubted they could cross the street in all of that.
Adam looked at the window again as if hoping for a sudden change but soon resigned himself to the facts. In Henrietta, two inches of snow was cause for panic. School was cancelled. Sick days were called in and streets were empty. Just the warning of snow sent everyone to the nearest grocery store in a frenzy to stock up on fresh milk. Adam was proud, but he wasn’t suicidal.
Blue held out a hand to Gansey. “I need a phone.”
And so it was that it took Henrietta freezing over before Maura Sargent let Blue spend the night at Monmouth Manufacturing.
Noah mouthed and then gestured towards his door while Blue was on the phone, offering to share his room with her for the night. Adam insisted that he could sleep in the hall, but took Gansey’s insistent offer of as many spare blankets and pillows as could be found.
“Don’t be stupid,” Ronan told him. “You can sleep in my room.”
“I’m fine, thanks,” Adam replied evenly.
“Whatever,” Ronan snapped. He walked back to his room and slammed the door. Blue and Noah exchanged a look. Adam shrugged and laid out a mat for himself.
*
The snow had stopped by the time Blue crept out of bed a few hours later. She paused by the window to get a glimpse. It was too dark to see the full picture, but she noticed all the rough edges of the usual view softened. Like the town outside had been smothered by a foam pillow.
One last glance at the bed and she caught Noah watching her. He closed his eyes as soon as she noticed, pretending to sleep. She felt a pang of guilt. He had been so happy that she was finally staying over, and now she was ditching him. “Sorry,” she whispered as she reached for the door. She thought she saw him nod.
Blue slipped into the hall quietly and, casting a half-glance at Adam’s makeshift bed, walked toward the the kitchen/bathroom conglomeration at the other end of the hall. She found Gansey sitting with his back to the fridge, book in his lap, eyes watching for her approach. “Jane,” he whispered. As always, he didn’t want his friends to catch them in their late night talks.
“Dick.” She slid down against the nearby wall. “Now all we need is a dog named Spot.” His chest and mouth moved as if in a chuckle, but the effect didn’t quite reach reality. His eyes flitted between her crossed legs and the book in his lap. It was old, with faded brown pages and a few frays in the binding. Blue didn’t have to guess the subject.
“I was just thinking about the winter of 1408--”
“Of course you were.”
He ignored her. “It was one of the harshest winters of living memory, definitely the worst winter of the Welsh rebellion. It almost put a full stop on the fighting. There was one battle...the Battle of Brathmoor Manor, between the Earl of Northumberland’s army and Thomas Rokeby, the High Sheriff of Yorkshire. The earl was killed in battle, and Rokeby’s men cut his head off and carried it on a stake back to London.”
“So, not the greatest bedtime story. Where was Glendower?”
“He was in Wales. Harshest winter in living memory, remember? But because Northumberland was no longer a threat, after the winter, Rokeby was able to concentrate his energy on Wales. By the next year, Glendower had to flee to the hills. He never returned.”
Blue didn’t care about all the dates and locations and weather interruptions to every battle, but thanks to this past year, she knew the rest. Not long after, Glendower either died or was put in an indefinite sleep and his tomb was moved, apparently, to what would become Virginia.
“Well, he’s not going anywhere tonight,” she said, closing his book. “So, you can take a break, Professor Gansey. Just for one night.”
Reluctantly, he pushed the book off to the side. “Point taken.”
Blue squirmed to get more comfortable in her seat and her knee brushed Gansey’s. Both of them silently agreed not to move away. “So, Ronan’s at least decorated for Christmas,” she noted, referring to the one piece of tinsel that hung over the tallest boy’s door frame. Gansey chuckled and this time it was genuine. “Or was that Noah?”
“No, that was Lynch. He does that every year. Just the one piece of tinsel.”
“What about you?” Blue asked. “Wait, let me guess: you go home a few days before Christmas for the annual Gansey Holiday Soirée and they serve caviar and...Christmas pudding, and anyone who matters has to attend.” She affected her best dramatic old-money voice, which ended up sounding more British than Virginian.
Gansey’s expression wasn’t sure whether to be more offended, embarrassed, or amused. “Christmas pudding? Like A Christmas Carol ?” Blue shrugged. He sighed. “Yes, there’s an annual Christmas party, next week.”
“Mhmm. And how many politicians and famous people show up?”
“But Christmas day is actually nice,” he said. “It’s small. My parents, Helen, and I. We each open one present on Christmas Eve, we go to church in the morning and then go home and just...play board games, mostly. It’s...quiet.”
“Sounds almost normal,” she admitted. “A little boring, but relatable. Other than the quiet.”
Gansey grinned. “I can’t imagine 300 Fox Way ever has a quiet holiday.”
Blue shook her head. “Calla hates Christmas. She has to get the ‘capitalist, mushy, pagan holiday hijacked by entitled Christians’ rant out at least five times before the twenty-fifth. And since there are about thirty holidays between November and December, so mom insists on just calling it Yuletide. But we have a big box of decorations that all have to be used and we exchange gifts and it’s pretty much Christmas. Jimi suggests doing a reading the see what the new year has in store, but mom says she likes to be surprised. And Persephone always has to get the most pathetic tree we can find…” The rest of her words caught in her throat when she remembered that they didn’t have a tree yet this year. Or a Persephone.
“Blue…” Gansey’s soft voice had the intention of comfort, but words failed him.
“Anyway,” she said abruptly. “With Gwenllian there this year and...Butternut…” It felt strange to call Artemus by his name, given who he was to her, but stranger still to call him dad. “Who knows?”
Her eyes fixed on her legs and her hands restlessly picked at a hole in her leggings. Gansey’s hand covered hers and for a moment, she froze. Then she brushed her thumb over his, grateful for the warmth.
“I’m glad it snowed,” she admitted quietly. “I needed to not be home, just for one night.”
“Of course,” he said. “Any time.”
She scoffed. “Probably not, knowing my mom.”
“You know what I mean.”
She didn’t want to look him in the eye, because she might have the urge to kiss him, so she stared at their hands. He took the hint and did the same. Finally, she stretched out her legs and braced herself against the wall to stand. “I’m going to try to get some sleep,” she said, though sleep was the last thing on her mind. “You should, too.”
“Probably not,” he returned. “Knowing me.”
*
When Blue finally drifted off, she found herself standing in the freshly fallen snow with Gansey. Everything around them was bright white and perfectly still. Blue wasn’t convinced they were still in Henrietta, so unrecognizable had the storm left it. Gansey’s hair and her sleeves were sprinkled with snow. She didn’t think it was strange that she wasn’t cold.
Gansey’s hand cupped her cheek. His face moved towards hers, relaxing then anxious. To Blue, it felt too slow. Like trying to fall asleep on Christmas Eve. Like watching a trainwreck.
“What are you doing?” she asked, a lump of longing in her throat.
“It’s okay,” he assured her. “It doesn’t matter here.”
She believed him, for just a second, but long enough to lunge towards him. She buried a hand in his hair and plunged her lips into his, warm and waiting.
When she pulled her hand away from his hair, she held a bee between her fingers, dead, no stinger. Gansey’s face was ashen. A scream built in her lungs but never reached her lips.
*
She awoke and threw her arm out against the pillow beside her. She was shaking, fearful and furious. Light spilled through the window, more pink and violet than yellow. Early. She rolled over and tried to sleep again, but after that dream, she quickly realized she didn’t trust sleep. She threw back the covers and slammed her feet against the floor. She looked around the room. Noah was gone. Again.
The kitchen was abandoned when she poured herself a glass of water. The mat where Adam had slept was also empty. Blue began to feel sour about this Monmouth sleepover. She’d always thought it would make her feel more fully part of the gang, but instead she woke up isolated and bitter.
Maybe it was that isolation that made her stop in front of Ronan’s door, slightly ajar, or maybe she thought anger like this loved company and who better for it? She stretched out her foot and gave the door a good nudge. It swung in, and there were Ronan and Adam, standing tangled together against Ronan’s desk, faces pressed so close together there was no room for interpretation.
Blue’s kneejerk reaction was a harsh laugh and slamming the door, just before which she heard, “The fuck, Sargent?!” She didn’t think as she walked. She let her feet carry her right out the door to the top of the fire escape.
Unlike in Blue’s dream, it was cold. She was underdressed in her leggings, sweater and fuzzy socks that were quickly soaked through. As soon as the door closed, she regretted not stopping for shoes but she was too stubborn to go back. She shoved her hands into the sleeves of her sweater and leaned against the railing, teeth set.
Adam was not only fully clothed (and shoed) when he joined her outside, but had a thick blanket draped over his shoulders, carefully held so it didn’t dip into the snow. He looked at Blue with something like well-meaning judgment. She glared right back.
“Should we have the you -dumped- me talk?” he asked.
“I don’t care that you’re with Ronan.”
He tensed, but didn’t try to correct her. Instead he said, “So, you just stormed out here because you really wanted to freeze to death?”
She shot him a withering look, but she knew it wasn’t really about Adam and Ronan. Blue hadn’t been raised to be prejudiced. In a better mood, she might even be happy for them. She could have walked in on either of them kissing anyone and it would have elicited the same reaction. Blue was tired of being a walking hand grenade.
“I’m in love with Gansey.” Her teeth clamped together in defense against the cold. It did not escape her that this was the first time she had really said it, or that once again, it was Adam who was the first to hear it rather than Gansey himself.
“I know,” Adam said. Her head jerked up. He smiled faintly at her surprise. “You two aren’t subtle.”
“He thought if you knew, it might hurt your feelings.”
“Yeah,” he said flatly, not meeting her eyes. “Well, he wasn’t wrong.” Blue shifted her feet. She didn’t feel like she owed Adam an apology, but she didn’t like being on awkward terms with him, either. “It’s okay now,” he added more gently. “Kind of surprised by how okay it is, actually.”
She felt a rush of affection in finding him...happy? Again, it occurred to her that on any other day, the idea of Ronan and Adam might have seemed strangely perfect.
“So anyway,” she said, her stomach tightening again. “You can see how this is a problem.”
He exhaled a puff of white and nodded heavily. Of the four boys, Adam was the only one that had the whole picture. Blue, the girl who would kill her true love if she kissed him. Gansey, the boy who would be dead within a few months.
“I didn’t want to feel like this,” she said. Her eyes stung, and she swiped her dry cheeks to warn off any threatening tears. “I wanted it to be you. I really tried…”
“Thanks,” he scoffed.
She opened her mouth, closed it and gave him the you know what I mean look. “I just didn’t want to be the reason he…”
“I know.”
Blue huffed. Whatever answers she wanted, Adam didn’t have them so he didn’t try to offer them. She rested her head on his shoulder.
“I don’t know how to stop it,” she whispered. She had started so determined. Fuck you, Fate. You’re not the boss of me, or them. We do what we want. But then Jesse and Persphone happened and it seemed like no matter what they did, Fate still got its way. She turned her face towards comforter over his shoulders and buried the urge to cry or scream.
He rested his chin on her shoulder. “We will,” he said. He didn’t sound optimistic so much as desperate. “We have to.” She nodded wordlessly.
The door opened again. “There you are.” The pair jolted at the sound of Gansey’s voice. Blue tripped on the end of the comforter and caught herself on the railing. He looked from one to the other, brow furrowed. “Everything okay?”
“Yeah, fine,” Adam said quickly.
“Just wanted to see the snow.”
Gansey, not wanting to be left out, looked past them at the snow covered lot and the white-tipped trees across the street. “It’s surreal, isn’t it?” he commented. Blue really looked at it now. It was beautiful in an eerily quiet way. She remembered her dream and was suddenly even more glad Adam was there.
“But it is freezing,” Gansey said, returning his concerned eyes to them. “Come on. We can still see the snow from inside.” He held the door open behind him, waiting for them to follow.
It’s just snow, Blue thought as another image of Gansey floated to mind, the very first image of him. In his school uniform, wet hair, wet sweater, and walking along the corpse road with all the other soon-to-be-dead. It’s snow, it’s not rain. Not yet.
Adam took the first step, casting Blue a look of soft, scared solidarity. She followed them inside.