“About time, kiddo,” he chuckled, hauling me up onto the slippery, moss-covered rocks beside him. “You okay?”
“No.”
“No?”
I coughed, water dribbling down my chin.
“Ah,” my father clicked his tongue. “Drinking up the whole lake again?”
I shot him an unamused look.
He laughed in return—a deep, pleasant rumble that shot through his entire body, his grey eyes betraying nothing butfondness. It was a rare sound, even rarer that he would playfully tackle me to the grass, pretending to fight like we were a pair of wolves battling for the last bite of food.
My father and I didn’t spend a lot of time together. Not alone, at least. He was always at work, or out drinking with his mates, or watching a game of football that I wasn’t allowed to interrupt.
But in these moments, laughing in a tangle of weeds, feet splashing through puddles of water, my father and I felt closer than ever.
We swam back to shore fifteen minutes later, my father leaving me to sit in the shallows with the ducks and the dragonflies while he helped my mother set out the picnic blanket, water dripping from his brown curls.
“Audie!” I called my little brother who stood alone under a large pine tree, his bottom lip jutting out in a pout. “Come here!”
He shook his head, determined to stay far, far away from the water. The lake, for reasons unknown, was his enemy.
With a sigh, I climbed to my feet and reached for a towel to dry off, my mother handing me a sandwich and a bottle of water to scoff down.
Just as I raised the bottle to my lips, she snatched it off me with a disapproving click of her tongue. “You need to say thank you, Augustus.”
“Thank you, Mumma.”
Once we’d finished eating, Auden and I raced around with sticks for swords, setting off on a quest to find the wicked witch of the forest. We soldiered through endless rows of trees, climbing over rocks and crawling beneath large, fallen logs. Dirt stained our clothes, but we ventured on, determined to play the heroes.
“Over here!” I called Auden. “The witch went this way!”
Wet leaves clung to our bare feet as we followed along a small brook, our reflections shimmering up at us between moss-covered stone. I avoided my own gaze, afraid of what might glance back.
Spearing my stick through the water, I dragged it along behind me as I listened to the gentle rustle of leaves and the collective humming of crickets.
The brook led us to an open field of blood red hellebores, green stems swaying in the light breeze.
“The witch is on the other side of this field!” I told Auden.
The long grass swallowed his sword as he trudged toward the rose-like flowers, hand outstretched as though entranced. He reached to tear off the petals, but I stopped him, a gentle hand on his wrist.
“Poison,” I warned, “the witch may have set this as a trap.”
He paused, lowered his hand, and opted to run his fingers through the long grass instead, lips spreading into a wide, carefree smile.
A smile from Auden was as rare as my father’s laugh. I savoured it, following him through the flowery field, laughing and stumbling with nothing but the wind in our hair and our wild imaginations. It was at this moment I was reminded of why I had asked God for a younger sibling. My adventures were no longer my own. I had Auden. And he was ready to follow me into the very depths of Hell, all with a bright smile.
Broken twigs lured us back into the woods, small droplets of rain falling into my curls as I pushed them out of my eyes. The sun had disappeared behind dark clouds, cloaking the woods in darkness. I reached for Auden’s hand to keep him close, but I was met with only air.
“Auden?!” My head whipped from side to side, scanning the trees for my brother’s small frame. “Auden!”
Twigs snapped and leaves crunched beneath my feet as I ran deeper into the woods, my brother’s name on my tongue. Panicspread through me like wildfire, flames licking at my heels, urging me to run faster.
“Auden!” I shouted. “If you can hear me, use your sword to make a sound! Hit it against a tree or… or the ground!”
I waited, but there was no sound. The leaves had stopped rustling. The crickets had stopped humming. Birds were nowhere in sight. It was just me and the soft patter of rain, standing alone in the woods blanketed by shadows.
