Aleksey woke with a start.
There was someone in the house.
He had been jerked awake by a sound he had known, even asleep, he had never heard before. Everything in his body strummedstranger danger. He opened his eyes cautiously but then sat up sharply. The room was filled with spectral light, a ghastly luminosity to his skin, to Ben’s, to the bedclothes. The sound came again, louder this time, and he flinched, for it came from above his head. Slowly, he raised his eyes. ‘Huh.’ He thumped Ben.
Normally his other half wouldn’t have appreciated being woken thus in the early hours of the morning, but as soon as Ben grumpily opened his eyes, he too sat up and whispered, ‘Wow.’
Wow indeed. The snow had apparently stopped. The storm had passed over, and now the night was flooded with an intense white light from a full moon, which was directly over their bedroom. But their glass ceiling was deep in snow, the softcrumpof chunks sliding away being the noise which had woken him. Diffused through this snow cover, the moon’s light was entirely surreal.
Ben turned his face to him, and at the mute but incredibly loud appeal, Aleksey grinned his acquiescence. Dressed, they emerged into a wonderland of ethereal beauty. The moon was so bright that their tall forms cast elongated shadows on the snow. A spiral arm of the Milky Way glittered away above their heads in the ink-black sky, as if a careless child had spilt glitter on a homemade Christmas card. The house was dark behind them, just the faintest of glows left from the fire. It was so bright they could see easily as they went towards the woods, wading in the deep snow, crunching it down at each step with their weight, dragging feet out, boots and jeans soon soaked.
Under the trees, it had not settled much, but when they emerged into the graveyard by the chapel neither of them could speak for the awesome sight of the moors stretching away from them illuminated and glowing white under the vast, swollen moon. Everything was curved and softened where drifts had piled against straight edges of walls or gravestones. The world undulated blue-white and ghostly, and the stars were so sharp it seemed possible they could cut, like shards of glass. They made for their familiar old stump, which lay to one side of the little clearing, and brushed off the deep layer of snow that covered it. Sitting there, side by side, they were as silent as the night, just observing. Finally, Ben was the one to break the moment. ‘I sometimes wish Squeezy was right about the Earth being flat.’
Aleksey swivelled his head around to observe Ben’s profile, his mind translating this as ever, although he had heard and understood it immediately. He just couldn’t process it. ‘Huh?’ was the only intelligent comment he could come up with.
Ben wrinkled his nose, possibly hearing the oddness of what he’d said. ‘Don’t you see?’ He gestured out over the gravestones, the chapel and the moors. ‘It would be so ridiculous, that then anything else could be true as well. Like stopping time.’ He turned full face to him. ‘I could hold this moment then so nothing would ever change.’
Ben shrugged ruefully as if accepting he wouldn’t be understood, but Aleksey nodded.
‘Our snow-globe life.’
Ben smiled, clearly pleased he’d got it.
After a moment more, rummaging in his coat pocket for his cigarettes, he admitted softly, ‘I am glad things did not freeze the last time we were together on the moors in snow.’ He got now that Ben had been thinking about that moment—the blizzard coming down upon them as they’d trudged, estranged and bitter, towards his near-fatal fall into the mineshaft.
‘I don’t want things to changenow.’
‘Now that I’m perfect?’
It made Ben laugh, which is what he’d intended. ‘Maybe you’re just getting old—forgetting your past at last.’
Aleksey wobbled his hand to the truth of this. It did all seem a very, very long time ago now: all the pain, all the longing, all the heartbreak. Much of it other people’s, this was true, but still. ‘I will admit that angel donkeys occupy my time more pleasantly these days.’
‘I was a shepherd—in my school nativity play.’ Ben snorted. ‘I wasn’t a very good one. I shouldn’t have been given a crook really.’
‘I was the Angel Gabriel.’
Ben literally fell off the stump he was laughing so hard. The excessive shovehe’dgiven him had helped, obviously, but he was still laughing as he pulled himself out of the drift which had collected at the base of the old tree. Aleksey thought it was pretty funny himself, looking back, remembering being costumed in a white sheet. It had been their teacher’s idea: two identical angels, one could pop up here and then almost immediately the other one there, and somehow this miraculous feat would add to the overall mystery of this great event being celebrated. Except Nikolas, obviously, had wanted to be the one to give the good news to Mary and not the one who had to just lurksilentlyaround the stable, ashe’dbeen instructed to do. On the day of the play, there’d only been one angel available to give any news to anyone. He’d done it spectacularly well.
Ben was brushing down his coat, still smirking, so Aleksey hopped down from the stump, scooped up some of the snow and shoved it in his face. He obviously couldn’t outrun Benjamin Rider-Mikkelsen and didn’t try, but he knew how to flatten someone into snow, and was just about to grab Ben’s lapels and trip him up when they both froze, snow in hands. Ben’s eyebrows shot up. He was pretty sure his expression mirrored Ben’s. Across the moors, in one of the most eerie noises they’d ever heard, came the distinct, spine-chilling sound of howling.
They stood together, staring over at the illuminated tor. ‘What the fuck?’ Normally, he’d have picked Ben up for swearing, but this wasn’t one of those moments.
Before he’d realised the ramifications of his reply, he admitted, awed, ‘It sounds like awolf.’ He immediately wished he hadn’t said it. Gabriel and wolf. He’d just given Ben a lot of ammunition.
True to form, Ben’s head turned slowly in disbelief. ‘A wolf? On Dartmoor?’
He decided it was best to stand his ground. ‘It is howling at the moon. That is what wolves do.’
‘I think that’s just a myth.’
‘You think? Well, I’m exceptionally impressed with that. You don’t know anything about anything, but now you’re suddenly a wolf expert? They don’tnothowl at the moon, do they? Oh, it’s a full moon tonight,shhh,everyone.’
‘Yeah, all right, maybe in Russia they might. There are people who drink radiator fluid and howl at the moon in Russia, I expect. But this is Devon, Nik!’
He was about to defend his position more—one he regretted mentioning and didn’t believe, but reckoned he was supporting nicely—when another voice joined in the unearthly chorus. Two distinct howls. Faintly, behind them, they heard furious barking. They knew who that was.
Suddenly, Ben grabbed his arm, and he jumped. ‘Oh, my, God. It’s afullmoon!’
