Heart Of Ice

Shady Lake the lake was at the western border of Shady Lake the town. Past the lake there were only country roads and a few cabins and perhaps one or two gas stations. Avery’s house on the other hand was on the east side of Shady Lake the town, past the town square where the clock stood, past the business district, all the way to the outskirts on Gallows Street – named after the Gallow family and not to be confused with Gallows Hill where hangings took place – which was lined with turn of the century Victorian homes in every state from condemned to looks-like-it-was-built-yesterday. Fortunately Shady Lake was not a large town and Avery had been on the Shady Lake High School track team (Go Octopi!) until just this past season when he had caught himself staring at the other boys while they were undressed in the locker room.

There was relatively little traffic on the streets at this hour. Most everyone was home from work by now and in Shady Lake hardly anyone went out after returning home from work unless it was a trip to the convenience store for some previously forgotten item needed for dinner or the pick up the kids from sports practice or ballet class or whatever after school activity they attended.

Avery was soaked to the skin by the time he left the beach and ran across the boardwalk. His ski jacket kept his chest, stomach and back mostly dry but his hair dripped down his neck, his jeans were soaked clear through, and his boots leaked. By the time he reached his street, Ozzie still trailing along behind him, Avery was so wet the fact that it was still pouring barely mattered because he was all but unable to feel the cold raindrops anymore. “It’s not fair,” Avery muttered to himself as he ran. He would liked to have shouted it but he was too out of breath from running. “It’s not fair.” Sometimes it seemed as if the world was conspiring against him. First the rain had started and now he was late. His feet pounded up the street, the big gray dog right on his heels, past Victorian house after Victorian house. Here was one that should be condemned and there was one that had been condemned right next to the perfection of the Traeger House Museum. By the time he came within sight of his own house – not really his house, just a building where he ate and slept and spent as much time away from as possible – the mutter had turned into a barely audible gasp.

“Oh, it’s not fair.” This time the words came out almost as a whimper. The world as a whole was unfair to Avery. He felt he deserved more than gray rainy days and this horrible small town where no one appreciated him. But worst of all, most unfair of all, was that horrible woman his father had married, Avery’s very own wicked stepmother straight out of a fairy tale, the almighty Henrietta Stitch.

AKA, The Bitch.

Not that Avery could ever work up the courage to say that to her face.

He was close to sobbing as he reached his own house and cut through the front yard instead of going up the walk the way he was suppesed to do. Before his parents’ divorce and his father marrying The Bitch, Avery had had friends over all the time and they had run all over the yard, through the grass and on occasion even over the flower beds. Then she had come and not only could he not have friends over anymore but he was no longer allowed to walk on the grass of the house where he had lived for his entire life. Avery hopped over the flower bed the separated the yard from the path to the front porch. He looked up at the door and there she was.

The front door was open and Avery’s stepmother stood in the empty frame. She was dressed in that hideous pink sequined evening gown that would be more at home on a girl Avery’s age than a woman of…Avery had no idea how old she was but he was guessing she was at least in her late forties. It showed off fake cleavage that had aged badly. Avery was sure that particular visual was the reason he had suddenly begun to notice other boys last year. In addition to the hideous evening gown she wore a faux fur coat that was equally as hideous. It did not remotely resemble the genuine mink fur Avery’s mother wore when he went to visit her in New York City. Instead it just looked like she was trying too hard.

She looked pointedly at her faux silver and diamond wristwatch. Avery knew she wanted to make him feel guilty before she started accusing him of sabotaging her plans with his father. Again.

Avery paused on the path in front of the porch steps not because he was frightened of her – at least that was what he told himself – but because he could hear his baby sister Jilly screaming inside the house and was considering making a run for it instead of going inside. Jilly was really his half sister, half related to Avery but half he was not quite sure what. Half The Bitch probably which was, he was sure, the reason she was so demanding and had to have everything her own way all the time. “It’s not fair,” he muttered under his breath.

“Oh, really?” Henrietta crossed her arms over her ample – fake – breasts and gave Avery the look of death. Not that it would ever actually kill him. It just made him wish he were dead.

He sighed. “I’m sorry,” Avery said in a bored voice, hoping she would not make a big deal out of him being late yet again.

“Well,” Henrietta said as if she were completely put out, not just an hour late to go to dinner at a restaurant that did not even require reservations. Still frowning, which only made her face even more unattractive than it normally was, she moved to one side of the wide doorway so Avery – small and skinny though he was – would barely have enough room to move past her should he choose to come in. “Don’t just stand there in the rain.”

As if I’m so stupid I’m going to do just that? Avery wondered. But then, she probably thought so.

“Come on,” the detestable woman continued. She looked pointedly at her wristwatch again.

Avery never touched his stepmother. He never hugged her, never touched her hand when he passed her something at dinner, and went out of his way to never even brush against her clothes when he passed by her in the hallway or on the stairs. Unlike everything else he hated about her, his aversion to touching her was nothing personal. He hated touching other people. He allowed his father to hug him – on the rare occasions once or twice a year when he tried to anyway – and once in a while when he was feeling some strangely protective or brotherly urge he would squeeze Jilly until she protested but that was it from his contact with other people. Except for his mother. Avery only saw his mother for a few weeks every summer but she was the only person he allowed to hug him often, the only person he ever really willingly touched without a reason to. But that was partly because he loved the smell of her gardenia perfume and the softness of whatever she was wearing at the time. It reminded him of happier times before the divorce when his family consisted of the three of them: Avery and his parents.

He slipped past her, the back of his ski jacket rubbing against the doorframe in the process. “Come on, Ozzie!” he called, expecting the dog to follow him up the porch steps and into the house. Avery had to admit that maybe his dog was too big to be called an inside dog but Ozzie had slept on the bed beside him every night for as long as he could remember. Anyway, he preferred his own dog over that little white dust bunny his stepmother called a dog. Avery was not even sure that was a dog. Perhaps it was a big mouse.

“No,” Avery’s wicked stepmother said when Ozzie would have faithfully followed his master inside. “Not the dog.”

Undoubtedly she did not want a wet dog, especially one of Ozzie’s size, dripping all over the new area rugs in the hallway. Avery could understand that. They were, after all, beautiful rugs. But did she really think he was planning to let his dog stand around dripping all over them? Honestly, he was going to dry him! “But it’s pouring!” he protested just in case she had not yet realized that.

Henrietta looked down her long, beak-like nose at him. She wagged her finger at Ozzie. “Into the garage,” she commanded. “Go on,” she ordered harshly when the big dog failed to move.

Ozzie hung his head and ran off toward the garage in the pouring rain.

Avery thought perhaps he might cry again. It was so wrong, his sweet little – well, maybe not so little – dog being banned from the house to shiver the night away in the garage when that bitch was allowed in the house. No doubt she thought she was being generous. Before the tears in his eyes could fall stepmother shut the door and Avery moved toward the stairs, wanting to avoid yet another argument. All he wanted now was a hot shower, warm pajamas, and his favorite giant stuffed penguin named Tuxedo. He would prefer his dog but in the absence of his favorite canine his favorite bird would do.

“Avery, you’re late again,” Stepmother said before he could climb more than two steps. It was the same speech she gave him every time he showed up even a minute late. It was a speech he had heard often. She looked at her watch again as if to prove her point.

“I did say I’m sorry,” Avery pointed out. Not that it was likely to do any good. Not that he really was sorry.

His stepmother cut him off with a humorless smile that he was sure was supposed to be kindly. “Please let me finish.”

Ha. As if he could stop her.

“Avery, your father and I go out very rarely-“

“You go out every single weekend!” Avery interrupted quickly. The tears in his eyes were from anger now rather than any other emotion.

Stepmother continued as if Avery had not even spoken. It was nothing new. She normally ignored him unless he had displeased her in some way. “-and I ask you to baby-sit only if it won’t interfere with your plans,” she lectured.

“How would you know?” Avery was so angry the normally gentle boy was on the verge of shouting. “You don’t know what my plans are!” He was not going to let the tears in his eyes fall. He was not. “You don’t even ask me!” He was a nonentity in his own home – not that it really felt like a home – even his father barely noticed him anymore since Jilly had been born. He felt like an intruder in the house he had grown up in, an unwanted thing in the world’s most perfect little family. Shivering, Avery took off his coat and hung it on the hook beside the door. Let it drip on the bitch’s perfect floor. She deserved it. He glanced in the mirror hanging on the wall beside the hook on which he had deposited his coat. There were tears standing in his dark blue-green eyes. It was not exactly an unusual occurrence. He cried far too easily and far too often. His stepmother’s cold stare was visible in the mirror as well as his own beautiful – not that Avery himself thought that; he was convinced his features were far too pretty to be those of a seventeen year old boy – face and it made him all the more determined that he would not cry.

“I assume you would tell me if you had a date,” the bitch said coldly. Avery thought the tears were going to freeze in his eyes from the ice in her voice. “I would like it if you had a date.”

Providing of course that his date was with a girl and not a boy to prove that he was in fact not freakishly gay the way his stepmother had been hinting that he was for quite some time now.

“You should have dates at your age.”

Meaning that perhaps he was freakishly gay the way she thought he might be.

Bitch.

Before Avery could think of an appropriate reply his father came through the archway dividing the hallway from the living room. Duncan – his father – was a tall man about forty five years old with light colored hair, a full, round face, and brown eyes. He was as unlike Avery as he was similar to Henrietta and baby Jillian. In his arms he carried Avery’s baby sister. The little girl was still sniffling, her face red and tears still filling her eyes. It was one of those rare occasions when he wanted to hold his sister and squeeze her until they both felt better. The baby looked quite the same way he felt. The two-year-old’s strawberry blonde hair was tangled and pink and white vertical striped pajamas she had undoubtedly been freshly put into after supper were rumpled.

“Oh, Avery,” he said absently as if he were incapable of further thoughts about his only son.

He probably was. Work, Jilly, and The Bitch seemed to be his primary concerns. Avery was just a conveniently free babysitter.

“Here you are finally,” Father continued. “We were worried about you.”

Riiiight. Of course they were.

“Oh leave me alone!” Avery shouted. He knew the tears in his eyes were going to fall any moment now and the last thing he wanted was to cry in front of them. He ran upstairs and down the hallway to his room where he slammed the door shut and collapsed on the floor. Avery preferred the bed but he was still soaked. He lay curled up there and wiped the tears that had fallen from his cheeks. His father and that woman never gave him a chance to explain his side of things. The bitch had to have things her way all the time and his father just did not care anymore. Henrietta whined to Avery’s father that she was right and he became completely convinced of her side of things without bothering to hear Avery’s and that was all there was to it. He supposed they believed it was only a matter of time until he came around to their way of thinking that he was a horrible burden that their perfect family did not need and took a couple handfuls too many of those little white pills he could not fall asleep without.

With his head on the floor the heat from the vent set down low in the wall ruffled Avery’s hair. If he listened hard he could hear the conversation going on downstairs through that same vent.

“He treats my like a wicked stepmother in a fairy story no matter what I do,” Henrietta whined at his father. “And I have tried, Duncan.”

Like hell you have, Avery thought.

“I’ll go talk to him,” Avery’s father said.

The hell you will, Avery thought. He resolved then and there not to say another word to anyone the rest of the day. Only, he liked to talk and tell stories when he had the right audience so there were no guarantees on that.

~*~

Outside the windows of the boy’s bedroom thunder rumbled again. Lightning flashed. Raindrops clattered on the window.

~*~

In his kingdom in the world of the Underground the Goblin King sat high up in his tower room watching it all.