Frozen

Carson smiled slowly, as if hearing and accepting his name for the first time, like he was being welcomed onstage. The light in his grey eyes conflicted with a new frown beginning to knot his brow. Something inquisitive touched the edges of his mouth.

“No-one’s called me that in a very long time,” he said, “My name’s Blake.”

I pursed my lips, suddenly taken in force by an old annoyance. I’d always been aggravated by people using their last names as nicknames. It was just so regimental, military. It would sound ridiculous to call myself Brady. So despite the odd circumstances, I found myself responding quite strongly to the stranger’s first words.

“What’s wrong with Carson?”

His eyes shone, but whether with sadness or amusement I had no idea. This was always my greatest fear with strangers – not being able to analyse their expressions. In everyday life, with family, friends and anyone I knew, I judged people and ‘found my way around’ – as such, emotionally – by working off of expressions. The main reason I’d never been good with strangers was because I couldn’t do that with them, because they were so unfamiliar. This boy’s face was alien to me, and it put me on edge, just a little bit.

“I’ve always been Blake,” he stated finally, simply, after what appeared to be some consideration.

“But it’s your last name,” I retorted discordantly, oblivious to the fact that my past annoyances were barring the more important matters at hand, like who was he to Dylan, and how had he ended up here, “I don’t understand why anyone-“

I would’ve probably flown into a full-scale rant then, if a much more comfortingly familiar voice hadn’t interrupted me. I was thankful for him later on.

“Some things don’t make sense, Adena.”

It had been murmured quietly, and I turned away from the confusion to face the singly known person to me in the room.

Dylan was making his way across the platform, and though he’d spoken only to me, his eyes were fixed unwaveringly on Carson, Blake…the boy.

There was nothing of the warmth that I had come to expect in Dylan’s gaze. His green eyes were cold, his jaw a set, angry line. And the stranger, too, had changed. He rose to his feet slowly, his grey eyes iced over, solid as steel. There was a frightening seriousness about him.

I barely had time to register the smaller blonde boy standing in Dylan’s shadow, before its owner and the boy flew at each other. Wild and untamed rage screamed in and out of both their eyes and bodies, as they practically hurtled through the space between them, violence impending.

The blonde boy and I regarded each other with what I imagined were identical masks of shock. That odd twinge touched my memories and present thoughts together for another time, and in the first few seconds of desperate chaos that was now unfolding, I welcomed it. I calmed my mind as much as I could, letting the pieces of the puzzle float towards each other and join…

Dylan had talked about two boys, hadn’t he?

…a boy with dark hair was telling me to jump…
…trying to move around the dark-haired boy in front of her…
“You can’t have my sister!”

Carson.

But who was the other boy? The almost fragile-looking, white face struck a chord too. I struggled to remember who this stranger had been, in Dylan’s memory, so many years ago…

…another boy, blonde, beside him, was silent and pale…
…the blonde boy’s cries were loud and piercing in my ears…

I grasped the words tightly in my head, but they meant little. They didn’t tell me who the boy was, who he was to Dylan or Carson, or even his name. The hope that had begun to build in a small space inside my chest dwindled, and was doused. The shock and slight fear in that pale face in front of me, however, did tell me the only thing that I needed to know to make the decision of action.

This had to be my battle too; Dylan and Carson would fight for a long time here, untiring. They would fight beyond blood being drawn. There was a line crossed between them, and unless they were stopped, one or both of them would end up hurt. Badly.

The blonde’s slightly vacant air told me that he’d seen this before. There was fear about him too. It was odd; it wasn’t only the natural fear of possible injury, the instinct for survival. It was layered with something else.

But he wasn’t going to do anything, and I wasn’t going to just stand there.

My momentarily distracted focus snapped back to the boys, and I gaped with muted shock at the scene of unfolding violence before me. Carson was slightly shorter than Dylan, but had a lot less of the red-haired boy’s slightly wiry frame. He had a little more muscle, especially in his broader shoulders, and it showed as he directed a punch to Dylan’s stomach. But Dylan span out of the way just in time, to aim a fist at Carson’s jaw which was caught and about to be twisted, as Dylan’s leg shot out to connect with his opponent’s back instead…

I didn’t think. Ignoring all danger, in one second I was watching the fight from a distance in a twisted kind of shocked awe – I’d never seen serious, real-life violence before, and I found it disturbingly analytical to watch – and in the next I’d found a gap in their war of bodies and was in between them. I got a hold on each chest either side of me and shoved out, hard. There wasn’t much physical reaction; Dylan faltered and Carson fell back a step. But rage was blurring the minds of the two boys and somehow I had to stop it.

“I like it,” I blurted offhandedly, instantly regretting what I’d said. Dylan wavered, confused at my words, but Carson appeared not to have heard me. There was a glint of fierce, mourning betrayal in his eyes, behind a smokescreen of fury. I knew he wasn’t going to back down.

With a short shot of a glance toward Dylan, who seemed to have recovered his focus and looked ready to move me aside and tackle his opponent, I whirled away from him and struck out myself. Desperate to put all my body weight behind the movement, I hurled myself at Carson, arms drawn up to my chest and shoved him full in the torso backwards.

Surprise was on my side and he stumbled, the anger wavering, as well as his body tumbling backwards with me right behind him. I heard Dylan call out something, possibly my name, but I was falling already and brief seconds of empty air passed before Carson and I hit the floor. I heard him take in a sharp breath on contact, echoed by my own as the muffled impact jolted through me, and then I was laid half-sprawled across his chest. Thankfully uninjured, if not for my now throbbing, already sore knee, I avoided his searching, grey eyes and withdrew my hand. It had fallen to partly lace into his hair, a simple reaction to the tumble. I’d needed something to hold onto, that was all.

Soon I felt Dylan’s hands on my waist and he was pulling me to my feet, spinning me around his body so that he was between Carson and me. One look at his squared shoulders shouted out the warning.

“Oh no, you don’t…” I murmured under my breath, and shot round in front of Dylan again. He was clenching his teeth; I could see it in the straining lines of his jaw. He was holding back for me.

“Calm down,” I breathed cautiously, measuring his reaction; the shoulders remained stiff, “and go and find out what you can from your friend about what’s happened.”

The reluctance to back down, the want to exert the anger welling up inside him, I could see stayed strong as he met my gaze. But after a few moments, Dylan let out a long breath and looked to the blonde boy.

“This is Gale,” he said in a voice oddly mixed with lingering rage and genuine affection, “My oldest friend – we even went to nursery together.”

A glimmer of a smile took over his mouth, which promptly turned sour.

“He stood by me when Blake turned. And he’s told me much the same story as what Kayne did to me.”

Gale’s blue eyes were no longer eerily vacant or fearful; they were relaxed with a gentle candidness. “Gale Asher,” the boy himself added, a voice more reedy than either of his friends. Perhaps he was younger after all.

“Thank you for what you did.” He smiled lightly, though apparently genuinely. My returning smile was tight though.

“It’s done now. I’m glad to meet you, Gale; no-one should be trapped in this place.”

I moved out of the boy’s line of sight and whispered to Dylan softly, “Find out everything you can about the entrapment, what he knows about Kayne and the abbey. Let me talk to Carson.”

Dylan was unsure.

“That sketch was his, Adena,” he replied warily, glancing back to the dark head in question, with an air of intense dislike, “He’s been watching you. Carson was my friend for a long time, but he has a bad temper and a way about him. Anything could have happened in the past thirty-“

“Yes, I know - he could be another game of Kayne’s, another challenge,” I interrupted, and Dylan looked startled to see that I was on the same wavelength as he was, “But so could Gale, so be careful yourself.”

I faced him sternly, and then turned from his concern to Carson, who was now on his feet. I was unbelievably glad to hear Dylan’s footsteps sounding as he walked away from me to his blonde friend. There wasn’t going to be anymore fighting while I was here.

Carson’s eyes were no longer burning with rage, as I looked up into their serious, grey depths. I couldn’t help but feel a twinge of annoyance at how he loomed over me; Dylan was taller, but the atmosphere that Carson carried made him tower higher than he stood, at which had to be at least five eleven.

“What do you like?” he said roughly into my wary quietness, catching me off-guard.

What kind of question is that?

Before long, I realised that he meant the blurted words that I’d used to initially try to make his and Dylan’s fight waver, until I decided to try out for real, the phrase, actions speak louder than words. I hadn’t thought that he’d been paying any attention to me.

I immediately felt embarrassment flush my cheekbones, but I faced him steadily despite their heat.

“Your name,” I said, and I saw his eyes narrow as he moved towards me, “I meant that I liked…Carson.”

He seemed half-bewildered, despite his ever-present solemnity.

“No-one called me that,” he corrected with slightly raised, dark eyebrows. I noticed his past tense – he’d clearly come more to terms with everything here than Dylan had, “My name is Blake.”

I resisted a bizarre urge to put my hands on my hips and tut at him haughtily, as a kind of aggravated smirk fought to control my mouth. I settled for folded arms across my chest instead.

“I don’t care. It’s how Dylan introduced you to me, and that’s how you’re going to stay in my mind. It’s your name.”

His eyes narrowed further at the mention of his friend, or perhaps enemy. However, I thought that I saw a flicker of something new in them too.

The expression of contempt, confusion and humour was too much for me to resist.

“Carson.” I grinned.

His mouth tightened - was he holding back a laugh or a snapping retort? He took a step closer, crossing his own arms over his chest in a stance that mirrored mine.

“If you won’t stick with what’s normal, then I’ll have to turn the tables.”

“Oh, really?” I asked triumphantly, laughter blooming over my breastbone, “And how are you going to do that?”

Carson smiled, all traces of sombreness absent. It was a beautiful smile, of which unfortunately I couldn’t admire, due to his next words.

“By turning the tables on you, Dee.”

My breath caught in my throat. I choked on a retort that had been instinctively drawn to the surface by his words, until that endearment had strung them to a finish, like a tied ribbon. That loving word and name that was reserved to one person, had only ever been used by one person. No-one else but my dad had ever called me it.

Dee, you know that I love you more than anything in the world, don’t you?

Something of the essence of my thoughts must have been blazing out of my face, loud as a foghorn if my feelings had had sound, because horror erased the humour from Carson’s features and took them as its own.

“What did I say?”

The question, from any other person’s lips, would have seemed indignant. But in his, along with his wide, horrified grey eyes, I could find nothing of the word. He knew he’d struck a nerve, touched a bruise…

“Adena, tell me. What did I say?”

No words came out of my mouth. I couldn’t find the will to answer him. Was I supposed to explain why I felt so freshly wrecked inside? Because the sole user until now, of that nickname, might be dead?

My head had cast downward with his questions and my own, tangled, inner ones. My hair fell into my eyes and I brushed it clear, tucking a few waves behind my ear as I lifted my head to face him.

If everything still reminded me of Dad, how I could I stop moments like this from happening all the time? I couldn’t jump at the mention of cheese and onion sandwiches – he’d made them for every picnic – or see a man wearing a navy blue jumper – like the one he used to save for walking with us in really bad weather, with the fraying cuffs and the fifty pence-size hole on the hip – and start tearing up.

But this isn’t just everything, is it?

I took in a deep breath through my nose and let calmness flood my system. I didn’t think my efforts showed; Carson’s expression hadn’t changed. He didn’t have a clue, and how could he?

“I’m sorry, Adena. Please. Tell me, what did I say?” You said too much.

“Dee?” I flinched. I couldn’t help it. What happened to the calm?

And it didn’t escape Carson’s narrowed, grey eyes.

“My dad,” I said, trying hard not to choke on my own words again, “My dad used to call me that.”

“Dee?”

I only nodded; this time I’d been expecting it.

His unasked question hovered in the narrow space between us. Where is your father, Adena? Or, what happened to him?

Why does one word bother you so much?

“He disappeared when I was twelve,” I had no idea how the words were coming out of my mouth; it was like it had utterly and bizarrely separated from connecting to my brain, “I haven’t seen or heard from him in four years, and there’s a pretty good chance – probably more than fifty-fifty – that he’s dead.”

My lips clamped together, but too late to conceal the secret. I didn’t fully understand why I’d told it to an almost-complete stranger, but it did give me a small sense of relief to not have to worry about tripping over myself vocally about it, at any point with him in the future.

I hadn’t told Dylan though, had I?

Ignoring that particular train of thought, I instead studied Carson. His expression was a conflicted one, that aura of sombreness of his leaking back in. Maybe that was what thirty years of confinement did to you, or maybe it was his nature. He’d had Gale though, hadn’t he?

The memory of the blonde boy’s face as I’d first seen it, on the brink of insanity if not past it, and Carson’s blank, oblivious one with his closed eyes, flamed in the forefront of my mind for a short second. What had happened to make them that way, so seemingly opposite and yet both so obviously traumatised?

About one thing, however, I was absolutely sure; Kayne’s torture hadn’t ended with Dylan. There had been a lot more terror here before I’d come along.

I expected the generic words of response, what you usually heard in reply to something like what I’d just said. I’m sorry. I was shocked, relieved and intrigued when I didn’t receive them.

“Fear and loss can make people stronger,” Carson said quietly, his eyes suddenly seeming much older than they should have, in his young face, “Grief is one of the most powerful emotions in existence, and if you can ever wholly come to terms with it, even when it feels like you’ve lost anything to live for, you can find even more in the world.”

You know those rare moments when someone says something so philosophical in conversation, even if it’s out of context, and you think, Wow, it’s like he’s taken the words right out of my head? This was one of them.

I was silent, letting the passionate words sink into my thoughts. It felt like I had glimpsed something of him briefly, his true nature. He had seen things that no seventeen- or eighteen-year-old should see, undoubtedly, but that…philosophy made me think that he was someone who understood things before experiencing them himself. Perhaps his seriousness was his way of covering it all up.

It was as if a thin line of corded light had strung itself between Carson and me, a binding of understanding.

“It makes you really appreciate what you have, and what you’ve lost.” I said cleanly, surprising myself at the lack of bitterness that I’d thought would coat my words.

“It opens you up to another side of the world.”

“It makes everything…brighter,” I contemplated, and explained at Carson’s frown, “Emotions, I mean. Love and hate and anger…my dad disappearing…it made all the bad parts of me worse and the good parts of me better.” They’d rung unsure in my head, but the minute the words left my mouth, I knew how true they were. Somehow the hypothetical edge to the subject was now almost non-existent.

“Did you go back to yourself?”

I paused, struck by the question.

“Partly,” I said thoughtfully, feeling the muscles in my face tighten in deliberation, my brow furrowing intensely, “I found more of a balance after a while, but it was just one of those things that becomes a part of you, you know? Something that has too many effects to pin down and label.”

He suddenly went silent, the effortless flow of the conversation and the unmistakeable connection that I felt sparking between us, dimming and fading.

“Why did you come here, Adena?” Carson asked, and I was abruptly very aware of how close he was standing to me, “You didn’t have to break that window. You could have just stayed in the library and waited for the storm to pass over. Why were you so reckless?”

My suspicions were confirmed. He, the artist, had been following me here, my journey through the abbey. For some strange reason, the realisation didn’t strike me as strongly as it should have. Maybe the sheer impossibility of the things that kept happening was finally getting to me.

His last words felt partially insulting, but I mentally swallowed the shortness of the temper that I expected to rise, and tried to focus on the logic in them. I thought back to the blur of adrenaline that had been those secluded minutes in the hallway, when I’d first entered the abbey. I’d been so caught up in the moment, the triumph of believing that I’d solved the puzzle. I hadn’t spared a thought for the consequences. I’d punched a window, for Pete’s sake. Yes, if I hadn’t then Dylan would still be trapped in that room, with his passions for ancient times slowly taunting him, maybe even to insanity. Of course, I was unspeakably glad that my actions had saved him from that, and in turn saved Carson and Gale from whatever tortures they’d been facing themselves. But I’d never factored myself into those feelings. I’d be free if I hadn’t smashed through Kayne’s mirage, if I hadn’t meddled in things beyond my power and knowledge. I’d saved three people from torture, and I’d lost my freedom to it in the process. A freedom that I hadn’t even realised I’d had. I’d trapped myself here.

I’d decided, what felt like long ago, that it was worth it though. I just hadn’t faced what the decision had surrendered me to. I didn’t want to. It was too much.

What if I never saw Jonas again? Or my mum? Who would look after her while Jonas was at university? Who would sit with her and hold her hand when her and Dad’s anniversary came and went, when she was wrecked with hysterical sobs for hours on end? When she’d clutch their photo album to her chest, and rock on her bed like a mental patient? And on Dad’s birthday too, and on that day, the day when he disappeared…

It felt like someone was clenching my heart in their fist, squeezing. My chest ached and I struggled with myself, forcing the thoughts to the very back of my mind. I couldn’t think them now, not when there were more important matters at hand. Maybe not ever.

But you’ll have to face them at some point, won’t you?

“Because I was in the moment,” I replied through the masses of concealed fear that were trying to envelop me – I pushed them back, way back, “I guess that I didn’t really think about what I was doing, only that I had to do it. I was confused, run up on adrenaline. I went with my instincts instead of my head. But I’m glad that I did.”

Carson turned his head slightly, looking past me, across the room. I couldn’t quite make out whether he was sad, sarcastic or genuine with his next words.

“Dylan deserves to be saved, doesn’t he?”

I was suddenly plunged into a feeling that I was walking on broken glass.

“Yes, he does,” I said in a cautious but sure tone,” And so do you.”

He smiled briefly, and it made him look a little younger, or at least young enough to seem his age, instead of having the abnormal, additional thirty years stuck inside his mind.

“Why do you think that?”

“Because, you seem like a genuine person, because I know that Dylan cares about you, regardless of the past – and I trust his judgement – and because no-one should be trapped like this. Just like I said to Gale.”

Carson seemed speechless, and I wondered what was going on his head. I was eager to learn how his mind worked, this serious, philosophical artist trapped in the body of a seventeen-year-old. Had he been like this when Dylan had known him before?

“Dylan doesn’t care about me.” Carson stated in a short voice, emotion bubbling underneath the surface of his words.

“Of course he does,” I replied incredulously, “You were his best friend for years, weren’t you? A bond like that doesn’t just go away, not even because of a girl-“

“He told you about Lea?”

His voice was tight, controlled, but his eyes betrayed his emotions. Their grey was stormy, disbelief and anger brewing and building behind them. I was running on that broken glass now…

“Not in very much detail,” I added quickly, harshly, yet my voice surprised me by turning unexpectedly soft to continue, “He told me how he came here, how Kayne trapped him. How some of the memories Kayne made him relive were of her, and you, and Gale.”

My honesty and swift cover-up then dissolved into having no meaning, because Carson began to flare up.

“You don’t know the whole story, Adena,” he said, his anger barely concealed. A glance told me of his hands, which were curled into fists at his sides. The muscles were straining, the knuckles going white…

I had to stay calm, and keep him calm. I couldn’t let him go, like he needed to. If I did, he and Dylan would be at each other’s throats again. I couldn’t let anyone get hurt.

“But you still care about Dylan, don’t you?”

A light tremor ran through his arms and torso, like he was a caged animal on the edge of tearing through the bars of his steel confinement.

“He was like a brother to me once, but not anymore. “

Carson’s gaze was locked with mine, but he was far away. The trembling was getting worse.

Calm him down, before he lets go!

“Whatever happened between you and Dylan, it doesn’t have to define who you are. You’ve been trapped in here for years! Haven’t you been able to get over anything in that time? What could be so terrible that you couldn’t forgive your best friend for, after three decades?”

He was silent briefly, his eyes burning with anger, and old, old, betrayal.

“What he did was unforgivable.”

He said it like a sentence – of prison, or of death. I saw its finality just in time, because his body began to tense, the muscles in his arms tightening, his knees bending ever so lightly. As if he was about to hurl himself across the room at Dylan…

Just as he started to move, I flung my body into his path and did something thoughtless, that left me in confusion later on as to how much I truly regretted it. I leapt in front of Carson and threw my arms around him, wrapping them across his back severely, like restraints.

I can’t let him and Dylan fight. One or both of them will get hurt, and not just a broken fingernail either.

My thoughts were for Dylan’s safety, my own, and even his and Gale’s, though I barely knew them. I had no idea how badly my actions would be misinterpreted.

My head was turned to the side, my cheek pressed against his chest, and I felt his whole body freeze against me in shock. Now I just had to wait for him to calm down, so him, Dylan and I could have a civilised conversation, and sort out this betrayal between them once and for all.

Several, agonising moments passed as I waited for his rage to subside. I held on tight, using all my strength in case he tried to push me aside. All I could think was that I couldn’t let go; I had to keep everyone safe…

And when finally he did relax, when I felt the muscles in his back unfreeze against my arms and the wild rise and fall of his chest against my cheek begin to slow, I prepared myself to cautiously back away. But then Carson was moving, and before I could register or understand it, his own arms were around my shoulders.

I suddenly felt very warm, my nerves starting to tingle.

I thought then that this was what this boy really needed; after thirty years of fury and loneliness, it wasn’t to unleash it upon whoever had hurt him in the past. Maybe he really just needed the comfort of another human being.

I found myself relaxing too, and Carson and I were simply two, loss-ridden people in a lonely old house, in a world of our own. It didn’t matter that I barely knew him; we were joined by our grief – him for his past and I for my father and lost freedom – and our anger. Countless nights I’d cried for my dad, in not only sadness but frustration at him too, thinking,

Why didn’t you come back for me?

And back then, I knew that I’d needed someone to hold onto, too.

“Am I interrupting something?”

The moment shattered. Carson and I broke apart, though I glimpsed his more peaceful though confused expression, before I had to face Dylan.

His face was like thunder encapsulated.

If the storm chasing me had had a face, then this would be it. Where was his sanguinity now? Where was Dylan now?

Stupid, stupid… I thought to myself dejectedly, To him, this will look like you’re waving a white flag in the enemy’s face, and you’re the best ally he has; who knows what Gale’s been up to…

His cold, penetrating green eyes broke through my collected façade, and I felt blood rush to my cheeks in shame.

What feud had I reawakened by stumbling into this abbey? And why had I never stopped to consider the consequences of my actions?