Winter Animals by Ashani Lewis

Author:Ashani Lewis [Lewis, Ashani]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group
Published: 2024-02-02T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 13

An Isolated Incident

All of the curtains and window shades in Hanneke must remain drawn. There are many (the lopsided blind at the window where Elen first spotted a plant from outside the house, the drapes in her room which let through a knifing draft, the tattered wicker roller blind of the bathroom window) but they don’t require attention. A curtain only has to be drawn once. Despite this, the windows are a constant source of low-level paranoia from Luka, a chink in his chill facade.

One morning, Lyn turns up the corner of the blind in the sitting room window to check the weather. Luka snaps, instinctively shouts at her to drop it. Elen notes the moment of fear passing through the room, impressed. George has frozen over his cereal. No one knows how she’ll respond. After a long silence, it becomes clear that this is the response: a stillness that could be blithe or could be seething … Those cool eyes! She holds the stillness until it becomes clear that Luka has to diffuse the situation, which he does by using his fingers to scissor open a space between two of the slats and peeking through it like a cartoon spy: ‘You have to be subtle, Lyn, like me.’ All the same, no one touches the blinds after that. The windows are like locked portals in the wall. (Elen finds it strange trying to keep track of what’s behind which window. If she thinks about it too long she gets all turned around.)

The darkness doesn’t take a toll since they’re out all day. By the time they’re done skiing it’s evening, and the kids are lighting their candles with pleasure. Only the mornings are made strange – dim, crepuscular, slightly sad. Low white light purls in through the front-door transom and creeps soft over mugs of tea. Elen says sorry to the water-bottle ghost when they leave her behind with the lights off and window shades drawn.

They’re at dinner when they hear a car pull up to the house. It takes a moment to compute all the implications of this everyday sound. But the car has pulled up unmistakeably off the road, past the circle of fir trees, basically up to Hanneke’s front door. The engine is still running.

‘Fuck.’

Clover puts an empty glass over the candles in a bewilderingly smooth move. The instinct, of course, is to take a look through the blinds, but that would be impossible.

‘What the fuck should we do? Hide?’

‘Let’s not panic,’ one of them says, panicked.

‘Americans,’ says another, ‘have guns. And get violent.’

‘We’re in Canada.’

They hide for what feels like hours. Elen’s holding herself crooked behind the stairs, thinking: will she be the one they call ringleader? The adult, the American? Is that why she’s there – have they brought her as a foil? The car engine stops. Then, eventually, it starts up again and they hear the car leave.

Luka motions them out.

‘Do we think those were the owners? Do we think they’re coming back? Do we think they might call the police?’

‘Maybe it was just people off the byway.

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