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Written in January, 2017, To Fly Within the Clouds was originally intended as nothing more than a writing exercise; character work for the development of Gabriel Sorensen, a teenager with autism who would go on to be the main character in The History Collector. It gave author J.R. Vikse a sense of Gabriel's past and some of the experiences that made him into the young man he was when we met him in the book.
Now, over three years later, the short story is being released exclusively online for readers of The Tranthaea Adventures series. Scroll down to enjoy To Fly Within the Clouds. 
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Age Nine
It always rains at funerals in the movies, Gabriel thought, his eyes squinting up into the pale, yellow sunshine that settled down over his father’s casket like the first warm layer of burial dust. And everyone wears black and cries and holds umbrellas and there’s always someone mysterious watching from behind a tree across the graveyard.
Gabriel turned and looked over his shoulder, but there was no one watching. Hardly anyone had turned up for the service as it was, and only the priest and his grandmother stood next to him now, their heads bowed in silent prayer. At least, the priest’s head was bowed. Gabriel’s grandma was staring down at him, her eyes squinting suspiciously at his feet.
No, not at his feet. At his shadow.
Gabriel shuddered, remembering the stories she’d told him every night before going to bed. He turned back towards the casket and let out a deep breath, wishing that it was cloudy and raining, but the wide-open skies of the Yukon shone bright and clear over the coffin as the priest pressed the button that lowered it into the earth.
Bye, Dad. Gabriel wasn’t surprised to find that he wasn’t crying. He’d never been an emotional child. A robot, Mummo had called him when he was a baby. Not normal. That’s why your Mom left. She told him that whenever he made her cry by being too honest with her. He guessed she was trying to make him feel guilty, but he didn’t understand that. Why should I lie? Is that not worse than hurting someone’s feelings?
Feelings were an unfamiliar concept to Gabriel. They didn’t make sense. You couldn’t take them apart and put them back together again. They didn’t respond the same way to stimuli each time. They had no rhyme or reason. If that was why his mom had left, then that had been her choice. He was fine without her. He had his Dad.
Not anymore, Gabriel. The voice in his head was his own, but Gabriel didn’t like it. He preferred voices that everyone could hear.
“Not anymore,” he said aloud, then blinked as the priest turned to look at him. He scrunched his face up and made a funny sound, like the kids at school did when he told them why they bothered him.
He hoped it looked like he was crying.
Age Ten
Gabriel stared up in surprise at the boy standing over him. He blinked away tears, brushing his hand against his cheek, then looked at the tiny drops as they glistened on the ends of his fingertips.
“A physical response to pain.”
“What?” Donald glared at him from his position, standing on one of the half-buried tires that surrounded the playground. “What did you say?”
Gabriel refocused on the boy who had punched him. “The tears. They are because you hit me, not because I am sad.”
Donald scoffed. “Maybe they’re cause you’re scared.”
Gabriel frowned and paused, taking an internal inventory. “No. I am not scared. If I was scared my heart would be going fast, or I would be sweating, or my eyesight would be better. My hearing too.” He shook his head. “That is not happening. So I am not scared.”
There was a silence as the kids around him stared at him. Donald’s smile had faded. “Why do you know that stuff?”
Gabriel shrugged as he got to his feet and brushed the dirt off his backside. “I need to know it so I can show it to people if I need to. Otherwise they do not understand me.”
“Are you a moron? Or maybe you’re an alien? Trying to act like a human?” Donald turned away, pulling the other kids with him by force of personality. “Freak. Just like your grandma.”
Gabriel stood silently for a long time after they’d left, replaying the situation, aloud, of course. “Annie came over and asked if I would like half of her sandwich. I said yes, because I like peanut butter, and grape jam is my favourite. Then she asked if I liked her haircut. I finished swallowing the bite of sandwich in my mouth and told her no. She made the face that means sad and asked me why. I told her that it made her look like a boy. She started to cry for real. I asked her why she was crying, but she wouldn’t answer me. She ran away, but left me the rest of the sandwich. I ate it, then Donald came over and punched me.” Gabriel’s forehead wrinkled. “If Annie had not wanted my answer, she should not have asked me for it.” For a second, the word Freak flashed through Gabriel’s head, but he shoved it aside. “And why did Donald hit me?” Gabriel shook his head and started walking home, ignoring the line of blood that was trickling down from his chin.
“Maybe it is because his haircut makes him look like a boy, too.”
Age Ten
Gabriel’s grandma seldom drove into Whitehorse anymore, but she had told him that this was a special occasion. She’d told him that the school had special news for him, but before she’d tell him what it was, she had a surprise for him.
They parked the truck just outside of Vinnie’s Pet Supplies. Gabriel leaned forward and stared through the windshield at the puppies that were tumbling upon one another in the window display, their round, fluffy bodies looking like someone had just dumped a jar of large cotton balls into the cage.
Gabriel got out of the truck and walked to the front door. He saw kittens sleeping in the warm sunlight that peered through the window, he saw a hedgehog curled into a spiky ball like a fallen chestnut, and he saw his own reflection, his face a sea of calm disturbed only by the throbbing black eye he’d been given at school last week.
Gabriel followed his grandma into the store and was told to find himself a pet. He started to wander through the aisles, staring into cages and terrariums. Behind him, he could hear his grandma talking to the sales clerk; words drifted through the yipping, squawking, and chirping that surrounded him.
“…that cursed social worker…”
“…some sort of healthy interaction…”
“…homeschooled now…”
Gabriel let the words drift away from him. He knew what they meant; they meant he needed more practice. Trying to be normal was hard.
“I am tired of normal. Normal makes me tired,” he said to no one in particular.
His shadow passed over a cage and Gabriel instinctively ducked down so that the shadow disappeared. Staring into the cage, he cocked his head.
The cage wasn’t empty. Sitting in the far back corner, her head cocked as if she were copying Gabriel’s movement, was a small, monochromatic border collie puppy. Gabriel saw that there were four other puppies, likely from the same litter, all jumbled together on the other side of the cage, but this one didn’t seem concerned about them. She was just looking at Gabriel. Then her tail started to wag.
“I am not a normal person,” whispered Gabriel. The puppy took a tentative step forward, then gave an awkward lunge at the glass, her tongue lapping at the spot where Gabriel had placed his hand. “But then, neither are you.”
Age Eleven
Gabriel carefully folded his gi and placed it on the shelf. The locker room was empty; Gabriel had realised that it was easier to wait until everyone was gone before he showered and changed. Not that he was shy. It just seemed like everyone else was, and he had been yelled at for looking where he wasn’t supposed to a few times in the first week.
“It is a public shower,” Gabriel said to himself. “If they feel ashamed, they should admit it and shower at home.”
Shame was one of the trickier ones. It was like guilt, but didn’t depend on other people as much. “But still, I am the one who gets in trouble.” Gabriel shook his head, water droplets sailing off the loose strands of his hair and bursting against the cold, tile floor. He laughed. The sound echoed around the room and Gabriel tilted his head to listen. “Sounds good.”
He hurriedly pulled on his clothes and bent over to tie his shoes. Antigone would be sitting outside, waiting patiently like she always did. Gabriel unconsciously felt in his pocket for her treats. “She loves treats,” he said.
Antigone had grown up fast. She was full-size now and had more energy than Gabriel had expected. He had been forced to rearrange his entire life to adjust to her schedule. Taking her for walks and going shopping for her needs had meant spending more time out in Whitehorse. Gabriel knew that was why his grandma had bought her. It was to teach him all the things he hadn’t learned from his parents. “They did not teach me. That is why I did not learn, I am positive.” It was also why he had named her Antigone. It was from an old Greek story. The name meant “in place of the mother.” Gabriel laughed again, just to compare the sound to the one before.
“It needs to be higher pitched,” said a voice that wasn’t Gabriel’s.
Gabriel spun around, his hands clapped to the sides of his head as if to shake the voices out, but there was another boy standing there. Gabriel blinked and removed his hands. The boy was naked, having just come out of the shower. Gabriel looked him up and down. “I have never seen a First Nations boy naked before,” he said.
The boy shrugged and threw the towel he’d been rustling through his long hair to the side where it hit a low bench and landed on the wet floor with a loud splat. “We can’t be that different.”
Gabriel shook his head. “Darker skin. Otherwise you seem pretty average. Should I mention your penis size?”
The boy looked startled, then laughed. “Why did you say that?”
Gabriel put on his apologetic face. “I think some boys think it is important. I thought maybe you did.”
The boy looked down at himself as he tugged on a pair of boxers. “Meh. My brothers say I will, but not yet.” He yanked on a pair of old jeans that stuck to his damp legs. “And if you thought it, why did you say it? Why not just keep it to yourself?”
“I am going to sit down.” Gabriel sat down. “This is turning into a conversation.”
The other boy grinned, but waited for Gabriel to respond to his question.
“I do not like to think in my head. I like to know that the voice is mine.” Gabriel nodded as he spoke, using the physical cue to emphasise how correct the words were.
The boy considered that. “Makes sense, I guess. But I probably wouldn’t describe any of the other guy’s penises to them, if I were you. Not if you don’t want to get pounded.” He grinned again, his teeth gleaming in the yellowed lights of the locker room. “Not that you couldn’t take them. I’ve seen you in the dojo. You’re killer.”
“Thanks,” said Gabriel. “The moves are all about muscle control. I know where the muscles are and what they do. So it is easy.”
“Easy for you, maybe,” said the boy. He left his shirt untucked and stretched out his hand. “I’m Maq. It’s short for Tulimaq.”
“I am Gabriel. It is not short for anything.” They shook hands and Gabriel picked up his things. “Are we friends now, Tulimaq?”
“Maq.”
“Right.” Gabriel held open the door for Maq as they exited the change room and walked through the quiet dojo. “Are we?”
“Sure,” said Maq. “I’ve got a pretty thick skin.”
“I saw,” said Gabriel, and they both laughed. “That was funny.”
“Sure was,” chortled Maq. “And that laugh was better.”
“That is because it was real.” Gabriel took Antigone’s treat from his pocket and handed it to his friend. “Would you like to meet my dog?”
Age Fourteen
Gabriel’s sleeping form kicked savagely at the sheets that were working to keep him in bed. There had been dreams every day for a week, and this one was the strongest one yet. He was buried underground. The soil was all around him, like a grave without a coffin. It pressed down onto him as if it were trying to mould him into a certain shape. He felt himself become fluid, fitting into whatever space the dirt left for him. He struggled against it, trying to remain the way he was, but it didn’t work; slowly, unceasingly, the pressure around him began to squeeze him until he was something else. He cried aloud at the pain of it, a cry that almost woke his grandma, a cry that sent a shiver down her spine and tossed her arm against the nightstand, shattering her wrist.
Gabriel suddenly felt locked in, as if he were completely changed, utterly transformed, and there was no way back. Then a sudden feeling of clarity washed over him.
You are still you, said a voice. Gabriel knew that the voice was his.
The dream changed. He was standing in a room. The room was built of clouds and there were twinkling lights surrounding him, inside the misty walls. He could hear a low thrumming, like the sound of a muted helicopter. The thrumming sound began to rise and fall until it was a throbbing melody. Soon it was joined by other voices, for voices they were, in a song that seemed far too complex for anyone to understand.
But slowly, as the song wove through its harmonies and crescendos, Gabriel found that he could comprehend what was being said. But as each word entered his mind, it slipped away, its meaning lost to the hazy world of dreams.
It was momentary, but it felt real. In his dreams, Gabriel could understand that language. In his dreams, he could understand all kinds of things he struggled with in real life: anger, love, fear, joy. But he was getting better. He knew it. The songs helped, somehow. The humming voices were telling him who he was, and he was able to take that into his waking life. He knew how to show emotions now. Sometimes he even felt them.
Somewhere in his subconscious, Gabriel remembered that Maq had told him that in his tribe, dreams were important. And recurring bad dreams could be banished just by telling someone about them and the other person telling the dream to leave.
It hadn’t worked.
Suddenly the voices stopped. The room of clouds disappeared as long, tall shadows crept up the walls and flooded the ceiling, darkening the room and seeming to reach towards Gabriel. He screamed again…
…And bolted upright in bed, hearing a pitiful cry hobble down the hallway towards him. He jumped out of bed, his heart pounding, feeling the sheet behind him peel away from the sweat on his back. Maq, he thought. Antigone. The dreams. They are helping me understand. They are helping me feel. Gabriel stumbled down the hallway towards his grandma’s room and opened the door.
But why do I have to feel fear?
He saw his grandma sitting up in bed, crying, her broken wrist cradled in her hand. On the floor lay shattered pieces of the cold cup of coffee her care-worker had left for her, as well as a bottle of pills, still full of long-expired medicine.
She turned to Gabriel as he entered, the look of pain on her face so intense that he winced at the sight of it.
“Gabriel,” she said, her voice whistling out of the gaps between her teeth, “did you see the shadows too?”
Age Fifteen
Gabriel set down his sandwich on his workbench and rolled his eyes at the plaintive look on Antigone’s face.
“Fine. But just one bite, okay?”
Antigone made no promises as she jumped up, resting her front paws on the workbench before wolfing down the rest of the sandwich. Satisfied, she hopped back down to the floor, her tongue working overtime to slurp away the last of the peanut butter from the roof of her mouth.
Gabriel chuckled as he pushed the empty plate aside and refocused his attention on the electronics in front of him. The last test had gone all right, until the gun had started smoking and sent off sparks.
Almost there, he thought. “Right, Tiggy?”
Antigone stared up at him and thumped her tail against the floor.
“Right.” Gabriel grabbed his soldering iron and carefully made the necessary adjustments, tilting his head to avoid the sinuous line of smoke that twisted its way past his head and collected in a spreading mist along the shed’s ceiling.
“You still working on that?” Maq’s voice announced him as he pushed the door open and let the outside stream into Gabriel’s workshop. “I hope it’s worth all the effort.”
“It will be.” Gabriel set down his tools and turned to see his friend playfully tussling with Antigone. “Laser tag is expensive. Having our own system will save us money. Plus, we can play it wherever we want to.”
“Sounds good to me.” This voice didn’t belong to Maq or Gabriel, and he found himself tensing up as a shadow entered the doorway to his shed, before relaxing as a girl followed it in.
“Who are you?” Gabriel said, slightly aware that his clipped tone was one some people found offensive.
Maq jumped up, clearly running interference. “Gabe, you know Avery. I mean, you’ve seen her around town, right?”
Gabriel nodded. “Is she your girlfriend?”
Maq began to splutter, and Avery’s eyebrows shot up to disappear behind her bangs. “Wow. You weren’t kidding, were you Maq?” she said, as if impressed.
Maq found his voice. “With Gabriel, you don’t need to exaggerate.”
“I will take that as a compliment,” Gabriel said, snorting.
“I think you should.” Avery winked at Maq. “And he wishes. That I was his girlfriend, I mean.”
Maq had seemed to be strutting, but Gabriel watched as he slowly drooped like a punctured balloon. He looked over to Gabriel, his gaze pleading. Gabriel cocked his head. I wonder if he wants me to mention his penis size now?
Before he could say anything, Maq spoke. “Well… never mind that. I just wanted to show Avery your workshop, Gabe.” He turned to Avery, his chest expanding. Gabriel was reminded of a nature show he’d watched on the BBC about a species of birds in Papua New Guinea during a mating dance. He filed Maq’s behaviour away for further consideration.
Maq was still talking. “Gabriel’s a genius. He invents things like there’s no tomorrow. And he reads.”
Avery was walking around the workshop, careful not to touch anything. Gabriel marked that as a point in her favour. She stopped when Maq said those last words. “Is that not normal?” She turned to Maq. “Can’t you read?”
Maq grinned, his face reddening. Gabriel smiled. I wonder, do I blush when I feel embarrassed? The sensation didn’t happen often, though more than it used to, now that he knew better what to look for. Emotions seemed to be almost mathematical in their precision, now that Gabriel was studying them properly. The more you knew what to look for, the more you could find, in yourself and in others. How I thought them chaotic, I’ll never understand, he thought. They grow on each other, exponentially. They have causes, and effects. They can be quantified by touch, sight, sound, even taste and smell. Gabriel knew now that even though he would never feel things the way others felt them, he wasn’t an emotionless robot like he’d always been led to believe by his grandma.
Gabriel blinked and refocused on the conversation in front of him. Maq noticed and turned away from Avery, with obvious effort.
“Hey,” he said. “Enough about us.” Avery shook her head at his use of the plural, but he kept going. “How’re the flying lessons going?”
Gabriel felt a smile grow across his face. “Good. Really good.”
“Gabe flies. In, like, a year, he’ll be able to pilot bush planes alone. Isn’t that cool?”
Avery nodded. “Cool. Will you take me flying someday?”
“Us,” corrected Maq. “He’ll take us flying someday. Right, Gabe?”
“Sure,” said Gabriel. “You might appreciate it.” Gabriel silently congratulated himself on his wording. It was intended to lessen the blow of what he’d wanted to say, which was You will never appreciate it, Maq. Not like I do. You will never understand the feeling of freedom that I have when I am up there, away from everything. Away from all the people and the expressions and the shadows and the confusing interactions that make up the life that you find so easy to navigate. It didn’t escape Gabriel that he was holding on to a feeling that Maq would never experience.
On the contrary, he found the irony incredibly satisfying.
Avery and Maq continued to bicker as they wandered around the workshop. Gabriel tuned them out, his mind already moving forward in his day, making plans, shifting his schedule. He needed to be home by five to make sure that his grandma opened the door for the social worker. With Maq and Avery here, interrupting his work, the laser tag gun would take at least until 4:30, leaving him just enough time to get home if he…
Gabriel suddenly noticed that Avery was standing beside him, leaning over and looking at the gun on the workbench. That didn’t bother him. What caught his breath in his throat was the shadow that she was casting across the table and the item in her hand…
“Get that away from here! Get that out of here!” Gabriel found himself standing with his back pressed against the workbench, his fingers clenched on the vice grip that stuck out from its side. Avery was standing beside him, her eyes wide, her gaze fluctuating between staring at his bright red face and the cup of coffee she held in her hand.
Gabriel opened his mouth again but found that no words were coming out. What are you doing? He asked himself. “What has gotten into you?” He didn’t even realise that he’d voiced the though aloud until Maq responded to it, thinking it was aimed at them.
“Hey, it’s okay! It’s my bad. I forgot to tell her.” He turned towards Avery and gently pulled her from the workbench. She didn’t resist. “Gabe doesn’t like coffee. Like, at all.”
“Yeah, I got that.” Avery was staring at Gabriel with a worried look on her face. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to… Is he all right?”
Gabriel blinked. “You look afraid.”
Avery blinked back. “I am afraid.”
“Of me?”
“Yes.”
Gabriel forced himself to let go of the vice grip and took a deep breath. “I am sorry.”
Avery nodded slowly. “Are you?”
Maq grunted quietly. “Avery…”
Avery waited, but when Gabriel didn’t say anything, she added, “Do you know what that one feels like? Sorry?”
Gabriel felt as though he’d been punched in the stomach. Not because of the question; it was a perfectly logical question. What he felt was something he’d never felt before. An emotion that made him feel sick, like he had food poisoning, but instead of coming from some uncooked caribou stolen from Lake Laberge Reserve, like last time, this was coming from the thought that Maq had been talking about him behind his back. Not insulting him, but explaining him. Preparing other people. Like someone who had to warn children not to approach an animal too quickly, or they’d get bitten. Gabriel half wanted to look outside the workshop to see if there was a Beware of Gabe sign out there.
Betrayal. That’s what this is.
Gabriel let his gaze move away from Avery’s questioning eyes until they landed on Maq’s. He nodded as he stared at the native boy. “Sorry? I know it.” He pointed at Maq’s expression. “It is that one.”
Age Sixteen
The social worker let a tired smile slide across her face as she picked up the papers and pushed them in front of Gabriel, working them through the piles of books on the table. He had to stop himself from flinching as her hand neared his, but he managed it.
Nothing to it, he thought. Mummo is wrong. The social worker is fine, and I am fine. Everything is fine.
“I am fine,” he said aloud, just to keep himself calm. The trouble with emotions is, once you find them, they are hard to put away again.
“I’m glad to hear that, Gabriel.” The social worker tucked a wisp of stray hair behind her ear and fixed him with a pointed look. “Now, this is a big deal. It’s not a decision to make lightly. And with your grandmother just having been taken into a facility…”
“I am not being reactive,” Gabriel said, keeping his voice as cool and calm as he could. As cool and calm as it used to be, on the playground at school. “I started the process before I knew she was being hospitalised. It does not change anything.”
The social worker looked at him for a second. Her eyes seemed sad. Gabriel wondered if he was playing it too emotionless, then she said, “All right then. Just sign here and here.”
Gabriel picked up the pen and scratched out his signature along the lines she indicated, wondering at how such a mundane thing as a chipped, heavily lacquered fingernail could point the way towards freedom.
“Okay. All done.” The social worker grabbed up the papers, tapping them against the table to line up their edges, then dropping them into a folder and tucking it into her bag. “In regards to the government of the Yukon Territory, you, Gabriel Sorensen, are now an emancipated minor. You must take responsibility for your own care, and you will be treated as an adult in the eyes of the law. Do you understand?”
Gabriel nodded, still staring at the table.
“I need to hear you say it, Gabriel.”
“I understand.”
The social worker’s shoulders slumped in relief. “Then I probably won’t see you again.”
At that, Gabriel raised his head. “Not even at Mummo's?”
The social worker paused. “Your grandmother has asked for a different social worker. I’m off her file. In fact, now that she’s in… the facility,” she smiled apologetically at Gabriel, who refused to allow his face to show thanks for her political phrasing, “she has better health workers around her all the time. It’s likely that no one else from my office will be assigned to her.”
Gabriel let that sink in. “I will look after her.”
The social worker smiled again as she put on her coat. This time her smile seemed even sadder and more tired than before. “You’re a good kid, Gabriel. Sorry, I mean a good man. Good luck.”
Gabriel waited until she had left the house, then he let out a huge breath.
Everything will be different now.
Age Seventeen
The thrum of the whirring propeller had a hypnotic quality in Gabriel’s ears, but he knew there was no fear of him drifting off at the controls. The sound didn’t make him sleepy; if anything it energised him, clearing his mind, giving him a blank slate with which to focus on whatever he chose.
He looked out the cockpit window, down at the snow-covered landscape beneath him. Winter in the Yukon was long and cold, but staring at the thick, white layer of snow and ice, rising and falling as it draped itself over mountains and steadily held its grasp over frozen rivers and streams, he thought that there was nothing more beautiful.
Gabriel glanced back into the hold of the small bush plane. Antigone sat next to him and gave his face a lick before turning back to pant over the countryside below. Gabriel crinkled up his cheek and sent a searching glance at the strapping that was holding down the foodstuffs and medicine he was delivering to the northern villages. Everything was still safe and secure, just as he’d left it.
He turned forward again and checked his instruments. Everything was fine. He looked back out the window and sighed.
“The problem with a blank slate is that your thoughts have nowhere to hide,” he muttered to Antigone. She gave him a look and returned to her sightseeing.
He knew the thought he was trying to avoid. Do not ask about her. Let it be.
Gabriel heard the voice in his head. It had been years since he’d wondered if it was his own, but today, for the first time in a long time, the thought flashed across his mind.
“She is not there. She will not be there. They will not have heard of her, and I will just be sad on the way home again.” Gabriel felt a warm pressure on his hand and looked over to see Antigone giving it a thorough licking, her wide, brown eyes staring soulfully into his.
“Fine,” he said to her, tousling her ears. “I have you anyway. I could not ask for a better replacement, right, Tiggy?”
Antigone let out a playful bark and Gabriel laughed, once again relaxing into his chair.
She probably went south anyway. BC, or even the States. Why would she stay up here? So she could be saddled with me? With Mummo?
His grandma had gotten worse. Almost every visit now was filled with ridiculous stories, stories more fictional than any of the books he’d read. Some stories are written for you. You can’t escape them…
But the stories he’d read had helped him understand interactions, relationships, emotions. Mummo's stories did the opposite. They confused him. They unnerved him. They cast doubt…
Gabriel suddenly became aware of another plane flying below him, keeping pace with him exactly. He jumped as a shot of adrenaline coursed through his body before realising that it was just the shadow of his plane, gliding smoothly along the packed blanket of snow far below him.
Gabriel shivered and pulled back on the yoke, lifting the plane up until it breached the cloud layer. A light turbulence shuddered the cockpit, but Gabriel let out a deep breath, already feeling more relaxed.
“The cargo is secure,” he muttered as the cloudy billows rose up around him, encasing him in the familiar walls of his dreams. “I am fine.”
Age Seventeen
The clinical beeping of the heart monitor bothered Gabriel. It was steady and unwavering, yet it seemed out of rhythm, as if a song was trying to be sung to it, but couldn’t be. He tried to block it out by turning to look out the window, but the drapes were drawn tightly. He had been very specific with the nurses: if no light got in, then there could be no shadows.
There weren’t many other places in the small room to look. Drab walls painted hospital grey loomed darkly in every direction, and in the centre of it all lay Gabriel’s grandma, thin and waifish, her pale form almost camouflaged against the disinfected sheets.
Gabriel stared at her face, her closed eyes frightening him, each one seeming to be ready to burst open at any moment. But still he stared, if only because it gave him somewhere to look besides her wrists.
Thick, white bandages wrapped each one, like sweatbands on the arms of an Olympic champion. On the side of one, Gabriel could see a small red dot; a trace of the blood that was leeching through, having barely escaped the cauterised stitches that would forever mark his grandma’s wrists.
Mary Margaret Sorensen. That was the name on the clipboard at the end of the bed. Gabriel reached forward to read it, then stopped, dropping his arm.
“You know what it says,” he said aloud. Schizophrenia, said the voice in his head. His voice. “You do not need to be reminded. You are afraid enough as it is.”
“Did I knock over my cup again?” Mary’s weak voice surprised Gabriel, but he didn’t jump up and rush to her side. Instead, he just looked up at her.
“No, Mummo. That was years ago.”
“Oh.” Mary looked confused for a moment. It was an expression that Gabriel had come to know well. “I’m in the hospital.”
Gabriel nodded.
“Why?”
Gabriel bit his tongue to keep the honest answer from sliding out. Maq, Avery, and Colin had all been working with him on controlling his words until he had read the situation. Then he could mix what he wanted to say with what they wanted him to say. That, they told him, was conversation.
“Why, Gabriel?” Mary’s voice was stronger now, more insistent.
“You hurt yourself, Mummo.” The words were true, and they could be taken different ways. Perfect. “You stopped taking your meds again. The nurses –”
“The nurses!” Mary spat the words out. “The nurses are trying to poison me. They keep putting things in my coffee, just like that social worker did. Trying to make me crazy!” She struggled to sit up and Gabriel quickly moved to her so she didn’t have to. He shushed her gently, but she refused to quiet down. “You know, Gabriel. I’ve always told you so that you know. The shadows tell me. They warn me. Your father is one of them now; a shadow. Your mother too. They tell me not to drink the coffee. They tell me not to take the pills! They’re family, Gabriel. All of our family. You know that, right? You remember.”
Gabriel did remember. He remembered his grandma telling him stories about the shadows since he was a young boy. About how they talked to her, warned her of things. About how they said that when he was old enough, they’d talk to him too.
He shuddered. When he spoke, his voice was almost a whine, but he realised that he didn’t have any control over the sound. “Mummo, you stopped taking your meds. That is why you hear the voices. They are not the shadows. They are just in your head. They are not Mom. They are not Dad. Mom is gone and Dad is dead…”
Gabriel was surprised to feel tears rolling down his face. He put his hand up to his cheek and pulled it away, staring at the tiny beads that clung to his fingertips. He contemplated them, feeling, smelling, tasting more tears as they rolled past his nose and into his opened mouth.
“Sorrow,” Gabriel whispered. “Fear.”
Mary didn’t hear him. “They’re family. They love me. They want me with them. And someday, when you’re old enough, when you’re ready, they’ll want you too, Gabriel. They’ll come for you. Like loving family.”
Gabriel stood up and slowly walked out of the room, leaving his grandma behind him, the love in her eyes undiminished by the pain in his. He walked out of the hospital and untied Antigone’s leash from the bike rack, then began the long walk home.
A light snow began to fall, leaving a fresh cover of white over the grey slush that was slopped over the street and sidewalk. Gabriel took his time walking, letting Antigone stop and sniff at anything she liked, letting the tracks of tears on his face freeze, then break into slivers and tumble off his cheeks. He took a number of long, deep breaths, watching the mist swirl around his face with each exhalation, like a wall of clouds.
“A blank slate,” he said.
It always rains at funerals in the movies, Gabriel thought, his eyes squinting up into the pale, yellow sunshine that settled down over his father’s casket like the first warm layer of burial dust. And everyone wears black and cries and holds umbrellas and there’s always someone mysterious watching from behind a tree across the graveyard.
Gabriel turned and looked over his shoulder, but there was no one watching. Hardly anyone had turned up for the service as it was, and only the priest and his grandmother stood next to him now, their heads bowed in silent prayer. At least, the priest’s head was bowed. Gabriel’s grandma was staring down at him, her eyes squinting suspiciously at his feet.
No, not at his feet. At his shadow.
Gabriel shuddered, remembering the stories she’d told him every night before going to bed. He turned back towards the casket and let out a deep breath, wishing that it was cloudy and raining, but the wide-open skies of the Yukon shone bright and clear over the coffin as the priest pressed the button that lowered it into the earth.
Bye, Dad. Gabriel wasn’t surprised to find that he wasn’t crying. He’d never been an emotional child. A robot, Mummo had called him when he was a baby. Not normal. That’s why your Mom left. She told him that whenever he made her cry by being too honest with her. He guessed she was trying to make him feel guilty, but he didn’t understand that. Why should I lie? Is that not worse than hurting someone’s feelings?
Feelings were an unfamiliar concept to Gabriel. They didn’t make sense. You couldn’t take them apart and put them back together again. They didn’t respond the same way to stimuli each time. They had no rhyme or reason. If that was why his mom had left, then that had been her choice. He was fine without her. He had his Dad.
Not anymore, Gabriel. The voice in his head was his own, but Gabriel didn’t like it. He preferred voices that everyone could hear.
“Not anymore,” he said aloud, then blinked as the priest turned to look at him. He scrunched his face up and made a funny sound, like the kids at school did when he told them why they bothered him.
He hoped it looked like he was crying.
Age Ten
Gabriel stared up in surprise at the boy standing over him. He blinked away tears, brushing his hand against his cheek, then looked at the tiny drops as they glistened on the ends of his fingertips.
“A physical response to pain.”
“What?” Donald glared at him from his position, standing on one of the half-buried tires that surrounded the playground. “What did you say?”
Gabriel refocused on the boy who had punched him. “The tears. They are because you hit me, not because I am sad.”
Donald scoffed. “Maybe they’re cause you’re scared.”
Gabriel frowned and paused, taking an internal inventory. “No. I am not scared. If I was scared my heart would be going fast, or I would be sweating, or my eyesight would be better. My hearing too.” He shook his head. “That is not happening. So I am not scared.”
There was a silence as the kids around him stared at him. Donald’s smile had faded. “Why do you know that stuff?”
Gabriel shrugged as he got to his feet and brushed the dirt off his backside. “I need to know it so I can show it to people if I need to. Otherwise they do not understand me.”
“Are you a moron? Or maybe you’re an alien? Trying to act like a human?” Donald turned away, pulling the other kids with him by force of personality. “Freak. Just like your grandma.”
Gabriel stood silently for a long time after they’d left, replaying the situation, aloud, of course. “Annie came over and asked if I would like half of her sandwich. I said yes, because I like peanut butter, and grape jam is my favourite. Then she asked if I liked her haircut. I finished swallowing the bite of sandwich in my mouth and told her no. She made the face that means sad and asked me why. I told her that it made her look like a boy. She started to cry for real. I asked her why she was crying, but she wouldn’t answer me. She ran away, but left me the rest of the sandwich. I ate it, then Donald came over and punched me.” Gabriel’s forehead wrinkled. “If Annie had not wanted my answer, she should not have asked me for it.” For a second, the word Freak flashed through Gabriel’s head, but he shoved it aside. “And why did Donald hit me?” Gabriel shook his head and started walking home, ignoring the line of blood that was trickling down from his chin.
“Maybe it is because his haircut makes him look like a boy, too.”
Age Ten
Gabriel’s grandma seldom drove into Whitehorse anymore, but she had told him that this was a special occasion. She’d told him that the school had special news for him, but before she’d tell him what it was, she had a surprise for him.
They parked the truck just outside of Vinnie’s Pet Supplies. Gabriel leaned forward and stared through the windshield at the puppies that were tumbling upon one another in the window display, their round, fluffy bodies looking like someone had just dumped a jar of large cotton balls into the cage.
Gabriel got out of the truck and walked to the front door. He saw kittens sleeping in the warm sunlight that peered through the window, he saw a hedgehog curled into a spiky ball like a fallen chestnut, and he saw his own reflection, his face a sea of calm disturbed only by the throbbing black eye he’d been given at school last week.
Gabriel followed his grandma into the store and was told to find himself a pet. He started to wander through the aisles, staring into cages and terrariums. Behind him, he could hear his grandma talking to the sales clerk; words drifted through the yipping, squawking, and chirping that surrounded him.
“…that cursed social worker…”
“…some sort of healthy interaction…”
“…homeschooled now…”
Gabriel let the words drift away from him. He knew what they meant; they meant he needed more practice. Trying to be normal was hard.
“I am tired of normal. Normal makes me tired,” he said to no one in particular.
His shadow passed over a cage and Gabriel instinctively ducked down so that the shadow disappeared. Staring into the cage, he cocked his head.
The cage wasn’t empty. Sitting in the far back corner, her head cocked as if she were copying Gabriel’s movement, was a small, monochromatic border collie puppy. Gabriel saw that there were four other puppies, likely from the same litter, all jumbled together on the other side of the cage, but this one didn’t seem concerned about them. She was just looking at Gabriel. Then her tail started to wag.
“I am not a normal person,” whispered Gabriel. The puppy took a tentative step forward, then gave an awkward lunge at the glass, her tongue lapping at the spot where Gabriel had placed his hand. “But then, neither are you.”
Age Eleven
Gabriel carefully folded his gi and placed it on the shelf. The locker room was empty; Gabriel had realised that it was easier to wait until everyone was gone before he showered and changed. Not that he was shy. It just seemed like everyone else was, and he had been yelled at for looking where he wasn’t supposed to a few times in the first week.
“It is a public shower,” Gabriel said to himself. “If they feel ashamed, they should admit it and shower at home.”
Shame was one of the trickier ones. It was like guilt, but didn’t depend on other people as much. “But still, I am the one who gets in trouble.” Gabriel shook his head, water droplets sailing off the loose strands of his hair and bursting against the cold, tile floor. He laughed. The sound echoed around the room and Gabriel tilted his head to listen. “Sounds good.”
He hurriedly pulled on his clothes and bent over to tie his shoes. Antigone would be sitting outside, waiting patiently like she always did. Gabriel unconsciously felt in his pocket for her treats. “She loves treats,” he said.
Antigone had grown up fast. She was full-size now and had more energy than Gabriel had expected. He had been forced to rearrange his entire life to adjust to her schedule. Taking her for walks and going shopping for her needs had meant spending more time out in Whitehorse. Gabriel knew that was why his grandma had bought her. It was to teach him all the things he hadn’t learned from his parents. “They did not teach me. That is why I did not learn, I am positive.” It was also why he had named her Antigone. It was from an old Greek story. The name meant “in place of the mother.” Gabriel laughed again, just to compare the sound to the one before.
“It needs to be higher pitched,” said a voice that wasn’t Gabriel’s.
Gabriel spun around, his hands clapped to the sides of his head as if to shake the voices out, but there was another boy standing there. Gabriel blinked and removed his hands. The boy was naked, having just come out of the shower. Gabriel looked him up and down. “I have never seen a First Nations boy naked before,” he said.
The boy shrugged and threw the towel he’d been rustling through his long hair to the side where it hit a low bench and landed on the wet floor with a loud splat. “We can’t be that different.”
Gabriel shook his head. “Darker skin. Otherwise you seem pretty average. Should I mention your penis size?”
The boy looked startled, then laughed. “Why did you say that?”
Gabriel put on his apologetic face. “I think some boys think it is important. I thought maybe you did.”
The boy looked down at himself as he tugged on a pair of boxers. “Meh. My brothers say I will, but not yet.” He yanked on a pair of old jeans that stuck to his damp legs. “And if you thought it, why did you say it? Why not just keep it to yourself?”
“I am going to sit down.” Gabriel sat down. “This is turning into a conversation.”
The other boy grinned, but waited for Gabriel to respond to his question.
“I do not like to think in my head. I like to know that the voice is mine.” Gabriel nodded as he spoke, using the physical cue to emphasise how correct the words were.
The boy considered that. “Makes sense, I guess. But I probably wouldn’t describe any of the other guy’s penises to them, if I were you. Not if you don’t want to get pounded.” He grinned again, his teeth gleaming in the yellowed lights of the locker room. “Not that you couldn’t take them. I’ve seen you in the dojo. You’re killer.”
“Thanks,” said Gabriel. “The moves are all about muscle control. I know where the muscles are and what they do. So it is easy.”
“Easy for you, maybe,” said the boy. He left his shirt untucked and stretched out his hand. “I’m Maq. It’s short for Tulimaq.”
“I am Gabriel. It is not short for anything.” They shook hands and Gabriel picked up his things. “Are we friends now, Tulimaq?”
“Maq.”
“Right.” Gabriel held open the door for Maq as they exited the change room and walked through the quiet dojo. “Are we?”
“Sure,” said Maq. “I’ve got a pretty thick skin.”
“I saw,” said Gabriel, and they both laughed. “That was funny.”
“Sure was,” chortled Maq. “And that laugh was better.”
“That is because it was real.” Gabriel took Antigone’s treat from his pocket and handed it to his friend. “Would you like to meet my dog?”
Age Fourteen
Gabriel’s sleeping form kicked savagely at the sheets that were working to keep him in bed. There had been dreams every day for a week, and this one was the strongest one yet. He was buried underground. The soil was all around him, like a grave without a coffin. It pressed down onto him as if it were trying to mould him into a certain shape. He felt himself become fluid, fitting into whatever space the dirt left for him. He struggled against it, trying to remain the way he was, but it didn’t work; slowly, unceasingly, the pressure around him began to squeeze him until he was something else. He cried aloud at the pain of it, a cry that almost woke his grandma, a cry that sent a shiver down her spine and tossed her arm against the nightstand, shattering her wrist.
Gabriel suddenly felt locked in, as if he were completely changed, utterly transformed, and there was no way back. Then a sudden feeling of clarity washed over him.
You are still you, said a voice. Gabriel knew that the voice was his.
The dream changed. He was standing in a room. The room was built of clouds and there were twinkling lights surrounding him, inside the misty walls. He could hear a low thrumming, like the sound of a muted helicopter. The thrumming sound began to rise and fall until it was a throbbing melody. Soon it was joined by other voices, for voices they were, in a song that seemed far too complex for anyone to understand.
But slowly, as the song wove through its harmonies and crescendos, Gabriel found that he could comprehend what was being said. But as each word entered his mind, it slipped away, its meaning lost to the hazy world of dreams.
It was momentary, but it felt real. In his dreams, Gabriel could understand that language. In his dreams, he could understand all kinds of things he struggled with in real life: anger, love, fear, joy. But he was getting better. He knew it. The songs helped, somehow. The humming voices were telling him who he was, and he was able to take that into his waking life. He knew how to show emotions now. Sometimes he even felt them.
Somewhere in his subconscious, Gabriel remembered that Maq had told him that in his tribe, dreams were important. And recurring bad dreams could be banished just by telling someone about them and the other person telling the dream to leave.
It hadn’t worked.
Suddenly the voices stopped. The room of clouds disappeared as long, tall shadows crept up the walls and flooded the ceiling, darkening the room and seeming to reach towards Gabriel. He screamed again…
…And bolted upright in bed, hearing a pitiful cry hobble down the hallway towards him. He jumped out of bed, his heart pounding, feeling the sheet behind him peel away from the sweat on his back. Maq, he thought. Antigone. The dreams. They are helping me understand. They are helping me feel. Gabriel stumbled down the hallway towards his grandma’s room and opened the door.
But why do I have to feel fear?
He saw his grandma sitting up in bed, crying, her broken wrist cradled in her hand. On the floor lay shattered pieces of the cold cup of coffee her care-worker had left for her, as well as a bottle of pills, still full of long-expired medicine.
She turned to Gabriel as he entered, the look of pain on her face so intense that he winced at the sight of it.
“Gabriel,” she said, her voice whistling out of the gaps between her teeth, “did you see the shadows too?”
Age Fifteen
Gabriel set down his sandwich on his workbench and rolled his eyes at the plaintive look on Antigone’s face.
“Fine. But just one bite, okay?”
Antigone made no promises as she jumped up, resting her front paws on the workbench before wolfing down the rest of the sandwich. Satisfied, she hopped back down to the floor, her tongue working overtime to slurp away the last of the peanut butter from the roof of her mouth.
Gabriel chuckled as he pushed the empty plate aside and refocused his attention on the electronics in front of him. The last test had gone all right, until the gun had started smoking and sent off sparks.
Almost there, he thought. “Right, Tiggy?”
Antigone stared up at him and thumped her tail against the floor.
“Right.” Gabriel grabbed his soldering iron and carefully made the necessary adjustments, tilting his head to avoid the sinuous line of smoke that twisted its way past his head and collected in a spreading mist along the shed’s ceiling.
“You still working on that?” Maq’s voice announced him as he pushed the door open and let the outside stream into Gabriel’s workshop. “I hope it’s worth all the effort.”
“It will be.” Gabriel set down his tools and turned to see his friend playfully tussling with Antigone. “Laser tag is expensive. Having our own system will save us money. Plus, we can play it wherever we want to.”
“Sounds good to me.” This voice didn’t belong to Maq or Gabriel, and he found himself tensing up as a shadow entered the doorway to his shed, before relaxing as a girl followed it in.
“Who are you?” Gabriel said, slightly aware that his clipped tone was one some people found offensive.
Maq jumped up, clearly running interference. “Gabe, you know Avery. I mean, you’ve seen her around town, right?”
Gabriel nodded. “Is she your girlfriend?”
Maq began to splutter, and Avery’s eyebrows shot up to disappear behind her bangs. “Wow. You weren’t kidding, were you Maq?” she said, as if impressed.
Maq found his voice. “With Gabriel, you don’t need to exaggerate.”
“I will take that as a compliment,” Gabriel said, snorting.
“I think you should.” Avery winked at Maq. “And he wishes. That I was his girlfriend, I mean.”
Maq had seemed to be strutting, but Gabriel watched as he slowly drooped like a punctured balloon. He looked over to Gabriel, his gaze pleading. Gabriel cocked his head. I wonder if he wants me to mention his penis size now?
Before he could say anything, Maq spoke. “Well… never mind that. I just wanted to show Avery your workshop, Gabe.” He turned to Avery, his chest expanding. Gabriel was reminded of a nature show he’d watched on the BBC about a species of birds in Papua New Guinea during a mating dance. He filed Maq’s behaviour away for further consideration.
Maq was still talking. “Gabriel’s a genius. He invents things like there’s no tomorrow. And he reads.”
Avery was walking around the workshop, careful not to touch anything. Gabriel marked that as a point in her favour. She stopped when Maq said those last words. “Is that not normal?” She turned to Maq. “Can’t you read?”
Maq grinned, his face reddening. Gabriel smiled. I wonder, do I blush when I feel embarrassed? The sensation didn’t happen often, though more than it used to, now that he knew better what to look for. Emotions seemed to be almost mathematical in their precision, now that Gabriel was studying them properly. The more you knew what to look for, the more you could find, in yourself and in others. How I thought them chaotic, I’ll never understand, he thought. They grow on each other, exponentially. They have causes, and effects. They can be quantified by touch, sight, sound, even taste and smell. Gabriel knew now that even though he would never feel things the way others felt them, he wasn’t an emotionless robot like he’d always been led to believe by his grandma.
Gabriel blinked and refocused on the conversation in front of him. Maq noticed and turned away from Avery, with obvious effort.
“Hey,” he said. “Enough about us.” Avery shook her head at his use of the plural, but he kept going. “How’re the flying lessons going?”
Gabriel felt a smile grow across his face. “Good. Really good.”
“Gabe flies. In, like, a year, he’ll be able to pilot bush planes alone. Isn’t that cool?”
Avery nodded. “Cool. Will you take me flying someday?”
“Us,” corrected Maq. “He’ll take us flying someday. Right, Gabe?”
“Sure,” said Gabriel. “You might appreciate it.” Gabriel silently congratulated himself on his wording. It was intended to lessen the blow of what he’d wanted to say, which was You will never appreciate it, Maq. Not like I do. You will never understand the feeling of freedom that I have when I am up there, away from everything. Away from all the people and the expressions and the shadows and the confusing interactions that make up the life that you find so easy to navigate. It didn’t escape Gabriel that he was holding on to a feeling that Maq would never experience.
On the contrary, he found the irony incredibly satisfying.
Avery and Maq continued to bicker as they wandered around the workshop. Gabriel tuned them out, his mind already moving forward in his day, making plans, shifting his schedule. He needed to be home by five to make sure that his grandma opened the door for the social worker. With Maq and Avery here, interrupting his work, the laser tag gun would take at least until 4:30, leaving him just enough time to get home if he…
Gabriel suddenly noticed that Avery was standing beside him, leaning over and looking at the gun on the workbench. That didn’t bother him. What caught his breath in his throat was the shadow that she was casting across the table and the item in her hand…
“Get that away from here! Get that out of here!” Gabriel found himself standing with his back pressed against the workbench, his fingers clenched on the vice grip that stuck out from its side. Avery was standing beside him, her eyes wide, her gaze fluctuating between staring at his bright red face and the cup of coffee she held in her hand.
Gabriel opened his mouth again but found that no words were coming out. What are you doing? He asked himself. “What has gotten into you?” He didn’t even realise that he’d voiced the though aloud until Maq responded to it, thinking it was aimed at them.
“Hey, it’s okay! It’s my bad. I forgot to tell her.” He turned towards Avery and gently pulled her from the workbench. She didn’t resist. “Gabe doesn’t like coffee. Like, at all.”
“Yeah, I got that.” Avery was staring at Gabriel with a worried look on her face. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to… Is he all right?”
Gabriel blinked. “You look afraid.”
Avery blinked back. “I am afraid.”
“Of me?”
“Yes.”
Gabriel forced himself to let go of the vice grip and took a deep breath. “I am sorry.”
Avery nodded slowly. “Are you?”
Maq grunted quietly. “Avery…”
Avery waited, but when Gabriel didn’t say anything, she added, “Do you know what that one feels like? Sorry?”
Gabriel felt as though he’d been punched in the stomach. Not because of the question; it was a perfectly logical question. What he felt was something he’d never felt before. An emotion that made him feel sick, like he had food poisoning, but instead of coming from some uncooked caribou stolen from Lake Laberge Reserve, like last time, this was coming from the thought that Maq had been talking about him behind his back. Not insulting him, but explaining him. Preparing other people. Like someone who had to warn children not to approach an animal too quickly, or they’d get bitten. Gabriel half wanted to look outside the workshop to see if there was a Beware of Gabe sign out there.
Betrayal. That’s what this is.
Gabriel let his gaze move away from Avery’s questioning eyes until they landed on Maq’s. He nodded as he stared at the native boy. “Sorry? I know it.” He pointed at Maq’s expression. “It is that one.”
Age Sixteen
The social worker let a tired smile slide across her face as she picked up the papers and pushed them in front of Gabriel, working them through the piles of books on the table. He had to stop himself from flinching as her hand neared his, but he managed it.
Nothing to it, he thought. Mummo is wrong. The social worker is fine, and I am fine. Everything is fine.
“I am fine,” he said aloud, just to keep himself calm. The trouble with emotions is, once you find them, they are hard to put away again.
“I’m glad to hear that, Gabriel.” The social worker tucked a wisp of stray hair behind her ear and fixed him with a pointed look. “Now, this is a big deal. It’s not a decision to make lightly. And with your grandmother just having been taken into a facility…”
“I am not being reactive,” Gabriel said, keeping his voice as cool and calm as he could. As cool and calm as it used to be, on the playground at school. “I started the process before I knew she was being hospitalised. It does not change anything.”
The social worker looked at him for a second. Her eyes seemed sad. Gabriel wondered if he was playing it too emotionless, then she said, “All right then. Just sign here and here.”
Gabriel picked up the pen and scratched out his signature along the lines she indicated, wondering at how such a mundane thing as a chipped, heavily lacquered fingernail could point the way towards freedom.
“Okay. All done.” The social worker grabbed up the papers, tapping them against the table to line up their edges, then dropping them into a folder and tucking it into her bag. “In regards to the government of the Yukon Territory, you, Gabriel Sorensen, are now an emancipated minor. You must take responsibility for your own care, and you will be treated as an adult in the eyes of the law. Do you understand?”
Gabriel nodded, still staring at the table.
“I need to hear you say it, Gabriel.”
“I understand.”
The social worker’s shoulders slumped in relief. “Then I probably won’t see you again.”
At that, Gabriel raised his head. “Not even at Mummo's?”
The social worker paused. “Your grandmother has asked for a different social worker. I’m off her file. In fact, now that she’s in… the facility,” she smiled apologetically at Gabriel, who refused to allow his face to show thanks for her political phrasing, “she has better health workers around her all the time. It’s likely that no one else from my office will be assigned to her.”
Gabriel let that sink in. “I will look after her.”
The social worker smiled again as she put on her coat. This time her smile seemed even sadder and more tired than before. “You’re a good kid, Gabriel. Sorry, I mean a good man. Good luck.”
Gabriel waited until she had left the house, then he let out a huge breath.
Everything will be different now.
Age Seventeen
The thrum of the whirring propeller had a hypnotic quality in Gabriel’s ears, but he knew there was no fear of him drifting off at the controls. The sound didn’t make him sleepy; if anything it energised him, clearing his mind, giving him a blank slate with which to focus on whatever he chose.
He looked out the cockpit window, down at the snow-covered landscape beneath him. Winter in the Yukon was long and cold, but staring at the thick, white layer of snow and ice, rising and falling as it draped itself over mountains and steadily held its grasp over frozen rivers and streams, he thought that there was nothing more beautiful.
Gabriel glanced back into the hold of the small bush plane. Antigone sat next to him and gave his face a lick before turning back to pant over the countryside below. Gabriel crinkled up his cheek and sent a searching glance at the strapping that was holding down the foodstuffs and medicine he was delivering to the northern villages. Everything was still safe and secure, just as he’d left it.
He turned forward again and checked his instruments. Everything was fine. He looked back out the window and sighed.
“The problem with a blank slate is that your thoughts have nowhere to hide,” he muttered to Antigone. She gave him a look and returned to her sightseeing.
He knew the thought he was trying to avoid. Do not ask about her. Let it be.
Gabriel heard the voice in his head. It had been years since he’d wondered if it was his own, but today, for the first time in a long time, the thought flashed across his mind.
“She is not there. She will not be there. They will not have heard of her, and I will just be sad on the way home again.” Gabriel felt a warm pressure on his hand and looked over to see Antigone giving it a thorough licking, her wide, brown eyes staring soulfully into his.
“Fine,” he said to her, tousling her ears. “I have you anyway. I could not ask for a better replacement, right, Tiggy?”
Antigone let out a playful bark and Gabriel laughed, once again relaxing into his chair.
She probably went south anyway. BC, or even the States. Why would she stay up here? So she could be saddled with me? With Mummo?
His grandma had gotten worse. Almost every visit now was filled with ridiculous stories, stories more fictional than any of the books he’d read. Some stories are written for you. You can’t escape them…
But the stories he’d read had helped him understand interactions, relationships, emotions. Mummo's stories did the opposite. They confused him. They unnerved him. They cast doubt…
Gabriel suddenly became aware of another plane flying below him, keeping pace with him exactly. He jumped as a shot of adrenaline coursed through his body before realising that it was just the shadow of his plane, gliding smoothly along the packed blanket of snow far below him.
Gabriel shivered and pulled back on the yoke, lifting the plane up until it breached the cloud layer. A light turbulence shuddered the cockpit, but Gabriel let out a deep breath, already feeling more relaxed.
“The cargo is secure,” he muttered as the cloudy billows rose up around him, encasing him in the familiar walls of his dreams. “I am fine.”
Age Seventeen
The clinical beeping of the heart monitor bothered Gabriel. It was steady and unwavering, yet it seemed out of rhythm, as if a song was trying to be sung to it, but couldn’t be. He tried to block it out by turning to look out the window, but the drapes were drawn tightly. He had been very specific with the nurses: if no light got in, then there could be no shadows.
There weren’t many other places in the small room to look. Drab walls painted hospital grey loomed darkly in every direction, and in the centre of it all lay Gabriel’s grandma, thin and waifish, her pale form almost camouflaged against the disinfected sheets.
Gabriel stared at her face, her closed eyes frightening him, each one seeming to be ready to burst open at any moment. But still he stared, if only because it gave him somewhere to look besides her wrists.
Thick, white bandages wrapped each one, like sweatbands on the arms of an Olympic champion. On the side of one, Gabriel could see a small red dot; a trace of the blood that was leeching through, having barely escaped the cauterised stitches that would forever mark his grandma’s wrists.
Mary Margaret Sorensen. That was the name on the clipboard at the end of the bed. Gabriel reached forward to read it, then stopped, dropping his arm.
“You know what it says,” he said aloud. Schizophrenia, said the voice in his head. His voice. “You do not need to be reminded. You are afraid enough as it is.”
“Did I knock over my cup again?” Mary’s weak voice surprised Gabriel, but he didn’t jump up and rush to her side. Instead, he just looked up at her.
“No, Mummo. That was years ago.”
“Oh.” Mary looked confused for a moment. It was an expression that Gabriel had come to know well. “I’m in the hospital.”
Gabriel nodded.
“Why?”
Gabriel bit his tongue to keep the honest answer from sliding out. Maq, Avery, and Colin had all been working with him on controlling his words until he had read the situation. Then he could mix what he wanted to say with what they wanted him to say. That, they told him, was conversation.
“Why, Gabriel?” Mary’s voice was stronger now, more insistent.
“You hurt yourself, Mummo.” The words were true, and they could be taken different ways. Perfect. “You stopped taking your meds again. The nurses –”
“The nurses!” Mary spat the words out. “The nurses are trying to poison me. They keep putting things in my coffee, just like that social worker did. Trying to make me crazy!” She struggled to sit up and Gabriel quickly moved to her so she didn’t have to. He shushed her gently, but she refused to quiet down. “You know, Gabriel. I’ve always told you so that you know. The shadows tell me. They warn me. Your father is one of them now; a shadow. Your mother too. They tell me not to drink the coffee. They tell me not to take the pills! They’re family, Gabriel. All of our family. You know that, right? You remember.”
Gabriel did remember. He remembered his grandma telling him stories about the shadows since he was a young boy. About how they talked to her, warned her of things. About how they said that when he was old enough, they’d talk to him too.
He shuddered. When he spoke, his voice was almost a whine, but he realised that he didn’t have any control over the sound. “Mummo, you stopped taking your meds. That is why you hear the voices. They are not the shadows. They are just in your head. They are not Mom. They are not Dad. Mom is gone and Dad is dead…”
Gabriel was surprised to feel tears rolling down his face. He put his hand up to his cheek and pulled it away, staring at the tiny beads that clung to his fingertips. He contemplated them, feeling, smelling, tasting more tears as they rolled past his nose and into his opened mouth.
“Sorrow,” Gabriel whispered. “Fear.”
Mary didn’t hear him. “They’re family. They love me. They want me with them. And someday, when you’re old enough, when you’re ready, they’ll want you too, Gabriel. They’ll come for you. Like loving family.”
Gabriel stood up and slowly walked out of the room, leaving his grandma behind him, the love in her eyes undiminished by the pain in his. He walked out of the hospital and untied Antigone’s leash from the bike rack, then began the long walk home.
A light snow began to fall, leaving a fresh cover of white over the grey slush that was slopped over the street and sidewalk. Gabriel took his time walking, letting Antigone stop and sniff at anything she liked, letting the tracks of tears on his face freeze, then break into slivers and tumble off his cheeks. He took a number of long, deep breaths, watching the mist swirl around his face with each exhalation, like a wall of clouds.
“A blank slate,” he said.
