Sentinel.

The map of nowhere is in my hand
The roads are blurred, sojourner's land
So take however long you want
(but don't forget, my love)
You pledged yourself to come along

You're lost in reveries, holding back the tears
Faint sound of the wires
The butterfly is in the fire now
Lost in a memory, holding my hand
One heart's in the ground
The other is veiled in silver all around

God. Just don't mind me, feverish and wrecked in a dream state this morning as I lurched up from a shallow, overheated sleep, loathe to let go of Jacob. He arrived unannounced in the dark, one hundred and three degrees of insanity in the form of a long-lost love. He turned out to not be real to anyone but me and my flu turned into a fresh tidal wave of grief dragging me down.

Just the fever, that's all, says Lochlan, who is also feverish but probably not being visited by Jake in his dreams, instead he says he can't sleep and asks me to stay put for a bit so we can nap.

I nod and I'm out like a shot, back into a place with cool lighting and frigid air. I hear Cole's voice plain as day but I can't see him and I'm glad these lights are on, let me tell you.

He isn't here, Doll. 

I try to play it cool. Is he coming back?

I doubt it. Look at this place. Would you come back?

I'm here right now, so yes. 

Our friends trashed it in the name of trying to save you from me. 

That's not why they did it. You were supposed to go with Jake. 

Look at me, Bridget. I can't go where he goes! 

And then I see him. He is hollow, blackened and eight feet off the ground, wings snarled in a tangle, a web fanned out like feathers. All this time what I thought were wings were just tendrils of rage and misery reaching out to pull me in.

You could have but you chose a different path-

They made me crazy, Baby. 

I took a step backwards and then another and then I tripped over something and fell, hands down in the dead leaves to try and save myself and then I ran, veering into walls, unbalanced, dizzy and wistful, as a fever of sentimentality washed over me. I could hear him screaming my name the whole way back as I climbed over broken-down walls and through collapsed doorways, throwing myself up stairs blindly, violently.

I ran until I couldn't hear him anymore and then I wok up with a start. Jacob is staring at me, his hands around my upper arms. He's pulled me up to a sitting from sleeping position in an attempt to wake me up.

You were crying and clawing at the quilts. That was probably one of the worst nightmares I think you've ever had. He looks pale and concerned. He won't let go. I try to pry his fingers from my arm but he's holding so tight it's starting to hurt.

Let go, Jake, please! 

Then he's Lochlan when I blink, only he's blurry and shaky and he won't let go either and he tells me it's just a bad dream but I think that's just a very kind way of telling someone they've gone insane.

Make it up to you later.

The flu is making the rounds here and I'm fighting it. Fighting it so hard though I've got hives all over and my fingers are still cracked from the cold and snow, my toes and earlobes and lips are cracked too and I can't seem to fight anything off at all, least of all the devil who comes to annoy me almost hourly with things and suggestions and offers, if only to be sure that Batman doesn't get an audience with me because let's be honest here, no one really wants that.

I've asked Caleb to help me out by replacing all of my everything with hemp fleece. Sheets, towels, hell, clothes. I don't care. Everything hurts. Polyester. Cotton. Wool. Five-o'clock shadow. Air, cold or warm.

He laughed to cover the fact that he had no idea what I meant, and doesn't understand how stupidly sensitive my skin is.

I didn't really care though, the waves of nausea are keeping me from feeling too upset by any of it. Lochlan is sleeping through his own illness, Ben is fighting it from a distance and last I heard PJ was yelling at me to get upstairs to bed, that he doesn't want to see me until I feel a lot better and that now he totally understands why Caleb tries to lock me down as I basically wail an answer to anyone who asks me a question. I don't know if I'm one of those people you read about in the tabloids (Woman ALLERGIC to winter! Snow will KILL her!) or if I just sometimes can't get my immune system to wake the fuck up and fight back but I did manage to have a whisper-screaming match with PJ anyway because I always have enough strength for that, and yet I lost, as it ended with him pointing his finger up the stairs and counting to ten.

I was gone by eight because if he resorts to counting it means I'm really really getting on his last nerve. 

Blue hours and golden ones too.

It's a good day for rain. A good day for napping by the fire and for splashing through puddles in boots that are waterproof, guaranteed. It's a good day to move slowly under the lights and through the dim, a good day to wish for summer, or even Christmas, if only to have something wonderful to look forward to. It's a good day for dark jazz and dark roast, a good day for paying bills and organizing junk drawers. A good day for calling in sick. A good day for pasta and cheese, made on the stove as a quick dinner and a welcome warmth. It's a good day to hear a new guitar solo.

A very good day indeed.

It's a good day to stay in or go out, to shop until I drop or window-shop for nothing. It's a good day for chocolate cupcakes and a thick coat of carmex on my chapped lips from getting kisses all the time. It's a good day to turn the music up loud as a soundtrack to the race of the droplets streaming to the bottom of the sill.

It's a good day to watch the waves. It's a good day, period.

First person.

Batman was in the kitchen this morning and Caleb steadfastly refused to entertain any further disappointment, calling his rule a reflex action borne out of concern only and purely hyperbolic, not literal. He then all but shoved me right out the front door as he said I might be late for work and should check the time, because Jesus. It is late, but not too late to see that his missteps are now going to be scrutinized, dissected and overturned the moment he reaches too far or does too much. 

She has a head injury, he'll hiss at anyone who gives him the time of day, though I've now been seen by the doctor who said he didn't think I did but just to be sure we need to watch for the usual suspects and also I should probably take it easy for a few weeks. 

Right. So I promptly changed into my work dress and went to work. I work most holiday Mondays because it's time and a half. 

And I was tired. Tired enough that I rang up Batman a couple hours early and asked if he could come pick me up. He agreed, but only on the promise of taking me out for dinner tonight, if Lochlan agreed. 

At one sharp I was outside. At 1:02 sharp Lochlan pulled up. 

He glared at me. Lochlan doesn't agree, he said and laughed. Don't just go from one to the other, Bridge. 

It was dinner. I insist weakly. Too tired to argue. 

It's never just dinner. It's pieces of your soul. I try to be patient but you really need to have some real rest and not the pretend kind you think we don't notice isn't real. 

Huh. It always used to work. 

(Did you sleep, Bridgie? He would ask when I was all but wrecked, jittery and loopy from being awake for hours, watching his eyeballs move under their lids, sure that he was reading Shakespeare in his dreams, or maybe Edgar Allan Poe.

Yes, I lied. Every single time.)

It never worked, Peanut. I just let you think it did. 

Sunday breakfast crow surprise.

I picked up my phone early this morning, while Caleb was attempting to make me coffee, and when Sam answered in his customary alarmed voice with a forced-casual Hey, I told him, my eyes glassy and my voice thick, that I wouldn't be able to come to church today because I'm a captive in this house until the snow is gone for the year, or maybe longer, I don't know exactly. I said all of this while staring at Caleb who stopped making coffee and stood and stared back at me, expressionless. Oh, maybe a hint of disappointment as I ratted him out faster than the rat can run or maybe a bit of surprise that I didn't say who was keeping me captive because there's only one person who tries this kind of shit.

It wasn't even a cry for help, it was simply a relaying of information in case I was missed.

Sam laughs and asks if I need him right now. He doesn't give Caleb an inch.

No, I'm okay. Just going to take a self-care day, I guess. 

And do what? 

Indoor chores. It's become a running joke that I don't know how to relax. Or maybe just always an overlying sad fact. It's rare and it's difficult but I can certainly do it so give me the credit, at least.

I'll be over later. 

Later meant three minutes, and Sam shows up in his suit and he's pissed. He asks me to give them a moment, and my eyes wide, I do, heading back upstairs where Lochlan isn't even all that upset if it means he doesn't have to go to church either.

When I come back down a half hour later, Caleb is sitting in front of a now-cold, untouched cup of coffee and he looks a little shell-shocked.

What happened? 

He gazes at me for several long minutes and I wonder if he's going to fib and say it's all fine or actually tell me the truth but since he lives here now he has nothing to hide and opts, surprisingly, for truth.

I've been threatened by a minister before so this isn't my first rodeo but this is the first time I've ever had no desire to push back, because he's...right. 

About what?

Everything. About everything, Neamhchiontach. 

The princess who cried enough tears to make an ocean, and other fairy tales for a snow Saturday.

Instead of retrofitting the rest of the house, Caleb...well, he banned me from 'outside' chores.

Instead of child locks, rounded corners and his beloved electric fence  as it is, and it's enough, he attempted to confine me and for that he got a whole stack of pre-sharpened, dangerously lethal words, short ones, though, mostly because I ran out of patience with his attempts to enforce rules he has no business making, in a house where he isn't in charge.

I'm only trying to protect y-

DON'T EVEN!

Then he cuts me out of the conversation, and proceeds to implore anyone who will listen that my irrational, incendiary temper is proof that I must have suffered some sort of severe head injury and I should be seen.

It's a bump. Leave me be. But I'm talking to a wall.

He just keeps saying things, and I wish now that I had left him in the boathouse where I could get away from him. I always want what isn't there and so now I miss Sam something fierce. The moment Sam comes back I'll miss Caleb. Maybe I did hurt my brain. Maybe next I'll fall asleep for a hundred years and then a prince will come and give me a kiss and I'll wake up and we'll live happily ever after. Pigs will fly through the skies and the prince will be named Jacob and he'll probably act like nothing happened and I'll just start crying and never be able to stop. Every again.

Maybe I should just stay inside. Pick a fairy tale. Pick a prince. Pick a beast if you will but whatever you do, please don't tell the princess what to do or she'll run right out of the story and never be seen again.

Let's play head injury or sleep deprivation? (I'll go first.)

I got flowers. I got a good arch to my back and I screamed into the hand covering my mouth and Lochlan said afterward that he was just getting started. I smiled and I didn't see the upright side of the world until the sun came up and then we made coffee and everyone sort of appeared and Caleb said something awful and Lochlan threw a good punch that PJ blocked but only the second half (with his face) and now it's all just a typical Friday.

I went outside to finish clearing the driveway (since even the smallest of the giants who live here has to do her part) and slipped on the ice and whacked my head on the side of Ben's truck. Might have cried for a moment, sitting there in a puddle and then finished the shovelling, soaking wet, all the while plotting a move to Fiji, or at least somewhere where snow and bears aren't a threat.

I don't think that's a good plan though. I hate the heat, and I hate bugs. I don't like tsunamis or typhoons or tourists either.

What do I like?

The heated part of the driveway, for one, and the fact that I finally found a cheap side of Caleb in that when they extended the driveway they only put heating in the new parts and not in the original part. So half the driveway is ice, the other half is bare brick and concrete.

The moment he finds out that I wiped out and smashed my head again he'll have the whole thing torn up and replaced with a horizontal volcano and I will never have to worry about ice again. And he'll expect credit for playing the hero when he's done nothing of the kind. The real hero to today's story kept me up all night and while I'm not complaining, I'm really, really cranky now. 

Death gospel valentines.

Hear me out
Hear me out

And I long for a day like this again
When I’ll never lose control

And some days I feel like the saddest, smallest evil overlord king, my oversized, beautiful subjects doing my bidding, bringing me small sacrifices they think will please me, and then once they've won my favour they take a deep shuddering breath, knowing that for the moment, they are safe.

Safe.

(I don't know what that is.)

(Shhhhh. Leave her be. Leave her mine.)

Duncan did that this morning, sleepily handing me my headphones, digging through his music, finding something I hadn't heard before. He ran his warm hand down my back, pulling the blankets back up over me as I drifted off to sleep on a droning, intoning guitar sound that reminded me that I might need a new crown. Maybe silver instead of gold this time. I think silver might be harder, and I've eroded this one down to a halo, points worn to blunted dunes over a empty sea.

(The song was A.A. Williams, Control. What a masterpiece.)

Just over here continuing to break my (former) psychoanalyst.

Breathe out so I can breathe you in
Hold you in

The angel wings tattooed on my back couldn't save me from Joel's scrutiny, much as they should have served as absolution from his own warped brand of judgement.

You seem happier lately. 

I frown at him. Practicing gratitude. 

This one of Sam's programs? 

Jake's. It's a warning that he sails right over, leapfrogging into his agenda, a man with a mission. I'm still not even sure what his mission is, to be honest, though I believe he's been tasked with mapping my heart, soul and mind. Good luck, Joel. It's going to take you the rest of your life. Or maybe longer. Your descendants will probably have to take up your life's work and continue on with-

Bridget. 

Yes??

Where did you go just now? 

I was just thinking that every time you show up and start flinging doors open in my head all the ghosts and the drafts and the dark come in and then I can't clear it all out by myself. 

Your visuals make me weep. 

I've heard that before but it doesn't change things. 

I just want to be on the front side of any landslides in the future. I want to make sure things are well and that most of all you are happy. 

I'd be happier if you weren't here trying to gauge the value of that happiness. 

Does he-

Not even within your limits, Joel. The topic is me. Not my relationships. 

Is this a New Year's Res-

No, it's a boundary and you can't cross it. 

What if I need to? In an emergency. 

There won't be any. 

He waits a few heartbeats, assessing his next move. Our conversations are chess games, world wars, a simple duel waged without armor.

Will you call if you need me? 

Someone will. 

I just-

I wait and say nothing. He's having a strange time trying to be composed, indifferent and yet caring too.

I want you to be well. 

Trying my best. 

I think going back to work has helped. 

Great. Yes, I'm too tired to be insane. 

No, I think it gave you a different narrative to take up some space. Maybe quiet the ghosts. 

Or I'm the greatest actress that ever was. 

That's what scares me right now, Bridget. And I'm not easily frightened.

Noble warming.

I begged for mercy and won ruthlessness, there in the dark, in the quiet snowfall that coated the point with an eerie unnatural light. I asked for leniency and won strictness, there in the light, in the quiet snowfall that coated the day, too. A day conducted in an eerie unnatural light that saw a sea-change in the morning tides, a literal shift floating on the waves in which a devil learns to be an angel again, of sorts, and one in which an angel is a little devilish sometimes too.

Don't get up, Neamhchiontach. It's a snow-day. Everything is mostly closed. Universities. High Schools. Stores and restaurants too. Mine's not. My restaurant was open.

Of course.

I have to go.

I put on my new shearling sweater and went in. Lochlan drove me in the Jeep. We didn't talk much, enjoying the snow, the quiet roads, the sleepy-Tuesdayness of life. He held my hand when he wasn't in 4-hi and we made it to my job in record time.

Maybe they'll let you go early? He squints through the windshield at the sky, obscured by snowclouds and huge flakes falling fast and heavily now.

Maybe. I get a hard kiss on the lips and he pulls away from the door.

I pour coffee and serve plates all day, automatically, remiss if I was to say I didn't focus one bit on my job. I was too busy thinking about the ruthlessness, too busy thinking about the strictness, too busy thinking about the Devil in a new place in my life and if he'll stay put there or force himself back into bad habits and while I expect the latter, I hope very fervently for the former.