Neutral (chaotic).

Adapt or die.

(I'm trying! I'm doing my best. That's the biggest copout line in the known universe. Doing your best means almost-failing. It means forgive me, I can't keep up.)

Adaptation isn't one of my strong suits. Charm is. Helplessness is. Quietude. It is. It is what it is and I take the blame and light it on fire because it already burns, so why not?

Who is he. It was a statement from Lochlan, of all people. Who is this 'Jake' guy you're hanging out with. What does Cole think of him? Who the hell is a minister in this day and age? Why doesn't he already have a life? What is he to you, again? And on and on, sizing him up, feeling me out, waiting to see if Cole would accept him into our incestual fold or cast him out like all of the others before him. If you're not OG you're nobody, their rule used to be and Jacob taught them that that wasn't reasonable.

Because people adapt.

(People except for Bridget. She's still eight years old, tripping down the moonlight path after the boys, hollering at them to wait up.)

And now it's the same argument, different Jake.

We should have left him in Toronto. 

Who let him come back?

I'm not going to try to pin her like that. She's not a prisoner. For fucks sake. Caleb can be the bad guy there. I'm not. 

No one talks directly to New Jake about because I won't let them. He is protected airspace. He is an outlier. He is everything the old Jake used to be except I'm not in love with him the same way. New Jake is handsome and dangerously charming and exceeding good at getting into trouble with me. He gives no fucks but he gives them good.

But I don't want him to eat my soul. I don't want him to never leave. I don't want him to blend in with the group and I don't spend every breath thinking about him.

It isn't the same.

And it's a sad Wednesday when that becomes his only saving grace but here we are. Because I was hungry for something I didn't love and I never ever get this right.

Loch makes the rules and then changes the fine print.

Back inside, Bee. Ben is amused. I insisted, via hand signals and a pipsqueak of a voice that it was fine for me to go outside. That cold fresh air is a panacea of sorts in many countries, that no one gets to tell me what to do, as I am an adult (kind of).

I'm taking some air, I said haughtily and marched outside onto the patio.

Where exactly are you taking it? Ben said, half-amused, half-annoyed.

I'll let you know when I decide, I told him but he ran out of patience within minutes, ordering me back into the house, away from the minus double-digits, the frigid cold wind that hurts everything and makes my eyes water, that reminds me of home so much everything hurts on the inside too, even though none of those parts are cold.

He holds the door and I walk under his arm reluctantly. He shuts the doors behind me, locking them, frowning at my back. I can feel it but I don't turn. It's better to just sense the disapproval rather than to turn around and confirm its' existence solidly. Better to float along in denial than account for my own defiant behavior.

The cold can't exonerate you. 

Not looking for absolution, here, Benny. I am stubborn and refuse to turn around.

Two days, Bee. He was sick over it. 

He was invited. 

Not the same. You don't go to that house.

The rule is hard and fast, but not as much as New Jake. He's harder and faster, and I was intercepted by him on my way to see Batman. I never did find Batman after all, but then again, I stopped looking so damned fast.

God machines.

I woke up with the worst cold, the worst round of bad dreams (I dreamed we went back to the castle in the prairies and all the pipes had burst and the cats were shut in the front porch and so happy to get out (it's unheated) and there were squatters. This stemmed from a memory yesterday that Ruth brought up during dinner about the time someone stole the concrete angel statue from our backyard there. It was a memory relating to talking about strollers being left places and being stolen, and I mentioned how hers was stolen, once and we went down a rabbit-hole discussion about leaving things unsecured and how quickly they can disappear. Like people here in the GVRD leave all of their shoes outside on the front porch and we don't because not only is the front hall large enough but things get stolen, so why bother? Ben and Henry both wear extra-wide, extra-large, extra expensive shoes and they usually have to be special-ordered so I'm not leaving them out, thanks.

I don't have to go to church today but I still have to do taxes. I don't have to walk the dog (it's Henry's turn) but I do have to make lunches. I don't have to stay up late tonight but I probably will as sometimes someone comes to bed way late and I wake up (or am woken up). I should take it easy but there are a bunch of chores. I feel so tired all the time and I can't seem to find any real energy at all. Maybe once the snow is gone. Or the clocks go ahead again. There is always much to look forward to.

Go back to sleep, Neamhchiontach. He says it softly from underneath the quilts. His hand wraps around the back of my head and pulls me in against his chest but I fight to breathe so he lets go again, no longer even half-awake, pulled back into a dream I hope was better than mine.

I think I'm going to go make some coffee, I say to no one in particular and no one answers me.

Gangs of Boundary Bay.

Right now this second in time, Dorothy's White Butterfly is my all-time favorite song forever and ever.

Right now we're trying to figure out how to eat a Toblerone bar in mixed company. I have chocolate on my teeth, the end of my nose and all over my fingers. It's in Lochlan's hair. They're just not easy to eat at all with the big spaces between the triangles and such. They melt easily. Maybe that's just Lochlan's natural heat. I don't know. I just know that August gave me a copy of an album called 28 Days in the Valley and told me I would love it and he was right.

Lochlan got a new logic board for his iMac and it costs almost as much as my jeep. Then most of the boys needed new shoes suddenly so we spent around three thousand dollars (!)(JeSUS) at the sports store and I just want to eat some more chocolate, drink some whiskey and watch a scary movie but I also really need to get going on the taxes that I do for myself, Lochlan and the children, who are learning to do their own taxes. I'll be glad when it's done, honestly but at the same time I'm not worried about it, exactly.

And not because I'm drunk and full of chocolate.

Okay, maybe just a little.

(I don't want to eat any but I love to watch it being made.)

The fever has broken and everyone has fraudulently assured me with much enthusiasm that I am not, in fact, insane.

I looked around to see if they were talking to someone else. Maybe someone's here. Maybe the ghosts are smartly keeping things north when they start sliding south. Maybe pigs do fly. Maybe Bridget knows exactly what she is and how she came to be this way.

I'm not hungry, either, and that always seems to pique more concern than anything else so to appease Lochlan I am picking at a bagel he toasted and covered with cheese for me. I can barely look at it, sadly. The orange juice is good though. It's cold. So good.

Eat, don't play. He snaps.

Yes, Dad. 

A glare ends the tease and he resumes his own breakfast. He's feeling a bit better too though maybe not so much after all. We're tired, oddly. So much time in bed and all of it restless. All of it low quality sleep. No energy to love each other or even fight off ghosts. No room for extras, no time for watching the clock.

Bridgie. Come on. 

He's actively monitoring my progress and I failed to make any. Trying, I say. Then I start coughing, which gives me a headache.

Okay, nevermind. Back to bed. 

Oh my God. I'm so sick of lying there. 

Then we'll snooze in the theatre. Chef's Table started. 

Season six? 

Yeah. 

Let's go. I bring my plate and he smiles, but just a little.

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.