Through the Dark Clouds
Through the Dark Clouds
Ada Maria Soto
Contents
Introduction
Through the Dark Clouds
About the Author
Introduction
This story was written almost exactly eight years ago. Possibly as a challenge to myself, possibly as a way of fighting the tedium of my night job. I can honestly say most of what I remember of 2011 is hazy do to a stack of physical and mental health problems that hit all at once. I do remember I wrote the first draft quickly. Two thousand words in a single work shift. (I’d figured out how to do six hours of work in about 90 minutes leaving a lot of down time.) I was very excited when it was accepted to be part of a holiday anthology. It was the first piece of writing I would get paid for. I showed off my official contract to all my co-workers who did not care in the slightest. When it was released it got a couple of nice reviews and then sat there, quietly, at the bottom of my goodreads page as the years ticked by. Every so often a single sale would show up on a royalty statement and I would invariably open and reread my copy and think ‘Yep, this is the best thing I’ve ever written’.
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Yes, I know no one agrees with me but I love this story and have been trying to tap back into what little spark of magic I found here ever since. If you haven’t read this story before I hope you enjoy it. If you have and for some reason you are buying it again, thank you, I can’t express how much that means to me.
First printing Through the Dark Clouds ©Copyright Ada Maria Soto, 2011 Published by Dreamspinner Press
Second printing Through the Dark Clouds ©Copyright Ada Maria Soto, 2019 Published by Ada Maria Soto
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the authors’ imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
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Cover Art by Tiferet Design
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epub ISBN 978-0-473-49642-5
Kindle ISBN 978-0-473-49643-2
Through the Dark Clouds
The single dull lamp illuminating the room gave the ferns of ice crawling across the window glass a golden autumnal hue, out of place against the heavy fall of snow. John rolled another thin rag, greasy with coal soot, and carefully stuffed it along the edge of the window frame. He was trying to keep out the creeping chill of the Quebec winter. He kept telling himself that the storm had nothing on the howling wind that blew off Hudson Bay back home, but that thought did little to warm his hands.
He knew he should get a fire going in the little potbellied stove of his rented room, but the coal was running low and getting more would mean leaving his room and facing the holiday merriment downstairs. As it was he could hear Glen Miller and “Moonlight Serenade” coming up from the parlor below his room. It was underscored by the deep laughter of old men well into their cups.
A heavy knock rattled his thin door. John knew it would be Mrs. Bruce on the other side. She always knocked the same way; two knocks loud enough to raise the dead, or at least drunks late on their rent, then a third little knock like an apology to the innocent. John managed to forgo his cane as he took the half dozen steps to the door. He opened it to Mrs. Bruce with her sharp blue eyes and her face cracked like ice on a spring sea.
John forced a smile. He could feel the tiny pricks of an icy burn just where his cheeks touched the cold wire rims of his glasses. “Good evening, Mrs. Bruce.”
“Hello, Johnny. I noticed you didn’t come down for supper.”
He knew his absence would be conspicuous but the very idea of the evening was just too much for him to handle. “I’m sorry. I’m not really in the festive spirit this year.”
Mrs. Bruce just nodded. John was sure she’d seen every permutation of humanity pass through her boarding house doors and would hopefully understand. “Well, I thought you might be having one of your moods so I brought you some rolls and a little ham.” She held out a plate wrapped in a thick linen napkin instead of the usual dishtowel. “You don’t eat enough the rest of the year; you should have a little something now.”
“Thank you.” He took the still warm plate and let the heat soak into his fingers. He knew Mrs. Bruce was expecting more from him. He was one of the “good ones” by her reckoning. “If the weather clears up a bit, I’ll walk you to the morning services,” he offered.
“You’re a dear boy.” She patted his cheek. “Any more word from Robert?”
John kept smiling despite the constant dull ache in his chest suddenly becoming a sharp pinch.
“Only that letter a few weeks ago.”
“Well, next time you write him, tell him he better come home safe and sound. He’s got the only strong back in this place and I need some help moving the sofa in the parlor.” John laughed, his breath turning to steam. “And you should light a fire in here. The cold can’t be good for your leg.”
He shifted his weight off the metal frame holding his leg in place. It creaked a bit, as stiff in the cold as the rest of him. “I was just about to light one,” he smoothly lied. “Merry Christmas.”
“Merry Christmas, dear.”
John shut the door and balanced his dinner on the mess of papers covering his desk knowing the food would be ice cold in minutes. He also knew he wouldn’t eat it. He dragged himself back to his bed and flicked on the small secondhand Bakelite radio that lived on his nightstand. He watched it begin to glow. He carefully twisted the knobs, straining to hear voices woven into the static. If he was lucky and there was just the right kind of weather over the North Atlantic and not too much aurora activity he could tune in the BBC. Not that the BBC ever broadcast the things he really wanted to know but he liked to think that just maybe he and Robert were listening to the same thing in the same moment.
As he slowly shifted through the bands, he traded one flavor of static for another. He caught the occasional burst of Christmas music or some girl singing in a husky voice about her boy overseas. He preferred the static. He finally flipped off the radio in disgust, the room becoming that little bit darker. There was still static in the sound of a billion dry snowflakes grinding away at the layers of boarding house whitewash and old rippled glass windows.
He pulled open the drawer of his bedside table wiggling it so it wouldn’t stick. Without even looking, he pulled out an envelope and a single photo. He drew his finger along the scalloped edges of the photo and turned it a little toward the light. In it Robert stood straight and tall in his RCAF uniform with a half dozen other men in front of a large bomber. It had still been summer when the picture was taken and Robert had only been gone a handful of months with promises to be home before the next school term started. After all the war couldn’t last that long. That’s what he had said after their lips touched for the last time.
Of course, Robert shouldn’t have been in England to begin with. It wasn’t part of the Plan. The Plan was so old it deserved to be a proper noun. Worked out when they were just boys stealing sinful kisses behind Father Jeremiah’s smoke shed, the Plan stated that they would get the hell out of Nacknik and even right out of Manitoba. They would go to Quebec or maybe even Toronto, get a room and enroll in university together. Robert would study engineering while John would study the subtleties of the English language.
They were hardly a year into the Plan when everyone in the boarding house gathered around the tall radio in the parlor to listen to their newest king. It wasn’t long after that Robert was asked to do his part for King and country. No one asked John. With a leg that dangled half dead beneath him even much of the “women’s work” was kept from him.
His mother always told him to count his blessing as far as his leg went, and he did. He still had nightmares of the other boys in the hospital trapped in iron lungs with their limbs strapped to boards. Instead, he was told to keep to his studies, and he did, while he tried not to think of Robert falling out of the sky every second of every day. If he was lucky, sometimes he’d get a full minute when that thought didn’t cross his mind.
John looked around perfectly aware that the room was empty of all life except his own then pressed the photo to his lips before setting it aside.
He ran his fingers along the edge of the envelope, just like he had the picture, but he didn’t open it. He knew every word the letter contained. It was full of banalities, one old friend to another, and contained no word of missions or postings. Still, John knew it was a love letter hidden under the most common language, and he had this strange fear that, if read too often, the words would somehow fade like the watercolor landscape down in the parlor that always caught the afternoon sun.
He put the photo and envelope away and flipped off the little bedside light. He waited for his eyes to adjust. Somewhere above the snow and howling wind was a full moon. After a minute he could see his breath begin to sparkle in the tiny hint of light filtering through the clouds.
He watched the little cloud of steam grow before him, breath by breath, until he realized his fingers were as numb as his nose. He heard the old clock in the hall strike eleven. He crawled under his blankets only stopping to peel off his grey canvas shoes. The blankets didn’t give much warmth, but like the fire, he didn’t care enough to take a spare from the linen closet down the hall. Instead he closed his eyes and tried to sleep. He didn’t want to be awake when it became Christmas.
John opened his eyes then quickly squeezed them shut. The sky had cleared and the moon was shining down, bouncing off the fresh snow, and filling the room with cold, flat, silver light. He blinked a few times and strained to hear something in the total silence of the now still night. He knew something must have woken him. He heard a squeak and scrape from the hall. John closed his eyes again. It was probably any one of a dozen boarders stumbling down the hall. His door opened. He bolted upright wondering which drunk had just gotten the wrong room. He could just make out the dark shadow of a person standing still in the black of the hallway.
“You fell asleep in your clothes again.”
The shock was like a blow to the chest and John’s body actually jerked. “Robert,” he whispered hardly able to take a breath.
The shadow stepped forward and the door closed. “Who else is it going to be?”
John heard the laughter in Robert’s voice. It was just as he remembered, warm and inviting, filling the most barren room with life.
“This isn’t real.”
“I hitched a ride on a mail plane. I wanted to get here before my letter; wanted to get here for Christmas.”
John threw himself from the bed stumbling over his own half frozen feet. Robert grabbed him before he could hit the rough wood of the floor.
“Easy there.” He felt the warmth of Robert’s hands slip right into his bones. “You know you’re not supposed to sleep in your brace either?”
John didn’t answer, just pressed his lips to Robert’s. Even if it was all some cruel dream thrown up by his sleeping mind, he had been denied the simple pleasure of a stolen kiss for far too long. Robert’s lips parted and his arms squeezed tight. He breathed deep and tried to remember.
Is this how Robert smells? Is this how he tastes? he asked himself.
Robert pulled away from the kiss but didn’t let go. “It’s freezing in here. You should have lit a fire.”
“I don’t have much coal.”
“I’ll go down and get some.” Robert began to turn away.
“No!” He clutched the sleeve of Robert’s uniform, his fingers digging into the heavy wool. “Don’t leave. It’s warm enough.”
Robert smiled and pressed a kiss to John’s forehead. “It’s really not, but okay.” John took deep breaths and tried to will his panicked heart to slow even as Robert ran hands across his face. “So, how are classes?”
“How are classes?” John heard a slightly hysterical squeak in his own voice. “Nine months gone and you want to know how my classes are?”
Robert pressed another kiss to his lips. “I want to know about everything. I want to know about your classes. I want to know about our friends. I want to know if Mrs. Turner at the shops ever worked out the father of Lulu’s puppies. I want to know every tiny mundane thing I’ve missed so…” Robert’s voice cracked. “So maybe it won’t feel like I’ve been gone so long.”
“They think it was Mr. Daniel’s beagle. The puppies all had funny floppy ears and you can hear them barking half way across town. And Mrs. B wants you to move the sofa in the parlor.”
Robert laughed softly and pulled John in as close as possible almost as if they could somehow slide inside each other’s skin. “Do you think anyone is playing music at this hour?” he asked.
“I doubt it.”
Robert started to sway to some tune only he could hear. John swayed with him. The first thing they had done after saving enough for the stupid little radio was find some station playing music. They had swayed together for an hour just thankful to have four thin walls of privacy where they could hold each other and dance.
“They have these dances on base,” Robert murmured. “They bring in the girls from the village with chaperones, so they can dance with the boys. It’s supposed to keep our morale up.”
“Do you dance with them?” John didn’t really want the answer even as the question came from his lips.
“I sort of have to but I never kiss them. I would never kiss them.” Robert caught John’s face in his hands and tipped it up. “That’s only for you.” John felt his cheeks burn. It was almost painful against the cold of the room. Robert kissed him again. It was sweet, chaste yet held promises and apologies in equal measure. “Only you.”
He let his head rest on Robert’s shoulder. He didn’t want to talk. Not yet. He just wanted to feel Robert against his body and sway to silent music like one of the girls with their soldier boys. He let one of the ballads from the radio run through his head, then a second.
“It really is freezing in here,” Robert whispered.
“There are a few pieces of coal left in the bucket.”
“Okay.” Robert let go and John felt the cold strike his chest and a sudden shiver rattled his teeth together. “Told you it was cold.” Robert crouched in front of the stove. John had to shield his eyes from the sudden flare of the matches. In just the match light, Robert’s hair and eyes changed to the warm auburn and soft brown that John remembered as opposed to the ghostly raven wing black they had been under just the moon light.
He sat at the foot of his bed and watched Robert fuss with the stove. Since the beginning it had always been Robert’s job to keep the room warm and bright and not just because John had trouble crouching down. Robert brought the warmth and light because he was warmth and light. Where John could sit hunched in cold shadows his mind turning to morose moods, Robert always walked along with his face turned toward the sun, and whenever he could he dragged John out into the sun with him.
Robert closed the door on the stove and the room became a hair warmer. “I’ll get some more coal later.”
“You really came in on the mail plane?”
Robert sat next to him, barely fitting on the end of the narrow bed. “Yes. I could have waited for a morning flight but I didn’t want to miss a second with you. I wanted to wake up Christmas morning wrapped around your body, listening to you breathe, watching the sun through the window turn your hair golden.”
John chuckled at the image. “I thought I was supposed to be the overly romantic poet.”
Robert pressed his lips to John’s neck. “You must be rubbing off on me.”
He let his head roll back as Robert’s breath flowed over his throat and the tips of his fingers slid u
nder the edge of his shirt caressing bits of skin and awakening nerves that had felt dead for so long.
“Lay back,” Robert whispered.
John slid back and lay down. He didn’t close his eyes. He didn’t dare, just in case, despite mounting evidence, it was all still a dream. He didn’t want to close his eyes and wake up.
He watched Robert carefully undo the straps of his brace and gently set the creaking metal aside. The first time he had tossed it aside and pulled John into a quiet bit of stream, determined to teach him how to swim again. John’s mother had screamed when they returned to the village still dripping. Robert’s father had laughed and tousled their heads.
Then Robert’s fingers were at his foot pulling away the woolen sock. He knew what Robert would do next and a second later Robert’s lips were pressed to the inside of his ankle. That was the first place Robert had kissed him. Diving deep into the clear water of the stream that ran west of the village, he had kissed the ankle that would never again be strong enough for John to stand on. It was Robert’s way of telling him he didn’t care about the brace or the crutches or the looks that one got for being even slightly different in a tiny fishing village. And it was his way of confessing to John the feelings that neither had a word for but somehow knew would mean everything in time.
A gentle moan slipped from John’s lips as the tiny touch brought a flood of memories, from that childish day in the stream to their last terrified frantic kisses, each one a plea not to leave for war.
John reached down grasping for any bit of Robert. He caught a bit of sleeve and pulled until Robert crawled up the bed, hovering over him.
“We can go slowly later.”