A short five-part story about meetings and mysteries. All opening quotes are taken from At The Television Set by Edwin Morgan.

Mistletoe

Take care if you kiss me,
you know it doesn't die

She comes in late to the party, calves aching from hacking a path through the snow. It's crept through her socks to numb her toes and tangled in her hair to nestle like pieces of broken glass. She shines in the light and wonders if anyone knows it is the bloody pieces of her heart hung in her hair, sparkling and cold. Her tongue scours the last snowflakes from her lips, swallowing down the bitter winter.

She hates the feel of a broken heart, but most of all she hates the feel of it mending. It's just an invitation to do it all again, the flat exchange of words and snarling press of bodies. Just when she gets used to the warmth in the night, half the bed is empty – she just isn't big enough to fill the space alone.

She came because she thought this might be better, you know – there'll be wine, enough to make the world a little warmer, and she can fake delight well enough to survive the shallow social whirl. She prides herself on her fakery these days.

He's in the hall when she arrives, some boy twisting the stem of an empty glass between his fingers. Red clings to it, cherry-bright, a strange colour for wine. Punch, perhaps.

He barely catches her eye – it's the glass she wants, but full, not empty; it's acid in her mouth, acid down her throat to corrode her indifferent pain. She's bored with herself, bored with her broken heart, bored of her boredom.

She hates that, too.

There was a time when she felt each breath burn like fire into her throat. It wasn't so long ago, that time, and it might not be so far away either, but right now it dances beyond her reach. It was a great loss, her happiness, but her life hasn't been swept by tragedy or seared with passion. It was just one small moment that cut her, and then another, a little later. A cruel word, a thoughtless gesture, an indifferent day, slice, slice, slice, and she bled from a thousand cuts, able only to watch bemused as her life trickled out of her hands.

She dusts her heartbreak from her hair, impatient with it all.

"Cold out." He interrupts her silence, ignorant of his rudeness.

"Really? I hadn't noticed."

The small talk is done with. She has made her contribution, and he can write her off as petty and sharp. Off come her gloves, her scarf, her coat, stripping her down to let out the warmth she has secreted between her arms and thighs all the way here.

"Well, you don't seem very observant."

Those words are serrated, and they draw enough blood to interest her.

There's barely a hint of a smile on his face, but she has seen too many masks that masquerade as smiles to care about that. It's his eyes she seeks, wide and dark and dreadfully intimate, assessing her as she assesses him. The rest she categorises only for reference: mussed dark hair, fading tan, round cheekbones, arched eyebrows.

She lets her eyes linger on him and gathers the jagged edges of her heart to wound him. Just as a warning. Just as a reminder. "I've seen enough. And I've seen better."

"I've seen worse…but not much worse." The words come out well-spiced with wickedness, and she feels the impact of them like the clash of sword on sword; a deft parry, a spark of devilment in his eyes, and she is captured.

She doesn't know it then, of course: all she feels is the challenge, the pleasure of a battle. "I guess you haven't looked in a mirror lately."

He laughs and it's low and rough and soft. "I can just look at the admiration in people's eyes instead. I know my worth."

"Is that why you're out here on your own?" She curses herself. Questions makes it personal, questions beget questions and she is unwilling to let this stranger pry his fingers into the chinks of her soul and lever her apart to find his answers.

She loves her loneliness as much as she loathes it.

"I wanted some space. No one's going to come out here."

The next question is already on her tongue but she bites it back, glad that her mistake slid by. No questions, no invasions, just meaningless banter. It fills the time, if not her heart.

"They keep avoiding the hall." He gazes upwards, his lashes feathered against the hollows of his eyes. "Can't imagine why."

Like the North Star, he guides her and she looks up, up, up…and there it is, a cluster of curvy leaves and ivory berries, poison dangling over her, waiting to be transfused into a kiss.

Their eyes meet and he does not move, does not do anything except roll that glass between his fingers. Then he straightens, and her feet have retreated before she knows it.

His smile is beautiful and terrible, a white mockery of the moon. He waggles the glass at her. "I need a refill."

He moves into the party, away from the charmed silence of the hall. She stares after him, wondering why she stepped back, wondering why she cares. A brush of lips, stranger to stranger, it's nothing, it's commonplace, it's a cheap tradition.

And he looks back: their eyes meet, and her breath catches in her throat with the intensity of it. For a moment, his eyes seem silver, as if touched by moonlight. Just a glance, sharing nothing...but the thought of what they might share, what might comes to pass under poison and leaves is suddenly hot and bright in her mind. That wicked smile against her mouth, melting away into pressure and pinpricks; his body against hers, the wine glass forgotten on the floor.

"Coming?" he asks, and before she can form an answer in her dry throat, he vanishes into the throng.

And after a moment, she follows him into the clamour and wine-soaked air, lying to herself that she isn't chasing the promise of a kiss.

~*~