They held hands as they walked back from the book club. Erk carried both of their novels under one arm as he always did, pausing every now and then to adjust the quilted red jacket that almost made him look like he had some weight on his bones. Their boots crunched on the snow, which had been falling for the better part of two days, drifting down in pristine white blankets that wiped out individuality and converted a hundred suburban lawns into identical marble tiles.
"And while Serra raised an excellent point about the main character's romantic undertones with the barmaid, I really don't think that was what the author intended," Priscilla said.
"You know she only ever cares about the romantic subplots of the stories, anyway," Erk replied with a shrug. "The bar scene served to show the depravity of the city and little more, if you ask me. Any romantic undertones were likely there to show how the people cared more for lust than any emotional connection, once again helping build the world they were in."
"That was how I took it, as well. Of course, you know that Serra was really only interested in creating a bit of a romantic subplot within the club, as well…"
Priscilla flashed him a mischievous smile, her knit hat sitting so low it almost covered her eyes. Little chickadees and bird footprints were stitched into the fabric, with a pair of large white feathers over her ears. She had tried to get him to wear a matching one, but for all that Erk would tolerate the occasional manhandling and fashion advice, he drew the line at knit birdie hats.
"I'm afraid I don't know quite what you're talking about."
"You joke! What with the eyes Serra has been making at you, her insistence at taking the seat beside yours, the way she touches you on the arm…"
He snorted and shook his head.
"I must respectfully tell her that she is wasting her time. I go to book club for the literature and the company of my peers, not for some kind of matchmaker session."
Priscilla's hand slipped out of his, and Erk halted, looking back at her. Had he said something to offend her? But she didn't offer a rebuke or an explanation. She merely stood frozen by the entrance to the old park, the one they passed by every week on the way home, staring forlornly at the ghosts of swing sets and monkey bars. A small group of pine trees ringed the little playground like musketmen in white uniforms. The sun's rays slanted through the gaps in the branches, illuminating a circle of undisturbed snow and seemingly forgotten jungle gym equipment.
Priscilla took slow steps, breaking through the snow and carving a thin trail to mark her passing. She brushed the snow off of one swing and took a seat, her gloved hands wrapping reverently around the rusted chains.
Erk didn't question her—he never questioned her—he just took a seat on the one beside her, idly rocking himself back and forth with one toe. Their books awkwardly remained under his arm, but he didn't have anywhere else to put them.
"It's pretty out here," he said, unwilling to outright ask what was going on. To his eyes, it was haunt of a place, old and at odds with the upper-class neighborhood. The snow covered the rust-eaten metal poles and faded wooden supports, temporarily granting a measure of beauty to a place in its death throes.
"It is," she breathed, mind a thousand miles away. "I used to play with my brother on a playground like this."
He stared at her with laser intensity, a sick feeling in his stomach. Erk wished that she would never think about her brother again, for all the misery that absent boy had caused her. Her brother was already long gone by the time Erk met Priscilla, but he still cultivated a healthy hatred of him, of the boy he knew nothing about save for her stories. He reached out and touched her arm, as close as he could get with the distance between the swings.
"It was winter last time we'd gone, you know. He carried me on his back and ran through the snow, and we got hot cocoa and sat by the fire when we were done….Forgive me. I'm just rambling," she murmured. "I just miss my brother terribly, as you can imagine…"
Erk could not well imagine, having found his family three years prior. He remembered being taken out of his old foster home—his third, Elimine, he couldn't take being shuttled around anymore—and brought to his current residence. Pent and Louise had been too kind to him even then, although Pent was often absent, occupied with university duties. He had been so, so afraid that they would give him up and that he would be alone again, back to the days when no one was his and he was no one's.
He could still taste that fear as he looked at Priscilla's slumped shoulders. She had been like him, taken from a problem family at a young age. Nominally, they were the same, although she remembered her family, missed them, and had been adopted almost immediately by the Caerleons; he couldn't remember anything at all, and it still sometimes shocked him that Pent and Louise (Father and Mother, they liked to be called, although the words were still alien on his tongue) had accepted him into their home. He worked his hardest to deserve that, trying to be the best student he could be, even as Pent's absentminded affection still scared him. They were his only family, those two and the sad girl who shared his poor vision and pained smile, although neither blood nor law bound Priscilla and him together.
"I could be your brother," he said in a small voice.
Priscilla's head snapped up, expression unreadable.
"I'm not Raymond, I know, but I've grown up with you, haven't I? We're always together, and I suppose it is a bit forward to say, but...if it would make you happy, I could try," Erk continued, staring at his feet lest his eloquence desert him. "I don't think I'm strong enough to carry you around the park, I fear, but I can mix up a mug of cocoa at home…"
He cut himself off, embarrassed. The silence yawned between them like a canyon, all jagged rocks and distance insurmountable. He pushed the snow around with one foot, wiping off his glasses on the inside of his jacket and replacing them.
"That's very kind of you, Erk," she said haltingly, "but I don't think I can do that. Thank you for offering."
He nodded, chancing a look at her. Priscilla smiled weakly at him, but she reached out halfway between them, holding open her hand. He took it, fingers slipping between hers, a sliver of warmth and affection, her eyes silently saying that it was nothing personal. Erk smiled back at her and gave her hand a small squeeze of reassurance.
"We'll find him one day."
"Thank you, Erk. I do appreciate it."
"Of course," he said. "I'm here whenever you need me."
"Just like on the first days of school?"
He thought back to the two of them standing together at the bus stop. She was a year older than him, but they were in the same grade, both too nervous and bookish to really get along with the chattering, gossiping gaggle of other teenagers. They both wore glasses and cardigan sweaters and shy scared smiles, and they sat together in the front of the bus with nothing to talk about, but they had stuck together. Something in their souls resonated at the same level, he thought, and still did.
"Certainly. It's what I'm here for," Erk replied. He had carried her books even then, although he had never really minded, just as he never really minded doing odd favors for his friend Nino, or doing chores and tasks for Pent. He certainly did mind how the snow melted on his glasses and how the swing was still wet and soaking through his pants, but he swallowed his discomfort for Priscilla's sake.
It was what a good brother would do, if she still had one. She didn't want him to be her brother, of course, but that didn't stop Priscilla from holding his hand like they were very young, and it didn't stop her from curling up against him just so when the nights drew late and their movies drew to their conclusions and she'd fall asleep with her head pillowed on his chest, short hair sticking up in a fiery halo. Of course, a real sister wouldn't hold his hand when they were both in secondary school. A real brother probably wouldn't have allowed it, either, but Erk knew he wasn't just her friend, and if family worked, he would take it.
"Erk?"
"Yes?"
"Did you ever have any siblings?"
He paused, heels grinding into the snow and halting his movement.
"…Biologically, I cannot begin to say. I very well could, although I do not share your desire to find any of them should they exist," he said, picking over the words like an ibex over unsure footing. "Neither they nor any of the other children I have grown up with lost any love over me, and I suppose I didn't care much for them, either. It wasn't any sort of upsetting situation, and they were all kind enough, I believe," he assured, running his free hand through his hair. "But I would say that no, I was never 'brother' to any of them. Why do you ask?"
She looked at him for a long while, long enough to make him shift uncomfortably and hunch his thin shoulders, folding in upon himself. Priscilla didn't judge him, and he knew that, but her eyes shone like green fire and that look, Elimine, that look. He'd seen it a dozen times before, sad and intense and it never boded well. Priscilla wore the same look his prior foster mother had, as if committing his every feature to memory, and he shrunk back because she'd said goodbye without warning and he couldn't think of what he'd do if Priscilla did the same.
Erk told himself that she wouldn't leave him, biting back that fear that still reared its head at the worst moments. His grip on her hand tightened, and she frowned, a thin line of worry appearing between her brows.
"I was just curious, is all," she said finally, looking away. "You remind me of Raymond sometimes."
"I beg your pardon?" he replied with a blank stare.
"Oh, you're not really like him. He was so…fierce," she said with a small wistful smile. "Calm and more proud than a boy his age should have been. He was ready to take on the world by himself. But what you said…offering to be my brother in lieu of him…that was something he would have said."
She thumbed over her ring finger, biting her lip. With her gloves on, he couldn't see her little silver owl ring, but he had never seen her take it off, even when she slept. He didn't know where she'd gotten it, but he could only assume it was a relic of that long-lost Raymond, for she seemed drawn to it whenever he was mentioned.
"I'm sorry if that was forward," he replied, his articulacy slipping through his fingers.
"You don't need to apologize. When I said I didn't need you to be my brother, I didn't mean to hurt you."
"You didn't—"
"Hush, Erk. I meant that…I already have a brother, you know. He's just not here right now. If you were to be my brother…it would only be until we found him, and then what would you be?"
He paused, confused.
"I'd be…whatever I am now, I suppose," he said. "I understand what you're saying. Just your dear friend, then?"
"My very best. Will you promise me something? Will you promise that you won't ever leave?"
The unspoken "like he did" hung at the end in bright neon letters. Her words were so very familiar, twin to the ones that battered against the inside of his skull on long nights when Pent was gone and Louise had fallen asleep hours prior, when he sat alone in the dark study with a single weak lamp to drive back the darkness.
He looked at Priscilla and wondered for the first time if she had ever done the same.
"As long as you want me, I promise I will not."
"Erk…Thank you," she said quietly.
They sat together as the setting sun painted a flash of red-purple fire across the sky's cloudy canvas, until the single forlorn streetlight by the jungle gym flickered to life, and still she didn't let go of his hand.