Will doesn't know how long he lies on the bench, hands folded behind his head, feet hanging off just a little from the edge. Kirjava prowls around the grass nearby, betraying the restlessness Will felt despite his motionless exterior. The sun sinks steadily lower, threatening to dip behind the tree line at any moment, the sky a rich orange, streaked with bloody red and pink-tinged clouds, more vibrant than he could recall in recent memory.
It seems that the farther the day slips away into a fast-approaching night, the heavier the air grows around them. It's not an unpleasant feeling, exactly, but it's certainly different, as though the air were charged with some kind of electricity, prickling along his bare arms and settling all around him, weighing him down just a little.
"Do you feel that, Kirjava?" Will asks, voice breaking the strangely cloying silence, turning to look at his daemon who pauses in her prowling to fix him with a piercing stare. "Yes. It feels familiar to me, though I can't explain why." She adds, twitching an ear, and Will jerks his head in a nod, agreeing. Impulsively, he reaches his good hand out, fingers moving carefully as though searching for something, sifting through the heavy air.
Nothing.
He lets his hand fall in defeat, brow furrowed, though he can't explain his sudden frustration. What had he been searching for anyway? Or expecting?
With a sigh that's more of a groan, he shifts into a sitting position, stretching his arms high above his head, blinking a little before standing, stomping his feet as though to help restore full circulation. "Come on, let's get home. It's practically dark now and you know how Mum worries. Hopefully Mary keeps her calm."
He shoves his hands deep into his pockets as he strolls the familiar path home, darkness beginning to settle around him like a shroud, resting on his shoulders and taking the place of the shadow that had followed him in daylight. Instead of taking the normal route home, staying straight on one of the main roads, he opts to turn down a side street, though he doesn't really know why. It isn't the first time he's taken this alternate route- he often did when the weather was nicer, trying to prolong his time outside, but he'd never travelled this way at night. Kirjava slinks behind him, eyes glowing faintly like little lamplights in the growing darkness, fur prickling along her spine faintly.
The pressing, electric feeling grows stronger the further Will travels down the darkened road, night almost settled fully around him, and again he finds himself reaching his hand orward, fingers grasping for something he can't identify, and coming up with nothing. Krjava is clearly uneasy, her inky fur bristling as she quickens her strides to catch up to Will, brushing against his ankle, head singing from side to side as though expecting to see something out of the ordinary.
But there is nothing. They make it home without incident, greeted by his mother and Mary and a hot dinner.
And it isn't until much later, when he's lying in his bed, staring up at the celing, that he realizes what it was he had been feeling, what his fingers had been seaking.
The edges of a window. A window between worlds.