Algid (#TronnorAU)

Chapter 25: Ghosts

Fall had already covered Yule in its cold spell. Day after day, there was no sign of the sun coming out of the cloud covered grey sky, which was tainted grey. The trees were all dressed up in colors already, as their leaves fell to the ground and the winds blew from the north, the same direction as the Lake and the forest. The temperatures had dropped so much that people were already wearing their winter clothes. According to the news teller, this year would be one of the coldest ones in the last few decades.

Connor observed the neighboring houses already getting all decorated for Halloween, and little after he noticed, Grace did as well. She got the kids to help her in decorating their front lawn with self-made gimmicks, since according to her words she had "totally forgotten about the Holiday decorations". Turns out she was very crafty, managing to make spider-webs out of cotton and toilet paper and a couple of gravestones out of Styrofoam and spray paint. Let's face it, it looked far from scary. But at least their house wouldn't be the only one that wasn't decorated anymore.

At school, people were already discussing what they were going to dress up as. Connor couldn't really care any less, since he never dressed up as anything. First off, he didn't have the money to afford any costumes. Second, he didn't really give one flying fuck over Halloween. He always wore a black t-shirt that day, and told himself it was being festive. Even Alexis, who never wore a costume either, found this rather dull. However, she couldn't afford a costume either, so year after year she would mimic Connor and dress all black, and told people she was a witch apprentice. The red beanie came in handy for that as well. But this year Grace had said that they could have costumes for themselves if they liked, much to Connor's dismay, because he knew Alexis would be too excited about it.

Or at least, he thought she would.

Alexis, however, didn't get too excited about it. She did seem to be at first, but it wore off pretty quickly. A bit too quickly for her. Connor knew that when an idea she liked got into her head he wouldn't hear the end of it for a good while. In fact, everything regarding Alexis seemed to be very unexciting as of late. She seemed so down that it was starting to worry him all over again.

Mikey had noticed, too. He had talked to Connor about it, telling him that she dozed off in class and that their friends were starting to wonder if she was ok. Apparently, nobody had a clue on what might be happening to her.

But Connor did know what was happening to her. He knew what it was, with her first and last names unfortunately memorized. And this time, he had to speak up.

One day, he and Alexis sat together on the bus ride on their way to school, like usual. He and Mikey had spoken beforehand, so that Mikey sat with the rest of his and Alexis' friends so that no one she knew would listen to what they talked about. He knew Alexis wouldn't be thrilled about it, but he couldn't think of any other time in which either of them wasn't busy or accompanied by someone else. If he wanted her to talk, it had to be then.

Alexis had woken up late that morning after oversleeping. She hadn't taken a shower, telling Grace she would after she was back from school, and ate way too much for breakfast. All of those typical behaviors she presented whenever she was overstressed. The way she stared blankly into the seat in front of her in the bus made Connor feel bad for not having done anything so far about this. It almost looked like she was concentrating on something. He thought that he probably looked the same, as he went on through what he was going to tell her in his head. Bringing up awkward conversations had never been his forte, except when it came to Alexis. So, he cleared his throat, and spoke up the words.

But when he did, Alexis did as well.

-"Al, I need to talk to you—"

-"Con there is something that—"