121Muted gold shafts streamed down onto the streets of Boulder, Colorado. The Earth stirred, waking from its long, harsh winter. Birds raised their heads from under their wings to the blue sky that seemed to stretch on for miles. The green seemed to spring back into the world like a child leaping into its mother's arms. Small puffs of white dotted the blueness of heaven, and to the residents of the city, it felt like their hearts were beating to the rhythm of spring.
To Rose Julian Andreas, it felt like her life was over.
Her favorite season was winter by far. The rest of her family doted on the spring and summer, celebrating the return of life to the planet. With their sun-kissed blonde hair, lively eyes, and tanned skin, they were a constant reminder to Rose that when the winter was over they'd be back on top. Rose, somehow, was the complete opposite of her family. In sharp contrast to her family's robust appearance, she was thin. Not slender, like how they described the anorexic princesses in the fairy tales. Rose was just thin. She was tall and had washed out, nearly sliver blonde hair that fell to her shoulder blades. Like everything else about her, her hair was thin, and had no body. Long bangs fell in straight layers to her chin, nearly hiding her face. Her green eyes were a pale and muted color, and she had an uncanny habit of staring at people without blinking. They would look into those light green eyes, shiver, and turn away. Her skin was white. Not peach, not even the tiniest bit pink. It was white. Her perfectly formed lips were a washed out red that for all its light color, stood out in her face.
During the spring, summer, and fall, someone who looked at her would think that God had run out of colors when creating her.
During the winter, her washed out face would spring to life, which was almost as frightening as the pale summer. The light green would become a shocking glow of vibrant green, and her lips would become ruby red. Her hair, however, would stay the same limp blonde, much to her annoyance. But it was invariable that as spring came, the color would seep away, leaving a washed out, nearly invisible seventeen year old girl.
Rose had looked into her mirror that morning and shaken her head dispiritedly. Spring is here, the birds mocked her from outside her window. She had gone downstairs, frightened her little brother (like she did the first time he saw her every spring), and walked out the door.
And so here she was. Sitting on a park bench, staring blindly at the glass lake. It absorbed the sky and the trees, and then flung their reflections back. Almost curiously, even though she had seen it time and time before, she stood and approached the lake. Rose knelt beside it and studied her reflection.
It was not there. There was a vague image of a girl with lank blonde hair hunched over the lake, but there were no definitions. If that had been the only problem, she would have accepted it readily and moved on. But there was another problem, and that was that everyone else could see a person in the water or a mirror they claimed was Rose.
She did not believe them.
It was impossible, either way. Rose silently commanded the water to make up its mind. Was she there or not? She waited, but it refused to show a response. By that she assumed that she was never going to know what she looked like. Sometimes it was like being blind. Never being able to know what you looked like: it was the torture of the highest degree. It was like being without an identity. Awful.
"Hey look, is Andreas!"
Rose sighed inwardly. Would those damn boys never tire of their teasing? Without making a sound, she stood, dusted her knees off, and lifted her eyes to the jeering faces of Michael Hammond and his friend Jacob Carter. Rose had to admit to herself that they were very handsome boys, but that was just it. They were boys. In the seventeen years that they had been alive, they had not managed to grow up. Not in the least.
On the edge of saying something, she clamped her teeth together and walked away from them. Apparently they had more fun people to tease, because they did not follow her. Or maybe she had just scared them. That thought brought a tiny, perfect smile to her lips.
She was just passing by her favorite crying tree when the sunlight disappeared. Startled, Rose craned her head back. A large black cloud had obscured the burning disk. It was only a storm cloud, she reassured herself. Then why wasn't it there a few minutes ago? The back of her mind asked snidely. She told it with no shortage of colorful vocabulary to shut up.
"Rose! Hey! You see that? You see that cloud?" Jacob yelled down at her.
Noooooo, she thought sarcastically, I'm blind. Still refusing to talk to them, she continued along her way. There was the familiar wrenching in her heart as she walked away. It always happened when she was going down a road that she was not supposed to. It seemed that Fate had this crazy idea that it could control where she went. How absurd was that? She was Rose Andreas, and no one told her what to do.
The girl continued her silent way home, with her hands stuffed into the pockets of her fitted black trench coat. It was her favorite outfit. Dressy black pants, and a black tank top under her black leather coat, which fell to knees. Rose was also very proud of her black boots, which were the first pair of boots she had ever bought with her own money. Her parents had bought her everything all her life, and so just once she wanted something that she got for herself.
The result was her boots, which her parents hated.
She adored them.
Rose entered the house without making a sound, and walked over to her little brother who was squalling loudly. He shut up the moment he saw her. She saw the tell tale fear enter his eyes, and felt her heart plummet a notch. Wonderful. Her own baby brother was scared of her. Rose supposed he had a reason to be. After all, wasn't she the silent girl who could make a lion freeze with a single glance?
The answer was, of course, yes. And it saddened her deeply.
She was broken from her thoughts as the phone rang shrilly. Rose glared at it, and then picked it up. She said nothing. There was a long pause, and then there was a small cough.
"Hello? Someone there? Helloooooooooooooooooo-"
"What do you want?" Rose snapped. How annoying could you be?
"OH! So someone IS home! I was worried there for a second! HI! Is there a, uh, Rose Andreas at home?"
"You're talking to her."
"Oh, that's too bad. I mean, I'm glad to have found you, but hey. Winter never changes, does she?"
And then the person on the other end of the connection hung up, leaving a disgruntled Rose listening to the operator droning in her ear. Winter never changes? That was true, but what business did that damn girl have in calling her? And how ANNOYING!
- - - - -
"Rose?" her mother asked timidly the next morning.
The girl in question burrowed deeper beneath her fluffy white comforter, and pushed her face into her down pillow. Sunlight streamed through the half-shuttered blinds, slanting across her white face like stripes of gold laid on a marble table. Surprisingly, a light pink color stained her cheeks, and she opened her eyes reluctantly.
A few inches away from her eyes were her clock, and her little cymbal- clanging monkey toy, clanging its alarm cymbals noiselessly. As she pulled herself away from the strange dream she had been having, sound returned to the world. She barely caught sight of her mother's face before the damnable woman retreated.
Snorting at her mother's weakness at dealing with her daughter, Rose dragged herself out of bed and over to her closet. She stared for a while at the cute uniform they had to wear before reminding herself that she went to a private school for a REASON. What it was, she thought as she looked at the short green skirt in disgust, she couldn't remember.
Nevertheless, she had slipped into the short, pleated green skirt, tiny white shirt with a light green sailor style cape with white stripes, and a small red bow to tie it all together. She shoved her feet into the white socks and black shoes, and raced downstairs for breakfast.
No time, she thought in dismay as she caught sight of the time. She changed course and walked out of the house. The walk to school wasn't terribly exciting, she thought dismally. It was, in fact, incredibly boring. It was only a cracking sidewalk dotted with decaying houses. She noted with sorrow that all the snow was gone. Melted away. Just like herself.
Winter never changes.
Why had that come to her right then? The comment last night's caller had made had been bouncing off the walls of her head all night. But that was also absurd. She had no special reason to love winter so much she was left in a waste when the season was over-
-the darkness holding me tightly.
There she went again! And the caller hadn't even said it! Where were all these random thoughts coming from? It made no sense! She LIKED it when things made sense!
People must have seen the frustration on her face, because the kids at school kept farther away from her than usual. She stomped down the hall towards her locker, almost every head turning to watch her walk down. Her head tuned only once, and it was completely against her will. It was as if the man was a magnet, invariably drawing her eyes towards him.
Pale green met the darkest brown across the hall, and it was as if time slowed down for one second. A crackle of something passed between them, but then the moment was over and she was walking back towards her locker, telling herself that it was nothing.
Just the dark.
Just the things that go bump in the night.
- - - - -
Rose managed to endure through first, second, and third period. By then she knew that his name was Andrew Jones, and that he was a foreign student. From -? No one was quite certain where. They all knew he was from somewhere, they simply couldn't remember it. A little bit of the girl Rose had once been surfaced, whispering excitedly that he wasn't real, that he had put a spell on everyone to make them think they knew where he was from.
She smothered it, sending it back down to the winter world where her mind lay in rest, waiting for the next snowflake to drift from the heavens.
Turning her attention back to the Math teacher trying to teach algebra to teenagers who really didn't give a damn, she let her mind drift off. and found herself thinking about Andrew.
Andrew was different from every other male in the school. She felt that she ought to at least know why, but she did not. He was just as handsome as the next one, with his spiky black hair and brown eyes deeper than the night. There was something wrong with him, she decided finally. He was just too perfect. It was like he knew exactly what to say to which people to make connections. Rose immediately thought that word wasn't the one she was looking for, but as she considered it, she realized that she had been right in using that word. Andrew Jones did not seem like the kind of man that made friends. He made allies.
Suddenly realizing what she had been thinking, Rose quickly discarded the thought, and focused on her math book. Alas, the words swam before her eyes, making it impossible to do math. Her mind was on Andrew.
Disgusted with herself, she rubbed her eyes angrily and blinked rapidly, to try and clear the blurriness from her eyes. Her eyes cleared for a moment, and she felt like trumpeting. Her will was stronger than any old boy's!
"Mrs. Tumstra wanted me to give this to you, Mr. Williamson."
Andrew.
She felt like slamming her head against her desk. Why couldn't she keep her mind off of him? There must be something terribly wrong with him, she decided spontaneously. As he walked by her, she lifted her eyes to his. Black eyes twinkled at her, as if he knew exactly why she was glaring at him. Time seemed to slow again, and then speed up as he left the room.
Coming back to reality with a start, she nearly groaned aloud. It had happened AGAIN! What the hell was wrong with her? Pure physical attraction, she told herself firmly. That's it.
Rose was broken from her convictions by a poke on her arm. She turned her head and stared at the girl who dared to touch her. Her! Rose Andreas! No one touched her! She was too cold to be real, Rose remembered someone telling her once. But the girl just kept on smiling.
She had long curls of thick dark brown hair, and a wide, smiling face. Her eyes were a dancing brown, and she was wearing soft looking brown low-rise Levis, and a beige peasant top. The girl poked her again.
"Hi!" she hissed loudly. "I'm Andy Hall! I'm new here, moved from California! LA," she added cheerfully.
Rose said nothing, and only stared at her with those blank green eyes. Andy didn't seem too disturbed, however, and whispered on.
"Do you talk? Oh! Are you mute? Did you survive some horrific accident, only to lose your voice from grief? Oh, how marvelously tragic! Am I right? I am, aren't I? Isn't that why you don't talk?"
Rose finally cleared her throat. "I don't talk," she said clearly, drawing amazed looks from the rest of the class, "because I don't like people."
Ha! Take that, Andy "Gag Me" Hall! Rose turned back around and glared furiously at the front white board, ignoring the stares she and Andy were drawing. They were staring at her because she had spoken for the first time since third grade, and at Andy because, well, she had made Rose Andreas talk.
Absolutely amazing.
- - - - -
Rose suffered through fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh period, barely managing to stay focused on the chalk board. There was always that infuriating buzzing in one part of her head, which she chalked down to a monstrous headache. But then eighth period came.
Art.
The only class she had with Andrew.
Jesus, Rose thought with deep sadness. It would be her luck to be sitting right across the table from him. For across the table he was. Next to her was that annoying Andy girl. On the left side of the table sat Sam and Perry. Across from her sat Melanie, who was the most popular girl in the twelfth grade, and Andrew. On the right side of the table sat two eleventh graders, Evan and Maire.
It was trouble waiting to happen.
Rose was sitting quietly, absentmindedly drawing her picture with thick, dark slashes of her pencil. She was drawing her favorite subject. Winter. Her current masterpiece as she liked to think of it, was of a blinding snowstorm. There was a blurry blackness in the distance with a soft yellow glow, meant to be a tiny log cabin in the distance, glowing with the soft light of family and love. There was a tiny stroke of distant flowers and sunlight, symbolizing the impending spring. The view was from a wintry forest with its bare trees twisting and looming over the nearest part of the picture. She had somehow made the dark, cold forest look much more alluring than the cabin, or even the spring.
She finished the last stroke of the last tree's last branch and drew back to view the final result of her picture. It amazed her. You could almost hear the North Wind howling through the forest, bringing smells and tastes from winters long forgotten. The light in the log cabin looked like it was going to gutter out any minute, and the splash of spring looked almost as if were drawing closer as the snow beat furiously against it. There was, however, one thing that she had not intended. There was a knot of darkness in the shape of a man leaning against a tree where the forest curved off into the horizon.
Beside her, Andy was happily scribbling away the exact same picture, only it was dressed in fall instead of winter. Everything was the same, down to the curve of the forest, the twisting of the branches, and the small log cabin. The differences were great, in that you could actually see the cabin's details, and that the field separating forest from cabin was covered in leaves. The trees were somewhat bare, sporting only a few leaves.
Andy had even drawn in the dark man, and the winter howling in on the heels of the North Wind.
The brown haired girl finished, looked at her artwork proudly, and then looked over at Rose. The color drained from her face, and her mouth dropped open.
"Yours looks just like mine!" she exclaimed.
There was a poorly muffled chuckle, and the two girls both whirled furiously on Andrew, who was trying desperately not to laugh aloud. Andy reached over the table and smacked his arm.
"Andrew!" she said dangerously.
Laughing and rubbing his arm, he shook his head. "It's not my fault, Andy," he said smiling.
Andy crossed her arms. "Oh yeah? Then whose is it, huh smart ass?"
He shrugged, glanced covertly at Rose (who was ignoring both of them), and turned back to his own drawing. It was just like Andy's and Rose's, except for that it seemed to be all the seasons in one. It was nighttime in his picture, but the sun was peeking over the cabin, and his own dark man was shrinking farther into the forest, away from the sunlight.
- - - - -
"How was your day, honey?" her father bellowed to her over her brother Daniel's shrieks.
"IT WAS THE WORST DAY I HAVE EVER HAD IN MY ENTIRE LIFE!" she shouted back.
Peter dropped the spoon he was using to feed Daniel (making the baby scream louder) and stared at her in amazement. "You spoke! Oh, Rose! I'm so proud of you! What has brought this change about?"
Suddenly everything was just too much. Her father's joyful face, Andy's laughing eyes, Andrew's smirk, Melanie's cruel fingernails, Daniel's screaming, and her own frustration jumbled together in her mind, and she for the fist time in her entire life, she fainted.
- - - - -
"Is she alright?" someone asked worriedly.
"Yes," an unknown voice responded. "That was just her was of reacting from stress. It was stress, wasn't it, young lady?" he asked her when she opened her eyes.
She touched her fingers to her head, and groaned slightly. Wasn't it just stress? Yes. It must have been. There was no other explanation for just fainting like that.
"Yes," she said loudly, trying to convince herself, "it was just stress."
"I'll go get some medicine, I think I found a cold in her chest that I don't like," the doctor said as he walked out the door.
"Just stress," Rose repeated firmly.
Her mother jumped, and then stared hard at her daughter. Rose stared back at her, and then her mother smiled dimly. "She's alright. I just received her all-purpose stare, so she must be alright."
Peter looked disapprovingly at his wife. "Now Claire, she did go through a rather traumatizing period in the third grade-"
"I know damn well what she went through in third grade, Peter! Don't you dare say that I didn't see my daughter come home with her clothes ripped up, her arm broken, and her face bloodied! I saw it, Peter!"
Rose could hardly keep from rolling her eyes. And off they went again. They had this fight all the time. Her father would defend her, and then her mother would fly to pieces. It happened all the time.
And for the first time it occurred to her that she could put a stop to it.
"Mom, Dad, I don't talk because I have nothing to say to anyone," she interjected in the pause between the inevitable explosion.
They both stared at her. "Excuse me?" Peter asked.
Rose actually did roll her eyes this time. Maybe her parents were terminally stupid. "I said," she repeated slowly, "that I'm a silent wonder because I have nothing to say."
They kept staring at her. Suddenly the door opened, and someone let himself in. Andrew. No!, her mind screamed in terror. Andrew scared her. Both of her parents looked suspiciously at him, and he smiled charmingly.
"Hello Mr. and Mrs. Andreas. I was visiting a friend in the hospital, and I heard Rose's name, so I decided to come check on her. How are you, Rose?"
She glared at him.
Andrew smiled at her again, looking like he was trying not to laugh. He turned back to her parents, and nodded his head at them.
"It was a pleasure meeting you, Mr. and Mrs. Andreas. I hope you're well soon, Rose."
Feeling like she was getting a little too much practice with her patented Glare-O'-Death, she glared at him some more as he left the room. Idiot! Couldn't he tell that he hated his guts? Why she hated him, she didn't know. All she knew was that he looked sinfully wonderful in the boy's uniform, and that her buzzing headache was coming back.
Claire whirled on her. "Rose Julian Andreas! Who was that handsome boy? Is he your boyfriend? You haven't done anything with him, have you?"
"Mother, his name is Andrew Jones, no, and God no! I hate that boy!"
Peter smiled knowingly. "Not from what I could see. From what I saw going on there, you are head-over-heels for him, and you're in denial about it."
"No!"
"Rose! You're much to young to fall in love!" Claire roared.
"I completely agree!"
"But it doesn't change the fact that she is in love, Claire," Peter said, nodding his head wisely.
"Yes it does!"
"I am not in love!" Rose said heatedly.
"Rose, dear.."
"PETER!"
That weekend, Rose lay sprawled all over her bed. She was convinced that she was dead, or dying at least. Spring! Why was spring always so horrible? She groaned loudly and rolled onto her back.
"Ugh.."
"ROSE! GET OUT OF BED!"
The blonde girl mumbled something incoherent, and pushed her face back into her pillow. All of her blinds were drawn tight against the spring sun, and only a few pieces of the sunlight were allowed in.
Rose really did love her room. It was small, but she really didn't need a much bigger room. She had a twin bed, set on a whicker frame. Her room's theme was cherries, which was kind of at odds with her winter soul. But she had decided that it was cute, so it didn't really matter. She had a walk in closet which held all of her white, gray, blue, and black clothes. Rose had never worn red, yellow, orange, or green in her entire life, and she wasn't about to start anytime soon.
Her carpet was a thick and fluffy cream color. If she dressed in all white and laid on her carpet, all you would be able to see was a tiny patch of white, a washed out green, and a faded red. She loved to terrify her parents like that.
But now it was spring, and she felt much to dead to even move. Her mother finally stomped up the stairs and yanked her daughter out of bed. She shoved Rose into the closet and closed the door.
"APRIL BANTON IS HERE, AND SHE DOESN'T KNOW THE CITY! I WANT YOU DRESSED AND DOWNSTAIRS IN TEN MINUTES!"
Rose gave her the Stare through the door. It usually worked, even though thick walls. Claire didn't seem fazed. "AND DON'T STARE AT ME LIKE THAT ROSE ANDREAS!"
So in ten minutes Rose had her hair and teeth brushed, and she was downstairs in baggy black pants that hung loosely from her hips, and a belly showing gray tank top. She was wearing her favorite white Vans, and had her bed shell chocker on. The girl she met downstairs made Rose feel ugly. Well, it wasn't as if she could have known whether she was ugly or not. She had no reflection, she tried to remind herself. But then the girl turned her smile on Rose, and she felt herself wilting.
April Banton was slender. Not skinny, but slender. She was tall, but not as tall as Rose was, thank God. She had long honey blonde hair that tumbled in bouncy waves to the middle of her back. Thick pieces of hair were taken from her temples and twisted to the back of her head to be clasped together by a jaunty blue ribbon. She had dancing blue eyes, and beautifully peach skin. April had a tiny dusting of freckles across the bridge of her nose and her cheekbones, but it didn't take away from her looks. It looked like fairies had danced across her face, that was all. Her lips were a perfect pink, and her teeth were a gleaming white. She was wearing a light pink tank top, form fitting denim three quarter length pants, and pink flip-flops.
Rose forced a smile. "Hullo."
April smiled prettily. "Hi! I'm April Banton! Are you Rose Andreas?"
"No, I'm Santa Claus," Rose said sarcastically as she swung her bag onto her shoulder.
April blinked, and then laughed uncertainly. Rose fixated her with a cold stare, and stomped out of her house with the despicable April Banton trailing behind her. They had traveled towards downtown in stony silence, until April broke the quiet that Rose was happily enjoying.
"Don't you just love the springtime?" April sighed happily.
Rose turned her head and stared at April until she squirmed. "I hate the spring."
"Well, how about the summer? Everyone loved the summer!"
"Hate it."
"Okay! How about fall?"
"Hate it."
"Oh.. Well, you certainly can't love the winter! The winter's so cold and harsh! I feel like hell every time it's winter. it's worse than fall and summer. To tell you the truth, I can't stand winter, summer, or fall. I feel like God blew chunks, and I was one of them."
Rose laughed, and then looked around guiltily. She had laughed. That was a BAD thing. "I feel the same way during spring, fall, and summer. I feel like I'm God's left hand during the winter, though. Either God's, or Satan's. Whichever it is, I feel damn good."
April was nodding absently. "You wouldn't, um, happen to have a reflection, would you?"
She looked sharply at April. "No, I don't have a reflection. Why? Don't you?"
"No. I don't know what I look like, either. Isn't that awful? Oh, look! It's Andrew! Do you know him? He's very nice. He introduced me to Summer! Oh, there she is! SUMMER! ANDREW! OVER HERE!"
Andrew looked up, and his eyes went right to Rose, who groaned. She knew she should have stayed in bed! And now she was going to be swamped with annoying girls and infuriating boys. Fabulous.
"ROSE!" Andy cried happily. "How are you? I thought it was you, and then Andrew started spazing umph unmp fo fomphy!"
Summer smiled at Andrew, which made Rose's heart make an ugly twanging sound. "Andy talks to much," she explained as she took her hand away from Andy's mouth. Then she examined Rose, and then raised an eyebrow.
"I like your pants," Summer said with a tiny, mocking smile.
Rose didn't even bat an eyelash. "I'll give you the number of someone who gives a damn, if you'd like," she offered.
If she didn't like Andy and April, she liked Summer even less. She girl had layered brown hair and large hazel eyes. Summer had a faultless fashion sense, and was proudly displaying it. Her fashion eye was obviously offended by what Rose was wearing. Not that she gave a damn.
April looked up at Rose in shock. "Rose! That wasn't nice at all! Apologize!"
Rose looked down at April and pinned her with one of her stares. "I'm not allowed to lie," she said finally.
Andy snickered lightly, and patted Rose on the shoulder. "Excellent! She gotcha there, Summer!" she said cheerfully.
Summer crossed her arms and returned Rose's glare. Rose intensified hers up a notch, until Summer finally looked away and attached herself to Andrew's arm.
"Come on Andrew, let's go see that movie."
"Hey Rose, you want to come? You too April if you want to."
"Not April!" Andy said heatedly. She quailed under Andrew's glare. "Fine. The damn spring girl can come. But don't expect me to talk to her!"
"Didn't ask you to. So you guys want to tag along?"
"Sure!" April said happily.
Rose shook her head. "Absolutely not," she said as she turned and walked away.
Walking away, she wished that she could say yes, that she'd love to come. But no, that wouldn't be good. That. that would be inviting trouble. Suddenly there was a hand on her elbow, and then bright brown eyes grinning at her.
"Hi! I decided that you didn't want to be alone, so I'M coming to bug you! Where do you want to go? OH! Let's go to the zoo, okay?"
Rose sighed, but smiled nonetheless. It seemed like friendship wasn't going to let her slip by a second time. "Sure," she said with a tiny smile.
When they finally got out of the zoo, Andy was laughing so hard that she could barely breathe. "Rose! I can't believe you did that!"
"Well," Rose said petulantly, "it wasn't MY fault that the damn monkey wasn't allowed to have sugar!"
"The sign said not to feed them!"
"Why didn't you tell me that?"
"I thought you knew!"
"Well, don't be expecting to get into the zoo with me anytime soon."
"Um, Rosie?"
"What?"
"Well, there's no such thing as a fairy, right?"
"Yeah, why?"
"Well, if there's no such thing as a fairy, what the hell is that thing right there? A oversized BUTTERFLY-HUMAN?" Andy shrieked.
Rose looked over to where Andy was pointing, expecting Andy to punch her in the arm and laugh, saying "I told you so!". But Andy did no such thing. Rose's mouth popped open, and she tried to tell herself with no success that what she was seeing was merely a hallucination, brought on by stress.
For before her was a woman who was looking at them very, very strangely. She was unnaturally tall and slim, and was wearing a simple ragged green dress. Delicate gossamer wings sprouted from the woman's back, and rained glitter every time they moved. Her long eyelashes seemed to have tiny jewels on the ends, and her face appeared to glow with an inner light.
Andy and Rose stared at her open mouthed as she walked by them. She said not a word to them, but gave them a severe look, as if they were doing something that they were most certainly not supposed to be doing. Suddenly she stopped and wheeled around. The woman-being, Rose amended in her mind, stared at her.
Rose being Rose, she stared back.
"You have a spell on you," the woman announced, and then disappeared.
Andy and Rose were silent for quite a while longer, until Rose snorted, making Andy jump. "Oh, that's wonderful! "You have a spell on you," she says. Gee, thanks lady! I really needed to know that!" she shouted down the empty street.
Wait. Empty street?
"Rose, I think we should get out of the street."
The blonde didn't answer, but gazed down at the street. Down the empty street. Reality distorted itself, and the world bent under the pressure of another time bearing down on it. Beside her, Andy shivered.
"Rose, I'm going inside Starbuck's, okay?
She got no response. Shivering even more, Andy turned tail and ran into the coffee shop. There was something eerie about how Earth's breath was suspended. Did no one else feel it? She decided that no one else did, as she looked around at the cheerful faces in the shop. It purely their survival instinct that made them abandon the streets for the warm shelter of their homes.
Andy turned and watched through the window as Rose stood in the middle of the street with her arms folded against the wind. Yes, it was instinct that sent them inside. Instinct for survival.
But when you didn't have that instinct, what brought you out of the woods and towards home, where your family waited anxiously for you?
Outside, the cold wind wrapped itself around Rose, who just closed her eyes and smiled.