Page 7 of The Villains of Winter

Æscwulf College for Statecraft and Art came alive in autumn for recondite purposes. The College spared no expense for the dark celebration of the death of nature. Earlier that night, the violinists soared as the arias of the opera singers lilted above the strings of the cellists as if by magic. Even hours after dinner, Elliott was drugged with the intoxicating, illicit, sensation of its enchantment. He always drowned in their dramatic descant as opera students practiced their late October performances fortnight after fortnight. Their symphony of Tchaikovsky’s The Enchantress and Marschner’s Der Vampyr ensorcelled the ears, spreading warmth throughout his chest in its heavenly sound.

Entranced, Elliott ran his tongue over the edge of his teeth, which still stung from three hours before.

At the autumntide reception, Æscwulf College served Macbeth hell-broth with the full expectation that the students would sip every last drop. The final drop, of course, was dredged in arsenic. Not enough to kill, poison, or injure, but enough to scald the tongue lithely in a touch of faint acid.

The complimentary sweets were delicately drizzled with chokecherry extract.

The air was perfumed with blood-hued mist as the students were gifted rare, first-edition publications of The Vampyre by John William Polidori. The airs of achingly pure, silvery sopranos and thunderous, magnificently deep basses coalesced in perfect mellifluous euphony at the annual dinner.

The seniors devoured the formal soup of newt eyes and raw lizard without hesitation, acclimated to the eccentrics, as the sophomores ravaged their plates of owlet meat down in their throats, eager to impress the faculty. Frightened, the freshmen retched into their serviettes before the perfectly seared fillet of fenny snake could be served with wool of bat. As always, northern long-eared bats were apportioned, for the dark-winged bat was the insignia of Æscwulf College.

Every autumn, the Baneburians refused normality at every opportunity. The College was populated by the children of the nouveaux riches by then, and therefore modernity had attained victory over traditional rites and raiment in the end.

Nevertheless, the College prided itself with its peculiarity.

Enchanted, Elliott loved how strange and exciting Æscwulf College became in the fall term. He was enamored by the rich, rarified air that rose with notes of cognac, complemented with the aged scent of old compendiums. Walnut oil paintings of myths were hand-brushed by artisans across his dormitory ceilings in vivid, impassioned strokes. Its archaic beauty left Elliott drunk with admiration. He was sobered only when the first snowflake descended from the depths of the serene sky, reminding him that his idyllic haze was over.

On the brutal week of Samhain, Elliott tensed. A snowflake rested against the freckled bridge of his nose. The hardened earth bore the early marks of the winter solstice.

At twenty-one years old, James was eligible for the sacrifice ceremony that December. He was deemed old enough to die for art.

Uncaring of his fate, James laid on the mottled deadfall of the Nixon Forest with the leafy soles of his boots besmirched with pine needles and mud. They’d slept through the warm ups of the choir singers and the clarion notes of the classical orchestra ensemble. They’d fallen asleep that way since they were young.

Their limbs twined, twisted.

Their breaths exchanged.

Whenever the air smelled of James’s masculine, cypress scent, Elliott could drift to sleep with ease. They’d become best friends. At night, James practiced for the winter recitation deep into the late hours, until his eyelids could no longer lift. James was the star of the Platonic recitations and the provost would be present, therefore he mumbled with concentration. Even in his sleep.

James Wilde’s rowing captaincy had been killed with Mr. Newton.

The matter was ruled a weather-related incident instead of vehicular manslaughter. Knox Pearson damaged his left wrist irreversibly and Finch Hudskin had to be mechanically removed from the wreckage, lucky to be alive.

James’s right eye was slashed open in the collision, scathed with violent scars. His right arm went through the windshield, needing seven surgeries, and effectively removing his position as the coxswain.

Each boy was immediately tested with breathalyzers, urine drug examinations, and blood alcohol content evaluations to check if there had been illegal drunk driving involved in the death of the teacher. Each of them were cleared, except for James Wilde, who tested positive for a low alcohol level. Due to the early March freeze, he often sipped from his grandfather’s metal Scotch flask to keep himself warm before he rowed towards Massachusetts for practice.

The underage drinking scandal nearly resulted in a charge of involuntary manslaughter, and James’s future disintegrated in his hands.

Elliott, haunted by the graphic imagery of his dead biology teacher, became dependent on slumber to forget everything. Elliott couldn’t sleep alone without seeing punctured eyes, the gashed throat, the blood-smeared chest. James slept beside him at night to help with his night terrors, outdoors in the trackless forest or indoors in the dormitory, it didn’t matter. James was there for him.

James barely bothered to ever make it to his own dormitory regardless, he was a tornado of theoretician textbooks, rhetoric pages, and socialist materials. There wasn’t an empty inch of space left on his crowded mattress to sleep, so he’d had a habit of sleeping in everyone else’s bed.

Elliott’s bed most often.

In the wake of the scandal, James’s father nearly lost his position as high commissioner due to the relentless British press. He blamed James and he would’ve murdered him if he could have. Æscwulf College was a pagan-founded institution, established for the purpose of the hibernal ceremony.

His father sent him to die there.

He hated his father, he loathed himself more.

Elliott didn’t want to breathe in hopes of not stirring the upperclassman. He kept his skin an inch apart after a minute. His mind was a war of chaos; he’d had the horror dreams again. The aftermath of the vehicle obliteration. It left him soaked in sweat.

For the entire night, Elliott’s breaths came fast and hot, panicked.

Elliott’s hands ached for a brush. To paint until he wasn’t left breathless, gasping, terrified. He tried to brush to keep calm and centered as he was taught. He tried to forget the harsh, wintry weeks Mrs. Ledgerman abandoned him outside.

At dawn, the ducks, the geese, and the waterfowls chorused on the millpond, and James left the pine woods for the cramped dorm to fetch coffee. He treaded intemperately through the dim corridors. Barely awake, he drank the maple coffee straight from the pot in the Winterthur Hall Common Room. Examination papers were strewn over the oak floors with various stains of espressos, teas, and bourbons. He stared at a rowing oar someone had left behind.