Waking (11 page)
Poe stood up and looked at her, grinning goofily. Snow dusted his arms and legs like icing sugar. There was a striped scarf wrapped around his neck.
“Hi,” he said.
She blinked. “Hi. What are you doing?”
“I got your e-mail.”
She cringed, blushing. “Oh. I suppose it's too late to ask you not to read it and to toss your computer out the window?”
He just kept grinning. “I loved it.”
“Look, I know⦔ She paused, tilted her head. “What?”
“You heard me.”
She grinned back. “Want to come inside for some hot chocolate?”
“Sure.” He dug his guitar case out of the snow and followed her inside. He sat at the kitchen table and shook snow out of his hair. She poured a cup and gave it to him, not meeting his eyes.
“You're embarrassed.”
She thought of the little girl in her dream. “Duh,” she said with a half-smile.
“I get embarrassed too, especially when I have to sing alone without the band.” He unlatched the case and pulled out his battered acoustic guitar. He propped it on his knee and tuned it without a word.
Then he sang to her, her favorite song, soft and intimate, while the snow continued to fall from white white clouds.
Several months later,
when Beauty's father's fear of needles and sharp things had mostly passed, she found herself at a tattoo parlor. It was winter, and ice coated the streets and the sidewalks. It glit
tered like a painting.
She left with a small tattoo on the inside of her left wristâ a red red rose, the same color as her hair.
Born in Montreal, Alyxandra Harvey-Fitzhenry studied creative writing and literature at York University. When not writing, she is a belly dancer and yoga practitioner. Her hobbies also include jewelery-making, art shrines and collages. Alyx lives in rural Ontario with her husband and three dogs, Medusa, a Bouvier, Yoda, a Corgi, and Hannah, a Cockapoo.