Read Online Mud Vein by Tarryn Fisher - Free Book Online Page A

I’ve seen Isaac do things that most wouldn’t. But that’s just Isaac.
    “Maybe lifting someone else’s weight makes yours a little more bearable,” he says.
    We catch eyes at the same time. I look away first. What can you say to that? It’s romantic and foolish, and I don’t have the heart to argue. It would have been kinder if someone had broken Isaac Asterholder’s heart at some point. Being stuck on love was a real bitch to cure. Like cancer, I think. Just when you think you’re over it, it comes back.
     
    We take another shot right before I snap my last piece of the puzzle into place. It’s the Waldo piece from underneath my coffee cup. Isaac is only half finished. His mouth gapes when he sees.
    “What?” I say. “I gave you a good head start.” I get up to go take my shower.
    “You’re a savant,” he calls after me. “That wasn’t fair!”
     
     
    I don’t hate Isaac. Not even a little bit.

The days melt. They melt into each other until I can’t remember how long we’ve been here, or if it’s supposed to be morning or night. The sun never stops with the damn light. Isaac never stops with the damn pacing. I lie still and wait.
     
    Until it comes. Clarity, bleeding through my denial, warm against my numb brain. Warm—it’s a word I’m becoming less and less familiar with. Isaac has become increasingly worried about the generator lately. He calculates how long we’ve been here. “It’s going to run out of gas. I don’t know why it hasn’t already…”
    We turned off the heat and used the wood from the closet downstairs. But now we are running out of wood. Isaac has rationed us down to four logs a day. Any day now the generator could run out of fuel. It is Isaac’s fear that we will no longer be able to get water through the faucet without the power. “We can burn things in the house for heat,” he tells me. “But once we run out of water we’re dead.”
    My feet are cold, my hands are cold, my nose is cold; but right now, my brain is cooking something. I press my face into the pillow and will it away. My brain is sometimes like a rogue Rubik’s cube. It twists until it finds a pattern. I can figure out any movie, any book within five minutes of starting it. It’s almost painful. I wait for it to pass, the twisting. My mind can see the picture that Isaac has been looking for. While he, no doubt, paces the kitchen, I get up and sit on the floor in front of my dwindling fire. The wood is hard against my legs, but wood absorbs heat and I’d rather be warm and uncomfortable than cold and cushioned. I’m trying to distract my thoughts, but they are persistent. Senna! Senna! Senna! My thoughts sound like Yul Brynner. Not girl voice, not my voice, Yul Brynner’s voice. Specifically in The Ten Commandments .
    “Shut up, Yul,” I whisper.
    But, he doesn’t shut up. And no wonder I didn’t see it before. The truth is more twisted than I am. If I am right, we will be home soon; Isaac with his family, me with mine. I giggle. If I am right, the door will open and we can walk to a place where there is help. All of this will be over. And it’s a good thing, too, we are down to a dozen logs. When my toes are thawed, I stand and head downstairs so that I can tell him.
    He’s not in the kitchen. I stand for a moment at the sink where I usually find him looking out the window. The faucet has a drip. I watch it for a minute before turning away. The whiskey we were drinking a few nights ago is still on the counter. I screw off the cap and take a swig straight from the bottle. The lip feels warm. I wonder if Isaac was in here doing the same thing. I flinch, lick my lips and take two more deep sips. I walk boldly up the stairs, swinging my arms as I go. I’ve learned that if you move all of your limbs at once you can chase some of the cold away.
    Isaac is in the carousel room. I find him sitting on the floor staring up at one of the horses. This is unusual. It’s typically my spot. I slide