Night Chills

Felix Barclay cherished visiting his grandma every summer when school let out. It was always sunny on the drive. Warm tendrils of light stretched into the backseat of his mother’s SUV to tickle along his skin. She baked the same cookies, white chocolate and orange, and served them up sandwiched around a thick chunk of homemade vanilla ice cream. He craved it all year. Almost as much as the sight of her face. The comfort of her embrace.

His sister was staying the two weeks with them this time. “Felix,” His mother had said, “She’s old enough now to spend a couple weeks with grandma, too. You can share.” But he didn’t want to share. He had to share everything with Shelby. His parents, his toys, his whole world.

Shelby swung her legs against the seat, the heels of her sandals slapping into the faux leather. Hands gripped around a tablet. Sparkly pink headphones balanced on her head. Felix winced at the sight of her. She should be home with dad. The wrongness of it all wouldn’t leave him.

“Please take her home with you.” He pleaded from the backseat. She glowered at him through the rearview mirror.

“That’s enough. You haven’t been an only child in seven years. You need to get used to it.”

“She’s going to ruin everything.”

“Would you like to be the one to return home with me?”

Felix sighed. “No, ma’am.”

“Then process your feelings and move on.”

His eyes returned to the horizon. Knees bobbled. Throat constricted painfully. He couldn’t cry. The last thing he needed was for Shelby to notice him crying, remove her headphones and attempt to comfort him. Yikes.

Felix rummaged through his backpack until his fingers clamped around the worn edges of his book. The fourth book in the Percy Jackson series. Battle of the Labyrinth. No matter how many times he traipsed the many corridors and caverns of the Labyrinth, it never got old. He tingled to know what creatures hid around each corner.

Real life didn’t have monsters. Just people. And as monstrous as they could be, it wasn’t quite the same as a hundred-handed giant or a metal-working sea demon. Felix wasn’t over the disappointment.

Soon, the trees unveiled Grandma’s white vertical clapboard house. Bright red front door, brick fireplace. Lake Cushman loomed in the distance. Grandma on the front step, arms blown wide. Felix held his breath from the moment he spotted her until he exploded from the backseat into her arms. Then the tears couldn’t be repressed any longer.

“Hello, Beetle!” She sang into his hair. “Where’s my Sherbet?”

Shelby, sans the tablet and headphones, squished into grandma’s embrace alongside Felix. The crying intensified. He fought back against the onslaught, the liquid discomfort slurping through his organs.

“Hey, now...” Grandma cooed into his ear. “You’re alright. Talk to me.”

Felix shook his head and burrowed deeper into her warmth. After a few minutes, mom pried him off to hold him close. She brushed hair back from his face. Wiped his red eyes. “You are going to have an amazing time with grandma and Shelby. Things don’t have to be your way to still be good.”

“My way is what makes things good.” He argued, arms folded across his chest.

She ruffled his hair one last time, pressed a kiss to Shelby’s cheek. “I can come back to get you any time. But if I bring one of you home, I’ll bring both of you home.” Her gaze fixed on Felix’s face. “Understand?”

He nodded. The thickness in the back of his throat throbbed. “Yes, ma’am.

Felix anchored back in his chair after polishing off a second ice cream sandwich. Grandma had outdone herself this time. Instead of just white chocolate and orange cookies with vanilla ice cream, she also made peanut butter chocolate chip cookies with chocolate ice cream. Shelby’s favorite. He shared a slow, satisfied smile with his little sister.

Streaks of chocolate ice cream around her mouth, a smear of chocolate chip across her forehead. Shelby downed the last of her strawberry lemonade. “Can I have another one?”

Grandma laughed, stroking her hand through Shelby’s hair. “If you did that, you wouldn’t have room for dinner.”

“What’s for dinner?”

“Your favorite. Let’s get cleaned up and go down to the beach for a couple hours.”

Confined in a pine tree prison, Lake Cushman bubbled and frothed like an overfilled birdbath. Campsites, and other tourist accommodations surrounded the outskirts. They parked as close to the beach as they could manage.

Shelby had her sandals off, hot pink to purple mermaid tail one-piece glimmering in the sun, before grandma could finish locking up the car. She charged into the water screeching, “Bonzai!”

Grandma flipped up her sunglasses and fixed Felix with a baffled stare. “Bonzai?”

“Don’t ask.”

Despite his strict determination not to enjoy a moment of Shelby’s company, Felix had more fun that afternoon than previous beach visits. Grandma stretched out on the sand in a camp chair. Sunblock on her nose. Book in hand. Just like always. Shelby dragged him in and immediately roped him and a pair of sisters building a sandcastle on the shore into a game of Marco Polo. It dissolved quickly into straight Tag. Then a siblings sandcastle building competition after Felix accidentally stood on the one the sisters had been working on.

On the drive back to grandma’s house, Felix massaged his sore jaw and avoided eye contact with his little sister. He hadn’t laughed that hard in a long time.

Over the last month, he hadn’t been very kind to her. Complaining loudly about having to share his vacation time with her. Picking her apart and putting her down in any way he could think of to convince his parents not to let her come. And still, here she was. Not punishing him for his rudeness but including him in her play. Shame itched along the back of his neck.

That night, Grandma tucked both of them up into the loft bedroom. To accommodate, she had added a second twin bed, this one with a white comforter covered in pink, lavender, grey and mint unicorns. His was still the construction vehicles he had been obsessed with at five. He didn’t have the heart to tell her he’d outgrown it.

Felix snuggled into the warmth like a stray hair smoothed back into place. With the sounds of grandma filing away some forgotten toys, clicking off lamps, he dipped into a dreamless sleep.

Ice cold fingers trailed down Felix’s arm, across his forehead. He shuddered violently. Stretched his arms out to clump his blankets back around his body to grasp at air.

Filmy and crusted around the edges, he ripped his eyes open to peer around. His blanket wasn’t on his bed. It wasn’t on the floor.

Moonlight filtered in through the gauzy white curtains over the single window. Shelby lay asleep in her bed, a soft snore rumbling.

Felix’s teeth chattered. Bare feet hitting cold floors, he eased off the bed until it no longer supported his weight.

He tiptoed down the stares to the living room. The couch, behind the television, tucked behind the chair. Nothing.

Bladder screaming, he paused his search to use the facilities. His brain twisted around all the details he knew into an intangible mess. What was happening? His teeth still chattered but he was no longer cold.

Hands submerged in barely warm water, he scoured his appearance for signs of a mental breakdown. Was that something you could see from the outside? He knew adults broke sometimes. Did kids? He was double digits now. Maybe that made him destructible.

He’d gone to bed with the blanket. Burrowed in it like a bear hibernating for the winter.

Shelby. It had to be. He’d been coming to grandma’s every summer for five years and nothing like this had happened.

Brow scrunched up his eyes, Felix stormed back upstairs, grabbed her roughly by the arm and shook. She groaned and attempted to roll out of his reach. Encountering wall with no end in sight to the shaking, she finally shoved at his hand and blinked open her eyes.

“Felix? What?” She grumbled.

“What did you do with my blanket?” His voice was low. Balanced. Calm.

“What?” She rubbed her eyes, pupils rolling back into her head.

“Where did you put my blanket?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

With a scoff, he released her arm. “Sure, you don’t.”

She didn’t respond. A soft snore filled the silence.

Felix stomped back downstairs, no longer concerned over whether he woke someone, to the linen closet. Resting on the top of the stack of blankets lay his comforter.

Grandma drove them the hour to the Bug and Reptile Museum. It was tradition for them to return every year and greet any new creatures, mourn the loss of old ones. He favored the Uromastyx. Shelby preferred the white Ball Python. From there, they picked up sandwiches and whiled away the rest of the day at Illahee State Park. Skipping stones across the water, exploring the many trails through the woods.

Shelby fell asleep on the drive back. Grandma hummed along to Fleetwood Mac. Felix blinked and the car ride was over.

He tucked his blankets extra tightly around himself that night. No one was stealing his bedding again without waking him.

When Felix awoke, he wasn’t just cold. He was drenched. His pajamas, bottom sheet and hair were flush with water, like he was a sponge soaking it up. His teeth clattered together.

Consciousness came quicker this time. Within a few seconds of sleep abandoning him, he’d noted that both his blanket and pillow were gone. Neither on the floor. Or anywhere else in the room.

Both were stacked neatly in the linen closet once more.

Felix shook Shelby awake. “Stop waking me up.” She moaned, batting his hand away. “This is what we’re supposed to be doing. Go back to bed.”

His jaw flexed, teeth clenched. “I would love to do that. But you keep messing up my ability to do that!”

“I’m just sleeping. Go away.”

He changed his bottom sheet and mattress cover. Sleep didn’t come easily again.

The third night, Felix kissed his grandma goodnight with a plan chugging through his mind. Forget trying to force Shelby to leave him alone by tucking his bedding around himself. Who knew how much he tossed about during the night? He could’ve dislodged it himself before she ever tried to take it from him. Tonight, he would stay awake and catch her in the act.

A few minutes after grandma left them alone, Shelby said, “Felix?”

“What?” His feelings were jumbled. The first three days of his grandma time really had been more enjoyable with her. She involved him in her imagination. Talked him through the complicated social dynamics of reptiles. The hardships a disillusioned tarantula had in life. She’d led them on a hunt for gold at the end of a rainbow.

“Are you still mad I’m here, too?”

He sunk his face into his pillow until he ran out of air. “No.”

“No?”

“Go to sleep.”

Felix stared at the sliver of moonlight highlighting the curtains. Time lost all meaning. Grandma finished her evening chores and shut herself away in her bedroom. Shelby’s breaths evened out, body stilled. He rolled onto his side and practiced saying the alphabet backwards. What was the last letter he was on? J? What came before J? I? His eyes closed without his notice.

Felix couldn’t breathe. Something was held over his mouth, his nose. His pillow? He desperately sucked at the air to no avail. His thoughts flittered away. Fireflies floating just out of reach. Their lights went out and he plunged into darkness.

The sun still hadn’t risen when Felix next woke. Tears already in his eyes. Adrenaline shot him to his feet. His blanket slid from the bed to the floor with a soft flump. Moonlight dappled off splotches of white on the floor. He sucked in his cheeks and hopped over to the stairs.

After unburdening his bladder, he stood frozen at the sink. Above the faucet and his icy hands fixed on the hot and cold taps. Above their still damp toothbrushes and nearly gone tube of toothpaste.

Smudged across the mirror in white was one word. FELIX.

He paused once more, hand on the doorknob. Logic over panic. He needed to think this through. Maybe he was wrong. Maybe he was being haunted.

What was to stop a ghost from attacking him as soon as he opened the door? All of it’s torment happened while he was asleep, so maybe that wasn’t an issue. That didn’t seem right. Ghosts wouldn’t need to wait for sleep because scaring you is the purpose, and their appearance will aid in that. Only solid creatures need to hide.

Felix threw open the door and stomped back up the stairs. With one hand, he ripped the blanket off Shelby, the other her pillow from beneath her head.

When she woke, she startled so intensely, she rolled off the side of the bed and crashed to the floor. “Ow!”

“Stop stealing my blanket! And dumping water on me! And holding a pillow over my face!”

Lights flicked on downstairs. Tears leaked from the corners of Shelby’s eyes, the beginnings of a wail on her lips. “I didn’t do any of those things!”

Grandma reach the top of the stairs, one hand braced on the railing. “What in the world is going on up here?”

He wheeled around. Head pressurized. “She keeps taking my bedding! And she dumped water on me! And tonight, she held a pillow over my face!”

Brow lowered, she stepped closer, bending shakily to pluck Shelby’s comforter off the floor. “Is that true, Shelby?”

“No! Why would I do that?” She screeched. Smeared her nose over the hem of her nightgown. “He’s making it up, so I can’t come here.”

Grandma pressed her lips together. “You have been quite outspoken about how much you don’t want Sherbet to join us on our summer vacations together.”

“I’m not lying!”

She folded her arms across her chest. “Felix.”

“Why don’t you believe me? Why is it she denies it and you immediately believe her? Just like mom.”

She wrapped him in her warmth and subtle lavender scent. “Did you see Shelby do those things?”

He hesitated for a long moment. Indulged in her comfort. “No. But there isn’t another explanation with any weight.”

She drew back, cupping his face between her palms. “It’s very early. We’re all tired. Let’s go back to bed and discuss this later in the morning.”

“I can’t get to morning because she keeps bothering me!” He protested.

She frowned. “You may sleep on the couch if you feel more comfortable.”

He didn’t. But it would have to do for tonight.

Felix awoke to hushed voices in the kitchen. It was well after 9 and sunlight filled the room. He wrapped his blanket around his shoulders and followed the voices.

Grandma and Shelby sat at the dining table. A mug of coffee and tall glass of untouched apple juice in front of them. Shelby’s face was bright red, already crying. His eyes flickered between the pair.

“What’s going on here?”

Grandma looked to Shelby, nodded. “Go ahead.”

Shelby swallowed a mouthful of juice, eyes focused on her knees. “I don’t know where to start.”

“How about the beginning?”

She sighed, opened her mouth to start and sighed again. “You aren’t a good big brother.”

Felix gaped at her. “What?”

“In all my memories, you are fighting to leave me out. Complaining that I even exist. We don’t have parents, you have parents and share them with me. We don’t go on vacation, you go on vacation and it’s the worst thing ever if I have to come along.”

“That’s not fair,” Felix interjected, but grandma held up a silencing hand.

“Its not fair.” Shelby agreed. “I did nothing to you, and you’ve punished me for just being alive. Being born into your family. I spent a month listening to you beg mom to keep me home. Making up horrible stuff about me if it made your case stronger.”

She took a moment to blow her nose. “I wasn’t trying to hurt you. I just wanted to punish you a little. For everything you’ve put me through. Maybe I could even get you to call mom to come get you and I could spend the last of the time alone with grandma.”

“She wouldn’t have just taken me.”

“I know. But maybe next summer, you wouldn’t have wanted to come back. Then I could’ve ruined your favorite thing the way you always ruin mine.”

The anger that had been building in his gut began to steadily dissipate. Had he really caused this? He’d never considered her feelings. If his words hurt her. If his actions did.

Grandma waved him over, tucking him into her side. “Shelby woke me up at 7 AM on the dot. She said she was in crisis. Let’s talk this out and move forward. The old people in your life, while we love you more than words can express, we will eventually die. And you will still have each other if you choose to. You are both good kids who’ve made big mistakes. We can still turn this visit around.”

There were no more nighttime interruptions for the rest of their visit. The two weeks came to a close, their mother arriving just after lunchtime.

“Goodbye, Beetle.” Grandma murmured into his hair, arms curled around his shoulders and Shelby’s. Felix expanded his arms wider to hold Shelby as well. “See you in a few weeks for Independence Day, Sherbet.”

“Bye.”