Tiger Winter - 10. Family

Coming home felt exactly like coming home should. The sun shone, reflecting brilliant highlights on the white snow and causing Emmett to reach instantly into his pocket for his yellow-tinted sunglasses. Jian narrowed his eyes and peered out into the blue and white landscape of the north.

“Here,” Emmett handed the not-tiger his spare pair of slightly darker shades, and failed to resist the temptation to stroke his palm over Jian’s new ‘ears’. “You won’t need them for long, the sun’ll go behind a cloud and then it’ll be dark as quick as blinking.”

“I’m hungry.”

“We missed lunch,” Emmett replied. “There are snacks in the car, and home isn’t far from here. Mom will start feeding you up as soon as she sees you.” Emmett inhaled a deep breath as he looked around the train station. It was hardly enough to be called that; just one platform raised up to the level of the train, a ticket office smaller than a postage stamp which also sold maps and compasses, a long ramp and a set of concrete steps down to street level which had to be brushed off daily, sometimes hourly. It was the sight that had greeted him for eight years of return trips back home, and with the bright blue sky, the white snow, and the town nestled between hummocks and drifts nearly as tall as the buildings.

It really wasn’t more than a ten minute drive from the station to the Garrick house, but Emmett decided to take the long route, drive along Main Street by the frozen river and show Jian his town. In the Chevy, Emmett flipped on the heater and warmed the frigid air that had accumulated in their five hour trip.

“I’m sorry I fell asleep on you,” Jian touched the rim of his new hood gently, “and thank you. This is the best hoodie in existence.”

Emmett grinned secretly to himself.

“You’re welcome.” He refrained from telling Jian he had fallen asleep too, and had been hyper aware of the boy, his warmth and his heartbeat the entire time. For the first time he had not dreamt, but had simply held onto the thread of consciousness that told him where Jian was.

“What’s that?” Jian pointed across the frozen Moose River to a collection of buildings on an island in the centre of the ice, “is that another part of Moosonee?”

“No. That’s Moose Factory.”

Jian stared at him, slack-jawed.

“They grow those in factories up here? Jeez…”

Emmett ruffled his ears and hood, and then took the turning away from the river.

“It’s our sister town. Technically they’re separate but all the Moose River kids come to high school at Northern Lights; that’s where I went. We have a sort-of pseudo-rivalry, but it’s really friendly. My first boyfriend lived in Moose Factory.”

“Is he still there?” Jian wondered aloud.

“Nah, he moved to San Francisco to get a tan. I think he became an actor, but nothing that ever actually made it: commercials and low-budget stuff.” Emmett blinked, because he hadn’t thought about Remy in years. “It was more than ten years ago; I doubt it matters.”

“Still, it’s nice to know things about your life.” Jian knocked Emmett’s shoulder with his own, “now, I remember Rye, because I spoke to him. And you have another brother?”

“Logan.”

And a sister called… Tilda?”

“That’s right.”

“And she’s a lawyer or something? What are your parent’s names? You never told me.”

“Here’s the house.”

“Xue…” Jian’s petulance was somehow incredibly endearing, and Emmett reached across the cab to ruffle his ‘ears’ again.

“Pop’s name is Jacob, my step mom is Kateri; she’s half Cree.” Emmett turned the wheel has the headed for the driveway. “Don’t worry Tiger, they’ll love you.” He pulled the Chevy up next to his brother’s green Toyota Hilux, the big arctic truck emblazoned with the family business. If Logan adored one thing more than any other; he lavished attention on his truck. Emmett knew from experience it was the best kept, most shiny, and most pumped-up vehicle in town.

“Northland Fisheries?”

“Family business.”

“But you had to go get the ‘smart’ gene from your grandpa and run away south…”

Emmett’s attention snapped to the voice of his father, standing in the doorway in snow boots and a heavy-knit fisherman’s jumper.

“Pop!”

“My boy!”

Emmett ran to him. He was bigger than his father, but two bears hugging were enough to knock snow from the porch roof. Emmett inhaled the scent of his father, so much like his own, just with much more salt-sharpness to it, and he realised how much he’d missed his family. He’d been away too long.

“You’ve got grand timing. Your brother just made hot chocolate.” When the two men let each other go, Jacob looked over his son’s shoulder to the diminutive Chinese man who stood in their driveway. “Well, you must be the tiger. That’s some sweater you got there.” Jian grinned at Emmett. “You’d best come and meet everyone.”

Ryley smelt them just before Emmett rounded the corner in the kitchen, and within seconds there was the sound of crockery getting broken. Jacob sighed and smiled at his children.

“I keep thinking we should just replace everything we own with plastic…”

“You got taller!” Emmett held Rye’s shoulders and measured his brother against himself, “I missed you, little brother.”

“One of these days you’ll turn up and I’ll be bigger than you,” Ryley laughed and reached out to touch Emmett’s hair, “looks much better now.” Emmett was about to hug him again, but Ryley let him go and stepped around him to where Jian stood with his hood pushed back and his hands in the deep pockets of the tiger hoodie. “Hey Jian! It’s so good to meet you.”

For a long second, Emmett was jealous of his brother, who did something Emmett had never done, and wrapped his arms around the little Chinese man, hugging him tight and lifting him from the floor. Jian hugged him back before being returned from the floor and Rye pulled the edge of his hood up and positioned the ears in their proper place.

“Knew you’d look great in stripes… c’mon Emm, the snow’ll melt!”

Emmett half shrugged at his friend, and he felt guilty for leaving Jian with his family, but only for a second. When they’d been cubs, Emmett’s father had re-designed the back porch into something similar to an airlock. He and Rye shed their clothes, pulling shirts and jumpers over their heads just slow enough not to rip the fabric. Rye grinned at him, excitement overtaking potential cold or embarrassment as they stripped naked and slammed out the door. The snow outside with thick and plush, and Emmett knew that his brother had avoided going outside so they could make a mess of flurries everywhere together. They changed into their fur as they ran, ending up skidding to a halt in a drift of snow, Rye slamming against him, his fur a brighter shade of white than Emmett’s own.

“Haaroom!”

“Waarooll.”

Ryley tackled him, and Emmett ducked, put his head and shoulders under his brother’s chest and flipped him over. They snapped and snarled at each other, the rough-and-tumble full of snarls and growls. To anyone else it would look like a real fight, the two bears with their teeth bared, black and pink tongues curling. Only their ears gave them away, and once Rye had pinned his brother in the mess of the snow, Emmett nuzzled and licked under his chin and neck until Rye buried his face in his brother’s ruff and with a happy purr.

“I miss you too.”

“I’m sorry I was gone so long,” Emmett wrapped his arms around the smaller bear, “I didn’t mean to.”

“I’m still gonna beat you on the ice big brother,” Ryley nipped his shoulder, “and you’re taking me fishing.”

Emmett hugged him again, rolling them in the snow until he had Rye tight against his chest. The smaller bear grunted.

“You’re gonna crush me, Emm.”

“Don’t care.” Emmett held on until he and Rye smelt exactly the same, and he had memorized, once again, the sound of his brother’s heartbeat.

“I think your boyfriend is staring at us.”

“He’s not my boyfriend,” Emmett grumbled; but sure enough, Jian was standing just outside the back door in the snow boots Emmett had bought him with his hood up, looking every inch the perfect little tiger. He didn’t look unhappy, but his smile was faint. “Oops.”

“You’d better go make nice.” Rye disentangled himself from their pile of fur and morphed back into his skin as he stood shoulder to shoulder with Jian. “I’ll go finish the hot chocolate.”

Emmett shook himself all over from nose to tail, shedding powder snow as he did so, and then paced across the ruined lawn to his friend. Jian’s smile widened and he reached out chilly fingertips towards the polar bear. Emmett pushed his head into the touch with a happy noise.

“Your family are mad,” Jian giggled, “I met your grandma. She said Logan and your grandfather are out on the ice? I like her; she gave me cookies.” Emmett chuckled. His grandmother was always baking something and feeding someone. “You and Rye get on really well, don’t you?” Jian sighed, and the noise made Emmett suddenly sad. Jian must have sensed the shift in his emotions, because his brow furrowed and he stroked down Emmett’s muzzle with his slim fingers. “Don’t be blue, it’s OK. I wish I had brothers; it would be so much fun. I love my cousin’s well enough, but I know they’re always careful around me: they think I’m breakable.”

Emmett wuffed, pulled Jian towards his body, then head butted him into the snow.

“You don’t though, obviously.” Jian got up and slammed his shoulder into Emmett as hard as he could. Standing on two legs, it was just enough to tip Emmett over. “You overgrown teddy bear you!”

“Wrroam!”

“Sorry Xue-bear,” he sniffed the air, “I smell chocolate!” Jian walked into the air-lock, but turned to look over his shoulder in the porch. “Are you coming?”

Emmett stared pointedly at his discarded clothes, and Jian arched an eyebrow.

“Oh, right. I’ll, er… see you inside.”

Emmett waited until he’d vanished before shifting into his skin, pulling on jeans, socks and taking a green Northland Fisheries hoodie off a hook piled high with pre- and post-shift clothing. He scowled at his erection as he tucked the hot hard flesh into his jeans.

“You’re no bloody use at all.”

*

“So Emmett’s standing on the ice holding this fuc- flipping, huge fish. Sorry pop. And he decides that is a good moment to shift forms.”

“He’s always been nuts,” Tilda pitched in.

“And the damn salmon wasn’t dead yet. So it flips its tail, and it probably weighed as much as you do Tiger, and Emmett here ends up back in the water in his skin.”

Jian winced in sympathy.

“That’s gotta hurt, right?”

“You would not believe all of the shouting,” Logan laughed, “and he lost the damn fish.”

“I swear the sod is still out there somewhere. He was huge.”

“Boys and their fishing stories…” Emmett’s grandmother tutted at them all, “they tell me all the time about this fish they supposedly catch, but not one of them has ever brought me anything more than two feet long.”

“There was that perch…” his grandfather began.

“Which I never saw neither,” she winked conspiratorially at Jian, “never trust a fisherman honey.”

“Emmett’s not a fisherman though.”

It was Rye’s turn to laugh.

“We’ve got it in our blood Tiger, can’t be helped. Just ‘cause Emm sounds smart…”

Emmett kicked his little brother good-naturedly under the table.

“Oh, Xue’s plenty smart.” When Jian smiled at him, Emmett’s heart started beating erratically again. “And he has all the best books.”

“You think we live in a library now, wait until you see grandpa’s collection.” When Jian looked confused, Emmett expanded with, “he owns and runs the only library in town.”

“You people scare me,” Logan shook his head, “all this reading is dangerous, gives a bear ideas…”

Tilda hit him with a bread roll, and for the next few minutes the conversation was full of squeals and shouts until the ‘adults’ made them all calm down.

As he ate his salted cod, dipping bread into the delicious oily sauce his grandma had made from leftover mackerel pieces, Emmett couldn’t help but be pleased at how easily his family accepted Jian. Equally wonderful were all of Jian’s smiles, his questions, and inquisitive smirks as he was told stories of many of their more famous antics. He ate everything he was given, without question, and Emmett began to wonder where the skinny little not-tiger put it all. His family were curious about Jian, and in between stories that were practically legend, they probed him for details of his life and his family and what he’d been doing while he travelled from beach to beach. Emmett was surprised that some of the questions had never occurred to him.

“I was a life guard for a while, and that was good fun: I never really had to do anything. I spent part of last winter in Australia as a telemarketer, boring as hell – but we didn’t start until ten and it left plenty of time to catch the morning waves.”

“Isn’t it cold to surf in the winter?” Rye asked.

“Coming from a guy who was naked in the snow two hours ago?” Jian laughed. “We wear wetsuits, it’s not bad.”

“Were you ever in any competitions?” Emmett’s father asked without confidence. Apart from on television, none of them had ever seen anyone surf.

“Nothing big; a few local waves. I got in a magazine once.”

“That’s awesome,” Ryley gaped.

“I’ll show you on the computer: I scanned the clipping and saved it. The picture got seen by a talent agency, so the rest of the time I was in Australia I did a bit of modelling.”

Emmett blinked.

“You were a model?”

“Uh-huh,” Jian shrugged, like it was nothing, “pass the potatoes please.”

When dinner was over, Jian instantly jumped up to start collecting plates, but the eight members of the Garrick family got him back in his seat again. Kateri smiled at him.

“Guest’s aren’t allowed to help: I’d been married to this man three years before I was allowed to clean up after dinner. Let the kids do it and come relax on the sofa.” Emmett watched longingly as his friend was led away into the other room, leaving him alone in the company of his siblings, and a lot of dirty plates.

“So…?” Tilda asked when they were all in the kitchen, hands on hips.

“So, what?”

“This is the first guy you have ever brought home,” she stated. Emmett started to complain, but his sister held up a hand to stop him. “Sneaking boy’s up to your room does not count, especially since you aren’t that subtle and everyone who lives here has a nose like a bloodhound. How did this happen?”

“He’s not my boyfriend.” None of them believed him. “He’s not!”

“Why not?” Logan had begun to fill the sink with hot water from the continual thin trickle that ran through the main pipeline to stop it freezing. “Seems like a real stand-up kind of guy. I like him.”

Emmett shook his head silently, and turned himself to the mammoth task of scrubbing clean all the pots, pans and casserole dishes which had been needed to make dinner for nine people, five of whom ate rather enormous quantities. As much as he loved all of his siblings, he did not want to talk about, or try and explain, the reasons he and Jian were not together. It had been less than a week since he had been happily tucked up on the sofa with Zeke cuddled against his chest, not-watching appalling television and feeling generally hungry the entire time. In the natural course of Emmett’s relationship history, he had never cheated, never strayed, and never jumped from being in mutual-useful-and-beneficial-lust with someone to being in love with another. Of course, Emmett had never been in love before, and he could not bring himself to admit to the idea, even in his own head, that what he felt for Jian was anything more than the love anyone would feel for a good friend. It was a lot like the way he felt about Ryley: except he didn’t dream about his little brother naked.

“So, he’s not actually a tiger?” Tilda asked as they finished wiping the last of the plates and glasses.

“No, his mother is like you, and she married a human.”

“That’s gotta suck,” Rye muttered.

“Nothing wrong with being human,” she flicked her younger sibling with a tea towel, “don’t start being all species-proud on me now.”

“Tilda!” Rye retreated to the familiar space under Emmett’s arm. “I just mean if all his uncles and cousins are tigers, it must be really easy to feel left out.”

Emmett hugged his brother, and then turned away from the conversation.

“I don’t really wanna talk about him behind his back.” In the big living room, Jian sat on the end of a couch, sipping lemonade and listening intently to his grandmother tell stories about Emmett as a baby. When the not-tiger saw him, Emmett half-hoped he hadn’t imagined the flash of happiness in his eyes. “You wanna help me get the rest of the stuff out of the truck?”

“Sure,” Jian jumped up. Earlier all they had brought in were their day-bags from the front seat.

“I made up your room for you, Emm.” Emmett glanced at his father, who despite all probability was folding laundry. In the long pause, it was Kateri who illuminated them with the end of her husband’s sentence.

“We’ll make you up a bed down here Jian: you get the sofa, but I promise it’s not that bad.”

“It’s OK,” Jian shrugged, “I can sleep anywhere.”

Emmett was silent as he walked out to the Chevy. It was fully dark outside, the snow reflecting very little light from the overcast sky. When Emmett turned on the trucks interior light, it threw weird orange shadows over the pale ground. When his father had spoken, leaving the sentence hanging in the air like the sword of Damocles, Emmett had felt a strange and fierce joy, mixed in equal parts with terror and desire, that his family had ignored his instruction that Jian needed his own room. Even when he’d said it to Rye, his brain had known there was no extra room in an already packed house. He and Logan had shared a room growing up, Tilda had her own and Ryley’s room had been built out of the roof space as he’d gotten older. Once Tilda had moved out, Emmett had relocated into her slightly smaller room, redecorating it to suit his tastes whenever he had returned home from university. With his father and stepmother, the four bedroom house was at capacity, so it should not have surprised Emmett that the only place for his friend to end up was on the couch. He was relieved, disappointed, and he felt guilty.

“Jian? Are you sure you’re gonna be OK with the sofa?”

“Sure,” the little not-tiger looked through the cab at him, “it’s not like there’s anywhere else to sleep. I like your brother well enough, but I’m not exactly gonna top and tail with him.”

“Ha,” Emmett laughed breathlessly, because he felt he was supposed to, “I mean, you can have my room. I’ll kip downstairs.”

“Thanks Xue, but no: keep your bed.” Jian grinned at him, glancing up and down Emmett’s immense height, “it’s not like you would actually fit; you’d fall off both ends of the couch.”

Jian dumped his duffel at the end of the sofa, and then with an armful of hastily concealed presents, followed Emmett to his room. His was the smallest, because he’d already moved out, but there was room enough for an extended-length double bed and a half empty chest of drawers. Jian put everything he was carrying down on the floor as directed, then sat on the bed while Emmett began to make a neat stack in the corner of his things and started to sort through them for stuff that needed to be hidden under the tree, and groceries he would secrete into kitchen cupboards over the next few weeks in order to surprise his family.

“You told me you played hockey: you never said you were good at it.” Jian was examining Emmett’s two trophies and small collection of team medals. They sat on a shelf below a Northern Lights High School pennant pinned to the wall, and a photograph of Emmett’s senior year team, decked out in their purple and yellow uniforms, cheering on the ice.

“I wasn’t good like Rye is,” Emmett beamed with pride, “he doesn’t play for the high school; he got signed with the Capital Wolves two years ago and plays all over the place up here now.”

“Is he going to turn pro?”

“That’s the plan. He’ll need to join a junior’s team soon for three of four years before he can get into the big leagues though.” Emmett gestured to a Toronto Maple Leafs pennant which hung on the other wall. “That’s the goal. I know dad doesn’t want him to leave Moosonee. He didn’t want me to leave either, but if he gets into the Maple Leafs then he’ll be in Toronto with me.” Emmett smiled to himself. The idea of having his brother living close by, or maybe even with him, was something that had helped him sleep better in the long months since they’d seen each other last.

Jian lay back on Emmett’s bed with a sigh.

“Maybe I should steal your room: kidding!” He glanced up and frowned, “there are stars on your ceiling Xue.”

Sure enough, the ceiling in Emmett’s room was painted a mid-blue tone, and the constellations of the heavens were picked out in yellow and white.

“You know I like maps, right?” Emmett laughed. The ceiling had been his project when he had arrived home the first winter of his PhD. He’d spent a long time staring up at the ceiling his first night, wishing he didn’t feel so lonely. The next day, he’d gone and bought the paint. “You like it?”

“I don’t really know much about stars,” Jian replied, “teach me?”

“Shift over,” Emmett commanded. The boy did as he was bid and Emmett lay down beside him, but made sure to keep a gap between their bodies; even so, he could feel Jian’s heat radiating down his side, and he really hoped the not-tiger couldn’t smell the rising cloud of pink in the air.

“Right up there, that’s the pole star. When it’s clear I’ll show it to you; it’s pretty bright from this far north. In this ring,” he gestured to the thin white line inscribed over head, “are all the circumpolar constellations. They revolve around the north pole, so people living on the lower half of the planet never see them.”

“Are there ones down there you’ve never seen?”

“Sure,” Emmett shrugged, “they tend to have less interesting names because there weren’t as many cultures drawing maps in the sky though.” He gestured to a long chain of stars near the pole, “that’s Draco, the dragon. The Greeks kinda of got a monopoly on star names and a lot of them stuck. Apparently he’s a dragon or serpent killed by Hercules. Just east of him is Ursa Minor: the little bear. I call him Ryley.”

“That doesn’t look like a bear,” Jian tilted his head, their skulls within an inch of each other, “it looks like a box with a stick attached. These Ancient Greeks of yours were high on drugs, weren’t they?”

“They were very creative. Little Bear’s tail tip is actually the pole star, so he’s kinda important, and his ‘big brother’ Ursa Major, is over here.” When Jian pointed, Emmett took his hand and guided him to the stars that made up the body of the Great Bear. “Greek legend says the bear was originally a man, and Zeus’s wife was having an affair with him. When Zeus found out, he turned the man into a bear, along with his son, and put them up in the sky.”

“Why would he do that? It seems like a lot of effort.”

Emmett shrugged.

“The Greeks were sort of weird,” he conceded. “Now if you follow the head of the bear,” Emmett still hadn’t let go of Jian’s wrist, “you’ll find a bright star,” he had painted it with touches of orange in the yellow, and a sunburst effect to enhance it, “that’s Arcturus: the bear-keeper. His job is to guide the bears along the right path so they don’t go running off over the sky.”

“What about them?” Jian pointed to a group of stars just south and east of the bear.

“Well, it depends who you ask. According to Inuit legend, they are qimmiitt, a group of five dogs who chase the Great Bear. Those two,” he gestured to a pair which were drawn brighter than the others, “are actually Castor and Pollux, The Twins, and the constellation they’re in makes up Gemini. All of the zodiac star signs are arranged around the outer ring.”

“How come?”

“Well if you lived in Europe, it would be the constellation which took up much of the direct sky during any month. When a baby was born, it was said to ‘belong’ to that star sign.”

“Huh, that makes even less sense than the Chinese zodiac.”

“At least you guys have more animals in yours.”

“Yeah,” Jian scoffed, “and I was born in the Year of the Goat, which makes no sense at all. Goat people are supposed to be charming and gifted, or creative, elegant, and shy: I’m not any of those things!” Emmett disagreed silently. “Why couldn’t I be born in the Year of the Tiger?”

“Surely not all your cousins were born in a Tiger year?”

“No, but they’re all first trine animals: stronger, braver, more charismatic, and more determined. I’m a prey animal, a fucking Goat… have you any idea of the reception that gets in the Kiang dynasty?”

“I doubt it actually matters that much Tiger,” Emmett knocked his head gently against Jian’s hood, “Maybe the sky will be clear tomorrow and I can show you the stars for real.”

“Will The Great Spirits be out?”

“I promise I’ll come get you the moment they make an appearance.”

When Jian yawned, Emmett realised how late it had become. The knowledge was followed rather quickly by the realisation he was laying, albeit fully dressed, on his bed with a young man whom he not only found very attractive, but in who’s company his heart beat erratically. Emmett sat up suddenly enough to make his head spin, and coughed softly.

“We should get your bed set up. I’ll go find where Kateri has put the blankets.” Emmett left his friend sitting on his mattress, and wondered how he was ever going to get the sleep with the red-orange sun-warm scent of the beautiful young man permeating his duvet.

His step mother had placed a stack of blankets and a thick quilted comforter on the end of the sofa, and Emmett found a pair of pair pillows in the linen cupboard his father had built around the boiler in the centre of the house. As he was laying a thin, soft blanket over the couch, Logan appeared from the kitchen with a steaming mug of what Emmett suspected from experience was cheap vodka mixed with hot milk.

“You’re making his bed…”

“Shut up Logan.”

“Just sayin’ bro,” Logan arched a pale eyebrow, “Pop and Kateri went to bed already, and Tilda took the grandparent’s home. What were you guys doing?”

“We were looking at the stars.”

“Uh-huh,” Logan did not sound like he believed his elder brother, “’night Emmett.”

Emmett scowled at his sibling’s retreating back, and finished spreading the final comforter over Jian’s bed.

“Thanks.”

“Hey…” Emmett straightened up and cleared his throat, “so um, I cleared some space in the bathroom for your stuff, and if you want to you can put your other clothes in the little closet in the hall,” he grinned, “at least no one is going to steal your stuff.”

Jian frowned.

“Your brothers steal your clothes?”

“And pop: we’re all as bad as each other really. But nothing you own would fit even Rye…”

“I’m not that short,” Jian shot back, “you people are just pointlessly tall.” He paused, and then looked up at Emmett, his eyes all aglow, “thank you Xue.”

“You’re welcome,” Emmett blinked. Jian was only a few feet away, and it would be easy to reach out and touch him: the polar bear resisted. “Good night, Tiger.”

Emmett brushed his teeth and shut himself into his room. Even though Jian had only been there for an hour or so, everything now smelt like him. He left his clothes in a pile on the floor and crawled into bed, half wishing he wasn’t alone, and a little bit wishing he was back in Toronto, and that he could distract himself from the way he felt by calling Zeke. His now ex-boyfriend had been completely right, even though Emmett hated to admit it. They hadn’t loved each other; it had just been mutually convenient. Zeke had said Jian loved him, but Emmett still couldn’t shake the sadness he’d felt from the boy the first night he and Zeke had spent together in the house on Collier Street.

He fell asleep dreaming of orange and black stripes in the snow.

*

“Hey…”

“Nnghh?”

“Tiger… c’mon Jian, wake up.”

“Xue-bear?” Jian’s voice was thick with sleep, and he blinked heavily at the image of Emmett hovering over him, holding his tiger-hoodie, “what’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong, Tiger. Get up, trust me.” Emmett watched as his friend pulled the hoodie on over his bare chest and shuffled into discarded jeans. He handed spare socks to Jian, and still blinking, the little not-tiger followed him to the back porch. They grabbed their boots, and then Emmett turned to smile at him. “I promised you. Sorry it’s the middle of the night.”

“Xue?”

“C’mon Tiger.”

There was a fresh layer of snow outside, and the fall had cleaned up the mess Emmett and Rye had made in the garden. But the snow wasn’t white, and the sky wasn’t overcast. Instead the sky shone with a million stars, and the snow was blue, then pink, and green, and Emmett watched as his friend turned his face upwards, ears pricked as a shiver ran up his spine at the sight of The Great Spirits dancing high over them.

“Ohh…” Jian sounded like he was in love, and Emmett smiled.

The Spirits wove in the night sky, bathing them in ever changing light, and although Emmett knew, scientifically, that they were high altitude magnetic particles which refracted the light of the unseen sun, but his heart soared, because he also knew all the legends his father and grandparents had told him were true, and the spirits of the dead flew in the sky in a riot of colour.

“They’re beautiful…”

“I told you,” Emmett sighed, “sorry for waking you.”

“The Northern Lights,” his friend’s voice was reverential, “I never thought they’d be so wonderful.”

Emmett had seen the sky light up with a dozen colours and dancing to unheard cries of joy more times than he could remember, let alone count: but never had he seen the light so bright or clear, the colours so vivid and the patterns so beautiful as when he watched The Northern Lights reflected in Jian’s eyes, staining his tan and smiling face. He stood in the snow with his tiger-eared hood sheltering him from the cold, and Emmett couldn’t imagine a better reason to wake up at three in the morning and get out of a warm, comfortable bed.