The Fourth Day of Midwinter

He lay in the cave, half asleep, half awake. Beside him, Gabu slept soundly. The noises from outside were muted and distant; the only sounds were his and Gabu’s gentle breathing. He looked at Gabu and smiled. This moment of tranquility felt like it could last a lifetime.

As he watched, so slowly that it was almost imperceptible, Gabu’s fur faded to a slightly paler shade of brown. Gabu’s breathing became shallower and more laboured. The tiny twitches and motions that indicated Gabu was alive started to still.

Gabu lay like that for some time. Everything in the cave was completely still. Eventually, with one last sigh, Gabu stopped breathing, and there was silence.

Hoofsteps sounded in the mouth of the cave. He turned to see the pale white goat looking past him. The goat didn’t say anything, but turned and walked back the way it had come, into the blank whiteness outside. Its body disappeared as it crossed the threshold.

Seeing no reason to remain here any longer, he followed it, and everything went white.

Mei awoke. It was still dark, and Gabu was still asleep next to him, still breathing.

“Gabu?” Mei said.

His husband stirred. “Yes, Mei?”

“Can we stay awake together until morning?”

“Nightmares again?”

Mei nodded.

“Of course.”

They could not, in fact, stay awake until morning, although they spent several minutes trying. The remainder of Mei’s night was spent in dreamless sleep.

They visited Janice and Frank again that morning. Little had changed since the day before, and they found they had not much to talk about, but Frank seemed to enjoy their company all the same. They promised to visit again soon.

Afterwards, Gabu and Mei went on a walk around the forest. It wasn’t often that they found themselves on the side of the forest north of the river. Consequently, on occasions such as this, they often found themselves in parts of the forest they had hardly ever explored before.

It was in one such part of the forest, in the patch of woodland furthest northwest, that Gabu and Mei spotted a group of six or seven foxes rolling around and chasing each other in the snow. Immediately, Mei was struck with an idea. He met Gabu’s eyes, whom he could see was thinking along the same lines. Is this a good idea? he asked without asking.

It can’t hurt to try, Gabu replied wordlessly.

They approached the foxes, who stopped playing when they saw them. “Hello,” a friendly looking vixen said. “You’re Gabu and Mei.”

“That’s right,” Gabu said with a warm smile. “I’m sorry, we meet a lot of people. Have we met before?”

“I came to one of your Story Telling Days once,” the vixen said. “You probably don’t remember. It was a long time ago.”

Gabu thought for a while. “Tabitha, right?”

“Close,” the vixen said, smiling in slight surprise. “I’m Tamara.”

Mei didn’t remember her. It might have been one of the Story Telling Days while he’d been away. On the other hand, Gabu was surprisingly good with names, so perhaps Mei had just forgotten.

“We were wondering if any of you might know Takkan,” Mei said. “He’s the fox who put together the play about us a few months ago.”

Some of the foxes exchanged glances. “I’ve heard about him,” Tamara said neutrally. “We’ve never spoken, though.”

“Isn’t he the philosophy fox?” one fox said to the group. It didn’t sound like a compliment.

“I heard he thinks he’s smarter than everyone and plays convoluted tricks on them to prove it,” another fox said. Mei was reminded of the infamous pinecone adventure Takkan had sent him and Gabu on.

“He’s also a really kind person underneath it all,” Gabu said loyally. “Once you get to know him.”

“His boyfriend left him a few weeks ago,” Mei said, hoping he wasn’t sharing too much information, “and he doesn’t really have anyone to spend time with anymore.”

“You just want us to spend some time with him?” Tamara said. She didn’t sound opposed to the idea.

“If you wouldn’t mind,” Gabu said. “I’m sure he’d love to join in with your Midwinter celebrations if you invited him.”

Tamara glanced around at her companions. A few of them shrugged; others nodded. “Okay, let’s do it. It wouldn’t hurt to have a fresh face around.”

Gabu and Mei left the foxes to their games and continued their walk around the forest, crossing back over the river to explore more familiar parts. It wasn’t long before they heard a familiar avian voice laughing with delight. They rounded a bush and saw Hilari, Toto and Riri playing on a fallen, snow-covered log. Hilari and Riri were taking turns to glide down from the log without flapping their wings and land in the snow, where Toto was waiting to see who glided the furthest.

“Uncle Gabu, Uncle Mei!” Hilari said when she saw them.

“Hello!” Gabu said.

“We’re playing a gliding game,” Hilari said. “Can you watch to see how far we get? Then Papa can join in too.”

“Of course,” Mei said.

His and Gabu’s job, as it turned out, was to stand at the furthest point that any of the sparrows had glided to and remember which of them had done so. Whenever one of the sparrows glided past that spot, often aided by a favourable wind, Gabu and Mei would move back accordingly and congratulate the new winner.

As they played, they told the sparrows about what they’d just been doing. “Takkan’s been feeling lonely lately,” Mei said, “so we asked some of the other foxes if he can join in with their celebrations.”

“That’s a nice idea,” Riri said, landing a few inches short of the goal line.

“He’s welcome to play with us whenever he likes,” Toto said, landing behind Riri.

“Thanks,” Mei said. “We’ll let him know in case it doesn’t work out with the foxes, or if he’d rather be with people he knows.”

“It’s kind of silly, everyone keeping to themselves,” Hilari said, soaring past Gabu and Mei by a couple of inches. They moved to where Hilari had landed. “Wasn’t Greta going to get the whole forest together or something?”

“Maybe that’s what will happen tomorrow,” Gabu said. “More people come to Anything Day than any other group, so it would be a good start to everyone celebrating together. Nicely done, by the way.”

Eventually, Toto and Riri got tired of the gliding game. Hilari asked if Gabu and Mei wanted to play around in the snow some more, but Mei politely declined. The reason he gave was that there were more people he wanted to see today, which was true, even if it wasn’t the main reason he didn’t want to play in the snow.

“Who did you want to see?” Gabu asked after they’d said goodbye to the sparrows.

“I want to make sure Sagi knows that the groups are still meeting up even though it’s Midwinter. It’s been a while since we’ve seen him.”

They found Sagi in a clearing on the west side of the forest, and he wasn’t alone. It was the biggest gathering of rabbits Mei had ever seen. Most of them had black fur, like Sagi’s, but a few younger ones had grey and white patches. There must have been at least two or three dozen rabbits, although there was no way Mei could have counted them all.

The rabbits were scooping up snow in their paws, compacting it into balls and throwing it at one another. They were surprisingly accurate. Mei ducked just in time as a ball of snow whistled over his head. Gabu wasn’t so lucky.

It was difficult to pick out any individual rabbit in the swarming mass, so Mei called, “Sagi!” while Gabu shook the snow from his fur.

Most of them ignored him, but Sagi hopped out of the crowd a few seconds later, accompanied by his sister, Sylvia. Gabu and Mei had met Sylvia a few times, but they didn’t know her as well as they knew Sagi.

“Welcome, you two!” Sagi said. “Have you come to be moving targets? Neither of you have the right paw-hooves for throwin’.”

“Is that what Mii was doing with you the other day?” Mei asked.

“We were playing a different game that day,” Sylvia said in a voice that had raised seventeen children practically unaided. “How can we help you?”

“Mei and I were wondering if you were going to come to Anything Day tomorrow, Sagi,” Gabu said. “We missed you on Theatre Day.”

Sagi and Sylvia exchanged a glance. “Tomorrow might be difficult,” he said.

“Perhaps all of your…” Mei sought for a word that encompassed the huge crowd of rabbits flinging snow at each other behind Sagi and Sylvia’s backs. “Perhaps everyone here would like to come to Anything Day? We were hoping it could be like one big Midwinter celebration, with everyone playing together.”

“Oh yeah, Greta said something about that, now that you mention it. What do you think?” Sagi asked Sylvia.

“It could be fun,” she said. “We’ll ask the fluffle once they settle down a little. Is that a no to the target practice?”

“Maybe another time,” Mei said, smiling sheepishly. He wasn’t sure if Sylvia and Sagi were joking, but he wasn’t about to find out. “All right. We’ll see you tomorrow, then, perhaps.”

“One other thing,” Gabu said. “If you see Takkan around and he doesn’t look like he has anything to do, perhaps you could invite him to join in with your games? He’s not in the best of spirits right now.”

“Is he still moping about Kuro-san?” Sagi said. “Yeah, I’ll tell him to toughen up a bit. Some target practice might do him some good.” A clump of snow exploded on the back of Sagi’s head. He spun around. “I know that was you, Jacob!”

“We’ll leave you to it,” Gabu said, suppressing a giggle.

“See ya,” Sagi said, already preparing his counterattack.

Gabu and Mei hurried away to avoid getting caught in the crossfire.