The Fifth Day of Midwinter

Everything was white. It wasn’t the textured white of a snowy mountaintop under a cloudy sky; it was devoid of detail, pure white in every direction. He knew he was standing on something from the pressure under his hooves—it felt hard and smooth, like rock—but the ground was indistinguishable from the empty space around him. It was impossible to judge time or distance. He only knew that he had been walking a long way. Looking for a way out, perhaps, or searching for someone.

Eventually, as he walked ever onward, he noticed a distant shape. Or perhaps it was a small shape nearby. There was no way of telling. It got bigger the closer he walked.

It was a goat, and it was walking towards him.

When they were a few feet apart, he stopped walking, and so did it. Its eyes stared through him.

“Why do you keep following me?” he asked it. Its mouth moved in a mockery of his words, but no sound emerged. He turned his head to the side. The goat did likewise.

Tentatively, he walked a few steps closer. The goat’s hooves fell in time with his own, all without making a sound. They were now inches apart. The goat smelled of nothing and no heat radiated from its body. Its face was expressionless, as if any mind it had was elsewhere.

“Why won’t you leave me alone?” he asked it.

“Because I’m a part of you,” it replied using his mouth.

Mei opened his eyes. In the darkness of the cave, it took a few moments for the image of the goat to fade from his vision. “And you’re part of me,” his mouth said, unbidden.

It was almost time for Anything Day, and Mei was having second thoughts about whether this was a good idea. He was now more or less fine with being out in the snow, so long as he didn’t think too hard about it. He’d also been fine playing with the sparrows; while the snow had certainly been involved, he himself had done little more than stand in it. The rabbits’ snow throwing game had been a little much for him, however, especially the near miss at the start.

If there were going to be Midwinter celebrations, Mei wanted them to be something that everyone could join in with. That’s what made the community of the Emerald Forest so uniquely special, after all, and he still felt an immense pride at his and Gabu’s role in building it. But whenever he thought these things, he’d been thinking of “Midwinter celebrations” as abstract activities that didn’t necessarily involve having to immerse himself in cold, lifeless snow. Now that he thought about it properly, he couldn’t think of any other kind.

Animals had already started to gather in the snowy meadow in front of Moonrise Hill, the usual meeting place for Anything Day. Sagi, Sylvia and the other rabbits were there, and they constituted about a third of those present. Normally, Anything Day was much more widely attended; this was around half the usual size, even counting the rabbits.

“I guess most people decided to stay home and celebrate with family,” Gabu said, looking out over the meadow from the mouth of the cave.

“It looks like it,” Mei said. “Never mind. Let’s go and join them.”

Most of the animals present Mei recognised as regulars, although there were a few same-species groups of newcomers, the rabbits being the largest among them. The sparrows, Jess, Gon, Greta and Mii were also present, as was Tanya, of course. Without Tanya, there would be no Anything Day, just a group of animals standing in a field together. Takkan was nowhere to be seen, which Mei hoped meant he was busy playing games with the other foxes.

“Welcome, everyone!” Tanya said warmly. “Today will be just like our game days. Split up into groups and play whatever you like, and if you want to change to a different game, all you need to do is switch groups. I see we’ve got some new folks here today. Just remember that everyone is here to have fun, and no hurting other animals is allowed. This is a safe and friendly space.”

Incidents involving hungry carnivores were, thankfully, a rare occurrence on Anything Day. Tanya’s words, Mei knew, were intended more to reassure herbivores that no harm would come to them than to dissuade carnivores from causing any harm. In any other forest, “I know he’s a wolf but he promises not to eat you,” wouldn’t carry much weight; no herbivore would stake their life on “trust me” for no reward except a fun day out. Here, though, things were different. Everyone acted as if herbivores and carnivores being friends was perfectly normal, and because everyone acted that way, it became true. Why would you run away from a wolf when everyone around you was smiling and talking to him?

The first animals to split off and start games were the same-species groups. The rabbits resumed their snow throwing game from the previous day; a group of otters began hiding in the snow and chasing after one another; a group of rats started making shapes in the snow by running through it in patterns. A few of the regulars started their own games, but most joined existing ones. The same-species groups were surprisingly welcoming of newcomers. Within minutes, each group had diversified enough that there was no longer “the rabbit group,” but rather, “the snow throwing group,” for example.

Mei lingered in the middle of the meadow alongside Gabu, not joining any group. He wasn’t alone in doing so; a few others, including Mii and Greta, were either taking a break from the games or preferred idle chatter to the fast-paced activities happening around them.

Gabu eyed the hiding-in-the-snow-and-chasing game longingly. “I wonder if they could do with more chasers,” he said, almost to himself.

“Let’s go and find out,” Mei said. He could manage that, right? It wasn’t as if he was small enough to disappear into the snow like the otters were doing, anyway.

He and Gabu were indeed welcomed as chasers, after Gabu reassured everyone that he was capable of chasing without eating anyone he caught. As it turned out, he was quite good at it, which shouldn’t have come as a surprise. Mei was more used to being chased than chasing, and he had no idea where to begin with tracking animals who were hiding in the snow, but he joined in enthusiastically and was having just as much fun as everyone else.

And then it started to snow again. It came suddenly, from clouds that had been minding their own business only moments before. If it had been rain, it would have been called torrential. Snowflakes fell at an alarming rate, clinging to everyone’s fur and partly obscuring their vision. Most people didn’t seem to mind, carrying on with their games as if nothing was happening. The aforementioned effect of, “if everyone around me isn’t worried, then there’s probably nothing to worry about,” almost made it all right and calmed Mei’s growing panic. Almost, but not quite.

Mei’s head started to feel light. His heart pounded in his chest. His breathing became quick and uneven. All around him, the only things he could see were streaks of snow, and otters popping up at random like moles tunnelling through dirt. Suddenly, at the edge of his narrow field of vision, he spotted a pale, goat-like figure. It stared through him, its eyes leaving a chilly ache where they passed. In a moment, it had vanished again.

“I’m just going to take a break,” Mei managed to say. His head was still spinning. His body felt unnaturally warm. He returned to where Mii and the others were standing and talking with one another.

“Was that you, standing ominously over there a moment ago?” Mii asked him, indicating the direction where Mei had seen the figure. There was nothing but empty space there now.

“I’ve been with the otters,” Mei said.

“Strange. It must have been my imagination,” Mii said, shrugging her shoulders.

The blizzard eased slightly. Mei looked again in the direction Mii had indicated. He could just make out what looked like four hoofprints in the snow, arranged in a perfect rectangle. No tracks led up to or away from them. He looked away quickly.

Gabu walked over to him, a concerned look on his face. “Are you all right, Mei?”

Mei looked at Gabu and shook his head.

“Let’s go back inside. We’ll have a good view of things from up there.” Gabu whispered something to Greta that Mei didn’t catch, and led him back up the hill and into the shelter of their cave.

With his hooves back on firm ground, Mei’s head started to clear. “Thanks, Gabu. You can go back down and play if you want. I’ll be…” He looked at Gabu’s face. There was no way his husband was going to leave him alone at a time like this; Mei wouldn’t have done so if it was Gabu in a state like his. “I know. You’d rather stay here and make sure I’m all right. That’s fine too.”

Gabu smiled very slightly. It always cheered him up when Mei said exactly what he was thinking so he didn’t have to. It reminded both of them how well they knew each other. “I can see you’re feeling better already,” he said, “so I might just take you up on that and go back to playing. So long as you promise to shout if you need anything, of course.”

Mei smiled too. There was only thing more romantic than your husband making small, everyday sacrifices for you, and that was him trusting you enough to know when you didn’t need him to. Except, in a way, that was the greater sacrifice. If Gabu had stayed with him, Mei would have felt guilty for making him miss the rest of Anything Day. By leaving him, Gabu was the one taking on the extra worry instead.

The fact that he was calm enough to logic through all of this, Mei reflected when Gabu had gone, was probably a good sign. The image of the ghostly apparition kept coming back to him, but he was now able to think critically about what it was he’d actually seen. It couldn’t have been his imagination, since Mii had seen it too. Perhaps it had been some trick of the light reflecting off the falling snow that had caused the effect, and Mei and Mii had both been looking in the same direction when it happened? It seemed unlikely that both of them could have interpreted the random patterns of light as a figure that looked enough like a goat for Mii to mistake it for Mei, but what other explanation could there be?

Regardless of whether it was only his imagination or—no, there was nothing else it could be—nightmares shouldn’t be appearing in real life, certainly not where other people could see them. Next time he saw it, he would just have to tell it to stop.