Franklin Mountain Texas, 1842.
"It's gonna be ok, Fin. " Lilith's voice quivered as she said this, holding their newborn baby in the crook of her arm. Her teeth chattered violently in the cold. Finlay looked back at her with worry in his eyes, one of his tattered suede gloves laying flat on the back of their speckled gray stallion.
"No, no, no, this can't be true, they promised it meant nothing." He paced back and forth through the dried leaves of the forest floor. The setting sun casting a warm wash over his platinum blonde crew cut, his hushed gravely words barely making their way out from under his tongue.
"You can't hide forever, darling, besides, I still love you and that's all that matters." She placed her free hand on his bicep in hopes to provide some sort of grounding.
"We don't need them anyhow, we never did."
Finlay halted in his tracks, his pale blue eyes welling up with tears.
"W-well.. it would have been nice to have 'em Lil…" He paused to glance down at the frosted leaves that lay broken around his leather boots.
"Or at least not have 'em want to kill us." He looked her in the eyes; brushing a lock of her thick red hair away from her cheeks, he plucked up the courage to provide some sort of reassurance despite his panic. He cupped her smooth, seemingly delicate face in the palm of his chapped, rugged hands.
"You reckon we can manage Anselmo's before nightfall?" The sudden change of subject was exactly what Finlay was secretly hoping for.
"We'd better…" He lay a hand on their son's head as he replied, looking in the direction of the mountain; he took in a deep breath of icy Franklin Mountain wind before turning his attention back to the horse.
He gestured to his lover to mount first; Lilith nodded briefly before handing the baby off to Finlay. Her piercing cerulean blue eyes seemed to demand a sense of security out of his basketcase of a brain.
Her ghostly white skin glowed against the shadowy dark underneath the pine.
Her beauty had always amazed him, so delicate yet so unbreakable, or at least that's how it seemed. He was almost embarrassed to admit the sheer amount of security her strength provided him.
Once Lilith had loaded the horse she leaned down to his fuzzy silver ears.
"Don't fail me now, Spindle, ya hear?"
Fin had always loved her habit of talking to animals, even in times like this when they didn't really have time for it. He held up the small bundle of faded blue cloth to his lover. Lilith took their son quickly to avoid exposing him to the cold for too long without the warmth of one of his parents' arms. Finlay then mounted Spindle, hesitating for a moment before pressing the stirrups into her side.
The moments before the dappled gray mare bolted at the speed that only a thoroughbred could seemed to move in slow motion; as he watched the last glimpse of his home town through the plate sized peephole in the forest brush. The brick houses and flickering street lamps melted together into a blur as he was ripped away on horseback, his lover's arms digging into his hips and his newborn son's cries filling his ears. The sun was setting at alarming speed, causing Finlay's gut to sink with fear.
What if they couldn't get there? What if Anselmo didn't have any magic powerful enough?
What if Joey didn't make it?
The pine needles stung as they brushed against his nearly frozen face. His heart seemed to jump every time they narrowly missed a tree as Spindle weaved in and out between obstacles.
His entire body quaked as Lilith stayed steady and firm behind him; even Joseph, his infant son seemed more grounded then he.
Lilith's cold fingers dug further into his hips, a reminder that she was there behind him in physicality, and beside him in theory.
Into the forest and up the mountains, they rode for hours on end as the sun set and they were left with nothing but the obsidian black of the rural night lit only by a waning moon perched halfway behind the mountain.
Finlay's heart was now nearly beating out of his scrawny chest.
At last a small stone cabin made its way into his view, he pulled the reins back much harder than usual, as his hands were so numb he couldn't even feel the pressure he used to stop the horse; they halted to a stop causing Finlay to nearly topple over the front.
He immediately caught himself before whipping around to Lilith; she grinned at him reassuringly, her rosy lips chapped and her thick eyelashes dusted with freshly fallen snow.
She looked calm, which settled his nerves slightly.
Joey continued to whine; his cries were probably the first sound of life that this part of the forest had heard in decades.
Finlay dropped himself onto his stomach before sliding off the horse. His boots sunk nearly a foot into the icy slush before they hit the earth. "The bartender really wasn't kidding when he said 'the farther up the mountain, the thicker the ice'," Finlay muttered to himself.
He then wiped his numbing hands onto his brown woolen trousers before he made his way sheepishly to the wooden door of the house.
The wind howled violently across the trees, blowing his overgrown crew cut every which way atop his pale, frostbitten face. He glanced back at Lilith yet again, fear thick in his eyes. Lilith nodded at him, patiently gesturing for him to knock. He took a deep breath before slamming his knuckles against the wooden door, his hand movements jerky and unpredictable due to his frozen state.
Ten painstaking minutes passed before a crack appeared in the door frame. A gust of warmth left the house drifting its way out onto Finlay's frigid skin. The cedar brown eyes of a stranger glared out at him through the crack. The deep chocolate skin of said person was visible, a singular dreadlock hanging in front of their face as they stared at the newcomer,
Finlay cleared his throat.
"M-my wife, well my, um, our son was born just a few-well, Lilith, you may know her…" he chuckled nervously as he said this; he fumbled for words inside his mind as he watched the strangers lips move pointlessly.
"-Had a child." Finlay shook himself back to the present just as the stranger completed his statement.
"What now?"
The stranger rolled their eyes.
"I said, Lilith had a child, didn't she? Are you it's father?" The person's voice was sarcastic yet incredibly monotone.
The words reminded Finlay of a gravely school teacher who didn't enjoy children, but with a bit of fatigue to even the two out.
"Y-yes, ...sir."
The stranger nodded. "I know her well. Come in before that baby freezes into an ice cube." With this, the stranger stepped out of the doorway, revealing himself as a colored man of medium build, just a little older than Finlay's mere nineteen.
He sported a rich navy blue sweater and a belt of a variety of colorful beads and crystals weaved together to form a sort of net over the waist of his brown leather vest. He made great sweeping motions with his chapped soot coated hands to Lilith, beckoning her to come inside. Baby in one arm, she slid off the horse, gracefully landing in the snow with a soft crunch.
She gripped her son closer against her chest as she made her way to the house. As she brushed against Finlay, she came to a halt. Her mouth barely reaching his shoulder, he could feel the warmth of her breath seeping through his suede jacket as she spoke.
"Tie up Spindle won't ya, darlin? We can't have 'er runnin off."
"Of course." He did his best to hide his disappointment, although another ten seconds of cold couldn't kill him. Alas, he did want nothing more than the warmth of the fire that he could see through the crack in the door as the two made their way inside.
Inside the cottage, Lilith could barely hide her joy at seeing her childhood friend again. The door slammed shut behind her, casting a gush of cold air at her back. She wiped a tear from her cheek as she looked up at Anselmo.
He looked no different than he did almost six years ago; honey brown eyes that seemed to warm your soul, and smooth deep skin that lay like a blanket across his worried features.
The only difference in his appearance was the long strips of blue woolen locks that hung from his head: black at the root and a deep royal sapphire at the tips, just as he had joked about when they were children.
Even though she was only ten the last time they spoke, she would never forget that day; he was the only one who had wished the best for her and Finlay.
"It's been awhile, hasn't it, Lil."
She barely managed a nod in response. She didn't want to bring the real reason they were here to reality. She knew he had likely already guessed, but she desperately wished for even a moment more to pretend everything was the way she had wanted it to be.
After a few seconds of silence she looked up at him, Joey, still in her arms, now gripping at her matted fiery red hair.
"If you remember, we suspected it for a while, but I'm not sure he's ready to accept it." her voice cracked violently as she said this, sniffing a bit of snot back up through her nose. She could barely breathe through her emotions.
Anselmo nodded patiently, it hurt him to watch the girl who was practically his sister in so much pain.