Winter’s Child – Part 1

Professor James Joseph Preston removed his glasses and placed them on the podium with his notes before addressing the 25 or 30 students scattered through the lecture hall.

“Are there any questions?”

Several hands rose in response. He pointed at random. “You, in the red sweater.”

The young man in question stood, arms clutching a book to his chest. “I have two questions, actually.”

James nodded, a slight smile on his face. “All right.”

“First, can I get you to sign my book? And second, are you planning to write a sequel to In Search of Winter’s Children?”

The smile turned a little brittle around the edges. “First of all, you have the wrong Preston, I am not responsible for that piece of trash. And second, I would think with your grade point average you would be better served to focus your attention on your studies. Class dismissed.”

James ignored the mutters coming from his students as he packed up his briefcase. He left by a different door, and headed straight to his office. Waiting inside, feet up on his desk, ankles crossed, was his friend and colleague Ben Robertson.

Ben took one look at James’ face and grimaced in sympathy. “Let me guess, another one of your students wanted you to sign your father’s book.”

“Feet off the desk,” James said.

Ben did as he was told, slowly and deliberately. “You might as well get used to it,” he said. “Paranormal is big these days, and your father has a way with words.”

“A way with bullshit you mean,” James said with a snort.

He sat down in his chair on the other side of the desk and reached into the bottom drawer for the bottle of twelve-year-old scotch he kept there. He held the bottle up, and at Ben’s nod, set it down on the desk and reached back into the drawer for a pair of glasses. He poured them each three fingers of scotch and passed one of the glasses to his friend.

“Here’s to turning an obsession into profit,” he said, raising his glass. Ben raised his in turn and they both took a sip.

“Obsession is a little strong, don’t you think?” Ben suggested. “I mean, sure, it was his life’s work, but his research was well organized.”

“You read that thing?”

“Well, I may have skimmed through it,” Ben admitted, “Purely for academic interest, you understand. It’s a local legend, after all.”

“With no more basis in fact than the tooth fairy or Santa Claus,” James said, taking another drink.

Ben hesitated, then said tentatively, “He presents his case very logically, with well organized examples. You might want to give it a read before damning it outright.”

“Winter’s children have been a family obsession for generations. You can trace it right back to Josiah Preston, one of the first settlers of this mountain. It’s been a bone of contention between me and my father for years. He just can’t understand why I haven’t jumped on the crazy train to join him in his delusions.”

“You’ve never had any interest in winter’s children?”

James shook his head. “I enjoyed the stories he told when I was a boy, but that’s all they were, stories. Stories designed to scare an impressionable child into staying in the yard and not wandering off into the woods.”

“That would make an interesting topic for a thesis,” Ben pointed out. “A generational story told so often it turned into an obsession.”

“It wasn’t the telling of the story that had my father become obsessed with winter’s children,” James said, topping up their glasses. “It was the death of my mother.”

“Well don’t keep me in suspense,” Ben said when James paused. “Tell me what your mother’s death had to do with your father’s obsession.”

“I was twelve,” James said with a sigh. “Mother had driven into town for meeting with the ladies auxiliary of the Baptist Church. Father told her not to stay too long because it was going to snow. He had a sixth sense for the weather.”

He paused to take a drink.

“Anyway, the snow hit when she was on her way back. They found her car the next day, pulled over to the side of the road. The driver’s side door was open and there was no one inside.”

“Where did she go?” Ben asked.

James sighed heavily. “No one could understand why she didn’t stay with the car – she was born on the mountain, she knew better. They searched – she was found almost a mile from her car, deep in the woods. My father decided that one of winter’s children lured her away.”

“That must have been hard on you.”

“You have no idea. No one believed him, of course. They put his ranting down to grief over losing his wife. But that was the beginning of his true obsession – to prove winter’s children were real.”