James carefully closed the book and set it on the desk. Sitting back in his chair, he stared at it, his thoughts in turmoil. Had it been written by anyone else . . . but it hadn’t. It had been written by his father. While he couldn’t say it had stolen his childhood, it had stolen all the years of his youth after his mother died.
He often wondered if his mother hadn’t died how different things might have been. Or maybe if she hadn’t died the way she did, if she’d died of cancer, or in a car accident, would it have made a difference to his father’s obsession? Unfortunately, the book did not hold the answers to those questions.
It was a well-written book, he had to give the old man credit for that. The facts were laid out logically, almost scientifically. There was no hint of the obsession the subject matter would become.
James had been around eight or ten years old when his father started writing the book. He wasn’t sure of his exact age, but he knew it was before his mother died. She was the one who encouraged Joseph to start writing the stories down.
At first that’s all the book was, a record of the stories that had been passed down from generation to generation. The same stories Joseph had told James, and then Joey. But then something inside Joseph seemed to snap after his wife died. He’d spend hours holed up in his study with the family journals, pouring through them, making notes.
Already feeling adrift from his mother’s death, twelve-year-old James had been confused and resentful at his father’s withdrawal. Friends, family, even the school counsellor had tried to tell James it was nothing he’d done, it was just Joseph’s way of processing his grief, but James knew that something wasn’t right with his father.
In the spring, the first one after his mother’s death, things seemed to get better. Joseph no longer went on his long tramps through the woods leaving James behind, admonishing him not to leave the house. He didn’t believe in winter’s children so he had no place in the hunt for them.
When summer rolled around James started feeling hopeful that whatever madness had gripped his father had gone. They went fishing out on the lake and hiking along the trails, pretty much everything they used to do. The icy ball of resentment inside of James began to thaw. But then came the fall. The days shortened, the leaves turned, and Joseph once more began to withdraw within himself.
Once, James tried to reason with his father.
“If those creatures are really out there, how come no one else has ever seen them?”
“They don’t know where to look. Those creatures are canny, they know to stay hidden. But I know the signs to look for.”
James, having developed a recent interest in archeology, tried a different tact. “If winter’s children do exist, why hasn’t anyone found any scientific evidence of them?”
“What are you talking about, boy?”
“There’s never been any bones found, like with the dinosaurs—”
“They’s a lot less big than an old dinosaur.”
“There’s been plenty of bones of smaller creatures found too,” James had shot back. “And there’s never been a trace of any city or village or anything. They have to live somewhere.”
Joseph had fixed him with his gimlet stare. “They live too far up the mountain for anyone to find ‘em. And should any of them perish below the snow line, they take their bones back up the mountain.”
James had given up after that. There was no reasoning with crazy.
When Joseph hadn’t been out actively hunting for the creatures, he’d been holed up in his study, pouring over the family journals. James wasn’t allowed in there, but he’d snuck in once when his father was out hunting the creatures. He thought maybe if he could read the journals for himself he could find something to convince his father to give up his wild goose chase.
Unfortunately, the journals were kept in a glass case. A locked glass case. James did a furtive search of the desk, but if his father kept the key to the case in the desk, then it was well hidden. And he didn’t feel brave enough to risk getting caught if he searched the rest of the room.
But now his father was gone, and the journals were in a box currently sitting in a corner of his home office. There was nothing to stop him from looking through them now.
Missed an installment? Catch up here:
Introduction, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7,
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