September Song

 by Natalka

 

Early September, 1983.  (Post A-level results, pre-university: limbo.)

--

 

Will laughed. 

 

It echoed.

 

It echoed far farther than Bran could have imagined; all of a sudden the hills were laughing along with Will, all of them laughing at him, all around him, enveloping him, invading his mind, reading his thoughts, laughing all the harder, making him shrink to his rightful stature amongst the ancient mountains: small and easily forgotten.

 

Will bent down, to tip his head sideways and study Bran carefully.  “You want to say that again?”

 

“I know these hills like the back of my hand?” Bran grated out, a rueful repetition of what he had said a few moments ago.

 

“Uh-huh,” Will said with satisfaction.

 

“Look, stop enjoying this, will you?” muttered Bran, rolling over and into a sitting position.  The whole act of turning over only served to make him more muddy, but he was past the point of caring.  He stayed sat where he was, and wrapped his arms round his knees and stared back down the hill. 

 

“You were saying?” Will prompted, still crouched just behind him, one hand flicking his fringe out of his eyes for the umpteenth time that day.

 

“About the hills, yes?”

 

“No,” said Will. “Before that.  After that.”

 

“Just – ” Bran looked off down the hillside, down into the grey murky valley below.  The autumn sun was barely piercing the clouds, and the landscape was a study of russet on slate.  He had been talking about the weather, teasing Will, but now his mind was full of something completely different.

 

He felt, rather than saw, Will slip into a sitting position just behind him.  “Just what?”

 

“As if,” Bran began uncertainly, “As if everything that will ever happen, that has ever happened, that will ever matter, it’s going to have to happen here.  There’s no other place that matters – no other place that’s ever mattered, not for me.” Before that, after that. “It’s here, or it’s now, or it’s never.”

 

He winced after he’d said the words, feeling as if Will’s eyes were boring into his back, drilling small holes down to his spine.  He jerked involuntarily as that imaginary gaze dug deeper and deeper, and tipped his chin up, trying to effect a casual glance backward.

 

“Are you having second thoughts?” Will said eventually.  The words stung, too.

 

“I just can’t imagine being away from here,” admitted Bran, in a voice that sounded oddly accented to his own ears.  He often felt it, when Will’s flatter English was next to him for comparison.  “Strange, really.  I thought I’d be excited.”

 

There was a pause, and then Will said, “It’s – not frightening, I suppose, but more like a bad bout of anticipation.  It makes the waiting that much worse.”

 

Bran watched the low cloud wrap itself around the mountain-tops, closing ranks to shut the sun out.  He said slowly, “No, it’s not that.  I feel as if I shouldn’t leave - as if the valley doesn’t want me to leave.”  He paused, clicked his tongue in annoyance.  “Here I am, using the hills as an excuse, like.  You must be thinking I’m clean gone.”

 

“I shall lift up mine eyes unto the hills,” Will chanted solemnly, an easy clear cadence that echoed off the mountainside and reverberated in the air around the pair of them. “From whe-ence cometh my help.”

 

Bran looked over his shoulder, quizzically.

 

“My help cometh not from my friend, who trips me up into puddles,” Will continued, as if for all the world he were singing at Evensong.  The two of them burst out laughing for a moment, a short explosion that caught them both unawares, and though that joint laughter also echoed, it quickly died away.

 

“And we are sitting in a puddle,” Will said into the silence, looking down.

 

“This,” retorted Bran, sliding somewhere between relief and regret onto familiar ground,  “is not a puddle.  That over there is a puddle.”

 

“I could swim in that,” said Will, looking over.

 

Bran nodded.  “Ah, now you’re getting it.”

 

Will breathed out; Bran watched as his fringe blew up a moment, then retangled itself into an untidy mess across his forehead.  Bran twisted his fingers together, then stretched them out.  “But it’s still not so pleasant, puddle or no.”

 

“Maybe we should get up?” Will suggested.  “Move on?”

 

Bran didn’t move, as Will wasn’t moving either.  “Maybe we should.”

 

A full minute passed, as the two stared out into the distance, off the edge of the precipice.  Overhead the clouds gathered, bunched up together, looming ominously.

 

Bran said eventually. “As in, that was a good idea.”

 

“Yes,” Will agreed, absently.  “It’s always a good idea.”

 

“Oh!” said Bran, suddenly cross, scrambling up onto his feet with a maximum of fuss.  He offered a hand down, cursorily, “Come on then.”

 

Will instantly grabbed his hand, and hauled himself up so suddenly Bran was taken by surprise and nearly keeled back over.  The two of them fell against each other, swept up by the wind and other natural forces, staggering together and grabbing at each other without thinking, in order not to capsize.

 

Bran hesitated for as long as he dared. “I can’t breathe!”

 

Will pushed him away, and Bran stumbled, dizzy and uncertain, only to find Will all but grab him once again.  All reflexive, all instinct, all -

 

“Breathing!” gasped Bran. “You know, it’s what you do with lungs!”

 

Will did not let go. “You have lungs? I’m amazed.”

 

“Look, I may be strange, but I’m not that strange!”

 

“Aren’t your gills working? What happens when it starts to rain again?”

 

“We build a canoe out of twigs and paddle down the hill,” Bran snapped shakily, trying to dispel unfamiliar, overwhelming emotions.  “What do you think happens?”

 

“Tempting as that sounds,” Will said, still sounding confident, “I was hoping we could be indoors by then.”

 

As if on cue, a flash of lightning lit up the dark grey sky.  Thunder rolled startlingly close after it, chasing even though it knew it could never catch, and Bran and Will jumped as one, each clutching at the other unnecessarily.  Although they broke apart immediately afterward, their gazes caught instead, holding them together before Will turned slightly to look over at the approaching storm.

 

“Indoors,” Bran agreed, and they began to run down the steep hillside, not hesitating even for a moment.  One slight stumble led to a scraping collision, which led to hands grabbing at each other, randomly, fingers interlocking with barely a fumble and not letting go, holding on for safety, balance, and pure comfort. Even once they were on the flat they continued to hold tight to each other, rounding the corner to the Davies’ house just as the rain began to fall in earnest.

 

Their breathing came hard and fast in absolute unison as Bran used his free hand to unlatch the door and push it open, and the two of them stumbled over the doorstep, onto the mat. Will slammed the door behind them, and together they leant back against the wall, supporting each other, leaning into and onto each other, suddenly laughing for no apparent reason.

 

The laughter stopped as abruptly as it had started, and neither could have said who loosed their grip first, but their hands fell apart, and the uneasiness returned.  They edged along the wall, looking away from each other as they shrugged their coats off and kicked their boots into the corner.

 

“Come on,” said Bran eventually, turning away.

 

“Where to?” said Will, suddenly formal.

 

“How many places are there to go, in here?” Bran wondered, throwing an uneasy glance over his shoulder.  “It’s my house.”

 

“I’ll wait here in anticipation, then?”

 

Bran turned too quickly, throwing his hands up in disgust, except they seemed to fall down again on Will’s shoulders, and Will’s hands were round his waist.

 

“On the other hand,” Bran said faintly.  “This might just be a lot less hassle.”

 

Will queried, “The path of least resistance?”

 

Bran hesitated.  The world had suddenly imploded, leaving just the two of them standing there.  “Why spoil a good moment?”

 

“That’s me, right?” said Will, looking directly at him, eyes wide.  “Wrecking your life? Spoiling everything?”

 

“Why not?” Bran managed to keep the stare up in return, edging closer.  The world constricted a little more, making the edges of his vision fuzzy. “Though somehow it all seems to be worth it.”

 

“Really?” said Will, tightening his grip a little.

 

Bran said, too fast, to forestall the moment in which the two of them would be sucked in and away, “But on the other hand, you could just keep talking all afternoon, and then I might –”

 

“Oh, Welshmen,” grumbled Will, pushed Bran back against the door, leant into him, and brought his mouth down hard on Bran’s.

 

There was a moment of uncomprehending silence, a split second of awkward disbelief.  No thoughts, no words, no meaning.  And then it was broken, banished by the slight swish of material brushing together as the two of them moved closer, pressing against each other, feeling.  A world paused, hovered around them, and then began to surreptitiously rebuild itself.  It was quite a while before Bran became aware of it, and even longer before he was able to breathe for long enough to remark, “But now, that was before you got mud all over the door.”

 

“You wait,” Will murmured against his lips, hands nervously roaming a little further down Bran’s sides, warm, shivery. “Till you see how many other places I can get muddy.”

 

Bran brightened up a moment, as the colours in the world around him flared. “So you did push me into that puddle on purpose?”

 

Will merely winked – he sensed rather than saw it, their faces were so close - “I’m told Welshmen like it dirty.”  Bran felt the sudden burst of heat, red-cheeked embarrassment, could not tell which of them had blushed, realised it did not matter much anyway –

 

“Gah,” said Bran, “Let me tell you –” and he pushed at Will, who fell, and Bran, failing to let go, went down with him.

 

Just for one blissful moment, the world stopped spinning.  Past, present and future merged, and then ceased to matter. 

 

Echoes of echoes slipped past unnoticed.

 

Everything changed.