“David, stop.” Murphy didn’t yell but she was trying her best to smack his hands away as he grabbed her jeans.
I grabbed a thick broken branch from the ground and was ready to use it as baseball bat when a large white hand grabbed the top half of the branch and the flash of a camera went off.
“I’m sure this would look bad in any context,” Malachi said still holding on to the branch I’d planned on using.
David backed away from Murphy quickly until he realized it was us.
“You’re starting to get on my fucking nerves!” He hollered as he started to advance towards us but Murphy grabbed his arm.
“Let it go.” She pulled as hard as she could even though she was a whole head and even a bit of his shoulders shorter than he was. “This was all just a misunderstanding. Right, Malachi?”
“Right.” Malachi nodded.
Begrudgingly, and clumsily, she took David, who looked ready to kill him…us, away. Malachi waited until they walked past us and headed back towards the lake before he snatched the branch out of my hand.
“Have you lost your mind?”
“He was about to—”
“This.” He waved the branch in my face before throwing it into the woods. “It doesn’t work. You hit him. He’ll want revenge, most likely by arresting you. And when you explain your side of the story Mindy—”
“Murphy.”
He looked ready to strangle me when I corrected him.
“Mandy, Mindy, Murphy, whatever. She’ll protect him. Not you. You can’t save people like that. They have to find a reason to save themselves. If you want to help take photos or video if you see something. But don’t go digging into lives of other people. You will get yourself hurt! Got it?”
“Okay, sorry! Stop yelling at me. Geez,” I snapped before walking up to the house, however, I only made it a few feet before I stopped and watched as the smallest white flake fell from the sky and danced in the air in front of my face. Reaching out I let it fall right into the palm of my hand and melt. When I looked back up I saw the thick clouds that crawled over the sky. Clouds that hid the stars and brought the snow from the mountains to us. One by one they came down.
“It looks like there’s going to be a storm,” Malachi said softly, reaching out for them as well. “The guest cabin is cold.”
“It hasn’t been too bad.” I held on tighter to the quilt over my shoulders.
“Stay in the guest room instead.” That was all he said as he turned and walked in front of me.
“You could say please.”
“Or you’re free to freeze if you’d like!” He called out and I couldn’t help but grin. He just had to throw in a little salt with his kindness.
MALACHI
“Malachi!”
What have I done? I thought as she ripped the curtains open and sent all the light in the universe into the room.
“Malachi, get up. Look.”
“I’m sure the snow will still be there when it’s not…” I lifted my phone and looked at the time. “FIVE O’ CLOCK!” I’d gone to bed four hours ago! She was insane!
“In a few hours people are going to start walking about and shoveling it and it’s not going to look like it looks now.” She turned back to me. Her curly hair was pulled up and tied around her hairline with a scarf she’d fashioned into a bow.
Grabbing the pillow off my bed I put it over my face. But why should I suffer alone? Sitting up I grabbed another one and threw it at the back of her head.
“Oh you’re going to regret that,” she said as she bent down and picked up the pillow from the ground.
“Don’t,” I warned her.
She ran towards me like a madwoman and I got up quickly grabbing the other pillow to block hers. She didn’t let up and so I smacked her side with it. And she stood there shocked like she wasn’t expecting me to hit her back.