Free Snow by Wheeler Scott

really," David said. "In ice, sort of, sometimes."

    "Uh huh. And you've, what, never heard of a mirror?"

    "I've heard of them. My father didn't like them." He touched his face tentatively, watched his fingers trace across his cheekbones. He stood up and the man in the water rose too. He smiled and the man looking at him smiled back.

    "Well, at least you don't have any ego problems," Alec muttered.

    David smiled more, seeing Alec's face next to his. "You're a lot shorter than I am."

    "And to think I didn't comment on your nose," Alec said sharply. "Are you just about done?"

    "I'm looking at you," David said and watched, fascinated, as the watery Alec's eyes grew wide, surprised. "When we were in town that woman--" he paused for a moment. "She said you were ugly. Why did she say that?"

    "Because I'm a miner," Alec said tightly. "Or maybe because she'd just finished looking at you.
    Who knows? Now shut up and get back in the cart."

    David sat in silence for the rest of the day. Mostly he was looking out at what they passed but sometimes he thought. He thought about Alec's face, the shape of his eyes, of his nose, the way the hair at the nape of his neck curled.

    "Oh for god's sake," Alec finally said as the sun was setting, exasperation in his voice. "I'm sorry I said something about your nose. There. Can you stop sulking now?"

    "Sulking?"

    "The whole staring at nothing and not talking routine."

    "But you said--"

    "I know what I said."

    "Can I ask you something?"

    Alec sighed. "What?"

    "Why did that woman call you ugly?"

    "I already told you why," Alec said tightly.

    "But I don't understand. It's the wrong word to use for you."

    Alec's face flushed dark red. "You're not funny."

    "I'm not trying to be," David said, bewildered. "You look--"

    "Go back to not talking," Alec snapped, and urged the horse to move faster, stared straight ahead as if David was no longer there.

    When night fell they stopped. Alec took care of the horse and lit a fire. Then he rigged a contraption up over it, a mass of sticks and wires with a pot in middle that hung suspended over the flames. He put water in the pot, whistling a little, and then walked off into the dark. When he returned he dumped two handfuls of dirt in the pot and sat down. David looked at him. Alec looked back, one eyebrow raised and a small smile on his face, and that's when David knew they wouldn't be eating dirt for dinner.

    They ate potatoes. Alec stuck a stick in the pot after the moon had risen and pulled out two of them, wrinkled gray with steam billowing from their skins.

    "I like potatoes," David said and tossed his from hand-to-hand, trying not to burn himself. Alec watched him for a moment before shaking his head and picking up another stick, spearing David's potato with it.

    "I wouldn't think a...you would eat potatoes."

    "All the time." David had figured out how to eat his potato now. Copying Alec he carefully blew on the skin, peeling it and bits of flesh away and popping them into his mouth. "Boiled and baked and," he closed his eyes, "fried with drippings and made into cakes and sliced with egg.
    The best ones are the little ones, the ones as long as your fingers. My nurse used to--" he broke off. It was the first time he'd spoken about her to anyone. "She grew up in a village," he finished softly. "She said they grew everywhere."

    Alec nodded. "Except in mines," he said and something in his voice, in the way his eyes almost met David's but didn't, let David know that Alec understood what it was like to have memory rise, that it was sweet and hurtful all at once.

    "I could fry up some," David said shyly. "I know how. You can slice them into rings and then shape them like a flower and-"

    "You do realize all I have is the pot, right?"

    "Oh," David said. "Right."

    "But since you apparently know what that is," Alec said with a smile, "you can wash it."

    David washed it, drank some water, and then went back by the cart by way of the horse,