Free Algoma by Dani Couture

only in long-sleeved shirts and snow pants. The school was surrounded by a pool of melted snow and ice. Icicles dropped from the edge of the roof and shattered on the asphalt. It was a season in between.
    Ferd knew the weather wouldn’t last. Nothing ever did. Winter would arrive again, and in full force this time. It would feel endless. For half of the school year the hallways were filled with the musty smell of damp wool, pools of melting slush, and wet socks. Come spring, when the students peeled their layers of sweaters and long johns, they’d hardly recognize one another. Pale versions of their fall selves.
    Standing on the curved grassy hump of earth that flanked the east side of the school like a boomerang, Ferd watched his classmates from a safe distance. The bell rang. Lunch was over. He turned and walked in the opposite direction of the school. He wasn’t going back, not today. Today was not a good day. Reminders of Leo faced him at every turn.
    One of his brother’s coloured pencil drawings was still stapled to the wall beside the gym, the edges curling inward, his name printed in dark block letters in the bottom right-hand corner. There was the framed photo of him the school had put next to the volleyball trophies in the school’s trophy case. And the empty brass hook he’d left behind that no one would use because it was “bad luck.”
    Ferd stuffed his hands into the pockets of his jeans (Leo’s jeans) and walked toward the woods. The school, like every other building on the east edge of town, was flanked by forest that was hundreds of kilometres deep, only stopping for the northward-swooping St. Lawrence River.
    Several times a year, teachers and students were given a show: a rogue red fox, moose, or porcupine lumbering across the schoolyard. If a black bear was spotted in the area, the children were put under lockdown and forced to eat their sweaty sandwiches at their desks in silence until the threat had passed, although secretly they were always looking outside, trying to spot the animal that would allow them to go home early if it attacked student or teacher. They could only hope.
    Once Ferd crossed the baseball diamond, he saw the familiar trailhead behind home plate. Large tree roots criss-crossed the path like varicose veins, worn smooth and silvery from decades of use, years of students skipping classes, their non-marking rubber-soled shoes wearing the bark smooth. He walked along the trail for a long time until the roots became ragged again and the path narrowed until it was little more than a suggestion. The crushed cigarette butts disappeared behind him.
    After a half hour of walking through dense wood, breaking branches, clambering over fallen trees, and hopping muddy patches, Ferd arrived at his destination: a thin iron-stained creek that looked like a gash in the earth. Only the edges of the creek were still frozen. He admired the leaves that had been frozen into the ice and were now being slowly released. When he tried to pull one free, it ripped apart in his hand. He dropped the piece he held into the water and watched it slowly float away.
    “Say hello for me.”
    The decomposing remains of a blue jay lay beside the creek. Ferd skirted the clutch of bones and feathers and pulled off his backpack. He was sweating and his shoulders ached. He unzipped his pack and dug past his textbooks, his uneaten lunch, until he found a small black canvas bag that held his tools: an assortment of pens, markers, paper, cards, twine, and tape. From his collection of cards, he chose a thick, creamy wedding invitation with gold lettering that he’d stolen from his teacher’s desk. Her desk was such a mess she’d never notice, or at least not right away. The RSVP card was still lodged inside. Apparently, she hadn’t made her decision yet. An old boyfriend maybe? Ferd tried to imagine the bride in her puffy white dress and the groom in his tuxedo standing side by side, both stiff as wedding cake