With less of a howl than a deathbed whisper, an icy wind passes over Elliot’s sleeping form, rustling the hairs at the nape of their neck and leaving a trail of goosebumps along their moon-washed skin. They stir a little and nestle deeper into their tangled mass of blankets, their arms tightening around the star-streaked, softest one, their lanky legs folding up closer to their stuttering heart. The watery moonlight makes their face shine like a silver coin turned on its edge, waiting for gravity, waiting for something. But still Elliot sleeps.

In this big house, filled with corners and crannies, with rooms left empty or stained with memory, with the hummings of computers and the clawings of cats, with shadows, there are some things that do not sleep. Against the closed windows and snugly shut doors, the wind presses, just a thread of chill, but an insistent one. And it always circles back to Elliot’s room, brushing their curled fingers, rasping secrets against their ears.

Sometimes the wind isn’t a wind. Sometimes the shapes it traces become strands of hair, a cool breath, the memory of running feet. Sometimes if someone were watching (although no one ever is) from the corner of their eye, they might see a boy perched on the edge of a windowsill.

The boy had a name, once, but now it matters little. He has been here a long time. In this big house there have been big sadnesses. There have been little boys who slept and never woke.

The boy has lost his name, but he has a name for Elliot: Little Sibling. Ever since the day they set foot into his old room, a ten-year-old with big blue eyes and tufts of tawny hair peeking out from under a baseball cap, the boy has watched them, seeing echoes of a half-forgotten brother in the shape of their shoulders, of a half-forgotten sister in the curve of their face.

He has followed them around the house, at first rustling about as they read Warriors books and studied servers, peering over their shoulder as their fingers closed around their first sweet, sweet raspberry pi. He has watched through the window as they walked toward the river in their backyard, first with a mother and a life jacket and then with nothing and no one, and stared at the sky as they dreamed of flying again. He scared Skipper once or twice, and cooed unheard in soft apology, and has scattered dust away from a few books in the library. He has explored every corner of the big house, from the bean bagged book nook to the boxes in the basement.

His Little Sibling has grown up now, but young ghosts still become ancient things. And so every night he still guards their sleeping shape and touches their moonlit hair.

He knows they won’t live there forever. Other boys and girls and people in between have passed through before and will again.

But deep in his cold dead heart, Elliot, the teenager with the head full of wires and the hands full of keys, with their dog in their lap and their headphones on their neck, now asleep and breathing softly into their starlit dreams, is the one that will always be his.

by A.J.

It’s dusk. The sky is an oil slick seeping down into the horizon, scraps of twilight catching in the bare bones of trees. Everything has taken on a bruised sheen.

Elliot sees it all. Their headphones curl dormant around their neck as they press their nose to their bedroom window, breathing in the coolness of the glass. Restless. That’s what they are. Too restless for any noise that’s not their own, and so restless they could fall asleep already. Anything not to be where they are.

But at seventeen, they do not have to be. With a sudden movement Elliot’s long legs launch them from the bed and down the stairs, two at a time. With the friendly weight of the car keys settled in their pocket, they shout something to their mother’s work-worn shape and bound into the garage.

The Tesla would have been nice, but they don’t need nice. They need out. They fold their lanky limbs into the storm-gray Acura and feel a surprising pang of gladness that they did, for its soft familiarity. They start the engine and flip through channels on the radio until they hit the news, soft NPR voices shrinking the urgent and the unbearable to just the right size. They turn around and speed down the long driveway, faster than they should, they know, they know, but they have cracked the window open and can smell a trace of too-early sweet summer rain, feel the glow of the wounded sky, and are quite certain that nothing on earth could stop them.

Elliot drives. Later, they’ll think of a destination, some candy or coffee that they needed so desperately. But this, this is what they need. Their heated seat against their back, the evening breeze through their copper hair, the feel of motion deep in their chest. The world rushes by, trees and houses, and they take none of it with them. The whole earth is spinning, they can see it now, with inexpressible speed, and Elliot is moving faster than all of it.

They taste freedom, like sugar and salt, and feel something inside them unfurl, some wild thing they didn’t know had been wedged between their ribs. They drive, outrunning every heavy thing, alone except for NPR and speed-mangled birdsong.

They drive, and they half-believe that they will never be still again.

by A.J.