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The storm rages outside, unrelenting. Water falls down from the heavens and strikes the earth like a thousand arrows, accompanied by the flash of lightning and growling thunder.
Madara does not go out when the weather is like this. He knows what the downpour brings with it. Instead, he latches the windows shut so no wind can pry them open, puts a kettle on the stove and takes his time selecting the herbs he adds to the water. Tonight, it is fresh spruce needles, collected earlier that morning when he first saw the clouds gathering, and a helping of honey. The smell is sweet, just how he likes it.
“Persistent,” he mutters, as he hears the sky rip apart once more. “It has rained long enough, don’t you think? The ground won’t be able to hold much more.” He thinks of the river that runs between his home and the rest of the world. There will be no crossing it now, not for days.
But that is alright. He knows isolation better than people.
There’s a picture of two boys against the wall. He is much younger in it. Izuna stands next to him, hair like a disgruntled crow, face stuck in a half-hearted scowl. Madara remembers how his little brother used to try and keep a serious face, even when he’d really wanted to smile. Such a childish quirk, it had been Izuna’s way of playing at adulthood.
He’d never lived long enough to really grow up.
The picture does not answer him. It cannot.
When he wakes up in the morning, after a night of dreamless sleep, the day outside is grey. The rain has not ceased, and the cold dampness has crept inside, no matter how well the doors are shut. No birds sing. Foxes tend to creep around the corners of the house. Madara briefly wonders where they hide during storms like these as he gets out of bed. He brushes his hair, then braids it out of the way.
There’s little to be done inside. The house is small and wooden, enough for one man, but awfully devoid of things to do. He should drive out to the town once the rapids of the river settle again and buy some new books. For now, the old ones will do.
Madara speaks aloud, explains every step of breakfast to the picture on the wall, cuts salty sausages into thin slices. He’s always told Izuna everything and continues to do so now. Why break a harmless habit? Madara can imagine Izuna’s responses, knows when he’d scoff, when he’d laugh, when he’d first be quiet and then steer the conversation in another direction.
When he’d first seen his little brother’s body, pale with sunken eyes there where there should have been the healthy curve of his eyelid, his first thought had been a miserable Oh Kami, I need to tell Izuna about this.
It had almost been more insulting that they had not taken his eyes. That their family’s blessing had been allowed to brown and deflate and rot, until nothing but an unsalvageable mess remained. His murderer had not been a thief.
What had Izuna died for, then?
He chooses his book at random and inhales the scent of yellowed, dusty pages. He never liked the smell as a child. Now he does, for it’s familiar.
The rumble of the thunder sounds from far away, quickly approaching.
“Again,” Madara mutters. The lights flicker. He turns to stare at the door that leads to the front porch, expecting the door handle to rattle. It doesn’t. A small frown forms between his brows. “If you’re going to come, then come. Do not make me wait.”
The river swells, Madara knows it, even if it is too far for him to see through the window. Soon it will creep up all the way to his doorstep, dragging along every terrible secret that’s ever been swept up in its currents, and beg for shelter.
The storm does not ease. Usually, they pass after a day or two, but this one stays for days. It seems determined to drown the entire forest, until nothing but fish and a few stubborn otters remain. He imagines the soft, green patches of moss and the shrubs, covering the cliffs. Has the water washed them bare too? Madara has not seen sunlight in a week – the days leading up to the downpour were cloudy and dull, albeit warm, and as much as fire entices him, it is not enough to elevate his spirits.
“Have you no story to tell me?” He asks the picture. If Izuna was really here, he’d invent one. Madara knows all the good ones already. “I’m bored of this. There used to be anticipation in the beginning... Where I’d wait by the door, axe in hand, push the bookshelves so they blocked the windows – do you remember that? I used to be afraid of the storm. Of the water. Not so much anymore... Now that the roof is fixed too...” His eyes drift upwards. One of the panels on the ceiling is much newer than the others. The floor directly below it is stained with a decade’s worth of leakage. “The storms come more often now, don’t they?”
“They do,” Izuna would say. He'd curse them too. Curses always fit Izuna’s mouth better. From Madara, they felt too awkward and unnatural. Like he was trying too hard.
“It hardly ever rained when you were still here.”
“But it did rain once, just like this.” A short silence would follow – how many seconds? Maybe three? Then Izuna would continue, say what neither one of them wants to acknowledge. “ And once was enough.”
“I know.” Madara exhales, puts down the box of matches he’s been fiddling with. “I’m sorry. It was my fault.”
The real Izuna would tell him that he’s wrong. That it wasn’t his fault. But Madara only has his own mind, and the guilt won’t let him form the words. So this Izuna agrees.
“You should have never let me go outside.”
“I should have never let you go outside.”
“I said that there was a man outside. Why didn’t you believe me?”
“I’m sorry,” Madara repeats, and stares through the window. Not yet. There’s no-one outside just yet. Lightning flashes. He counts to nine. Thunder follows. “I didn’t see anyone.” They’ve had this conversation a hundred times.
“But you know better now. He’s going to come. Any second now.”
“The thunder will get here first.”
“I know. He’s carrying it.”
“Izuna.”
“Yes?”
“Are you really here? Or just inside the picture?”
“I’m in the ground, aniki. I’m on the other side of the river.”
Madara knows this. He was there, when Izuna was lowered into the family grave, to rest alongside their parents and their other siblings. But he can’t help hoping.
He sits by the window and waits.
It takes another day of doing nothing, wasting time and drinking tea, but on the rainy evening of the sixth day, the air shifts, and he knows he’s no longer alone.
His visitor is here at last.
Madara looks at him – it? – through the window glass, streaked with raindrops, and shudders.
The man is tall and white as snow as he appears from the direction of the raging river, slowly coming to view from between the branches. Madara watches his steps as he walks across the yard. They’re graceful. They never slip or falter. The wind rattles the windowpanes of his home and twists the trees. The white hair of the man whips and partially hides his face from view, but not his eyes, oh no. They are two dull rubies, imbedded in his skull by rough unkind hands. Piercing. He stares at Madara. Madara stares back.
The man comes closer and closer, until he can press one hand against the glass. The pale thin fingers thrum against it rhythmically. He’s mere inches away, the wall separating them.
The house creaks, the wood of the walls moaning under his unwelcome touch.
“He’s here, Izuna,” Madara murmurs. He never looks away from the stranger. There are lines on his cheeks and one more on his chin.
“Will you open the door?”
“He won’t come inside.” The storm that had followed Izuna’s death had been harsh. The man with red eyes had come then, too, and Madara had seen him for the first time then, trembling hands gripping the handle of his axe. But the stranger outside had only looked at him through the window. Expectant. Unmoving.
Eventually Madara had snapped, after waiting for what felt like hours. He’d thrown open the front door himself and screamed at the man, brandishing his weapon. He’d hardly been able to see through the tears in his eyes. I know it was you. I know it, you monster! Come here then! Come and kill me too!
The man had not taken one step inside. He’d only stood in the doorframe, hair wet and plastered against his face, before a small mocking smile had pulled on his lips.
There the stranger had stood and waited while Madara wept on the floor of his living room. But Madara had never stepped outside, and eventually the man had left, silent and still smiling, vanishing back into the woods, only to return again with every storm.
There he is now, fingers on the glass. Tap-tap-tap. He’s not smiling now.
“Will you go outside?”
Madara shakes his head. “You would have never let me go outside, Izuna.”
“I know. But it is your fault that I went, because you didn’t believe me! I’m not a liar! Why didn’t you come with me? Why weren’t you there with me? He was quicker than me. But if we’d been together, that wouldn’t have mattered. He could never have got us both at once. I didn’t stand a chance alone.”
Madara has no response. He believes every word. The man outside stares at him. Madara’s certain he can hear their conversation too.
“But maybe you do. You’ve always been better than me at everything you do, aniki, that’s what father used to say. Remember? I remembered. He never let me forget about it. Won’t you go outside? That man killed me. Why won’t you do anything about it? Go outside already.”
“You would never say that, if you were alive.”
“But I’m not. I’m on the other side of the river.”
Madara nods. “You are.” His vision blurs, but he’s quick to wipe his eyes. He doesn’t want to look away from the stranger. Somehow, he’s worried that if he looks away, the man will try something new. Maybe send the rain through the rooftop again.
Tap-tap-tap.
“You said you’d take care of me. No matter what, you said.”
“I’m sorry.”
“But you didn’t. You just let me go outside.”
“I know. I messed up. I should have gone with you – the storm wasn’t safe.”
“I hate you.”
“He doesn’t,” Madara shakes his head, a sudden spike of irritation in his chest. “That’s taking it too far. Izuna would never say that.”
The room quiets down after that. Or maybe it is the picture?
Or really, it’s just him.
Madara waits by the window. Eventually, the sky has to clear. The river has to slow its rushing. Then he’ll head out to the town. Bring a candle to the graveyard, maybe some flowers too. Buy a new book. He’s been meaning to bake something. Maybe maple oat bread. He’ll need to get syrup for that.
Eventually the man outside has to leave. Eventually he’ll have to stop coming altogether.
Or maybe one day Madara will go outside.
The stranger outside smiles at him. Madara smiles back.