Winter Moon

way, it would be theirs in every way, and her peculiar uneasiness would probably disappear. He slid his strong hands down her sides to her hips. He pulled her against him.
        Punctuating his whispered words with soft kisses to her throat, cheeks, eyes, and the corners of her mouth, he said, "How about tonight… when the snow's falling… after we've had… a glass of wine or two… by the fire… romantic music… on the radio… when we're feeling relaxed.. ."
        "… relaxed," she said dreamily. "Then we get together…"
        "… mmmmmmm, together…"
        "… and we have a really wonderful, wonderful…"
        "… wonderful…"
        "Snowball fight." She smacked him playfully on the cheek. "Beast.
        I'll have rocks in my snowballs."
        "Or we could make love."
        "Sure you don't want to go outside and make snow angels?"
        "Not now that I've taken more time to think about "Get dressed, smartass. We've got shopping to do."
        Heather found Toby in the living room, dressed for the day. He was on the floor in front of the TV, watching a program with the sound off.
        "Big snow's coming tonight," she told him from the archway, expecting his excitement to exceed her own -because this also would be his first experience with a white winter. He didn't respond. "We're going to buy a couple of sleds when we go to town, be ready for tomorrow." He was as still as stone. His attention remained entirely on the screen.
        From where she stood, Heather couldn't see what show had so gripped him. "Toby?" She stepped out of the archway and into the living room.
        "Hey, kiddo, what're you watching?" He acknowledged her at last as she approached him. "Don't know what it is." His eyes appeared to be out of focus, as though he wasn't actually seeing her, and he gazed once more at the television..The screen was filled with a constantly evolving flow of arabic forms, reminiscent of those Lava lamps that had once been so popular. The lamps had always been in two colors, however, while this display progressed in infinite shades of all the primary colors, now bright, now dark. Ever-changing shapes melted together, curled and flexed, streamed and spurted, drizzled and purled and throbbed in a ceaseless exhibition of amorphic chaos, surging at a frenzied pace for a few seconds, then oozing sluggishly, then faster again.
        "What is this?" Heather asked. Toby shrugged. Endlessly recomposing itself, the colorful curvilinear abstract was interesting to watch and frequently beautiful.
        The longer she stared at it, however, the more disturbing it became, although for no reason she could discern. Nothing in its patterns was inherently ominous or menacing. Indeed, the fluid and dreamy intermingling of forms should have been restful.
        "Why do you have the sound turned down?"
        "Don't." She squatted next to him, picked up the remote control from the carpet, and depressed the volume button.
        The only sound was the faint static hiss of the speakers. She scanned just one channel farther up on the dial, and the booming voice of an excited sportscaster and the cheering of a crowd at a football game exploded through the living room.
        She quickly decreased the volume. When she scanned back to the previous channel, the Technicolor Lava lamp was gone. A Daffy Duck cartoon filled the screen instead and, judging by the frenetic pace of the action, was drawing toward a pyrotechnic conclusion.
        "That was odd," she said. "I liked it," Toby said. She scanned farther down the dial, then farther up than before, but she could not find the strange display.
        She hit the Off button, and the screen went dark.
        "Well, anyway," she said, "time to grab breakfast, so we can get on with the day. Lots to do in town. Don't want to run out of time to buy those sleds."
        "Buy what?" the boy asked as he got to his feet. "Didn't you hear me before?"
        "I guess."
        "About snow?" His small face brightened. "It's gonna snow?"
        "You must have enough wax built up in your ears to make the world's biggest candle," she said, heading for the kitchen. Following her, Toby said, "When? When's it gonna snow, Mom? Huh? Today?"
        "We could stick a wick in each of your ears, put a match to them, and have candlelight dinners for the rest of the decade."."How much snow?"
        "Probably dead snails in there too."
        "Just