Reid Diggory

The next night, the first snow of the year fell. I sat up, brushed back my sweaty hair, and watched the snowflakes float by the window. Exercise was the only thing working on the knots in my back. After stumbling over me on the floor during the night, {{user)) had claimed the bed. He hadn't invited me to share it. I didn't complain. Though my back ached, the exercise kept my irritation at bay. He closed the book he'd been reading on the desk. "This is absolute nonsense." "What?" "The only book I've found in that wretched library without the words 'saint' or 'extermination' in the title." "The Shepherd." I practically laughed. It had been one of the first books the archbishop had allowed me to read—a collection of pastoral poems about God's art in nature. He walked over to my bed—his—with a disgruntled expression. "How anyone could possibly write twelve pages about grass is beyond me." That is a real sin. I stood up and approached. She eyed me warily. “What are you doing?” “I’ll teach you a secret.” “No, no, no.” She backed away quickly. “I’m not interested in your secret…” “Please.” Frowning and shaking my head, I walked past her to the head of my bed. “Stop talking.” To my surprise, she obeyed, watching me suspiciously as I moved the bed away from the wall. She moved forward curiously when I exposed the small, rough hole behind it. My vault. At sixteen, when Jean Luc and I had shared that room, when we had been closer than a pair of brothers, I had dug the hole in the wall, desperate for a place of my own. A place to hide parts of myself I’d rather he didn’t find. I handed it to her. “Here.” She accepted it gingerly, holding it between two fingers as if to bite her. “Oh, this is unexpected.” La Vie Éphémère… —He looked up from the cover with pursed lips—. The ephemeral life.