Albany, New York
April 1920

It was a warm evening for this time of year, and Washington Park was a pleasant place to pass the time. Situated just across State street and the townhouse where Rose lived with her father, it was close enough that he didn’t adamantly object to her going there. Rose walked along the path and kicked at the gravel, anything to slow her return home. Nothing much there, just a distant father in his library, the maid, the cook and the butler. The kicking motion brought her pleated skirt into view and she looked down at the grass stains. She was wearing her tennis clothes. A light blue skirt down nearly to her ankles, white middy top with her sleeves rolled, and a straw hat. The stains wouldn’t get her too much of an earful since they were a regular occurance when she played. Besides, she had been helping with and doing her own laundry since the war, why couldn’t she continue on? No one in society would know.

Swishing her wooden tennis racket over a nearby bush, she hummed ‘Swanee’ as she turned down a path she had never gone down before. She had time to explore before dinner. Rose’s mind wandered down the path it usually did when she didn’t want to go home. Where could she go so she wouldn’t have to go home? Perhaps St. Joseph’s College for Women wouldn’t be too bad. She could get a job. She wrinkled her nose. Where could she work that was exciting? And modern.

She remembered her mother then and came to a stop on the path. Gripping her tennis racket, she took a deep breath and let her shoulders drop as she exhaled. Those memories didn’t make her cry anymore, for which she was grateful. Father never tolerated those emotional outbursts. Besides, she would much rather be happy, mother would want her to be happy and maybe a little silly. Lifting her chin, Rose continued down the path.

Weeds and grass were encroaching on the gravel the farther along she went. The shadows lengthened, and the sounds from the surrounding park dampened under the trees. Glancing about, she confirmed that she was alone before brandishing her tennis racket. Intrigued, Rose pressed on, feeling the tingle of excitement as she imagined herself in one of Robert Louis Stevenson’s novels. ”Have at thee!” she said quietly, swashing the racket.

Rose heard something then. At first she thought it was a particularly noisy machine going down a nearby road. But that wasn’t quite right. Turning on the spot, she searched the overgrown garden and yelped when a howling gust of wind came from nowhere, blasting her so forcefully that she stumbled back. Alarm and surprise gripped her then and she turned to run back the way she came, but another gale buffeted her the other way. Holding her hat down with one hand, she held her racket in the other and crouched down to minimize the effect the wind was having on her. Squinting through the dusty wind, she could only hear the wailing of the turbulent air as it whirled around her.

And a moment later, it was over. Rose slowly lifted her head in astonishment. Everything was quiet, and still. Sitting on the path, she heard something behind her and turned to look.

Albany, New York
April 2020

"Man, this quarantine shit really blows," grumbled Ian as he painstakingly typed at his laptop, one finger, one letter at a time. He spared a hand to give himself a sip of coffee that had to be lukewarm by this point, and went back to pecking away.

Noah glared at his roommate and said nothing, trying to concentrate on his own homework. 50 thumbnails for a screen-printing project? It was ridiculous! Noah had run out of ideas at 20, and was now doodling with random shapes and swirls in a futile attempt to b.s. the rest of them. Maybe if he got away from his most odious roommate, he could concentrate. They had been cooped up in their apartment for days. Noah's part-time job in the shipping department of a bookstore had been put on hold, because it was non-essential. Their roommate who worked part-time at the grocery store brought home all their essentials. No excuse to go outside.

But when Ian started digging up his own nostrils, Noah couldn't take it. He stormed to the bathroom they all shared and snatched up a medical mask his grocery clerk roommate had abandoned there because it had a small rip. Shoving it against his face, he decided he would chance it. He paused a moment to check his reflection. You couldn't tell the mask was compromised. He looked like a guy taking every precaution. He plucked at his hair, trying to pat the blue and red colored bits into a more pleasing arrangement. The roots were growing in black, almost an inch now, and it annoyed him mightily. But he couldn't go to the salon and get them done. Salons were non-essential.

Sketchbook and pencils in hand, he darted out the door before anyone could call him back, and took off at a jog toward the park. He would get back in time for the online meetup at six. University at Albany had gone all digital to keep its students safe during the pandemic. Noah was going mad. He needed solitude! He hadn't been getting his alone-time to decompress at all, and the stress was making him constantly nauseous. He needed at least an hour before bed. Well, he would make up for it a little today. Three hours alone in the park. No one would be out, he was pretty sure of it. And if they saw him, they would stay well away. Social isolation, after all. If Noah wasn't in an apartment living situation, he would be absolutely fine with it. A hiatus from the pressures of being social; he longed for it. He longed for just a small, close friend group. People who were like him and he didn't mind hanging out with. People he could trust, who didn't expect more than he could give. He didn't trust his current roommates at all.

Mom kept saying that he would find friends soon. She talked about the 'fun' she'd had when she had gone to college. Well, Noah didn't want that kind of fun, or those kinds of friends. What he wanted was very specific, and he wasn't finding it anywhere.

But even walking alone down a mostly deserted street was lifting his spirits. His eyebrow piercing became itchy when the sun hit it, and he scratched at it idly, allowing himself a small, relieved smile. If he couldn't have close companionship, he preferred to just be alone. He cut across a couple of streets and headed straight for the thickly wooded area of Washington Park. It was the quietest part of the park, though everything was currently pretty quiet. He headed that way because it was familiar. Ideas were already starting to flow. When he got there, he'd find that stump that was cut at a perfect drafting angle...

Scurrying down the path, lost in thought, Noah failed to notice the wind picking up until a huge gust nearly knocked him on his face. He hunched his shoulders, put his head down, and kept walking, letting the wind push him onward. Man, the wind was nuts! It was going to be hard to draw if this kept up--

A bone deep, savage cold suddenly, literally, froze him in his tracks. His eyes were half-closed against the wind, and he could not move them. He felt his arms and legs flash to numbness as a bright light blinded him. A moment later, the gravel path appeared again before him, and Noah sank to his knees, ice-coated skinny jeans crackling. Agonizing goosebumps erupted over every inch of him. There was a girl standing a few feet in front of him. He blinked once at her, the ice coating his eyelashes clinking softly, but he barely registered her presence.

His body sent panicked instructions to his brain to shut down immediately pending an investigation into the extent of the damage. As unconsciousness claimed him and he toppled forward, Noah gasped in a breath and had time for a single exhaled word.

"Fuck."

Mouth agape, Rose cringed when the stranger hit the gravel. She danced from foot to foot for a moment in indecision, his appearance extremely confusing. Where had he come from? Her hands raised, she hurried over to his side and knelt down, putting the racket on the grass. Gripping him by the shoulder, she pushed until she had rolled him over onto his back. His clothes, hair, mask and a funny ring on his eyebrow brought her up short, "What..?" she whispered, more to herself than to him.

The wind had torn her ringlets free of their pins, so she brushed her dark hair back over her shoulder before leaning over him curiously. He was still breathing, his chest was moving. Rose bit her lip, and glanced around again. There was no one else in sight. Tilting her head to the side, she slowly reached out to touch the color in his hair. She'd never seen these colors like this before, especially on a man. Her attention shifted to the ring on his eyebrow. She couldn't help but wrinkle her nose in a slight grimace. Who would do that? Shaking her head, she reached over to gently tug at the mask covering the lower half of his face.

Once the flimsy thing came free of his ears, she reached out and started patting his face, "Hello? Can you hear me?" she said, "Sir?
This message was last edited by the player at 22:43, Sun 12 Apr 2020.

The ice on him was melting rapidly in the warm spring air. After a few moments, his eyes fluttered open. He immediately started shivering, his hands clenching into fists.

"Wh-what ha-ha-happened?" he managed to croak out through chattering teeth. His mind whirled and his limbs still felt tingly and numb. Freak weather? Flash freeze? It figured. Maybe this girl saw what it was. He couldn't see her clearly; water was running into his eyes and his vision was blurry and smeared.

Rose pulled her handkerchief from her pocket and pressed it into his hand, "I was hoping you could tell me. You're the one who popped out onto the path." she looked him up and down warily, sitting back on her heels, "Are you a grifter or something?" she reached back for her tennis racket while keeping an eye on him.

Noah wanted to sit up, but he felt too stiff. As he thawed, pain was starting to blossom all over. He raised a shaking hand to clear his eyes. "A-a-a wh-what?" Was this girl a homeless person? She talked so strangely.

"A grifter." she said again, as if that was an explanation. Perhaps he hadn't heard her, "Who else would dress like that? Unless you're a dewdropper." she gripped her tennis racket and stood up, pointing the sports equipment at him and straightening her straw hat, "I will not be tricked, so skip the act, and tell me who you are." she was proud of herself, she sounded more confident than she thought.

Although, a part of her ached. He looked so cold, and stiff. Her racket faltered slightly and she brought her eyebrows together with a small frown.

Dashing the water away from his eyes, Noah got his first good look at this weird girl. She must be cos-playing or appearing in a play or something, because she looked straight out of the 1920s. "I-I honsestly h-have n-n-no idea wh-what you're t-talking about." As he spoke, he managed to pull himself into a sitting position and started rubbing his arms. Ugh, he ached all over. The cold felt stuck in his bones. "I res-s-s-spect that y-you're so devoted t-to your ch-character, though," he said, eyeing her old fashioned clothes.

Rose frowned at him in confusion, "My character?" she let her racket fall to her side and placed her other hand on her hip, her foot tapping while she studied him. He really looked lost and out of place. Perhaps she could give him a blanket and a sandwich, father wouldn't notice. She firmly tapped her foot one last time, "You still have not answered my question. Who are you? Why are you dressed like that?"

"D-dressed like what?" he asked distractedly, peering up at the sky. No clouds, and the freaky wind was gone. "A college s-student? 'Cause that's what I am. A-aren't you?" He looked at her again. Albany had something like ten colleges, so most of the people Noah met who were his age were students. But maybe she was just a local. A weird one. He looked around for his sketchbook; he must have dropped it.

Rose fidgeted and wrung the handle of her racket, "Not yet." she scowled and shook her finger at him, "You shouldn't talk to me that way. I was going to offer you a sandwich." she took a few steps back down the path, "But now, I think that would be unwise. I'm going home."

Lifting her chin, Rose turned to retreat but stopped so she wouldn't step on the wide book that was on the ground before her. Stooping, she picked it up and tucked her racket under her arm so she could hold it. Curiously, she opened it.

The inside was filled with doodles and drawings, organic and detailed. Some pages were filled with tiny boxes, each with a small, rough drawing inside. Some were full-page creations, colored with delicate hues.

Still sitting on the ground behind her, still shivering occasionally, Noah was caught up with her sandwich offer. "A sandwich?" he mumbled, confused, still casting about for his sketchbook. He did find his mask. Then something occured to him. "Why aren't you wearing a mask?" he asked, glancing at her. A nasty shock coursed through him when he saw she was looking at his drawings. "Hey!" he shouted, louder than he meant to. He started fumbling to his feet. "That's mine!"

Rose closed the book as he got to his feet, bristling at the volume of his shout, "Excuse me." she offered in apology, somewhat half-heartily. She held the book out to him and tried to conceal her surprise at how tall he was when standing, "I think they're very good." she said, shrugging a shoulder in a careless sort of way. "In response to your question, I'm not wearing a mask, because the influenza outbreak has been over for nearly a year."

Brushing her hair back, Rose swallowed past the lump in her throat, "If you're sick, you should get to the hospital." she took a cautionary step away from him.

He took his sketchbook back, careful not to snatch it. "Influenza? It's pretty bad in the States right now if that's what you mean. Not the pandemic the world is freaking out about though. You been living under a rock or something? And I'm not sick." He should put his mask back on, but he would have to touch his face to do it. He'd just wash his hands thoroughly when he got home. He shivered; he was dripping wet from the weird weather. Brushing his damp hair away from his forehead then cursing because he had already touched his face, he swallowed nervously as he looked at the girl. She was weird, but in a compelling way. He normally would have taken off minutes ago to do his homework in solitude, but something about the way she carried herself intrigued him. He could honestly say he had never met anyone like her. "Hey, what's your name?"

Taken aback slightly by the way he asked for her name, Rose frowned at him. He couldn't have come from a very high place if he thought that sort of introduction was polite. However, coming from 'new money' herself, she often felt the sting of society and their lack of acceptance. Sympathizing with him, and how she felt whenever she was looked down on for slip-ups in social gatherings, she smiled and extended her hand, "Miss Rose Walsh. It is a great pleasure to know you, Mr-?" she prompted gently, tilting her head to the side in anticipation of the acquaintance.

He couldn't help but smile at the way she spoke. She was really into her roleplay. He could respect that. "Noah. Noah Killian. You said you were going to school soon, right? What's your major gonna be?"

Rose averted her gaze and let her hand fall, "Mr. Killian, this subject is difficult to discuss. My father hasn't given his permission for me to go, and I haven't gotten a job to pay for tuition. Forty dollars! Can you believe it?" she started tapping her foot again in agitation, shaking her head and placing her hand on her hip. "He so Victorian in his thinking. It is so frustrating." harrumphing in an unladylike manner, she suddenly froze, "Oh applesauce!" she looked at Noah and then the sky, "Do you have the time? I can't be late for dinner."

The time and her situation started coming back and she looked at her new acquaintance. His hair, the eyebrow ring, his clothes! What was she doing!?

He couldn't help it. Noah burst into laughter. She was amazing! "A-a-applesauce!" he repeated, gasping with mirth. "Are you part of a local roleplay group or something? You're great!" Just in case she was serious about needing to know what time it was, he pulled his phone out. "Or, you're really a theater major! Is that it?" He smiled at her, expecting her to break character, even just a little, to answer his question. Maybe she had a business card he could have. Was Rose even her real name?