Title: Footprints in the Snow
The first few paragraphs of this have been posted before; I decided to finish the short story for my English assignment. Tell me what you think!
--- ---
I was fifteen when winter came down from the mountains to take my brother Jacob.
She was nothing like I expected. The old miners, long gone from their huge strength, gave her body, gave her shape, when they spoke. They told of her in like terms to the strong women of the far, far north; hair so icy blond that it seemed it would burn cold if you touched it, but rather than burned nut-brown by the winter sun, her skin was pale as hell.
I say pale as hell because there is no fear of fire that one of us could dread so much as ice. There is no pain that fire gives that ice will not return tenfold; fire may scorch, but ice will burn forever against you. Here in the cold lands fire is our savior. And fire did not take away my brother Jacob.
I had never seen the likes of her in these white lands. She was dark of skin, dark as night, near as dark as the coal the old miners no longer had the strength to dig for, and over her strong, broad features light played with a sleek glossiness. I remember once I saw her out in the snow, and over her hair and her skin the snowflakes that did not melt on the warmth that was not there looked like the night sky, beautiful and shining and distant and cold.
And it was cold, the night she came for my brother Jacob.
~ ~
Winter arrived on a wind of her own making, blown from the mountain peaks by harsh gales that thrust stinging needles of snow into skin and eyes. I was carrying a bucket of snow indoors, to melt it for our water, when I saw her first. She was walking through the woods with the stately languor of an elk, and she seemed impossibly tall. She was dressed in white, the dark of her skin sharp against her coat. Then her face turned away, and I lost her amidst the snow.
She appeared later on our doorstep, when the snow-laden winds reached their most furious force. I was sitting by the fire, with ice dripping off my hair and the feeling that blood had only just begun again to move unfrozen through my veins.
My brother Jacob was seventeen that year, light-haired and blue-eyed, and he brought her in with the wood for our fire. My brother Jacob was all light and sharp movement; he spoke quickly and smiled quicker, and was full of barely contained energy. I hated him and I loved him, and I told him more than once a day to dive into the coalmines and stay there.
My brother Jacob brought winter into our household when he opened the door and stepped in with the wind and snow at his back, stamping snow from her boots and pulling the hood from her face. She shook snow from her hair and ice from the fur on her coat, and her skin was darker than bark, but smooth in the firelight's glare. Jacob shed wood chips and twigs and dropped logs on the floor to call for my father to prepare a room.
This was how winter entered our household, as the winds beyond the door whistled and roared and made themselves a home in the foothills of the mountain.
~ ~
The fire burned steadily for us for nine days before its last simmering coals rumbled into fine gray ash, powdery and flecked with the occasional last desperate spark.
The wind still roared outside, battering the door with a ram of ice. I ran a finger across the hearth and stared at the mark it left. The ash leapt and tumbled off my finger when my brother Jacob opened the door and pulled in a pail of snow to be melted for water.
"It's gone?"
Winter followed his voice into the room, halted, and stared impassively at the bare fireplace. Her hair, always before restrained by ties and pulled down her back by its own weight, rose about her face untied in an aureole of loose darkness. In that moment she seemed entirely foreign to me, entirely alien and foreign, even beyond her skin and hair that were so unlike the world here.
When she spoke, I was taken aback again; every time she opened her mouth I expected the cold breath of the winds to blow through the room, cracking the earth floors and carving glacial paths into the walls. "This building is not warm enough." Her voice was light, dry, and accented, with an odd flat shape to some vowels and a round warm one to the others. She turned to look at my brother Jacob.
My brother Jacob returned her stare, wide-eyed as if undergoing some revelation, then turned hastily towards the door. "We need wood," he said, "to keep the fires going, we don't have any wood, we-"
"Jacob," I said, but he ignored me.
"It won't take time at all. I know these woods, no matter how the wind blows-"
I stood and moved towards him, but he had pulled his coat on and reached for the door.
Winter, still as the sky, spoke again, her voice dropping into the room like pebbles into a pond, spreading ripples that grew overwhelmingly loud and disrupting my thoughts until they tangled and knotted, the simple desire to keep my brother Jacob here and safe became incomprehensible. "Go, and come back to me."
My brother Jacob stared at her, breathless and wide-eyed, then pulled the door open and fled into the whiteness.
I followed him to the door, gripped the lintel a second after the door closed. I leaned my face against the wood. Blankly I considered its texture, smoothed wherever hands had caressed it, rough where it had not, its pale, creamy swirls of color. Then I turned back.
Winter met my gaze, calm and silent.
I wrenched the door open and disappeared into the snow.
~ ~
The world was a white wall in front of me as I ran, pulling my feet through snow and fighting the wind. I ran until I stumbled blind, eyes closed against the daggers of ice and snow. The white blankness fell to pieces before me when I fell.
My brother Jacob was lying in the snow, frost crusted on his eyelashes and glazing his hair until it was white against his pale skin and he looked like a marble statue, beautiful and inanimate. I, not even thinking, burrowed beneath him and struggled to my feet with him slung across my shoulders. I could feel the chill of his body pressed against my back.
I struggled aimlessly, searching for the house. I could not see; I had no idea where my feet went, but could not stop. I fought on until I saw her.
Winter stood before me, impassive and bleak.
"You cannot have him," I said, abruptly and irrationally furious. I shook with the strain of holding Jacob, and let him slide onto the ground, crushing the snow into distorted figures of a human being. "He is mine. I lay claim to him, and to the earth, and the trees and the sky, all that lies at the foot of the mountain. This is all mine. I lay claim, and you cannot have it."
Winter looked at me, her hair streaming around her face. She stepped forward, the pale, dappled silver of her coat stark against the overwhelming, oppressive whiteness. Her face was the night sky, starred and ornamented by snowflakes like tiny jewels.
"He called me here," she said, "when he walked in my foothills and climbed my cliffs. He called me here when he stared into my skies, and he brought me and the wind and snow into your house. He is mine."
She stepped forward again and I snarled incomprehensibly and threw myself over my brother Jacob. She stood then for some time, watching me, while the snow stung in my eyes and the roughness of my brother Jacob's wool coat seemed harsh against my bare hands. I lifted my head, hair tangling into long thick ropes, and looked beyond her. "Footprints," I said, suddenly, bemused.
"Did you think I wouldn't leave them?"
"No."
She shifted her weight and I pulled my brother Jacob closer to me. Winter regarded me with eyes dark as coal, lightless and dark and secret and old.
"I claim the wind and the snow," I said, and she laughed in her light voice, loosing the sharp, pealing sound into the air until I felt the mountains rumble in homage. Then she turned and I lost her in the snow.
Then I picked up my brother Jacob and stumbled home.
~ ~
The snow fell for two more days while Jacob lay feverish and half-asleep in front of the fire, pale and immobile. I sat next to him, huddled under a heap of blankets with my back burned by the fire, watching the winds die and the snowfall slowly fade away.
Winter left with the snow and wind. When she was gone, my brother Jacob's stillness gave way to restless movement. That night he woke me with his feet on the floor and one carelessly outcast hand leaving white marks on my cheek.
I pushed him back into his bed and pressed my forehead against his. "Hush, Jacob, hush," I whispered, as softly as I could, but my hands were hard against his shoulders when he fought to rise.
The next night he was still and asleep, but the night after he stumbled to the door before I threw myself against it, crying and wild-eyed, with blankets falling from my shoulders and my hair in such knots I must have looked like some kind of wild thing. My brother Jacob leaned his face against the door above me, and I heard his ragged breaths.
He was awake the next morning, quiet and without spirit behind his eyes. He moved slowly and spoke little.
Later that day I saw him staring into the forest, with the same wide-eyed breathless expression. I ran towards him, pushing through snow up to my knees, and fell onto him a moment before he could burst into motion. I wrapped my arms around his waist as he wept and railed against me, hitting me and pulling at my arms. He eventually subsided into harsh sobs.
I cried too, my face smothered and scratched by his rough wool coat, and pressed my face into his back so that I didn't know he was speaking until I pulled my face away, tear streaks burning cold tracks on my cheeks.
"Face like the night," he was saying, "and hair like the storm clouds-"
He fell silent, then, and I looked into the eyes of winter, beautiful and dark and without mercy, and so cold beyond the world.
I breathed in, and led my brother Jacob into the warmth, into the glow of the fire, away from the mountains and the snow and the trees and the ice and the winds, but I could not lead him away from the cold.
That night, winter took my brother Jacob.
--- ---
I was fifteen when winter came down from the mountains to take my brother Jacob.
She was nothing like I expected. The old miners, long gone from their huge strength, gave her body, gave her shape, when they spoke. They told of her in like terms to the strong women of the far, far north; hair so icy blond that it seemed it would burn cold if you touched it, but rather than burned nut-brown by the winter sun, her skin was pale as hell.
I say pale as hell because there is no fear of fire that one of us could dread so much as ice. There is no pain that fire gives that ice will not return tenfold; fire may scorch, but ice will burn forever against you. Here in the cold lands fire is our savior. And fire did not take away my brother Jacob.
I had never seen the likes of her in these white lands. She was dark of skin, dark as night, near as dark as the coal the old miners no longer had the strength to dig for, and over her strong, broad features light played with a sleek glossiness. I remember once I saw her out in the snow, and over her hair and her skin the snowflakes that did not melt on the warmth that was not there looked like the night sky, beautiful and shining and distant and cold.
And it was cold, the night she came for my brother Jacob.
~ ~
Winter arrived on a wind of her own making, blown from the mountain peaks by harsh gales that thrust stinging needles of snow into skin and eyes. I was carrying a bucket of snow indoors, to melt it for our water, when I saw her first. She was walking through the woods with the stately languor of an elk, and she seemed impossibly tall. She was dressed in white, the dark of her skin sharp against her coat. Then her face turned away, and I lost her amidst the snow.
She appeared later on our doorstep, when the snow-laden winds reached their most furious force. I was sitting by the fire, with ice dripping off my hair and the feeling that blood had only just begun again to move unfrozen through my veins.
My brother Jacob was seventeen that year, light-haired and blue-eyed, and he brought her in with the wood for our fire. My brother Jacob was all light and sharp movement; he spoke quickly and smiled quicker, and was full of barely contained energy. I hated him and I loved him, and I told him more than once a day to dive into the coalmines and stay there.
My brother Jacob brought winter into our household when he opened the door and stepped in with the wind and snow at his back, stamping snow from her boots and pulling the hood from her face. She shook snow from her hair and ice from the fur on her coat, and her skin was darker than bark, but smooth in the firelight's glare. Jacob shed wood chips and twigs and dropped logs on the floor to call for my father to prepare a room.
This was how winter entered our household, as the winds beyond the door whistled and roared and made themselves a home in the foothills of the mountain.
~ ~
The fire burned steadily for us for nine days before its last simmering coals rumbled into fine gray ash, powdery and flecked with the occasional last desperate spark.
The wind still roared outside, battering the door with a ram of ice. I ran a finger across the hearth and stared at the mark it left. The ash leapt and tumbled off my finger when my brother Jacob opened the door and pulled in a pail of snow to be melted for water.
"It's gone?"
Winter followed his voice into the room, halted, and stared impassively at the bare fireplace. Her hair, always before restrained by ties and pulled down her back by its own weight, rose about her face untied in an aureole of loose darkness. In that moment she seemed entirely foreign to me, entirely alien and foreign, even beyond her skin and hair that were so unlike the world here.
When she spoke, I was taken aback again; every time she opened her mouth I expected the cold breath of the winds to blow through the room, cracking the earth floors and carving glacial paths into the walls. "This building is not warm enough." Her voice was light, dry, and accented, with an odd flat shape to some vowels and a round warm one to the others. She turned to look at my brother Jacob.
My brother Jacob returned her stare, wide-eyed as if undergoing some revelation, then turned hastily towards the door. "We need wood," he said, "to keep the fires going, we don't have any wood, we-"
"Jacob," I said, but he ignored me.
"It won't take time at all. I know these woods, no matter how the wind blows-"
I stood and moved towards him, but he had pulled his coat on and reached for the door.
Winter, still as the sky, spoke again, her voice dropping into the room like pebbles into a pond, spreading ripples that grew overwhelmingly loud and disrupting my thoughts until they tangled and knotted, the simple desire to keep my brother Jacob here and safe became incomprehensible. "Go, and come back to me."
My brother Jacob stared at her, breathless and wide-eyed, then pulled the door open and fled into the whiteness.
I followed him to the door, gripped the lintel a second after the door closed. I leaned my face against the wood. Blankly I considered its texture, smoothed wherever hands had caressed it, rough where it had not, its pale, creamy swirls of color. Then I turned back.
Winter met my gaze, calm and silent.
I wrenched the door open and disappeared into the snow.
~ ~
The world was a white wall in front of me as I ran, pulling my feet through snow and fighting the wind. I ran until I stumbled blind, eyes closed against the daggers of ice and snow. The white blankness fell to pieces before me when I fell.
My brother Jacob was lying in the snow, frost crusted on his eyelashes and glazing his hair until it was white against his pale skin and he looked like a marble statue, beautiful and inanimate. I, not even thinking, burrowed beneath him and struggled to my feet with him slung across my shoulders. I could feel the chill of his body pressed against my back.
I struggled aimlessly, searching for the house. I could not see; I had no idea where my feet went, but could not stop. I fought on until I saw her.
Winter stood before me, impassive and bleak.
"You cannot have him," I said, abruptly and irrationally furious. I shook with the strain of holding Jacob, and let him slide onto the ground, crushing the snow into distorted figures of a human being. "He is mine. I lay claim to him, and to the earth, and the trees and the sky, all that lies at the foot of the mountain. This is all mine. I lay claim, and you cannot have it."
Winter looked at me, her hair streaming around her face. She stepped forward, the pale, dappled silver of her coat stark against the overwhelming, oppressive whiteness. Her face was the night sky, starred and ornamented by snowflakes like tiny jewels.
"He called me here," she said, "when he walked in my foothills and climbed my cliffs. He called me here when he stared into my skies, and he brought me and the wind and snow into your house. He is mine."
She stepped forward again and I snarled incomprehensibly and threw myself over my brother Jacob. She stood then for some time, watching me, while the snow stung in my eyes and the roughness of my brother Jacob's wool coat seemed harsh against my bare hands. I lifted my head, hair tangling into long thick ropes, and looked beyond her. "Footprints," I said, suddenly, bemused.
"Did you think I wouldn't leave them?"
"No."
She shifted her weight and I pulled my brother Jacob closer to me. Winter regarded me with eyes dark as coal, lightless and dark and secret and old.
"I claim the wind and the snow," I said, and she laughed in her light voice, loosing the sharp, pealing sound into the air until I felt the mountains rumble in homage. Then she turned and I lost her in the snow.
Then I picked up my brother Jacob and stumbled home.
~ ~
The snow fell for two more days while Jacob lay feverish and half-asleep in front of the fire, pale and immobile. I sat next to him, huddled under a heap of blankets with my back burned by the fire, watching the winds die and the snowfall slowly fade away.
Winter left with the snow and wind. When she was gone, my brother Jacob's stillness gave way to restless movement. That night he woke me with his feet on the floor and one carelessly outcast hand leaving white marks on my cheek.
I pushed him back into his bed and pressed my forehead against his. "Hush, Jacob, hush," I whispered, as softly as I could, but my hands were hard against his shoulders when he fought to rise.
The next night he was still and asleep, but the night after he stumbled to the door before I threw myself against it, crying and wild-eyed, with blankets falling from my shoulders and my hair in such knots I must have looked like some kind of wild thing. My brother Jacob leaned his face against the door above me, and I heard his ragged breaths.
He was awake the next morning, quiet and without spirit behind his eyes. He moved slowly and spoke little.
Later that day I saw him staring into the forest, with the same wide-eyed breathless expression. I ran towards him, pushing through snow up to my knees, and fell onto him a moment before he could burst into motion. I wrapped my arms around his waist as he wept and railed against me, hitting me and pulling at my arms. He eventually subsided into harsh sobs.
I cried too, my face smothered and scratched by his rough wool coat, and pressed my face into his back so that I didn't know he was speaking until I pulled my face away, tear streaks burning cold tracks on my cheeks.
"Face like the night," he was saying, "and hair like the storm clouds-"
He fell silent, then, and I looked into the eyes of winter, beautiful and dark and without mercy, and so cold beyond the world.
I breathed in, and led my brother Jacob into the warmth, into the glow of the fire, away from the mountains and the snow and the trees and the ice and the winds, but I could not lead him away from the cold.
That night, winter took my brother Jacob.