A short story for lovers of winter
By Heather Allen
She wore a long white coat, with a white woollen hat pulled down over her ears. Her long straight hair flowed out from under it, which was the palest blonde, almost, yes, white. Translucent skin the colour of spilt milk, eyes the clean blue of the sky on a clear January morning, pale as chips of glacial ice. Tall and thin, like Jack Frost’s younger sister.
Her name was Erica, but her friends called her Snow, although it was nothing to do with her colouring. People still talked about the day when, back in infants school, at home-time on a day when it had snowed steadily since lunchtime, she had run out onto the snow-covered lawn, stripped off all her clothes and rolled around in it, giggling. Her mum had swept her up into her arms and taken her inside to the school nurse, who pronounced her unscathed by her adventure. All she really remembered from that day was how delicious the snow felt on her skin; how much herself she had felt, how liberated and free, during those precious few moments.
She walked, now, or to be more accurate, stomped, through the six-inch-thick white carpet that spread in all directions from her parent’s house and across most of the British mainland. Her Samoyed dog, Ice, hauled on his lead, his fluffy white fur almost invisible against the snow. This was his weather, and his wide smile showed it. Hers, too. So rare it happened here. Why had she ended up in the home of a family in the English Midlands, she often asked herself, where it snowed but rarely? There was sometimes a short spell of snowy weather in January, and maybe the odd flurry through winter, if they were very lucky. Some years, nothing at all.
Erica knew she didn’t belong here. She looked Scandinavian, everyone said, and she felt it, too. When she was a little girl, people would often ask where she got her colouring from, looking doubtfully at her dark haired parents and narrowing their eyes critically at her mum in particular. That stalwart matriarch would fold her arms and stare defiantly back. “From the angels who brought her to us,” she would reply, daring them to say more. When Erica was a little older, her parents took her aside for a talk. Told her that, yes, it was true, Mum hadn’t actually birthed her. Erica had been (and this was where it grew vague) a gift. What kind of person gives a baby as a gift, she had wondered? Who or whatever it was, they had blundered, they had brought her to the wrong country, even though she loved her parents dearly and wouldn’t wish for any others. She would dream of Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Iceland, Greenland, even Svalbard in the High Arctic, with its reindeer and polar bears. That was paradise as far as Erica was concerned.
It could be worse, she told herself often. At least they had some snow, sometimes. But Svalbard’s two-and-a half-month-long darkness would be preferable to this tepid, damp place, which, for the months between May and September, became a living hell for her. In those long, painful summer months, when not enduring the purgatory of school, she would hide indoors, the electric fan blowing over her damp skin, reading about cooler climes. On the hottest days she would lie in a bath of cold water, sucking ice cubes and longing with all her heart for the winter, picturing frosty days and bitter nights, the moon surrounded by a huge ice-crystal halo. She could only ever be truly herself when the snow came. She thrived in the cold, she loved the feeling of it; ice did not hurt her skin but cooled it so she felt comfortable. Most of the time she was burning. She only wore clothes at all because it was what society demanded, and she only wore outdoor clothes in winter to keep her parents happy. Her instincts screamed against it, but she had learned the hard way that some things had to be borne.
Erica never smiled in the summer, or even spring or autumn. In fact, she would only break into a smile when snowflakes started to spiral down from the white winter sky. Then, her face would light up, and she would run out, laughing, to welcome their cold beauty, arms stretched wide, head flung back, staring up into the heavens where they seemed to come from impossibly far away, going on forever, cascading down on her, masses and masses of them! Resisting the urge to strip off, she would stay outside until her parents called her in. Only then, reluctantly, would she come indoors.
This afternoon, after months of waiting and hoping, it had finally happened. It was mid January and the snow had finally arrived, silent and pure. She had stood resolutely in the back garden this time, letting the snow cover her hair and clothes, and come in only when it suited her. It had been a few years since they had had a decent snowfall, and she had yearned for it all that time. Now she was sixteen years old, although she looked a lot younger. Although she was still under her parents’ jurisdiction, she was allowed a little more freedom, and she took it.
This was why she and Ice were out now, walking in the snow-bright, moonlit evening, to the park where the beautiful snow would be covering everything, and where she could (hopefully) be alone. Through the park gates, and it was as she had hoped and imagined; what she had dreamed about through the long, slow, torturous summer months. There was no-one else in the park; she and Ice were utterly, wonderfully alone. In front of her and all around lay a wide expanse of moonlit whiteness, pristine and glorious. Ready for her.
Ice strained at his lead, his breath coming in excited snorts, so she released him and he took off, bounding through the snow like a puppy, frolicking, barking with sheer happiness, rolling in the snow with an expression of pure doggy joy. She watched him for a few minutes, then checked in all directions. No-one else about. So, she took off her coat, laid it carefully on the snow, then began to take off her other clothes and place them on top of it. Her heart pounding, she peeled off her gloves hat, scarf, then her jumper and blouse, her boots, jeans and socks. She laughed, a childlike sound, as the cold air hit her, and Ice bounded up to her, thrusting his snowy nose against her shin. She lunged for him, but he was off again, a fluffy white snowball of a dog.
Her pale skin was almost as white as the snow itself. She ran after her delighted dog, bare footprints following his paw-prints across the pristine whiteness. She chased him for a long while, her skinny legs lifting high, kicking up the snow in great plumes, then stopping to throw snowballs which he jumped and caught, barking happily. Eventually, when she grew tired, she threw herself to the ground and rolled around, rolled and rolled until the delicious snow covered every inch of her, then lay, Ice sprawled next to her, panting steam into the night air. She gazed up into the night sky as the cold burrowed into her bones, the beautiful cleansing cold, into her very soul, taking away the despicable, painful heat. She lay, absorbing the cold until the horrors of the hot days had been purged, then lay some more. Only when Ice grew restless, jumping up and running round in circles, nudging her with his nose and whining, did she stand up, shake the snow off herself, and slowly put her clothes back on.
Maybe, she reflected, as she and Ice set off once more in the direction of home, maybe she could persuade her parents to get a chest freezer, so she could cram it full of this marvellous snow and lie in it when the agonising heat of June, July and August became too much. Now she must fix this night in her mind, so that she could return in her memory to the snow falling, snow blanketing, the wide white expanse in the moonlit night, and the marvellous feeling of the cold snow on her skin as she rolled in the night in its pure white delight.