I remember being little and playing in the snow with my brother. He would grab my hand when we went up a hill, and we would go sledging, build a snowman and give him a hat, buttons, and a carrot nose. I was that little girl, hoping that one day I was going to grow up and be an amazing person and that the world wasn’t going to be so bad after all.
Damn, those poisonous snowflakes.
I needed my mother’s hand to grab mine, my father to hug, my brother to make fun of me. I wanted it all back.
For a while after what happened, I was quiet. I was what he wanted, weak, on edge, not to question him. I didn’t know what to do around him.
Anything he told me to do, I did it without question. I cleaned, and dressed nice, did my hair, and listened to him. He was happier.
One night, the doe had entered my room. I turned away from her, not wanting to deal with her. Whatever she was supposed to be.
“Are you going to give up?” she asked.
I shrugged.
“Tavi, you can’t give up,” she told me. “You have to fight.”
“I can’t.”
“You have to.”
“How? You keep telling me to fight. I can’t.”
“Tavi, I know you better than that. We are here for you,” she told me.
“We?” I asked sitting up. She disappeared after that. Under the doorway, there was light. I got up and opened the door.
It was bright and white, and it gave me this feeling of warmth. I thought that it was the doe, but it wasn’t. I stared at it for the longest time. It just stayed there, hovering and waiting for me.
Looking back on it, I think I was dreaming, but something about it felt too real, like the doe. I saw William’s open bedroom and saw the drunken bear asleep. He wasn’t going to wake up, and I knew that. He kept mumbling in his sleep, “Emily.”
Hope and I started to follow the glowing light. It would wait for me too caught up, then keep going.
It went to the living room, waiting for me. When I caught up with the thing, it started to go up the dead fireplace. I couldn’t follow it up there. Hope tried so hard. But luckily, the light knew we couldn’t follow it.
It seemed to almost wave at us in the window, letting us know that it was there. I carried Hope, and we went to the window. I couldn’t see too well, but the glowing light seemed to take the form of a girl. She was waving and smiling, like she was happy.
“I don’t understand,” I told it.
She didn’t wait. She started to walk to the shed, and then she disappeared. I couldn’t go outside since William had locked the door, but Hope and I stayed at that window and waited for her to come back out. She didn’t. The shed seemed to give off a glow.
“What are you doing up?” William asked, grabbing my shoulder. I jumped and turned around. He looked sleepy and almost sober.
“I’m sorry, I just wanted to see the snow,” I lied.
“You saw the snow. Tavi, what are you doing up?” I didn’t answer. “Come on,” he said grabbing my hand. “Let’s go to bed.”
I carried my cat and held onto William's hand. When he took me back to my room, he tucked me into the sheets and kissed me on the forehead. Then he started to leave.
“Wait, William,” I said.
He stopped and turned around. “Yes.”
“Um, nothing, I’m sorry,” I laid back down. He didn’t go, he sat down on the bed. “I’m sorry.”
“Tavi, what’s going on?” he asked. I didn’t answer him. “Tavi, please tell me.”
“It feels like you’re the only person in the world,” I blurted out.
“As it should be,” he nodded. He didn't understood what I meant. It wasn't a good thing.
“What was Emily like?”
He paused, thinking about it. He started to lay on the bed next to me. “She was a lot like you.” He grabbed my hand.
I gulped. “Is that why you took me?”
“Maybe . . .maybe it’s because I see a lot of her in you before she turned.”
“Turned?”
“Towards the end . . . a demon entered her. I felt it.”
I could tell if he was just tried and blurted out anything, but it felt like something he would say when he was sober. “What do you mean?”
“In the end, she turned into an acid snowflake,” he said. “So, I had to punish her.”
He closed his eyes. I wanted to ask questions, but I was too scared. He ended up falling asleep.
The next morning, I got a full rest. It was around nine when I woke up, with him nowhere in sight. I went to the window to find that William was practicing the bow and arrow. He hit the target every time.
I hated it because it scared me even more. He was strong, and I knew I would be too weak to fight him. He noticed me in the window and smiled. He grabbed his arrows from the target and started to come into the cabin.
I raced to the living room and entered the same time he did. He brought the arrows and the bow in with him and placed them near the door. “Morning Tavi,” he said.
“It’s nine,” I told him.
“Yes, I thought maybe you might want to sleep for a little while,” he said.
“Why?”
“Well, because I wanted to practice the bow. It’s been a while,” he told me. I thought it was funny, how he was out of practice, yet he hit the target every time. He hit the red every damn time. I had been doing it for weeks, and it was a very proud moment when I do hit the center. “It was nice to sleep next to you. Maybe we should do that more.”
I looked to his beefy hands. “Oh, um . . .”
He went on, “I’m cooking some breakfast,” he said as he went to grab some eggs and milk. “Eggs? Pancake? That okay?”
“Sure,” I said sitting at the kitchen table. He started to crack the eggs and pour them into a bowl. I wanted to ask him about the eggs. But I didn’t dare.
“So, why were you up last night?” William asked as he started to pour the eggs into the skillet.
“I thought I saw something,” I answered.
He looked up at me and didn’t smile. His lips tighten and just nodded. “What did you see?”
“I’m not sure. I saw a light,” I told him. “I guess, kind of like a ghost.”
“A ghost? I thought you didn’t believe in that type of stuff.”
“Well, I don’t, but I’m not sure. I just saw this light, and it wanted me to follow it,” I told him. “I think it could have been a ghost, but I don’t know.” He didn’t answer. He started the pancakes. He flipped one.
“Is that so?”
“Yeah,” I said.
We didn’t talk for a few minutes. He broke the silence by saying, “Breakfast is ready.”
He handed me my plate, and he sat down. We both started to eat. We didn’t say anything for a while. He looked different that day. He was more nervous, more on edge, almost guilty.
“So, would you like to go for a walk in the snow?”
“Are we. . . hunting?”
“No, I just want to take a walk. That’s all. I haven’t got to take a relaxing walk for a while.”
I nodded. “Okay.”
“Okay,” he said.
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