chapter two | the snow monster ❅
Maddie was dropped back at the Orphanage in time for a dinner of roast chicken, crisp potatoes and thick gravy perfect for the chilling temperature. Her and Kurt never spent any time other than the drive to see Melissa and being at the institute once a fortnight together.
Once, when he thought she was out of the car an away, Maddie had heard him whispering to himself.
"So much like her. . ." He had softly breathed. "So much. . ."
Maybe that was why he stayed away. Maybe he thought Maddie would become like her mother, and he didn't think himself strong enough to lose her too if they became close.
"Mads? You eating?" The first of Maddie's roommates, Chloe nudged her with her fork, "or can I have that delicious looking chicken on your plate that your father is so kind to pay for?"
Maddie and Chloe couldn't have been more different. Not just in looks, but in disposition and personality. Maddie, with her pale skin, ice blue eyes, and distant persona, was the snow, the first winter frost. Chloe was the sun, her blonde hair like golden rays, and her temperament as warm as a summers day.
"You can have it. I'm going to bed," Maddie pushed her plate away, and stood up, pattering quietly from the spacious dining room to her dorm. She had almost an hour before Miss Thompson came around, flicking off the light switches, whispering them all a good night.
The snow was still falling outside Maddie's window, and she yearned to be out in it again, instead slipping her pyjamas out of her closet, and climbing into bed. Maddie never really wanted to talk after seeing her mother, and most of the orphanage understood that, though they did like to ask her what it felt like to have parents that loved you.
She didn't have the heart to tell them that she didn't know what that felt like either.
Kurt cared about her, she knew that. But did he love her? Surely if he did, he would see her more than once every two weeks. Wouldn't he take her to his home, that had once been hers too, and let her run and have her own room?
And Melissa...Maddie was unsure of if she even knew what love was anymore.
Once upon a time, when Maddie was little, and Melissa wasn't crazy and they were all a happy family, Maddie and her mother had gone on a trip. Maddie couldn't remember where or when, just that it was a warm day, and they'd gone to a park, far away. She couldn't of been more than three, but Maddie remembered the events of that day crystal clear. Melissa had swung her on a swing, and she'd almost touched the sky. Later, they ate vanilla ice cream on a park bench, and Melissa told a story.
The Snow Monster, she'd called it, and the story had always made Maddie shiver, yet she'd loved it so much.
Once upon a time, there was a beautiful angel made of snow. She could only be seen in the winter, when the snow fell and swirled from the sky. When the snow melted, she melted too, but she always came back with the winter.
However, though she was beautiful, the angel was also terrible. Her delicate features hid the cruelness underneath, her pretty wings concealed the disasters she left behind.
"How can an angel be terrible, Mummy?" Maddie had always asked, and Melissa just ruffled her hair, before continuing.
The first time the snow angel appeared, she was in awe of the world around her. The freezing snow touched her skin, yet she wasn't cold. In the spiralling snow flakes, she could see things.
"See what?" Maddie would interrupt.
"Who knows," Melissa would say.
The angel saw how the snow listened to her, how it liked her. And she forget about other people. She let the snowflakes run away with her mind. She would dance with them until her feet were numb and her mind was void. And then, when she finally stopped, she'd turn around, and see the disaster behind her, that the snow had hidden before.
Towns were destroyed, lives lost, buried beneath meters of snow. Ice pillars incased trees, houses became glaciers. Tears froze to peoples faces. And the angel realised what a monster she had become, but it was too late. The winter faded, and Spring came, and the angel disappeared.
But the next time the snow fell, she was back, unaware of the monster that was hiding inside of her.
The story was confusing, and Maddie often wondered if she'd remembered the details right, of how the angel had become a monster, a pretty face hiding an evil.
She also wondered why the story had meant so much to Melissa, why the morning before it happened, she leant in close, and whispered to Maddie four words.
Don't become the angel.
Or, don't become the monster inside.
But what had she meant?
Shaking her head, Maddie swallowed the thoughts away, and followed a single flake of falling snow with her eyes, before it disappeared from her sight, below the window.
"Maddie are you in bed already?" A cheerful voice called out as the door opened. Maddie kicked the end of her comforter up as a reply, and her two roommates, Chloe and Kendall made their ways in.
Maddie and Chloe had shared a room since forever, though they'd had various third roommates over the years.
Their current one was a brunette named Kendall, who had blue eyes like Maddie, except her's were brighter, less icy, like a river in autumn. Kendall had moved into their room last summer, as one of her other roommates had moved put of the orphanage after reaching adulthood, and her other one had been committed to the same institute Melissa was at, after attacking Kendall.
Before Kendall had moved in, Chloe and Maddie had shared their room with a petite girl called Brynn, who had become one of the few children to be adopted.
"Hurry up and turn the light off," Maddie groaned. "I want to sleep."
"Mads, you okay?" Chloe asked, coming closer. The two weren't really best friends, but they were a sort of equivalent, with Chloe being so open, and Maddie being so closed off. "Was it your mum?"
"Go to bed." Maddie muttered. She didn't really want to talk about Melissa with people who wouldn't understand.
Chloe questioned her a little more, before finally finally giving up like she always did, and climbed into her bed, as Kendall already had. The lights were flicked out, and Chloe and Kendall fell into a restful sleep. Maddie stayed awake longer, watching the snow, and when she finally drifted off, she wished she hadn't, as the dreams came again.
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It's kinda confusing isn't it? Oh well, everything will make sense sometime
