Snowfall: A Short Story

Chapter Four

Alia felt like laughing with glee, but she focused on reaching the clearing first.

As soon as she reached the clearing, the wind stopped blowing. The snow stopped buffering at her from all sides. It was a calm orb in the middle of a ferocious snowstorm.

A reverse snow globe, Alia thought, grinning wildly. She brushed the snow away from some iced flowers and smiled again at the familiar white petals. These were the flowers she needed.

She picked as many as she could carry, and then stuffed as many of those in her hair as possible so she could pick more. Finally, she was at her limit.

Now there was the task of leaving, which would require plunging back into the snowstorm. Hopefully, her strange warm casing would accompany her.

As she turned to go, she came face-to-face with a beautiful woman. This woman had long blond hair that was tousled in just the right way. Her smooth skin was like porcelain, and her blood-red lips curved into a smile. The skin around her sky-blue eyes crinkled ever so slightly with happiness and kindness. Alia instantly felt even more soothed than when the warmth had first saved her life.

"Hello, child," the woman greeted her. She was dressed in a plain blue dress, an entirely inappropriate outfit for the weather raging outside the clearing. "I see that you have passed my foolish brother's test." As she spoke of her brother, her smile disappeared.

"That horrid man was your brother?" Alia asked before she could stop herself. She colored and clapped a hand to her mouth.

The woman laughed. "Oh, how I love the boldness of children! Yes, Alia, he was my brother. He was always jealous of me and my powers, and I regret to say that he abused his own meager powers as the last wizard on Earth."

"So he was a wizard."

"Yes, my dear, but not a very good one. The old wizards would have put him to shame."

"Who are you?" Alia asked shyly, remembering her manners at last.

"I am who you are picking those flowers for," the woman replied wryly, and Alia gasped as huge, gossamer wings unfolded from her back.

"My brother devised this 'test' to bring an end to the celebration of Snowfall at whatever cost necessary. I am so sorry that this happened to be the year he chose it. But at least he has some of his old fairness - he left that warmth shield for you in case you solved the puzzle. It was, as I'm sure you realize, facing the snow alone, without the assistance or protection of cloaks and hoods. He forgot one crucial thing, however."

"What?" Alia breathed, still in awe.

The fairy smiled, her wings fluttering slightly. "He forgot about the persistence of children. You have singlehandedly saved Snowfall."

*

Alia and the fairy walked through the woods hand-in-hand. The storm had died down as the fairy stepped into it and the sun was starting to set in the sky and Alia knew they were already late, but the fairy seemed unconcerned, so she tried not to worry, either. She supposed that if a parade was all for you, you could stand to be a little late.

Alia fingered the newly acquired necklace at her throat. It was a small orb of light within a delicate spiral of silver, on an equally delicate-seeming silver chain. However, the chain could last a lifetime - or so the fairy said.

For the fairy had taken the warmth surrounding Alia and placed it in this necklace for her to keep near her always. It would only keep her warm in the winter, and would simply be a pretty necklace in the colder seasons. "Your prize," the fairy had told her as she slipped the chain over her head, "for saving my holiday."

Alia could hardly believe what had taken place in the span of a few meager hours. She had ventured into the woods willingly, innocently, to fetch flowers that other children fetched every year. Now, she was leaving the same woods with a fairy holding one of her hands and a deep basket full of said flowers in the other hand. Oh, how the other children would be jealous!

Alia thought of the pride on her mother's and father's faces as they saw her emerging from the forest with more flowers than had been collected during all of the festivals she could remember. She thought of the wonder on Kila's and Benji's faces as they saw her hand in hand with one of the very fairys that the parade was thrown for. She imagined regaling her friends again and again with the tale of how she had braved a wizard's spell and made a friend of a fairy in the process.

Suddenly, she remembered something and came to a stop. "The red cloak!"

"I can sew you another one," the fairy said, seeming to know exactly what Alia was talking about.

Alia bit her lip, unconvinced. Did the fairy truly know how symbolic the cloak was to the town's celebration of Snowfall?

"I assure you, I will do a fine job," the woman promised her. "After all, I did sew the first one."

Alia grinned. "I should have known," she said, thinking of the way the cloak had kept out all traces of bad weather. With a little skip, she started walking again, the trees thinning as they approached the edge of the woods.