The Warmest Winter

chapter 1 the storm

Hello to all my wonderful readers. I hope you all like this story and please comment. I love to hear what you all think.

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Sara sat on the old, wooden stool and gazed out the window to the snow covered ground and the gusting wind that blew through the cracks in the walls of her small one bedroom cottage. It was always hard in the winter to live on the mountains as she did, but it was safe there. She thought she would survive the winter but food was scarce and she hadn’t eaten anything for at least five days. The weather was worse than she could remember. Sara was pulled from her thoughts by the cry of baby Daniel. She went to the infant to see he was freezing and as always hungry. She slid the thin blanket from her already shaking shoulders, both from the cold and her weakness, and bundled the baby up in it and carried him, with shaking hands, to the small and flickering fire that hardly produced any heat. She cuddled him close to her chest and tried to warm him as best she could. She felt her fingers go numb from the cold and looked down to find them to be white and blue. Her mouth was dry and her lips cold and chapped. She swayed slightly but had no control over her body as she rocked and finally collapsed onto the wooden floorboards. She was scared. Not for herself but for Daniel. The last thing she heard was his muffled cries as her eyes dropped shut and she faded out of consciousness.

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James stumbled by a recently fallen tree, no doubt from the strong wind. He hadn’t thought the storm would set in so quickly and after about an hour of shuffling through the snow and wind his socks were soaked and his feet numb. His skin was raw from the constant cold been blown in his face. He had come up the mountain to check some traps he had set earlier in the week but found they had caught nothing. That was when the snow started and he must have lost his way because from what he could see through the blinding snow and wind there was nothing he recognised.

‘I don’t want to die’ were the only words that rushed through his head and prayed for an escape. A tree root poking from the ground caused him to stumble and collapse to the ground. As he tried to stand he realized how weak and tired he was. As he was about to close his eyes and let the weather take him he saw it. A small wooden cottage, well ‘cottage’ was being generous it was more of a shack, but it was better than nothing. He got up with a new determination and half ran, half stumbled to the door. Not knocking or announcing himself in any way he barged into the small room and slammed the door behind him. He doubted anyone lived there but something caught his attention on the other side of the room. A flicker, no a fire! It was small and fading quickly but he could revive it. After spotting an old stool he grabbed it and smashed the legs, putting them on the fire and  then opening empty cupboards searching for ant sort of paper. He found some envelops and pieces of paper. With no consideration of what they were he ran and put them in the fire.

Breathing heavily he sat by the fire, now burning steadily, and wrapped his wolf-fur coat tighter around his cold chest. He breathed into his hands, his breath becoming visible as it hit the air. His eyes scanned the room to look for more furs or blankets when he saw a bundle lying on the opposite side of the fire. He walked over to the bundle and knelt by it. It wasn’t a bundle but a woman, lying on her side facing away from him. He put his hand on the woman’s shoulder and knew she must be dead, she was freezing. He turned her onto her back and had to close his eyes and turn his head when he saw the bundled up child, it’s eyes closed and lips blue. He looked down on the pair and noticed the woman. She was only about eighteen and had long dark hair that framed her beautiful face with high cheek bones and soft features. He felt pity for the woman and child and would bury them when the storm passed. He looked at them one more time and was shocked to find the woman’s chest rising and falling slightly. She was alive! He slowly lifted the bundled child and wrapped him up. He leaned over the woman and felt small puffs of breath from her nose. He ran back to the fire and placed more wood on the fire, took of his fur coat and laid it on the ground to stop the draft coming up from the floorboards. After picking the poor woman up he laid her gently on the coat and sat by her and the fire to see what would happen, if she wold live.

About an hour later her head rolled to face him and with a strained voice whispered;

“Daniel?”

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So I hope you all enjoyed this chapter. I’m entering this story in the Watty Awards so please vote

Love the writer xxx