Blood Snow

Heavy, pregnant storm clouds wallowed across the painted sky, splashed crimson and gold from the setting sun.

Fleeing from the storm, tendrils of autumn’s distant warmth caressed Mia’s wrinkled and sunburned face. Each fitful gust sent visions of bountiful harvests, of celebrations, of what had been, through her mind.

Mia, a lone silhouette on top of a distant weathered rock outcrop, turned her back on the setting sun, the final warmth, the last ending, and opened her arms to the coming storm as the first lace winged snowflake landed on her blood warmed arm.

Here was the final horrific proof. A nightmare validation of her dreams, her premonitions.

The doubters? The naysayers?

Sellers of snake oil and false hope. Obsessed with what had been, unwilling to accept what was to come.

She wrapped her rough wool blanket around her shoulders and watched as her sunburnt land shivered and hid.

How long since she’d been cold?

Not the gentle evening chill they called cold here, but real, finger numbing, bone chilling, deathly cold.

The cold of her dreams.

She couldn’t remember.

Maybe never.

Another delicate intricately crafted snowflake drifted into sight. So small, so beautiful, so deadly. The delicate bearer of death alighted on her wool covered arm, and dissolved.

Mia didn’t move, letting this cursed pretender of life wet her blanket, not her arm.

Her blanket ruffled and her skin grew goosebumps as Death’s chill finger reached down from the clouds, searching, probing.

It was time.

Even on hot dry days the countless worn rock steps leading back to the ground were slippery, treacherous.

In snow?

Love hastened her descent. She still had time, if she was careful.

Her legs, fuelled by excitement, fear, and sadness, took the slick rock steps two at a time.

At the base of the watchtower she stole a glance back up at the sky.

Her blood chilled at the roiling vision of hell, and she stumbled to a stop. The top of the watchtower, her sanctuary, her familiar friend, her confidant, was no more.

Snow, blood red in the setting sun, poured out of the belly of the cloud, so perfectly pierced by the watchtower as to be unbelievable. A cascade of death, free and eager, coated the slick rock in killing whiteness.

Please god, give me five more minutes. All I need is five. She prayed, to a god she didn’t believe in.

And then she ran.

Ran to save her life.

Ran to save the lives of her loved ones.

A stitch exploded in her side as she vaulted the low stone wall that defined the edge of the village, the edge of her life. She twisted in agony as her foot caught an errant rock and slammed her to the dirt, the dust.

Mia’s tear filled eyes stared up at the sky.

No, not yet, she mouthed.

It was happening too fast.

A blood red harbinger of frozen death now peered over the edge of the plateau, staring down into the valley of her youth. The first of the storm clouds had reached the gorge.

Grimacing in pain, she forced herself to her feet.

Move. Survive.

Hobbling like a lame horse, she wove through the village.

Home, safety. Her heart wailed at her slow laboured pace.

She ignored the taunts, the laughter, the pointed fingers of the villagers.

She was right, they were wrong.

She would survive.

The dry stacked rock walls of her ancestral house shook as she slammed open her front door.

“Vanu, Vanu.” She gasped, clutching at her side. “Get your sister…the shelter.”

The stitch in her side flared, and she dropped to the floor moaning, a twisted pain filled heap.

“Mom?” Vanu looked up from his loom.

“Go. Alice. Go.” She aimed a shaking finger at the hole in the back wall. “Now.”

Vanu blinked and he was off, running. Youth blessed him, guided him. A mad goat running over the low stone walls.

Mia forced herself to sit up. She had to be inside before Alice and Vanu returned. All their lives depended on it.

Dragging herself to her feet, Mia staggered into her small kitchen and over to cliff wall that made up the back of her house.

The red sandstone wall was still warm her touch, but she knew that this was only an illusion. Death was coming.

Tossing aside the rough wooden table, Mia grabbed the rough woven blanket nailed to the wall and waited.

Vanu’s hurried steps filled the house a few heartbeats later. “Mom?”

“In here.” Mia pulled the blanket aside and stood clear of the hole, forcing the pain in her side out of her mind.

Vanu ran into the small kitchen with Alice draped in his arms like a load of firewood. “Was I fast enough this time?” He gasped.

She nodded and pointed. “In.”

As Mia followed her children into the small hand dug hole the air outside her house filled with shouts, screams, and the deep thunder of running, panicked, feet.

They had noticed.

“In your spots.” Mia ordered as she let the blanket fall behind her. It only needed to hide them for a few more seconds.

“Ready.” Vanu’s small voice filled the darkness, followed by Alice’s squeaky. “Ready.”

Mia pulled away a filthy scrap of fabric nailed into the soft rock wall beside the entrance hole.

Two buttons, one red, one green, glowed bright in the darkness.

She pressed the green one.

It was done.

They would live.

With the sharp snap, like a dry branch on a fire, a sparkling transparent wall materialized in front of her, sealing the hole, sealing them inside.

“Momma, what’s going on?” Alice asked, her tiny voice full of fear.

“Shh, honey.” Mia slid over between her children and wrapped one arm around Alice and the other around Vanu. “We have to be quiet. Like we practiced. Quiet as a sleeping snake.”

The three of them sat in the darkness, wrapped in rough wool, and waited. Three lives that would endure.

Survive.

Blood snow.

A night terror come real, came hunting.

Well worn avenues of escape were transformed into slick killing paths. The steep sided valley, once protective and comforting, now confined and corralled.

“In there. In the shelter.” Issac’s deep voice bellowed outside Mia’s house.

Mia flinched. “Back.” She whispered. “Remember, we have to be quiet.”

They mustn’t see them. Mustn’t find them.

Issac stormed into her once happy house. Pulling the door from the hinges and soiling the clean flagstone with his contempt.

“Where are you?” Issac hollered, filling her home with scorn, hatred, and fear.

“Why is the mean man in my house?” Alice squeaked in the dark.

Mia held her children tight. “Shhhh, sweethearts. Quiet, like we practiced.”

Alice buried her head into Mia’s shoulder and shook, her fear burning fever hot.

The crash of breaking wood, cursing men, and wailing women filled Mia’s home.

She’d told them, warned them, pleaded with them.

The sight of Issac in her kitchen, with his terror filled eyes, wild hair, and bleeding hands, sent fear deep into her heart.

Her head dropped and she wrapped her arms tight around her babies. Hiding under rough wool, thin protection.

You can’t find us. You can’t find us. You can’t find us.

Her mantra, her salvation.

The rough stone floor rumbled.

“Hold me tight.” She whispered, squeezing them to her, protecting her love.

The avalanche came, and tore away her village, her house, her world. Generations of love, labour, memories, erased.

The silence screamed, deafened, terrorized.

“Mom.” Vanu stammered.

Mia looked out at her new, dangerous reality.

The safety of the cliff edge, protection for her people, had failed. Her house, her village, her life, now lay smothered far below, wrapped in white, covered in silence.

“Quiet my loves.” Mia whispered. “They will come for us soon.”