Summer Snow

The first snowflake landed in my champagne.

For a second, I thought it was ash.

It was Christmas Day in Queensland, the sort of day where the heat was suffocating. It sat on your shoulders and pressed against your skin until everything stuck – hair to neck, dress to spine, thighs to chairs. The tiles around the pool were almost too hot to walk on, the air above the barbecue shimmered, and the cicadas screamed from the gums beyond the back fence.

I sat on the edge of the pool with my feet dangling in the water, letting the chlorine-cool water lick against my calves while condensation ran down the stem of my glass and over my fingers.

Dad stood beneath the patio in board shorts and an apron that said MERRY CHRISTMAS YA FILTHY ANIMAL, turning sausages with one hand and wiping sweat from his forehead with the other. Fat hissed against the hotplate. Smoke curled beneath the patio roof, thick with onion and charred meat.

Mum had given up trying to keep the flies away from the prawns.

My cousins shrieked in the pool, launching themselves off the edge hard enough to send water slapping across the concrete, and Michael Bublé crooned about a white Christmas through the speakers.

Ironic in Australia, really.

Then something white drifted into my glass. It floated briefly on the bubbles before disappearing.

I frowned and looked up.

The sky was painfully blue, that hard Queensland blue that made you squint even beneath sunglasses. The sun bore down on us – bright and hot, incessant as always. There wasn’t a cloud anywhere.

A second white fleck turned slowly through the sunlight and landed on my bare knee. Freezing. A pinprick of ice against skin that had been baking in the sun. It dissolved instantly, leaving a bead of water that slipped down my shin.

No way.

I laughed quietly.

Snow in Queensland on a thirty-eight-degree Christmas Day belonged in the same category as sharks falling from the sky.

Another flake landed on my arm. Six tiny branches of ice, impossibly delicate, each one catching the sunlight before the whole thing collapsed into water.

My heart pounded. “Dad.”

He looked up. “What?”

I pointed as a snowflake landed in his hair.

Dad blinked. “What the hell?”

That brought everyone over.

Within a minute, Christmas lunch had been abandoned. We all stood in the backyard staring at the sky while white flakes floated down around us. At first there were only a few, scattered through the sunlight. Then more appeared. Dozens became hundreds, each one catching the light as it fell.

My little cousin Mia screamed. “SNOW!”

She bolted across the lawn with both arms stretched wide, wet hair streaming down her back and bare feet kicking up drops of pool water.

There was something wonderfully wrong about it.

Snow caught on eucalyptus leaves and melted into dark spots. It dusted the purple bougainvillea and collected along the faded timber fence. White settled against Mum’s bottlebrush, making the brilliant red flowers look even brighter.

A snowflake touched my cheek and melted instantly. Then another landed on my eyelashes. The cold was exquisite.

For as long as I could remember, I had wanted a white Christmas. Like from movies. Snow-covered houses, woollen scarves, and frost feathering the edges of windows. Families drinking hot chocolate beside fireplaces while fairy lights glowed against dark winter afternoons.

Our Christmases smelled like chlorine, sunscreen, and insect repellent. They came with sunburned shoulders, sweaty dresses, prawns sweating on ice and flies landing on everything the second you looked away.

I loved them.

But this… this was snow.

Actual snow.

“We're having a white Christmas,” I breathed.

Noah, my brother, appeared beside me. He held one hand out, palm up, and watched a flake disappear against his skin. “This feels vaguely apocalyptic.”

I bumped my shoulder against his. “Can you not ruin this?”

“I'm just saying.”

“It's Christmas.”

“So?”

“Enjoy something.”

He gave me a crooked smile. “Fine.”

The temperature began to fall. The crushing heat loosened and a breeze moved through the yard, sliding cool fingers beneath my damp hair and drying the sweat at the base of my spine.

Someone dragged old jumpers from the hall cupboard, and we laughed as we pulled them on over swimmers and summer dresses. The clothes smelled faintly of dust and fabric softener after months packed away.

Mia scraped snow from the grass into a pathetic little mound and declared it a snowman.

Nan sat beneath the patio in her wicker chair, hands folded in her lap, watching us all with a faint smile.

For those first thirty minutes, it felt like a miracle.

Then the snow stopped melting.

The ground had been hot enough to burn them less than an hour earlier. Now white gathered between the blades of grass, swallowing the green one narrow strip at a time. It coated the shed roof and collected along the fence.

Dad crouched and pressed his palm flat against the lawn. “That doesn't make sense.”

I was still smiling. “What doesn't?”

“The ground.”

“What about it?”

“It should be warm.”

“It was.”

“Exactly.”

I looked down at the snow covering my toes.

Dad pulled out his phone, his expression darkening. “Twenty-four.”

Mum laughed from the veranda. “You're joking,” she said. “It was thirty-six an hour ago.”

He refreshed the weather app. “Twenty-two.”

Mum’s smile vanished. “The temperature can't fall that quickly.”

“No.”

The way he said it bothered me.

I rubbed my arms. The air no longer smelled of hot dust and barbecue smoke; the eucalyptus was stronger in the cold, as was the smell of damp earth. Beneath it was another smell.

Metallic, like the smell left on your fingers after handling loose change, and something faintly sour.

I couldn't place it.

Then I noticed the silence; the cicadas had stopped. But it wasn’t just them. There was no buzzing from the trees and no magpies calling from the powerlines. No lorikeets squabbling in the bottlebrush.

Even the neighbour's dog was quiet.

“Noah.”

He was trying to roll a snowball. “What?”

“Listen.”

His hands stopped moving.

For several seconds, neither of us spoke.

Then a flock of cockatoos burst from the trees beyond the houses. Their wings hammered the air as they streamed eastward, white bodies almost disappearing against the falling snow. Their screams tore through the quiet.

Nan came to stand beside me. Her cardigan hung open over her summer blouse, and she rubbed her fingertips slowly together as she watched the birds disappear.

“They don't like it,” I said.

She watched the birds disappear. “No.”

“Probably the temperature.”

Nan glanced at me. “Maybe.”

I wished she had sounded more certain.

Clouds started to appear overhead, spreading across the sky in long pale sheets. The light changed with them. The bright Christmas reds and greens faded beneath a strange grey wash.

Still, the snow was beautiful.

I clung to that.

There would be an explanation. Some freak weather pattern like an Antarctic blast or climate something. Scientists would be on television tonight talking about pressure systems and record-breaking atmospheric conditions.

I could already imagine the headlines.

CHRISTMAS MIRACLE: SNOW FALLS IN QUEENSLAND.

People would talk about it for years.

I wanted that story. I didn't want the other one beginning to form in the back of my mind.

The first bird fell at twelve forty-seven.

A lorikeet dropped from the gum tree and landed in the snow with a muffled thump.

Mia screamed.

Dad reached her before anyone else and caught her around the waist. “Don't touch it.”

The bird lay on its side. Its chest fluttered once, feathers looking obscene against the snow – emerald green, royal blue, and violent flashes of orange and red.

Another lorikeet fell.

Then another.

One fluttered weakly before becoming still.

The Christmas miracle ended there.

“Inside,” Dad said.

No one argued.

Adults grabbed children. Chairs scraped across concrete. Mum swept up abandoned phones and glasses as though some part of her was still trapped in an ordinary Christmas afternoon, tidying before she went inside.

I lingered at the back door. The snow had reached my ankles.

I hadn't noticed.

Our footprints crossed the lawn in confused trails, but even as I watched, their edges softened beneath the continuing fall.

The yard looked unfamiliar now. The grass was gone and the garden beds had softened into rounded white shapes. Snow rested along the dark arms of the gum trees, bending leaves that had never carried that kind of weight. The pool was a startling blue beneath the colourless sky, steam lifting from its surface in pale ribbons.

It was still beautiful.

I hated that it was still beautiful.

Beauty was supposed to mean something good. Wasn't it?

I stepped inside and closed the door. The warmth of the house had already disappeared.

By two o'clock, the temperature was nine degrees.

Nine.

I kept looking at the number on Dad's phone as though it might change if I stared hard enough.

Nine degrees belonged to another season. Another country.

It didn’t belong here.

The power went out ten minutes later.

The hum of the fridge died. The lights blinked once and disappeared.

For the first time all day, I heard the actual sound of the snow against the roof. A faint, dry brushing. Like fingertips moving over paper.

We ate Christmas lunch wearing clothes dragged from vacuum bags and old suitcases. The children still had chlorine-dried hair from the pool. Mia’s curls had hardened into pale, tangled strands, and the smell of chlorine still clung to her whenever she moved.

That felt obscene somehow.

Evidence that only a few hours earlier we had been worried about sunburn. It felt like remembering somebody else’s day.

I pushed a cold potato around my plate – every mouthful felt too big. Nobody seemed to know what to talk about.

If we mentioned the snow, we had to acknowledge the birds. If we mentioned the birds, we had to acknowledge that something was wrong.

So we talked about nothing.

I found myself listening to the sound of the snow against the roof, trying to work out whether it had a rhythm.

That was ridiculous.

Dad found an old battery radio in the garage.

Static rose and fell in jagged bursts as he turned the dial, occasionally catching fragments of voices before losing them again.

“…residents are advised…”

Static.

“…unprecedented weather event…”

Gone.

“…eastern regions…”

Dad adjusted the antenna.

Mum stood beside him with her arms folded tightly across herself. “Can you get anything clearer?”

“I'm trying.”

I left the table and went to the kitchen window. I told myself I only wanted to see how deep the snow was. Really, I wanted proof that the world outside still existed.

The glass was cold enough that I felt it before I touched it.

Outside, the back steps had nearly disappeared, and the lawn was a smooth white slope. There had to be thirty centimetres out there. Maybe more.

My stomach tightened.

It had only been a few hours. Snow didn't fall that fast… Did it?

I realised I didn't actually know.

I knew nothing about snow. None of us did.

Maybe all of this was normal somewhere else. Maybe tomorrow there would be videos of Canadians laughing at footage of Queenslanders panicking over thirty centimetres.

I held onto that thought.

A flake slowly drifted toward me. I watched it approach until it was only a few centimetres away.

Then it stopped.

My lungs forgot what they were doing.

The snowflake hung in the air, not falling or spinning. Then, it dropped straight down.

I stepped backward. “Noah.”

He came over. “What?”

I pointed. “Watch.”

Another flake moved toward the window. It slowed and curved upward before stopping mid-air.

Noah frowned. “That's weird.”

“Air pressure?”

He looked at me. “Why are you asking me?”

“I don't know.”

The radio crackled behind us.

“This is an emergency warning.”

Every person in the room turned.

The voice was calm.

“Residents are advised to remain indoors. Avoid unnecessary travel. Do not allow children or pets outside.”

Mum moved closer to the radio as Dad turned up the volume.

“Until further notice, avoid direct contact with falling precipitation.”

For a few seconds, I didn't understand the sentence.

Then I did.

My hands shook. Snow had melted into those hands - I had packed it between my palms. Caught flakes on my fingers and touched my face.

“Why?” Mum asked.

The broadcast didn't answer – it just repeated.

Avoid direct contact with falling precipitation.

It's precautionary. Had to be. Governments warned people about everything: don't drive through floodwater, don't go outside in storms, and don't touch mysterious summer snow.

That didn't mean it was dangerous.

Something tapped the window. I turned so quickly my neck hurt.

A snowflake clung to the glass. For the first time all afternoon, one had actually touched it.

I stepped closer.

The flake was bigger than the others. Its branches spread across the glass in delicate, crystalline symmetry.

Beautiful.

That word came into my head automatically.

Then I noticed the centre. A tiny black speck sat inside the ice.

“Dirt,” I whispered.

Noah leaned closer. “Maybe.”

The black speck moved and then folded inward. Then it unfolded again. Joined… like legs.

I stopped breathing.

“No.”

Another flake touched the glass beside it.

Tap.

Then another.

Tap.

More followed.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

Each one stayed where it landed. None melted.

I could see dark specks in nearly all of them.

I stumbled back hard enough to hit the table behind me.

“What?” Mum snapped.

I pointed, but my hand was shaking.

For a moment nobody spoke.

Then Nan crossed the room, staring at the glass. Her eyes widened with recognition. “Close the curtains,” she said.

Dad looked at her. “What?”

“Close them.” I’ve never heard Nan sound afraid before.

A harder sound struck the window.

Knock.

Everyone froze.

The noise came again.

Knock.

Then once more.

Knock.

Three evenly spaced knocks.

I stared at the glass. The snowflakes hadn't moved at all – surely that wasn't them.

Then the same sound came from the lounge room.

The bedroom window answered.

Something was moving around the outside of the house. Or many things were.

My mind recoiled from the thought.

No. No, that was stupid.

Snow couldn't knock.

This was panic. Trying to find some reason for whatever was happening. Our brains did that. Heard intention where there was none.

But why did the knocking wait until one window finished before beginning at the next?

I could hear my heartbeat. Too fast and too loud.

I thought of myself less than three hours earlier, standing barefoot in the yard with my face lifted toward the sky.

We're having a white Christmas.

I had been so happy. I wanted to reach backward through time and grab myself by the shoulders.

Don't open your mouth. Don't touch it. Don't let the children play in it.

Get inside.

Instead, I had laughed and called it beautiful.

A faint scratching moved across the roof from one side of the house to the other.

Mum looked up.

The sound stopped directly above us.

My stomach clenched.

“It's probably branches,” Noah whispered.

There were no branches over the kitchen. We both knew that.

The scratching began again, closer to the gutter this time.

My mouth felt fuzzy and itchy and my tongue felt strange. I rubbed it against my teeth, but nothing changed.

Stop it. I was imagining things now.

“Dad?” I said. “What happens when it stops snowing?”

Nobody answered.

Nan sat very still at the table, staring toward the curtained window. “I don't think it will.”

Dad turned. “What do you mean?”

Nan's hands tightened around the blanket in her lap. “I mean I don't think this is weather.”

A shiver ran up my spine.

Something dragged down the kitchen window. A dry, delicate scrape, like fingernails over glass.

I swallowed again.

There it was.

That metallic taste, stronger now. My tongue tingled. For one dreadful second, I became certain something had moved underneath it.

My pulse slammed at my throat.

I could feel every place snow had touched me. I remembered the flakes melting against my skin and wondered where they went after they melted.

The thought made nausea rise hard and sudden.

Stop.

Stop thinking.

The knocking had ceased, but that brought no comfort. The silence felt deliberate, as though whatever was outside had realised knocking wasn’t working.

I opened my mouth to speak.

Something moved.

Just once.

A tiny twitch against the soft skin beneath my tongue.

My whole body went rigid as I pressed my lips together, terrified that if I opened my mouth, something would crawl out.

Then, from somewhere deep inside my throat, came three faint little taps.