Blizzard

 

 

I’m surrounded by whirling snow. Snow is above and below and around me, like fog.

Too high, you can’t get over it.

“Man!” I shout. “Man! It’s me! It’s Molly!”

There are voices on the wind, and shapes. Black figures towering over me, then blowing away into nothing. Things with wings and eyes.

Too low, you can’t get under it.

“Man!”

Too wide, you can’t get round it.

“Come back!”

I know where he is.

“Please!”

I was too late.

He’s dead.

It’s my fault.

I’m crying now and shaking. There are dark shapes all around me, laughing in the wind. It’s the horned god, the Holly King, or something worse. The things that Miss Shelley said came through when the barriers between worlds are weakened. Ghosties and ghoulies and long-leggety beasties and things that go bump in the night.

Other voices are calling.

“Molly! Molly!”

There’s ice in my lungs. I can’t breathe.

“Molly! Where are you?”

There’s torchlight, and shapes in the darkness.

I stumble forward, blind in the night. Things are laughing on the wind, catching at my coat and scratching my hands with grabbing fingers. The air is thin tonight.

Things are coming through.

“Molly!”

I pull away from the grabbing things and they tear at my hair. I stumble forward, but now something else is twining through my fingers. It’s twigs. Tree-hands, their branches reaching down and holding me.

“Moll! Where are you?”

I am held and rocked in the arms of the trees. Dark hands reach down and touch my face. I don’t move. I hardly breathe. The snow and the cold are gone. Here and now, I am safe and untouchable.

“There you are!”

The tree-arms are gone. I fall and land face forward in the snow. I’m crying and crying.

“Molly, my love, what’s the matter?”

It’s Dad. Big and dark and anxious.

I’m crying so much I can hardly see him.

“Mum!” I cry. “I want Mummy!”

“Moll, Molly, my love—”

His arms go around me. I twist out of them.

“I want Mum!”

“Molly-mop—”

I lean back as far as I can. I scream and kick.

“No! I want Mummy! I want Mummy!”

He lifts me up and carries me away through the night.