Winter White by Gabby Buchholz (21, Missouri)

[content warning: death of animals]

The school calls late Sunday night. It is an automated voice, emotionless, giving me and my brother Christmas morning in the middle of January: no school the next day. Even if they had not called off for the imminent snow storm, we wouldn’t have gone in for the trouble of attempting to get down our long gravel driveway. 

Mama still puts us to bed on time, but I stay up for hours, watching the snow roll in and slowly begin to pile up and up and up. I picture myself trudging through it all, a hero on her way to save her kingdom from monsters hidden in the dark. ​

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Eventually I can’t keep my eyes open any longer. The sky lightens earlier than normal, reflecting the sheen of the white snow, until it finally brightens with the rise of the hidden sun. 

The snow continues to fall across the day, the chill stinging my cheeks and nose and hands, even through my gloves. Mama wants us to come in every so often to warm back up, but I tell her I can believe I’m warm. She gives me the same look that my teacher, Mrs. Handler, gives me when I tell her what I dreamt about. No one wants to hear my stories! Except for my little brother. I give him a task in our games and he’s off to the races with his role in our own little world.  

Our farm is an island, abandoned and alone. In weather like this, with veils pouring down and blurring the edges of everything, it felt like we’re the only people in the world. I crown myself queen. Timothy requests he is at least a prince, but a knight seems more his fashion. He doesn’t question my choice.

My first business as queen is to take a tour around the gardens, which are just the fields of our farm covered in snow. I see it all as a sheet of crystals, only the best for royalty. 

But dead animals don’t go with the decor.

I stop short when I see the dead deer scrawled out in the snow. My feet are frozen, both cold and unwilling to move. My mind circles through the possibilities of its death, but I don’t let myself focus too long on any of them. 

Is it a mother? Where are its babies? Or is it the baby? Does its mother know it's gone? 

Mama’s disapproving voice fills my head at the idea of giving this poor thing a funeral. On a farm animals are as they are in the wild, and this is life. That doesn’t make it any less sad. More so, because I’m not allowed to do anything. What if I had been out here just a few minutes earlier. I’m sure I could have saved it. 

I hate how nature is ignoring the glaring death in front of it. The snow should fall anywhere but on this body, memorialize it for the family who will mourn them. But instead it falls just as hard on the body, cooling it much too quickly. With the white of the snow and the chill of the wind it almost looks serene, but I see the death behind the veil of snow. And it’s colder than anything else.

I discover that evening that the parlor’s window is aimed right at the dead deer. When Mama asks what I’m staring at my mouth refuses to form the words. It’s right in front of me, the lamp reflecting on the window glass before its body. But to say it, a poor dead thing left alone to rot away in the cold, is too harsh. I think I’d puke up the words rather than speak them. She shakes her head at me, reminding me to get to bed, no matter if I have school again tomorrow or not. I know I won’t, with the snowing growing and growing, hiding my new friend from me. 
    
It isn’t until three days later than Timothy and I finally return to school, trudging down our long drive to catch our bus at the mailbox. He chatters on about how much he’s missed his friends and teachers. He’s still too young to appreciate days off from school. The elementary school kids don’t know how easy they have it. 

The snow is lumped in places, making it hard to spot my friend out there all alone. My brother walks on without me, not noticing how far back I fall. Was it like that for the deer? Falling short, forgotten about so quickly? I hope they were alone, forgotten by no one. But at the same time, then their death is even more tragic. And with all of this snow, their family will never find them now. 

“Marielle!” Timothy calls. I spin around to see the bus waiting for me. I search out in the field one last time, hoping to see my friend magically rise and be restored. But neither of us is that lucky.

As I turn again for the last time, three small birds land on one of the piles of snow. Finally, a funeral procession. ​