Winter Storm

The two women watched the little figure twirl under dark flakes, red wellies stamping small black footprints into the snow.

“Hasn’t she grown?” The wan smile on her mother-in-law’s lips tugged at Kate’s heart.

“I’m sorry May. It’s been too long.”

“Well. It can’t have been easy coming up here after what happened.” There was no reproach in her voice, which made it worse, somehow. “I know things were difficult between you two.”

Kate sighed. “It was worse than that. When Robert came up here that day, we’d – decided to separate.” She gulped, and said the words she’d been choking on for months. “Maybe that’s why it happened. Maybe it was my fault!” She wasn’t sure if it was regret or relief that set the tears free.

May’s arms were around her instantly, warm and comforting, in contrast to the steel in her voice. “Oh no you don’t. It had nothing to do with you, nothing. Robert fell. That cliff path’s been crumbling for years. It was an accident.” She paused, as if making a reckoning within herself, and went on, “and even if it wasn’t, that was his decision. His. Do you hear me?”

They stood for a moment in the low-beamed kitchen, with the light from the garden eerie and flecked with shadows by the falling snow. “How has she been?” May asked, eventually.

Kate straightened up and shrugged, wiping her face on a cuff. “I don’t know. People tell me she’s too young to understand. She just keeps asking when Daddy’s coming home.” She fought down a hiccoughing sob, as May squeezed her shoulder.

“She’ll get there. You both will. You’ll see.” The old woman turned to the door with a dazzling smile. “Here she is! How’s my little snow girl? Ready for some hot chocolate?”

“Ess!” beamed Sophie, as Kate busied herself pulling off the tiny wellies.

“That looked like a fun game!” she said, with forced brightness. “What were you playing?”

“Playin’ wi’ Daddy.” Sophie wore the smile of deep satisfaction particular to small children. The two women exchanged glances over her head.

“Daddy’s not here, sweetheart.”

“Daddy there!” Sophie insisted, pointing a rosy finger back toward the garden. “See?”

Both women turned to the window. The spiral of small footprints was already being erased by fast-falling snow. A dark shape seemed to flicker beneath the trees that fringed the lawn. Kate blinked. A trick of the failing light.

“Come on,” said May, “let’s wash those hands.” She lifted the little girl to the sink, distracting her with soapsuds and giggles. But Kate went on staring out of the leaded panes for a long time, her thoughts as formless as the swirls of white beyond the glass.

The snow fell steadily through the afternoon, so that by evening the trees were bowed under its weight, the garden gate a solid mass of white. They went to bed early, taking hot water bottles with them. Kate gazed at the warm little body next to her in the big bed, wishing she could keep her like this, safe from the world. How much did that little head understand about what she’d lost? Was there any way to fix the damage?

When Kate eventually drifted off to sleep, it was into unquiet dreams of her last argument with Robert.

“You can’t leave! I won’t let you!”

“I can’t stand it anymore. Your moods, your temper. It’s not good for Sophie.”

“You’re mine. Both of you. I won’t let you go! Never!”

Even in the dream, the determination on his face set her trembling.

Then he was gone, and she was running through familiar streets made menacing and deadly by dream darkness. Pavement became the bone white path of a snowy woodland and still she ran on, heart hammering, searching, an empty ache in her arms.

“Mummy!”

“Sophie! I’m coming!”

Through trees that reached dead winter branches to scratch her face, the cold air tearing tears from her eyes and scraping at her throat with each breath, she hurtled.

“I’m coming Sophie! Mummy’s coming!”

Then a high, child’s scream, and her foot snagged in a root, pitching her into the snow’s chill embrace.

Kate awoke shivering with cold. The window had blown open and an icy breeze flapped the curtains. She leapt up to close it, then twisted to see if Sophie had woken.

The bed was empty.

“Sophie!”

Pelting down the hallway she almost barrelled into May.

“Kate! What’s wrong?”

“Sophie – she’s gone!”

“Calm down, she can’t have got far. I always lock the door at night, and she can’t reach the latch. I’ll check downstairs, you look up here.” 

Kate crashed into the empty bathroom, the glare of the light making her blink. No Sophie. Unless May had missed her somehow there was only one room left up here. Robert’s childhood bedroom.

The cold hit her the moment she opened the door. The window here was wide open too, the air freezing. Kate stifled a cry of fear. Sophie sat on the window ledge; her shadow thrown long across the carpet by the snow’s strange light.  With painful care Kate crossed the distance between them, each second an agony.

“Sophie!” she gasped, clutching the child tight. “What on earth are you doing? You could’ve fallen out! You could have –” she bit back the word.

“Silly Mummy!” Sophie giggled. “Sophie not fall. Daddy catch!”

She pointed out of the window, and Kate saw it again fleetingly – that flicker of darkness at the garden’s edge, as if someone were skulking below the trees. She lifted Sophie to the floor and leaned through the casement.

“Who’s there?” Her voice was sharp in the thin air.

“Daddy there,” Sophie insisted, behind her.

Kate crouched down, so she could look into her daughter’s eyes. “Listen to me Sophie. Daddy’s gone. He’s gone and he’s not coming back. I’m sorry.”

Behind her, the window slammed shut, the panes rattling. She shrieked, leaping up to secure the latch.

“There you are!” said May. “Did this silly old house make Mummy jump, Sophie? I’ve been meaning to get those windows replaced for years. Come on now, everyone back to bed.”

As she shooed them into their bedroom, she caught Kate’s arm.

“I don’t want to alarm you, but I think perhaps you’d better go home a bit sooner than planned.” At Kate’s startled look she went on, “the roads will still be just about passable in the morning, but if you wait much longer you could be snowed in here.” Her smile was strained.

“May, what is it?”

The old woman paused. “Oh nothing,” she said eventually. “Just my old eyes playing tricks.”

“What did you see?”

“Nothing, dear. Ignore me.”

A sudden dread seized Kate. “It was something in the garden, wasn’t it? Someone. A figure. By the trees, in the corner.”

May’s face went white. “Robert,” she said, her voice trembling. “It was Robert.”

“It couldn’t have been. He’s–“

“Dead and buried. Yes. But I swear it. As clear as I see you now.”

There was a long silence as both women turned frightened faces to the bedroom where Sophie waited.

Eventually Kate said, “we’ll leave first thing after breakfast.”

Though she weighted the window latch with heavy books, locked the bedroom door and hid the key on top of the wardrobe, Kate didn’t sleep for the rest of the night. Next to her, Sophie slumbered peacefully, a stubby thumb clamped between rosy lips.

It was impossible. But Robert’s voice twisted through her thoughts all night. “I’ll never let you go!” When the sun came up, she pulled aside the curtain to stare at the garden. Nothing. Only blank snow.

May had breakfast ready when they came downstairs, but Kate found she couldn’t stomach a bite. Forcing down a gulp of tea, she left to load up the car.

As she was finishing, May brought out a flask and a sandwich box. “For the journey.”

“Thank you May. Come and see us in London, as soon as it thaws.”

“I will,” May smiled, then sighed. “I’m sorry about what I said, last night. I feel very silly in the light of day. You should leave while the weather holds though.”

“Don’t be sorry,” said Kate. “I felt the same.” Both women glanced instinctively to the corner of the garden where the gate swung wide, scoring a deep arc in the snowy pathway.

“Sophie!” Kate hurled herself through the garden, through the open gate, down a narrow path where small footprints blackened the snow. May followed, gasping.

Through the trees she ran, up a rise where the wind picked up into a cold flurry, and the fear in Kate’s belly told her what she’d see before she rounded the corner that led to the cliffpath.

“Sophie!”

The little figure waved cheerfully. “Hello Mummy!”

She was too far away. If Sophie slipped now–

“Stand still darling! Mummy’s coming to get you.”

“I OK Mummy! Daddy catch!”

The world seemed to freeze as the little girl leapt, giggling, into whiteness.

Sick with disbelief, Kate leaned out over the cliff edge, her reaching arms seconds too late.

At the base of the cliff were two figures. One was a tall, flickering smudge of darkness against the snow-covered rocks. The other, tiny, lay crumpled and unmoving.

Hurrying up behind Kate on the treacherous cliff path, May heard Robert’s voice, as clear as ice. “I’ll never let you go.”

She watched Kate spread her arms, as if in surrender, and fall.