Paying the Piper

Two: September Blizzard

The storm was one of those out-of-season blizzards that meteorologists assured you wouldn't happen. At first I didn't think the snow would accumulate; it'd probably just melt once it hit the ground. And it did, at first. But then for a solid half hour, the flakes swirled down and piled up, so at last I hunted through my clothing boxes until I found a pair of hiking boots and a coat. How could I not go for a hike in this sudden, bizarre, September snow? No doubt it would be the only snow for the next couple months.

The air carried a flavor of winter in every breath. As the wet, heavy flakes drifted down, a quiet settled over the land in a way I had never experienced before. The crunch of my boots on the small layer of snow seemed right, somehow. This was the way it was supposed to be: the snow, the woods, and me, alone in the universe.

My grandparents had taken Mom and Dad out for dinner tonight, as a sort of "welcome home" and a wedding anniversary celebration. I was supposed to attend as well, but both reasons for the night out didn't apply to me, so it would have felt like a sham. Although I'd apparently lived in Gendormi until age six, I couldn't remember it. It wasn't my home.

I probably should've gone just to grow more familiar with Gendormi, but the drive to the school the other day had already revealed most of it. Gendormi only had one main street, and we'd driven down it.

So instead I ventured out into the trees, not worried about becoming lost; footprints in the snow would take care of that. A few animals had even been about already: rabbit tracks patterned the ground as well as small paws walking a fairly straight line—maybe a feral cat or a fox.

I couldn't remember the last time I'd seen a wild fox before, so I began to follow the fox prints. It had probably already curled back up in its den, ears lazily listening to the crystalline flakes fluttering down in a whisper. So I doubted I'd find it, but at least it gave me a direction and a goal.

Heading west, breathless at the snow covering every branch, every leaf, every pine needle, I tried to take memory photographs. This scene was picture-perfect, the White Christmas that belonged on everyone's holiday card. I briefly wondered about the flower buds that had been about to open, the chrysanthemums and asters that had worked all spring and summer to finally open their petals as the summer heat faded. Would the snow kill them all? Or perhaps it would preserve them, freeze them in a moment of perfection so that this odd snowstorm would be remembered eternally.

The fox tracks had disappeared. I couldn't tell where they had gone, which didn't make sense. Maybe its lair was here, and it had jumped inside a burrow I wasn't attuned enough to notice. Or maybe it had not been fox prints after all, but a feral cat that had climbed a tree. Before I could search further, however, my eyes found something else.

A strange tree rose before me, its branches twining about each other like a nest of snakes or a hand with only a few fingers interlacing with another hand. Where the limbs touched, the branches had melded together to form a woven trunk. It looked too braided, too intricate to be natural, but nature was often full of surprises.

I touched a finger to the rough bark, dislodging some wet snow. Then I scooped up a pile of snow, made a snowball, and launched it into the air before me. It thudded onto a tree, exploding into a bomb of white beauty. Heavy clumps of snow pelleted the ground, leaving bullet-like holes in the half-inch of snow on the ground. Smiling, I walked on.

A shelter of some sort lay before me. Fallen brambles and branches had been piled together to make a rudimentary version of a tepee without a pelt covering it. It seemed like the perfect place to curl up in and write. My small notebook pressed against the pocket of my coat, a presence I could never forget about. So I crawled into the shelter, lying on my coat on my back to help keep my jeans and butt dry (the shelter wasn't enhanced enough to keep out the snow), and I recorded the winter wonderland around me in as beautiful poetic words as I could manage.