large_Red Green Gift Time Facebook Ad (2).webp

medium_Red Green Gift Time Facebook Ad (2).webp

small_Red Green Gift Time Facebook Ad (2).webp

thumbnail_Red Green Gift Time Facebook Ad (2).webp

Red Green Gift Time Facebook Ad (2).webp

Novelo Rectangle

She vanished just as the year ended, leaving nothing behind—not even a half-finished sentence hanging in the frozen air. Snow had been falling thick and fast all evening, the kind of storm that didn’t swaddle the world in silence but seemed intent on devouring it whole. Lena’s footprints were there one moment, a faint trail leading from the village square to the edge of the woods. Then, they stopped. No further indentations. No signs of a struggle. Just an eerie, pristine expanse where she should have been. Mira stood at the edge of that void, her breath clouding the air as she watched fat flakes fill in the last traces of her best friend. The metallic taste of winter coated her tongue, sharper and more bitter than any natural cold she’d ever known. Soon there would be nothing left—those footprints vanishing just like Lena, swallowed along with all their summer dreams of escaping this haunted village. The thought twisted like a blade in her belly. She clenched her mittened fists, wanting to rage at the sky, to command the snow—and whatever came with it—to stop. What had Lena ever done to deserve this? The other villagers had already retreated, scattering hasty excuses like breadcrumbs: the storm was too strong, the forest too treacherous to traverse at night. They’d have to search for Lena in the morning. Cowards. But Mira couldn’t leave—not after what happened to Clara Weiss last year, whose disappearance now seemed like a cruel joke. All they ever found of her was a partial hand: three blue-tinged fingers, delicately traced with patterns like frozen flowers. When the last of the search party left, the whispering began. At first, soft and indistinct, threading through bare limbs and frothy evergreens on the steady rush of the wind. Mira dismissed it as nothing more than soughing trees or some trick of her overactive mind. But as she took her first tentative steps into the woods—those damned woods, wearing their fluffy coat of cursed white like some primordial costume, the original wolf in sheepskin—the sounds grew clearer. Fragments of Lena’s voice reached her, but then came something deeper, layered beneath the familiar tone like shadows moving under river ice. “Lena?” The word left her lips as barely more than a breath. Speaking here felt wrong, as if the snow itself might hear. The storm devoured her voice, leaving only the hiss of wind and the deliberate fall of snow. The air carried a sweet, rotting scent that reminded Mira of wilted flowers, like the bouquets left atop the blackened loam beside Clara’s tiny grave. As she shivered, a new sound wafted through the trees. A brittle tinkling, as if someone were smashing a row of icicles with a stick—only the rhythm was more intentional. Mira craned her neck, squinting into the gloom. Was that... laughter? Was the forest, or something in it, laughing at her? … ... ... The village had its fair share of superstitions—bad luck befalls anyone who crosses a bridge at twilight, a cricket on the hearth means company’s coming, and always leave a little spider in the corner for luck—but snow didn’t number among those old chestnuts. The snow—what came with the snow—was realer and meaner than any old wives’ tale. A truth with a terrible set of teeth to match. Every year, it fell without stopping from the first of December until Epiphany, and it had ever since the winter fifty years before. That year, a mining company carved deep into the mountain despite the elders’ warnings about ancient things sleeping in the earth. The day they breached the deepest chamber, the temperature plummeted. Half the village vanished in a single night—forty-seven souls in all, including the miners and Old Mari’s sister, Jana, who’d been engaged to one of them. They found the mining equipment scattered across the snow like broken toys, tools frozen so deeply they shattered at the slightest touch. But of the people, there remained only a single boot with a frozen foot inside and a watch stopped at 3:17, its surface etched with patterns like frozen flowers. The mining company claimed an avalanche was the cause, but the villagers knew better. They’d woken something in that mountain, something that had slumbered since before the first settlers came to this valley. Now, it demanded payment each winter.At first, Mira had dismissed it all as folklore, a tale to keep children from wandering outside on winter nights. But now, with the whispers reaching for her and Lena gone without a trace, she remembered the way Old Mari would trace the flower patterns on that watch face with trembling fingers, whispering that these were the last marks her sister left in this world. … ... ... “You’re not going back out there, are you?” Mari’s voice cut through Mira’s thoughts as she gathered supplies in the inn’s common room. The old woman sat bundled in her favorite chair by the fire, her wooden knitting needles clacking with an urgency that seemed almost desperate. Her shawl was the same deep red as blood on fresh snow. “You know there’s nothing but death in those woods after dark.” Mira ignored her, pulling a lantern from the wall. “Did Lena say anything to you before she left? Did anyone see her?” “She’s gone, dear. There’s nothing we can do about it.” Mari’s eyes glinted in the firelight, and for a moment, Mira caught something crystalline in their depths. “The snow always takes what it’s owed. It’s been that way since the night my sister tried to save her fiancé from the mine.” The old woman’s fingers strayed to the watch she always wore, its surface traced with delicate frozen flowers. “But some debts can’t be paid in full. Jana was the first to try bargaining with it. The cold took them both, and now it has a taste for such trades.” Mira plunged back into the storm; the faint glow of her lantern swallowed by the relentless swirl of white. She retraced Lena’s route: past the silent square, past the old chapel where frost-heaved flagstones buckled like fractured bones, and finally into the forest, where ice-tipped branches grazed her face like long, crooked fingers. The forest seemed alive. Mira felt its pulse with every step—the way the trees leaned inward, their canopies converging as if sharing secrets; the way the snow crunched underfoot with whispers that weren’t her own. It wasn’t just Lena’s voice now, either. Others called out to her, their cries woven into a chilling, dissonant chorus. Clara Weiss, Thomas Voss—vanished the winter before last—were among them, their tones distinct but hauntingly familiar. And then there were the older voices, their sounds fractured and halting, as if their speakers had long forgotten the shape of human speech. Lena’s scarf lay half-buried in the snow. The wool’s deep red stood out like a wound against the white. When Mira touched it, she recoiled, dropping it with a shriek. It burned with an impossible heat, as if it had been flung over a hot stove. A tingling sensation crept through her fingers. When she looked down, Mira saw the first traces of frost flowers beginning to form in delicate whorls on her skin.The whispers surged, and through the trees, she glimpsed a figure. A form too tall to belong to a lynx or wolf. “Lena.” Her voice broke, the name trembling on her lips. She ran toward the shape, but it dissolved like smoke, leaving only untouched snow. Her own footprints began to fade behind her, as if the forest wanted to erase all traces of her. The clearing appeared out of nowhere, as if it had formed around her by magic rather than she had stumbled into it. Here, the storm calmed, the snow swirling in impossibly slow spirals. At its center stood Lena, encased in living ice. Her eyes were wide with terror, her lips frozen mid-scream. The ice pulsed faintly, and within its depths, Mira saw other faces, other bodies, preserved like specimens in glass. The ice rang with their voices, a chorus of lost generations. Her lantern flickered, and the whispers fell silent, replaced by a single, resonant voice. “Trade.” The word echoed through the clearing, ancient and hungry. Mira repeated it back, suspicion swelling in her chest. “Her life for yours. Her freedom for your memory. The snow must be fed. The debt must be paid.” The voice seemed to emanate from everywhere—even from the snow itself. It swirled around her, faster and faster, pressing cold and suffocating against her skin. Images flooded her mind—childhood memories, friendships, Lena. All of it slipping away like water through fingers. She saw Jana, young and beautiful, standing at the mine’s entrance fifty years ago, calling her fiancé’s name into the swirling dark. She saw the thing that answered, wearing his face like an ill-fitting mask. She saw the moment Jana realized her mistake—but reached out anyway. She saw Clara Weiss, decades later, her sacrifice incomplete. So many lives entwined in a sinister pattern of debt and payment, stretching back through time like endless tracks in the snow, each victim thinking they could outsmart a curse that none of them had caused. “No,” she whispered, tears freezing on her cheeks. “I won’t do it.” The snow roared in fury, lunging at her like a hungry lynx. The ice encasing Lena began to crack. Mira plunged into the furious snowstorm, slamming her lantern against the ice. Glass shattered, oil spilled, and flames licked at the frozen surface. The whispers turned to screams as the snow surged toward her, a living avalanche. Mira grabbed Lena’s arm and pulled. The ice shattered with a sound like breaking bones, and they tumbled to the ground. Mira’s vision blurred as the snow closed over her, but she heard Lena’s voice, faint and fading. “You shouldn’t have come...” Snow filled her lungs, crystalline and burning. She felt the cold seep into her marrow, replacing her blood with ice water. The last thing she saw was Lena’s pained face, fading like a photograph left too long in harsh light. … ... ... The villagers found Mira in the square the next morning, half-frozen and clutching Lena’s scarf, yet still alive. For the first time in fifty years, the snow had stopped. But there was no sign of Lena. When Mira looked at her hands, she saw delicate traces of tiny frozen flowers: frost creeping up her fingers, tattooing them in lacy white patterns. The same patterns she’d seen on Clara Weiss’s abandoned fingers. In the weeks that followed, the changes became impossible to ignore. The frost on her fingers never melted, and her hands remained painfully numb, no matter how close she held them to the fire. Sometimes, alone in her room, she heard whispers rising from the snow outside her window. But those voices weren’t calling for Lena anymore. They were calling for her. Old Mari watched her from the inn's window, knitting needles finally still, her eyes full of terrible understanding. The debt hadn’t been paid—it had only been transferred, passed down like a family curse, a legacy of ice and sacrifice. … ... ... One night, Mira awoke to the soft hiss of snowflakes swirling in her room. The air shimmered faintly, illuminated by pale shafts of moonlight. Frost coated the windows from the inside, the delicate whorls of frozen flowers spreading further with each breath Mira took. She blinked groggily, her pulse quickening as the faint smell of wilted flowers—sweet and rotting—filled her nostrils. The room was impossibly cold, colder than it had ever been, and yet beads of sweat slicked her brow. The snow on the windowsill shifted, though there was no breeze. At the foot of the bed stood a figure draped in shadow, barely more than an outline of a girl. Mira’s heart jolted, her breath catching in her throat as the figure stepped into the faint moonlight. It was Lena—or what was left of her. Her features were eerily unchanged: the same soft contours of her face, the same doe eyes, their brown warmth replaced by an icy, crystalline sheen. But her skin... Her skin wasn’t hers anymore. Lena’s pale flesh shimmered, translucent as frozen glass, and within its depths—etched in faint, ghostly relief—Mira saw faces. Dozens of faces. They stared out from beneath the surface, mouths frozen mid-scream, eyes wide and accusing. The frost flowers Mira had seen before now spiraled across Lena’s body in delicate, lacy patterns, the edges curling like vines around the trapped expressions. Clara Weiss was there, unmistakable with her long, white-blonde hair, her lips parted as though trying to cry out a warning. Others—some Mira recognized; others long forgotten—all twisted into the eternal depths of ice. Lena’s lips didn’t move, but Mira felt her presence as though it pressed against her chest, suffocating. Wordless, she lifted her hand, palm outstretched as though beckoning. Her movements were smooth and slow, unnaturally fluid, as if she were gliding across a frozen lake. “Lena?” Mira croaked; the sound of her voice blasphemous in the stillness. But Lena didn’t answer. She only tilted her head, just slightly, the motion alien in its precision. Her eyes burned into Mira’s—not with malice, but with something worse: recognition. This was what she had become. What they would both become. The frost flowers on Lena’s body began to spread again, curling outward toward Mira like vines reaching for the sun. Mira stumbled back, her heels scraping against the wooden floor. “No,” Mira whispered, her voice trembling, though there was no point in pleading. Lena wasn’t Lena anymore. The snow on the windowsill surged inward as if alive, flooding the floor and spilling toward Mira in a cascade of white. She shivered as the cold bit through her skin, the frost flowers creeping up her fingertips now moving faster, their delicate spirals cutting deeper, as though they were burrowing toward her bones. Mira’s knees buckled, and she fell hard onto the frozen floorboards, gasping as the frost spread higher, leaving lacy scars up her arms. When she looked back at Lena, the girl was closer now, her hand only inches away. Mira could no longer see her reflection in Lena’s crystalline gaze. There was no room for anything but the faces of the lost, trapped forever beneath the ice. … ... ... The next morning, Old Mari began knitting another red shawl, preparing for the next time the snow came to collect its due.&nbsp;

Try Premium

Try Premium

Frost Flowers

AMcCormick

Share

Frost Flowers

Synopsis

Chapters

Word Count

Read Time

Publish Date

Story Updates

This story has no updates.

Reviews

This story has not been rated yet. Login to review this story.

Advertisement

Challenge

About Author

Antoinette McCormick

Advertisement

Other stories by AMcCormick

The Ghosts We Made

Echoes from the Abyss

The Butterfly Girl

Browse