For Love Of The Snow Goddess

"I...I...I...I ne...eded...to s...see yo...u..."

The pale face smiled gently, showing startlingly white teeth. "You should not seek me. I was, however, seeking you. But now I have found you, I am unsure..." She frowned a little, then raised her other hand to the other side of his face and tilting his head towards her as she leaned towards him. "One kiss would be all it takes, and yet..." She suddenly removed both her hands from him as if burnt. "No. You should go."

"G...go... where?" He looked at her miserably. Now he was with her, he knew he didn't want to leave her side again. She was breathtaking.

She looked away, tucking an errant strand of white hair behind her ear. Her eyes seemed strangely sad. After a moment, she looked back at him, and smiled that gentle smile again. "You are lost, but I am not. Sleep... I will take care of you." She laid one hand gently over his eyes and, wishing to do anything she told him to, he obediently closed them and swiftly fell into a black sleep.

When he awoke, sunlight was streaming in through the window, making things bright even behind his closed eyes. He moaned softly and turned over, wincing a little at an unidentified pain in his body. Suddenly a squeal from his bedside made him jump violently.

"OH! Mother! Mother! He's alive! Come quick, he's alive!" And with that, a small warm body wrapped itself around him, almost choking him to death.

"Ah ah AAH! Get off, what're you doing!" He managed to cough out, struggling out of the grip and rolling over in the bed.

His younger sister looked at him sadly. "I...was so worried..." She sniffed a little, wiping her nose with the back of her hand in the way he would normally have scolded her for if she hadn't looked so sad and helpless. "You were missing for so very long... And then when you came back it was like a miracle, like a fairy story... I thought you were gone forever..." and with that she clung to him tightly, sobbing a little. Unable to be angry with her, he just hugged her weakly and stroked her hair. He barely registered the door opening until he heard a faint cry from that side of the room. His mother was standing in the doorway, both hands over her mouth and a look of pure joy in her tear-filled eyes. He smiled a little at her, pathetically.

With more restraint than his sister had shown, she walked towards him and took his hand, squeezing it tightly. "I was so, so worried... Whatever possessed you to go out into the snow like that..." But he knew she wasn't angry with him, just relieved beyond comprehension.

Peeling his sister off him as if she was some kind of small brown-haired limpet, he sat up in bed and hugged his mother tightly. She hugged back, then started to cry on his shoulder, the tears of someone who thought they had lost one of the most important things in their life, only to have it returned to them by some mysterious force.

The villagers called it a minor miracle for weeks after. How the boy had just come back from what may as well have been the dead was unknown by many, just that his sister, looking out of the window for him as she had done every day since his disappearance, had seen a figure that she didn't recognise walking from the house.