The Girl, the Book, and the Blizzard

The exposed ankle in the gap between my rolled-up jeans and the top of my sneakers is freezing, and it’s all I can think about as I hurry home under street lamps dimmed by snowflakes. It’s times like these, when the air is wet and cold and seems to encase you in the thinnest layer of ice, that I wish for the hearth of my childhood home in Maine. It was the perfect sort of place to camp out in a snowstorm: a log cabin with a crackling fireplace, stocked with canned soup and packets of hot cocoa and puzzles, not to mention a sizable collection of worn paperbacks.

But all I’ve got to look forward to when I return to my cramped apartment is a rattling, wheezing radiator, a bare pantry, and a shower of roughly the same temperature and water pressure as a summer drizzle. I think I’ll skip the shower tonight; I’d rather not get hypothermia. 

I’ve turned a corner and my building’s in sight when I hear something, a sort of sniffle, from the alley to my left. Cold ankles forgotten, I peer into the shadows, streaked grey-white with falling snow. The darkness presses in, and the cold does too; I’d just decided I was imagining things when I hear the sound again.

I take a step forward, and a feeble ray of light from the nearest streetlamp finds a small face, blue-eyed and framed by wispy brown hair. It’s a girl, maybe five years old, huddled in the shelter between two buildings, wrapped in several layers of oversized sweaters. Her nose is pink, but not from the cold; her eyes are swollen and her cheeks are wet with tears. It’s no wonder. Tonight is the worst night for a kid to be lost.

“Hey,” I say, and she jumps. “No, no, it’s okay,” I tell her, but her eyes have widened, and she’s on her feet.

“Did you get separated from your parents?” I kneel down, so we’re eye level. “Could you tell me—” I shuffle forward, and extend my hand to take hers, “—where you last saw—?”

Big mistake. She takes off down the alley, sweaters trailing behind her.

“No! Wait!” I run after her, but she slips easily through gaps I can’t quite fit into, and by the time I come out on the other side, she’s vanished behind a curtain of snow and shadow.

I wait there on the sidewalk for a half hour, calling the police station and squinting into the storm. But eventually, after I’ve left a description of the girl and the last place I saw her, I realize she’s not coming back, so I retreat into the alley and continue on my way home. 

I worry as I climb the stairs to my third-floor apartment. I worry as I unlock my door and shed my winter jacket. I worry as I unpack my satchel bag and spread papers on my bed, and I worry as I organize them in neat, binder-clipped piles. 

At best, that little girl is returned to her parents soon, maybe frostbitten but mostly okay. At worst… I shudder, and opening the bottom drawer of my bedside cabinet, I pull out an old quilt and wrap myself in it. I climb into bed and try to focus on the papers in front of me, but I can’t. That little girl, out there all alone, in the cold and the dark…

So I pull open the top drawer of the cabinet next to me and pull out a weathered copy of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. It’s been my favorite book since I was little and my parents were reading me a chapter of it every night before bed. I used to carry it around with me just to feel the thin pages and wrinkled spine, its very presence a reassurance to me.

I remember one day we came home after grocery shopping and we couldn’t find it anywhere. I was distraught; and when Mom wondered aloud if I’d brought it to the grocery store and dropped it in the parking lot, I ran right out into a blizzard to look for it. It turned up eventually, which was good; back then, I could hardly sleep without it. It always soothed me, even after I grew up, to read back the familiar words and imagine my father’s deep, slow voice.

So I open the book to the first page and begin to read, eyelids growing heavy….

***

Inside these walls we will stay safe and warm,

As the snow swirls all around us.

Inside these walls we will weather the storm,

As the world spins all around us.

Drift off to sleep, light as a snowflake

Let the silent storm carry you.

Drift off to sleep, and when you awake

The world that you see will be new.

I wake as suddenly as if I’ve been doused in cold water. I sit up, a few sheets of paper sliding off the bed to the floor. The sky is a flat, bright grey, illuminating the whole apartment; outside the window, the city has been transformed. Snow kisses the rooftops and piles up between the plowed streets and shoveled sidewalks. It clings to railings and window ledges, a fine, smooth dusting on every surface.

Like icing, I think. I’ve always loved how the snow makes every building into a gingerbread house. 

I check the time: seven thirty-two. Now I’m really awake; I’m supposed to be at work by seven forty-five.

I jump out of bed and begin stuffing piles of papers back into my bag. I change my shirt to a sweater—hopefully no one will notice I’m wearing yesterday’s jeans—grab my bag and a granola bar, and race out the door at top speed.

I barely notice my surroundings as I walk to work in the stream of the usual commuters, but when I look ahead to the other sidewalk to cross the street, I forget how late I am. A familiar figure is on the opposite street corner, faintly resembling a ghost; she’s draped in the same flowing sweaters and her skin is so pale she seems to shine in the morning light.

I stare, and hurry across the street toward her, but then something yellow and blurry appears in the corner of my eye—

“Watch it, lady!”

I skid to a stop and so does a taxi, a few feet from where I would have stood if I had kept running. In my mind, I’m shaking, astonished at how close that had been. But my heart is telling me to find the girl.

I try to look for her, but the taxi’s already rushing by me, obstructing my view. By the time it’s cleared away, she’s gone.

 I’m left with no choice but to continue my walk to work, though now I keep scanning the crowds, searching for the tail of a sweater or trailing brown hair. Had I imagined her? It’s possible. I’d been dwelling on her all night, and maybe now I was seeing things in my exhausted state.

I try to puzzle it out all the way to work, still watching for the girl, but when I arrive at the office my efforts were fruitless on both fronts. I slip past the secretary, who gives me a stern look, and head to my desk, glancing at the clock as I go. 7:51—not too bad.

I begin pulling manuscripts from my bag—I’m an editor—organizing them by deadline and stacking them neatly in my in-tray. As I pull out the last two packets and I notice something wedged between them: a book.

With a jolt, I realize it’s my copy of The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe. I must have shoved it in the bag in my hurry this morning without realizing. I turn it over in my hands wonderingly.

It was the only thing I took from my house after my mother died a few years ago. My father had gone the year before, so it was bittersweet; it makes me happy to imagine them back together again. So the house went to me. All of my clothes and essential belongings hadn’t lived there since I left for college, so I didn’t think I’d need anything left in the cabin. But when I revisited it after the funeral, I couldn’t leave the book there. Most of my childhood memories are attached to it in some way.

I took the book, and then I put the house up for sale, fully furnished, and a few weeks later it was bought. I went back one last time, not to visit, just to see, and a young couple with a baby had moved in. It made me smile to see new life in my old house.

My attention returns to the book on my lap, and then, as if I could see the lyrics etched on the faded cover, I remember the song my mother used to sing to me during snowstorms. I’d forgotten in my whirlwind of a morning, but I think I heard that song in my dream last night…

“Morning, Hanna,” says Mrs. Tweedie, my boss, as she passes my desk. I shove the book back into my bag. “Have you almost finished with Leighton’s edits?”

“Yes, nearly,” I lie, because it’s not due until tomorrow and I can stay up all night if I need to. She gives me a stiff nod, and returns to her office. You do not want to cross Mrs. Tweedie.

So I spend the morning on Leighton’s manuscript, because he’s almost as disagreeable as Tweedie, and I make good progress. I decide to take lunch early after such a pitiful breakfast, so by eleven-thirty, I’m passing the secretary again (she gives me another disapproving look) and heading into the bright, white, snow-capped world.

I nearly always go to lunch at the same café—Lola’s—because the soup there is as cheap as it is delicious. It’s a quiet sort of place, with lots of small tables tucked in nooks and a forest of potted plants, some hanging from the ceiling, others spilling out from the corners or perched on countertops. It’s also about halfway between my house and the office, so I eat dinner there almost as frequently as lunch.

A few blocks away I stop at a crosswalk and pull out Mr. Leighton’s packet. If I work on it over lunch, I could finish before the workday’s end, and then I’ll be free to spend tonight getting ahead on the next assignment. 

I’ve tucked the papers under my arm when something makes me freeze, my other hand inches from the clasp on my bag. Slowly, I look to the right, and there she is again: the lost girl. Her back is to me, and she’s at the far end of the street, walking up the sidewalk towards where I saw her last night.

I only hesitate for a second. Grabbing the papers out from under my arm, I run after her as they flap wildly in the wind. My bag slips from my shoulder but I catch it in the crook of my arm, and I must look crazy as I plunge through the crowd coming towards me. I nearly lose the papers in my hand trying to push through, and when I emerge on the other side, she’s turned the corner and is out of sight.

I hurry to the top of the street and stand where she was when I first spotted her, looking left and right, but once again, she’s disappeared. 

I seriously question my own sanity as I take a left on the back route to Lola’s, wondering if what I’ve been seeing is a girl or a ghost or a product of my own delirium. I wonder if I’ve seen her only once, and the next two times were wishful thinking; and I wonder if there are any parents calling the police station, looking for their little girl, or if no one’s missing and even our first meeting was a fallacy, a manifestation of stress or something similar.

Rubbing my eyes, I do up the clasp to my bag and take another left through an alley, popping out on the crosswalk right in front of Lola’s. As I enter, a dusty bell rings, and the green of the shop washes over me. Faded green walls against vibrant green plants. It makes me feel a little better, as does the smell of french-onion soup, today’s lunchtime special.

“The usual?” asks Lola, as I approach the counter.

“No, I think today I’ll have the special,” I say back. I normally have cheddar-broccoli, but the french onion smells too good today.

I settle into a world of hot soup, warm, buttered bread, and Leighton’s pages, and for nearly an hour, I forget about the sweatered girl who may or may not exist. At first, the soup revives me a bit, but as time wears on and Leighton’s writing gets duller, I become drowsy. After having read the same sentence several times without the slightest idea of its meaning, I decide to return to work, hoping the walk back in the chill air will energize me.

I open my bag and tuck the manuscript back inside, but something about it nags at me. Aside from the pages I just put away, there’s nothing in the bag. I left all my other assignments in the in-tray…

Then it hits me. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. It’s gone.

My heart does a funny spasm, like I’d just tripped and barely recovered. I think back to an hour earlier when I was on my way here, and in my mind’s eye I see myself running, bag jostled behind me against the people I’d brushed by, wide open with the clasp undone…

I stand abruptly, pay Lola, and hurry outside and down the street. I cross the road onto the sidewalk where I’d first spotted the girl, and I can see something on the ground in the distance. I break into a jog towards it, and then several things happen at once.

First, I get a surge of déjà vu so strong, I have to shut my eyes and lean against the building next to me. Against the dark of my eyelids, I see, like a video played back at 10x the normal speed, unfamiliar streets and alleys rushing by me. Snow falls so rapidly it’s just white streaks, and all of a sudden, I’m frightened.

When I finally force my eyes open, there she is—and I can hardly believe it, but the small figure of a brown-haired someone is emerging from an alley and happening upon the book on the ground. I can see, in my head, the cover of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, and I can feel my fingers close around it, its weight so familiar in my hand, and at the same time I watch the little girl pick up the book, an object just as lost and as cold as she is.

“Hey, wait!” I call, and start running again, down the street towards her or my book, I’m not sure which.

She whips around, brown hair whirling and twisting in the wind, and then she runs, too.

I give chase down the street and skid around the corner, just catching a flap of fabric disappearing down an alley. I follow her around barrels and over crates, through a left and then a right, and past my own apartment building. A few blocks later I take a right out of a different alley and stop on a street corner, peering up the street she must’ve taken, but there’s nobody there.

I lean against the nearest building, my breath coming fast and making the air as cloudy as my thoughts. My brain feels like it’s been split in two, like half of it belongs to someone else; someone I once knew, but have forgotten.

I realize that I’m on a street I normally take to work, nearly to the office, in fact. I know I should go back, but the idea of trying to work in my current state makes me nauseous. I push off against the wall unsteadily, and as I do, I notice the door just a few feet to my right is ajar.

It’s bright red, like holly berries, and oddly familiar, even though I’ve never noticed it on my walk to work before. Curious, I push it slowly open.

Warmth floods me, sinks into my skin, the warmth of a hot bath and Lola’s soup, the warmth of a roaring fire. It’s dark, but silhouetted by flickering light, I can see three figures. And when my eyes finally adjust and I can make out their features, everything comes clear, and my mind mends itself so that it’s whole again.

It’s the young couple that moved into the cabin, older now, a little more lined and a little more tired, but happier than ever. They’re hugging the little girl, kissing her cheeks and smoothing her hair, and she’s laughing and holding up The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, proud as anything. As I watch, the father takes the book and opens it to a dog-eared chapter, and the mother begins to sing:

Inside these walls we will stay safe and warm,

As the snow swirls all around us.

Inside these walls we will weather the storm,

As the world spins all around us.

Drift off to sleep, light as a snowflake

Let the silent storm carry you.

Drift off to sleep, and when you awake

The world that you see will be new.