The Girl from the Snow

The Girl from The Snow

By Sallie Castile

It was quiet on the moor, secretively quiet, as though the thick layer of snow was hugging every sound down into the earth. Birds were hovering over the leafless, skeleton branches of the trees, but no birds sang.

The silence did not bother me you see. I like quiet, I like to get away from people, I am a loner and people don't understand this they don't understand me but I wish they did, I haven’t any friends or a boyfriend and everyone keeps on at me to go out and do something about it, “leave your books for a while, Jackie” My mother always said to me, then one afternoon, she said to me “Jackie, there's a nice family who has moved in up the road, I know they have a lovely lad who is about your age. Why don't you go along and introduce yourself?” Mother‘s always doing this, trying to matchmake me. Every time a new boy moves into the area, she always wants me to make myself know. I get very tired of it.

I do not want a friend or a boyfriend, I just want to be left alone. But I knew Mum would keep on, at me until I end up going. Just to keep the peace I walked out of my house and down the street to where the boy lived, but I just kept on walking until I ended up on the moors, into a nice quiet place where I could think. Where I can be alone with no distractions or people to pester me and keep on at me. I do not like making friends, every time I have a friend, they either get fed up with me or leave and I never see them again. So, I just tend to keep to myself and do what I want without any bother from other people. It is just the way I am.

Anyway, I must have walked for miles, just alone on the moors walking in the crisp white snow crunching under my feet as I walked, when I saw the girl who looked like she was made of snow in the distance, it was brilliant, someone had done a really good job on her as she was so lifelike it was unbelievable. She was even wearing snow clothes, as I walked up to her, I was taken by surprise, it was a shock when the snowgirl moved, she turned her head and looked straight at me and made a sound, it sounded like a soft cry echoing through the moors. There were icy tears on her face which froze as soon as they touched her cheeks, they were dripping crystal clear, like icicles.

As I approached her, I just walked right past her, you see, I do not like to get involved with the thing that does not concern me, I do not like to give myself the trouble, but as I walked past her, for a moment I felt uneasy and guilty, “maybe she is just feeling unhappy and the unhappiness is private” said a little voice in my head “yes! Ignore her, keep walking.” the voice in my head said, So I just kept on walking.

Then I nearly jumped out of my skin when I felt her icy fingers touch the back of my neck, cold as ice her hands felt as if she were made of ice. Then she caught my hand tightly, and she was whispering right into my ear. Her breath was so cold, like one of those programs I have seen on TV when they say that if a ghost is around and the air feels icy cold, just like her breath, and her voice sounded, how can I explain it, well it was soft and pleading. “help me please, I need to talk” and then she pointed ahead and over to the left, “over there remember? Please help me.”

Her hair had fallen like a white curtain across her face and the afternoon light had begun to fade I had the feeling that I had seen her somewhere before. I had this feeling like Deja-vu as if it had happened before “help me please, over there” she said again. “Remember me please remember me?” and she tugged at my arm pulling me ahead and to the left towards the deeper shadows. And then I glanced down, and back the way we had come. There were footprints in the snow. Just one set, my own! I looked up at her and then I remembered where I had seen her before. It was like a repeat on TV.

I screamed, then hit out at her pulled free, and then ran and ran and ran, screaming because I had remembered where and when I had seen the girl before. I was still screaming when I reached the edge of the moors and the road. Screaming when I ran into the path of the car which hit me. As I laid in the road I saw her coming towards me pleading “help me please I need you I need to talk” Then a shadow intervened, and I heard a man say “Oh my god what have I done, are you OK, talk to me please” Then he got a Mobil phone out and dialled a number, and then spoke into the phone “Yes a young girl of about 18, I hit her with my car she just runs straight out in front of me, can you send an ambulance to please” Then I blacked out.

When I woke up after 5 days and I found I was lying in hospital with my left arm and both my legs in plaster. I am in a single room because of the dreams I keep having which is disturbing to the other patients. They make me scream out and I tend to kick, and the doctors have had to restrain me, so they moved here in this room away from everyone else to try and calm me down. It is the doctors and nurses who call them dreams. I know that they are not I know they are real; she is here now at the window haunting me. Tapping on the panes of the window with her cold fingers. I can see her mouthing “help me please” and “remember me, I need your help come with me please”.

I remember the first time I saw her, it was last winter, I had been out for a walk on the moors, as my mother was nagging me again and I saw her, she was sitting on the ground crying, as I approached, she turned to me and said: “I need help, I need someone to talk to can you help me please” I turned towards her and said, “sorry, I can't stop I'm in a hurry, why don't you go home and talk to your mother” she said “I just need to talk please help me” But I had turned away, turned my back on her. I did not want to be involved. That is when she runs off crying, not looking where she was going. Tears blinded. I suppose that is why she did not notice that suspiciously bright stretch of green grass. She had run straight into it and within seconds those.

bogs had claimed another victim. I did not even blink an eye, I just walked home, I did not want to get involved you see. It was a few days later they found her body in the bog, they had to drag her out no one know who she was.

She is still out there, tapping, mouthing “help me please, I need someone to talk to”. And the anger on her face is showing, stronger and stronger than ever before. The accusation. She only wanted a few comforting words, that winter day but my right arm will not move, and she is getting closer. It's numb because of the brake. I cannot reach the bell by my bed for the nurse to come. She is next to my bed, she reaches out and touches me, my arm is turning to ice. And the girl made of snow is so close that the whole of my body is turning to ice that I cannot even scream. I am alone and helpless! Slowly I feel my life slipping away from me. Then the next moment I am standing next to my bed and looking down, and all I can see is my frozen body and the showgirl next to me, she turns to me and takes my hand and we walk over to the window and out onto the moors, she said “I just wanted someone to talk to and you can listen to me forever” And slowly we walked through the wall and out gliding into bright light as bright as the sun and we were gone.