A Frozen Night

It was so terribly cold. Snow was falling, and it was almost dark. It had been less than an hour since Josh began his search, but the panic gripping his heart made every passing moment feel like an eternity.

“Anna!” he called to the darkening forest. A chilly echo was all that answered.

He trudged through the knee-high snow, the moon’s grimly glow his only source of light. Stupid girl, he thought bitterly. And her dumb cartoons.

“Anna!” he called again. Once more, his little sister didn’t answer. He could already hear his mom yelling, “You had one job, Josh! One job!” He could hear his dad’s sigh of disappointment and disdain in his voice, “We were barely gone two hours. How did you mess up this bad?”          

A bitter wind whistled through the pines. Josh tightened the collar of his coat. Stupid, stupid, stupid. He stared at the snow, searching for footprints, searching for a clue he was even going the right way.

“Where did you go, Anna?” he muttered, looking at the undisturbed scattered pine needles. He turned around, his heart hammering against his sternum to the point he thought it might shatter the bone. Where were her footprints?

Josh curled his hands into a fist. Why didn’t he bring gloves? I’m as stupid as Anna. His palms barely gave any relief to the stabbing pain of the cold. His fingertips felt more like rubber than skin, but he couldn’t stop. How could he? He stuffed his fists into the pocket of his snow-covered jeans.

“Anna!” he called his sister’s name, desperation dripping with every syllable. “Anna!”

He circled back around, blindly into the forest, no footprints to lead him, only the desire to find his sister safe driving him deeper and deeper into the wintery evergreens.

His ears burned. How does the cold make skin feel like hot needles were imbedding themselves under your flesh? He clasped his hands over his ears. No hat? You are dumb. The faster you find her, the faster you can go home.

Further he trudged through the thickening snow. The more he wandered between the pines and spruce, the more he wondered if he was even going the right way. Despite his suspicions and piercing wind, he lumbered on.

Frost formed in his nostrils, chilling his chest from the inside with every breath. I can’t stop. I have to find her.

The determined brother burst through the treeline. Snow twinkled like stars across a frozen lake, stretching far in nearly every direction. Moonlight set blaze to the icy surface, illuminating the night with a ghostly glow.

There, small black pockets in the bright white top. Josh hurried toward them. Could they be her footprints? Snow swallowed him up to his knees. Ice touched the soles of his thin boots.

No way Anna could get far in this. He shouted her name again. 

Josh pushed forward, forcing the snow aside with his shins like he was a plow in the city streets. He closed in on one of the divots.

The world shattered around him. His heart fell into his frozen boots.

Bunny prints stretched toward the next length of shore. Josh collapsed into the snow. His soaked jeans no longer felt cold. His hands weren’t cold either. The tip of his nose wasn’t being bite by a frozen scorpion. Even his ears, once burning from frostbite, had become numb. He almost felt warm.

“Anna,” Josh gasped feebly.

A summer’s sun shone down on their backyard. Josh bounced the soccer ball off his foot, lightly passing it to Anna. “She lines up for the shot,” he said in his best commentator voice.

Anna kicked the ball with as much force a four year old could muster. It hurtled through the air like a comet in space. It sailed past Josh’s wide eyes in a black and white blur.

“An unbelievable punt from Anna Gravis, and, I can’t believe it, she scores! And the crowd goes wild!” he charged toward her, fueled by her hysterical giggle. Josh hauled her off the ground and spun around, her legs flailing through the air. “The youngest player to ever grace the World Cup, a true legend and inspiration for all!”

“Josh, put me down!” she laughed. “I’m going to be sick.”

He tumbled to the ground, faking exhaustion. She crumbled on his chest, her giggle fading away.

Five years and many summers later, Josh’s eyes groggily slid open. A thin layer of snow had blanketed over him. He stared at the stars above, begging to whatever deity would listen, to return him to that summer’s day.

The moon hung in the silent sky. The stars glistened, pulsating in time with his slowing heartbeat. Below his frozen form, a deep crack of thunder broke across the ice. Water melted the building snow.

He didn’t feel the icy embrace of the lake, nor did he feel the impossibly cold water cut through his clothes like a frosty knife. What he did feel was the near-frozen liquid slosh into his gapping mouth. He did feel the frost in his nostrils melt from the sudden frigid wave, but he hardly noticed them freeze shut immediately after.

The lake began to engulf him. Josh helplessly griped the snowy surface, groping feebly for something, anything, to pull himself to safety.

A warm hand grasped his waxy fingers.

“Anna,” he mumbled. Through icy eyelids, he saw his little sister struggling to the surface. “Get back…the lake…”

Another deep crack.

“Josh, the ice is breaking.” The nine year old girl gave it everything she had, willed every muscle she could muster to give her strength. The frozen embrace pulled back.

A thousand cackles thundered across the silent lake. Anna felt the ground leave her feet.

“Anna…” Josh said, barely above a breath. “Get…back…”

They say the hardest things in life is letting go. In that moment, Anna learned it to be true. Her brother’s fingers, white as the snow around them, slipped from her grasp and scrambled away from the widening crack.

She collapsed on shore. Moonlight rippled in the water, washing over the ice as it reclaimed the lake’s surface. Anna watched as, along with it, the lake claimed her brother.

The slushing water settled.

“Josh!” Anna screamed into the night. Only her echo was there to answer. She clambered to her feet and charged into the woods as fast as her short legs could take her.

Thick pines protected her footprints from the storm. With every step, the guilt of what she’d done dragged her down. Oh, why did you go this way, Josh?

“I shouldn’t have run off in the first place,” she muttered to whatever cedar would listen. “Stupid, stupid, stupid.”

And yet, he ran after her. The wrong way. A sob caught in Anna’s throat. Her heart seemed to stop and her stomach twisted. She collapsed to her knees, tears freezing to her cheeks faster than they were pouring from her eyes.

She whipped her nose and stood. After a tearful breath, she continued. Of course he’d come after me. Why wouldn’t he?

More tears stuck to her cheeks. She swallowed her sobs, ignored the numbness in her fingers and trembling of her knees whenever the thought of Josh sinking lifelessly under the ice, his ghostly white-

Stop it, Anna.

Numb from the cold or numb from the fresh trauma, Anna marched through the forest, eyes on her tracks, willing her thoughts to stop. Waves of emotions washed over the young girl, more than she had ever felt. More than she ever knew.

Anna picked up speed, as if she could outrun them all.

A frozen eternity later, the lights of her house shone through the treeline. Along with them, flashing like a Christmas tree, was the lightbar of a police cruiser.

“Dad!” Anna called bursting through the front door.

“Anna!” the barrel-chested man dropped to his knees, tears in his eyes. He wrapped his little girl in his arms and pulled her off the ground. “Are you okay, sweetie? Where’s your brother?”

She buried her face into his neck and struggled to speak through her sob. “He fell through the lake.”

Her parents exchanged a horrified expression. The officer said something into her radio and headed to the door.

“What’s going to happen?” Loraine said.

“I’ve called in EMS and fire. They’ll do their best,” the officer said.

An icy fist clenched her heart. A breath was forced from her lungs. She found support in the countertop as her knees threatened to give. Everything around her had gone silent.

The world had gone cold.

Anna’s crying snapped her back to reality. Her husband stroked their daughter’s hair, fighting his own tears while he consoled her. Loraine pulled her family into her arms.

The next hours passed like a slow hurricane of emotions. Guilt. Shame. Dread. They waited in turns, a hungry pack of wolves all having to share a single kill.

“Here,” Roger handed her a cup of coffee.

“Thanks,” she barely whispered and took a sip. Even the scalding drink could not warm the numb cold that had taken hold.

The doorbell screamed through the silent house. Loraine dropped her mug as she raced Roger down the stairs. A flicker of hope ignited in her heart. Did they find him? Is my baby boy coming home?

Her husband threw open the door. The officer from before stood at their threshold.

Her eyes were downcast and chest was fallen. Loraine was deaf to the words the officer spoke.

Roger wrapped pulled his wife into his chest. Loraine’s tearful scream of misery filled the frozen night.