Dissonant Sorrows (Reedsy Contest #189)

(Inspired by Hans Christian Andersen, “The Little Match Girl”)

It was so terribly cold. Snow was falling, and it was almost dark. The bitter winter wind sliced through her and siphoned the air from her lungs. Her winter clothes were a little barrier between the buffeting wind, and her exposed skin felt raw and scraped. So why was she out here? Was she running from sorrow, apathy, or obligations more? Now that her family had arrived, her burden increased, and it was the force chasing her into the cold. Approaching the familiar nearby forest, the copse of trees looked like tall, spindly, gossipy women shrouded in thick blankets of ice and snow. Yet, she knew somewhere within the bosom of that treeline was a sanctuary untouched by ice or snow. A space where the boughs refused to yield to harsh elements. If she could locate the safe haven of her youth, it might lend her the strength to face the coming days after her grandmother’s passing. It had been scarce longer than an hour, and she already found herself weary of her family’s company.

Walking into the trees, without a second thought, she put as much space as possible between herself and the grand manor on the hill. She only paused to adjust her path as obstacles came up, ducking a low branch here and stepping over a large root there. But, some hazards were hidden in the snow. Tripping over one such obstacle, she lost her footing and caught herself on a tree trunk, but not before her favorite scarf snagged upon a twig. As she righted herself, she had not noticed, but the burgundy yarn began to unravel as she took a couple of steps. Feeling the unfamiliar tug, she turned and walked back, carefully untangling the yarn. Coiling it around her finger, she deftly tied it off, ensuring it would not unravel more, and vowed to fix it later. Her grandmother had made it for her when she was a child, and now, so close to her grandmother’s death, she cherished it dearly. Frustrated by the damage, the anger briefly warmed her.

Before long, a clearing opened its maw before her, a hollow and cavernous space, much like the feeling in her chest. She knew encroaching upon this untouched snowy sanctity was folly, inviting only more trouble. Chewing on her chapped lip, she skirted around the space. She left only footprints outside, glimpsing the sky through the hole in the trees; the sky was getting dark. Twilight was upon her; it was getting late; suddenly, her mind assaulted her with unbidden thoughts. A grotesque vision of her body stiff, covered in ice and snow, remaining only until the spring thaw. It was not the pain of death that daunted her, but the fear of what lay beyond, or worse, that her spirit would remain as her physical form eroded into dust. The temperature would fall as the little light faded, and she needed to find somewhere safe to survive the night.

Considering heading back the way she came, but she could not hope to follow her own footprints to make it back. The clearing had turned her around. Ignoring the stiffening of her muscles and joints and the shattered glass grinding upon her exposed skin. Her teeth chattered, and her hands and feet had lost feeling; she felt so tired. Losing hope and cursing herself for seeding solace so late within the wood. She cursed her family as well. She heard echoes of the vitriolic voices of her family as they squabbled over the few trinkets her grandmother had left behind. A never-ending prattling about how it was their right as her grandmother’s children, accusing her of coercing her grandmother into leaving her everything, not that there was much. Spite gave her enough energy to keep moving, crunching through the snow; her heart skipped a beat as she spied a light in the distance.

Using every last bit of her strength, she leveraged herself forward, her hands and arms grasping for anything she could use to propel herself as she ambled closer to the light. As the light opened before her, it revealed a verdant glen, compelled forward by the promise of warmth, a memory that gave her pause at the edge of the sunlight. Again, her grandmother’s warning words collided with her exhaustion-addled mind.

“Beware of the strange things you might stumble upon in the woods; you never know what might be a faerie trap, and who knows what might become of you then.”

Her grandmother had often spoken of faeries but had never seen one herself. They were despicable mischievous creatures who would be just as likely to kill or enslave a person as help them. For the most part, they were a myth. Occasionally, someone would claim to have followed wisps into the woods and become lost. Or would claim they had been spirited away to explain a lapse of absence or mind. The Faerie must have removed their memory of the escaped time to keep themselves safe. Hogwash, she thought.

She closed her eyes, ready to throw herself upon the mercy of soft grass, and thought about her choices. What choice did she have? If she stayed here, at the edge of the clearing, she would freeze to death; if she moved into the clearing, something worse than death might await her. She had given end more thought over the past few days than she had in her entire life. She was not ready to die, but who was? What did she have to return to? Nothing but more squabbling and greed.

Falling forward onto the soft grass, she instinctively caught herself upon the soft grass; her palms stung like bees, but she immediately felt warm. Rolling onto her back, she pried her wet gloves from her cracked, bleeding fingers. Relieved that frostbite had left her alone, she prayed her feet fared better. Then, lying in the sunlight, she shed the layers of her winter clothing like a snake shed its skin. She savored the warmth of spring sunlight upon her skin.

With that last effort complete, she closed her eyes and relaxed her too-tense body. Then, too weak to open her eyes again, she floats unconscious, abandoning her troubles far away.

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