Chill Glow

(This is a really creepy picture, but aliens kind of are creepy. Or at least unexpected, no matter how much we like to expect them.)

The icy flakes stung my cheeks. I brushed them off my fur hood and peered for a glimpse of Evan, beyond the quickly filling prints of his boots.

I couldn’t dislodge from my lungs the colder idea that he was stuck, that he’d tripped into the creek, shallow as it was, and frozen from the moisture.

“Evan,” I yelled again into the snow, but the flurries didn’t carry it far.

Then, “Meriah?” A high voice came from the other side of the creek. A blue hood, haloed in flakes, rose from the bank.

“Evan.” I leapt across the creek in two bounds, not caring about the dryness of my own boots, and squashed his little body up against my chest.

He leaned back and gazed at me seriously. “I followed the snowflakes,” he said.

“They didn’t have to bring you to the creek,” I said.

“They wanted me to. They were glowing.”

I smiled in spite of myself. “Snow does glow.”

“No.” He turned and pointed. “See?”

I looked back at the creek bed.

“Do you see them?”

I looked harder. Hovering near the bank by the withered thistles were three tiny spheres, somehow more luminescent than the white dust. I blinked.

“There were more of them,” Evan said.

Another and then another appeared, floating down with the flakes but seeming reluctant to touch down. Little hovering lights, all along the creek, like stars in the snow. “I probably scared them when I ran through the water,” I said.

“No, they died.” His voice sounded so sad, I gazed back into his face. His cheeks were pale, not red, and I hugged him close again.

“We have to get you inside,” I said.

“Just a minute. Look.” He held out his little hand and brought it back. On his skin, a light flared. I wanted to think it was a trick of the sun but there was no sun. “Quick.”

I squinted at his palm. For an instant, a little form with five points, not six, opened its mouth before melting into a droplet of water. I wiped flakes from my lashes and stared upward into a vertiginous snow, then back at the creek.

“It isn’t all of them,” Evan said. “I don't know why. I was trying to get cold, to give them a safe place to land so I could show you.”

He held out his hand for another one and I knew what to expect this time. It opened its mouth, too, before it became a clear dome.

“What was it saying?” I asked.

“It just wants to live. The creek makes them float longer.”

“Why did they want you?”

“I don’t know. Maybe they just wanted me to know.”

“Maybe. Evan, I’m taking you inside for some cocoa.”

“Meriah,” he placed his icy little hands on my cheeks, “we have to try.”

“Yes,” I promised. “We’ll try.”

___
Of course, then they make a field of cold air generators and someone finds out and the government gets involved, but there is always a moment of discovery. :)

I wanted to bring out a bit of the magic of the snow. And of life. It’s so precious a treasure, even in the cold seasons. —Elm