Followed by Fros(10)

My father came into my room as I was cramming my rations into what little space remained in my bag. He stood at the doorway. I heard his teeth chatter from being even that close to me.

“We have a day, Smitha,” he said, sounding hoarse. Was it from emotion, or was he, too, catching sick? “You won’t have to leave until tomorrow. We agreed on a day.”

“I will not stay where I am unwanted,” I said, truly feeling the role of a martyr. “I’ll leave now.”

I wanted him to argue with me, to insist—no, demand—that I stay until morning, to tell me I was still part of the family, no matter what had happened to me. No matter that my eyes appeared sunken and my skin sickly, no matter that my very breath froze the air around me. No matter that I could not so much as hug my family good-bye without hurting them.

But he did not. At that time, my father had resigned himself to what must be, and I did not care to see the pain that ate him up inside, a pain that surely must have surpassed my own, for his had come by choice, and with choice came guilt. My father had always been my greatest supporter—he drove me to the city for plays and tutoring in theatre despite my mother’s objections to it, he thinned out his money to ensure I had all my needs and most of my wants, and he even, I’m ashamed to say, believed every false account I offered him, including those that maligned Marrine. The decision to cast me out must have hurt him more than anyone.

“We love you,” he said as I fastened the buttons along the mouth of my bag. His words croaked in his throat. Ready to cry again, I bit the inside of my cheek to contain myself.

I turned to him and saw pools in his eyes, one tear escaping to be lost in the forest of his beard. I stepped toward him but stopped myself. Though I wanted to hug him badly—for his comfort and my own—I knew I could not touch him. I had seen how quickly my skin had frozen my parents’ hands. The layers of his shirt would not be enough to protect him. I was angry, I was forlorn, but I did not want to hurt my family.

I did not want another Bennion on my shoulders.

I thought of Ashlen’s brother. Yes, I would leave now, before I hurt anyone else.

Swallowing, my icy throat barely able to pull the spit down, I pulled my schoolbag over my shoulder, braided my hair, and left my room. I waited for my father to step aside before I walked out of the room. My mother stood from the worn sofa as I entered the front room and tried to speak to me, but sobs bouncing in her throat made her words unclear. Again I bit my cheek, hard enough to taste cold blood. I had to leave quickly, before I could think too much on the matter. For whatever reason, I was determined not to let my family see me cry.

I glanced to Marrine, who watched me with a pout. My pest of a sister had no respect for my privacy and shared none of my interests, yet she somehow tolerated me to the point of loving me, most days. Strangely enough, I would miss her most of all.

“Remember me,” I said, a whisper, for my own throat had swollen with emotion. “How I was.”

My mother cried, her choked breaths fogging in the cold air—my cold air—as I walked to the front door of the only home I had ever known. I opened it to the torrent outside, a blizzard of purest white, and heard Marrine call out my name just as I shut the door behind me. A tear formed in the corner of my eye; I whisked it away before it could freeze.

I marched into the whiteness—blinded by whiteness—and did not look back.

Even with the constant shoveling from the snow harvesters, the snow on the road reached my knees, and I trudged through it as one might wallow through mud. It clung to my skin, though its touch was no colder. Still, it sucked me down and slowed my progress. I was panting before I even reached the turnery, but the exertion brought no flush to my face, no sweat to my body. My heart, at least, beat a little quicker, though it still felt like a cold and leaden weight within my chest.

I passed the mercantile and a few more homes, shutters closed and chimneys smoking, before the road stretched into the forests. My feet already ached, but I pushed forward, this time not wanting anyone to find me or chase after me. I gripped my skirt in hard fists and marched away from my home, the shield of opaque clouds following. I did not know where I would go, only that my route needed to be away. Away from Euwan.

The snowfall began to lighten one mile outside of Euwan and stopped completely after another. The storm seemed content to rest as it floated over me, tracing my path with a strange exactness, always keeping me at the center of its shadow. As the forest thinned and the ground sloped, I looked back at Euwan, mostly hidden beneath its layers of snow, and saw the sun shining on it so brightly it hurt my eyes. I determined that the storm Mordan had bestowed upon me reached about a mile beyond me in any given direction. The snow would stay off my hometown if I stayed where I was, but surely the cold winds would still haunt it in the summer, and I was unwanted besides, so I kept moving, my frozen feet throbbing with every step.

I occupied my thoughts with Mordan as I plodded onward, trying to distract myself from my walk and from the cold by thinking of what I would do to him should we ever meet again. I imagined my hands around his neck, squeezing until he couldn’t breathe, the bitterness of my touch freezing the blood in his veins. How ironic it would be for him to die by the very thing he had created. It reminded me of a Hraric play.

I went over what I would say to him until I had a full speech memorized, and I muttered it again and again as I passed over a stream too quickly for the water to freeze. Each time I added to it—another insult, another observation, another plea. I recited it so many times that, to this day, I still remember every word.