“But don’t touch that dial, because the weather is coming up next.”
Emma chuckled to herself as she lifted the lid from the pot on the stove, releasing steam and a savory fragrance into the air. Nobody had radios with dials anymore, and nobody would change the channel, anyway. Not after a blizzard in the middle of July.
“And we’re back with Hurricane Jim. Or should we call you Blizzard Bob?”
She rolled her eyes at the corny joke, lifting a spoonful of soup from the bubbling brown liquid before her. The morning show host and Jim/Bob laughed in a canned, artificial way that sounded a step above a laugh track on a sitcom.
“Blizzard Bob suits me just fine, Rob. Hey, we rhyme!”
More canned laughter. She blew the steam from the soup and tasted it, rolling the hot liquid around her tongue for a moment. Then she swallowed and nodded with satisfaction. “Perfect.”
“Another freak blizzard hit Glacier Pass last night, burying the town in three feet of snow within fifteen minutes of the first snowflake, reminiscent of the Whiteout of ‘21. Fortunately, the storm only affected our town instead of the entire county this time, and most businesses and private homes here now have generators thanks to the increasing number of these strange, apparently random snowstorms. Oh, hold on, I’m getting another bulletin.”
She turned the burner off and pushed the pot to the back of the stovetop, hoping the bulletin wasn’t bad news.
“Well, everybody, good news. It’s finally stopped snowing! And it looks like current estimates are ten feet of snow on the ground.”
Only ten feet? That was good, she thought, untying her apron and hanging it on its hook. Not that she’d have trouble with any amount of snow. Pipaluk’s animated snow shovel had probably been working all night, overjoyed at the opportunity to perform its favorite task out of season.
“Do we have any idea what’s causing these snowstorms, Bob?”
She darted into the mudroom, grabbed her snowsuit, snow boots, hat, scarf, and gloves, and dashed back into the kitchen so she didn’t miss a word.
“None at all, Rob. The weather phenomena here at Glacier Pass have been getting weirder and weirder over the past three years, bringing our little town national and international attention, and even the world’s top meteorologists are scratching their heads. A recent NASA report said, and I quote, ‘The freak snow storms appear to come out of nowhere. We can't predict when they will strike next. There are absolutely no warning signs—no changing pressure systems, cloud formations, warm and cold fronts. We are at a total loss why this is happening.’”
She shook her head as she zipped up her snowsuit. How did Lily always get out of being implicated? Everybody in town knew about the snow witch living in their midst, and yet every time she got upset and her magic went haywire, everybody seemed to forget all about her.
Maybe she had a fairy godmother working behind the scenes to keep her out of trouble.
Emma chuckled at the thought. Fairy godmother. As if there was such a thing.
“It’s time for a commercial break, but don’t go anywhere yet. We’ll be speaking with an expert from NASA—”
The sound of her boots clomping across the kitchen and her nylon snowsuit squeaking with each step drowned out whatever the deejay said next, but she’d heard it all before. For the rest of the day, they would talk about the blizzard, comparing it to previous ones, speculating about the cause, and sharing snow-related anecdotes. Meanwhile, the obvious instigator was probably unconscious in her house next door, passed out from the strain of overdoing it again, and the natural mother in Emma couldn’t stand for that.
So, she picked up the lidded pot with her mittened hands, and she headed out into the cold.
The sidewalk was clear, as she expected, and the snow rose in straight, solid white walls on either side of it. She could see neither the street ahead of her, nor the houses on either side of hers. For all intents and purposes, she was walking through a white labyrinth with no ceiling except for the steel gray sky above. She knew the sky was there, although she didn’t bother to strain her neck looking up. Her snowsuit gave her little flexibility, and at a mere three feet tall, it was a long, long way up.
Winter Wonderland came to mind, the song Lily used as her ringtone. Emma hummed the notes with a smile on her face, turned left at the sidewalk, and stopped in her tracks.
A tall man stood ahead of her, just at the turnoff toward Lily’s house. He wore a bright red sweater and had his hands stuffed in the pockets of his black jeans, his face in profile and the side of his mouth twisted a bit as he stared in front of him. Emma had never seen him before, but she didn’t get the sense she should be suspicious or fearful of him. He looked thoughtful. Maybe surprised. The side of his brow that was visible to her seemed slightly raised, though she couldn’t identify an eyebrow or his eye color or shape from this angle. His long, wavy blonde hair was so pale it was nearly white, however, so it stood to reason his eyebrow was pale, as well, and she would wager his eyes were blue.
Had Lily been expecting company?
“Hello,” Emma called cheerfully, beginning again to walk.
The tall stranger turned to look at her, definitely surprised now. And his wide eyes were definitely blue. Pale blue, like the glaciers she saw in nature documentaries. He had a strong jaw and a straight nose, and on second thought, maybe he wasn’t so tall, after all. She was just exceptionally short.
“My name is Emma,” she greeted him politely, coming to a stop a few steps away from him so she wouldn’t have to bend over backwards to look up at him. “And you are…?”
“Boris,” he replied, recovering from his surprise and offering her a bright smile. Between the sunlight reflecting off the snow and the blinding whiteness of his teeth, she had to squint to see. “I was told to meet a woman named Lily here, but…”
Emma walked forward to look around the corner, and what she saw made her let out a heavy sigh. A rounded sheet of clear ice rose from the front gate up, out, and around Lily’s quaint little cottage, and within the ice, a picturesque scene of untouched white snow and a constant, gentle snowfall completed the image. Emma didn’t have to see the whole thing to know what it was.
“A snow globe,” she said, sighing again. “She enclosed her house in a snow globe.”
“Then I can assume this is a relatively recent development?” Boris asked.
Emma nodded and looked up at him. “Was she expecting you?”
“I thought so,” Boris said, twisting one side of his mouth up again. “Her cousin Crystal said—”
“That explains it,” Emma interrupted. “I’m sorry to have to tell you this, Boris, but Crystal has a tendency to meddle in Lily’s life, and Lily…has a tendency to do things like this when she wants to be left alone.”
Boris blew out a heavy breath and removed his right hand from his pocket to check his watch. His breath fogged in the air, but his hand was bare, and he showed no discomfort as he stood outside in just a sweater and jeans, Emma noted. Probably a snow warlock. Although how he got into the maze without breaking the smooth white walls was beyond her.
“I am a little early, though…”
Emma gave him a sad shake of her head. Poor guy. He seemed nice, but Lily clearly didn’t want to see him. “What, exactly, did Crystal tell you?”
“Well, I’m an author, and I was hoping to find someone skilled in enchantments who could bring my books to life, so to speak,” he said, dropping his hand to his side. “Crystal said Lily was the best. And judging by this work, she was right. The magic she used to make this is very advanced.”
“Oh, Lily is the best. She—” Emma paused, thinking. “Can you make an opening in this?”
“Uh…”
They walked up the sidewalk to the base of the snow globe, thick layers of packed ice engraved with intricate vines in shades of blue reminiscent of Boris’ eyes. If Boris wasn’t here, Emma would have gone back to her house to retrieve Pipaluk’s new heat cubes, animated squares of orange gelatin-like material that burned hotter than lava. But it was such a shame to ruin Lily’s beautiful handiwork, and if Boris had a more elegant solution than her mad scientist husband, she’d rather go with that. Especially if she could get Lily to at least talk to Boris this way.
He brushed his bare fingers over the designs on the ice base. “The magic is still active. If I try to force through it—”
“Oh! What’s that?”
Emma could just see over the top edge of the base, and there was a brown cardboard box on the front porch, partially concealed by a vertical support pillar. She couldn’t tell for certain, but she thought she saw something moving in it.
“There’s something in it,” Boris confirmed. “Do you think Lily will come outside soon?”
Emma shook her head, wondering how much to say. “She, um…well, no. Could you get through…?”
Boris nodded and flattened his palm against the ice. “Hope she doesn’t mind…”
Emma had seen Lily and her mother use their magic before, but it was always interesting to watch. Pipaluk’s work involved science, math, and, usually, explosions, whereas snow magic wove blue and white tendrils from the user’s fingers through the surface they touched or the air around their hand in a much more subtle, but no less powerful, force. That’s what was happening now, the white and blue cracking and splintering the blue and white, and when she traced her eyes up Boris’ arm to his face, she could see from the set of his jaw and the furrow in his brow that this wasn’t easy. She’d never seen Lily show that much exertion while working her magic.
Although she’d seen Lily pass out from overexerting herself plenty of times.
“Stand back,” Boris instructed.
Emma took three steps back.
A loud crack rent the otherwise still air, and then another. The tendrils spreading outwards from his hand reached invisible points to his left and right, suddenly splitting into single vertical lines tracing down to the ground and up above his head, where they turned sharply inwards to draw a horizontal line that met in the middle. He shoved, and another, louder crack split the air as the ice door slid smoothly forward, slicing through snow and creating a clear walkway for his six-foot-frame.
“It’s safe now,” he said, panting slightly.
Emma took three hesitant steps toward the opening, and then Lily’s front door burst open with such force it hit the house and bounced back. The young woman leaned heavily against the doorframe, her normally pale complexion now snow white, her chest heaving with each labored breath.
“Lily!” Emma cried, throwing caution to the wind and running toward her.
A pointy black nose peeked over the edge of the cardboard box, followed by a dark brown stripe leading up a long snout to a distinctive black mask set within a tan furry face.
“Is that a raccoon?” Emma heard Boris call behind her.
“My…magic…” Lily gasped, rage swirling in her icy blue eyes. She didn’t have the strength to stand upright, but she lifted her gloved right hand in a sharp, swift movement that threw the ice door into Boris with a whoosh and a thud, shoving him out of the snow globe and sealing the door back into the base before Emma had even reached the porch.
“Lily,” Emma scolded her.
And then Lily’s eyes rolled back in her head, and she collapsed in a heap onto the cardboard box. The raccoon leaped aside just in time, and if Emma didn’t know better, she would swear the animal was glaring at Lily with those beady, black eyes.
To most people, this would have been startling. Shocking. At least mildly surprising.
But Emma had married a mad scientist. Assisted with his experiments. Attended countless conferences with him, meeting all sorts of creeps, dweebs, and weirdos. Met other beleaguered wives of mad scientists and founded a Facebook group for them, a place where they could vent and swap recipes for casseroles and first aid ointments. Borne two children, holding her husband’s hand during those long hours of labor and reassuring him it would all be over soon.
This was nothing.
She stepped over Lily’s prone body into the icy hallway, her breath fogging in the air as she made the short trip to the kitchen, where she stood up on tiptoe and set the rapidly cooling soup on the counter. Then she found the stool Lily’s mother had bought just for her use and used it to reach the old-fashioned landline phone, dialing the numbers as best she could with gloved fingers.
“Pick up,” she muttered, listening to it ring. “Pick up, you dear, sweet, bald—”
Click.
“Pipaluk?” she asked excitedly.
“...Emma?” he replied, his voice thick with sleep.
“Pipaluk, execute Plan C.”
“...What?”
She groaned in frustration. “Plan C. C! As in ‘cat.’ Or—”
“Oh!”
His voice disappeared amidst fumbling and tumbling, and she knew he’d jumped out of bed and dropped the phone. He called to her from a distance, apologizing as he scrambled to recover the receiver. She sighed and tapped her foot on the floor.
“Plan C. Got it,” he finally said, breathless.
“Thank you. Oh, and there’s a nice young man named Boris outside of Lily’s house, probably with a broken nose. Could you check on him and bring him with you?”
“Uh, yes. Boris, you said?”
“If he’s conscious, he can explain. See you soon, dear. And happy birthday.”
She knew it wasn’t possible to hear a smile, but she was sure she did, all the same, just before she hung up the phone. There was a wide smile on her face, at least. She hopped down from the stool, caught herself on the counter as her boots slipped on the ice, and righted herself quickly. Then she returned to Lily, still unconscious in the doorway.
This was a pickle.
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