Written by Kelsey Smith
Illustrated by Kim Ly
"The fuzzy landscape was blurred in a thick veil of snow. She had to be careful. Beyond her backyard was Government Canyon, a park with nice family hiking trails at the bottom of the canyon and a minefield of holes that came out of nowhere."
Frost gripped the land with its iron grip as a blizzard tore through Texas. Snow started to dust the trees’ leaves like powdered sugar while icicles dangled from every house. Even San Antonio was caught in the crossfire. The meteorologist on Channel 13 was having a ball that the blizzard of a century was coming to our backyards. However, he warned the whole city would shut down because of it. Although it was San Antonio--just a trace of ice could do that.
Freya pressed her nose against the glass, looking at her backyard. The wind shrieked past and swiped at her windows. The trees waved back and forth, their leaves rattling like bones as if a tornado was coming. December never was this cold. Last week, Freya was wearing a short-sleeve shirt in eighty-degree weather. But this was Texas. The weather surprised the people who have lived here since they were born each and every year.
The wind kept raging on. The snow was coming, but it would take a while. Freya made some tea and sat near the Christmas tree and stirred the honey in. She turned on the news and heard the anchors on Channel 13 announce that it was snowing. Freya jumped from her chair and pasted her nose on the door again. Specks of white whisked past her patio. She stuck her nose on the door window. It hadn’t really snowed like this since her parents were kids. Too bad they were trapped in another state right now, she thought.
She opened the door to feel a breath of cold wind. A blast of cold wind whistled in, making her ears numb in a second. She rubbed the arms of her sweatshirt, something she did whenever it dipped below eighty degrees.
Something moved in the snow.
Freya thought, Not even the stray cats are out.
A small creature came onto the patio. The creature shook the snow off and revealed creamy fur and a long snout. It waved its bony tail on the concrete as it came closer towards the door. It was a possum.
She rushed to close the door, but the possum sprang towards her, grabbing her glasses with its mouth. Freya crept out on the patio without making a sound. She met eyes with the possum and hoped it wouldn’t bite her. Who knows where that thing has been.
Freya reached out for her glasses and watched the possum.
It looked at her with its sparkling brown eyes and scurried into the snow.
“Hey! My glasses!” She chased after the possum as it scurried into the wall of snow. She held her arm over her eyes to block the snow. She had to get those back. She and her Mom got them back before March happened. And there was no way she was going in to get new glasses now with Covid cases rising.
She ran after her glasses.
The fuzzy landscape was blurred in a thick veil of snow. She had to be careful. Beyond her backyard was Government Canyon, a park with nice family hiking trails at the bottom of the canyon and a minefield of holes that came out of nowhere.
Freya whisked through the oaks and cedars. Government Canyon wasn’t one of those places a person would want to be after dark. Not just because of the holes. Mountain lions overran the park. A couple of years back, she remembered seeing on the news a video of two of them fighting.
Freya saw a little figure running in front of her. She reached out. “Give those back!”
The snow under her gave out and she tumbled down a hole. She slid down a long tunnel on her stomach as if it were a slip n’ slide, screaming. She landed on a bush and tried to make out where she was. A blurry oak forest spread for miles under a stalactite ceiling.
“Where am I?”
Something heavy hit her on the back and pounced past her. The possum sprinted into the forest and disappeared into the trees.
“Hey! Come back!” she started to run after it, but she stopped. She needed to find a way out first. She looked up where she fell. It was a steep incline up, and she wasn’t the best climber. She tried to climb up a tree when she was a kid, but that only got her a broken arm.
She kicked the ground. “Too steep. Got to find another way out.”
She examined the forest in all of its blurriness. The close walls of the cavern made the forest stretch down how far it went, looking even longer than it probably was. Usually, in caverns, or whatever chamber this was, there was an entrance and an exit.
Freya thought she saw a light flicker in the forest, but it was gone before she could get a second look.
She rubbed the arms of her sweatshirt again, though it wasn’t cold this time. She had to find a way out. She couldn’t miss seeing her parents through FaceTime later tonight. It was their holiday get together. That and she preferred not to die in a cavern.
Freya wandered the forest for hours with no exit or possum in sight. Little giggles and swishes through the branches and she thought she saw flashes of light zipping in and out of the trees. She brushed it off. She could barely see anything without her glasses. She only had a blurry foot radius of sight until it descended into an indistinguishable world.
The trees grew thicker to the point where Freya could barely tell how much room she had to walk. She ran into a tree trunk and landed on what smelled like lantana flowers. She picked a flower off the bush, but she didn’t feel the soft petals slide between her fingers. They were crystals.
A loud sound rustled near her and a bright light flickered. Freya leaped up and hid behind the tree. She peered to the side, and a glowing woman appeared through the space of the tree trunks. Wings fluttered from her back, and she stared at Freya. Freya wasn’t able to make out what exactly she looked like, but she looked like a ghost of Christmas Past.
Freya ran. She didn’t even need to think of running from that woman. It was everything her parents told her to stay away from in the fairytales they read to her as a kid. She tripped on a tree root and looked behind. The woman floated above her. Freya crawled back, her heart jumping. “Who are you? What are you?”
She said in a soft voice, bringing her glowing green hair forward, “I’m Nova. The spirit of this cavern.”
Freya thought, Spirit? I don’t like the sound of that.
“Why are you here?”
An uneasy stomach told her she didn’t know everything about this ‘spirit.’ Freya kept it simple. “I was trying to get my glasses back.”
“Come child. I will make things better.”
The spirit took Freya’s hand and led her through the trees. As they went deeper into the forest, the trees soared higher towards the ceiling. Freya rubbed her arms. A slight breeze sailed through the air and curled around her cheeks. She wasn’t able to see an exit. Though this glowing fairy was something else.
Glowing light shimmered through the trunks. The trees started to thin and revealed an enormous chamber.
Little black crystals sparkled across the orange sandstone like stars while thin black crystals strung down from the walls as if they were curtains. Scattered across the entire ceiling were animal tracks imprinted into the ceiling, the oldest being dinosaurs. Little fairies zipped around like tiny blurry fireflies.
The spirit said, “Welcome to my home.”
Freya never believed in fairies, yet here they were, hiding under her very feet. A small figure popped from a tunnel at the end of the chamber, gnawing the sides of her glasses. The small figure came into view. It was the possum. The possum met eyes with her and she met eyes with it.
She sprinted towards the possum, but Nova placed her hand on her shoulder. Freya stopped.
Nova shook her head and picked up the possum and scratched it behind the ears. It tried to bite her and dropped the glasses. She picked up the glasses from the ground and gave them back to Freya.
She rocked the possum like a baby, a low purr rumbling from it. “I apologize about your glasses. Ollie my friend here goes too close to the humans.” The spirit put the possum down and it scurried behind Freya’s leg, its fur brushing up against her pants.
Freya glanced down at the possum, its sparkling eyes waved into a sizzle. You’re friends with a possum. Great, this couldn’t get any weirder.
Freya cleaned her glasses with her sweatshirt. Possum spit wasn’t easy to see through or get off. “Thank you…”
“Nova.”
She waved her glasses around to make sure they were dry. “I’m lost. Do you know the way out? I’m trying to get back home for the holidays.”
Freya placed her glasses on her head and the whole world became sharp and crisp. The fairies around her weren’t fairies. Their wings spiked up like daggers and their eyes all focused on her. Nova’s face was wrinkled and her fingernails were splattered with blood.
“Of course. It’s over there,” She pointed to a tunnel tucked above a pile of large boulders. A glimmer of moonlight twirled through like the snow outside. “However you cannot leave. It would defeat the purpose I tasked Ollie with.” She frowned, yet it quickly turned into a grin, showing her teeth covered with dried blood. Recently dried blood.
“What would that be?” Freya clenched her hands and stepped back closer towards the boulders. Rats. I’m going to have to climb.
“To find a human to spend this holiday season with us. And every one after that.”
Freya started to climb.
“Oh, how I hoped, you would stay of your own decision.” Her tone changed. “Get her.”
Freya glanced back and a horde of fairies surged towards her like a swarm of bats. She sprinted up, but the fairy grabbed her hair and pulled it in all directions. They went for her fingers and tried to pull them off of the rock she had a death grip on. “Leave me alone! I want to go home!”
Suddenly, Nova grabbed her ankle, sinking her bloody nails into Freya’s skin. Bloodshot red lines lightninged across her eyes as she tightened her hold. “But we want a friend.”
Freya yanked her ankle away, yet Nova was not letting it go. The other fairies kicked and attempted to drag her away to who knows where.
“Stay awhile.” Nova attempted to grab her other foot, but the possum dashed up the boulders and bit the bottom of Freya’s shoe. Freya flung her shoe off and the possum tumbled to the ground.
Nova jerked her down. “I insist.”
Freya grasped a rock and threw it at one of Nova’s wings. Nova screamed, and she lost her balance and fell towards the cavern floor.
Chaos erupted in the chamber as the fairies swooped down like a flock of birds to save Nova. Freya raced up the boulders and ran through the tunnel and into the blizzard. The snow wrapped around her like an icy blanket, and the world swirled into white.
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