Mia Harper Fairgrieve / 2025-02-25
She had been awake for hours, waiting for the rest of the household to come alive. Maybe she could convince them to take her with them. When the hour came when she heard rustling and bustling in the main rooms- preparation for their departure. She quickly dressed in light leggings and a blouse- where they were going she wouldn’t need her layers of thermals. Energizing into the buzzing living room, her mother spotted her immediately.
“There’s loads of soups and currants in the pantry, but you’ll have to chop wood.” Mother swept Vedranna’s siblings towards the oak door, also wearing light summer clothes.
Suddenly, Vedranna lunged toward her leaving family, sobs escaping her throat. “Please, don’t leave me, please! I can’t stay here, not alone, not this winter! Please! I love you, please let me go!”
She clawed at the door, and Mother fought to close the door on Vedranna’s tears. “Please, let me come with you!”
Through her distorted gaze, Vedranna captured a glance of her mother’s face, riddled with wrinkles, an expression of pity and determination on it.
BAAM!
Vedranna beat her fists against the door, slowly sliding down to the tiled floor, choking out sobs and stifling screams.
After a chaotic and noisy morning, filled with preparations for the family’s journey south, the silence in the house alone, left more space for the noise in Vedranna’s head. The previous summer, Vedranna had turned thirteen, and since then the threat of being left alone all winter, a family tradition, had hung over her.
The two year long winters in the isolated wilderness where Vedranna and her family lived, required a journey south to not strain resources and avoid illness. The long standing rite of passage when a member of the family turned thirteen was to leave them to live on their own.
Over the past couple weeks, Vedranna had fought her parents on that tradition. Snow had accumulated. The berry currants made in the summer waited patiently to be consumed solely by Vedranna. Her parents held fast.
JANUARY
Vedranna celebrated New Year’s on her own. She baked a pound cake with oranges and flour preserved from the harvest months. She stuck beeswax candles discovered in a kitchen drawer into the thick cake. She struck a match and let the hot wax pool onto her fingers without flinching.
Vedranna avoided going outside for as long as the firewood held out, keeping her warm. Her red hair became matted, her face and clothes became grimy. Vedranna didn’t care. She was half-alive within herself, and she thought she might as well look like it.
She spent hours staring at her wall, lying in bed. Her mind wandered and she tried to remember how she used to feel, before her thirteenth birthday, when everything became all the more complicated.
FEBRUARY
One morning she dragged the wooden washtub into the foyer. She opened the door, welcoming the fresh, cold air that whistled in at it’s first chance. The snow had become deep enough in the last month that she stood within the threshold, whilst scooping snow into the tub.
Lighting a fire in the large metal pot, painted a cheery yellow, she struggled to light the snow filled tub onto it. After several minutes, the snow had melted, and it had begun to warm up.
Once the tub steamed, Vedranna carefully and awkwardly lifted the tub off of the pot, and put out the fire with a splash of water. Stepping into the water, she let herself sink, face just above the waterline like a mask floating in the water. Her fingers pruned and the water chilled. She washed her hair and under her fingernails with a bar of goat milk soap.
Vedranna brushed her hair for the first time in weeks, working through the knots until it shone. She slept in her mother’s bed, inhaling her sweet scent. The bath had used the last of her firewood.
The next day, Vedranna woke up with the dawn. She pulled on warm, wool leggings and her layers of skirts and a bright red sweater she found in her mother’s wardrobe.
She set out into the wilderness around her house with an axe that hung next to the door. She looked back as she walked past the first grand tree. Her little wooden house shrunk into the distance, solitary in a flat plane of snow-covered land.
The trees were strong and tall, silvery bark glimmering in the sunlight. They were about as wide as a person, and Vedranna found herself hugging one. It didn’t hug back.
She found a couple trees that looked ready to be chopped; their roots exposes and their bark rotting. The strikes of her axe scared some birds and squirrels from nearby treetops.
The trees toppled to the ground, and a spiked of rage sparked in her heart. She smashed the fallen wood into neat blocks.
The rage deflated in her and she began to cry. She cried and cried and cried. When her lungs were empty and her tears ran dry, she found herself lying cold in the snow. Taking deep breaths and standing up, she carefully placed the firewood in the little sleigh she had brought with her.
Dragging the wood home, bundles of it snug with the axe, she focused on putting one foot in front of the other. It felt as though she was dragging something heavier, much heavier than chopped wood.
MARCH
The winds blew colder and she felt lonelier by the day. Bundled in sweaters and long skirts and scarves, her skin felt numb. She let the snow sting her face when she went outside just to feel something. One night it snowed so much that the front door was blocked by a wall of ice and snow.
She wandered from room to room, trying to notice little things. In her own room, the ice frosted on the little window pane, flaky and delicate patterns. In another, two little trundle beds jutted out from a neatly-made bed almost as wide as a grand, hundred year old tree trunk.
A beautiful hairbrush, glossy handle sprouting bristles that clung to knots of Vedranna and Mother’s red hair. The open space home to the kitchen and the living room, so crowded with Vedranna’s family, now felt bare and hollow.
The house had begun to stop smelling like her family— Father like pine needles, Mother like fresh bread, her baby siblings like warm milk and soap.
She saved her firewood, using it sparingly— she didn’t know when next she would be able to go out for some more and escape the ghostly absences of her family.
———End of part 1———