Snow

The storm had caught him unprepared. After he had been dropped off at the house, he headed out quickly across the backyard straight for the frozen lake shore. The sky seemed so low he could almost reach up and touch the pregnant belly of the clouds overhead as he set off alone from the farmhouse.

There was an almost uncanny silence to the New England landscape that was robed white in snow. A strange restlessness had driven him away from the stale routines of urban life into the open wilds that late afternoon. The call of solitude and the comfort of his own imagination would be inspired by the quiet, crystalline grandeur of the winter landscape. It seemed an irresistible tug on his soul. That call often summoned him out and away from his fellow men on his frequent visits to the ancient ancestral home.

The crusty snow crunched under his booted tread as he stepped out onto the lake ice, heavy staff in hand. The lake was oddly devoid of human activity that day. However, it was a weekday afternoon. Most people would naturally be about their jobs or nestled in their snug houses instead of abroad in the biting chill.

The few ice fishing shacks that showed plumes of smoke rising from their chimneys were on the far opposite side of the basin. Most of the half-dozen or so that were nearby were vacant on a workday late afternoon. Every so often, the sound of a car passing through the town along the lakefront road or the song of a winter bird broke the stillness. Otherwise, the silence was uninterrupted except for the cadence of his own footfalls.

He was still too close to what he needed to escape. Civility seemed a greasy film clinging to his skin. The area near the picturesque village felt as tainted by the encroachment of humanity as his heart did. His soul demanded the purity of wilderness. He stretched his pace out longer, deliberately making for the promontory that could be barely seen on the horizon at the far side of the lake.

He knew he would be getting closer to what he sought once he got past the pump house that drew in the drinking water from the lake before sending it to the water treatment plant. There were no more cabins or houses visible along the shore after that point. He strained his senses to find the moment where the sounds of mankind no longer sullied the wilderness.

His spirit felt soiled by the filth of ordinary urban life in the federal housing complex apartments. Some tiny voice within him spoke of what it needed, reassured him that the icy wilds could scrub the stains away. The bite of the February air tasted pure. The spiritual snow crystals could form around the grains of the dirty memories, grow into ice and snow, and then be swept away by winter’s breath, leaving him purified in their wake.

At least that was the thought that had taken hold of him long before he had even arrived at the house that he had set out from onto the icy lake. It seemed not so much a notion as a compulsion. It was irrepressible, a primal drive pushing him onward without reason or conscious motivation. It was just the instinctual need to feel free, again, unconstrained by civilization’s mores.

The sharp boom of a “safety crack” shuddered through the ice under his feet. It reminded him of just how deep the basin of the lake was that he was crossing beneath its veneer of glassy ice. He had been ice fishing the week before and already knew that the ice was over two feet thick. Even so, walking over a depth so imposing that its shadowy bottom was eternally devoid of light was unnerving. It never really completely leaves one's thoughts, no matter how safe statistics tell you the thick ice is.

Stoically, he strode farther and farther from the village until he was finally alone with his thoughts. Over at the distant right hand shore, the sound of two snowmobiles starting up signaled the departure of the last of the ice fishermen as they headed back for homes and hearths at suppertime. With satisfaction, he heard the mechanical sounds fading into the distance. Now, the blissful peace of solitude wrapped its arms around him at last.

It was a beautiful thought. He felt the tension he had been carrying melting away. He stopped still and just breathed in the frosty air, luxuriating in the fresh, icy flavor of cold. His scanned the dark, distant boles of the trees far off on the shores, evergreen boughs veiled in violet gloom, and smiled. Finally, it was just him and nature. That was when the first flakes began to fall.

He had known the weather forecast called for snow, but had been hoping it would hold off till after dark and he had concluded his hike. It would be foolish to continue on with nightfall rapidly approaching and snow setting in. With a sigh he turned around to head back toward the house. Despite the obvious logic, he only did so with a pang of regret.

There was no wind, but very quickly it began to snow much harder. The sky filled with the silent sifting of huge clusters of flakes nearly the size of cotton balls drifting down. Grimly, he noted how far the closest shore was, nearly half a mile from where he walked. It was already obscured through the haze of white. But that was no matter. The way back was familiar.

The family’s primeval wood lot stretched all along the northern shore of the lake, which was now on his right after he turned back. The forest logging trails that he knew by heart were an easy path back home and a safer bet to keep his bearings. Becoming disoriented in the burgeoning storm would be tricky business indeed. There was no sense risking getting turned around. With the new snowfall making his footing on the lake ice less and less sure by the moment, he veered right and headed toward the distant tree line.

As if sensing his intentions, the weather suddenly intensified, dumping snow in earnest as if nature herself was trying to block his path. The visibility dropped rapidly until everything beyond a few feet in all directions was nothing but a sea of white. It was as if the sky was wrapping him in a soft cocoon. The sky was white. The ice was white. The snow was white. All the colors of the world bled away into an unending, achromatic void.

His breath steamed white in front of him, as if the living fire of his spirit was trying to escape to join that ethereal, alabaster world. That concept was a bit more "purity" than he had bargained for. All around, in every direction, there was nothing but an ominous veil of eerie, silvery silence, punctuated only by the sounds of his own breathing and the crunching of the new snow under his feet.

He was still fairly certain of his bearing. Even so, it was deeply disconcerting to be walking blindly toward a destination he was only guessing at. All sound was muffled by the curtain of snow. It was as if he had stepped out of the world and into some metaphysical passageway. Those kind of storied paths were the sort that could deposit a wanderer anywhere, in any world if they just knew how to discern the right pathways.

His soul lunged for the idea; latched on to it fiercely. Oh, how marvelous would it be to emerge from the doldrums of his mundane existence into a fae realm like all the old stories spoke of? Surely, there could be no greater vindication of his melancholy spirit than if he could prove once and for all that there was more to life than just a banal existence devoid of any real magic and grandeur.

In winter’s argent heart, it truly felt like such a supernal dream could exist. If he just knew enough of the old ways, he could trace those secret steps. Maybe he could realize that dream. The concept burned within his heart. How amazing would it be to eschew the callous world of men and be a part of something older, wilder? Could the elemental whitewash truly erase the taint of humanity?

As if in answer to his heart’s bitter longing, the harsh warning cry of a crow heralded his sudden approach to the practically unseen shoreline. The boles of the primeval hemlock forest stood like the imposing colonnade of a pagan temple of midnight, still indistinct through the interposing snow. Suddenly, a large, dark spot on the ice appeared just in front of him. It was something not white or flat as the rest of the sheet of ice, something red.

He felt his breath catch in his throat. An electric surge raced up his spine, freezing him in his tracks. A deer’s frozen, mutilated carcass lay splayed across a twenty foot section of the ice right in front of him. Its limbs were torn asunder. Its splintered ribs lay spread open toward the sky like the flying buttresses of a desecrated cathedral hall; an unholy sacrament slowly being washed white with fresh snow.

Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be washed white as snow. The familiar scripture leapt unbidden to his mind. That sacred writ suddenly seemed more ominous than comforting in the light of the gruesome discovery. It seemed nature herself was trying was to conceal her mendacious side beneath a soft white shroud, a cunning predator lulling her prey into false security. All about the site, the telltale paw prints told the grisly story of what had happened all too vividly.

His blood froze as he realized he had unwittingly walked right up into what appeared to be a wolf kill. His heart lurched at the frightful implications. However, his mind rebelled against the concept. It shouldn’t be possible. There were no active wolf packs in mid-Maine that he had heard of. Eastern coyotes sometimes preyed on deer but no one had been talking about seeing any locally.

However, there the tracks were, spatter-painted about the remains of the gory feast like a demonic summoning circle drawn in living blood across the surface of the lake ice. The paw prints were distinctly canine and larger than those of any coyote he had ever heard of. Suddenly, the once inviting arms of the forest that had seemed a safe haven from the blinding snowfall, bristled with shadowy, unseen menace. With a shudder of panic, he recalled hearing that wolves do not abandon their kills. How many cold, lupine eyes were watching him even at that very instant?

In his mind’s eye, he could clearly picture the frenzied doe fleeing her relentless pursuers with her bloody flanks already torn by their savage jaws. Her blood would have been trailing behind her, a forensic testimony written in blood on the white surface of the snow. Her eyes must have blazed with mad desperation, a desperation so insane that she had leapt out of the forest onto the slick ice to try to escape them.

Sadly, that had been a fatal error. The deer’s sharp hooves, sure-footed and fleet in the forest, would have found scant purchase on the flinty ice. It was probably only her initial impetus alone that had carried her the short distance she had made it from shore before the pack had pulled her down under their slashing fangs. They had feasted on her flesh in all the heinous savagery of one of nature’s darkest vignettes.

Grimly, he realized that he was not much larger than a deer himself. His own ribs were no more obdurate of a bulwark around his own fluttering, racing heart than hers had been. He swallowed hard. Suddenly, his walking stick and slender pocket knife felt utterly useless in the face of the mysterious menace that had created the gruesome spectacle, a menace that very likely was watching him at that very moment with calculating eyes.

With an uncanny shudder, he quickly veered back out into the alien whiteness. He moved quickly, staying just close enough to shoreline to make out its shadow at the edge of his vision. He was certain that with every step, unseen eyes followed his passage back toward the safety of the civilization that he had just so eagerly sought to retreat from.

Could they sense his panic? Perhaps he had retreated too far. What madness had compelled his steps? The call on his soul had felt so pure at the time. The tugging on his heart and the freedom of solitude had been so compellingly blissful that it had seduced him beyond the reach of any human help. Perhaps, all prey were lured by such false security in their own abilities.

The old ways whispered of elvish lands of wonder and ageless wisdom to be found along the secret paths between the worlds. But, they also spoke of dark horrors and creatures of ageless hunger that preyed upon seekers who chose the wrong path at the wrong time. Such beings sang siren songs and wore soft disguises to conceal their ravenous intent.

Those unhallowed entities laid cunning traps inside the veil between the worlds and waited like patient spiders for the slightest tug on their webs. They waited, secure in the knowledge that their veneer of beauty and grace hid their fangs until some succulent morsel blundered haplessly along. The silent snow that fell so insistently suddenly seemed as if it was trying to erase not just his unwelcome memories but his entire existence from the world of men.

He strained every nerve to sense anything beyond the insistent quietude of the storm. Just a few more steps and he would be safe back in the arms of kith and kin, if he could make it back. Had it taken so long to get out this far on the lake? The whiteness was absolute and inescapable. Just a few more steps! The darkness under the inky sky was steadily deepening, turning the whiteness into purple shadows, surrounding him like a burial shroud. His heartbeat pounded in his ears. Just a few steps more!

The signs had been there; the strange lack of human activity on the lake, the brooding malaise of the sky as he had set out, and the relentless unease in his own heart calling him beyond civilization into something elemental and pure. Perhaps he had found what he was looking for. Perhaps it had found him.

Something shifted in his heart. Strangely, the fear began to be replaced by something else. Silently, he stopped as the snow wrapped itself fully around his soul. In that perfect stillness, he remembered something he had forgotten amidst the humdrum routine of daily life. The whiteness washed over him, perfectly cleansing and savage.

Now it all made sense! He remembered the purification he had been truly seeking as it began to take hold. The filth of mundane memories was slipping away finally revealing the truth that he had inexplicably forgotten. He dropped his walking stick into the gathering snow and spread his arms wide. He smiled as he realized what had really drawn him to that unhallowed spot. He lifted up his face into the welcoming arms of the snow and howled.

Wolves do not abandon their kill.



©All original work copyright Barosus (Edward D Cates) 2018