Work Text:
Deer* Father Winter,
Mama says I’ll waste paper if I write lots. She says I need to write a short letter. I don’t want to write a short letter. I want to write a long letter. But Mama says no, so I decide I will write a medium letter and use the back. Don’t tell her ok? How are you doing, Father Winter? Mama says that it is courtesy to ask one’s elder’s that and if you are a grandfather you must be old as Redd Dayton’s Pappy. His Pappy is very, very old. Dayton got a little sister this summer. She was really wrinkly and little, but Mama says she will be my size when she grows big. Mama says that I am a big girl, but Dayton says I am too little to play crusader. Father Winter, I really want a sibling. Dayton got one and he won't even let me play crusaders with him. If I got a baby sibling they could play crusaders with me and we’d have more fun than Dayton.
There was a musty, smoky smell setting in the room. Dust particles danced about in the darkened space, floating in and out of the light that spilled through the small glass window. The hardwood walls offered warmth and protection from the chill and frost that gathered in crystals at the edges of the frosty panes. Sudden gusts beat against the cabin structure while a small child took refuge in shelter bundled up in a thick woolen blanket. A head of dark messy hair just peeked out as she bent over a large oaken desk. The hardwood looked sturdy and the varnish was only just beginning to fade with age. Long scratch marks ran across the surface and a black blotch took up much of the right corner, the dark stain continuing to run down the side. Dark liquid dripped across the wood creating murky puddles from the inkwell to the paper the child was hunched over as she wrote the last line.
Signed Gwoviel Idamay Feifer.
An ink blot bloomed as she took away the quill, absorbing most of the E and R her last name. Gwoviel ignored this and folded the manilla letter in three parts. Her little hands taking care to minimize the messiness of the folds. She squeezed the creased letter snugly between the waist of her dress and the cloth belt tied about it. Finished, she dropped the blanket and ran barefoot from the desk, though an open door, and into the warm and open space of the kitchen. Little feet stampeded over the cool floorboards, and little hands reached out to grasp at full skirts and a colorful work apron. Gwoviel barreled into her mother’s leg with all the force a twiggy eight-year-old could muster. Yellow and purple flowers printed into the cloth frolicked as the woman steadied herself, her be-slippered feet sliding about on the flooring. The lively floral caught the child’s attention and her grubby fingers twisted about the petals in new and fascinating ways, distorting the shapes and combining colors in a crude game of matching. A sturdy, calloused hand ran through the length of Gwoviel’s hair quelling the violently rebellious strands and a warm throaty voice brought her back to the quest at hand and her previous urgency. Gwoviel, releasing her stranglehold on her mother’s garments and unsticking the letter from it’s strangled cloth prison and she solemnly presented the crumpled paper to the woman. “May we mail it, please?”
Late that night a second letter was penned, not by a celestial nor otherworldly being but by a pair of parents, nonplussed at their progeny’s forlorn request.
Dear Ms. Feifer
I was delighted to receive your letter as well as your polite concerns. I have been well, and the weather has been cold. It is refreshing to hear the young children are still being taught to respect their elders, regardless of how redundant such rules may often seem. You’ll do well to listen to you parents. As to your request, I regret to inform you that a sibling like Mr. Dayton’s sister is not something I can gift to boys and girls, nor make appear beneath their Winter Veil tree no matter how good they’ve been. Blood bonds are not something created through Winter Veil but strengthened. Perhaps the companionship you seek can be found in another place?
In the spirit of Winter Veil,
Grandfather Winter.
Bleary eyes reread the mysterious letter for the fifth time over. Small hands clutched the edges of the page pressing the prettily written sheet against her nose and Gwoviel inhaled the scents, Ink, paper, peppermint. She signed as she fell back amongst her sheets warm calloused hands bundling the blankets about her form, elusive butterflies and the caterpillars they grew from filtered at the edges of her vision and soft lips touched her forehead, loving words whispered in hot breaths against her hair, unruly as it was. Peppermint. How could a paper infused with such a glorious smell come from anyone but the king of the chilly north himself?
A bright light filtered into the cabin as the sun rose on the morning of Winter Veil. The clear, biting rays glanced off the icy snow and shone blindingly bright in residents’ eyes, stirring them from their dreams of the night. Little hands stretched toward the ceiling waving about listlessly as if to turn the harsh sunrise off. The hands disappeared back into the disarray of thick woolen blankets and the mess moved, the cocooned child presumably turning away from the light. As the dust particles settled once again in the air, a pleasantly syrupy smell drifted under the heavy spruce door that separated the child’s chamber from the living space. Up was Gwoviel’s form. Out of bed, the child ran. Little feet ran trippingly away from the tangled mass of blankets and sheets found their new home, the floor. The pitter patter of little feet filled the house as the smell of what could only be imagined as being honeyed and buttered. The strong arms of her father captured the ecstatic little girl as she zipped toward the source of the sugary fragrance and the room erupted in laughter and the joyful shrieks of a child.
Gwoviel’s eyes locked onto the myriad and colorful assortment of packages from over the green and gold flanneled collar of her father’s shirt. The cheerful jewel colors of the bows paired with the earthy tones of the brown paper and green cloth wrappings caught her eye and she begged to be let down to investigate. The booming laughter of her father could be felt even by the wriggling youngest and her vision was teasingly obscured by the colorful criss-cross pattern that marked his shirt. Gwoviel could hear her mother approaching the pair of them as they twirled about but as she listened harder to the heartwarmingly familiar sound of her mother’s be-slippered footsteps, a foreign one accompanied them. She furrowed her brow against her father’s shoulder listening intently before her eyes grew as the source of the sound was made clear: the click of toenail against wood, the cheerful jiggle, much like that of the harness of the horses that pulls Mr. Miler’s sleigh, then the soft whines and cries, so similar to the sounds produced by the newborn kittens that had appeared at Dayton’s farm not two summers ago. Gwoviel blinked, her mind not yet truly believing what her eyes had seen. A puppy, not likely more than eight weeks old and it was all her own to love. A puppy, soft and tan and black with the sweetest ears that felt like the velvet trim on her mother’s good dress. A puppy, a wet nosed, too much trouble, too much shedding, rascal packaged into a perfectly pure creature.
I hope you will accept a surrogate.
Happy Winter Veil,
Grandfather Winter.