Christine felt a cool breath against her throat from the night stars. It froze her heart banging dully in her chest, and cleansed each frightened gulp of air with chilly death toned strokes. Her bland dirty curls tangled melodically to the rhythm of the wind, dancing across the soft white glass of the streets.
"Who…who's there?" she called out in a whisper. She was greeted with the icy silence of winter. Papa had always laid the girls in the big bed on nights like these. Christine recalled the feels and smells of the feathery white quilts, ruffling around her head like a snow white crown, the kind that would caress Christine and Angelique like two little angels, lost in a soft, warm world of white. On sweet cold nights they'd lay soundly in Papa's big bed, the midnight casting ugly faces through the window. Clouds would form outside of the rose colored curtains made of silvery stardust, licking the windows with silky molten tongues.
The memory lay long forgotten as the dry bitter air choked the last of it. Christine moaned softly, no longer feeling her short, slender legs. The lay buried now, under drifts of chalky moon's breath.
Her skin began to tingle when she felt a cold finger begin to stroke her cheek. The finger traced her porcelain jaw line slowly, gently flicking tiny flakes of snow from her pale flesh that had frozen in place.
"Papa?" she whispered again. "Papa, is it you?" The young girl urged her muscles to work. Just open your eyes once, Christine. He'll want to see you before you die…
She gathered the warmth in her body up into her eyelids. The curious eyes flicked back and forth underneath their fleshy imprisonment, urging the heat to lift their icy cover and expose them to the cold beyond.
In one shattering movement, the lids flickered like a flame, smashing the bitter barrier. Christine's wide deer eyes were met with two glittering pools of blood, shining like bright red beacons against smooth, snow colored skin. Glistening droplets of ruby rained softly from those eyes. The eyes widened, and pulled Christine farther into their shocking gaze. "No," she whimpered tearfully. "No! Papa!"
The man let his shivering white lips loose, revealing pronged bone fangs, sliding and glimmering with jewels of frozen dew and flecks of blood.
"Such a sweet little thing," he murmured in a low, raspy voice. "So defiant to live…"
She no longer wanted to see. Yet, some part of Christine wished she could gaze upon his gaunt face again, perhaps when the morn arrived. Some part of her wanted to hold the man, because when she had looked into his eyes, she saw a cold, empty heart, abandoned and locked with a frozen lost key.
Christine shut her eyes quickly, letting the scarce warmth drain down her cheeks from her eyes and flow into her pale arms, covered in bland yellow snow.
She pulled her half frozen arms from the snow. They were stiff and corpse-like, with little fractures, pink incisions, and black bruises speckled across the bumpy surface.
"I…I'm not scared."
The wind whistled like icy vines, wrapping themselves around her swollen fingers. She groped for the dark heavens above, hoping and praying that God would take her quickly.
"I'm not afraid of you!"
And she wasn't. The only thing that scared the poor girl was the fact that her sister might be lying dead in the drift as well, grotesquely solid and stiff like a timeless stone statue.
There was a sickening ripping noise, and her head exploded with an unreal and hotwire pain, whipping the sides of her temples and infecting the puffy red scars twisting together. The snow crunched loudly as the child was thrown back onto the shapeless drift of chalk once more, sending flurries of white ash up into the midnight air.
When she awoke once more, her bruised and battered body was warm and dry. She lay nestled on a soft velvet mattress, fat feathered pillows arranged around her head like a crown of snow. Christine was curled under a dark blue blanket, speckled with pin prinks of silver like a moonless night. When she lifted a hand to her eyes, she saw thick, ghost white bandages wrapped around her wrists and arms, and the frost bitten bruises had disappeared.
She sat up slowly, taking in the dark beauty of the room around her. It was very dark, draped with pitch black and deep purple silk cloths. Lithium colored candelabras peeked out from behind the hangings, their proud, stiff candles standing haughtily with tiny orange flames.
The bed she lay in was a wide four poster. Glimmering crystallized diamonds dangled from the canopy, along with delicate satin scarves dripping like rosy wax off of a letter.
Christine's feet were small echoes on the cold wood floor as she leapt down from the bed. She landed on all fours like a fierce animal, since it was such a tall bed.
She wandered around the room, searching for any significant signs that there was indeed a way out of the mysterious cloaked room. She found nothing.
Christine ran to the bed in despair, throwing out her thickly bandaged arms to hug the wooden post. She let out a few choky sobs, and soon was weeping, warm rain falling down her cheeks.
"Don't cry, little girl." A rich, smooth voice soothed.
Christine frantically looked around. The room was empty, curtains and drapes lined with silvery moth balls and settling black dust. "Who's there?" she called tearfully. "Hello?"
She pushed away from the wooden post. There was suddenly a presence, seething and floating about the room. She could feel it, through her hair, around her ankles, flitting about the draped cloths and the curves of the quilts.
Christine, at that moment, was almost afraid to move. Her small limbs tightened weakly, fingers pulling gently on the white strips along her wrists and arms. "Where are you?" she found herself whispering. "Where've you gone to?"
"I'm here." She heard the voice again. It wasn't nearly as frightening as the pale man's voice staring in her face before. It was deeper, and had less of a rasp.
"Where? I want to find you." She moved closer to a wall where snowy candles flickered, threatening to go out. "Am I close?"
The voice chuckled, almost devilishly. "Come closer."
She obeyed, the tears dried on her skin and long gone. Christine rummaged through magnificent folds of blood red cloth, the silk wavering and rippling at her reckless touch. She hastily moved on to the next wall, stumbling with stiff legs and frantic eyes. Rigid fingers raced down greasy edges and creased nails along the finely worn fabric hems, pulling sky purple threads loose and causing a widespread fray. A pallid candelabrum stood unsteadily, shivering with the everlasting fear of being overturned.
"Where? Where do I look?" she cried, her impatience and frustration taking her by the arms. "Where, where, where!?"
As Christine whirled around, she saw a man seated on the edge of the bed. "Oh!" she gasped, all frustration and anger suddenly gone away.
The man stood, resting a hand against a single wooden post.
"I knew you'd find me."