By mid-afternoon the snow had fallen again, covering the path cleared by Dan with another inch of snow. The temperature had dropped and the sky was a cold and brooding dark grey.
Laura unpacked her suitcase and hung up her clothes in the little wardrobe in the bedroom. She hadn't brought a lot of things with her, preferring to travel with essentials, but she did have a couple of nice outfits that she had packed in anticipation of nights out in New York. She thought about her brother; he would be at the airport now, ready to board the flight that would have taken them both to the States. She looked out of the bedroom window at the snowy fields and trees. The snow was deep and almost immaculate as it rested and hid the landscape save for the highest tops of the occasional golden clump of dried grasses that poked out of the snow-covered fields. Laura glanced at the trees at the far end of the field, their bare forms rising up from the snow, trunks smothered in ivy making them look like long dark skeleton hands in fingerless gloves. Laura felt herself shiver, she found herself looking at the spot where she had seen the girl the night before. There was certainly no one there now.
Glancing up to the top of the trees Laura saw there were jackdaws, in pairs, busy in the twigs and Laura could just make out their calls as they hopped about, quarreling and calling to each other in the afternoon gloom. A few more flakes of snow were falling and Laura looked up to the sky and the snow clouds that were gathering again. She looked back to the jackdaws, something had spooked them, a noise that Laura couldn't hear. She watched them rise up into the sky before they disappeared over the other side of the trees. It was then she glanced down to the spot where she had seen the girl. Still there was no one there, but then she found herself looking in the field that stretched between the garden and the trees.
And there, in the middle of the field, dressed in the same odd set of clothes as the last time Laura had seen her, was the girl.
I'm glad you are all still up for this straggle of a Christmas tale that has taken us into the New Year. I hope to write and post as much as I can before I go back to work. Thanks again to you all for joining me for the ride!