Twelve Short Stories of Christmas 1: Snow is Falling

The snow was falling thick and fast now. Molly put another log on the fire and shivered as she tried to warm herself up. “Mummy.” Molly turned away from the fire to see her eldest daughter – who was supposed to be asleep – holding a teddy bear in one hand and a copy of The Snow Queen in the other. “Can you read me this, please?” she asked, holding up the book in case Molly hadn’t seen it.

Molly sighed, “I thought you were asleep,” but her daughter shook her head.

“None of us are. The snow woke us up,”

“How can snow wake you up? It’s silent!” She sighed again. “Come on then as it’s Christmas. I’ll read it to you three if you promise to go straight to sleep after!” Her daughter nodded in excitement and they went upstairs to the children’s bedroom.

Molly got to the line “She flies where the swarm hangs in the thickest clusters,” and she thought the children were almost asleep but her son spoke up. “The snow is falling quite fast here, mummy, do you think the snow queen is here?”

“Maybe,” said Molly. Within moments, the three children had all got out of bed and were knelt on the window seat staring out at the thickly falling snow to try to catch a glimpse of the snow queen. Molly knew she should be trying to get them back into bed but the image of them all peering through the window was too good for her not to take a photo of it.

She went downstairs to fetch her phone. In the living room of the holiday cottage, the fire she had lit earlier had gone out. The room was dark and the cold. Going over to the fire to see what had caused it go out, Molly shivered. She picked up her phone and went back upstairs. She would sort the fire out once the children had gone to sleep. She took the picture and her eldest daughter turned round. “I don’t think she’s there,” she said to everyone else in the room and they all got back into bed.

Molly left the room and looked at the photo she had taken of them looking out the window. She gasped in amazement and saw her breath dance in the air. In the photo as clear as day was a face that seemed carved from ice.