Snowfall

by J. Kathleen Cheney

  What was she supposed to do now? Would Finn come back for her? Could he? Had she done something wrong? It had felt almost like being yanked off his back by a rope, perhaps some repercussion for what she'd done to Brighid.

  She stood there in the cool breeze and, after a couple of minutes passed, decided that if Finn hadn't come back for her by now, he couldn't. Well, there was one other she could turn to in this realm. She was, after all, the Lady's minion now. That had to be worth something. "Lady?" she said softly. The fairy wasn't within sight, so speaking louder wouldn't help. "Lady of the Snow?"

  "What have you done, child?"

  Lourdes spun to find the Lady behind her. The Lady had come alone, not even the squirrel with her at the moment. She cradled her hand against her side. From that angle Lourdes could see that her palm looked burned, almost charred. It must be horribly painful.

  Lourdes realized the Lady was waiting for her answer. She swallowed. "I don't know what I did. How do I get back?"

  "You ate or drank of these lands, child," the fairy said. "You belong here now."

  Lourdes shook her head. That couldn't be right. "No, I didn't."

  "Do you not recall?" the fairy asked.

  Lourdes stared up at that unearthly face and remembered the snowflake that had melted on her tongue. Surely she would not be trapped here forever after because of that. That couldn't be fair. She wanted to drop her head in her hands and cry, but she didn't have the time to dawdle. What if time was passing quickly in the human lands? "How can I serve your purposes, Lady," she argued, "if I am here and he is there?"

  The fairy smiled gently. "If I answer, will you answer a question in turn?"

  That seemed only fair. "Yes."

  "It isn't insurmountable. I can send you back, although at a price."

  At a price? What did that mean? Lourdes chewed her lower lip.

  The Lady gazed at her thoughtfully and asked, "Why do you think I brought you here?"

  Lourdes didn't think the Lady meant this particular spot. She was not going to deny that the fairy had been behind her trek from Texas to this unknown realm, every step of the way. "Because you thought I would suit him."

  "Yes," the fairy said. "You know how to handle a man like him. You know when to argue, and when to walk away. You know horses, so you share his passions."

  "Then why did he think Brighid was your choice?" Lourdes asked.

  The Lady smiled secretively. "A question for a question?"

  That must be a ritual exchange. Did she already owe an answer? "Yes."

  "She wanted him as a way to steal my power, to use my influence to increase her own. I believe she simply told him I chose her," the Lady said, "and he never bothered to ask me if it was true."

  Lourdes sighed, her shoulders slumping. She could see that happening all too easily. Finn was too stiff-necked, so of course he wouldn't ask his mother's advice. Not until the morning before he'd disappeared, when he'd gone to Imogen's garden to seek his mother out. Yes, that must be what she'd told him that angered him so.

  "Will you make him a good wife?" the fairy asked, startling her out of her contemplation.

  "Not if I am stuck here," Lourdes snapped without thinking. She immediately wished she hadn't. Despite the evidence of her burned hand, the Lady was terribly powerful. Lourdes didn't want Finn's mother as her enemy. "My apologies, Lady. I will do my best to make him a good wife."

  "Good. Be kind to him, and I will be kind to you. Brighid will stay in my care until I decide she's no longer a threat to you and yours. Now you must return home, child." The Lady swept her healthy hand through the air and another door opened in the world, showing Lourdes a place that resembled where Finn had gone through, only in daylight. "What are you willing to give me to pass through?"

  At a price, Lourdes recalled. This wasn't a gift. She had to buy her freedom. But she had nothing to give the Lady that would have any value to her. Well, she had the medallion. Even if that would be an acceptable gift, it belonged to Finn now whether he wanted it or not. She couldn't give it away. The hoof knife tucked into her belt wasn't hers either. She had her hairpins, but the Lady clearly didn't pin up her wild hair. Nor did the Lady need her earrings, so offering those would be an empty gesture. What would the Lady need?

  Then she realized what the Lady wanted. There was something she did own--Nevada, named for the snowfall itself. Finn had said that the mare belonged to her now. Lourdes felt the back of her throat tighten. "Will she be safe here? Will she be content?"

  "Yes," the fairy said, not asking whom Lourdes meant. "She will be forever young. She will run with the wild herd here, and will live long after you have gone."

  That should make it an easy decision. But she had come all this way to make certain her mare was safe, only now to be asked to give her up. No, she was being asked to choose Finn. Tears stung her eyes. Lourdes took a deep breath. "Then will you take her in exchange for my return?"

  "I accept your offer," the fairy said gravely.

  "I will have to go fetch her," Lourdes warned.

  "You will know when the time is right."

  When the time is right? Lourdes wasn't sure what the Lady meant by that. She almost asked, but hesitated too long. The fairy gestured for her to cross through that odd doorway between the worlds and, not wanting to risk further mistakes, Lourdes stepped through into the morning light. When she looked back, the hole was gone. She was alone in her own world.

  No, she wasn't. She heard the sound of feet approaching her and when she turned back, there was Finn. He threw his arms about her and held her close. "Ah, I worried," he said against her hair.

  Lourdes wrapped her arms around his waist under his jacket. He was dressed, although his clothes looked rumpled, as if he'd slept in them. "How long have you been here?"

  "Two nights," he said, drawing back. He touched her cheek with gentle fingers. "I've been out here by the rail line, waiting for you to come."

  "Truly?" she asked. "For two nights?" She saw genuine concern on his face. It might not be love, but it was a start. That gave her hope. "How long have I been gone?"

  "It's the thirteenth already," he said. "Monday, a whole week since we left here."

  So they had, indeed, missed his Friday midnight deadline. It was a good thing, then, that they had…sealed their bargain, as Finn had called it. "But you're…well?"

  "Very well now," he said, tugging her back into his arms. He leaned down and whispered into her ear, saying a name that she couldn't possibly spell correctly. But it burned into her memory, its significance clear in her mind.

  She pulled away and looked up at him with surprise. He'd told her his true name, giving her a power over him that no woman had ever held before. She would have the upper hand in every argument for the rest of her life. She could bend him to her will, as Brighid had wished to do. Lourdes wasn't likely to do that but, even so, it was a shocking gesture of trust from Finn.

  As a wedding gift, it was everything Lourdes could want.

  Epilog

  September 13, 1919

  Lourdes led Nevada toward the railroad tracks, one hand on the mare's withers. She'd explained where they were going, even though she knew Nevada didn't truly understand. The mare came because she trusted Lourdes.

  It was time, though. At twenty-five, the mare moved more slowly these days, her joints causing her difficulty, especially in the winters. Her eyes, once clear and dark, had begun to take on a whitish cast, the early signs of cataracts that would steal away her vision.

  Finn had come with them, but waited back at the small cottage on the edge of Imogen's land. This was between Lourdes and his mother, a bargain long in the making. The Lady had been kind, letting her keep the mare for a decade, but Lourdes had never forgotten to whom Nevada belonged. Every one of Nevada's foals bore their dam's snowy coat, no matter how dark the sire.

  Lourdes felt foolish standing out there, clutching the mare's lead rope. The skirt of her tan linen suit fluttered about her legs in the mo
rning breeze. "Lady, are you here?"

  There was an immediate response. Lourdes hadn't seen it happen since that day, the world splitting open between here and there. She took a quick step back. She'd forgotten how strange it seemed, how wrong. On the other side of that hole, instead of the lake railroad tracks there was an open meadow in what looked like summer light. Grasses there were beginning to seed out, rather than spent as they were on this side.

  Not for the first time, Lourdes wondered if it might be safer for her children there. The human world was full of dangers capable of keeping a mother up at night. But their families--both the Finnegans and the O'Donnells--had been fortunate. Not a single one of their children, their trainers, or their stable hands had been lost either to the Great War, or the terrible influenza that followed it. That was a rare thing in New York. Lourdes touched the shawl loosely knotted about her shoulders, then the medallion at her neck, and mentally thanked both the Lady and Saint Anne for their protection.

  As if in response to that thought, the Lady came into view. Standing among the meadow's grasses, she looked no different than she had ten years before. Lourdes didn't even think the fairy's garments had changed. The breeze on the other side tugged at the tattered hem of her moss green gown. Her frost-white hair looked wild, uncombed, and her feet were still bare.

  "You've brought her to me," the fairy said in her voice of dry snow. "It is time."

  There wasn't impatience in that statement. Lourdes suspected the Lady would have been willing to wait forever. "Yes. Thank you for letting me keep her so long. She is precious to me."

  "Yes, I knew." The fairy tilted her head and fixed Lourdes with a measuring gaze. "This child will be a daughter, I think."

  Lourdes touched her belly, feeling a thrill of hope. She wasn't showing yet, but she didn't have any doubt in the fairy's foreknowledge. The Lady had predicted each of their four sons quite accurately, and while Lourdes adored her sons, she would love to have a daughter. Finn would, too.

  He had proven to be a surprisingly doting father, which amused Imogen thoroughly. Raising children from infancy had taught him a great deal about what he'd missed with his daughter--his first daughter--and that had greatly improved their relationship. Imogen still viewed him more as an older brother, but now he understood why.

  Lourdes cast a look back at Finn where he waited by the cottage, not interfering in this transaction. He looked the same as he had that day ten years before, but then again, so did she. Despite bearing four children, she hadn't gained more than one or two gray hairs. Finn guessed that it had something to do with her drinking that scant bit of water in the faery realm. Now that posed its own problems, as people in town were beginning to comment on her continued youthfulness.

  She turned back to the Lady. "We think we will need to leave here in a few years. Start new somewhere else. We've been talking of Canada, out west in the cattle country."

  "Fewer humans there," the fairy said. "Less iron…"

  Lourdes wasn't going to ask how she knew that.

  "…and more snow," the Lady added, sounding pleased.

  "A great deal more snow," Lourdes agreed with a chuckle. From what she'd read, enough snow to please even Finn's mother. Deciding she'd put it off long enough, she unbuckled the mare's halter and slid it off. Go with her now. Safe.

  The mare lifted her head to regard Lourdes with one eye, but then obeyed, stepping through the doorway trustingly. Once on the other side, she sniffed and then threw her head back, tossing her mane. She pranced and turned about, as if unsure which way to go, and Lourdes saw that the mare's eyes had gone as dark as they'd been a decade ago. Her back seemed straighter and the bones of her face less pronounced, as if Nevada hadn't aged in all those years either, as if the clock had turned back. Forever young, the Lady had promised.

  The mare sniffed again, catching the scent of the herd, but glanced back at Lourdes for guidance.

  Follow, Lourdes told her. Go.

  The mare broke into a gallop and was soon no more than a white blur in Lourdes' vision. She was the last tie back to her old life, and Lourdes knew it was time to let her go. She pressed one hand over her mouth, unable to speak for the tears that threatened to ruin her composure anyway.

  "Thank you, Mother." Finn had come up behind her. He knew her well enough to guess she wouldn't be able to speak at this moment. "For everything."

  The Lady of the Snow nodded to her son, then raised her hand and smiled gently at the boys playing on the porch of the cottage. The eldest, James, waved merrily back at her as if this meeting were an everyday occurrence. And then the hole in the world closed.

  Lourdes wiped her cheeks with the back of one hand. Finn set his arm about her shoulders and drew her into his embrace. "She'll be fine, my love," he said. "My mother promised you that."

  "And she always keeps her promises," Lourdes agreed.

  She had let Nevada go…but had gained far more from the bargain than she ever could have dreamed. She pulled away, took Finn's hand in her own, and together they walked up to where their family waited.

  THE END

  About the Author:

  J. Kathleen Cheney is a former teacher and has taught mathematics ranging from 7th grade to Calculus, with a brief stint as a Gifted and Talented Specialist. She is a member of SFWA, RWA, and Broad Universe. Her works have been published in Jim Baen's Universe, Writers of the Future XXIV, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, and Fantasy Magazine, among others. Her first full-length novel, Of Ambergris, Blood, and Brandy will be published in the fall of 2013 by Penguin Books. Her website can be found at www.jkathleencheney.com

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  About the Story:

  If you're interested in reading more stories in this series (Tales from Hawk's Folly Farm), the first two novellas can be found on Smashwords: "Iron Shoes," and "Snow Comes to Hawk's Folly."

  The United States Hotel was demolished in the 1940s, but if you're interested in seeing it preserved in its Victorian grandeur, (including the long veranda with its rocking chairs, the elevators, and even the gambling rooms) you can watch the movie "Saratoga Trunk," much of which was filmed in that hotel.

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  Cover photograph by Nozoomii (on Flikr).

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