A Field of Blue-Gray Snow

“I want to find a library,” the girl said aloud, breath forming twisting clouds in front of her for a moment before her momentum caught her up and left them behind.

“How would you know it was a library if you did find it?” her sister asked, feet trudging through the heavy snow, her stride matching that of the girl in front of her, finding the footprints left behind.

“Well, it would be filled with books, wouldn’t it?” the girl replied as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. That’s what Mom had said when she described libraries from back before the sky had burned and left the world in shadow. The dark clouds overhead blotted out the light Mom had said came from the ‘Sun’. Days were only a little brighter than nights, but neither of the girls paid much mind when it came to light or dark to keep time. There was awake and asleep, and if you weren’t asleep, you had to keep moving.

“Would it?” her sister replied after a moment, doubt clear in her tone. “How many books have we burned to stay warm?”

The girl was about ready to yield that point, but then had a sudden recollection. “Not all of them!” she declared in defense. “I still have those pages Mom found from that one series.”

“A few pages from one book of a series that sold millions of copies?” her sister replied immediately, doubt even heavier in her tone. “Compared to the hundreds we’ve burned?”

“Yeah, I guess,” the girl replied morosely. She supposed she would just have to hope there really was a warm place left in the world, and that they still had their library.

They walked in silence for a time before the girl spoke again. “How many is a million, anyway?” she asked suddenly, glancing over her shoulder to her sister.

The older girl who brought up the rear of their two-person party was a little taller with long hair and full lips and pretty green eyes. None of those were visible, however. It was dangerous to leave anything exposed to the air. Even near a fire, they never fully undressed. She wore layers beneath her heavy coat, and every hood in that layer was pulled over her head. A scarf covered her face, and another was wrapped around the hoods to keep the air from cutting through to the bare flesh beneath. Large goggles covered her eyes, and several caps were pulled low to cover her forehead. The girl who walked ahead was dressed similarly, from the heavy too-large boots over a dozen layers of socks to the three pairs of gloves on her hands.

Her sister was silent for several long seconds before answering. “That right there was our millionth step,” she said definitively.

The girl thought back, first to the day before, which had been spent walking, then to the last week, which had also been spent walking. The last month, the last year, the last decade, all the way back to when she was still small enough to be carried. Back then, there had been more of them. Dad was still alive, and he had carried her sister as long as he could. The cough that had settled in his chest, however, soon made it hard for him to keep doing that, and then he could walk no further. But to stay still was to die. ‘Everyone is moving South,’ the others had said. ‘Food won’t last long’.

She didn’t like to think of what had become of her father. Even Mom - who had taught them to do whatever it took to stay alive - never talked about it again.

All the steps back to the first added up to a million? That seemed like an insurmountable number, and yet not very far at all. For years and years, they had been walking. They had started back when her sister was still just a baby, and even though all the rest were dead, the girl continued, ever Southward, towards the safety she had been promised.

“And how many more before we can stop?” she asked.

“A million more, if we’re lucky,” her sister replied tiredly.

“It’s okay. I’ll carry you to the end,” the girl replied, smiling beneath the layers of cloth. Her hand tightened in her gloves around the small golden locket she had placed against her palm, feet moving ever forward, breaking the heavy ash stained snow.

They kept walking until fatigue had worn them down. They had spent their lives doing this, so it took a good deal of time. Even when exhaustion overcame them, however, it was not safe to stop. Not until they found shelter. Luckily for them, however, shelter and exhaustion reached them at about the same time.

Mom had said that houses like this all by themselves probably belonged to farmers back when things still grew and the sun shone above. Mom had always told a lot of stories about how things were back before the sky had been burned. Stories about music and cars and books and food with different tastes. All the food tasted the same, now. Sometimes they found cans with labels still on them, but no matter what the faded pictures showed, it all smelled rancid and tasted awful. But there was no choice but to eat it. Not unless someone died.

“This should be fine, right?” she asked as her sister came to stand beside her.

“Better than nothing,” her sister replied with a shrug.

The girl stepped to the door and walked up the slope of snow leading up to it. She cleared some of it from in front of the door and wrenched it open enough that she could throw her bag inside and follow after it.

The door banged shut as the wind caught it while the girl fumbled with the straps of her bag and removed the lantern from it. Slowly, cautiously, she removed a glove from one hand and felt the air through the other two. It was still cold, but the house had insulted against it a little. Enough, perhaps, that she could remove one more.

“No, that’s enough,” her sister snapped, placing a hand on her wrist as she went to pull off another. “Until you get a fire going, removing one is already dangerous.”

The girl nodded reluctantly, but acquiesced. Her sister was always cautious about those sorts of things, but she was also often right.

She managed to get her bag open and pulled out the box of matches. She was starting to run low, but they had lasted a long time. They just required a bit of finesse that was hard to achieve with two pairs of gloves on.

She placed the head of the first match against the rough side of the box and dragged it, snapping the tip off. The girl sighed and took a steadying breath, adjusting her grip on the second one. It struck and hissed and sparked, burning to life. She twisted it with a practiced adeptness, moving the fire away from her fingertips while also adjusting it so that it had something to burn to stay alive, then placed it inside the small hole in the glass near the rope within. It took a few moments before it began to burn, the fibers drawing alcohol up from the canister below to spill out a pale yellow light. The warmth disappeared almost before it could reach the glass, but she placed her hands against the curved sides of it anyways and felt the heat slowly seep towards her.

“You need to start a real fire,” her sister reminded her gently. The girl nodded in reply. There was no time to enjoy small pleasures like this. If you stopped moving, you died.

People had stayed here before; that was immediately obvious. There was a fireplace and very little furniture. There were ashes and remnants of the furniture in the cold hearth. She got what remained of the furniture and broke it apart, feeding several pieces into the hollow and stacking more nearby. She found some clothing that she doubted would fit her and placed them into the fire to help it start.

Once she was satisfied, she brought out a bottle of alcohol. She was starting to run low, and she needed some of it for her lantern, too, but it was the only way she knew to make a fire from these frozen remains. She poured just a splash over the clothes, then struck another match.

It took instantly, filling the room with light and pouring off a heat that reached out to her in a warm embrace.

She smothered the lantern and sat down near the fire, finally removing the second glove and two from her other hand. She left one pair on each hand and fished out the locket from within the last glove on her left hand. The gold had lost the glitter it once had, instead showing only a tarnished sheen. She pressed the latch and helped it open.

Within was a small and faded picture of what was recognizably her Mom and Dad, and - unrecognizably - her sister as an infant. The girl could not remember a time when her sister was ever so small.

“Do you have to look at that every night?” her sister asked as she took a seat near the fire, bag off and face uncovered. The tip of her nose was missing from frostbite, and her lips were pale and thin, but then, so was the rest of her. Food was scarce, walking was hard work, and it was cold. Their bodies burned so much of the energy they were fed just to stay warm.

“It reminds me of happier times,” the girl whispered back, letting the medallion dangle on its chain before her.

“You weren’t alive when that picture was taken,” her sister replied flatly. The girl didn’t need to look to know she had rolled her eyes.

“Mom and Dad were,” she replied quietly.

The silence stretched for several moments before her sister finally broke it.

“You need to eat.”

The girl fished out a can of something - it didn’t really matter, anyways - from her bag and pulled the tab. It was nice to find cans like this, though it happened seldom. Her can opener was nearly broken and took forever to open anything at all.

The smell was putrid, the taste was foul, but she ate it just as she always did. She imagined that “Purina” had tasted much better, back when it was still new.

“You need to sleep.”

“I can keep watch for a little,” she protested weakly. Her eyes were already starting to feel heavy.

“I’ll wake you when it’s your turn,” her sister replied. Sleep overcame the girl almost immediately after.

When she woke, the fire was almost burned out and the cold had begun to overtake the room again. She was quick to wake and fed the fire before pulling off her coat then quickly putting on the new layers she had found before redressing, tucking the locket back against her palm. “You almost let the fire die,” she complained to her sister. “You were supposed to wake me.”

“You needed sleep. Come on, you need to keep moving.”

She pushed the door open and stepped back out into the cold air and wind, squinting against it for a moment, then began to walk again.

“If you ever do find a library,” her sister said as they began to walk for the day, “be sure to tell me all about it.”

The girl laughed softly, squeezing the locket in her hand. “What are you talking about? I’ll carry you there, too,” said the girl who walked alone through a field of blue-gray snow.