charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
X-Priority: 3
X-MSMail-Priority: Normal
X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.50.4522.1200
X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.50.4522.1200
X-archive-position: 17737
X-listar-version: Listar v0.128a
Sender: ffml-bounce@fanfic.com
Errors-To: ffml-bounce@fanfic.com
X-original-sender: sommer@3rdm.net
Precedence: bulk
X-list: ffml
[The following text is in the "iso-8859-1" character set]
[Your display is set for the "US-ASCII" character set]
[Some characters may be displayed incorrectly]
You wrote:
Ann Meriweather knew exactly what it was; it hadn't snowed
yet. Halfway into December, and there had been not been so much
as a flake to speak of.
Not counting her boyfriend, of course. :)
The Van Kestersons were a generous family, faces plump from
rich food and glowing in easy retirement. Their money was not
old, though. Mr. Van Kesterson's hands bore a subtle roughness
from younger years spent on work he felt comfortable simply
leaving in the past, never referred to more specifically than as
"the old job."
Probably used to be the Boston Strangler or something. :)
Mrs. Van Kesterson had given birth to and raised
two sons, both of whom made their parents proud as they grew up.
Another tiny sigh escaped Ann's lips. Robert, the younger
son, had always enchanted her.
But then, that was always a problem when dealing with sorcerors.
But, he was already twenty when
the family had hired her, taking her in as a young girl, and years
had passed between then and now. He was married now, and she
barely old enough to start realistically considering courtship.
She had been an orphan of sorts; her mother and father had
died when she was 12,
Well, yes. That would make her an orphan.
Ann finished gathering the dishes into the kitchen and began
washing. The window in front of the sink held no hope for snow
tonight. Ann washed in silent disappointment; she usually enjoyed
her tasks in the winter, when she could look out the window and
see the flakes glowing in the lamplight, floating lazily to the
ground. In the winter evening, long after the sun had set, the
snow seemed just like stars swimming in the ether. They moved
like dancers, and Ann could hear music just behind their
movements.
Nice imagery.
She didn't know exactly why she loved the snow so much; she
had always figured it to be something from her childhood, a cloudy
memory of days when she'd play in the white stuff, making reliefs
of angels or building towering, bulbous snowmen. She longed for
those days, when her biggest worry was running out of snow in a
snowball fight, or whether or not one of the larger boys was
putting rocks in his.
Heh. I knew someone like that growing up. Boy was my father a real bastard.
:)
She knew, though, that such sentimentality was only clouding
the truth: she was here in the city, working hard and living with
a caring family. She was almost a woman, and longing to be a girl
again was not the prudent thing to do. But it was such an easy
emotion to fall into. There was a certain seductiveness to
melancholy, something soft, gently touching a cheek or wrist,
caring even as it drew from you silent tears and hopelessly
maudlin words...
And hence we work in the title of the fic.
She threw open the windows, the two halves opening like a
gate into the world. The snow collecting on the sill scattered,
joining their brethren as they fell. She looked up, to make sure
it was still coming down. She followed the fat flakes as the came
near, drawn by invisibility of gravity, silently waltzing. She
heard music, distant, soothing. She felt suddenly cozy and safe.
Her breath escaped from her smile finally, a thinning cloud of
steam mingling with the floating stars, falling softly, cold and
sacred, to the ground below.
A sweet little piece. Don't know what else to say, other than you succeeded
in conveying the mood with a minimal amount of words.
D.B. Sommer
------------------------------------------------------------------