The Last Thaw

The Last Thaw

By Chynna Anderson

Deep in the Alps, a whirling tempest was tearing through the silence. The whistling winds and bone-chilling veil of white covered every ghostly summit and ridge, blocking out any sign of sky that wasn’t blindly pale as bone. Trees stood brave and tall against the swirling white abyss as if stationary soldiers amidst a desolate battlefield. Amongst the ethereal whiteout stood a house. Grey. Stone. Cold. No soothing crack of a fire, no homely smell of cookies wafted out the chimney, no voices to break the silence.

Just Blanche.

In Blanche’s life, nobody came. People left. But nobody ever came.

+++

That truth shattered on the day of whirling ice needles, when beneath its fury came something softer, a knock nearly lost to the storm. Blanche drifted to the door weightless, a ghost in her own home. The man standing there looked more wind-beaten than the frozen landscape itself, her gaze flickered from the icy droplets clinging from the edge of his eyelashes to the clumps of sludge stuck to his boots.

"I'm Sol," he rasped, his breath forming clouds in the icy air. “May I come in?"

As he entered, the house groaned and moaned as if being woken from an age-old slumber.

Later, colour was starting to appear back in Sol’s face, a quilt Blanche found in an old cupboard the only thing keeping him warm.

“Aren’t you freezing? No fire, no heaters. How do you survive?!” Sol exclaimed.

“I like the cold, it’s what keeps me going,” Blanche replied, staring at her feet and twirling a strand of pale hair through her fingers. Sol’s brows furrowed.

Sol began recounting his journey to Blanche, his search for photos for his studio, his travels, and the storm that nearly swallowed him whole. “That’s how I ended up here freezing to death with the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen,” he ended with, his eyes dancing.

Blanche’s gaze darted upward, an unfamiliar flutter stirring deep in her stomach like a bird trapped beneath her ribs.

The blizzard raged on, wind howling against the walls, shaking the house as if demanding to be let in. Snow piled high against the windows, leaving the room in a dim, bluish twilight, yet perhaps a little less angry than before.

As the storm brought a new dawn, Blanche hesitated in the doorway, her breath curling in the cold air as she watched Sol sleep. His face was peaceful, softened by dreams, untouched by the storm outside. When he woke, they shared bread, plain and dry while outside the storm screamed, an endless fury of ice and wind, but inside, it didn’t feel quite as cold.

The following dawns unfolded like a mirror of the last, yet the wind now whispered in a gentler tone.

Days passed.

Weeks passed.

The blizzard raged.

The blizzard roared

The blizzard eventually began to whimper.

One night, when the wind whistled in a low, restless murmur, the house seemed to feel smaller, as though it was condensing the two together in a gravitational pull.

Blanche sat beside Sol on the wooden floor, their shoulders nearly touching, the space between them thin as breath. A single candle burned at their feet, its flame bending and straightening in the draft, something that refused to be extinguished.

“Why did you stay?” she asked suddenly, her grey eyes flickering over his scarlet cheeks. The question did not tremble. She did. “There were clearer paths down the mountain. When the storm thinned, you could have left.”

Sol watched the flame for a long time before speaking, as if measuring his answer against its endurance. He could have left, but something in her stilling presence rooted him to the house. The wind may have screamed, but he had never felt such stillness and peace. “I’ve seen skies turn violet just before nightfall,” he said softly. “I’ve stood in cities that never sleep. I’ve followed light across oceans, waiting for it to break in the right place. He turned to her then, painfully aware of every muscle and nerve flickering in his body.

“None of it felt as urgent as this.”

The candle faltered for a heartbeat…then steadied.

Something shifted within Blanche like the flutter of a butterfly wing…hasty and unsteady. A quiet surrender, as if the ice inside her had realised it wasn’t eternally frozen solid.

Outside, the storm gave a low warning. Distant. Resentful. Icy.

Softly and timidly, she leaned her head against his shoulder, closing the gap between them. They sat in the silence until deep into the twilight night. Ice loosened from the trees in slow, deliberate sighs. Snow slid from the roof in softened sheets. The storm was not defeated...only holding it's breath in anticipation.

Every night more stories and secrets spilled out of the two, as they tangled their souls in a knotted embrace. Sol spoke of the places he had been, warm lands where sunlight kissed the streets and music danced through the air. He painted pictures of colour and light; a life so rich Blanche could barely imagine it.

"You talk about the sun like it’s a gift,” Blanche murmured. “But I think… I think I’d burn."

Sol only smiled and told her she didn’t have to live in coldness, that she could escape and feel the warmth on her skin, bask in the daylight, and soak in the sunshine. Live in the fullness of life.

Blanche told him of the snow, how it never left, how it was her one certainty. Every night of her life, the blizzard would come, wrapping the world in white, tucking her in beneath its frozen embrace. Gazing outside at the dying storm, she began to wonder if that was true, would the blizzard leave her just like everybody else?

She pondered for the first time… could she leave?

+++

Blanche breathed in the freshest air she had ever inhaled. Spring air. Following Sol closely, she stepped into the vibrant sea of emerald hues. Whispers of minty coolness enticing her further into the essence of springtime renewal, completing her like fresh grass after the summer rain.

Until it didn’t.

The air, a mere moment ago dancing on her skin, now pressed thick. Something felt wrong. The world seemed to be spinning, twisting through her head and weaving as if it was a snake slithering straight through her pearly white bones. Her footprints becoming shallow, barely visible in the verdant grass. She looked down to see her pale hands glowing with translucency, the edges curling into wisps of vapour as if she was vanishing from the earth itself. Sol glanced back, seeing the phantom girl disappearing before his eyes, and reached for her hand.

He felt nothing.

She turned back to the house, the last frost melting from the roof. Understanding flickered in her eyes.

She hadn’t left the winter; the winter had left her, melting her from the world like morning frost under the sun.

With a final breath of coldness, Blanche faded into the golden sky.

Sol stood alone, the warmth of spring pressing in—yet all he felt was the lingering chill of a girl who had once been made of snow.