Vanilla Biscuit Nights

Silver Song never went a Christmas without setting out treats for the Windsnap faeries. And this year was no different.

She ignored the gossiping whispers from the maids and ignored her mother’s pestering about her being old for the practice. And before you ask yes it made her feel very childish. But in the end that was the reason she did it anyway. The weight of the storybooks telling about the windsnap faeries in her room held too much of her heart for her to ignore.

She wanted to feel childish once more. Just this time of year she wanted to feel that glimmer of magic that she always felt around winter time. When the long spiky icicles that hung from the roofs became swords for tiny creatures, when glittering candles brought any foliage to life and people everywhere were encaptured in this warm glow of love and coziness.

So no malintended words kept her from descending the stairs December 1st when the clock struck midnight to venture downstairs and retrieve the cookies she had baked earlier.

Her slippered feet tapped gently against the marble and she willed herself to be quiet just this once. Wincing at every creak in the oak floors she finally made it downstairs. Silver shivered and tucked herself deeper into her silk blue robe. She gazed around the large kitchen, hoping her mother hadn’t caught on and thrown the cookies away. But ah! There they were, beautiful and delicate as she’d left them, a thin vanilla biscuit in the shape of the christmas star.

Silver rushed over and tried to hide the giddy girlish giggle that left her when she picked up the cookies and spun around, her chestnut hair fanning out around her like a skirt.

With that she hurried upstairs like a child who’d just snuck sweets late at night.

The next morning Silver woke up to grey skies and leafless trees swaying outside her window. She pursed her lips and shut her eyes. She hated this snowless winter. It was bare and cold and miserable. She rolled over onto her belly and huffed choosing the warmth of her soft thick down covers and the shelter of her pillow over the challenges of prepping for festivities to come. She snuggled deeper and hummed her mind drifting to fantasies as it so often did. This week’s theme was a prince. A grand tall prince with a handsome face and dark hair and eyes and a sword at his hip, a smile like warmed chocolate and big rough hands. In her mind he wore a coat of deep maroon and looked at her like she was the only thing in the world. Today she pictured him taking her for a walk in a perfect snowy garden. Crystally puffy snow layered around them and she would shiver and he immediately would wrap an arm around her and draw her in….

She giggled. She loved this prince she had conjured up to fight the loneliness of winter and life. She had based it on the prince of the windsnap faeries in her old picture books. Silver shot up in bed her hair fuzzing out around her like a livewire and she grinned. The Windsnap Faeries.

The girl scrambled out of bed in her thin eggshell nightgown and pranced to her dressing table where there sat a plate with-

All the cookies she had left untouched. Silver frowned and her heart sank. “Ah.” She mumbled, clicking her tongue and looking around the room as if she could find the faeries hiding somewhere and ask them why they hadn’t eaten anything. She sat there for a moment and had the disturbing thought that maybe they truly weren’t real and she was entertaining a foolish child’s tale…A tale about faeries that danced only on winter winds. On freezing nights and snowflaked mountains. Faeries so handsome and delightful that if you met one you’d be sure to know it was a windsnap. If you left them treats on their journey they would eat them and leave you gifts in repayment for your kindness. Every year she’d woken up to find the cookies gone. Now she sat slumped over wondering if the mystery of her childhood was all her mother’s doing.

“Silver Song, get down here this instant it’s nearly nine!” Shouted her mother from somewhere downstairs. She huffed and begrudgingly dressed and brushed her hair.

The day was a drone of tasks her mother gave to her, buying gifts, writing cards, practicing piano, baking sweets. All tasks she normally had gumption to do but the absence of the faeries downed her mood entirely.

That night she collapsed into her bed stretching out along the mattress and sighing tiredly. Her eyes drifted to the plate of now stale cookies on her dresser. She sat up and made her way to the dresser picking up a small little lace bow and placing it on the plate. She then went to her large window and thrust it open, letting a burst of frigid air in and she gasped instantly running to her bed for shelter and wrapping herself in the covers. She shivered and stared at the darkness outside her window. Maybe she had to try a little harder to invite them in. She closed her eyes tight. Childhood could not be over yet.

Silver yawned and blinked away the bleary vision she had. Sun streaked through her windows and she smiled at that. Her head lolled to the side and she stared at the source of frigid air and gasped. There was a thick layer of frost covering the fields surrounding her home. White and silvery and sweet as sugar. She grinned and tip-toed to the window despite the cold letting herself hang outside and smell the fresh cool air. The whole world glittered like a silver bauble on a christmas tree. Silver was so distracted by this that she got dressed while humming. She made her way to her dresser and shrieked in delight. The plate’s cookies were still there but the bow was gone and in its place sat a small snowflake made from twigs and string. She picked it up ever so carefully and couldn’t contain her joy. She pressed a gentle kiss to it and tucked it in the pockets of her skirt.

Throughout the day she smiled charmingly and found herself daydreaming of the faeries while absentmindedly stroking the small token in her pocket. It carried her aloof through the whole day. When she returned to her room that night only then did she realize that they hadn’t eaten the cookies. How strange. She thought as she stared down at the small biscuits now looking very dull. Maybe they weren’t hungry? Her mind supplied as she slipped her gown off and slid into her thin nightgown she loved very much. It was lace and violet and made her feel like a princess on her wedding night. Silver gazed at herself in the mirror and slid her long hair over one shoulder. As much as she grieved her childhood that actively slipped through her fingers she was growing rather fond of this new body she had acquired. She’d suffered the uncomfortable phase of puberty years ago and now seemed to be reaping the benefits.

A tinge of shame pulled through her at her belief in such a magical story like faeries at her age. But how could she not?

She had seen one with her own eyes all those years ago. The blonde little thing her age. He’d sat at the end of her bed when she was no younger than eight years old. Long limbs all sprawled out, his unnaturally pale skin glowed in the moonlight. She remembered it like it had happened mere seconds ago. She had woken in the night feeling a cold chill wash over her and she’d seen the boy fae. Her breath had been knocked from her at his beauty. He was ethereal. The moonlight seemed to come from him like a haze or atmosphere. His ice white hair had fallen into his face and it was like she was in a trance as she had crawled across her bed and reached her tiny pudgy fingers to brush it from his eyes. In that moment she realized just how human she was. There were flaws in her skin, little knicks and knacks. His skin was like silk. She wondered if it would feel like it too. A centimeter before she could touch his skin his eyes shot open. She stumbled backwards gasping, a scream for her mother on the tip of her tongue. He turned his head and looked at her. Silver’s cry instantly died in her throat. He looked sick, or tired or both. His face was flushed and his icy white eyes were barely open. Tiny Silver had instantly felt for him, she felt for anyone who was sick as she hated being ill more than anything else.

“Poor thing.” she’d mutter as she’d heard her mother utter to her so many times. She rushed to the kitchen to get water and some small biscuits in the shape of the christmas star. When she returned she found him sitting up on the edge of her bed and now saw the only thing he wore was a pair of dark brown fur pants. She had fawned over him. He hadn’t spoken a word as she gave him water and fed him and he drank and ate slowly. All the while she sat on her knees next to him captivated and blabbering about anything and everything. Finally she spluttered out.

“You must be a windsnap!” He stared at her with wide eyes and nodded.

“Ahaha!” She screamed and clapped her hands. “I knew it!”

“And you are human.” His voice was pure as snow and she’d die to hear it again. That night they had talked about their lives, each explaining what everyday life was like for the other. Eventually her eyes grew tired no matter how hard she tried to keep them open and she fell into a deep chilly comforting sleep. Like being buried deep in the snow.

Silver woke up the next morning and he was gone. Ever since then she’d left those cookies out hoping he’d come back.

The third morning she woke to find another snowflake on her dresser, this one bigger and a little undone. The string fraying. She picked it up and bit her lip as she studied it. Silver tucked it into her pocket and got ready.

Hours passed and she still found herself absently rubbing the wood between her fingertips as she went about her tasks. Each time she did it she was reminded of that night.

She woke up with a start. The feeling of frost covering her from head to toe. The window was open and the curtains blew. She began to sit up to close them but found something else entirely waiting for her at the edge of her bed.

The boy.

Well, the man. The moonlight halo around his glowed bright and his limbs were still long but now he was muscled and tall. His face was still soft as silk but now his cheekbones were pronounced. His hair fell into his eyes and he smiled.

“You.” She whispered completely frozen to the spot.

He looked at her and walked towards her. That’s when she noticed the long silvery wings that looked so thin they could’ve been made of mist. Her mouth was left agape.

“You’ve grown.” He said softly before his fingertips traced her cheek.

“So have you.” She mumbled. Silver felt his touch so cold it felt white hot on her human skin. The man picked up her hand ever so gently and stared at it with those same bright white eyes that she’d stared into ten years ago. Only then did she realize she was trembling.

Suddenly Silver was overwhelmed. She looked up at him with her very human eyes, dark as soil and pleading. “Are you real? Or just some hallucination I’ve conjured up. Or a dream or or…” He grasped both her hands in his and pressed kisses like frost to her knuckles. So light and fluttery she gasped.

“I came back to see you once more…” He shook his head, white blonde hair falling over into his face. He stared at her for a moment with such intensity that it began to scare her. She bit into her bottom lip and he suddenly grinned and led her to the bed drawing her down.

“Come, let’s talk again like that night long ago.” His hand was roughened now, not soft like it was on that night. He was clearly a man now. Not much was different, they were both grown sure but they stood in the same places they had as children. Only now she hesitated at the edge of the bed, her cheeks growing hot and pink. She was now aware that they weren’t children anymore and climbing into bed with a random man faery or not was probably not the wisest thing to do.

The man looked back at her quizzically and she huffed trying to will her embarrassment away. “I cannot climb into bed with you- we aren’t children anymore.” Her words were biting and sad. As if she did not want to believe them. He cocked his head at her and a wide grin spread across his face. Silver was momentarily stunned by his beauty. Those wings thin as frost delicately spread over the tousled sheets of her bed and those teeth so white they could rival the stars. “Yes we are…” He said sitting on the edge of the bed. He wrapped an arm around her waist and said “Just for tonight, one last time.”

Silver’s heart felt light at that and she instantly collapsed onto the bed. They erupted into childish giggles. Silver felt the lightest she’d felt in years as they lie there talking about their lives now and what’s changed and what’s expected of them now. Everything was just like then. So pure and so full of whimsical charm that the deepest parts of the earth churned in the dark night, remembering their youth.

They talked until the world was so dark it was beginning to light and Silver fought her sleep like an angry child. Her eyes began to droop and her breathing slowed. She blinked awake again and the boy smiled at her softly brushing her brown hair from her cheeks.

“Rest.” He said so gently.

Silver sat up grouchily and crossed her arms. “If I sleep you will leave and- and who knows when or if i will see you again.” The end of her sentence turned into more of a wail and hot tears pin pricked her eyes. The boy sat up and moved toward her.

“Don’t say that.” He murmured and she sniffled, refusing to look at him. “Look at me.” He said Silver couldn’t ever not do anything he told her so she turned her crying eyes to him and he tsked while wiping away her tears. He pulled her against him and she shuddered because she was instantly wrapped in that feeling of being buried in the snow. But still she relaxed against him, her hot tears rolling down her face. His hand stroked her hair and she felt very much like a child crying in someone's lap and she hadn’t realized how much she had craved this for so long. So she cried and she cried and she cried. Until she was so exhausted from the wailing and the sleepless night she couldn’t move.

He whispered to her “I will always be there. You bring me back everytime.” She felt him lay her down and place a blanket on her. He smoothed her hair back and brushed his lips against her forehead. Silver reached out weakly and grasped his wrist.

“Don’t leave please.” He smiled and laid down next to her.

“I won’t.”

“Why didn’t you eat the cookies?” She pouted. He laughed quietly and kissed her nose without answering.

“In the morning will you be gone?” She held her breath hoping he’d say no.

“Yes, but I will be back again.” He said assuredly. Silver furrowed her brow.

“You waited a long time last time, how can I be sure?”

The man pressed closer to her and said “I was waiting to make sure you still had a child’s heart.”

At that she smiled sleepily and she wasn’t quite sure why but she felt as if she could let herself drift off now. Warmth slipped through her twining with the cold. Fire and frost danced. Seconds later she was asleep.

An icy reckless wind ripped through her window the next morning. So strong it rattled the window panes and turned up papers knocking a vase to the ground. A maid burst through the door muttering to herself as she slammed the window shut and began to clean up the shards.

Silver blinked sleep from her eyes and reached out hoping she would find him. But alas it was an empty bed save for herself. Her heart hurt, it was all a dream. Wasn’t it?

She got up and sulkily got ready. Silver reached for her brush on her nightstand and froze. The plate of cookies was nothing but crumbs on an empty plate and a small written note in curly blue writing.

Thank you for everything. I’ve left you a gift outside. See you next year.

At that she shrieked with joy and ran to the window pushing it open. A layer of thick white snow covered everything from tree to field. The cold wind brushed through her hair and down her neck making her shiver. But she grinned none the less. It was real. It would always be real. Because in the end Silver had the heart of a child and she’d never let it go.