Snowy

A girl was born in the North. They named her Snowy, because she was white like snow and her hair shone like flakes on a frozen lake. She was tiny and very quiet. Her parents worried about her: she didn’t play with other children and she ate nothing but snow. When she went outside, they couldn’t distinguish her from the rest of the winter landscape – she became one with it. She sat outside for hours and watched steam rise into the sky.

Maybe she could change if she lived near the sea in the South, at her aunt’s place. The South was warm, full of colors, scents, sounds. The sun would give her strength. So they sent Snowy away to live with her aunt.

Snowy couldn’t breathe in the South. The sea air felt like soup. The smells made her dizzy. The sun burned her skin and hurt her swollen eyes. She couldn’t sleep in that heat. In the evenings, to calm down, she began tearing up pillows and pulling the feathers out. She would blow them toward the ceiling and watch them fall around her. It reminded her of snow. She loved to do this with the window open, especially when the north wind blew. That wind smelled of winter. It made the feathers swirl on the floor like a snowstorm.

Her window was high above the ground, overlooking the sea. Snowy peered into the distance, imagining that there, across that salty darkness, her frozen mountain peaks were looking back at her.

One night, when she opened her window, a huge white owl flew in. The owl looked at the feathers on the floor.

“What a waste of feathers,” it said. “You could sew them together with your hair and make your own wings. Then, you could fly back to the North.”

That night Snowy began working on her wings. She tore out feathers and pulled strands of her hair to sew them together. In the morning she hid her future wings under the bed and stuffed the remaining material into deflated pillows.

When her aunt was changing the sheets, she discovered the torn-up pillows and the pulled out hair. She decided that Snowy was losing her mind, and so she could no longer stay in her house. The following morning Snowy would move to a special place where doctors could take care of her.

Snowy was sitting on the floor crying and hugging her unfinished wings, when the owl flew in.

“No time for crying now,” the owl said. “You must fly away before sunrise. Use the unfinished wings. A hurricane is coming. The north wind will change to the south wind. Wait for the strongest gust. It will take you all the way to the North.”

Soon, the window frames started trembling. The south wind was rolling baskets in the yard and throwing lids at the entrance door. Snowy opened her window. She took her unfinished wings and tied them to her arms. She climbed onto the windowsill and waited for the perfect gust. And when it came, she jumped.

The south wind is an all-powerful force. It can overturn ships and move giant sea turtles from one shore to another. Of course, it can lift a girl like a feather and carry her over the stormy sea, while she keeps her eyes fixed upon the frozen peaks in the distance.