Rachel Chew Blakley

First Snow


"Wake up, Lee," Max whispers, breathing warm air down her neck.  "It's snowing."

The bedroom's inky black, objects cloaked in the lack of light.  With a bony arm, she tries to push her brother away.  She's
relishing dreams: riding a silver-maned lion across mountain tops, winning second place in an Italian tuba-playing contest.

He repeats himself, pressing down on her ribcage.  Breathes out again.  Clicks his tongue.

"Go... away," she slurs, wriggling under his weight.

"No," the dark mass says.  "You promised."

"Promised what?"

"It's the first snow, Leelee."

She opens a single eyelid.  When she shuts it and opens the other one, Max shifts to the right.  She switches again and he shifts
to the left.  Behind him, posters tacked onto the popcorn-textured wall flinch in tandem.

"What are you doing?" he asks.  When she doesn't reply, he punches her shoulder.

"Ow, Max."  She tries to grab him, but he's swifter.  He snatches her wrists, sits on her knees.  "I'm not going to let you go back
to sleep," he says, and in a villain-like snarl, adds, "We meet again, at last."  It comes out sounding dopey, and she starts
cracking up, laughing uncontrollably.

"Who are you trying to be?" she asks, catching her breath.

"Huh?" he asks.

"That... voice," she says, then start laughing again.  He loosens his grip and sits back on the edge of the bed.  He looks
defeated, hunched over like that.

"Well," he says, finally.  "You gonna come outside, or what?"

Dawn is just beginning to break as they pad through the powder-dusted backyard to the woods.  Snow falls heavily as they
walk, and bits cling to her eyelashes and the lining of her jacket hood.  Their footsteps crunch out of synch.  She's bundled up.  
Mummified.  She'll peel off some of the layers when they get started; all the running around, all the huffing and puffing, will make
up for it.

Max gets used to the cold earlier on, forgoing gloves and the heavier winter jacket for a fleece.  A pigeon-gray scarf spirals
around his neck, one end dangling down to mid-thigh.  Snags dot the thick wool like decorations.  He stays ahead by at least five
feet, steering through the drift.

In the woods, the trees stand bare and somber; leaves linger erratically in the branches.  Pelted by snow, the leaves quiver.  The
two of them step into animal tracks, clawless and four-toed, and over the speckled, snapped branches.

They're a hundred feet in and Max stops, looking up at the sky.

"Okay," he says.  "Here's good."

He takes his cap off, scratches his head, then replaces it, pulling the ribbing just over his eyebrows.

"You look like Dad," she says.  "When you do that, you look just like him."

"Right."

"No, really.  You do."

He leans down, scooping up snow.  The first snowball comes out misshapen and freckled with dirt.  She follows suit and balls up
a little bit of the dust in her hands, then lets it fall back to the ground.  Everything around them is still fuzzy gray, colorless.

Something smacks into her calf, and she shoots him a heavy-eyed glare.

"Hey," she says.  "Rules."

He grins sloppily and walks away from her.  "Sorry.  It slipped."

They've battled the last four years, since they turned into teenagers.  Now, they pack the snow tighter, aim more ruthlessly.  
Trees make for good shields; crouching behind bushes works better, but reaction time's rougher, folded up like that.  The woods
promote plenty of dips and pockets, places where the snow collects easily, begging for hands to dig in.

Max nabs a hideout on the grade, stationing behind one of the cedar trees.  It's a better view but more exposed.  His sister
stays downhill, concealing her snowballs in a hallow tree trunk that lies fallen, rotten.

"Lee?" he calls out.  His voice echoes in the vacant air.

"I'm good," she calls back.

Just barely, she can hear the crunch of his footsteps.  They're slow, cautious.  She takes a snowball in her hand – it's packed
tight, about the size of an apple.  Peeks up.  The landscape's still, except for the falling white.  Snowflakes hit her nose, and she
wipes them off with the back of her glove.  Their parents' house is visible in fragments through the trees.  It looks further away
than she remembers it being, further than she remembers walking.

She grabs a second snowball and tiptoes away from the hideout.  Her eyes dart along the forest floor, looking for footprints.  
She's pushed her jacket hood back to expose her ears, which throb bright pink from the cold.

There's a snap of a twig from behind.  She swivels, trying to keep her breath in.  Behind her, deeper into the forest, the
backdrop of trees become more tangled and dense, a labyrinth for sunlight.  But there's nothing.  The snow sticks to her nose
again.  She turns back to her fallen tree.

The blow.  A white ball smacks into her side.  Max waves mockingly from up on the hillside and starts backing away.

She starts running after him, clutching the packed snow in numbed hands.  Max kicks up powder as he charges away from her,
sends it flying violently into the air.  He glances back at her, sees her aiming, jerks to the left and avoids being hit.

Then he's tripping, tumbling to the ground.  From Leelee's perspective, it takes him forever to land.  For a stretched moment,
he's suspended in the air, still glancing back at her with the corner of his mouth upturned.  There's an indistinct sound as he
lands, a soft sigh.

Her tangled hair falls out from her hood as she leans over her brother.  She holds a hand out, but he waves it away.

"I'm fine," he says.  "Tripped over a root or something."  He sits up and wipes the flakes from his knees, massaging them
afterward.  His fingertips are milky white.

"You want to forfeit?" Leelee teases, and is met with a scoff.  Max pulls himself up, and rubs his bare neck.  His scarf is a few feet
away, tangled into itself.  When he picks it up, they both become motionless.  Lying underneath, on its side, is a pepper-coated
rabbit.  Its eye focuses on them, unblinking.

"Is it -- " Max blurts out, but then its ear twitches, flashing the pink interior.  Cautiously, Leelee kneels down. The rabbit's small
enough that it could fit in her hands.  She can see herself reflected in its glossy eye, distorted and tiny, like she's looking back
out at herself.  White flecks land on the fur, dissolve into it.

Leelee looks up at her brother.  He's staring blankly at the rabbit lying before them, holding the scarf limp in one hand while the
tassels brush the ground.  She's about to suggest that they bring it back to the house, put it in a cardboard box or give it
something to eat, but Max interrupts her, jerking his eyes up.

"Look!" he says.  The rabbit's sprinting away from them.  It sprints south through the woods and vaults over a deserted pile of
snowballs.  They watch it go, staying silent until it becomes obscured by foliage.