(suggested by the picture prompt for the quickfic @ www.faberacademy.co.uk on 5 February 2016)

No-one understood the genetic quirk which caused a baby to be born with rainbow skin.  At first, babies showed only patches of swirling colours on their hands or feet, but, as they grew, the rainbow shades developed in intensity and spread across most of the child’s skin.

Parents were devastated.  They were afraid their child would be shunned, pointed at, locked away.  But the rainbow children carried a gift which could not be ignored.  The rainbow colours on the outside were pale reflections of the joy they carried within.  Joy which spread happiness to anyone who saw them.  The rainbow children were special.  When you saw one, you felt your cares lift, your mood lighten.  You felt privileged to meet one, rare as they were.

Society began to buzz with happiness.  People became more caring and co-operative.  Hearts were lighter.  Troubles were easier to bear.  The number of rainbow children increased until they became commonplace.  You saw them everywhere.  People got used to the sight of rainbow skin.

Rainbow children did not see the world as others do.  They had no interest in school and no interest in work as they grew older.  They did not seek relationships or interact with others.  People began to mutter about the cost of care.  Parents were blamed.  The mutation must be somebody’s fault.

The stress of caring for a child who could never integrate exhausted parents.  Without support some committed suicide.  Neither help nor understanding was offered.

Joy was not enough.

(for the start of this story, see Phases One, Two & Three below - filed in January)
It turns out that adding puppies and kittens to the household was easy.  Adding a baby was much more difficult.  After three years of marriage we were ready but the baby was in no hurry to arrive.  The puppy grew up, the kittens became cats and  headed for middle age and the baby refused to put in an appearance.
 
New plan.
We made a doctor’s appointment and prepared to enter the wonderful world of infertility treatment.  I’m sure you don’t want to know the grisly details.  Suffice it to say that life became more complicated.  We had a timetable, which meant extensive planning, especially now my husband was earning frequent flier miles on destinations all around the world.   Still no results.
 
Tests, next.  My husband had a low sperm count which was attributed to some medication he was on.  He switched medication and optimism reined, briefly.  Still no baby.  We started to think there was some terribly obvious aspect to making a baby that everybody else knew but no-one had let us in on the secret.  Maybe it only worked on a Tuesday, if there was a full moon?
Tried that.  Still no luck.
Hmmm.
 
Back to the doctor.  Exploratory operations next.  Lucky me.  A laparoscopy so that the medical profession could see if there was an internal problem.  I have nightmares about going to the dentist so I was not keen.  But I was determined.  We scheduled the op and discovered that I had severe endometriosis.  I might never have children.
 
‘Are you freaking kidding me?’
 
They weren’t.  The good news was that this moved us from ‘might have a problem’ to ‘this needs sorting’ and our specialist took it as a personal challenge.  After some discussion, I was put on medication for six months.  The bad news was we were not allowed to risk getting pregnant while I was taking the tablets.
 Hmmm.
 
If my husband thought ‘Are you freaking kidding me’ he did not mention it to me but was massively supportive.  Turned out I had picked a good guy to marry (as if I didn’t know).  Unfortunately, the tablets gave me massively debilitating migraines.  They started at the rate of one per week and accelerated to alternate days.  Three months in I could barely function.
New plan needed.

We returned to our specialist who gave us the benefit of his considered medical advice:
‘Come off the tablets.  Make sure you do not risk becoming pregnant for one month.  Then give it your best shot and see what happens.’
It may have been couched in more medical terms but that was the gist.
 
So we did that.
 
And it worked.
 
After eight years of marriage we had a daughter, who thrived and is now married herself.  Luckily, she turned out to love cats and dogs.
But not babies.
 
Hmmm.
 
 

​(for the start of this story, see Phases One & Two below)

So now we had a puppy.  We called her Guinea, as she was golden, although next door’s children were convinced we’d named her after a guinea pig which caused a certain amount of confusion.  Not surprisingly, the cats were unimpressed.  Fortunately, the puppy was easily intimidated by two pairs of glaring green eyes and an upraised paw.  The puppy soon learned where she came in the scheme of things.  Firmly at the bottom.  An uneasy truce prevailed until we imported a third cat into our expanding menagerie.  Then things got complicated.
 
The new kitten was a little black and white tom.  We called him Gamma, naturally.  My husband put in some proviso about how we were not going to work our way through an entire Greek alphabet of cats but I didn’t take much notice.  Gamma was another long hair with a habit of pogo-ing sideways across the living room carpet which we humans found enchanting.  Even the dog was impressed.
 
Unfortunately, the resident cats had other ideas.  Having sorted out the puppy they were not about to weaken and make friends with this new threat.  Paws were raised.  Hissing ensued.  The kitten decided the dog was his only friend and took to snuggling up with her in the dog basket as a way of keeping out of range of the older cats.  The dog seemed resigned to this new state of affairs.  At least one of the felines was friendly and never tried to use her nose as target practice.  Peace, of a sort, reigned.
Hmmm.
 
The deal with the dog had involved my giving up paid work in a bid to kick-start my writing career.  My days were full.  Writing, walking the dog, cuddling cats, playing with the kitten.  A perfect lifestyle.  Unfortunately, my hormones were not fooled.  There was still no baby on the horizon and time was a-ticking away.
Old plan, resurrected.
 
‘I think we should try for a baby,’ I said to my husband one night after a very late supper.  ‘Now I’m at home all day it makes sense.’
‘Are you freaking kidding me?’ said my husband.  He said it without much conviction.  I think he was beginning to get an idea that these little notions of mine had a way of working out.  But he still gave it his best shot.
‘You’re trying to kick-start a writing career.  I’m commuting and working long days.  When would we have time to make a baby?’
Hmmm.
 
‘How about now?’ I said.
Oddly, he seemed, suddenly, quite motivated.
And I would like to say that this led to the accomplishment of Phase Three.
Unfortunately, life had other plans.
 
Hmmm.
 

(for the start of this story, see Phase One - cat phase below)
So now we had cats.  Two sisters, small bundles of black and white fluff, one short hair (Alpha), one long hair (Beta).  My husband was quickly won over but I found my victory had unexpected consequences.  I started to worry about them.  I had sleepless nights.  Why?  Well, for one thing, they looked so small and helpless.  And one of them was distinctly accident-prone.
Hmmm.
 
We discovered early on that the long hair kitten was not the brightest creature.  She must have missed the day they were doling out gumption.  We left a piece of string tied to the back of a chair to keep them amused while we were out and came home to discover her dangling pathetically by one paw which was ravelled up in the kind of tangle which faced Alexander the Great when he met with the Gordian knot.  Like Alexander, we cut the knot. When we installed a cat door Alpha zipped in and out all day long but Beta sat and poked at the flap with one hesitant paw until we took pity on her and let her out.  Or in.  And out again.
 
On the plus side, Beta never brought back any birds or mice.  Her one attempt at stalking a pigeon came to an abrupt end when the bird flew away.  From the expression on Beta’s face, we gathered that she was not going to play a game so unfairly stacked in the bird’s favour.  Alpha was not interested in birds either.  Her obsession was the pond full of goldfish in our neighbours’ garden.  Soon their immaculate lawn had a ruler-straight line across it, leading from the gate to the pond.  A line exactly one black and white paw’s width wide.
 
I reintroduced the idea of a dog but my harried husband, calculating the cost of cat food, vet visits and pet sitters, seemed strangely disinclined to get enthusiastic.  Even though he had always assured me he was a dog person.
Hmmm.
 
New plan.
 ‘We’ve been married for two years.  Why don’t we have a baby?’ I asked one Saturday over lunch.
‘Are you freaking kidding me?’ he spluttered (after he had finished choking on his cheese sandwich).  ‘There’s no way we can afford a baby.  Maybe later.’
 
I nodded thoughtfully, censoring the reply which rose to my lips in the interests of harmonious relations.  The cats gave me a sideways look, as if they knew what I was thinking.  Cats, it turns out, are considerably more clued up about the feminine psyche than husbands.  Even cats without much gumption.
 
‘Well, it’s a baby or a dog,’ I said.  ‘You choose.’
He looked at me to see if I was kidding.  I wasn’t.
So we got a dog.  A small blonde puppy who was destined to grow into a large and very orange Golden Retriever.
 
Phase Two accomplished!

I never intended to have cats.  What I really wanted was a dog.  Well, to be completely honest, what I really wanted was a baby but I thought the first week of the honeymoon was a bit early to raise that so I settled on a canine campaign.
‘Why don’t we get a dog?’ I asked my new husband.
‘We can’t have a dog.  We’re both working,’ came his very sensible reply.
Hmmm.
 
The dog idea was revisited at regular intervals but there was always a sensible reason why having a dog was impossible.  We were living in a rented flat, no pets allowed.  A problem, certainly, but surely not insuperable.  I regrouped.  New idea.
​ ‘Why don’t we buy a flat?’ I asked.
 
This met with more success.  My sensible now not so new husband could see advantages to buying a flat.  We started saving every penny and lived off cauliflower cheese and boiled eggs, stopped buying presents, walked instead of taking the tube to work.  Slowly the saving account grew.  A flat started to seem within our reach, as long as we were prepared for a lengthy commute.
‘No problem,’ I said.  ‘Commuting will be fun!’
 
We bought a flat.  But now we were commuting, away for twelve hours out of the day.  A dog was plainly out of the question, we couldn’t possibly leave one for so long.  Even I could see that.
Hmmm.
 
New plan.
‘Why don’t we get a cat?’ I asked one Saturday over breakfast.
‘Are you freaking kidding me?’ asked my worn-in husband, the magic having become a little tarnished over the last year.  Maybe, on reflection, that much cauliflower had been an error of judgement.
‘Cats are great,’ I said firmly.  ‘They don’t need looking after.  Not like a dog.’
 
My husband laid down the law.
‘No cats.  They will be too much of a tie when we want to go away.’
‘Are you freaking kidding me?’ I replied.  ‘We’re never going to be able to afford to go away again.  Have you seen how much the interest on the mortgage has risen over the last three months?  It’s up 5% and rising.’
 
My fairly worn out and not at all new husband had no answer to that.  So I rang the cat re-homing place and ended up with two gorgeous black and white kittens like little fluffy dominoes.
 
Phase One accomplished!

He was a very handsome man.  That was Sarah’s first thought and, later, she was shocked by that.  His hair was very dark, with the blue-black sheen of a blackbird’s wing.  A few grey hairs showed, polished silver threads which caught the light, merely forerunners of age to come.  Still a youngish man, maybe mid-forties she thought.  It was hard to tell.

His face was pale.  A few lines there, around the brows and mouth and the outer corners of his eyes.  Laughter lines.  That’s what her mother would have called them and Sarah wondered if he laughed often.  Did he laugh kindly, companionably?  She hoped so.  It was a strong face, especially now, slackened in repose but she felt it was a face to be trusted.  A strong, bony nose gave definition to his features, a firm rebuttal of any accusation of mere pretty-boy looks.  His face had character.  An honest face, she felt sure of that.

His mouth was generous, part hidden in a three-day growth of beard.  A mouth for secrets, maybe.  A mouth which could keep its own council.  He was silent now but Sarah tried to imagine what words were last on those lips and to whom they were spoken.  A girlfriend, lover, wife?  A work colleague?  His children?

She sighed and doubted that she would ever know.  It was strange to be sitting here, so close to a stranger, intimate as a lover, and not even know his name.  She wondered if she would ever come to accept this or whether her imagination would always seek answers, some evidence of connection, some hope of renewal.  She knew that here there was none.

He had been brought into the ICU 48 hours ago.  No name.  No wallet or mobile phone.  A jogger, they had thought.  Victim of a hit and run.  Alive, thanks to the machinery which breathed for him and took the waste from his body but with no hope of recovery.  So far, no-one had reported him missing.  Sarah leaned forward and brushed the hair from his pallid forehead, whispered: “I’m sorry.”  Then she bent to check the reading on the ventilator panel, noting them meticulously on the patient’s chart.
​
John Doe, name unknown.

The librarian frowned.  Usually she was a good judge of character.  Long years of directing readers to the correct shelves for their particular interest had made her expert at reading people.  Little old lady in a hand-knitted cardigan - 746.43 in the Dewey Decimal System - Knitting.  Middle-aged man with a beer gut - 641.873 for home brewing or 636.7 for dogs if he looked like the pet-keeping type.  Small boy - always 567.9 (dinosaurs) or 625.2 (railway engines).

She loved the Dewey Decimal System.  It made sense of a random world.  Order out of chaos.  Of course, most readers just wanted fiction which needed little intervention from her.  Fiction was filed alphabetically, according to the surname of the author.  A simple system, which the librarian rather despised.  She sometimes tried to guess which area a reader would head for.  Harried mum - Romantic fiction.  Frazzled executive - thrillers.  But it wasn’t the same.  There was no real challenge to it.

No, Dewey had her heart.  Every possible interest or human endeavour categorised and classified and stored correctly on the library shelves.  It got to be a game she played in her head as a reader approached her information desk.  Could she predict the request?  But this one had her flummoxed.  The girl had looked like an art student: a little hesitant, hand-made dangly earrings, floaty fabrics with a bohemian vibe.  Arts (740’s) or crafts (745) maybe even fashion design (746.92) for sure.  So she was taken aback when the girl made her request.  She answered automatically, the number popping out of her internal filing system without conscious deliberation:

"Second floor, first shelf on the right.  We don't get many requests for that."

The girl nodded & turned away.  The librarian watched her head towards the stairs, vaguely alarmed.  She didn't look the type for 623.4 - Firearms.

The violin case stood open on the pavement, a few coins scattered like promises across the deep mulberry silk lining.  Passers-by did not pause, skirting the boy, who leaned against the brick wall of a derelict pub and placed the violin beneath his chin.  He drew the bow gently across the strings and notes cascaded across the street.  Around him, people straightened, their steps insensibly altering to match the rhythm of his tune.  Melody tugged at their hearts, reminding them of whispers and promises made before life had soured them.  A couple joined hands and a few strangers tossed a coin into his violin case.
            ‘I want him’, said Nick, from across the street.
His companion shook his head.
            ‘No!’
            ‘C’mon, Gabe.  Let me have one here.  I want him.’
            ‘For what?  What can you possibly offer him?’
Gabe’s voice was gentle, a breath on the air.
            ‘Life.  Fame.  Happiness.  That’s what he wants, Gabe.  Trust me.’
The figure beside him smiled briefly.
            ‘Trust, Nick?  You speak of trust?’
            ‘Well, OK, I’ll give you that one.’
The boy’s fingers caressed the strings of the violin, subtly altering the notes.  The plaintive sound changed, became demanding.  Commuters felt the music enter their bodies and travel to their feet.  It was hard to resist the lure of the jig.
            ‘He’s mine!’ said Nick.  ‘I need him.’
            ‘No!’
Gabe’s voice did not change but the word echoed in the street, twining around the music like a lover’s embrace.  The boy lifted his head as if he had heard.  The jig ended with a flourish and he stood, looking through the scurrying people, as if he glimpsed the couple opposite.
            ‘You always want to win,’ said Nick.
            ‘I always want what’s right.’
Nick snorted, shifting his feet on the stone pavement.  They struck hard against the stone, sending sparks into the air with a sour, sullen sound.  The boy winced.
            ‘He does not want you,’ said Gabe.
            ‘You’re not giving him a chance to find out,’ Nick challenged.
            ‘You can’t offer him anything he wants.’
Nick rounded on his companion, breath rising like steam into the air.
            ‘Are you kidding me?  I can offer him everything!’
Gabe looked across to the boy who placed the violin back beneath his chin.
            ‘It’s not what he wants.’
His voice echoed, twining around the first few notes as the boy began to play “Silent Night”.  For a moment, the air was full of strange harmonies.
            ‘And what you’re offering?  That’s what he wants?  Please!’
Nick kicked the pavement edge.  The sound splintered the air, discords breaking into the tune.  The boy’s fingers faltered.
            ‘He just wants to make music,’ said Gabe.
            ‘Whatever.  You think you can take him from me?’
Nick’s scowl seared the bricks, sent rats in the gutter scurrying for cover.
            ‘No.  The boy must choose.’
The two figures stood across the street from the boy.  He gazed at them, eyes flinching from the blinding light which surrounded Gabe.
            ‘He can’t look at you,’ said Nick, with spite.
            ‘He does not want to look at you,’ said Gabe, gently.
Gabe raised his wings.  For a moment the boy had a clear vision of paradise.  Disbelief became acceptance.  He bowed his head and played the last few notes of the carol.  The bow fell from his hands, the violin fell after, to lie broken on the pavement.  People sped by, oblivious at first, until one woman realised the boy had collapsed.  Uncertain, she glanced around for help.  A man stepped forward.
            ‘What’s wrong?’ he said.
            ‘I don’t know.  I think he’s ill.’
            ‘I’m a doctor.  Let me see.’
The man’s practised hands felt for a pulse.  He shook his head.
‘He’s so young,’ the woman said
She looked pityingly at the boy as he lay at their feet.  The doctor checked the boy’s eyes which stared blankly at the evening sky.
            ‘Pupils not reactive.  He’s gone.’
Nick growled and turned away, a column of flame unseen by the passers-by.  Gabriel opened his wings wide and gathered up the busker’s soul.  For a sliver of time, music echoed around the dull brick walls and the boy’s face was suffused with light.
            ‘Aneurism, probably,’ said the doctor.  ‘He wouldn’t know what was happening.’
Gabriel breathed words, like a whisper at the back of the mind.
            ‘He knew.  He made his choice.’

I didn’t notice her at first.  The hotel had several more interesting characters who occupied my attention.  The mahogany-tanned businessman, late fifties, paunch distressingly displayed beneath the beach umbrella, accompanied by the young mantis-thin blonde.  He read e-mails on the beach while she did her nails, yawning like a bored kitten.  She perked up each evening, after she’d downed a volume of alcohol which would have had me in a coma.  Mostly, they didn’t speak.

Less typical of this glamorised Barbadian resort were the two elderly women, stubbornly refusing to submit to the rising tropical heat, sitting uncomfortably hot in neat blouses and long skirts, embarrassed by the attentive service as if they felt themselves interlopers at a party.  I wondered about a Lottery win but something about their upright, self-conscious rectitude suggested stern disapproval of any such enterprise.  A retirement, then, or a sixtieth birthday celebration.  Maybe a sudden desire to see the world after a life spent toiling in education or the civil service.  At home, ordinary, but here, as exotic as the monkeys which patrolled the grounds of the hotel in the early morning.

I made covert notes.  People watching is a writer’s curse - noting the idiosyncrasies of our fellow humans, judging without participating.  I was happy to sit back with my rum punch and weave idle stories around my fellow guests, not caring to discover the reality of the lives I so casually scrutinised.  It was three days before I realised I was being watched myself.

The woman was unmemorable, drab even.  Small with faded brown hair, the beginning of a few strands of silver, head tilted in silent query.  She reminded me of a little brown bird, harmless and without interest.  When I caught her eye, she smiled but there was no invitation there and I found nothing to fuel my imagination.  I smiled back and dismissed her from my mind.

Next morning, I saw her again.  She had secured a shady spot in the garden and had set up a small easel.  Her head tilted as she observed the scene before her.  An artist, then.  Like me, an observer.  I hesitated for a moment before approaching, curious to know what she was painting.  I strolled casually across the lawn to stand a pace behind her, grateful of the shade from the lush hedge of tropical foliage which shielded us from the brazen sun.

She did not turn, but spoke in the manner of a college lecturer:
‘Nerium oleander, a member of the dogbane family.  A food source of the caterpillars of the polka-dot wasp moth, Syntomeida epilais, native to the Caribbean although the oleander is not.’

I inspected her painting.  She had captured the leathery texture of the plant’s leaves perfectly, creating a grey-green backdrop for the delicate pale pink flowers.  I felt I could reach across and pluck a bloom from the canvas.

‘It’s beautiful,’ I said.  ‘I hope you don’t mind my curiosity?’

‘Curiosity is a gift,’ she replied.  ‘Or, sometimes, a curse.  Which do you find it?’

I was startled.  The question seemed too probing for our casual encounter. My interest piqued, I moved forward.  Her face was hidden under the brim of the white straw hat she wore so I could get no sense of her intention in quizzing me.

‘A gift,’ I replied.  ‘I’m a writer and curiosity is a necessary tool.’

‘Curiosity allied with imagination.  A dangerous combination.’

She leaned forward to place a streak of deeper pink along the base of one petal while I puzzled over this reply.  The flower, already life-like, took on almost a hyper-real effect.  I could swear it fluttered in the breeze.  Before I could respond, she glanced sideways up at me, dark brown eyes boring into mine as if she read deep into my soul.  She nodded once, as if a question had been answered.

‘A gift, then.  I hope you always find it so.’

I stood, bewildered, the conversation surreal under the merciless sun.  The woman returned to her painting, placing delicate strokes of subtle colour with an artist’s touch.  She seemed to have nothing further to say and finally I turned away, oddly disturbed.

It was a relief to return to the beach and join the others baking and browning beneath the Caribbean sun.  The jewelled sea, kingfisher blue, calmed my unease, washing away the lingering oddness of the encounter.  I settled to my customary role of observer, watching the businessman, stretched like a walrus on the shore, as the blonde rubbed sun lotion into the broad expanse of his back, her nose wrinkled in disgust, scarlet nails as threatening as talons.  Nearby, the two elderly ladies whispered together beneath their parasol, one seeming to wipe a few tears from her eyes.  Sand, I thought, fine grains lifted by the onshore breeze.

Later I watched the businessman drink mojitos, green mint leaves verdant as emeralds among the frozen diamonds of the shattered ice.  Celebrating, I guessed, or merely desperate for the oblivion of alcohol.  He usually drank wine.  Beyond, I was intrigued to see that one of the elderly ladies had also ordered a mojito.  She stared at her glass, mesmerised, while her companion sipped water and absent-mindedly stroked her friend’s hand, like a mother soothing her child.
​
Hesitating over my own order, tempted by the iced mojitos, I heard a choking gasp.  The elderly lady fought for breath, her companion soothing, tears sliding down her cheeks.  A new sound drew my attention away.  The businessman clutched his chest, pale under the leathered tan, his blonde partner wide-eyed but oddly detached before his obvious agony.  The world seemed to tilt, things I had observed taking on a new significance.  As staff rushed to help the two dying guests, I looked for the artist.  Under the cold light of the rising moon her face was a graven mask and I remembered the one thing I knew about the oleander plant.  It is highly toxic and deadly if eaten.

The weather report was not promising.  Snow.  The motorways would be a cold, icy hell.  Didn’t matter.  She had to get home.
The M23 was not too bad.  Most people must have looked out at the gently falling snow and decided to stay home.  She held her speed at a steady sixty, fighting the urge to go faster, knowing that this was already too fast for the conditions.  Snowflakes whirled towards the windscreen and were flung away to lie on the hard shoulder in ever deeper layers.

The gritting lorries had been out, spraying crushed rock salt across the lanes.  The inner lane was almost clear of snow.  It had been melted into submission by the passage of tyres.  The fast lane was white over, a band of velvet ribbon laid against the dark crash barrier.

On the M25 the snow  turned to grimy slush, churned up by the passing traffic.  She flinched as a lorry slammed towards her, thwarting her attempt to join the motorway.  She reduced her speed and slid in behind the massive truck.  The lorry’s tyres spat salt and black pellets of ice at her windscreen.  She was relieved to be able to move out and get past, the lorry’s lights receding in her rear-view mirror.
There was more traffic here but the snow was lighter, the flakes crushed before they had time to settle.  She pushed her speed up and pushed north.  The sky shed a silvery light on the scene, draining colour as if the world was being sucked of life.  Home, she thought.  I have to get home.

The miles drifted by.  By the time she reached the M1, the snow was thickening.  Visibility dropped and she had to drop her speed.  Forty miles per hour.  Still too fast, she knew.  She measured the miles still to travel, dividing them by her speed, calculating how long the journey would take.  Long hours.  Maybe too long.  Maybe too late.  She shook her head as she pushed the thought away.  Drive.

The road became an endless tunnel, nothing ahead but snow, beating at the windscreen with ghostly and insistent fingers.  Behind, she could see her tyre tracks change from black to white as the snow deepened.  Her speed dropped again.  The windscreen wipers struggled to clear a view.  She drove by instinct, alert to every tiny movement as the car ploughed on.

By the time she reached Leicester hers was the only car on the road.   With miles still to go, she began to fear that the weather would beat her.  That the snow would win.

She had a sudden memory of snowdrifts, piled high against the house, in a winter long ago.  She had walked along the top of the drifts, able to see over buried dry-stone walls which usually reared above her head.  Her feet were icy inside her wellingtons and her hands, in woollen mittens, were so cold that they hurt, like daggers.  It didn’t matter.  From this perspective she felt tall and powerful.  Alive.

She hadn’t realised that the snow had started to soften.  As she took the next step, she slid straight down, into the heart of the drift. Her body carved a cylinder within the snow, entombing her.  She could not move.  Helpless she had called out.  ‘Daddy!’  There was no reply.
Looking up, she could see the hole she had made in the snow, a foot or more above her head.  She called again.  ‘Daddy!’  And then the thought: I could die.  It was a strange idea to a six year old.  She examined it.  It was real.  It could happen.  Unless she got out, it would happen.  She knew about the dangers of extreme cold.  Animals had died on the farm, in less bitter winters than this.

Her breath clouded the air, skimming the walls of snow with a fine layer of ice.  No-one was coming.  She would have to rescue herself.  She tried pushing at the snow, compacting it so it resisted, pushed back.  Fear bubbled but, beneath it, anger.  She would not be beaten by snow.  She jerked her arm, her elbow digging deep into the tube of snow, creating a tiny space.  She bludgeoned the snow, until she had widened it enough to lift one knee.  She kicked her boot into the icy wall, her hands seeking a hold, pulling herself up, upwards towards the light.

A hand reached down.  She looked up.  Her father’s face was there.  Close.  He’s lying on the snow, she thought, and smiled at the picture in her head.

‘Jenny.  Grab hold, love.  I’ll pull you out.’

His hand was warm.  She held tight, relying on his strength to release her from her icy prison.  They lay on top of the drift for a moment.
 
‘I thought I’d lost you, sweetheart,’ he had said.

Me, too, Daddy.  Me, too.

The last few miles were worse.  The wind had risen after she turned off the motorway.  Snow was drifting between the dry-stone walls.   The road was bare in places.  The wind had swept the snow away, piling it against the verges in sculpted, sharp-edged shapes.  She didn’t care.  She was nearly home.  These were her roads, her hills.  The car bounced and slid as she urged it across each mini drift, like a rider cajoling a wayward horse.  Not far now.

The walls of the convent, loomed. Beneath the shelter of its walls, the snow was deeper.  She struggled and slid but could not barge through.  So near.  She remembered other winters, other drives across snow blurred hills.  As clearly as if he were sitting beside her, she heard her father speak.

‘We’ll need some toppers off the wall.  Give us some heft.’

She stopped the car, engine idling.  The snow-capped walls were not held with mortar.  She lifted a heavy granite slab from the top of the wall and placed it in the boot.  Another three and she could feel the tyres sink deep into the snow, biting at the buried road surface beneath.  This was what her father did, she remembered.  All those years ago.  This was how they got home.

The light was on in the living room when she finally made it to the lonely farmhouse.  She stopped the car, knowing that it would be buried in snow by morning.  The door opened.  She could see her mother’s figure backlit in the doorway.  She got out of the car, stood like a frozen statue in the snow.

‘I’m too late,’ she said.  ‘Aren’t I?’

Her mother stepped forward, enveloped her in a hug.

‘He died a few minutes ago.’

She leaned into her mother’s arms, tears setting like diamonds on her cheeks.  Too late.  Too late to say goodbye.  The two women went into the house.

‘Did he say anything?  Did he know I was coming?’ she asked.

Her mother smiled through her tears.
​
‘He said your name.  And something about toppers off the wall.’