before lunch
Stoke Hill Forest




“This is crazy,” Gracie muttered, forlornly kicking at a mound of snow. As if in revenge, more snow seeped into her boot and she bit back a curse. “Crazy crazy crazy. It must less than two degrees out here, why you insist on doing everything the mu- the hard way I really do not know-”

All around them, was snow, snow, and more snow, leaving a solid white landscape that made the trees look like toothpicks. Above them the sky was almost as equally white. For now, it had stopped snowing, but her breath was no less than visible than it had been before. It was so. Damn. Cold. It was a good thing she could still see their house from here…

“Hush yerself,” shushed that large, hulking shape in front of her mildly. The shape– her grandfather– didn’t bother to turn around. The whisper was, to Gracie’s ears, akin to a very quiet earthquake. “Yeh complain ‘n’more, yeh’ll chase all th’ game ou’ wit’ yer wailing. Jus’ try tae kip up, lass.”

“Har,” Gracie muttered, albeit a little more quietly. “Har. Look,” she tried again, trying to get the old man to see reason, “why don’t I just wait at home with Mum? You know you always do better when I’m not tagging along.” And if she tended to be a bit loud on purpose, well, it was only a coincidence. Honest. “I’ll just make a hash of things like last time and get in the way of your skinning. Come on, Granddad, I’m freezing here!”

She was by no means a bleeding heart for animals, but just thinking about it was making her blanch.

With a sigh, Eamon slowly turned around and lumbered to his feet, that sleek monster of a shotgun lowered as he did. At six-foot-five, the man was more than simply ‘tall’; decades of exercise and labor had given him a build of teak, and decades more had padded it with a girth that could snap a plank.  Now, with all the snow that had been given ample time to accumulate on his frame, he looked like a yeti. A very big, tired-looking one. “I mi’ as well go wit’ ye,” he sighed, locking the gun and shouldering it. “Yeh prob’ly scared orf all th’ game, anyway…”

“Did not,” she lied, grinning. At least now that a mug of spiced cider and a dish of something warm were in the immediate future, she was feeling a little better about the cold. Lagging behind just a bit, Gracie began scooping up a handful of snow. “Have you just considered that you aren’t so quiet yourself?”

True to form, her grandfather didn’t see fit to dignify that with an answer; he usually didn’t. But when had she ever let that stop her? Hanging back, Gracie hunched over her precious burden, a totally innocent smile biting at her lips as she packed in the snow. Just a little bit more–

She let it fly.

In almost horrifying slow motion, the little witch watched the snowball soar, as if buoyed by all the transient, short-lived dreams and joy of human sprites everywhere. It was glorious, it was triumphant, it was—brilliant, totally, utterly brilliant.

It was also, perhaps, the last greatest thing she would ever accomplish her entire short-lived life, she acknowledged as the thing went splat! against the back of Eamon’s head, but—worth it. So, so worth it. Even as he jerked to a halt, giant frame as still as the trees as snow trickled down his head, Gracie clapped her hands over her mouth, trying to stifle a giggle and failing.

He turned. Her breath caught.

And then in one fluid motion, he scraped a handful off of a nearby bush, packed it in, and pitched it towards her, as sure and inevitable as a comet. She didn’t stand a chance, it was that fast.

And only– as the next moment would prove –the first. The hit meeting its mark, Gracie shrieked, backpedaling as fast as she could without tripping. When she hurriedly crouched to make another one of her own, it left her back open for another—and did, welcoming it. The hits came faster than she could parry, one after the other until she could barely stay upright.


Clear as rain, peals of laughter echoed through snow-laden trees.