Winter’s Envy: The Snow Witch’s Frozen Curse
From the moment John was born, whispers of despair followed him like a shadow. Doctors shook their heads with quiet dread. Priests muttered prayers under their breath. His tiny body was frail and delicate, as if winter itself had touched him before his first breath. He slept too much, barely ate, and his chest rose and fell with the uneven rhythm of a struggling flame. His green eyes—so bright, so full of life’s promise—flickered weakly, like lanterns ready to die out. Sometimes, he hiccupped until his breath caught, and his tiny body fainted into stillness.
Yet his mother, a fierce woman wrapped in love and hope, refused to surrender. Night after night, she cradled him close, whispering prayers to the stars, begging the heavens to keep her fragile son alive through the cruel winter.
But winter itself had heard her prayers.
On one bitter, silent night, while John lay sleeping and his mother finally slipped into a weary slumber beside his cradle, a shadow crept into their cottage. Not through the door, nor the window—no ordinary path. The shadow came through the cold itself, a ripple of frost and sorrow that bent the air.
She was tall and slender, her skin pale and shimmering like ice under moonlight. Her hair trailed behind her like smoke twisted with snowflakes. Wherever she moved, the fire flickered and dimmed, and the warmth of the room recoiled in fear. She was a fae born of winter’s deepest breath—a snow witch, ancient and terrible, carved from frost and longing.
Silent and graceful, she hovered above John’s cradle, her eyes glowing like moonlight on ice. His chest fluttered weakly; his limbs twitched in restless dreams. As her cold breath brushed the room, John stirred awake. His eyelids fluttered open, and his green eyes met hers. He smiled—a fragile, innocent giggle.
The snow witch’s heart cracked, a frozen shard slipping free. Long ago, she had lost a child—her own warmth stolen by a cruel fate. Since then, she had taken others, stealing them from mothers whose love burned too brightly, mothers who held on too fiercely. Now, her pale fingers reached for John.
Her first touch brushed his tiny hand but missed. The second, too, slipped away. On the third attempt, John grasped her finger—his small fingers closing tightly.
And then he froze.
Frost bloomed from his palm, spreading like delicate spiderwebs across his arms, creeping down his legs and over his chest. He stiffened, a living sculpture of ice and breath. His green eyes, though unblinking and curious, were trapped beneath a frozen veil.
Tenderly, the witch lifted him, careful not to shatter the fragile boy. Darkness spilled from her hair like a mourning veil, swallowing the warmth from the room. When she vanished, only cold remained.
John’s mother awoke to silence—and a cradle turned to ice. Her scream tore through the night like a shattered star.
The Ice House
The witch fled north, to a mountain crowned with endless winter, where snow never melted and the sun barely pierced the gray skies. In her lonely house of dark wood and narrow windows, she laid John beside a hearth she rarely lit.
But the boy stirred something strange in her cold heart. She struck a match, kindling a fire that melted frost from his skin. He shivered and whimpered, then cried—a sound the witch had not heard in centuries. As she soothed him, snowflakes drifted from his lips like whispered secrets.
Though she had taken him, she feared losing him still.
John was fragile, his spirit fragile as glass. He fainted often, staring out windows as if chasing birds no one else could see. Yet when he smiled at her, a strange warmth flickered in the snow witch’s frozen heart.
He crawled across the floor, tugged at her gowns, and giggled in innocence. She sang again—songs dark and haunting—lost prayers and drowned sailors—her voice a lullaby for a child who knew no other.
A Mother’s Fury
Four moons later, the mountain trembled with a rage older than stone. The snow witch awoke—and so did John.
At the door stood his mother, burning with fire and grief. Her eyes blazed with a fierce green light—sharp as pine needles and resolute as the mountains.
Desperate, the witch hid John in the hearth’s ashes, cloaking him in soot and shadow. To everyone else, he vanished—except to the mother who never stopped searching.
The mother stepped inside, every breath a storm. The witch, who had faced centuries of winter’s wrath, now trembled with a cold deeper than frost—fear.
The mother’s eyes met the witch’s and saw reflected there a grief she recognized—a loss so profound it had frozen the witch’s soul. The witch had taken what she could not bear to lose, stealing love from another because her own had been shattered.
No incantations or curses fell from the mother’s lips. Instead, she spoke a single word—quiet, fierce, and full of unyielding love.
The snow witch shattered like glass, glittering shards raining down—each sharp with regret, each one a release.
In the hearth, beneath the soot and silence, John stirred.
Winter’s Last Touch
His mother rushed to him, trembling and trembling, her heart pounding with hope and fear.
He reached out.
She reached back.
Their fingers met.
John laughed—clear, bright, like a bell.
But winter’s curse lingered.
From that laughter bloomed frost’s final breath, creeping slowly across the mother’s skin—turning her heart and limbs to shimmering ice.
There she stayed, kneeling by her child—still, beautiful, frozen in love.
John cooed softly, his green eyes wide and unafraid, a breath of frost and life intertwined.
Moral of the Story:
Grief that freezes the heart can steal what was never truly yours to keep. Love—pure and fierce—can break the coldest curse, but never without leaving its own mark.
