The Snow Queen

  THE SNOW QUEEN

  Women of the Wilderness, Book 2

  by

  Florence Witkop

  Published by Forget Me Not Romances, a division of Winged Publications

  Copyright © 2019 by Florence Witkop

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be resold, reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author. Piracy is illegal. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This is a work of fiction. All characters, names, dialogue, incidents, and places either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or people, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Dear Reader:

  This is a book about finding love in the wilderness. My hero and heroine are normal, well-adjusted people. No ‘big problems’ to overcome, ‘horrible childhoods’ to deal with or ‘angst’ to get past. Just nice, every-day people who aren’t looking for love but find it in spite of themselves in the forests of northern Minnesota. This particular story takes place during a winter storm and then follows what happens afterwards.

  Here’s a bit about The Snow Queen. When you finish reading this book, if you’ll take the time to post a review on Amazon, I’ll be forever grateful! Just go to Amazon, type in The Snow Queen by Florence Witkop, and follow the prompts to post your review. Or click on the following link:

  Now, here’s what The Snow Queen is about:

  Two days.

  Longer and they’ll run out of food – and starve.

  If they leave, the blizzard may take them quicker.

  What to do? How to survive?

  Two people are stranded in the wilderness in a blizzard. They must make a decision while there’s still time. Jase’s bad leg complicates everything but Laurie’s secret knowledge may save them. If it’s for real.

  Once they decide on a course of action and carry it out, what will happen?

  If they survive, what about the future?

  Read this story and fall in love with the north woods in winter with all its beauty and danger, to pray for two people dealing with the awesome but uncaring forest and, if they survive, to cheer for what happens next.

  So now you know a bit about The Snow Queen. If you’d like to learn more about my journey as a writer, about the books and short stories I’ve authored, or learn my thoughts on writing fiction, check out my website at http://www.FlorenceWitkop.com

  Again, thanks for purchasing The Snow Queen.

  Florence Witkop

  CHAPTER 1

  It started with the blizzard. The one that came too soon.

  The weather channel predicted its arrival for Wednesday evening which, if it had waited until then, allowed plenty of time for people on holiday to enjoy a slow, comfortable, end-of-the-year vacation in cabins scattered about the forest or along the shores of the many lakes in the area and still get home long before the weather turned nasty.

  The weatherman, in his honey-smooth voice, said it looked like it would happen exactly as predicted which, he reminded listeners, wasn’t always the case. But he was completely sure it would arrive on schedule because there was nothing to mess up his forecast. No sneaky up-flowing weather systems from the south, no zig-zags in the jet stream, not a single thing to make the onset of bad weather difficult to predict. So Wednesday evening it would be.

  The thing was, the blizzard didn’t listen to the weatherman, didn’t care what plans mere mortals made, didn’t pay attention to those humans scurrying about the northern tier of states as they enjoyed their end-of-the-year holidays while winter, unbeknownst to them, gathered strength and prepared to get nasty and send snow everywhere.

  Lots of snow.

  Those families who wanted to make their winter vacation last as long as possible watched the news so as to know the last possible moment to leave and still have a safe trip home. Many left on Sunday, allowing three days wiggle room, and most of the rest headed out early Monday morning, which still gave them two days to get home before the big snow arrived. Plenty of time.

  Or so they thought.

  Only a few people were still in their cabins that Monday evening when the blizzard arrived a full two days ahead of schedule. Less than a few people. Almost none. Just one person, actually.

  Me.

  My name is Laurie.

  CHAPTER 2

  It was cold, the kind of cold that stays close to the ground and is one with the snow. I pulled my parka close and pulled the sleeves down as far as possible until they covered my hands. Lucky for me I don’t have long arms or my hands would be popsicles but as it was, the sleeves were long enough that I could ignore the gloves I’d brought, stuffing them into the generous pockets of my huge parka, and then I could hold the charcoal between bare fingers as I sketched the cardinal on the Jack Pine branch not too far above me that would eventually be enshrined in another painting of the forest.

  That painting, along with others like it, would become part of my portfolio and, as I pictured my future paintings, I also tried to figure how much time I’d have to fill my sketchbook completely. If I left the family cabin tomorrow, Tuesday, or even if I stuck around until Wednesday and got out early enough, before the blizzard hit because it wouldn’t arrive until evening, then I’d have time to watch that flash of red streak through the trees enough times that I’d have its flight figured out and could replicate it on canvas.

  Yep, that would work. I’d leave Wednesday morning if I could convince the cardinal to stick around and model for me. If it did, then when I left, if I got out any time before noon, my sketchbook would be brimming with the promise of pictures. Wednesday would be perfect.

  As I watched, I had a cunning idea. Maybe I wouldn’t have to wait until Wednesday because tomorrow, Tuesday, when I came back to this clump of Jack Pine to continue sketching, I could scatter bread crumbs on the snow to entice him because I really wanted that cardinal and perhaps it would come as soon as it saw food. I could see the picture now, a bright red streak against the green, black, and white of the forest in winter.

  As I thought, I realized that it all depended on bread crumbs. Did Cardinals like bread crumbs? I didn’t know, but I hoped so and that a few scattered on the ground would bring it back and, if I was lucky, even lure other winter birds in.

  That extra time would be all it would take to memorialize the forest in winter. My parents had already left, but I had my own car, a tiny city thing, but the roads were plowed and had been as clear as in the summer on the way to the cabin, so the drive home should be equally easy. Besides I’d leave while it was still daylight so I could see any possible icy spots and slow down.

  Once every page in my sketchbook was filled, including the margins, which would be done easily before Wednesday afternoon, I’d return to Minneapolis and call my folks to let them know that, yes, I’d put water on the fire in the wood-burning stove so it couldn’t possibly set the cabin ablaze and no windows were left open and the refrigerator was empty with the door left open so it wouldn’t turn musty. In other words, they could stop worrying. My parents are nice but they worry. A lot.

  Having so decided, I forgot time and let my hands move rapidly across the paper until the cardinal flew to another branch and then, after circling a few times during which I simply stared at the bright red against the green pine needles, the black tree trunks, and the pristine white snow that was a light cover in most areas and inches deep in some places, it disappeared.

  I’d get more sketches tomorrow, but even if the cardinal didn’t return, I had enough that my agent would be happy, as happy as he was capable of being, which was slight
ly happier than totally miserable, and whether he knew how to smile was debatable, but he was the only agent who’d shown interest in my pictures when I started my life as a professional artist, and we now had a semi-decent relationship. Most of the time.

  I imagined his reaction to my new pictures. There might be an entire show of pictures of this lovely, pristine winter with the cardinal picture anchoring the whole thing. Might be? Forget the ‘might.’ There definitely would be. My ability as an artist grew with each passing year, and few artists make a living from their art, but I manage.

  I show storms barreling through the tops of trees that grow so close together and so tall that almost no light penetrates to the floor below and I get that across in my art. Sometimes I show the brooding depths of the dark and fecund forest floor. In other pictures, I show tiny wildflowers growing between the roots of trees, blossoms so small that few people notice them, but I do, and my pictures show how lovely they are, and that’s what makes me able to support myself with my painting. I pay the bills with pictures of the north woods. Okay, I barely pay the bills, but I do pay them.

  I make no pretense of being a great artist. I simply know and love the forest and have ever since I was a kid playing my solitary games beside the family cabin in the woods, and that love shows in the childish pictures I drew then and the more mature ones I create now.

  But time was passing. I’d best stop reminiscing about life and art because the cardinal was gone and tomorrow was another day. And, oddly enough, a few snowflakes were drifting down through the thick canopy of evergreens. The blizzard wasn’t due for another couple of days, so thank goodness the flakes had nothing to do with the coming storm. They were just snowflakes, and snow goes hand in hand with winter, so I shouldn’t be surprised to see a few now and then.

  As I watched, though, more of the white stuff fell through the canopy and grew thicker and thicker as I watched. A snow flurry, I hoped, one of those things that resembles a blizzard but only lasts a few minutes. Nothing important.

  Still, even with the snow flurry that was no more than a nuisance, daylight was waning fast, so I’d be smart to get back to the cabin and settle in for the evening and then for the night. Sighing, I closed my sketchbook, stuck my charcoal in one of the capacious pockets of my parka and headed back to the cabin while reminding myself to remember bread crumbs the next morning that would hopefully lure the cardinal back with his entire family in tow.

  Maybe I could put some in a bag when I reached the cabin and return to scatter them before it grew dark? I glanced upwards at the darkening sky and decided that wouldn’t happen, even though the snow flurry had ended as I’d expected.

  By the time I was in the cabin and had thrown wood on the fire in the black stove that kept the place warm and had turned to fixing something to eat, there’d been several more snow flurries. More than was usual and there was a bit of snow accumulating on the ground beneath those huge evergreens, but nothing scary.

  If they continued, I decided, there’d be a thin layer of snow on top of what had already been there when we arrived before Christmas. It would be pretty and was good reason to wait for the morning to toss bread crumbs everywhere because, if I did it tonight, they might be covered by snow in the morning. When I checked, I discovered that there wasn’t much bread left, so I decided against a sandwich because the last loaf was almost gone, and I wanted those remaining slices for cardinal bait.

  I checked the cupboards and figured that the few items in it would get me through another day or two. No reason to head for a town that was almost fifty miles away for more supplies. So I gathered what was already in the refrigerator and had been opened and so had to be either eaten or tossed, and I somehow turned it all into a unique casserole that, even though it was a bit unusual given the ingredients, tasted okay and was too much food for one meal but could become breakfast the next day if I was willing to eat leftovers when I got up. Which I was.

  So I had dinner and washed the dishes and put them away and then cleared off the table and covered it with my sketches that I examined by the light of an oil lamp because we’ve never had electricity at the cabin, choosing gas for the refrigerator and stove and oil for light. Visitors called it primitive and seldom returned.

  I made a few additions to the sketches from memory and imagination, but was fairly satisfied with what covered the table so, as the old-fashioned wind-up clock on the wall said it was nearing midnight, I swept all the sketches back into the folder that I carry almost everywhere and put it on the shelf where it would be ready for me in the morning.

  And jumped when a knock came at the door.

  No one should be at the end of the road in the depth of the forest knocking at the door of a normally unoccupied cabin at midnight. No one should be on the other side of the door.

  We usually spent the holidays with family but this year all of our relations had gone to southern climes, so we’d decided to go somewhere too, only we went north, and no friends wanted to be with us badly enough to rough it without electricity, so the person on the other side of the door wasn’t family or friends.

  Who was it?

  The thing is, the forest isn’t normally filled with dangerous people, and when someone knocks we answer because it’s the neighborly thing to do.

  So I opened the door to a man about my age, maybe a bit older, who stared at me from darkish eyes, some unknowable shade of a possible brown but perhaps dark blue, in an absolutely normal male face framed by a parka similar to my own but he also wore ultra-warm pants and huge, clunky snowmobile boots. A pair of large double mittens were held in one hand as the other was raised to knock again.

  The face spoke. “I saw the light and hoped someone was home.”

  I looked beyond him for a vehicle but saw none and had heard none arrive. Of course not, those clunky boots would make driving a car impossible. No way to step on the gas or brake. “How’d you get here?”

  His face went somewhat grim. “I started my jaunt on a snowmobile. But I walked the last few miles. Through snow.”

  “Because it broke down?” He nodded.

  Again, I looked past him but it was too dark to see much of anything, so it was impossible to know if there were tracks in the driveway. Then my gaze swerved aside, and I saw the trail of boot prints that were barely visible in the snow of the open ground between the cabin and the forest. They paralleled my own tracks that were now so faint as to be almost buried beneath the snow flurries that had flirted with the small clearing where the cabin sat. Even now snow fell, another flurry consisting of huge flakes that were almost invisible in the dark. More snow than I’d expected. I was surprised. “You came through the forest?”

  “Yep, and it wasn’t easy going.” He indicated the two sets of tracks. “I’m glad I ran across your tracks back there or I could be in a heap of trouble right about now. But I did see them, and they were fresh enough that I figured if I followed them, I’d find someone. Some place to spend the night. To be safe.”

  He looked straight at me to acknowledge that it was asking a lot to allow a perfect stranger to spend the night. “It’s very late, and the snow is coming down hard.” Yes, it was. As I looked, I realized that it was coming down harder than when I’d been outside earlier. Much harder.

  After a pause, during which I stared from him to the snow that was on the ground and in the air and seemed to be falling faster and faster as I watched, he said grimly, “The blizzard has arrived.”

  My breath went out in a whoosh and my eyes went wide. My tiny car sat in the driveway and, now that my eyes were adjusted enough to the dark to see somewhat clearly, I checked it out and, with a sinking heart, realized that it was almost lost beneath what seemed like a ton of snow that must have fallen while I was inside and warm.

  What would I do if he was right? Could the blizzard actually have arrived? How would I get home? My tiny car wouldn’t manage a mile in that much snow. “It can’t be here. Can’t be.”

  He stood without moving, n
ot coming into the cabin until he was sure that his company would be okay, as he said, “That’s what I thought when my snowmobile broke down and I was miles from anywhere. That I had lots of time to figure out what to do. Then the snow started falling and, when it didn’t stop, I knew I could be in a world of hurt.”

  What I’d thought were snow flurries were the beginning of the blizzard, coming in fits and starts before settling down to a steady snowfall.

  He’d been alone in the forest as a blizzard began and had, by some miracle, found what was likely the only safe place in a hundred miles and yet he stayed on the porch because it was my cabin and he had manners.

  I backed quickly and ushered him inside, but he stood there unmoving, not wanting me to get the wrong idea as the dark beyond his back grew even darker and the night even scarier. I said, “I can’t drive you anywhere. Not now, anyway, in the dark. My car can’t be trusted in a storm.”

  He nodded that he understood, and we stared at one another in silence as the snow filtering through the trees came down even harder.

  I would trust him to be a decent person. It’s what I’d want if I were stranded in the forest in a blizzard. “Come in. Please.”

  “Will your car get us out of here in the morning?”

  My expression said I didn’t know, that I didn’t want the blizzard to be here, didn’t want it to be happening, didn’t want to think about storms. “The forecast said the blizzard will start Wednesday evening and the forecaster was so sure about the timing.”

  The snow I was looking at said otherwise. “Maybe this is just a precursor to the real storm?” I sounded hopeful but my words were hardly more than a frightened whisper. “If so, tomorrow should be good and we’ll manage if I drive carefully. I’ll bring a shovel in case we get stuck.”

  I wanted to believe my own words, so I repeated them, louder this time. “Perhaps this is just a flurry. Must be a flurry.” But even I heard the alarm in my voice.