𝐂𝐀𝐓𝐀𝐋𝐘𝐒𝐓

𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐬𝐢𝐱

 You were awoken abruptly by the soft thud of a pillow to the face. It pulled you out of a nightmare you weren't even aware that you were having. Long, never-ending hallways and faceless bodies whispering into the shadows like nails on a chalkboard. But you shook those visions away in order to sit upright and smile at the little girl who had found her place on the blankets that encased your body. 

"Good morning," you grumbled, biting back a yawn as you rubbed a hand over your temples.

Flora was nearly bouncing off the walls as she took you by the hand and dragged you to the edge of the bed. "It snowed!" she exclaimed with little to no regard for your sensitive eardrums. Without you asking her to, she rushed over to the window and threw back the heavy curtains. The entire courtyard was painted a pure white that stretched on through the trees for as far as you could tell.

"Whoa," you mumbled, having to squint back at the blindingly bright landscape. You weren't expecting a real snow like this until much later in December.

"Mrs. Grose said it won't last the day, though," Flora sighed melodramatically, digging the toes of her shoes into the wooden floors. Her statement was made obvious by the patches of green that sprouted up around the ground floor of the house, like an invisible barrier.

You dragged your eyes away from the splendor and hoisted the digital clock from your bedside table into your lap. The blocky red letters blinking in the corner of the glowing screen told you that it was only creeping on eight o'clock, Saturday morning. Flora had no lessons scheduled on the weekends, which made them your two busiest days of the week.

"Why don't we go enjoy it while it lasts?" You suggest, knowing it was exactly what she wanted to hear. You laughed at her little gasp of excitement and watched her as she raced out of your room and down the hall to go put on her snow-gear. Even after she was out of sight, you could hear her skipping down the hallway, happily babbling nonsensically to herself.

As soon as she left, you stretched your arms far up over your head and took a moment to wake up before wandering over to your tall wardrobe and getting on your hands and knees, digging around for the pair of gloves that you weren't entirely convinced you had packed.

You didn't find yourself missing home as much as you suspected you would when you first accepted the job at Bly Manor. School, your parents, and really any mementos of your past life rarely took shape in your mind. Especially since you were so busy taking care of Flora. 

Even more so now with the unseen return of Miles. He occupied most of your mind lately.

No more than fifteen minutes had gone by when you found yourselves outside, stomping through the piles of untouched snow that had accumulated overnight. The cold air bit at your exposed skin but you were too distracted watching and giggling as Flora struggled to power her way through one of the larger snow drifts to care.

The sky was just as colorless as the ground and the naked trees surrounding the courtyard seemed stark black in contrast. You silently prayed that Mrs. Grose was right and that the snow would melt back into the earth by the time you woke up the following morning. The one thing you could bring yourself to hate about autumn was that it bled right into winter.

Flora's first order of business was to make a snowman. Or rather, sit down and make snow angels from a safe distance while you did all of the heavy lifting. It had been so long since you last played in the snow that you nearly forgot just how to do it. 

But eventually, you stepped back and admired your hard work; a tall, rounded figure with pebbles for eyes and long black twigs for arms. You sculpted it just so that when you retired to the dining room for lunch, it would be looking through the window and waving up at Flora.