SNOWBIRD (standard:romance, 546 words)
Author: Brian Cross	Added: Nov 05 2001	Views/Reads: 3937/1	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
This is an extract from a romantic drama situated in Lichfield, UK, in the early twentieth century. The author can be approached via his e-mail address.

"She was striding out now, away from the city confines towards a spot in
the normally lush, sweeping countryside which lay between Lichfield and 
Burntwood. Today though, freshly fallen snow crunched softly beneath 
her sturdy leather boots. The cold air of the morning was warmed only 
slightly by the winter sun that showed no sign of penetrating the two 
inch white carpet covering the lanes and fields. The briskness of her 
walk warming her more than the sun’s milky rays, she was glad to be 
free for a while, of the household she’d just left. A beautiful house, 
but from within whose walls emanated a false morality, exuded an 
artificial righteousness and decency; that in its very existence 
created a parody of the elegance and grace it sought to exemplify. 

But for now she was free, and within ten long minutes of someone who was
beginning to shine like a halo in her world. They would say, no 
doubting, that at fifteen years old she was too young to speak of love. 
That two weeks in the lives of two young people was no more than a 
speck before their eyes. But though she’d never experienced it before, 
she knew it with all her heart, she felt it with every inhalation of 
the crisp air she breathed. It was genuine, and yet as magical as the 
snow clad fields. And he felt the same, she knew it. She knew what he’d 
said that day - that he’d called her Snowbird, but she hadn’t wanted to 
embarrass him. 

It was sweet, what he’d said. 

But the clouds on their horizon were as dark and thick as those that had
brought all the snow. They were just two young people from different 
backgrounds, from two families that would never allow themselves to 
bridge a gulf for their children’s sake. She might be just a child, as 
her father kept reminding her, but she knew that much. 

And the new chauffeur, Fairbrother, it was plainly obvious why he’d been
employed. He might be as thick as a board and she might outsmart him 
once, but she couldn’t do so forever. It was simply luck that had sent 
him away with father today, but restriction would follow, she didn’t 
doubt it one little bit. 

And what of Danny’s family ? She knew nothing of their way of life, only
what she’d been told. In their company her confidence would melt like 
snow in the sun. She had to face it, they both did, there was only one 
place they could meet, for a while before authority came crashing down 
on them like a roof fall in her father’s mine. The place she was headed 
for now. It was their special place, where nobody existed but 
themselves and which lay covered in a cold but snow white beauty. 

Snowbird. 

She liked that. She loved it. 

She saw him at a distance, a solitary figure, something like an elf from
where she was, hands in his pockets, with an old cloth cap on his head 
from where his dark curly hair wrapped itself around its sides. She 
wondered how long he’d been there and whether the sight of her brought 
warmth to her veins the way it had when she’d spotted him.” 


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