Snowdrop on the Windowsill

Written by Samantha Denny Illustrated By Kat Taddei

Wings like gossamer fluttered as she landed gracefully on the windowsill and peered into the house. It was busy inside, filled with people everywhere she looked. Some were sitting down and watching a moving picture made of bright colors, but there were more moving around in the kitchen. She could see a great big tree by the moving picture, decorated with the baubles and shiny things that the humans loved to put up every year around this season. The tree was covered in the same human-stars as the rest of the house, the ones that could be turned on and off at will. There also seemed to be a fence of some kind around the base of the tree, but she lost interest in it and turned her attention back to the kitchen. There were all sorts of confections and sweets being made in the kitchen, and she wondered at the time and energy it must take to make them all. It certainly explained why they all seemed so frantic in their kitchen.

Snowdrop shuffled sideways along the windowsill and shook her wings out to throw off the snowflakes from the flurry outside that she’d flown in on. Frost twirled out from where she pressed her hands against the glass to get a better look inside. Snowdrop could see some movement out of the corner of her eye, but she had little interest in taking her gaze off the human confections. She pressed her cheek against the window, huffing at the inconvenience of it before—BAM!

Snowdrop shrieked and fluttered back, her wings beating furiously to

Midwinter Mischief Magazine keep her in the air. She looked back at the window, and her eyes narrowed at the mangy beast of a dog that these humans kept as a pet. It pawed at the window where she’d been standing, barking accusingly at her and demanding that she leave!

Well!

Snowdrop straightened out her skirt of frost and tulle and huffed at the unwelcome interruption to her night. She could see a couple of the smaller humans hurrying to see what their dog was fussing about. Snowdrop cast her gaze about the house for an idea on how to punish the beast, and then she spotted one of those little doors that the humans had for their pets. Yes, that would do nicely.

She turned back to the dog and beckoned it with a finger and a grin, laughing to herself when it followed her away from the window. Silly, stupid beast, thinking it could tell a fairy to go away!

She landed with a bounce in front of the pet door, and she quickly threw her arms down to freeze the door to its frame.

“Topper, where are you going?” someone cried inside the house, and Snowdrop watched gleefully as the dog raced towards its door, barking and ready to catch her.

Finally, the dog rammed into the pet door, only to find itself coming to an unsteady halt when its door stayed sealed shut. The dog, Topper, snarled and barked, scrambling back to its feet while Snowdrop stuck her tongue out.

“No, boy, you can’t go outside, it’s too cold,” someone else said, and the children tugged the resisting pet away from the door. Snowdrop shot the sullen dog a smug little grin before she flew up back into the blowing snow and found another snowflake to perch on.

About an hour later, her snowflake brought her to another decorated home, although this one had far fewer human-stars on it. Snowdrop hopped off her snowflake, letting it go to join the ones on the roof while she landed on a windowsill. She laughed to herself at the gap between the bottom of the window and the sill, but a sort of netting prevented her from slipping into the house.

This house didn’t have a tree inside of it, but it was still warmly dec-

Midwinter Mischief Magazine orated with the many baubles these humans seemed to possess. A large group of humans were seated together, watching a moving picture of their own, and Snowdrop huffed. She just hoped that these people didn’t have a beastly dog like that ‘Topper’. Fairy dogs were much more well-behaved.

There weren’t as many confections in this kitchen either, but the ones that were there looked delightful to Snowdrop. If she could only get through the netting, she would have liked to try one.

Music from the bright moving picture filtered through the house as Snowdrop sat against the netting, spreading frost over the material with gentle sweeps of her hands. Something jingled in the kitchen, and the fairy found herself facing a cat with a collar embroidered with bells. She laughed at the sight, dropping to sit on the windowsill as the cat examined her intently. It must have been humiliating to wear such a thing!

The cat purred and batted a paw against the netting, and Snowdrop considered it. She carefully pressed a hand against the netting and hit the cat in the paw with some frost, making the creature chirp and jump back in alarm. Snowdrop burst into laughter at the jingling of the bells around the cat’s neck, and she cheerfully pushed more frost and snow through the netting and onto the surface below the window. The humans were fools for leaving the window open during a winter storm, it wasn’t her fault that she decided to teach them a little lesson for it.

Footsteps heralded the arrival of a grown human woman, who scooped the cat up and asked, “What’s wrong, Dumpling?” She seemed to catch sight of the snow and frost piling up in her kitchen, because a frown crossed her face and she turned to the ones watching the moving picture. “Guys, who left the window open? There’s snow everywhere!”

Snowdrop stood and brushed herself off as the humans scrambled to sweep away her work, and she flew up to find another snowflake to ride. One more house visit for the night, then she’d settle down for some rest in a nice grove of wildflowers and trees. Or perhaps an unoccupied birdhouse. Those could be quite cozy now that their regular residents had gone away for the winter.

Snowdrop rode the storm to a tall house covered in snow, and she fluttered up to a grand, wide window that stuck out from the side of the

Midwinter Mischief Magazine house and was firmly sealed shut. Tendrils of frost crept across the glass where she pressed her hands up against it to peer inside, and she fidgeted her feet on the windowsill.

There were a lot of humans in this house too, but they weren’t watching a garish and bright moving picture like the others. In fact, Snowdrop thought that she could see one of those game boards set up on a table, with some younger humans seated around it, and some older humans sitting higher up and watching them. It felt…tender. Her curiosity had led her to many a window to peek into, and these humans never failed to surprise her. Just when Snowdrop thought that she had seen the sum of human love expressed, she would find a new home and find herself amazed by the ways in which they showed tenderness for one another. It was what made spying on them so fun!

A faint hum filtered through the window, but Snowdrop jumped back in surprise when a new human child burst into the room, wearing a bright and glittery, strange looking outfit and disrupting the quiet atmosphere of the room. She returned to her perch and ruffled her wings to shake off shards of snowflakes and the dust of frost, and she tried to get a better look at the blur of a child racing around the room. She could make out a skirt, something delicate like her own, an abundance of shiny glitter, and something attached to the child’s back by fabric bands—oh!

Didn’t the humans say that imitation was the sincerest form of flattery? Well, consider Snowdrop very flattered. The child was dressed like a fairy! And what excellent taste the child—a girl—had, for her outfit looked like Snowdrop’s dress.

On that note, Snowdrop didn’t think that this house was deserving of her antics like the other two of the night were. In fact, the fairy stretched her hands up against the glass of the window and let her frost cover it entirely. She flew up to the middle of the window and set to work, pressing her hands into her frost and dragging them through it until she got the shape that she desired. Flying back a little, she nodded to herself and took off to find a place to nap. Behind her, she could hear the delighted cries of the humans inside the house at the sight of the heart painted in the frost she had left behind.