Chapter Three
Becca
Becca Snow shivered at the wind howling outside her frosted window. Wasn’t this supposed to be spring? Of course, this wasn’t the first spring storm she’d seen, but she was ready for green grass and sunshine. Especially since she knew the grief she’d get at school; just because her last name was Snow, everyone blamed her whenever a blizzard hit town.
The wipers were going double-time and still weren’t keeping up too well. If she didn’t know this area so well, she wasn’t sure she’d stay on the road.
The storm had caught her by surprise coming home from Melstone City. She’d had the sudden urge to shop for (Ha! Ha!) summer clothes, and she’d also promised her best friend and neighbor, Toby, she’d pick a book up for him at the library there. If she’d checked the weather forecast like any other sane person living in the area, she would’ve tried to find what she wanted at the K-Mart in Glenville—one of the only two stores in town that carried new clothes. (Shopping at second hand stores got old sometimes.) At least she’d had Chris’ truck. She would’ve never made it home in her little, brown 1984 Malibu. She really needed an update in the vehicle department!
She pulled into town, taking a side street that led down a quiet residential area. The deserted streets were completely covered in white. She spotted a squirrel racing across the power lines, then it leapt to a tree and disappeared into the trunk. She felt bad for any animals out in the storm, especially all the birds that had already made it up from the south, ready for summer in the north.
Finally reaching the end of her street, Becca pulled into the drive of their single level modular home. The gray house was modest, but cozy, and a blessing considering the circumstances. Becca was glad to be safely back.
After dinner that night, Becca put on her fuzzy slippers and read and drank Chai tea while her brother, Chris, watched a recording of the X-Games. They talked very little, comfortable with just hanging out. Becca wondered if she should tell him about the biker; her brother was pretty casual about some things, but this might upset him. He’d been a little over-protective since their parents had died. She eventually chickened out and went to bed.
Chris would probably be up late, as usual, going over designs for his latest architectural project. As far as Becca was concerned, her brother was a genius. A pang of guilt struck her belly. Well, she thought, I’ll be graduating soon, and then he can go off to the bigger cities, finish school, and become famous! It wasn’t fair that Chris had had to care for her when he could’ve been living his dream by now. Angry tears blurred her vision. How could her parents leave them both? She forcefully wiped the tears away. She was tired of being angry every time she thought of her mom and dad; but if she pushed away the anger, she had to face the painful, empty hole inside that no one else could fill.
So, she decided not to think about them. It had been a strange day. She just needed some sleep.
The inviting soft light of her bedside lamp lured Becca to her bed. She snuggled under her comforter and stared at the ceiling as another gust of wind rattled her window. She hadn’t been the only one caught off guard by the nasty weather that day. The face of the stranded motorcyclist, Kayde, kept teasing her mind’s eye. What in the world had caused her to pull over and ask if he needed help? (Not to mention asking him to lunch!) She’d always been too afraid to do such things in the past. Stories of murderous hitch-hikers had been drilled into her brain by her parents, making her too terrified to stop and give a stranger help.
Becca thought of the verse in the Bible about entertaining angels unaware and wondered how many times she’d left an angel standing on the side of the road. Definitely a test she’d never passed before.
So what was different about this person? Was he an angel? Becca giggled to herself. A motorcycle riding angel—wearing all black! Well, stranger things had happened. She relived the encounter in her mind, the images flashing from one moment to the next like a slide show. She’d seen the stranger standing by his bike, his head tilted back as if he was watching the snow fall from the opaque sky. Maybe that had drawn her to him. She’d done that many times herself, staring up at the sky as flakes of snow floated down to her from heaven and kissed her cheeks; angel kisses, her dad had called them.
But something greater had grabbed her attention. Becca remembered feeling a little nervous when he’d walked toward her, his black ski mask hiding his features. But with the simple motion of taking that off of his head, Kayde had sent Becca’s emotions whirling.
It had been like a magician lifting the black cloth, revealing something magical and amazing that had been hidden underneath. The wind had immediately caught his dark brown hair, running its wild fingers through it and messing it up in an attractive way. Becca remembered gawking at him like a dork as his bangs swept across his forehead above a set of glorious, bright, summer-green eyes. He was like some rugged drifter you see in the movies, waiting to sweep some ditzy girl off of her feet; which naturally meant she was the ditzy girl!
Becca suddenly couldn’t remember what the rest of Kayde’s face looked like. She sat up in her bed and squinted as if she were trying to focus on something through a fog. She tried to concentrate, but her mind kept bringing her attention back to the eyes. Something stirred inside of her—a strange…. energy? She wasn’t sure how to describe it. She’d felt that in the truck, too, just before she’d opened the window for Kayde.
Becca’s heart fluttered. Something else had happened then, too. She’d been rambling on like a lunatic, telling him the town gossip about the hotel fire. Once again, not like her at all! She hated gossip. She’d been the brunt of it far too much. Then, she’d gone on about Mrs. Kline and her parents dying. Again, not something she usually spoke about to people, especially complete strangers. But earlier with Kayde, she’d felt so relaxed. For the first time in two years, she’d felt at peace. She’d even had the urge to start humming some tune that had erupted in her mind. Becca tried to concentrate again, to remember the song; it eluded her.
The cold from outside seemed to enter her room and seep into her core. She hadn’t heard music in her mind like that for two years, either. Not since the day Chris had stood at the front of the church at their parents’ funeral and released the most beautiful, melancholy song she’d ever heard. It had cut deep inside, leaving a dark, empty void that seemed to swallow any other music. She used to mess around writing songs of her own and singing them to herself in front of the mirror. But nothing ever played in her mind now except deafening silence or frightening images of what her parents’ last moments on earth might’ve been like.
Until today; that song, the song that she still felt but couldn’t remember. Maybe this Kayde really was an angel. Maybe that was why Becca was drawn to him. Maybe he was there to help her get past the darkness she’d been living in for so long. She allowed herself to place hope in these thoughts for a few brief moments.
Becca closed her eyes and rubbed them with the knuckles of her index fingers. I’m losing it! What was she thinking? The long day and the storm had addled her brain. She tapped off her touch lamp and snuggled back into her covers before drifting to sleep as an unfamiliar tune slowly crept into her wandering mind. The music was accompanied by images of an angel disguised as a biker.
Becca stirred the next morning as the biker’s voice caressed her ear. She smiled to herself as her eyes slowly opened. Her heart skipped a beat and her lids flew open. The voice had sounded so real. She lay still, thinking about the dream whisper—that strange phenomenon where bits and pieces of dreams seemed to come through into the real world as she woke. Sometimes she heard things, and she’d even seen things from her dreams for a split second before she woke up fully.
Chris’ cursing drew Becca’s thoughts from her dreams. She knew something had to be wrong—he hardly ever used bad language. When Becca sat up to get out of bed, she knew immediately what the problem w
as. Her room was as cold as a deep freeze! She looked over to her clock. Its face was dark. She noticed now, too, the lack of humming and buzzing noises that usually accompanied the various electronics throughout the house. No humming of the fridge, no whirring of the furnace. It was as cold and quiet as a tomb.
Running to her closet, Becca pulled her fluffy slippers and bath robe onto her chilled body. They weren’t quite enough, so she yanked her comforter off the bed and wrapped that around herself like a cocoon. She shuffled to her window and looked out at the white scene. The wind had died, but heavy, wet snow continued to fall, pulling on power lines and snapping brittle, over-weighed tree limbs. If it wasn’t so destructive, it would’ve been beautiful.
Becca waddled like a penguin to her door and walked into the hallway. Chris met her at his bedroom door, adorned in his own make-shift cocoon. He’d added a beanie to the top of his head, his blond morning hair sticking out from under it like tufts of straw. His deep blue eyes rested on Becca. “Beautiful morning!” he said and gave her a cheesy smile. At least he was in a decent mood, in spite of the earlier language.
“Just peachy,” Becca replied dryly, her breath forming a small cloud as she spoke. How was she supposed to shower or go to the bathroom?
“I need to get the generator going so we can have some heat,” Chris said.
Becca gave him a quizzical look. “We have a generator?”
Chris waddled down the hall and toward the front door. Quicker than Superman, he threw off his comforter and donned a pair of snow pants, coat, gloves, and boots. “Of course we have a generator. We’ve always had a generator.”
“But that was at the old house. I guess I didn’t know we brought it here,” Becca replied.
“Becca, we went through this last winter. I brought the generator over from the old house when we moved in here.” He gave her an ornery smirk. “Aren’t you glad you have me for a brother? What would you ever do without me?”
Becca rolled her eyes, but couldn’t keep the smile from tugging at her lips. Her brother really had taken good care of her—even though she was certain he’d never mentioned the generator before today. He’d given up everything to move back to Glenville and be with her until she finished high school. Becca gave him an awkward hug through all their puffy attire. “I’d die a slow and lonely death without you.”
“Got that right!” Chris teased before he pulled away from her and opened the front door. “Wow. I don’t think I’ve seen a storm this bad since I was little. Kinda pretty though, isn’t it?”
Chris and Becca stood in the doorway and gazed up at the falling flakes. They were fat and lazy. There were millions and millions of them. Becca was once again amazed at what God could do; all those flakes and not a single one identical to the other. How was that even possible? She shook her head and then turned toward the kitchen. “I’m going to make some hot chocolate,” she said over her shoulder. Thank goodness for gas stoves—she could start heating water without waiting for the generator to be running.
“K. I’ll be back in a minute,” Chris replied and then shut the door.
Later, after the generator was up and running, Becca and Chris worked together to make breakfast. Chris’ clear tenor voice rang out to the tune playing on the radio as he flipped an enormous pancake that filled a large skillet. Becca loved his UFO pancakes, as they’d dubbed them. Their dad had started the tradition years ago, and Chris made a point of keeping it up. It made Becca feel like things were sort of normal. She gave her brother a warm look as she switched the burner under the bacon pan to ‘off’.
As they sat at the table, the radio announced that most of the roads around their area were closed. Emergency travel only. Chris shook his head. “Good thing it’s Saturday. Most people won’t need to go anywhere anyway. The temp’s just right to make the snow melt on the road, then freeze it.”
Becca nodded. She was glad it was Saturday, too. And she was even happier she’d gotten home before the storm had gotten this bad. She desperately hoped the biker wouldn’t take her up on her offer to go to lunch.
Later, when lunch had come and gone without the dreaded phone call, Becca decided to walk the one block down to her best friend’s house. After telling Chris where she was going, she bundled up and ventured out.
Their modest town had been transformed into a beautiful fairyland. The snow had slowed, and the sun was struggling to break free of the clouds, giving just enough light to cause sparkles to dance off of every tree, fence, and flake on the ground. Becca plowed through the snow a few minutes, enjoying the soft feel of it against her boots. The temperature was rising, she could feel it. She stopped and tilted her head back. The flakes materialized out of the white sky and tickled her nose, cheeks, and lips and stuck to her eyelashes. Tears stung the backs of her eyes. Kisses from Mom and Dad.
Everything was quiet; the snow had muffled the sounds of the world, hugging it in a white blanket of peace.
Something cold and wet suddenly pelted Becca’s right cheek, startling her out of her reverie.