I still haven't opened my eyes. Chill bites my skin. Cold wind numbs the tips of my ears and fingers. Fay and I have visited so many worlds, so many places filled with both splendor and ruin. But in every world we have visited, we have always been sheltered from whatever physical discomforts might have otherwise tainted our destinations. The Spider Queen of Arahn-Nep did not devour us though we witnessed her fangs descend upon her children. Nor did we float upward through the emerald skies of At-Leigh. Whatever magic works the snow globe has always sheltered us from discomfort and harm.
But here, my teeth chatter. My body shakes as I feel the wind pass through my marrow.
“Are we somehow stuck in the journey, Fay? Has the snow globe broken?”
“Open your eyes,” Fay sighs. “The snow globe has not broken. We have arrived where it intended to send us. I am sorry for the cold.”
I slowly open my eyes, praying to the many gods we have come upon during our travels to be blessed with a little warmth. Snow crowds my vision, blinding white beneath an oversized, white sun. The strange sky's brightness screams pain behind my left eye. Snow blankets the ground. Snow swirls through the air. Snow clings to the thin, ice-encrusted, skeletal trees. My lips crack. My eyes water. Every breath hurts my lungs with cold.
“Oh, please forgive my magic, Adam. My kind too easily forgets how your blood suffers elements we hardly feel.”
I shiver as Fay steps out of her wardrobe. I shake and straighten my arms as Fay forces her camouflaged sweater over me. She steps out of her skirt before tearing the fabric so that she might wrap both of my hands in the skirt's remains.
“I must look ridiculous in this set-up.” I smile and my lips crack further in the cold.
Fay snorts. “Why didn't you ever tell me I looked half as silly as you do in that outfit?”
I stammer. “Because I've never had the confidence to comment on a woman's attire.”
“How else is a woman supposed to know?”
Natural elements, no matter how hot or cold, have no impact upon Fay. Having shed all her garments to supplement my warmth, Fay stands naked in the swirling snow. The curves of her hips, the bend in her lower back, the way her silver hair falls upon her breasts provide more heat than any of the garments she tossed upon me. Perhaps I am naive and timid to think that my gaze might offend Fay, for I've never seen her halos pulsate with such intensity and color. I smile. The cold hurts, but I would suffer such chill to be given such a vision of Fay.
Fay smiles back at me. “Do you think you'll be alright now in the cold?”
“Your magic never ceases to thrill me, Fay.”
Fay scans her surroundings. “You'll have to accompany on many, many trips more before you start having any sense of the depth of my charms.”
I flinch and look deep into the swirling snow. “Where do you think the shard is?”
Fay regards the snow. “Somewhere close. The globe is pulled towards it. Can't you feel it?”
Some of my old suspicions towards the Regent rise. “He didn't make it easy for us. All this snow makes it impossible to see. It's gonna be hard to keep track of where we've been with all this white around us.”
Fay winks. “He's only been careful, Adam. He's chosen a safe place for the shard. All the snow protects it from eyes less honorable than ours. The snow hides any reflection the shard might sparkle. He knows how intimate all those pieces are to me, and so he places them where they'll be safe.”
I can't feel my toes. Arguing with Fay will only lengthen my suffering. “Any idea where we should start?”
“I thought mankind was more motivated,” Fay squints at me. “We just have to start digging.”
I count to ten. Fay can frustrate me as much as she thrills me. We have no way of guessing the depth of the snow beneath my inadequate house slippers. I don't want to imagine how far the snow stretches in every direction.
But Fay's optimism is bottomless. Her halos shine as she starts digging in the snow with her slender fingers. I wrap the pieces of Fay's skirt around my hands as tightly as possible and join in the search. She gasps numerous times as she pulls her hands from the snow, certain she felt that elusive shard before realizing she held some piece of twig or rock.
My exposed toes hurt. They burn. And then, they go numb. My slippers have fallen from my feet, and the quickly falling snow covers my tracks so that I can't decide where to search for them. Worse still, those covered tracks fail to tell me where I might have already searched for another glass shard that obsesses Fay. I might be covering the same ground time and again.
My efforts are mechanical. The cold continues to spread through me so that I tremble. I feel discomfort and hurt for the first time in my travels with Fay. I am not afraid of my mortality. I have struggled against the ailment of my tumor for too long to believe more years span ahead of me than behind. I am familiar with my fragility. I still sadden. The snow globes have always provided me with a respite, with peace. Until this cold, those snow globes had always given me sanctuary from the hurt that otherwise stains my days.
Fay shakes me. Her hands feel warm against my shoulders.
“Your halos are brighter than I've ever see them, Fay.”
Fay rubs my arms. “I'm sorry I don't have more warmth to give you. You are so cold.”
“I wouldn't complain after all the worlds you've shown me.”
Fay's lip trembles. My heart skips to think that Fay worries for me.
“I will warm.”
“You're bleeding, Adam.”
Fay points to the red trail of footsteps I have twisted in the snow behind me. The red mocks my searching efforts by only emphasizing all the snow surrounding the stain.
“I don't remember feeling anything. I'm too cold.”
I raise a foot out of the snow and hold my breath. A shard of glass sparkles as my heel brings it in the large, white sun's light.
I don't flinch when Fay pulls the shard out of my foot. Her halos are now nearly blinding. She has never looked so beautiful as she does standing naked in the snow with her silver flowing hair, with motes of pearl glistening within her circling halos of gold, clutching that piece of glass close to her breast. The cold is such a minor cost for such a view.
“You found it!”
“Beginner's luck, Fay!”
Fay embraces me. “You're my charm, Adam. I knew you would find it. You're my divining rod.”
“I'm a lucky man.”
I only close my eyes for a second to revel in my happiness. When I open my eyes, I no longer stand in the middle of the snow globe's swirling cold. I no longer hold Fay. Her warmth no longer presses against me. I find myself returned to my apartment's bed of blankets. My feet throb. I peek beneath my covers at them, and my heart rises to my throat to see how black frostbite has turned my toes.
Pain magnifies as the warmth chases away my chill. I struggle to crawl into the bathroom, where the pain screaming behind me left eye forces me to vomit.
I summon an ambulance with shaking fingers. I know what the doctors will find before I arrive at the hospital. I thought I caught a glimpse of Fay that night peeking at my sick bed from the hospital hallway.
I don't care if my trip with Fay summoned the pain. I don't care if Fay realizes that I must suffer in order to experience her magic. The frostbite is nothing. I don't care if the tumor has returned. I would stand in any cold to share another embrace with Fay.