Drabble: First Lacre of the Winter

Young Annabelle Wynn, standing at the window of her parents' Small Study, watches the blizzard’s rage.

In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone;
Snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow,

Still facing the window she says, smiling, “Lotte, you shan’t be able to make it home tonight.”

“Drat!” her friend laughs from the divan, pulled close to the roaring fire.

Annabelle turns to look at her … Lotte drawing in her sketchbook, Lotte with red hair and green eyes illumined by warm flames. She could be my older sister. Thank the goddess she is not!

“You’re smiling Annie, what are you thinking, hmmm?” Lotte asks with her crooked, knowing grin.

Annabelle's eyes never leave Lotte's as she answers, as she steps from window to divan. “I will worship my beloved with a kiss.”

Soon the sketchbook is forgotten.

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With a sigh, Sapho turns into her cold and empty study; turns away from her lacre-kissed window, from the bleak midwinter, long ago.