"Snow Dancer" - Flash Fiction Story for "Behind the Curtain" #behindthecurtain

                                                Source: faveprettythings.blogspot.com via Anna on Pinterest

Anna Meade from Yearning for Wonderland is at it again with yet another flash fiction contest. This one is called "Behind the Curtain" and has a Behind the Curtain Pinterest board for inspiration. The catch is that the entry deadline for the story is TONIGHT! And I only just heard about the story. The story can have as many as 400 words. Our stories were meant to have a darker edge to them this time around, but I have never been very good at writing dark stories. Here is my entry:

Snow Dancer

She appeared again. Every time I glimpsed her, she was dancing. She only danced in the snow. It was as if the sparkling, crystalline snowflakes drew her out into the cold, crisp air, beckoning her to move within it. And each time I caught a glimpse of her through my window, the dance’s magnetism grabbed me and pulled me nearer. My breath frosted the window as I watched her, but I couldn’t look away. I’d even tuck my long hair behind my ears, so that it wouldn’t get in the way of watching her.

I don’t know what it was about her dancing that called to me. Maybe it was her freedom. She twirled and leapt with elegance and energy, but she also moved with abandon, as if she didn’t care who watched; she danced for herself, for the sheer joy of dancing. I longed to feel that sense of freedom, of abandon.

Every time I watched her, it was the same; I’d feel a gentle burn inside, a sudden need to go out there and dance too. What magic was this? What spell tugged at my soul so strongly every time I witnessed the dancing?

I was not brave enough to go out there and pirouette through the snowflakes with her. I worried about who would see me. I worried that I would not be graceful or elegant, that I wouldn’t have her grace or her beauty. It would be better for me if I could stop watching her, just ignore the call of her dance.

Yet I watched. Every time she appeared, I gazed out that window and felt the pull, the need to ignore my fears and just dance.

I had never glimpsed her face, as her movements were so that her copper-colored hair that was so like mine always shielded her face. Today was different. She started dancing just before the sky began darkening in that in-between time of twilight and continued her graceful movements as daylight faded. And as the moonlight filled the night sky, its light making the snow glisten as if it held a thousand stars, she stopped to face me and smiled, joy lighting her face.

And just before she faded out of sight in a swirl of the magic I had never allowed myself to believe in, I saw my own face out there, looking back at me.

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