It seemed fitting.

Julia wept as the icy air bit at her nose. Snowflakes landed silently on her eyelashes and instantly dissolved with the heat from her shivering body. Freezing, she rubbed her hands together and blew on them. Packed under the frozen snow lay her knitted red mittens. Frantically, she tried to remove the snow from her fur boots that now had soaked through her woolen socks and stuck to the sides of her tiny feet. Julia sat shaking as tears freely flowed from her bloodshot eyes. She looked around herself. Trees were buried beneath the tightly packed snow. The area where she had always gone sledding now became frightening and barren. Where joyous cries had once rang in the cliffs, now was deathly silent.

She had been late to start heading home. All of her friends had scattered as the night arose in the sky. Julia had gotten tired easily after spending the whole day running up and down the mountainside. When everyone left, she wandered aimlessly breathing in the crisp air. Just when she had decided to finally start home, clouds of snow erupted around her with fury. She was engulfed with the debris from the brush and carried down to the base of Mt. Connia. Then it stopped. The mountain stopped moving; her cries of frustration and fear had ceased. Even the wind that had swept through the trees that had once proudly stood no longer blew. Julia slowly coughed her way out of the snow that had seized her.

The night grew darker. Specks of gold sparkled and shimmered in the sky. Wisps of shadowed clouds hung like a veil over the moon. Barely visible, it darted in and out of the shadows. Then it disappeared altogether. An eerie silence hushed the land. As the moon came back into view, a golden glow lay upon Julia. She gasped as she gazed into the sky. Brilliant colors of blues and greens gleamed, dancing. Swirling around, they played in the night. The darkness seemed to glow, radiantly lighting up the world. There in the center of it all lay an angel. Her outstretched arms pointed towards Julia’s left, away from Mt. Connia.

Julia sat there, completely mesmerized by the intensity of what she had just encountered. Dazed, she got up and tried to warm her numb fingers. She began to feel a prickling sensation succumb her entire hand. Julia shook it gently a couple of times to relieve the pins and needles feeling that was now running up and down her arms. Julia turned to face left. She sighed and stood there for a moment. Collecting herself, she took a deep breath. When she finally felt ready enough to struggle through the fallen tree limbs and attempt to move in the direction she felt she would find her village, she exhaled, and took a step towards survival.

Julia winced as she put all of her weight on her right foot. However, she trudged on through the snow and collapsed trees, slowly making her way through the rubble. Her small footprints quickly blended with the surrounding snow piles as flake after flake converged with the snow that had already frozen to the ground. A very tiny light glimmered in the distance. As though an answer to her cries, she heard voices.

Making her way through the trees she felt lifted, as though she was being carried by her own will to live. Her spirit bubbled inside her as she continued to move throughout the woods. Julia broke into a run as she sprang towards the torch flickering in the distance. When she had made it to the house, she ripped open the door and jumped into her mother’s arms, crying. She wiped away her tears as she told them exactly what had happened. Over and over she told each of her parents how sorry she was for staying out late, but that did not matter anymore.

The story of how Julia survived rapidly spread throughout the whole town. Soon everyone knew what had happened. The next day, Julia’s two best friends ran up to her and hugged her until she could no longer breathe. They told her how sorry they were that they had not waited for Julia that day. Julia just shrugged and repeatedly told them that she was fine. Julia tried to tell her classes about the colors that she had seen, but somehow she could not seem to explain it to anyone. Later that day, John Charlton, a teacher of hers, asked Julia to try and describe what she had seen, and suddenly she knew. To him, she could simply reply, “It was an angel in the sky.”