Snowflakes hit her face and she licked those off that she could catch with her tongue. Then she grabbed a handful of snow and put it in her mouth. It felt cold and didn't taste of anything, but she did it anyway. Eating snow was just something she had to do.
Emma got up again and stared in direction of the forest behind the hedge. She walked closer to an opening leading to the trail that went into the forest. She looked out at the opening in the hedge that always appeared during wintertime when the leaves fell off the hedge and left nothing but thin branches or trees sticking up from the ground. It was easy for a child to push herself through at this time of year. She turned and looked back at the house to see if her mother was watching from a window. Emma didn't see her. Behind the hedge was a big area before the forest began, in the summertime it was a small field of grass, in the winter it formed the perfect place to make a dozen more snow angels. She could make an entire army of angels out there, she thought with delight. She looked at the house once again to see if she could spot her mother in one of the windows, but saw nothing. Then she turned and looked at the perfect area, completely untouched. Not a footprint in it yet.
She thought about for a second or two, then shrugged and pushed herself through the hedge. Once through with only one scratch in her snowsuit from a branch, Emma sprang for the untouched area and threw herself on her back beginning the magnificent practice of creating heavenly creatures on the ground. Emma laughed and squealed with glee as she formed her army. Once it was done, Emma got on her legs and studied her work. It was glorious. Each one was perfectly shaped, Emma thought to herself. If only she could have shown them to her dad. He would have seen the beauty in them. Emma smiled, thinking she would have to drag him out here once he got home tonight. But it would probably be dark by that time. Well they would just have to bring a flashlight; Emma thought and looked up at the snowy sky. The flakes danced in front of her face and she enjoyed the spectacle for a little while wondering if the snow would cover her army of angels before her dad came home. When she lowered her head again to look at the angels, she noticed a small snowball rolling towards her in the snow. It stopped right in front of her feet. Emma smiled and bent down to look at it. It was so perfectly shaped, she thought. Maybe the most beautiful snowball she had ever seen. Where had it come from? she wondered. She looked in the direction of the forest where the snowball had rolled from. There was no one there. There were no footprints in the snow, and no people in sight. Had someone thrown it from the forest? Was someone out here with her in this wonderful weather? Emma took a few steps towards the forest, looking curiously between the trees. Could it be a friend? A friend she could play with?
She took another step and felt a presence. She turned her and stared directly into the face of a small snowman. Emma smiled and tilted her head slightly to better look at it. It had a yellow scarf around its neck, a black hat on his head, two buttons for eyes and a carrot for nose. Its mouth was a piece of black string.
"Now look at you," Emma chirped walking around it. "You're chubby just like me!"
Emma laughed and danced around it while singing the nursery rhyme Ms. Madsen in her kindergarten-class had taught her while gesticulating like they had done back then:
A chubby little snowman
Had a carrot nose
Along came a bunny
And what do you suppose?
That hungry little bunny
Looking for his lunch
Ate that snowman's carrot nose
Nibble, nibble, crunch!
Emma laughed and pretended to take off the snowman's nose and eat it. It seemed to her that the snowman was smiling now. Maybe he liked the song? Emma sang it again while dancing around the snowman, not wondering where it had come from, not noticing that it had begun moving the sticks that were the arms and hands. Emma closed her eyes while dancing and singing, making up her own words for the song.
"Little chubby snowman, I wish I wish, I wish you were alive. I wish you could rescue me from my mother. Little chubby snowman I wish I could play with you all day long. Lalalala."
"Emma?" Her mother’s voice cut through the frosty air. She stopped singing and looked at her new friend. "That's the evil witch," she whispered.
"Emma! Where are you? You need to come in now!" Her mother yelled with that choleric voice that Emma hated so much.
"I better go now," she whispered to the snowman, blew him a kiss before she ran towards the house.
4
"WHERE WERE YOU?" Agnete asked as she opened the door and let Emma inside of the house.
"Stay on the mat. I don't want all that snow inside the house," she said and found a towel. She put it on the floor for Emma to stand on while she took off the snowsuit. Agnete then found another towel and dried Emma's hair. How on earth Emma managed to get so wet just from playing outside in the snow, she didn't understand.
Agnete exhaled, then took the wet snowsuit and carried it down in the basement. When she got back up, Emma had stepped onto the floor and was leaving dirty marks with her winter boots.
"For Christ sake, Emma," Agnete said tiredly. "I told you to stand still."
"Sorry Mom," Emma said with her head bowed.
Agnete smiled. "It's okay, Emma. Just be careful, okay?"
Emma lifted her head and looked into Agnete's eyes.
"Did you have fun out there?" she asked.
"Yes, I did Mommy. I made lots of angels; I threw snowballs and ate snow. And uh ... uh ... I met a snowman."
"A snowman, huh?" Agnete asked. "Where did you see him?"
"Outside, on the other side of the hedge ..." Emma stopped herself.
Agnete looked at her disapprovingly. Then she sighed. "Did you go outside of the yard?"
Emma bowed her head again.
"You know I don't want you to go out there alone."
"I know. I'm sorry Mom. I stayed close to the house, though. I really wanted to make more snow angels and there was a perfect spot on the other side of the hedge."
"A snowman, huh? Who made him?" Agnete asked, knowing her daughter wouldn't be able to make one all by herself.
Emma shrugged. "I don't know."
Agnete looked at her. Then she walked into the kitchen and stared out into the yard. There, on the small hill behind the hedge was a snowman alright. It was facing the house like it was looking at them, it felt almost like it was looking at her.
"Well someone must have made it," she said and dried her fingers in the towel. "Snowmen don't just appear out of nowhere." Agnete stared at the snowman in the distance while wondering. It hadn't been snowing more than an hour and she hadn't seen anyone out there all day. Who had made a snowman this quick?
Agnete shook her head. There was no time for all this right now. She was in a hurry. The food was about to arrive and shortly after the guests were going to be here as well. She turned and looked at Emma. Her hair was wet and unruly, her cheeks red from the cold, she even had a little snot running from her nose.
"We need to clean you up," Agnete said and pushed Emma up the stairs. "Wash your face and put on a nice dress. And for the love of God, try and tame those unruly curls!" she yelled after her.
The guests were right on time despite the harsh conditions for driving. At exactly one p.m. they all arrived in their big cars and fur coats. Agnete greeted them by the door and showed them inside. She hadn't seen Emma since she rushed her upstairs to clean herself up, but figured that she would be down as soon as she was done. As long as she looked decent Agnete didn't care how long it took. She just hoped Emma didn't leave a mess in the bathroom.
"Agnete! Dearest!" exclaimed Frederikke Lyngholm as she approached Agnete. She wore a full-length mink coat and high-heeled leather boots. In her hand she held a basket with flowers and champagne.
"Darling," Agnete said and they pretended kiss each other on the cheeks but in reality just kissed into open air.
Meanwhile more of her old friends drove up the gravel driveway and stepped out of their highly ex
pensive cars. Last to arrive was Irene Gyldenfeldt, Agnete's biggest rival. Irene Gyldenfeldt parked her Mercedes and got out of the car. She too was wearing a long fur coat and high-heeled shoes.
"Oh great. She brought the puppy," Agnete mumbled as Irene came closer, the little white dog under her arm.
"Agnete, darling!" she exclaimed as she approached and they air-kissed. "You look stunning. With a child and career and everything, I don't know how you do it. See I'm more of a simple liver. It's just me and Von Herbert here." She patted the dog on the head. Then she looked at Agnete with a huge smile looking even better than last year. Botox and plastic-surgery, Agnete thought as she greeted the dog.
"Say hello to the nice lady, Von Herbert," Irene said to the dog, but it hardly reacted. "Can Mommy's boy say hellooo?"
The dog replied by licking Irene Gyldenfeldt’s face. "There's my boy," she whined with delight. Then she looked at Agnete. "Well you can't expect a prizewinning purebred to mingle with the common people now can we?"
Agnete laughed aristocratically while showing Irene inside the house. Irene was born to a noble family and felt superior to the rest of the group. It annoyed Agnete immensely and always made her want to show off even more when they met. It had from time to time caused her to tell a lie or five about her own life, but how would Irene ever know?
"Oh it's that kind of a house," Irene said now as she entered. Then she turned and looked at Agnete. "I thought it would be much bigger. But what do you know. At least it’s nice and cozy, am I right?"
Irene Gyldenfeldt turned her head and looked at Agnete. Just as Agnete thought it couldn't get any worse, it happened. Emma walked down the stairs wearing a dress she had outgrown several pounds ago. Her hairbrush was stuck on top of her head and her hair messier than ever.
"Help, Mom," she said and looked at Agnete.
"Now who do we have here?" cackled Irene Gyldenfeldt and looked at Emma. Agnete closed her eyes.
"Just go upstairs sweetheart and I'll come up and help you," she said through gritted teeth.
"Is this Emma?" Irene Gyldenfeldt asked in a high pitched voice.
Agnete exhaled. "Yes that's my Emma," she said and pulled the brush out of Emma's hair, while Emma whined in pain.
"Isn't she adorable?" Irene Gyldenfeldt said and pinched Emma's cheek. "You could just eat her."
"She is and you could," Agnete said and signaled Emma to go upstairs.
"You know what?" Irene Gyldenfeldt said addressing Emma. "I have an idea. Von Herbert here has been cooped up an awful long time and would love to get a little exercise. Maybe you could take him out in your backyard?"
Emma's face lit up. She had wanted a dog for what seemed like forever.
"Can I, Mom?" she asked, jumping up and down, hardly able to restrain herself.
"I think that's a wonderful idea," Agnete said thinking it would give her more time to talk to her old friends.
"Can I show him to my new friend, the snowman?" Emma asked.
"Of course, sweetheart," Agnete said thinking it would be okay as long as she stayed close to the house.
Irene gave Von Herbert to Emma and gave her the leash in her hand.
"Keep an eye on him all the time," she said to Emma. "Never take him off the leash, can you promise me that?"
Emma smiled widely. "I promise. I promise," she said with great joy.
Agnete retrieved the snowsuit from the basement and helped her get back inside of it.
Then Agnete opened the door and kissed Emma on the forehead as she jumped outside, leash in her hand and the dog after her.
5
EMMA DIDN'T WASTE another minute. She ran as fast as she could towards the hedge dragging the small white dog behind her. She pushed herself through the hedge and pulled the dog with her. It whined slightly from being scratched by the branches but soon appeared on the other side. Emma glanced in direction of the forest and spotted the snowman.
"Come on Von Herbert, I have someone I want you to meet."
The dog didn't make a sound but seemed to shiver in the cold as Emma pulled the leash once again and dragged the dog towards her new friend. She waved and called out to him.
"Here I am again, chubby little snowman. I brought someone with me this time." She pulled the dog closer. "This is Von Herbert," she said and looked down at the small white dog that was no bigger than the big rat Emma once had seen in the stables behind her friend Sara's house where she had gone one day to see her new horse. Come to think of it, it kind of reminded her of the rat, only it was white of course.
The dog sniffed the snowman, growled at it, and backed away while baring his teeth. Emma shook her head. "Stupid dog," she said. "It's nothing but a snowman. I'm just pretending it's alive."
What happened next was strange even for a very imaginative child like Emma who constantly lived in her daydreams of giants and dragons and who believed she was in fact a fairy princess and her real mother and father could come any day now and claim her from the evil witch who called herself her mother.
The dog sniffed the snowman once again, then turned and lifted his leg and peed on it.
"Don't do that, Von Herbert," Emma exclaimed and tried to pull it away from the snowman whose bottom was now turning yellow. That was when she realized the snowman was actually wearing shoes. Shiny black leather shoes that the dog was now wetting with its pee.
The snowman suddenly moved its stick-arms and while Emma watched with wide eyes, it bent over, picked up the dog, opened its mouth hugely and swallowed it.
Still with the leash in her hand Emma stared at the snowman. Her body shivered.
" ... Von .... Herbert?" she stuttered.
The snowman's mouth was moving and she could hear something. Oh dear God, dear Jesus, she thought. It sounded, it sounded like teeth, like teeth chewing, crushing the poor dog's bones.
Emma took a step backwards. The leash was still connected to the chewing snowman's mouth, but soon it was cut off and now Emma stood with an empty leash in her hand.
Whimpering she turned around and ran for the house.
"Mom! Mom!" she yelled as she sprang for the door and opened it. Quickly she closed it behind her and locked it. She was gasping for air while still trying to call for her mother. "Mooom!!"
Since her mother never reacted Emma walked across the floor, through the kitchen with her wet dirty boots, dripping on the floor, leaving black marks all over, still holding the chewed off leash in her hand.
In the kitchen she stopped and looked out through the sliding glass doors leading to the yard. She gasped once again when she spotted the snowman thinking about poor Von Herbert. It hadn't moved since she had left it, she was relieved to realize since she was afraid it would run after her and swallow all of them like it had swallowed the dog.
"Mom?" she called again.
She found her in the formal dining room with the guests. They had finished the first course and were getting ready for the next one. Her mother was already slightly tipsy from the champagne they had before the dinner started and the white wine she inhaled during the meal she hardly touched. Emma could tell she was getting drunk by the look in her eyes, a look she had seen so many times before. Especially on days when Daddy didn't come home. It happened sometimes that he would stay away for several nights in a row. That was when Emma knew her mother would get that look in her eyes for sure. Emma didn't mind too much. It just meant her mother would be quieter and not notice Emma as much and then she would fall asleep on the couch, sometimes while crying.
"Mom?"
Her mother closed her eyes and bit her lip. She looked at Emma and at her feet and the dirt she dragged in. Emma fought back her tears.
"Yes, Emma?" her mother said, restraining herself from yelling at her. "What is it, Emma?"
"It's ... It was ..." Emma tried to say.
"Where is Von Herbert?" Irene Gyldenfeldt asked. She got up with an anxious look and glanced around the place where Emma stood. "Where are you boy?" She whistled. "Here lil'
Herbert, here little boy."
"Emma?" her mother said with an anxious voice. "Emma where is Ms. Gyldenfeldt's dog? Is it not with you?"
Emma shook her head, whimpering.
Her mother got on her feet. "Emma! Answer me Goddammit. Where is the dog?"
"I ... It ... It was ..."
Her mother approached her with angry steps. "Emma Hermansen. Tell me right now where that dog is!"
"But ... But ..."
"Where is the dog?!" her mother yelled. She stood in front of Emma, steaming with anger.
Emma swallowed hard, before she spoke with shivering voice. "The ... the snowman ... the snowman ate it."
A burning sensation was planted in her face as her mother slapped her across the cheek. Emma felt the tears piling up.
"Emma Hermansen. You tell me the truth now, you hear me? Where is the dog?"
Emma lifted the leash and showed the ladies where it had been bitten off. They all gasped.
"What happened to it?" Her mother repeated. "Did you let go of it? No more lies. You tell me the truth young lady!"
"I was telling the truth. The dog peed on the snowman's feet and then it ate him."