A Winter Vanishland

“Elizabeth, come on! We have to go now if we don’t want to miss out on those sales!” My mom yelled as she started heading out the front door.

“Mom, how many times do I have to tell you? I like being called Lizzy!” I said as I walked down the stairs and headed towards the door.

“Right. Sorry, Lizzy,” she apologized. We headed out the door and to the mall to do some winter clothes shopping. This was one of my favorite things to do. It combined two of my favorite things- winter and shopping!

The drive to the mall went by incredibly fast, even though it’s at least fifty miles away, and we stopped by Starbucks on our way into the mall to get some hot chocolate. Once we got there, we headed separate ways, as we usually do, to cover more ground in less time. I’ll admit, it is kind of stupid for my mom to leave me, a fifteen year old girl, alone for hours in a huge mall. But, this is just how we roll and it works perfectly fine!

After about an hour of shopping, my phone vibrated in my pocket and I picked it up to see a text from my mom. It read, “Hi sweetie! How’s your shopping going? I was thinking we could meet up at the food court to get some lunch. How does that sound?” I quickly answered back saying, “Hi mom! It’s going good. Lunch sounds like a great idea, I’m starving!” I finished up at the store I was in and headed for the food court. It was on a different level than I was on so I used the elevator to help me get there. But when the elevator doors opened, I noticed something was incredibly unusual.

“What the heck happened to the mall?” I think to myself as I step out of the elevator to what appears to be a winter wonderland! I grab my phone to text my mom but, to my astonishment, I had no cell service. I sighed, put my phone away, and started walking towards a faint light I saw about half a mile away.

As I got closer to the light, and what now appeared to be a house, I heard voices and decided to walk toward them to see if they could help me. I soon realized the voices heard weren’t coming from humans, but instead snowmen.

“Um, excuse me? Where am I?” I questioned one of the men of snow.

“Are you joking with me, kid? You’re in Snowville!” He said in a loud, gruff voice.

“Sorry, what’s Snowville?”

“What’s Snowville? What does it look like to you?” He laughed as he turned to his friend and gave a look that said “She has to be messing with us.”

“Sorry, I’m not from here. Do you know a way out of Snowville?” I asked with a confused look on my face.

“Sorry, kid. Once you enter this town, there’s no way out,” he exclaimed with such sorrow.

“What do you mean there’s no way out? I have to get back to my mom!” I gasped. I was really starting to worry now. “There has to be a way out of here. What if I never get back to my mom?” I thought to myself. The snowmen turned away from me, continued their conversation and I got the hint that it was my time to leave. I began walking toward the house again, hoping there would be humans there that could help me.

After what felt like an hour long walk, I arrived at the house. Exhausted, I walked up the porch steps to the door and knocked as I peered inside, just for a second. The door opened and a short, elderly woman appeared before me.

“Oh, dear! You look cold and exhausted, please come in!” she eagerly insisted. As I stepped into her small, quaint home, she wrapped a blanket around my shivering body.

“Thank you so much! I love your house, it’s so homey!” I admired, looking around at her comforting living room.

“Thank you, dear! I’ll get you some hot chocolate and let you get settled in. Now, what brings you here to my neck of the woods?”

“Well, I went into an elevator at the mall to meet up with my mom and it, somehow, took me here instead. As I was walking to your house, I ran into some talking snowmen who told me where I was and that there is no way out of this town. But, that can’t be true, right? There has to be a way back to the mall.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry, but I’m afraid there is no way out of Snowville. I came into this town, the same way you did, about sixty years ago and haven’t figured out a way out yet,” she sighed. We continued chatting about plotting a way out of this snowy hell for around half an hour before I decided to just give up. I realized I would never be able to escape, no matter how hard I tried. The woman, whose name I soon learned was Mabel, invited me to stay with her for as long as I needed, which would probably be forever. As I delightfully accepted her offer, Mabel started beaming and jumping up and down with joy, as she had not shared her life with anyone since her wife passed away forty years ago.

Seven years later, Mabel had slowly passed away, due to her old age, and now I’m living alone. Yes, I’m sad I haven’t seen my mom, or anyone for that matter, in so long with no way to contact her, but I’m content with my simple life. I’ve made friends with the snowmen and snowwomen who live here in Snowville and we have get-togethers every Friday night to catch up on our lives. I spend the rest of my time hoping someone will end up on my doorstep, the same way I did with Mabel, to chat, laugh, and share all of my days to come with.