Nanowrimo Extract 1

I would put this up on the Nanowrimo site, but I think it's on fire at the moment. I already expect to revise this heavily... in December.

White light, the color of innocence, the light of the dawn. White skin not yet darkened by the sun. She ran between the tree trunks, her feet leaving blue pools of shadow cut in the snow, her coat sweeping a wake behind her. She twirled and jumped, sticking out her tongue to catch the glittering dust falling from the branches overhead.

“We can’t stay long. You’ll catch a chill.” The nurse moved at a more sedate pace, picking her way carefully along the path. Her long coat of deep blue drank in the light. The gold threads on the cuffs and collar glowed with it.

The girl made a defiant face and bent to dip her hands, safely encased in mittens, into a smooth hill of white. She began to gather and press, but the air was too cold. Her sculptures collapsed into formless heaps before she could complete them. The nurse smiled indulgence. No harm done yet, and no need to assert her authority. She glanced behind, to the trail of their footsteps leading back to the gate, and the tower rising behind that. Her eyes were drawn inevitably to one certain window.

In the room lit by that window, the nurse knew, lay a woman. The woman was the girl’s mother, and she did not look out over the field to see her daughter play in the winter snow. She had not risen from the bed for many days. She lay there, on her bed, and waited for the black wings to come and take her.

The girl did not know. It was better that she did not know. A child should not be burdened so, not so young. That was the Lady’s will.

The nurse returned to watching her charge, and so she saw the visitor’s carriage emerge from the wood.