Vanja grinned and sipped the cold water, grateful for the snowflakes consideration. The running had made her a bit thirsty.
She squealed and jumped into a pile of snow, back first, and enjoyed its closeness. It was as if the snow gave her a hug. She laid there with a big smile on her face, watching the breaths she made drift away before getting up and brushed off the snow from her red overall and corrected her matching beanie. Vanja turned her attention towards a boy who had been watching her the whole time, sitting under a snow-covered fir tree The boy wore the same colour as the sky, a blue overall with an equivalent blue cap, only revealing a pale face with sapphire eyes and rosy cheeks.
“Come Manu, help me build a snowman!” said Vanja and waved to the boy. He shook his head, or maybe he was shivering due to the cold. It was hard for Vanja to know.
“How can you stand this?” complained Manu. “How can you like this more than hot cocoa and marshmallows?”
“It’s so beautiful!” said Vanja. “Look at all this white snow, waiting to be shaped into something wonderful. We should help it change!”
The boy sighed and kicked the snow. “Maybe it doesn’t want to change?”
“Of course it wants,” said Vanja and pointed at her marks in the snow. “Look, it follows my form. If the snow didn’t want to change it wouldn’t be so quick to turn into something else.”
Vanja piled snow on top of each other and rolled them into balls. Manu pouted in the background, his hands hugging himself as protection against the cold. He leaned against the tree but jolted away as if he got burned on a hot stove. His brows furrowed. The coal-dark tree bark flashed a shade of fiery yellow. Manu blinked and threw a glance at Vanja who was immersed in transforming the snow. He touched the trunk and his lips curved upwards.
The smell of burning wood made Vanja stop in the middle of piling two balls on top of each other. She turned around and saw Manu next to a burning tree, crackling and popping with vigour. The boy had his hands close to the bonfire, his eyes closed and a satisfied smile on his face.
“What did you do?”
“I found a fire spirit floating around,” said Manu, his voice relaxed and cheerful. “So I urged it to set the tree on fire since it’s so cold.”
“But the tree was wet from the snow. It must’ve been tiring for the poor spirit,” said Vanja, frowning.
“It’s fine. Look, I’ll show you.”
Manu snapped his fingers and rubbed the hands against each other. Small threads of smoke started to ooze out. A small pop was heard and then his hand encased a fiery elemental. The flame moved in heaving sighs, like a person out of breath.
“See, look how tired it is!” said Vanja.
“It will get better,” muttered Manu, looking down at his feet.
Vanja pulled out a mitten from one of her pockets and dropped it inside the fire. But the flames didn’t attach itself to the fabric. The crackles that usually was heard from a fire were muffled.
“I don’t think wool is the best thing to feed a fire,” said Manu.
“But I don’t have anything else on me,” said Vanja as she picked up the singed mitten and threw it in the snow. “Do you?”
The boy shrugged. “I’m not stupid enough to destroy my clothes for it.”
Vanja’s eyes narrowed and said with a stern voice: “Manu, you asked the spirit for a favour. It’s only polite to return something. Empty your pockets.”
Manu grumbled as he lowered the fire spirit onto Vanja’s hands and rummaged around his overall-pockets, revealing some chocolate and a pack of tissue.
“You have paper and you didn’t say anything?” said Vanja, her voice shifted higher both in volume and pitch.
“They are for my runny nose,” said Manu in a low mumble. He knuckled up the tissues and dropped them in the fire. The papers wrinkled like black worms and disappeared inside the belly of the flame. The fire grew in size, almost covering Vanja’s palms.
“There you go Pienet Neljä,” said Vanja with a softer and sweeter voice, the same she would use when talking to an adorable puppy. “Feeling better?”
The flame wiggled its core and waved its fiery tips. A drawn-out crackle came from the fire and reminded Vanja of when the neighbour’s cat purred.
“Let’s go home,” said Vanja, her eyes never leaving the flame. “Let me introduce you to our fireplace.”
The boy picked up Vanja’s discarded glove and glanced towards the burning tree. He took a deep breath and exhaled. A cool wind escaped from his mouth and extinguished the fire, leaving half-burned wood and trails of smoke hissing up into the skies.
“Vanja, wait for me!” Manu shouted as he ran to catch up with the tiny girl who held a dancing flame in her hands.
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