Read Online The Snow Vampire by Michael G. Cornelius - Free Book Online
Authors: Michael G. Cornelius
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excluded me to hide the precarious financial position the mine, and by extension our family, was in. Now that the business was recovering with generous infusions of Uncle Sandor’s new “investment,” as Hendrik had predicted, my father found plenty for me to do there.
I learned much about my father in my time at the mine, much that made me proud to be his son. I learned of Poppa’s talent for geology, of reading the striations in the rock to find the next vein of raw tin. It was something he had learned from his father, a skill he planned to pass on to me. I learned how desperate the mine always seemed to be, how long it had seemingly teetered on the edge of bankruptcy. But Poppa had somehow managed to keep it all afloat without Alona or me ever feeling the palpable sting of want or need. Most impressively, I learned that my father kept his men on payroll even when they were not digging. At times the soil simply grew too hard or too wet, or the vein would dry up and no work could be done down in the trench. But Poppa was a master of finding a task for idle hands, and no man’s family went hungry because of it.
It was these lessons that Poppa wished to teach me, to become a man of business and important in the community. And I should have been happy to have suddenly become so important in Poppa’s eyes, when he had had but little use for me before. But I found the work of running the mine endlessly stultifying. While I displayed a talent for numbers, I truly had no head for business. Instead my head turned on thoughts of romance and images of Hendrik; anything else was dull by comparison. Still, I did my duty as best I could, though as often as possible I endeavored to find an excuse to leave the mine early. I might say I was running an errand for Mamma or that Grandmamma needed my assistance in some labor. If Poppa noticed my reluctance to follow so adroitly in his footsteps, he didn’t say so, at least not to me. Usually he waved me off with a dismissive hand, poring over plans with the mine’s foreman about where to start digging when the new equipment finally arrived. And off I would go, to reread Hendrik’s latest letter or simply to contemplate what he was doing at any given moment under the welcoming arms of the copper beech tree that loomed and lorded over the small gardens behind our house.
It was late one afternoon, still early on in winter, that I heard a choking sob coming from somewhere upstairs in our home. Upon entering the house I had thought it deserted, and I reveled in the rare solitude. But I soon discovered that I was not alone; Alona was there, hovering on one side of her small bed, the throw that Grandmamma and Mamma had quilted for her last year wrapped around her like an embracing cocoon of blue stitching and familial comfort. I was unaccustomed to seeing my sister this way; Alona was always a happy, bright child, girlish and gleeful. I had not heard her cry like this since Grandfather had died many years prior.
I was wary of approaching her, since there seemed little I could do to assuage her dark spirits, but leaving her alone in this state seemed too cruel, even for a brother. I walked into her room as quietly as I could before sitting on the opposite end of her bed. The sudden movement in her mattress caused her to sit up with a quick start and a small exclamation of “Oh!” Seeing that it was her elder brother who sat uncomfortably near her, she hurried to dry her eyes. I took a small white handkerchief from my pocket and handed it to her wordlessly. Alona had just turned fifteen. She was becoming a woman. She was taller, and her body more ably filled out the blouses she and Mamma sewed from muslin and calico. Unlike me, she favored our father. Her dark hair framed even darker eyes, though they were pretty eyes, a shade of indigo not unusual in the village.
“Ferenc,” she said as she dotted her eyes and wiped her sniveling nose. “I did not hear you come in.”
“Had I known
I learned much about my father in my time at the mine, much that made me proud to be his son. I learned of Poppa’s talent for geology, of reading the striations in the rock to find the next vein of raw tin. It was something he had learned from his father, a skill he planned to pass on to me. I learned how desperate the mine always seemed to be, how long it had seemingly teetered on the edge of bankruptcy. But Poppa had somehow managed to keep it all afloat without Alona or me ever feeling the palpable sting of want or need. Most impressively, I learned that my father kept his men on payroll even when they were not digging. At times the soil simply grew too hard or too wet, or the vein would dry up and no work could be done down in the trench. But Poppa was a master of finding a task for idle hands, and no man’s family went hungry because of it.
It was these lessons that Poppa wished to teach me, to become a man of business and important in the community. And I should have been happy to have suddenly become so important in Poppa’s eyes, when he had had but little use for me before. But I found the work of running the mine endlessly stultifying. While I displayed a talent for numbers, I truly had no head for business. Instead my head turned on thoughts of romance and images of Hendrik; anything else was dull by comparison. Still, I did my duty as best I could, though as often as possible I endeavored to find an excuse to leave the mine early. I might say I was running an errand for Mamma or that Grandmamma needed my assistance in some labor. If Poppa noticed my reluctance to follow so adroitly in his footsteps, he didn’t say so, at least not to me. Usually he waved me off with a dismissive hand, poring over plans with the mine’s foreman about where to start digging when the new equipment finally arrived. And off I would go, to reread Hendrik’s latest letter or simply to contemplate what he was doing at any given moment under the welcoming arms of the copper beech tree that loomed and lorded over the small gardens behind our house.
It was late one afternoon, still early on in winter, that I heard a choking sob coming from somewhere upstairs in our home. Upon entering the house I had thought it deserted, and I reveled in the rare solitude. But I soon discovered that I was not alone; Alona was there, hovering on one side of her small bed, the throw that Grandmamma and Mamma had quilted for her last year wrapped around her like an embracing cocoon of blue stitching and familial comfort. I was unaccustomed to seeing my sister this way; Alona was always a happy, bright child, girlish and gleeful. I had not heard her cry like this since Grandfather had died many years prior.
I was wary of approaching her, since there seemed little I could do to assuage her dark spirits, but leaving her alone in this state seemed too cruel, even for a brother. I walked into her room as quietly as I could before sitting on the opposite end of her bed. The sudden movement in her mattress caused her to sit up with a quick start and a small exclamation of “Oh!” Seeing that it was her elder brother who sat uncomfortably near her, she hurried to dry her eyes. I took a small white handkerchief from my pocket and handed it to her wordlessly. Alona had just turned fifteen. She was becoming a woman. She was taller, and her body more ably filled out the blouses she and Mamma sewed from muslin and calico. Unlike me, she favored our father. Her dark hair framed even darker eyes, though they were pretty eyes, a shade of indigo not unusual in the village.
“Ferenc,” she said as she dotted her eyes and wiped her sniveling nose. “I did not hear you come in.”
“Had I known
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