A Flame in the Snow

A romantic tale inspired by "The Little Match Girl", originally written by Hans Christian Anderson. All players are over the age of eighteen unless otherwise stated. For those of you who have been following me for a while, I hope that you enjoy this romantic tale. Romance is my first love when it comes to writing. Please enjoy. I hope that it gives you hope that we all deserve to be loved. Enjoy.

-BBD

The Players

"Elena": A penniless woman in her early twenties who sells matches on the street to stay alive. She collapses in the snow on New Year's Eve.

"Nikolai": A handsome, wealthy, but lonely inventor who has shut himself off from the world after the loss of his fiancée, Liora.

"Anton": Nikolai's brother and only living relative who disapproves of Elena.

Setting: 19th century Europe, Winter

Chapter 1 -- The Coldest Night

Snow fell in soft, indifferent silence as the city prepared for celebration. Gaslights flickered in golden halos along the cobbled streets, and shop windows glowed with warmth, trimmed with evergreen garlands and the glint of holiday wares. Inside the grand homes, laughter rose like music--muffled by thick walls, unreachable to those on the outside.

Like me.

My bare feet pressed into the icy stones as I clutched a bundle of matches to my chest. My threadbare shawl barely held back the wind, and my fingers--red and cracked--trembled against the cold. I hadn't sold a single match all day.

I was warm once.

I remembered the smell of my mother's coat, the soft heat of the hearth, my father's laugh that rumbled through the floorboards. But they had faded one by one--consumed by sickness, debt, and a city that had no place for the poor except the shadows.

"Matches?" I called out softly, but the crowd bustled past, swept up in the spirit of the new year. A couple brushed my shoulder without a glance, and a boy pointed at me, laughing.

"Look at the beggar lady!" he scoffed.

"Hush that nonsense," his nanny said before leading him away.

Little creep, I thought to myself. Why was it so easy for someone like me to fade into the shadows of life?

The ache in my limbs deepened, and I stumbled into an alley between a bakery and a dress shop. I sank onto a crate dusted in snow, curling in on myself. A lantern high above painted the alley in thin amber light, but it gave no warmth.

I looked down at my matches. I'll just light one. Yes, just one, just to feel something.

With a flick of my thumb, the match flared to life--brief and brilliant. I cupped it with my hands, staring into the tiny flame.

In its light, the alley vanished. I saw a fireplace crackling inside a beautiful parlor. A feast lay on a long table--roasted meats, fruits, sugared pastries, and warm bread. A woman stood there smiling, and for a moment I thought it was my mother reaching out to me.

The flame died.

I blinked, shivering harder now, but my heart ached for the vision. I struck another match.

This time, I saw a ballroom filled with music. Chandeliers sparkled above, and couples twirled across a marble floor. At the edge of the crowd stood a man in a black coat, watching me with piercing eyes. He stepped toward me, extending his hand.

"Elena," he whispered.

I gasped as the match burned my fingers, and I dropped it. The vision vanished again.

"Elena," I repeated aloud. How did he know my name?

The wind howled through the alley as midnight bells began to toll in the distance. The new year was beginning, and I was more alone than ever.

I pulled my knees to my chest and pressed my forehead to them. Just one more, I told myself. Just one more match.

My limbs stopped shaking. My body had gone strangely still.

As my eyes fluttered closed, the warmth of the match lingered--along with the memory of the man who had called to me through the flame.

Chapter 2 -- A Stranger's Hands

Warmth pressed against my skin--not imagined this time, but real. Heavy blankets cocooned me, thick and soft, and the scent of beeswax and woodsmoke filled my nose. I breathed in sharply, eyes flying open.

This wasn't the alley.

The room was dim, lit by a fire crackling in a carved stone hearth. Velvet curtains cloaked the windows, and oil lamps lined the shelves of an old bookcase. I lay in a grand four-poster bed, too large and too fine for someone like me. My fingers curled instinctively into the linen sheets, half-expecting them to vanish like the dreams in my matchlight.

"You're awake."

The voice startled me. I sat up too quickly, my head swimming. A man stood near the fireplace, tall and pale, his dark hair slightly disheveled as if he'd been running his fingers through it. He wore a simple white shirt under a waistcoat, sleeves rolled to his forearms. His face was striking--sharp cheekbones, a strong jaw, and eyes the color of stormclouds. Intelligent, wary, and... tired.

I shrank against the pillows.

"Don't be afraid," he said gently. "You're safe. I found you in the snow outside Fenton's Bakery."

My throat was dry. "You...you brought me here?"

He nodded once. "You were barely breathing. I didn't think you'd last the night."

I stared at him, trying to piece together the hazy memory--the alley, the flame, the vision of him reaching out. But that had been a dream. Hadn't it?

"Why?" I whispered.

He blinked, caught off guard. "Why did I help you?"

I nodded.

He looked away, jaw tightening. "Because no one else did."

Silence settled between us. The fire popped.

"I'm not... going to jail, am I?" I asked cautiously. "For trespassing? Or stealing a bed?"

That drew the ghost of a smile from him. "You didn't trespass. I carried you in. And as far as I know, you haven't stolen anything... yet."

My lips twitched despite herself. "I don't have the strength for thievery."

"I'm Nikolai," he said, stepping closer but still keeping a respectful distance. "Nikolai Arsenyev."

The name rang a bell--vaguely tied to inventions and factories. His family owned half the coalworks on the east side of the city. She'd seen their name carved above a copper gate once, in a part of town where she wasn't supposed to walk.

"Elena," I said. "Just Elena."

"Well, Just Elena, your fever's gone and your fingers are no longer blue. That's something."

I looked down. My hands were wrapped in soft gauze, fingers visible through the white linen. They didn't hurt anymore.

Nikolai turned to the small table beside the bed and poured water from a glass decanter into a cup. He handed it to me. I hesitated, then took it.

"You can stay until you're strong enough to leave," he said, voice clipped now, as if reading from a script. "You won't be bothered. The staff was dismissed for the holidays."

I sipped the water, eyes still locked on his. "You're alone?"

"I prefer it that way."

I wondered how true that was.

When I finished, he took the cup and moved toward the door. Before he left, he glanced over his shoulder.

"You called my name," he said. "Before you woke up."

I froze. My fingers curled into the sheets.

"I thought maybe you knew me," he added, almost to himself.

"I don't," I whispered. "I saw you in a match."

He paused, eyebrows knitting. "In a match?"

I didn't answer him. I just turned towards the fire.

I didn't see the way he lingered in the doorway, or the look on his face that was something between curiosity and fear--like a man who'd been wandering alone in a dream for too long... and suddenly found someone else there.

I couldn't answer him. How would I explain it?

Chapter 3 -- A House of Ghosts

I awoke to the sound of ticking.

Soft, persistent, and everywhere. Dozens of tiny clocks, each with its own rhythm, chattered like quiet voices filling the walls. It was still dark out, but the fire had been stoked and a silver tray of warm broth and bread waited on the side table. My hands trembled slightly as I reached for the spoon, but the heat was life-giving. I ate every bite. This was more than I had eaten in days

Then I rose.

The nightgown I wore was cotton and clean, far too fine for someone like me. I tiptoed across the thick rug,my bare feet sinking into it like moss, and cracked the bedroom door.

Silence.

I stepped into the hallway, a long corridor of dark wood, lined with sconces and portraits in gold frames. The eyes in the paintings seemed to follow me as I wandered past. I turned corners slowly, always expecting to be stopped--but no one appeared.

Eventually, I found the source of the ticking.

It was a room filled with clocks. Tall grandfather clocks, tiny wind-up mantels, sunburst wall clocks with brass pendulums--all ticking in an uneasy harmony. In the center stood a worktable scattered with gears and tiny screws, half-finished projects laid out like surgical instruments. Next to them sat drawings: detailed sketches of clock mechanisms, steam engines, and intricate contraptions she couldn't begin to understand.

This was where he worked.

"Curiosity is either a virtue or a curse, depending on who finds you."

I startled and turned.

Nikolai stood in the doorway, dressed in black slacks and a wool sweater. His sleeves were pushed up again, a smudge of graphite on one forearm. He held no lamp, yet he looked perfectly at home in the half-light.

"I didn't mean to intrude," I said, stepping away from the desk.

"You didn't. You just wandered into the heart of the machine." His eyes flicked to the drawings. "Do you like clocks?"

"I've never seen this many." I hesitated. "How do you sleep with all of them ticking?"

"I don't. Much."

He stepped into the room, going to the table and absently adjusting the position of a tiny gear with his pinky. "They're not just clocks. Some measure time. Others measure pressure, vibration, even heartbeat." He tapped a dial on a brass instrument that looked like a compass mated with a teacup. "I design what others won't build."

I approached slowly, watching the way his eyes studied the pieces before him.

"You're lonely," I said before I could stop myself.

Nikolai's hands paused. The silence between them stretched, save for the clocks.

"I lost people," he replied. "And I chose silence over sympathy."

I understood that. Too well.

"I used to live in a theater attic," I said quietly. "Abandoned. Dust and rats, mostly. But I liked it. I'd sneak down and listen to the actors rehearsing below. I never saw their faces. Only shadows from the catwalk. But it was warm. They were always telling stories."

I didn't know why I told him that, but he listened.

Nikolai leaned back against the desk, arms crossed. "You've seen the city's cruelty and still believe in stories?"

"Only the ones with sad beginnings."

A quiet chuckle escaped him, low and soft.

"You can stay here as long as you like, Elena," he said, meeting my gaze. "This house has too many rooms and not enough living things."

"Are you sure?"

"Everyone leaves eventually. You don't seem like the type who'd take much."

I stepped closer, brushing my hand over a half-drawn sketch of a woman in a mechanical exoskeleton--something hopeful, perhaps. "I've never taken anything I wasn't desperate for."

"I know."

Our eyes met across the table.

For a moment, the ticking clocks didn't seem to matter.

Chapter 4 -- Kindling

The days blurred into a gentle rhythm.

I spent my mornings wandering the house with bare feet and wide eyes. I explored sunlit libraries that smelled of dust and parchment, parlors with covered furniture and faded portraits, and even a music room with an untouched grand piano. I never touched the keys. They felt sacred, like a memory sealed under glass.

Nikolai kept mostly to his workshop. I would hear the occasional clang of metal or the hiss of steam escaping some arcane invention. Sometimes, he vanished for hours. But each night, there was food waiting for me. A fire lit. Fresh linens on the bed. Silent kindness.

I tried to return it in small ways.

One morning, I repaired a torn curtain hem in the study. Another day, I polished the brass handles on the doors. I swept corners, organized shelves, trimmed the wick of the oil lamps before dusk. It made me feel less like a ghost, less like I was taking advantage, more like I was paying my way.

Then came the afternoon when the house shifted.

I wandered down a new hallway, led by a draft and a loose floorboard that creaked like a beckoning finger. At the end was a narrow, windowless door.

Unlocked.

I hesitated, then pushed it open.

Inside was a room unlike the others. It had no ticking clocks or drawing tables. Instead, it was filled with sketches taped to the walls--dozens, hundreds of them. All charcoal or pencil. Some yellowed, some torn. They were portraits.

The same woman in every one.

Different expressions, different angles, but always her. High cheekbones, delicate mouth, dark curls pinned in a bun. Sometimes she smiled. Sometimes her eyes held sorrow. But she was unmistakably beautiful. Hauntingly so.

I stood, breath shallow. I didn't know how long she stared before I heard the voice.

"Don't be afraid of her."

I turned sharply. Nikolai stood behind her, his eyes unreadable.

"I didn't mean to intrude," I said quickly, but he shook his head.

"No. You should see her. You look like her."

My chest tightened. "She was someone important."

"She was everything."

He stepped into the room, brushing his fingers across one of the drawings. "Her name was Liora. She was a dancer. Brilliant, reckless. She said music felt like wind beneath her ribs."

He said it like a confession.

"We were engaged. Three years ago, on New Year's Eve, she left the gala early. The driver lost control of the carriage on the river road. She drowned before they could pull her out." His jaw tensed. "I tried to bring her back in every way I knew. But time is cruel. It only goes forward."

I stepped closer. The room suddenly felt colder, as if I were breathing in the remnants of grief.

"I'm sorry," I whispered.

"So was I," he said, voice hoarse. "Until I saw you in the snow."

I looked up, startled.

"You looked like her," he went on. "But you weren't her. And that was the first time I felt something different. Not pain. Just... wonder."

The words landed between us like a struck chord.

"I'm not her," I said softly.

"I know." His eyes flicked to mine. "That's why I let you stay."

For a moment, neither of us spoke.

Then I looked again at the sketch of Liora, one where the woman danced, feet in midair, smile full of joy.

"She must've lit up every room," I murmured.

"She did," Nikolai said. Then, more quietly, "But she didn't know how to stay in one place. You... you belong in stillness."

I turned toward him, the words wrapping around me like a shawl. Something stirred in my chest, something warm and frightening.

Nikolai looked away first.

"I'll show you the garden tomorrow," he said, stepping toward the door. "It's frozen now, but beautiful still."

He left me alone in the room of ghosts.

But when I looked around again, the woman in the sketches seemed less like a shadow... and more like a door that had finally been opened.

I sat there a long time, studying this pretty lady, the lines of her features and face. She did look like me, quite a bit. I don't think that's the only reason why Nikolai rescued me.

When you're a beggar, it's so easy for people to step over you, ignore you, pretend you aren't there or just make fun of you, like that little boy did. He didn't. He saw more than just a woman in trouble. He saw me.

Elena.

I knew that he was lonely. His clocks and inventions couldn't talk to him, hold his hand, or lay next to him.

They aren't human.

I was.

Chapter 5 -- Dance of Embers

The garden lay beneath a blanket of untouched snow, white and glittering in the pale morning light. Iron trellises stood like skeletons among frost-covered hedges, and dormant rosebushes clung to the walls, thorns crusted with ice. It should have looked dead.

But it didn't.

I stepped onto the stone path with a sense of reverence, her breath ghosting in the air. Nikolai had shoveled a walkway before me, clearing a winding trail through the maze of frost. He stood beside a frozen fountain, gloved hands in his coat pockets, face turned up toward the faint sunlight.

"I thought I'd forgotten what this place looked like in winter," he said as I approached. "I used to bring Liora here in the summers. She called it her ballroom."

I smiled faintly. "I can see that. It feels like somewhere music would echo."

He looked at me, really looked, and the silence between us thickened. Then, with a dry smile, he offered his hand.

I blinked. "What are you doing?"

"Dancing," he said simply. "Or trying to. Don't laugh."

"I don't know how."

"Neither do I. We'll be terrible together."

Still hesitating, I took his hand. His palm was warm through the glove, steady. He placed a tentative hand at my waist, and I mirrored his awkward stance.

We began to move.

There was no music but the crunch of snow beneath our feet, no rhythm but the shared breath between us. Nikolai's steps were clumsy at first--measured and formal, like a man trying to remember something learned long ago. I followed, unsure, lightheaded from laughter and cold. Our bodies swayed beneath the bare arches and icy branches, two silhouettes spinning slowly in a world of white.

The moment stretched into something golden.

I looked up at him. "You're not a very good dancer."

"No," he agreed. "But you're smiling, so I must be doing something right."

I laughed then--a real one, unguarded and whole. It startled them both.

He stopped, hand still on my waist. "I haven't heard you laugh before."

"I haven't had much to laugh about."

He brushed a strand of hair behind my ear, his gloved fingers grazing her cheek. "You should."

Our breath mingled in the cold space between them.

I didn't move away.

His eyes searched mine, uncertain. His lips parted slightly, as if to speak--but instead he leaned down and kissed me.

It was soft. Careful. A question, not an answer.

I froze for half a heartbeat, then melted into it, tilting my face toward his. The kiss deepened, slow and hesitant, snow falling around us like applause.

When we pulled apart, my heart was pounding.

Nikolai stepped back, brows furrowed. "I--"

"I know," I said. "I'm not her."

His gaze flickered. "No. You're not. That's why I kissed you."

We stood in silence, the moment still delicate and new. Then he smiled.

"I think I want to remember this winter," he said. "Not for sorrow. For something else."

My chest ached, but it wasn't pain.

Hope, maybe.

I took his hand again.

And together, in a frozen garden built for ghosts, we danced until our feet grew numb and the sun slipped behind the chimney tops.

Chapter 6 -- Whispers in the Hall

The kiss had changed things.

Not in loud or obvious ways. Nikolai didn't suddenly flood me with declarations. He didn't rush to my door or demand my attention. But something in the air between us had shifted--warmer, charged, uncertain.

The servants returned after I had been there several days. There was the maid, the cook, and the gardener. Nikolai introduced me as his friend, a woman who was down on her luck. They seemed to accept that.

The trouble was with the servants back, there was nothing more for me to do. I wandered down to Nikolai's workshop. I knocked softly.

"Come in," he called.

"Nikolai, I hope that I'm not intruding. I just..."

"Come, sit," he gestured for me to come closer. He pulled a stool up to the workbench for me. I looked down at the workbench. There were gears and springs and other things that I didn't know existed.

"I was wondering how long it would be before you came to watch me work."