Over the next half hour, Margo stays curled up in her soft patch of grass, checking her cell phone for service to no avail. For each gust of wind, she braces herself for the coming crash. She cringes at the sound of each fallen icicle.

While she isn’t worrying about life-threatening ice, she tries retracing her steps in her head. She remembers following that unusual, fiery bird that disappeared without her even realizing it. She chased it through the trees down a path she didn’t know. Deeper into unknown territory. Deeper….

And then she was here in this very clearing.

Something deep down tells her there is more to the story than she remembers. This place is off, other than just the weather.

“Y-yes!” she attempts to shout.

Her school bag is still draped over her shoulder. She yanks it open and searches through it frantically. She pulls out a textbooks and rips out its pages between tender fingers to use as kindling only to realize she doesn’t have a lighter. To be certain, she digs deeper, tossing everything out that is in her way, desperate for anything of use. Of course, she has no need to carry a lighter or match. The closest thing to an emergency item in her bag is a small flashlight on a key ring.

“Sh-shoot,” she stutters, throwing more things into the snow.

After a moment’s pout, she wrinkles her face up to fight back tears as she bends forward and puts her fingers in the icy snow to gather her things. With jittery hands, she buckles the flap of her bag in defeat and slings back it over her shoulders.

What if I’m so lost I can never find my way home?

She squeezes her eyes again. She barely kissed her mom goodbye that morning. Margo can’t bear the thought that their conversations that morning might be their last. She wonders if her mom has even realized she’s gone yet.

A pang of guilt hits her. She may assume Margo’s skipping out on her chores again. She drops her head to her knees, flushed with anger. If only she’d gone straight home she probably would have never followed that stupid bird and never have found….

Her head snaps up, eyes widened in realization. “The snow globe,” she whispers. And then she remembers everything. The globe. The allure it held. The pain. The coldness running through her body. The twisting and contorting of muscles. The wind. The bright light. The whispers blending into her screams. And of course, the changing of scenery as she fell upon this cold, hard earth.

Is it possible that I’m crazy…to think that I’m in a different place? Margo shivers and shakes harder, the panic taking over.

It isn’t logical. New places don’t just come about at the turn of a globe. But this certainly feels new. Not only must she have fallen into a different forest, but into a different season, as well. Maybe in this place, fall has long since passed and winter is at its peak. Maybe the globe sucked her through time and spit her out on a different part of the planet. But what if she’s not even on the same planet anymore?

Suddenly, the millions of questions halt, and her mind is silent, reeling her back to her first question: where is she?

The white fog against the snow makes it near impossible to see, especially crouched below the scattered boulders, but for some reason Margo concentrates harder than before as if trying to place something. Perhaps something has subliminally caught her eye….

Her heart skips a beat, picking up at double time.

Two luminous rounds of aquamarine float in the white fog, a pair of curious eyes. Their sharp, intense gaze sends needles up her spine. The figure stands on one of the overlooking stones, dangerously close to Margo’s safe place.

She scurries to her feet clumsily and stares back at the figure, her heart pounding out of her ears. Suddenly Margo feels more alone as she stands there. It is just her and this stranger in the thick white infinity.