The Winter Collection: Snow Injections

By Frye Martin

The second of four in the Four Seasons series, The Winter Collection: Snow Injections brings a new, icy flavor.
These stories are strange, pointed and tell about teens who are running away from one thing toward something else--for better or for worse. May's troubles begin when she learns about snow injections and the lore surrounding the practice. There is turmoil when two young cousins and their families are quarantined in the same house over the holidays. When an unlikely salesman offers an amazing solution, a movie star must choose. Cherries is an entrepreneur, but her business isn't exactly legal and that's a problem.
This collection includes “Snow Injections,” “Quarantine the Smoke and Mirrors,” “Polar Youth Works” and “Bungalow in the Snow.”

• Language: English
• Publisher: Freedom Dawn Press
• Release date: Mar 9, 2015
• ISBN: 9781311886750

Frye Martin

Frye Martin writes YA and adult fiction and loves it.***********The heart,The pen,The why,The when,The nameThe place,The hidden face,The hope,The dream,The bursting seam,The story must be told.***********

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Freedom Dawn Press

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and events are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

The Winter Collection: Snow Injections

Published by Freedom Dawn Press at Smashwords

Copyright 2015 Frye Martin

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Other Titles by Frye Martin

Bonfire of the Vanities: Strike

Cold Dark

The Fall Collection: Back to School

Rhona's Phoenix

We Are the Future

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The Winter Collection: Snow Injections

by Frye Martin

Freedom Dawn Press

Contents

About The Winter Collection: Snow Injections

Snow Injections, Part One

Quarantine the Smoke and Mirrors

Snow Injections, Part Two

Polar Youth Works

Snow Injections, Part Three

Bungalow in the Snow

Snow Injections, Part Four

Coming Titles

Meet the Author

Contact the Author

About The Winter Collection: Snow Injections

"One snow injection will get you perfection.

Two in a row of clean white snow

will make you forget every bad thing you know.

Three little sticks with a fine pointed prick

will smart but your heart will no longer be sick.

A fourth inoculation will grant you salvation

if you have a high level of toleration."

Snow Injections is the second in a seasonal collection of short stories. A common thread runs through each tale, as the characters experience some of the desperation that comes with winter.

May's troubles begin when she learns about snow injections and the lore surrounding the practice.

There is turmoil when two young cousins and their families are quarantined in the same house over the holidays.

When an unlikely salesman offers an amazing solution, a movie star must choose.

Cherries is an entrepreneur, but her business isn't exactly legal and that's a problem.

Snow Injections follows The Fall Collection: Back to School in the Four Seasons series.

^

Snow Injections, Part One

Yes, the woman said. Many people know me. They don't know about this, though. That must stay between us.

May watched as the woman moved. May noticed the woman's voice. She was the local historian or something like that, an expert everything related to the town. She had given a presentation at the high school about courting customs weeks earlier. Her voice, however, gave her away as a foreigner. She didn't even sound American.

May said, You're not even from here.

No, dear, I was born here. Through circumstances, I ended up far from here--throughout the UK. I maintained connections, though, to the people, the history, the traditions. Truly, this is a great tradition of ours. Do you want to proceed?

May's face was moist and red. She nodded. The woman continued where the other girl had stopped. She tightened belts and harnesses designed to keep May strapped to the cot.

The newcomers have a different sense of place and purpose. They don't show a great respect for tradition. For the local people here, the snow injection is a public service.

How does it work? May asked.

You want to forget?

May nodded. Then the woman nodded. She looked down at May.

You are afraid of knowledge, said the woman, like the others who have come here. Knowledge is not the thing to fear. It is what you do with the knowledge that is a frightful thing. The old ones here knew that. So they passed on the rites that I am going to perform for you now.

The woman moved around here and there, handling things examining things, all the while talking, and May's eyes followed her.

"The snow injection is very old. The story is told about a woman who was born with dim sight. She grew to be a great beauty and many men wanted her, but she chose her dear love who treated her like a precious jewel and loved her more than his own life.

"Now, one day, she was struck in the head. Lightening struck her and when she opened her eyes, her vision was as clear as ever an eye was. When she saw her dear love, she was terrified. All she'd ever known was his warm heart, yet when she saw his face, she found him miserable to see. She could not accept him as the man she loved so dearly. So horrified was she that she fled.

"She left the homeland of her father and his father. She went to another village here in these mountains. There she found a new love, a young man nice to look upon, and she played wife to him as if she never had before. She bore him children and she lived with him for many days, but her heart never departed from the one whom she had abandoned. And so, the grief of this love nearly drove her to madness.

She determined to bring an end to it. She went out in the cold of winter and took an icicle, as long as a sword and as sharp as a dagger.

The woman held a needle for May to see. It was the biggest the girl had ever seen, yet she looked at it with no fear.

And she plunged it deep into her heart.

What happened to her? May asked. Did she die.

"Yes, of course. Eventually. Before she died, she forgot her pain and her dear love. She lived the rest of her years happily with her new family."

The woman positioned a stick between May's teeth.

Injections of snow work so much better these days.

May remembered the rhyme she'd heard. How many do I need?

Though her speech was garbled, the woman understood.

How many can you handle?

*****

The girl's body danced and twitched on the table. The old woman and the girl watched for a while. Then they removed the stick and the belts and left while she lay unmoving on the cot. They were each able to eat a snack and check their phones