Snowfall

A couple weeks ago, I had my first meeting with Lilith Parsons.
She was nice, I thought. Smart dress, glasses, hair tied up in a cold and tidy bun. She looked remarkably out of place next to the naked bulb and chipped linoleum of my office. And yet, like the professional she seemed to be, she didn't ask once about the cracked windows or the stained table. I like them like that.

I see myself as a last refuge - a hope for the hopeless. That's what it says on my business card. I got them done cheap from my friend down at the copy shop on Monroe. It didn't surprise me to have someone like Lilith darkening my doorstep. In my experience, the ones who look the neatest are often the ones in the most trouble. Only the guilty need lawyers, they say, and when they put an effort in to look innocent you know they've done something so bad they've got to scrub the sin from their clothes. And the best place to do it is a town like this, where nobody's gonna come question you.

Parsons. Embezzlement. I didn't recognize the name at first, but the crime sure jogged it. News gets around fast where we are, and by god she'd been the only thing in the papers for days. Lilith Parsons, accused of stealing thirty million dollars from her employers, the Liberax Pharmaceutical Company, with conspiracy to commit 'fiscal terrorism' (as the Bear Creek Cryer said). Apparently she was going to burn the money in front of the CEO's mansion. But I'm not in the asking business, I'm in the defending business. I'd had a look at her case already and decided on the best course of action. A guilty plea: cut the sentence down to maybe seven years if we've got a good judge and she'll be back in that plush accountant's flat in Anchorage in no time.

Of course, Ms Parsons wasn't too pleased with this. For some reason, she expected a lawyer in the middle of snowy nowhere to be able to get her off scot-free, despite the fact that she'd already told the papers she'd done it. "I want to see that blood money burn!". Powerful stuff. But it was a closed case for me - there was literally nothing more I could do for her, and I told her as such. She didn't take it too well. I think I got the basic message somewhere in the storm of curses she threw at me as she made her journey across the road to the Harborview Inn. Shame, I thought, just means we've got to do this all over again next week.

Now, here's where things get weird.

I was doing my shopping later that day. Small grocery store just off the highway. Not too busy, good selection of stuff, alright value. I was just doing what I always do - start with the butcher's then make my way through produce etc - but something was off. As I was walking, I could head someone behind me. Not close, like a couple aisles back, but always just out of eyeline. I could hear the footsteps, I could hear them walking with me, but I couldn't see them. Now, I'll be the first to admit that I have a way I like to do things. A routine, some people could say. It keeps me grounded, helps me to focus on the more important stuff, like my cases. You could argue that maybe this was a person who just was following the same path as me, a pure coincidence that I was overthinking.
Except there's barely anyone in this town. Normally I'm completely alone when I shop. So why is there suddenly someone else here? And why are they stalking me? At one point I turned around and walked through the maze of a shop to where I heard them last. Nothing. There was nobody there.
I felt creeped out. I bought my stuff (tonight was pizza night) and went to pay. I didn't want to think about it, so I rushed home as quickly as I could.

After a couple of hours going over cases, I had an idea. The footsteps were still playing on my mind, so I went back to the store and took the chance to ask the cashier if I could see the security tapes from earlier on in the day. He said yes, mainly because I helped his mother settle a land dispute a few weeks back, so I was taken into the back rooms and shown the footage. But there was no footage. The camera was corrupted. Like someone had gone in and wiped it. The cashier said it was a technical glitch but I really didn't think so. There wasn't much more I could do but go back home.

After I'd had my pie I sat down to watch some TV. We don't get much out here, so I settled in for some reruns of Jeopardy! and relaxed. This is essentially what I do every evening. After I've finished work, I have my planned meal and unwind in front of (in my opinion) the greatest game show ever made. Then, I'd get ready for bed and drift off, waking up in the morning to a new day, starting it all over again.

But this time was different. About halfway through the first episode, I heard something. Something outside my window. Animals don't come this close to town, so my first thought was some stupid kid who'd gone exploring and decided to pick on my house. I'd heard it'd been happening to houses on the mountain pretty recently, feral packs of children thinking they could conquer the land. I got up and made my way to the door. I have a bat there, for safekeeping, so I picked it up and listened through the wood.
A crunch. Distinguishable this time, like footsteps walking through fresh snow. Like finger bones snapping. Then more of them, someone walking by my house. An even beat, like someone pacing up and down. To anyone else this might have been normal, but I lived quite a way outside of town. Mine was the only house around - I hadn't had anyone come anywhere near for decades. My heart raced for the first time in years. This wasn't a kid, the footfall was too heavy, the paces too far away. My grip tightened. Hiker? No, I lived too far from any trails. I put a hand on the doorknob. Client? No, they don't know where I live. I unlocked the door. Police? God, I hoped so. I swung the door open and stepped out into the dark.

Nothing.
Nothing but the cold, white, empty fields of snow.
No child, no hiker, no client.
No footprints.
I didn't sleep that night.

A week after that, I met with Parsons again. She had this stupid grin on her face like she'd just won the lottery. She tried to explain that she couldn't be guilty - they had no proof she had taken the money, just that the money was taken. Apparently she only spoke to the press in hypotheticals: her statement of wanting to see the money burn didn't mean she'd stolen it, just that she'd like whoever did to burn it. It was like watching a child show a parent their first finger painting. I wanted to let her down gently, but I also wanted to get back to the house before it got too dark, so I kindly told her she was wrong and that the guilty plea was still the best option. Did I expect her to shout, scream, throw something? Yes. In fact, I think I wanted her to. I hadn't seen anyone this week and a degree of humanity would have been a godsend. I didn't expect her to slump into my sofa and cry. Well, crying's a weak word. She was bawling. I think I ran out of tissues. She told me the story through thick, ugly sobs.

Liberax Pharmaceutical Company used to be ran by her dad - Mr Albert Parsons. He started the company from a young age, a fresh-faced college graduate with a degree in biochemistry and an idea for a new type of allergy medication. That idea carried him through investor after investor, turning his start-up clinic in Sterling into a national success. Now this made him thousands, millions even, but according to his daughter this wasn't enough. At home he was distant, cold, calculating. Took her out once on her sixteenth birthday to go see Barney the Dinosaur. I think he believed that his fortune would play the role of father and keep her happy - and what do you know? It didn't. Lilith wasn't a 'troubled' child, but she always dreamed of having a father to take care of her. It was ironic - she had everything she could have wanted except for a father. It wasn't until the start of last year that he suddenly began to meet up with her regularly. They went out to dinners, had picnics in the park, real father-daughter bonding stuff. She thought this was his way of making it up to her. He thought it was a final attempt at penance.
Albert Parsons killed himself four months after this rekindling.

The company chalked it up to mental health issues stemming from his loneliness, but Lilith believed she knew the truth - they'd coerced and bullied an isolated man into molding the company in their image, forcing him against his will to make unethical decisions in the name of profit. Soon after his death, Liberax Pharmaceutical removed all trace of Albert Parsons from their brand. His involvement in the founding was swept under the rug, his inventions were renamed, his legacy was destroyed. The official statement was that they "cannot allow the mania and delusions of a sick man to impact the livelihoods of our company" - the story going that he was a tyrant and bully who was obsessed with perfection so much that it drove him mad. They let his daughter keep her job as an accountant, some kind of peace offering. But Lilith never forgot. She was furious at this slandering of her dad. So, the thirty million gets siphoned away bit by bit and the company is hit where it hurts the most - its profits. This is apparently why she didn't want to plead guilty - it would be them winning for the last time. This made her outbursts and her weird rages make sense. The guilt of her father's death still controlled her.

As sad as the story was, I remained firm on my initial idea. If she pled not guilty, she'd be put away for at least a decade, maybe more. The admittance would land her a nice and comfortable sentence that wouldn't be too difficult to serve, maybe even an option to cut it down with good behavior. She wouldn't have it. More curses, more screaming, more crying as she jumped up from the chair and threw a mug across the room (an impressive feat given how close-together the walls are). In fact, she told me I'd be "sorry". Now, I don't like clients threatening me. It's happened before. But at the end of the day, I believed that she couldn't be too much of a problem, and she'd probably see sense after the next meeting. I packed up, and went home.

Her story had taken too long. It was dark already. I walked along the road in my snowshoes, careful to angle my torch at the ground to look for deep patches of snow that could swallow me whole. The darkness coated the town completely, and as I began the trek up Mt Marathon towards my house the lights of the buildings got dimmer and dimmer, until the line of trees was so thick that I could barely see the way down. This was not normal. I had trekked this path for thirty years, every day walking up and down this trail. I knew the path by heart, every stone and root mapped in my head. But now it was different. The forest was suffocating.
I thought I heard someone behind me. I didn't want to check, I wanted to press on and find my way to the house, but the footsteps were getting louder, and the snow was getting heavier, and I could feel icy breath on my back.
I spun around to check, flashing my torch into the howling wind. I was alone.
I didn't want to call out and risk an avalanche with this level of snowfall, so I pressed onward. I'd feel better when the fire was on.

After dinner I sat in front of the TV again. I scrolled to the Jeopardy reruns but stopped before I clicked on them. Tonight, I would read. I deserved the silence.
I blew the dust off an old law book my father had given to me, and settled down in my chair. The book was so heavy, the pages smelled so strongly of dust and mildew. It was nostalgic, a feeling that had been denied to me for so long. I listened to the wind whistle through the trees as I turned page after page. I didn't even realise I'd fallen asleep. I only noticed when I heard the window break.

The chair fell to the ground as I jolted up. One of the legs broke on the hard floor. I picked it up as I made my way to the kitchen. Somehow, the lights had been turned off. I didn't remember doing that.
The wind was screaming outside. Seemed I'd woken in the middle of a storm. But what was that sound?
I made my way to the kitchen. I paused with every step, ears wide, eyes awake as I swivelled my head like an owl to try and get any kind of information. I could work with information.
I found the kitchen. How had I gotten lost?
I turned on the lights.

The window had been smashed. Snow was blowing onto the tiles. A thin layer had began to form.
I felt the chair leg fall from my hand. The sound was muffled by the natural carpet that now covered my kitchen.
I heard doors open upstairs. I took the steps two at a time, tripping over my own feet at the top. I could have sworn I heard something - felt something brush past my shoulder on the landing, and I was right in saying none of the doors were closed when I got home. The landing creaked beneath my feet. Like a warning, like the house itself wanted something gone. I checked every room on that floor, one after the other, like a bullet in the drum of a shotgun, travelling in circles until surely, eventually, I'd find what I'm looking for. I tried to ignore the sound of crunching snow downstairs. Like finger bones being broken. Who was doing this? Why? For god's sake, I almost wanted the attack, the reveal of the intruder. At least then I'd have answers, at least then it would stop. But of course, closure was denied to me.
The rooms were empty.
The house was empty.

In the morning, I travelled down to the hardware store and picked up the supplies I needed to board up the broken window, as well as a water vacuum for the swimming pool my kitchen had become. I could see my reflection in the mirrors of the store's furniture aisle. I looked haggard, gaunt. My eyes seemed like they'd sunken into my head. My hair was thin and ragged, and it seemed like it was close to falling out. This couldn't be normal, surely. I blinked, hard, but the two pools of inky blackness stared back at me with the same empty gaze. My invisible stalker, whoever she was, had done this to me. Had stolen my routine, my safety, my life. I just didn't understand why? What motive would somebody have to ruin someone like this? I had never done anything that necessitated this level of torture. While I was going through one of the sections, debating the pros and cons of a new space heater for my garage and considering whether or not I'd go to hell if I died, a horrible thought began to appear in my head.

What if Lilith had gone through with that threat?
What if she had followed me home?
I tried my best to put it aside. There's no way she could have found where I lived. Even if she tracked me like some hunter, how could she have done all the things that happened? The window, the doors, the sounds of footsteps? But the more I tried to fight it, the more it made sense. Oh god, she could have easily just waited for me to leave the office the first time - she seemed angry enough - or she could have found my grocery list and waited for me at the shop, throwing me off, making me nervous and paranoid. What if she stepped in places where she knew new snow would fall? What if she wiped the tape herself? What if she waited for the session so she knew I'd be home that night? Both nights? If she knew where I lived she could learn how I lived. What times I'm alone, vulnerable, weak. She would have known I have nobody to tell, not a soul who would believe me if I ran to them. But surely, she couldn't have planned all this in a week.
Right?

I walked to the Harborview Inn, the hotel she was taking refuge in while the media died down. Nobody could find you in Seward. The mountains penned you in. I knew the woman at the front desk - I'd helped her win a case of petty theft when I was first starting out. It was easy to ask her whether or not Lilith had checked in last night. If she had, I was crazy. I'd go back home and drop her as a client. Someone else could deal with all that baggage.
She hadn't.
I left her a note.

It was getting darker outside. I saw the torch peek over the ridge before I saw the shape of Lilith Parsons. She walked carefully through the snow, making as much effort not to disturb it as possible. I let out a deep breath and sat in my chair, facing the sofa. I had a few questions to ask her. I'd told her that we needed to discuss the case further, that there'd been a new development. The snowstorm had damaged my office's electricity, so we had to talk here.
I tapped my foot on the carpet. I was still wearing my shoes. My eyes flitted to the rope I had stashed behind my chair. A last resort.
I wiped a tear from my eyes. Had I been crying?
The wait seemed immeasurable. Without my daily plan, time had seemed to shift and contort in on itself. I saw no clients other than Lilith. I spent my days pacing my house, inspecting every crevasse for the monster who had been making me feel this way. It was like I wasn't part of Earth any more, like every other person was continuing with their lives while I, a man without purpose, was stuck in a cabin in the woods. My fortress had been broken. And now the enemy was at the door.

She sat before me. We had only met twice. She was wearing the same clothes.
I no longer saw them as neat and tidy. They were oppressive. She was imposing her power over me. She came from a land of wealth and freedom, and now she believed she could break a man simply for her enjoyment.
Well, she couldn't.
She spoke first. She asked me why I'd brought her here, what new information I had to share. As much as I wanted to accuse her then and there, I needed to restrain myself. I could do nothing without probable cause. I could do nothing without evidence. I had to be careful, and conniving, like her.
I spoke second. I told her that the judge had called, he had offered her a deal. They'd take this stupid company to court over her dead if it meant she'd plead guilty. A win-win. She gets the justice she wants and a clear conscience. I felt myself gag on the words. How could she possibly have a clear conscience?
She spoke. She was unhappy with the deal. She didn't want any jail time for "doing the right thing". She saw herself as some paragon of light, upholding peace in a lawless world.
I spoke. I told her that she had no choice.
She spoke. She thought karma would get me.
I spoke. I challenged her to try.
She spoke. She wanted to leave.
I spoke. I wouldn't let her.

I told her everything I knew, the stalking, the home invasion, the property damage. I was tallying up the criminal cases, rattling reasons as to why she'd never see the sunlight again. Prison was the only way out here, because I knew it all. Daddy's spoilt little girl couldn't buy her way out of this - her bullying ended tonight, in this house, with me as her final victim. She was a cancer on society, a wretched and ruinous tumor that served to poison everything it touched with the rot and corruption of sin and greed. How dare she sit there and pretend like it never happened? How dare she have the audacity to look scared, like I hadn't been mentally tortured for what felt like months? How dare she continue to deny, deny, deny, even when I had all the evidence that she had been here? She boiled my blood with her passiveness as she continued to sit and act like what she had done was something redeemable, something able to be ignored, like she hadn't made my life a living hell with her mind games and trickery. I wanted to reach out and make her understand the pain she'd caused me, I wanted to show her, somehow, the horror I had suffered at her hands.

She needed to know. She needed to suffer. She needed to feel what I felt. And only I could do it, only I could bring about the 'justice' that she was so fucking insistent on, this magical force that corrected all wrongs and made the world good again, like some children's book, or the back of a cereal box, the logic that has no reason behind it, especially not for doing what she did, haunting me like some kind of spectre, making me scared to be in my own house, keeping me from sleeping, from thinking, disturbing my routine, and I couldn't take it, she had to know, she had to understand. I couldn't keep staring at that smug face, her features contorting before my very eyes. Oh god, she looked hideous. The true face of malice had broken through and it was revealed for me to gaze upon. Why did I let her in? Why did I let her come back to my house? She was a harpy, a gorgon, a disgusting siren that lured me in with pity and ruined me for daring to question her plans. I could never had said no! She was powered by her father's death, fuelled by it, and I had to be the one to end her reign of cruelty and terror, I had to be the man to fought to prevent anyone else from suffering as I have.
I had to be the one to stop her.
It had to be me.

The snow was falling softly on my face. It was hard to focus.
The good thing about snow is that it falls neatly. It's ordered. There's no lumps where more is laid down than the places around it - it's an even coat. Perfect. A beautiful, flat blanket that hugs and warms the world. You could go to the most remote place around, and there'd still be the never-changing, trustworthy snow to keep you company. I was sorry to disturb it.
I had trekked miles out into the woodland of Mount Marathon. I never saw a single sign of life. No animals, no buildings, no people. I was strong from chopping wood in the winter, and I was able to drag the load along with me as I walked without much difficulty. I didn't really notice the burden.
Soon, after a while, I was done. The snow was already beginning to settle. My tracks had been concealed. Not that it mattered - nobody would come here, and I was already beginning to forget where exactly she was. In the sky I could see the lights dancing with greens and blues, the colors reflecting off the snow and transforming the clearing into the most glorious parade. By the time I get back to the house, all of the footsteps that haunted me will be long-buried.

Tomorrow, I'll find some new clients. I'll remodel the house a bit, maybe try and find some of that pasta I like in the shop. I can feel myself slipping back into my routine. I feel refreshed.

Like snow, I am new again.