The Little Matchstick Girl - A Retelling

Do you remember the Little Matchstick Girl by Hans Christian Andersen? It is one of those tales that has always stuck with me. I could not resist revisiting her to give her a new ending and a fresh start.

The night was dressed in its finest whites. Silver frost laced glass panes, clouds of pristine confetti tousled and drifted, veiling the silent street. Dancing lights of candles teased the dark from their snug perches along the footpath. Glowing lanterns spread their arms wide but could not overcome the darkest corners.

Their flames were too soft, too weak. But hers… The little matchstick girl turned from the vacant street to face the conflagration that was gulping at her father's shack. Hungry flames feasted upon the ragged hovel swiping away the shadows.

Match after match the girl had lit, and with each the spectre of her grandmother had flared to life. Moving lightly, free of the limp that had once shackled her, the wizened woman had led the girl home. Clutching her last match the girl had peeked inside to see her father in an oblivious stupor, his belly full of poison and a bottle of spirits laying in a puddle at his feet.

Revelling in the scalding heat, though the smoke reached out to choke her, the girl wondered why her father did not wake when the flames licked up his pungent vice. Tears that might have frozen on icy skin instead slid freely over the girl’s gaunt cheeks, made rosy by the searing air that billowed out from the blaze. No more would her father sate his rage with his belt upon her when she returned home without selling all of her matches. Never again would he send her to bed hungry only to slither beneath her blankets on the darkest of nights hissing falsehoods in her ear.

The girl jumped when a firm hand yanked her away. A Bobbie peered at her with a furrowed brow. Thawing crystals of moisture clung to his bushy mustache.

"Come away child," he said kindly. He waved for her to follow. “There’ll be a warm bed at the orphanage.”

Mutely, the little matchstick girl followed, crunching through the tarnished snow.

"Seems the drink finally killed him," she heard the Bobbie mutter over the whine of the approaching fire brigade.