wow

I have to agree that the imagery in The Snow Thief is absolutely wonderful, and it so often plays into the characters that it becomes pitch perfect in what it wants to convey. The sentence, “Jack lounged on the ruined leather and spoke of fearless infamous minds who dominated, turning gold over with a touch of their hand” is a perfect example of this. The ruined leather speaks so powerfully to the situation with such brevity that it shakes me suddenly and surprisingly.
The piece also dominates in association and metaphor. Hands with the brilliance of a kleptomaniac, Summer Jack disappearing under the snow (either figuratively cocaine and/or simply winter), gasoline exhaust permanently in the narrator’s hair – all of this gives a lot more poetic presence to the narrative that it could very well be shaped into a sort of prose poem.
However, the narrative is at times unclear, whether out of inconsistency, awkward syntax, or simply not enough detail to discern what’s trying to be said. For the sake of organization, I’ll start from the beginning and hunt down what seems to be troubling me.

His moods changed with the seasons, eyes and hair altering color to justify his identity.

I’m fairly aware of the truth in eyes and hair changing color, but I feel more detail might give me a little more information about the changes occurring. How drastic are the colors? My hair becomes slightly lighter in the summer (most people’s hair does, if I can recall), but I first read this and began thinking something more fantastical as potentially indicated by the semi-folklore-inspired title. Secondly, this change seems to be a big part of his identity, or at least the moods. Yet, the brother’s moods don’t really make a large appearance, or what I mean is: they don’t really seem to shift. Justifying the identity doesn’t seem to be as significant as the sentence seems to make it. Seasons seem to be important, but the mood part doesn’t really hit me yet.

Calloused and scarred,

The brother comes off as naïve to me, but callouses and scars have a connotation of experience and hardship, which doesn’t seem to fit the brother who idolizes this wordsmith.

The summer of Jack

Firstly, is it Summer Jack or summer of Jack? One alludes to the sort of character he is, the other simply describes the time frame in which he is active. If it’s both, maybe find a way to include both the handle Summer Jack as well as the very particular time frame. As of now, “Jack” just feels inconsistent with the rest of “Summer Jack.” When Jack is used, and not Summer Jack, I find myself asking why. The use of the nickname seems arbitrary at times.
Secondly, who is Summer Jack? What is his relation to the two siblings? Is he a relative? A traveling salesman? An outlaw running from state to state? A transient parent showing up for the first time? I would love to know how he came into their lives. As it stands, he sort of just appears.
he lured my brother into hallowing holes where he never should have wandered.
I’ll jump a little here, because this relates strongly to the end, where it seems like his misguidance is deemed as endearing, intended to make him grow up. Yet, throughout, Summer Jack sounds like he’s just tricking the brother left and right.

The smell of lingering broth

This entire paragraph doesn’t seem to have much connection aside from memory, but the memory takes us from a retrospective to the present situation, and then returns us with little connection or significance other than to say that these things have passed, which is inherent in past tense

Under the influence of Summer Jack, my brother laid packets of dusty white powder around the house and under the creaky wooden stairs.

At first, I asked, “For Summer Jack? For himself? Is the brother developing an addiction?” If he is, it doesn’t seem to have much of an influence on his life. There’s no addict behavior, no withdrawals, nothing. The cocaine seems like it may have more to do with Summer Jack than anybody else, but the cocaine seems to only play a part in the relationship between the narrator and brother.

I could not betray him for his maturity would never live up to it.

Betray him to what? For what? What is meant by maturity? I’m confused as to how maturity lives up to betrayal.

My brother thought princes were noble and like children they argued over good versus evil while they were ignorant to bad and righteous right outside the bedroom window.

This sentence is very difficult to follow. The “princes” either disappear almost instantly from the argument between the brother and Summer Jack, or they are one of the ‘theys’ in the sentence. What about being outside the bedroom window? Are they arguing outside of it, or is bad and righteous outside the window?

Je taime. Vous etes en securite. Vous etes bien.

Why French? It could be the character, but what does speaking French mean between the two children? Are they originally French? Does it indicate a difficulty in communication between the two characters, or do they both know what it means?

He left me with the bunnies under the couch for company and the permanent stain of gasoline exhaust in my hair.

It’s very strange for somebody with a driver’s license to be rocked like a baby, as previously mentioned, unless it’s meant to be an indication of some psychological deviation, but it really only appears here.

my humanity made the choice of self-preservation over a sacrifice that would become thicker than blood.

What was the sacrifice that she didn’t choose over self-preservation? This seems like it could be a huge part of the story, but it only finds its way into the story at the end, with little indication of what’s meant by the sacrifice. The sacrifice ends up feeling like it was sort of thrown in.
In addition, humanity seems like a strange word to use. It reads as if the narrator’s humanity chose for him or her, as if the humanity were separate of the being.

Instead, he ran away from me and his maturity,

Maturity is mentioned twice in the story, but I’m not sure what role it really has. Here, it seems to indicate the brother’s inability to cope with the loss of Summer Jack, but did he run away from maturity, or did he never develop it? I’m having trouble with what’s meant by maturity in this story as a whole. The word feels like it’s used somewhat loosely, and as a result, leaves me wondering what you actually meant by it.

I’m also really curious to know if there’s any relationship between Summer Jack and the narrator. I know she’s not fond of him. They seem to completely ignore one another’s presence, but that act of ignoring doesn’t yet have any weight, if that is in fact how they are treating each other. The narrator is also quite passive of Summer Jack’s influence on his or her brother, which is surprising for how much she doesn’t seem to like him.
Overall, much of the language is very beautifully composed, and the voice, though poetic, doesn’t often falter over its own diction for the sake of some poetic musing. Thank you for sharing your work.

This is beautiful - I'd critique it, but I really have nothing to say that would help you improve because really... there's nothing to say. So I'll favourite so I can read it when I need a good piece of prose (just one little thing though - do you think you could put the accents on the French words? [like on êtes, sécurité, etc.] it would make it look better, more correct >.<)