The Frosty thief

The snow was a thief, stealing the horizon first, then the black line of the pines, then the world.

The snow was a thief. It came in the night, a whisper against the glass, and by morning it was a roar. It stole the horizon first, then the black line of the pines, then the world. What was left was only the cabin and the colour white. A white that wasn't pure but a bruised, heavy grey-white that pressed down on the roof and smothered the windows until the world outside was just a suggestion, a memory of shape and distance. My father built this cabin with his own hands, drove the pegs into the logs with the flat of his axe. He used to say it could withstand anything the north could throw at it. But he never saw a winter like this. This was not weather; it was an erasure. The wind didn't just howl, it spoke in a low, hungry language around the corners of the logs, seeking the smallest crack in the chinking, the slightest weakness. It was the third day of the storm, and I had lost track of what was day and what was night. The light that filtered through the top inches of the window glass was a permanent twilight, a pearl-grey gloom that made the small flame in the hearth seem impossibly bright, a singular point of warmth in a universe of cold. My world had shrunk to these four walls, to the smell of woodsmoke and drying wool, to the rhythmic knock of my own heart against my ribs. I was rationing the firewood, fetching it from the lean-to in short, brutal bursts where the cold would try to steal the breath from my lungs. Each trip was a battle. The snow was up to my waist, a dense, wet powder that fought every step. My tracks from an hour before were gone, filled in, forgotten. It was as if the world was determined to make me a ghost, to swallow any proof I had ever existed. I was checking my snares, a fool's errand in this blizzard, but the salted pork was dwindling and the thought of another day of just dried peas gnawed at my stomach. The wind tore at my shawl, whipping my hair across my face in stinging lashes. I could see nothing but the swirling vortex of white. The familiar landscape of my life—the creek bed, the stand of birches, the jagged rock that looked like a sleeping wolf—it was all gone, buried under a new, featureless geography. It was the silence between gusts of wind that I heard it. Or felt it. A disruption in the rhythm of the storm. A sound that did not belong. I froze, my hand clutching the rabbit snare, the frozen wire biting into my skin even through my mitten. It was a low sound, a groan, half-human, half-animal. A sound of finality. My first thought was a wounded deer, caught by a wolf pack driven mad by hunger. I should go inside. Bolt the door. Feed the fire. It was not my business. The world had shrunk to these four walls, and survival was the only prayer that mattered. But the sound came again, closer this time, and it was undeniably human. It was a cough, wet and ragged, followed by a curse that the wind snatched and shredded. Fear, cold and sharp, went through me. No one should be out in this. No one travelled in a storm like this unless they were running from something, or hunting something. I pulled the axe from my belt, its familiar weight a small comfort. I moved slowly, following the sound, my snowshoes sinking with each step. And then I saw it. A smear of colour against the white. A patch of dark, wet red staining the snow, leading to a collapsed shape half-buried in a drift against the ancient oak at the edge of my clearing. It was a man. He was wearing the remnants of a soldier's uniform, the blue wool dark with melted snow and something else. His face was turned away from me, pressed into the drift. One arm was flung out, the fingers curled into a claw. He was not moving. For a long moment, I just stood there, the wind screaming around me, the snowflakes melting on my hot cheeks. This was the war. The war I heard about in whispers from trappers and the occasional circuit preacher, a distant thing of armies and borders and kings. It had no place here. This was my father's land, a place of seasons and silence. But here it was, bleeding into the snow at my feet. He was probably dead. I should leave him. Report it when the thaw came. If the thaw came. To bring him inside… that was a different kind of danger. A danger that wouldn't end with the storm. I took a step closer. The wind shifted his coat, and I saw the glint of a brass button. British. A redcoat, though his coat was the winter blue. One of ours. Or supposed to be. But the way he was lying here, alone, half-frozen… men didn't get separated from their patrols unless they wanted to. Deserter. The word was a poison dart in my mind. They hanged deserters. And they asked questions of anyone who helped them. I knelt beside him, the snow soaking through the knees of my wool trousers. I touched his neck, my fingers clumsy and numb with cold. Under the frozen skin, a flicker. A slow, thready pulse, like a moth beating its wings against a jar. He was alive. He groaned again as I touched him, a low, wretched sound. I rolled him over. His face was young, younger than I was, maybe twenty. His skin was pale, almost blue, and a thick crust of frozen blood was matted in his hair above his temple. His eyes opened, just slits of hazy grey, unfocused and lost. They looked at me, through me. 'Water,' he rasped, his lips cracked and bleeding. The single word was a hook. It caught in me. My father had been a good man, a quiet man, but he never would have left another soul to die in the snow, no matter the colour of their coat. Survival is the only prayer, I told myself. But what is survival if it costs you the thing that makes you human? I made the decision without thinking it through, a pure, stupid impulse. I hooked my arms under his, and I pulled. He was heavier than he looked, a dead weight. Dragging him was a nightmare. The snow clutched at him, trying to keep him. Every few feet I had to stop, my lungs burning, my own breath coming in ragged clouds. He was semiconscious, mumbling things I couldn't understand. Names, maybe. Places. Fragments of a life I knew nothing about. By the time I got him to the cabin door, the twilight was deepening into a bruised purple dark. My muscles screamed. The cabin, my sanctuary, now felt like a trap I was pulling shut on myself. I managed to get him over the threshold, his body leaving a wet, dark trail on the floorboards. The warmth of the room hit us, and he shuddered violently, a long, rattling tremor that seemed to shake him to his bones. I barred the door, the thick oak beam sliding into place with a sound of grim finality. The storm howled outside, a wild beast wanting in. But the real danger, I knew, was already inside with me. I stripped off his wet coat. The wool was stiff with ice and smelled of wet dog and old sweat. Underneath, his tunic was torn at the shoulder, the white linen of his shirt beneath stained a dirty brown with dried blood. It was a shallow gash, long and ugly, but it didn't look deep enough to kill him. It was the cold that was doing that. His name was Ron. I learned that from the mumblings that came from him over the next two days as the fever took him. He thrashed on the pallet I’d made for him by the fire, his hands clenching and unclenching on the rough wool of my father’s old blanket. Sometimes he’d cry out, short, sharp barks of sound, and I would press a wet cloth to his forehead, my heart hammering against my ribs. The cabin felt smaller with him in it, the silence charged. Every creak of the logs settling, every hiss of the fire, seemed amplified. His presence filled the space, a constant, low hum of risk. I cleaned his wound as best I could, boiling water with a bit of yarrow I kept dried in a jar. He flinched when I touched him, his skin burning hot. The gash on his shoulder was inflamed, the edges a puffy, angry red. But it was the wound on his head that worried me more. A dark, spreading bruise shadowed by a cut that had bled and bled. His breathing was a constant battle, a rough, wet sound that filled the small room. I sat in my father’s chair, watching him, the axe propped next to me. In the flickering firelight, his face looked impossibly young. There were freckles across the bridge of his nose. His hair, now clean and dry, was the colour of straw. He looked like a farm boy, not a soldier. Not a deserter. Not a threat. But he was all of those things. His uniform, now draped over a stool to dry, was a declaration of war against my peace. I had hidden it under the loose floorboard beneath my bed, along with his rifle. The weight of the gun in my hands felt wrong, a cold, heavy piece of some other world. I was a stranger to myself. The girl who kept to herself, who knew the language of the woods and the moods of the sky, was gone. In her place was a liar. A conspirator. A fool. The storm broke on the fourth day. The wind died down to a whisper, and a weak, watery sunlight filtered into the cabin, illuminating dust motes dancing in the air. The silence was absolute. It was terrifying. The world outside was a blank page, pristine and immense. Anyone coming would be seen for miles. Anyone’s tracks would be a story written in the snow. That afternoon, he woke up. I was stirring a thin soup of peas and salted pork, and I heard him move. I turned, my hand instinctively going to the knife on the table. His eyes were open. They were clear. The hazy grey had sharpened to the colour of slate. He was watching me. We stared at each other for a long moment. The only sound was the bubbling of the pot. 'Where…' he started, his voice a dry croak. 'My cabin,' I said. My own voice sounded strange, too loud in the quiet room. 'You were in the snow.' He tried to sit up, and a sharp hiss of pain escaped his lips. He fell back, his hand going to his shoulder. 'The patrol…' 'There's no patrol,' I said quickly. 'Just snow. Nothing but snow.' He looked around the cabin, taking in the rough-hewn walls, the stone hearth, the few shelves of pottery and dried herbs. His gaze lingered on the barred door. 'Why?' he asked, his eyes meeting mine again. The question hung in the air between us. Why did I bring you in? Why am I risking my neck for a stranger? Why haven't I put you back outside where you belong? I didn't have an answer. 'You were freezing,' I said, which was true, but it was not the truth. I ladled some soup into a bowl. 'Eat. You need your strength.' He didn't argue. I had to help him sit up, propping him against the wall. His body was tense, wiry with a strength that was still there despite the injury and fever. I felt the heat of him through the thin linen of his shirt. He ate slowly, deliberately, his eyes never leaving my face. He ate like a man who hadn't seen food in days. When he was done, he handed the bowl back to me, our fingers brushing. A small shock, a flicker of warmth. 'Thank you,' he said. It was quiet, but it was solid. 'My name is Ella,' I offered. 'Ron,' he replied. And that was all. The days that followed unfolded in a strange, silent rhythm. We barely spoke. Words were dangerous. They could be overheard. They could carry truths we weren't ready for. Instead, we developed a language of gestures, of glances. A nod toward the woodpile meant it needed stocking. A raised eyebrow when the fire sputtered low. I learned the sound of his breathing, could tell when the pain in his shoulder was bad. He learned the way I chewed on my lip when I was worried, the way I would stare out the window for long stretches, scanning the unbroken white. Confinement has a way of erasing the edges between people. The small cabin was our entire world. I mended his tunic, my fingers clumsy with the thick military wool. He watched me, his face unreadable. He insisted on helping, though I protested. He would sit by the fire and carve, taking a piece of firewood and slowly, painstakingly, shaping it with my father's small knife. He carved a bird, a small, perfect finch with its head cocked as if listening. The detail was incredible. He handed it to me one evening, placing it in my palm without a word. It was still warm from his hands. I closed my fingers around it. It was a piece of himself, a piece of his story, and I didn't know what to do with it. The silence in the cabin was a living thing. It was made of the things we weren't saying. I never asked him why he was alone in the snow. He never asked me why I was alone in this cabin. We were two ghosts haunting the same small space, each with our own unspoken past. I found myself watching him. The way he moved, careful of his shoulder. The way the firelight caught the gold in his hair. I started to see the boy from the farm, not the soldier. I started to forget the danger. That was the most dangerous thing of all. And then Jean-Marc came. I heard his dogs first, their frantic yapping cutting through the still air. I froze, the water bucket halfway to the hearth. Ron heard them too. He was on his feet in an instant, his eyes wide with alarm. 'Under the bed,' I hissed, pointing to the loose floorboard. 'Quickly.' He moved without a sound, a shadow disappearing into the dark space. I threw a rug over the boards, my hands trembling. The dogs were in the clearing now, a chorus of barks. A man's voice shouted at them to be quiet. I took a deep breath, smoothed my apron, and went to the door. Jean-Marc was a trapper. He lived a few miles down the creek, the closest thing I had to a neighbour. He was a wiry man with a face like a dried apple, his eyes small and sharp. He came by once a season to trade furs for flour or salt. He was standing by his sled, his pack of hounds jumping and whining around him. 'Ella,' he grunted, by way of greeting. He spat a brown stream of tobacco juice into the snow. 'Bad storm.' 'The worst I've seen,' I agreed, forcing my voice to be steady. I leaned against the doorframe, trying to block his view of the interior. 'What brings you out?' 'Checking my lines. The storm will have the animals moving. Thought I'd see if you were still breathing.' His eyes scanned the clearing, lingered on the packed-down path I'd made to the lean-to. He noticed everything. 'You've been busy,' he said, a statement, not a question. 'Have to keep the fire fed,' I said, shrugging. 'It's been a cold one.' 'Aye.' He looked past me, into the cabin. 'You got company? Smells like you're cooking for two.' My blood ran cold. The soup. I’d made a bigger pot than usual. It was a stupid, careless mistake. 'Just myself,' I said, trying for a light laugh. 'But I'm hungry enough for two in this weather.' He didn't smile. His gaze was fixed on something over my shoulder. I didn't dare turn around. What had I missed? A boot? The blanket left unfolded on the pallet? 'Heard something interesting down at the settlement,' he said, his voice casual. Too casual. 'Before the storm hit. Seems the army is looking for a few of their boys. Said they flew the coop up near Fort George.' He was watching my face, his eyes like little black beads. 'Imagine that. Running off in the middle of a war. In this country. A man would have to be desperate. Or a coward.' He let the word hang in the air. I kept my face a blank mask, the way my father had taught me to do when trading furs. Never let them see what you're thinking. 'I don't have much use for soldiers,' I said, my voice flat. 'Or their wars.' 'Neither do I,' Jean-Marc said, but his eyes told a different story. He saw everything as a transaction, a way to get ahead. A deserter would fetch a bounty. A fat bounty. 'Well,' he said, clapping his gloved hands together. 'Just checking. You need anything, you send up a smoke signal.' He gave me one last, long look, a look that stripped away the walls of the cabin and saw everything inside. Then he turned, whistled to his dogs, and was gone, his snowshoes making a soft crunching sound in the snow. I waited until his sled was a small dot disappearing into the trees before I stumbled back inside and barred the door. My knees felt weak. I slid down the rough wood, my heart a frantic drum against my ribs. Ron emerged from the darkness under the floor. His face was pale, his jaw tight. 'He knows,' he said. It wasn't a question. 'He suspects,' I corrected, though I didn't believe it myself. 'He knows.' The space between us had changed. The fragile peace was shattered. The reality of what we were doing—what I was doing—came crashing down. We were no longer just two people in a cabin. We were a fugitive and an accomplice. And the world was coming for us. The encounter with Jean-Marc left a poison in the air. The silence was no longer comfortable; it was fraught with tension. Every shadow seemed to hold a threat. When the wind rustled the pines, we would both freeze, listening. Ron stopped carving. He would sit for hours, staring into the fire, his rifle now always within reach. The intimacy of our confinement had become a cage. I felt his fear as if it were my own, a constant, low-grade fever. He started talking, then. Not about the war, not directly. But about home. A farm in a place called Devon. He spoke of green hills and stone walls, of the smell of the sea on the wind. He told me about his father, a shepherd, and his two younger sisters. He spoke of them with a deep, aching tenderness that made my own throat tighten. He was painting a picture of a world I couldn't imagine, a world without this endless, crushing white. In return, I found myself telling him about my parents. About my mother, who had died of a lung sickness when I was ten. About my father, who had taught me how to read the woods, how to be self-sufficient, how to be alone. I told him how my father had gone to the settlement for supplies two winters ago and never came back. They found him in the spring, when the ice broke on the river. His wagon had gone through. I hadn't spoken of it to anyone. Saying the words out loud felt like breaking a bone, a sharp, clean pain. He listened, his slate-grey eyes never leaving my face. He didn't offer pity or platitudes. He just listened, and in his listening, I felt a kind of peace. We were two orphans of a different sort, washed up on the shore of this brutal winter. The lines between us were blurring. He was no longer just a deserter, a danger I had brought into my home. He was Ron. A boy who missed his sisters. A man who knew the names of wildflowers. A soldier who had seen something that had broken him. I knew I should be afraid of him, but I wasn't. I was afraid for him. And I was afraid of the world outside my door. The patrol came a week later. It was early morning, the sun casting long blue shadows across the snow. I was outside, splitting firewood, the rhythmic thud of the axe the only sound. I saw them when they were still far off, three dark figures moving against the white, rifles on their shoulders. My stomach dropped. I ran inside, my heart choking me. 'Soldiers,' I said, the word a gasp. Ron was already moving. He grabbed his rifle and the small pack I had helped him mend. 'There's no time,' I said, grabbing his arm. 'The loft. Go.' The loft was small, a cramped space under the eaves where I stored dried apples and spare blankets. It was reached by a rickety ladder. He scrambled up, pulling the ladder up after him. I threw a bearskin rug over the opening, praying it would be enough. I took a moment to compose myself, to slow my breathing. I splashed my face with icy water from the basin, pinched my cheeks to bring some colour to them. I stoked the fire, set the kettle on the hook. I had to be normal. I had to be nothing more than a girl alone in the woods. The knock on the door was loud, authoritative. It shook the whole cabin. I opened it a crack. A corporal stood there, his face red with cold. He was young, but his eyes were old and tired. Two other men stood behind him, their breath pluming in the air. 'Ma'am,' the corporal said, touching the brim of his hat. 'Corporal Davies. We're on patrol. We need to ask you a few questions.' 'I have nothing for the army,' I said, my voice colder than I intended. 'We're not here for supplies. We're looking for a man. A deserter. Goes by the name of Ronald Peters. Have you seen anyone matching that description?' He said the name. His full name. It made him real, a person with a history that was about to catch up with him. Above me, a floorboard creaked. My heart stopped. Had they heard? The corporal's eyes flickered, but he gave no sign. 'I haven't seen anyone in weeks,' I said, my voice tight. 'Not since before the big storm.' 'Mind if we come in and warm ourselves for a moment?' he asked. It wasn't a request. I had no choice. I opened the door wider. They stomped the snow from their boots and entered, bringing the sharp, clean scent of the cold in with them. The cabin, which had felt like a world, now seemed impossibly small, crowded with these large, uniformed men. They filled the space with their presence, their weapons, their authority. The corporal stood by the fire, warming his hands. The other two stood by the door, their eyes sweeping over everything. They saw the single chair, the single cot, the small table. They saw a life of solitude. I hoped that's all they saw. 'You live out here all alone?' the corporal asked, his gaze settling on me. 'Since my father passed.' 'It's a hard life.' 'It's my life,' I said. He nodded, his eyes moving around the room again. They went to the pallet where Ron had slept, now just a pile of blankets. They went to the soup pot, which held only enough for one. They lingered on the ceiling, on the bearskin rug covering the entrance to the loft. I held my breath. Was there a crack of light showing? A shadow out of place? 'We have reason to believe he came this way,' the corporal said, his voice quiet, almost conversational. 'He was wounded. A man like that would be looking for shelter. A place like this… it would be a godsend.' He was baiting me. I looked him straight in the eye. 'If a man came to my door, bleeding and freezing, I'd help him,' I said. 'Soldier or not. It's what my father would have done.' I was banking on the truth, or a version of it. 'But no one has come.' The corporal studied my face. I could feel his gaze picking me apart, looking for the lie. I felt a drop of sweat trickle down my back. I thought of Ron, meters above us, holding his breath, rifle in his hands. What would he do if they tried to climb into the loft? The thought of the violence that could erupt in this small space, the blood on the floorboards, made me feel faint. One of the other soldiers shifted his weight, and the floor creaked loudly. From above, a faint scrape. My eyes darted upwards against my will. The corporal’s gaze followed mine. For an endless second, we both stared at the bearskin rug. 'Rats,' I said, my voice a thin, reedy thing. 'The apples I have stored up there. They get into everything.' He kept looking for another moment, then his eyes returned to my face. He gave a small, almost imperceptible nod. What did it mean? Did he believe me? Or was he just tired? Tired of the war, tired of the cold, tired of hunting boys who didn't want to fight anymore. 'Well,' he said finally, turning back to the fire. 'If you do see anyone, you're to report it to the garrison at once. He's considered dangerous.' 'I'll remember that,' I said. They finished warming themselves and left. I watched them from the doorway until they were swallowed by the trees, three dark threads being pulled from the white fabric of the landscape. Only then did I shut the door, lean against it, and let out the breath I felt like I had been holding for an eternity. Ron came down from the loft. His face was slick with sweat. In his hand, he was clutching the small wooden bird he had carved. His knuckles were white. We didn't speak. There was nothing to say. We had survived. But it felt less like a victory and more like a stay of execution. The fear was a permanent resident now, sitting at the table with us, sleeping by the fire. We knew they would be back. Or Jean-Marc would. Or someone. The world was shrinking again, and the walls of the cabin were no longer a sanctuary. They were a prison, and the sentence was getting shorter. The thaw began not with a bang, but with a drip. A single, persistent drop of water falling from an icicle outside the window. Drip. Pause. Drip. It was the most hopeful and the most terrifying sound I had ever heard. For weeks, the world had been frozen solid, locked in a state of suspended animation. Now, it was waking up. And so was the danger. The snow began to recede from the walls of the cabin, leaving behind dark, damp patches on the logs. The creek, which had been a silent, frozen road, began to murmur under its weakening sheet of ice. The air lost its sharp, biting edge and took on a damp, earthy smell. The promise of spring. For me, it had always been a time of rebirth, of relief. This year, it felt like a countdown. The melting snow meant the roads would become passable again. The patrols would increase. Jean-Marc would be able to move freely. Ron’s time was running out. Our time was running out. We both knew it. The subject of his leaving was a constant, unspoken presence. He grew more and more restless, pacing the small cabin like a caged animal. He would stand at the window for hours, staring out at the changing landscape, his jaw clenched. The choice was mine, I knew that. It had always been mine, from the moment I found him in the snow. I could keep him here, hidden, and risk both our lives. I could tell him to leave, to take his chances in the wilderness with the snow still deep in the forests. Or I could walk to the settlement. I could tell the army where he was. The thought was a cold, sick knot in my stomach. It would be the sensible thing to do. The safe thing. It would make me a patriot. It would secure my own survival. I would be rewarded. Jean-Marc would respect me for it. I would be safe in my cabin, alone again, just as I had been before. But the word for it was betrayal. And I wasn't sure I could live with the sound of that word in the silence that would follow. I lay awake at night, listening to the drip, drip, drip of the melting world, and I would weigh my life against his. His life, with its green hills in Devon and its two younger sisters. My life, with its solitude and its ghosts and this small pocket of the world my father had carved out for me. What did I owe him? A bowl of soup? A clean bandage? I had given him that. I had saved him from the storm. My debt was paid. But it wasn't a debt. It was a connection. In the forced intimacy of our confinement, we had become something to each other. He had seen my loneliness, and I had seen his fear. We had shared stories that were anchors to the people we used to be. To turn him in would not just be betraying him; it would be betraying the person I had become since he arrived. The girl who was more than just a survivor. One afternoon, he came to me as I was mending a tear in my shawl. He knelt in front of my chair and took the fabric from my hands. 'Ella,' he said, his voice low. 'You have to make a choice.' His eyes were steady on mine. There was no pleading in them, only a deep, weary resignation. He was giving me the power, but it felt like a burden. 'If they find me here, they will hang you too,' he said. 'I know.' 'I won't let that happen. I'll leave tonight.' 'You won't last a day,' I said. 'The snow is still too deep in the woods. The patrols are everywhere.' 'It's a better chance than waiting for them to knock on the door again.' He was right. 'There's another way,' I said, the words tasting like ash in my mouth. 'I could… I could tell them you forced me. That you held me captive.' He flinched as if I had struck him. A look of profound hurt flashed in his eyes before he masked it. 'You could,' he said, his voice flat. 'It would be the smart thing to do.' The silence stretched between us, thick and heavy. The fire crackled. The water dripped. This was the moment. The pivot on which everything would turn. I thought of the wooden bird he had carved me. It sat on the mantelpiece, a small, solid piece of hope. I thought of the look on the corporal's face, the weariness in his eyes. I thought of my father, who would have never, ever turned a man away from his door. I looked at Ron, at the boy who missed his sisters, at the man who had shown me his deepest self in the quiet of a snowbound cabin. Survival is the only prayer, the old voice in my head whispered. But my father’s voice whispered back, What kind of survival? I made my choice. 'There's an old trapping line my father used,' I said, my voice quiet but firm. 'It goes north, through the hills. It avoids the main trails. It will be hard going, but it will take you toward the French territory. They won't look for you there.' A flicker of something—disbelief, hope—lit his eyes. 'Ella…' 'I'll pack you what food I can spare,' I continued, not looking at him, focusing on a loose thread on my sleeve. 'Salt pork, dried peas, some hardtack. It won't be much, but it might be enough.' I finally met his gaze. 'You'll leave at dawn. The morning mist will give you cover.' He didn't thank me. He just reached out and took my hand. His fingers were rough, calloused, but his touch was gentle. He squeezed my hand, a silent acknowledgment of the risk I was taking, of the bond we had forged. It was enough. We spent the rest of the day in a flurry of quiet activity. I prepared his pack. He cleaned his rifle, his movements economical and precise. We were partners now, working toward a single goal: his freedom. We didn't talk about what would come after. We didn't talk about the chances of him making it. We didn't talk about the fact that we would likely never see each other again. There was no room for those words. There was only the task at hand. That night, the cabin was quieter than ever. We sat by the fire, the dwindling flames casting dancing shadows on the walls. The air was thick with unspoken goodbyes. He took the small wooden bird from the mantelpiece and pressed it back into my hand. 'So you don't forget me,' he said softly. 'I won't,' I whispered. The promise felt as solid and real as the wood in my palm. He left as the first hint of grey was touching the eastern sky. The air was cold and heavy with mist, clinging to the trees in a spectral shroud. He stood in the doorway for a moment, his pack slung over his good shoulder. He looked at me, and his face was a mixture of fear and gratitude and a deep, aching sadness that I felt echoed in my own chest. 'Thank you, Ella,' he said. Then he turned and walked away, melting into the mist and the trees, becoming another ghost in the woods. I stood at the open door until the cold seeped into my bones, until the place where he had disappeared was just an empty space. Then I went inside and barred the door. The cabin was silent. It was just as it had been before he came. But it was all different. Emptier. Larger. I was alone again. Truly alone. The days after he left were hollow. The thaw accelerated, the world outside transforming with a speed that felt violent. The snow vanished in patches, revealing the pale, dead grass of the previous year. The creek roared, a brown, angry torrent of meltwater and broken ice. The world was loud again, and messy, and I hated it. I scrubbed the floors, aired out the blankets, burned the bloody rags from his wound. I tried to erase any sign that he had ever been there. But his presence lingered. I would catch myself making too much soup. I would turn to say something and find only an empty space by the fire. The wooden bird sat on my windowsill, a constant reminder. A week after he was gone, Jean-Marc came by again. He found me clearing a fallen branch from my path. 'Morning,' he said, his eyes scanning the cabin, the clearing. 'Just thought I'd check in.' 'I'm fine,' I said. 'Heard the army patrol came through.' 'They did.' 'Find what they were looking for?' he asked, his voice laced with a casual curiosity that was anything but. 'You'd have to ask them,' I said, turning back to my work. He watched me for a moment longer. 'The thaw's come early,' he said. 'Things have a way of coming to the surface when the snow melts.' He spat his tobacco, then turned and left without another word. It was a warning. Or a threat. I wasn't sure which. I finished my work, my hands shaking slightly. I went back inside. The cabin was quiet. I was safe. I had survived. But it didn't feel like a victory. It just felt… quiet. I stood at the window, the one that looked north, into the hills where Ron had gone. The glass was cool against my forehead. The last of the winter's snow was clinging to the shady side of the pines, but it was a losing battle. The sun was stronger now. The season was turning. Survival, like the season, is a temporary state. My father had said that once. I hadn't understood it then. I was beginning to understand it now. You survived one winter just to face the next. You survived one danger just to wait for another. Ron’s presence in my life had been like the winter itself: sudden, brutal, all-consuming, and then… gone. It had forced me into a space where every choice was a matter of life and death. It had shown me a part of myself I never knew existed. I traced a line on the windowpane, following the path of a single drop of meltwater. The mark he had left on my life was just as transient, just as profound. A fleeting season that had changed the landscape of my soul forever. The water on the glass made the world swim, and for a moment, I saw not my own reflection, but the ghost of a second face beside it.