All of you come with me.
All of you come with me.
The five siblings grabbed hands and started crying.
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Now, let’s continue our story.
Winter did not arrive in Brier Hollow the way it did in other places.
It did not announce itself with celebration or warning.
It settled, quiet, certain, like a decision already made.
Snow pressed against rooftops as if listening.
The trees stood stripped and honest.
Branches lifted like ribs beneath the gray sky.
The road that cut through town had gone pale and narrow, packed hard by weeks of passing boots and wheels that no longer came often.
Even sound behaved differently now, every footstep muffled, every breath visible, every silence heavier than the last.
Inside the Calder house, winter waited, too.
The fire in the iron stove had burned low.
Not dead, just tired.
Shadows leaned into corners.
The smell of boiled lentils clung to the air, untouched since morning.
A clock on the wall ticked, then stopped, then ticked again, unsure of its own commitment.
Five siblings occupied the room without speaking.
Hannah stood near the window, her forehead resting against the cold glass.
She was the eldest, and Winter had already learned her name.
Responsibility sat on her shoulders the way snow sat on branches.
Too much weight, held too long.
She watched the road, counting heartbeats between nothing happening.
Jonah sat at the table, elbows planted, hands clasped so tight his knuckles had gone white.
He kept staring at the same crack in the wood, as if it might widen and give him answers if he focused hard enough.
He had his father’s jaw and his mother’s silence.
Meera knelt by the stove, feeding the fire, though it did not ask for more.
She was careful with everything she did, as if the world might shatter if she moved too quickly.
Every so often, she wiped her hands on her skirt, though they were already clean.
Isaac leaned against the doorframe, coat still on, boots laced.
He had not sat down since dawn.
If he stayed standing, maybe the day would not finish what it had started.
If he stayed ready, maybe someone would come back.
On the floor, Eli traced circles in the thin frost creeping along the base of the door.
7 years old, too young to understand time, old enough to feel when something was wrong.
He pressed his finger into the ice and whispered to it like it might whisper back.
Their father had gone to check the river that morning.
He had said he would be quick.
Winter had said nothing.
Hours passed without shape.
Noon dissolved into gray.
Afternoon lost its edge.
The road outside remained empty, untouched, except by drifting snow that erased even the idea of movement.
Jonah broke first.
He should have been back.
No one answered him.
Words felt dangerous now, as if saying the wrong one would make it permanent.
Hannah closed her eyes.
Meera’s hand paused above the stove.
Isaac shifted his weight, but did not turn from the door.
Eli stopped tracing the frost.
Then came the knock.
Three slow taps measured.
Patient like whoever stood outside already knew they would open the door.
Isaac did.
Cold rushed in.
Sharp and immediate.
Snowflakes followed, carried on a breath of wind that smelled like distance.
Mr.
Uzi stood on the threshold.
He was wrapped in a long dark coat, its shoulders dusted white.
Snow clung to his beard, to the brim of his hat, to the cuffs of his gloves.
He looked like winter had shaped itself into a man and learned how to speak gently.
His eyes moved once across the room, took in the stove, the untouched food.
The five children arranged like a question no one wanted to answer.
He removed his hat.
“All of you,” he said quietly, voice steady enough to hold the room together.
“Come with me.
” The words landed differently than others might have.
They did not rush.
They did not echo.
They settled into the floorboards, into the walls, into the spaces between breaths.
Hannah turned first.
Where? Mr.
Uzi did not answer right away.
He stepped fully inside and closed the door behind him, sealing the cold out as best he could.
The wind thumped once against the house, then moved on.
Outside, he said, “Then well talk.
” Jonas stood so fast his chair scraped backward.
“Is it Dad?” The question cracked the air.
Mr.
Uzi met his eyes.
He did not lie.
He did not soften what could not be softened.
“Yes,” he said.
The room changed.
Hannah’s knees weakened, but she did not fall.
Mera’s breath caught sharp in her chest.
Isaac’s hand slid down the door frame like he needed it to stay upright.
Eli stood without being told, confusion spreading across his small face like ink in water.
Mr.
Uzi crouched so he was eye level with him.
You didn’t do anything wrong,” he said gently.
Eli nodded, though he did not understand the words.
Coats were pulled on without instruction.
Scarves wrapped, gloves fumbled.
No one cried yet.
Winter often saved that for later.
They stepped outside together.
Snow had begun falling harder.
Thicker flakes drifting down with no hurry.
The road waited, pale and quiet.
The town watched from behind frosted windows, pretending not to see.
Hannah reached for Jonah’s hand.
He took it.
Meera reached for Eli.
Isaac reached for all of them by standing close enough to count as shelter.
Mister Uzi led the way down the road, his boots pressing deep into the snow, his lantern swinging low and steady.
Each step felt like crossing something invisible.
No one spoke.
Winter walked beside them, listening.
And somewhere ahead, the rest of the story waited.
Winter carried sound differently once they left the house.
Footsteps didn’t crunch the way Eli expected.
They whispered instead, like the snow didn’t want to disturb what was already broken.
Breath hung in the air longer than it should have.
Pale and fragile, each exhale a small thing leaving the body and not quite coming back.
Mr.
Uzi walked a few steps ahead, lantern swinging low.
The light moved in slow arcs, brushing against fence posts, frozen weeds, the edges of mailboxes.
No one checked anymore.
The roads sloped gently downward, away from the Calder house, away from the life that had been waiting there all day for a man who would not return.
No one spoke at first.
Grief often needed silence before it could learn how to breathe.
Eli’s boots slipped once.
Meera caught him by the collar without thinking, pulling him close.
He did not protest.
He tucked his face into her coat and stayed there.
Small and shaking, though he made no sound.
Hannah noticed how tightly Jonah’s hand gripped hers, hard enough to hurt.
She didn’t pull away.
Pain felt appropriate somehow, like proof they were still real.
The river came into view slowly, its dark surface broken by wide sheets of ice that had formed unevenly, like the water had tried to hold itself together and failed.
Snow dusted the edges, softening what could not truly be softened.
Mr.
Uzi stopped.
The lantern swung once more, then stilled.
“This is where he fell,” he said.
“The words didn’t echo.
They didn’t need to.
” Hannah felt something in her chest collapse inward, quiet, but complete.
Jonah’s knees buckled, and he would have gone down if she hadn’t tightened her grip.
Meera stared at the ice, at the cracks like pale scars running through it.
Isaac stepped forward without realizing he was moving, boots stopping inches from the edge.
Eli looked up.
Did he slip? Mr.
Uzi knelt again, bringing himself low, his coat brushing the snow.
The ice gave way, he said.
He tried to pull himself out.
“Did he call for help?” Eli asked.
Mr.
Uzi hesitated just long enough for the truth to decide how to enter the room.
“He did,” he said.
“But there was no one close enough.
” Eli nodded, absorbing this in the quiet.
Serious way children do when the world stops behaving as promised.
He pressed his mittens together.
Hannah finally spoke.
Her voice sounded older than it had that morning.
You found him? Yes.
Was he alone? Mr.
Uzi looked at the river, then back at her.
He wasn’t thinking about himself, he said.
He kept trying to get back toward town.
Jonah let out a sound that wasn’t quite a sob and wasn’t quite a breath.
He turned his face away, shoulders shaking.
The wind moved across the river, then lifting snow into the air, dragging cold across their faces.
Winter leaned in close, listening.
“What happens now?” Meera asked.
Her voice was thin but steady.
“Mr.
Uzi stood, snow clung to his knees.
” “That,” he said, “is why I asked you to come with me.
” Isaac frowned.
“You’re not taking us home.
” “There is no home the way it was,” Mr.
Uzi replied gently, “Not anymore.
” They followed him along the riverbank, past the place where the ice had broken, past a patch of reeds bent stiff and brittle with frost.
The lantern light bobbed ahead of them, a small, stubborn circle in the wide dark.
As they walked, Mr.
Uzi spoke, not in speeches, not all at once, but in steady waves of words that came and went, carrying meaning without drowning them.
“Your father knew winter,” he said.
He planned for it.
Not just the cold, but the kind that comes when people leave.
Hannah’s heart tightened.
He didn’t say anything.
Sometimes, Mr.
Uzi replied, saying it out loud makes it heavier.
They reached the edge of town where the road widened briefly before narrowing again.
A low building stood there, its windows lit, smoke curling from the chimney.
Not a church, not quite a hall, just a place where things happened when they could not happen anywhere else.
Inside, warmth pressed against them immediately.
The air smelled of old wood, paper, and coffee that had been sitting too long on a stove.
Coats were shrugged off, boots stamped.
The door closed behind them, cutting winter down to a distant murmur.
They gathered around a table that had seen better years.
Mister Uzi removed his gloves slowly, carefully, like this part mattered.
He set a stack of papers down between them.
“Your father came to me after the first freeze,” he said.
He asked questions, hard ones.
Hannah swallowed.
About us? Yes, Jonah’s voice cracked.
Why? Because winter does not ask permission, Mr.
Uzi said.
And because loving someone means planning for the days you cannot be there, Mera stared at the papers like they might bite her.
Are those adoption forms arrangements? Mr.
Uzi corrected gently.
Isaac leaned forward.
We stay together.
Mr.
Uzi met his gaze without flinching.
That was his condition.
The room went very still.
Hannah closed her eyes and when she opened them, tears finally slipped free.
They fell quietly without sound like snow from a heavy branch.
There is family south, Mister Uzi continued.
Distant, they can take you all of you together.
And if we don’t go, Jonah asked.
The wind rattled the window panes just once.
Then winter decides for you, Mr.
Uzi said softly.
They looked at one another then, not as five separate people, but as something held together by shared loss and shared breath.
Hannah felt the weight of them all settle onto her shoulders again.
She did not shrug it off.
We go, she said.
Jonah nodded.
Mera squeezed Eli’s hand.
Isaac exhaled slowly like he had been holding something in his chest since morning.
Mr.
Uzi gathered the papers back into a neat stack.
Then we leave before dawn.
Outside, Winter listened, and for the first time since the knock at the door, it did not feel like it was winning.
They slept very little that night.
The building at the edge of town held warmth, but not rest.
Sleep came in fragments, short, startled, unfinished.
Winter pressed against the windows like a patient thing, waiting for someone to blink first.
Eli dreamed of ice cracking beneath his feet and woke with his hands clenched in Meera’s coat.
She did not scold him for crawling closer.
She only shifted so he could breathe easier.
Hannah sat upright in a chair long after the others drifted in and out of shallow sleep, her mind pacing back and forth like a guard that refused to stand down.
Jonah lay on the floor with his arm thrown over his eyes, counting breaths.
Isaac stood near the window most of the night, watching the snow fall sideways, as if it might change direction if he stared hard enough.
Mister Uzi did not sleep at all.
When dawn came, it did not announce itself with color, just a thinning of dark, a quiet easing of shadow.
Winter mornings were like that.
No ceremony, just continuation.
Mr.
Uzi rose first, setting water on the stove.
The sound of it heating pulled the others back into their bodies.
Coats were pulled tighter.
fingers rubbed warmth into knuckles.
Eli yawned and pressed his face into Hannah’s side.
They ate in silence.
Bread, weak coffee.
The kind of meal meant only to carry you forward, not comfort you.
When they stepped back outside, the world looked different.
Snow covered everything evenly now, smoothing sharp edges, hiding tracks.
The town felt smaller, like it had already begun to forget them.
Smoke curled from a few chimneys, thin and distant.
No one waved.
No one followed.
The wagon waited near the road, old but sturdy, its sides scarred by other winters.
Mr.
Uzi moved with practiced efficiency.
Loading bags, tying blankets, checking the wheels twice, each motion was deliberate, as if care itself could hold things together.
Sit close, he said.
Share warmth.
They did.
Hannah sat in the middle without deciding to.
Jonah pressed in on one side, Meera on the other.
Isaac took the edge, back straight, shoulders squared like he could block the wind if it tried hard enough.
Eli curled where there was space, knees tucked, eyes already heavy.
The wagon lurched forward.
Brier Hollow slid away behind them.
At first, no one spoke.
The road stretched long and pale ahead, bending gently through fields buried under white.
Fences disappeared beneath snowdrifts.
Trees stood like witnesses who had seen this kind of leaving before.
After a while, Mr.
Uzi spoke again, not to fill the silence, but to guide it.
Your father came to see me on a night like this, he said.
Cold enough to sting your lungs.
He stood right where Isaac is sitting now.
Isaac looked up.
He asked me what happens to families when one piece goes missing.
Mr.
Uzi continued.
Not legally, humanly.
Jonah swallowed.
What did you say? That they either scatter, Mr.
Uzi said.
Or they learn a new shape.
Meera frowned slightly.
A shape? Yes, he replied.
Like ice on a river.
When it cracks, it doesn’t disappear.
It reforms.
Thicker in some places, thinner in others, but still holding.
The wagon creaked as it climbed a low hill.
The wind picked up, threading cold through every seam.
Isaac spoke for the first time since morning.
What if we break? Mr.
Uzi did not turn around.
Then you break together.
That matters.
The words settled slowly like snow.
They traveled through the morning, the world narrowing to the rhythm of wheels and the sway of the lantern tied to the side of the wagon.
Eli slept.
Jonah hummed without realizing it.
Meera counted fence posts until she lost count.
Hannah watched the road, memorizing it, as if knowing where they had been might help her understand where they were going.
By midday, the storm worsened.
Snow came down thicker, faster, erasing the road almost as quickly as it appeared beneath the wheels.
The wind howled low and steady, not angry, just determined.
The wagon jolted.
Meera gasped.
Isaac grabbed the side.
Mr.
Uzi rained in hard.
“Stay,” he said, already jumping down.
The wheel had caught in a drift, half buried.
The axle strained.
Mr.
Uzi worked quickly, hands red with cold, breath coming out in sharp bursts, the wind tore at his coat, at the blankets, at the edges of everything.
Inside the wagon, the siblings huddled instinctively.
Hannah wrapped her arms around Eli.
Jonah leaned forward, pressing his shoulder into Isaac’s side, adding weight.
Mera tucked her head down, teeth chattering.
For a moment, the wind was all there was.
Then the wheel shifted.
A hard crack, a groan of wood.
Mr.
Uzi straightened, chest heaving.
He climbed back up, snow clinging to his beard.
“All right,” he said.
“We move now.
” “They did.
” The wagon rolled forward again, slower, but steady.
The storm raged on, but something had changed.
Jonah began to hum louder this time, a song their father used to sing when the power went out.
Low and rough and comforting.
Hannah joined without looking at him.
Mera followed, her voice soft but sure.
Even Isaac added a quiet harmony, barely audible, like he wasn’t sure he was allowed to.
Mr.
Uzi did not turn around, but his grip on the rains loosened.
They sang until the storm thinned, until the road widened again, until the world felt less like it was closing in.
By late afternoon, the sky lightened slightly, the snow easing into a gentler fall.
Fields gave way to scattered trees.
The air smelled different.
Less iron, more pine.
Mr.
Uzi slowed the wagon.
Well rest soon, he said.
Just for a bit.
Hannah nodded, though she did not know why her chest achd the way it did.
Leaving hurt.
Staying would have hurt, too.
Winter was like that.
No clean choices, only survivable ones.
As the wagon rolled on, five shadows stretched across the snow, overlapping, blurring at the edges.
No longer separate.
One shape, learning how to move forward together, and winter, for all its cold, had not broken them yet.
They stopped just before dusk, not because the road ended, but because winter demanded it.
A stand of pines rose to the east, dense enough to block the worst of the wind.
Mr.
Uzi guided the wagon off the road.
Wheels crunching through fresh snow until the trees swallowed them whole.
The forest smelled sharp and clean.
The kind of cold that stung the inside of the nose and made every breath feel earned.
“Here,” he said.
We waited out the night.
The sky was already bruising purple, light thinning fast.
Winter nights did not linger at the edges.
They fell.
Mr.
Uzi worked quickly.
Blankets came down.
A small fire pit cleared beneath the trees.
Isaac jumped down to help without being asked, hands moving stiffly, but determined.
Jonah followed.
Mera kept Eli wrapped tight while Hannah gathered what little food they had.
The fire took longer than it should have.
Wood was damp.
Wind kept stealing the flame.
Mr.
Uzi crouched low, shielding it with his body, striking the flint again and again until finally, finally, the fire caught, weak but alive.
They sat close around it, knees nearly touching, sharing heat the way people do when there is not enough to go around.
The forest pressed in.
Snow fell softly now, drifting through the branches above them, catching fire light as it fell.
The wagon loomed nearby, dark and patient.
The trees creaked faintly, stretching under the weight of winter.
Eli shivered.
Meera pulled him closer, rubbing his arms.
“It’s okay,” she whispered.
though her own teeth were chattering.
“It’s cold,” Eli murmured.
“Yes,” Hannah said gently.
“But cold doesn’t mean alone.
” He considered that, then nodded.
They ate in small bites.
Hard bread, a little dried meat, enough to quiet hunger, not enough to satisfy it.
Winter did not believe in excess.
As the fire burned lower, shadows lengthened, climbing the tree trunks, slipping between them like something alive.
The night deepened, thick and heavy.
the kind that pressed down on the chest.
That was when Jonah spoke.
“I keep thinking,” he said quietly, staring into the fire.
“That if we hadn’t let him go alone,” Hannah stiffened.
“Jonah, I know,” he said quickly.
“I know, but my head keeps going there.
” Mera swallowed.
“Mine, too.
” Isaac looked away, jaw tight.
Mr.
Uzi poked the fire once, sending sparks into the dark.
That path is endless, he said calmly.
And it leads nowhere that feeds you.
Jonah frowned.
So what do we do with it? You let the thought pass, Mr.
Uzi replied.
Like a wave.
You don’t fight it.
You don’t follow it.
You let it move through you and go.
Does that work? Meera asked.
No, he said honestly.
But it hurts less than the alternative.
Silence followed, broken only by the crackle of the fire and the soft rush of wind through the trees.
Later, when the cold crept deeper, they took turns sleeping, one always awake, one always listening.
Winter respected vigilance more than comfort, Hannah dozed with her head against Isaac’s shoulder.
Jonah slept curled near the fire, hands clenched even in rest.
Meera sat awake for a long time, watching Eli breathe, counting the rise and fall of his chest like it was a spell keeping the world intact.
At some point, the fire burned down to embers.
That was when the sound came.
A low crack.
Then another.
Isaac’s eyes snapped open.
“What was that?” he whispered.
The forest answered with a long hollow groan as a branch heavy with snow gave way, crashing somewhere deeper among the trees.
Eli whimpered.
“It’s just the trees,” Mr.
Uzi said softly, already on his feet.
“Winter shifting its weight.
But even as he spoke, the wind picked up again.
Sharper now, cutting through layers, finding skin.
Snow began to fall harder, driven sideways.
The embers dimmed.
Hannah felt panic rise like bile.
The fire I know, Mr.
Uzi said.
Isaac, Jonah, with me.
They worked fast, hands numb, fingers clumsy.
The wind fought them at every turn, scattering sparks, swallowing heat.
The fire refused to take, wood too cold, too wet.
For a moment, it felt like winter was winning.
Then Jonah did something without thinking.
He stepped forward, shrugging off his coat, holding it up to block the wind.
Isaac followed, standing shoulderto-shoulder with him, forming a wall with their bodies.
Mera leaned in from the other side, her scarf pulled loose, adding what little shelter she could.
Hannah saw it, then the shape.
Five people, one barrier.
Mr.
Uzi struck the flint again.
The flame caught, small, fragile, real.
They fed it carefully this time, guarding it, breathing around it, until it grew strong enough to stand on its own.
The fire flared, throwing light back into the trees, pushing winter a step farther away.
Eli let out a shaky breath.
We did it.
Yes, mister.
Uzi said quietly.
You did.
They settled again, closer now.
Heat shared, coats redistributed.
No one spoke for a long while.
Sometime in the deepest part of the night, when the world felt suspended between what had been and what might still be possible, Hannah woke fully.
The storm had eased.
Snow fell gently again.
The fire glowed steady.
She looked around.
Jonah slept.
Meera dozed.
Eli was tucked safely between them.
Isaac stared into the dark, awake, thoughtful.
“You okay?” she whispered.
He nodded slowly.
“I think so.
” She hesitated.
I don’t know how to do this.
Be all of this.
Isaac didn’t answer right away.
Then he said, “You don’t have to do it alone.
” The words settled into her bones.
Above them the trees stood quiet, the wind finally resting.
Winter had thrown its worst at them and found them still standing.
The longest night was not over yet, but it was no longer unbearable.
And somewhere beyond the trees, beyond the cold, morning waited, not as a promise, but as a possibility.
Morning did not arrive like rescue.
It came quietly, the way survival often does, without apology, without promise, just present.
The forest lightened inch by inch.
Gray bled into blue.
Snow stopped falling and began to rest.
The fire had burned itself down to a bed of coals, steady and red, like a heart that refused to quit, even when it was tired.
Hannah woke first.
For a moment, she did not remember where they were.
Then the cold pressed against her cheek.
The smell of pine filled her lungs, and memory returned in a slow, careful wave.
She shifted, careful not to wake Eli, whose small body was curled against Meera’s side, breath even, face peaceful for the first time since the river.
Isaac sat where he had been all night, eyes red but open.
He nodded when he saw her awake.
Morning, he whispered.
She almost laughed at the word.
Almost.
Jonah stirred next, groaning softly as he stretched stiff muscles.
“Did we make it?” “We’re still here,” Meera said, opening her eyes.
“That counts,” Jonah replied.
Mr.
Uzi rose last, unfolding himself from the edge of the fire pit.
He looked older in the morning light, the lines in his face more visible, but steadier, too, like someone who had kept watch and found the world intact.
He poured water from the canteen into a small pot and set it over the coals.
Steam rose, thin and hopeful.
They drank quietly.
No one rushed.
Winter had taught them the value of pacing.
When they packed up, it felt different than the night before.
Movements were shurer.
Hands reached without hesitation.
Coats were adjusted for each other.
Eli handed Meera a glove she hadn’t realized she dropped.
The wagon rolled forward again, wheels crunching through fresh snow that now glimmered faintly under the morning light.
The road ahead curved gently south, slipping between hills softened by white.
As they traveled, the land began to change.
The trees thinned.
The air warmed just enough to notice.
Snow clung less fiercely to branches, slipping free and soft cascades that thutdded to the ground.
Somewhere far off, water moved.
Still cold, still dangerous, but alive.
Hannah felt something inside her shift.
Not heal, not yet, but loosen.
By midday, they reached the place Mr.
Uzi had spoken of reopening in the dark hours of the night.
A small settlement tucked between low hills, smoke rising steady from chimneys, the sound of life moving forward without asking permission.
He slowed the wagon.
This is where I leave you,” he said.
The words landed heavier than Hannah expected.
Jonah frowned.
“You’re not staying.
” Mr.
Uzi shook his head.
“I was meant to bring you here, not to stay.
” Eli climbed down from the wagon [clears throat] before anyone could stop him.
He stood in front of Mr.
Uzi, small and serious.
“Thank you,” he said.
Mr.
Uzi knelt, the snow dampening his coat.
“You’re welcome,” he replied.
“All of you.
” Hannah stepped forward.
She had practiced speeches in her head all morning.
None of them survived the moment.
“You didn’t have to,” she said instead.
“Yes,” he answered gently.
“I did.
” Isaac extended his hand.
Mr.
Uzi took it, grip firm, meaningful.
“No extra words.
” Meera hugged him quickly, fiercely, then stepped back before the weight of it could tip her over.
Jonah nodded, jaw tight.
You You made a difference.
Mr.
Uzi smiled.
Not wide, not bright, but real.
Winter always asks something, he said.
You answered together.
“That’s rare.
” He climbed back onto the wagon seat, turned the res, and for a moment he hesitated.
“All of you,” he said one last time, voice softer now, carrying none of the urgency it once had, “Keep moving together.
” Then he was gone.
The sound of the wagon faded.
The road swallowed his tracks.
The five siblings stood in the snow, the quiet settling around them.
Eli reached for Hannah’s hand.
Jonah reached for Mirror’s.
Isaac stood close enough that none of them felt alone.
They were taken in slowly, carefully.
The house they entered was not large, not perfect, but warm.
A woman with tired eyes and kind hands showed them where to put their things.
An older man nodded, already measuring doorways and silence.
No one tried to separate them.
That night they slept under a roof that was not theirs yet, but it held.
Days passed.
Then weeks, winter loosened its grip inch by inch.
Snow melted into mud.
Ice thinned.
The river learned how to move again without breaking itself apart.
The siblings learned new routines, new sounds, new ways to exist inside a space shaped by loss and continuation.
Hannah learned she could rest without the world ending.
Jonah learned silence didn’t always mean blame.
Meera learned that care did not have to be quiet to be real.
Isaac learned strength could look like staying.
Eli learned winter did not last forever.
Sometimes in the evenings they sat together by the window and watched the last light fade.
They did not talk much about the river or the road or the longest night.
They didn’t have to.
They had carried each other through it.
And winter, for all its cold, for all its cruelty, had learned their names.
It had tried to take them apart.
Instead, it had taught them how to hold
