Winter's Secret
Read the storyI did not see him at first. The snow had made a liar of the whole world, smoothing everything into white mounds and soft graves, hiding stone, branch, ditch, and man alike. One moment I was walking back from the forest with an armful of chopped wood digging sharp into my ribs, and the next my boot caught on something hard beneath the drift. I stumbled forward with a curse, the logs spilling from my arms and rolling over the frozen ground. I went down to one knee, breath bursting out of me in a cloud. For a moment I thought it was a root, or some carcass the wolves had not finished. In our village, death had a way of appearing where it pleased. Then the wind shifted, carrying the scent of blood beneath the cold, and I saw it. A hand. Human. Bare to the wrist. Half buried in snow, pale as old bone. I froze.