“One day,” I said, voice thin but true, “this town is going to face a winter it can’t handle.”
The wind answered with a low moan, as if the mountain approved.
“And when they look up,” I promised, “I’ll be ready.”
The first night taught me humility, the kind with teeth.
I herded the small, bewildered flock to the base of the cliffs, finding a shallow overhang that offered the barest protection from a wind that felt like it was trying to peel the skin off my face. The sheep pressed together, shoulder to shoulder, their warmth a living furnace against the vast, indifferent cold.
I sat with my back against rock, my mother’s skillet in my lap like it could defend me. The darkness around us didn’t feel empty. It felt attentive. Like something waiting to see if I’d last.
Sleep didn’t come. Every twig snap, every distant cry of a predator made my heart lunge. I wasn’t a daughter in a warm bed anymore.
I was prey.
At dawn, the world looked drained, as if color had decided to move away. My body ached with that deep, resonant cold that doesn’t just chill skin, it chills courage.
Water was the first problem. I found a sluggish creek half frozen at the edges and broke ice with my father’s sharpening stone until my hands went numb. The sheep drank greedily. I filled my single canteen and told myself the small clink of water inside it sounded like hope.
