The first time Mother ever screamed at me was just this morning, when I reached for the door. I wasn’t going to go outside – I just wanted to look at the snow that’s been whispering for so long behind the curtains, for days, and she won’t let me open those, either. Before she rushed home out of the first flurries – dropping her best winter cloak out on the steps, and I was going to bring it in for her, too, just a step outside while I was looking at the snow – and pulled all the curtains shut, I saw how all those perfect pillowy flakes, as big as flower petals, left red stains on the windows, even though they were as white as any other snow.

She won’t tell me why they’re that way. Won’t tell me why we can’t go outside, or even look at them. I ask her if everyone else is shut up in their houses, too, if they’re safe, but she just sits as stiff as frost in her chair and stares into the fire, where the last of our wood is burning.