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It was a clear blue day. The white sun shone down from the highest point in the sky onto the crystalline snow. And everything, from the road to the bushes to the ground, was covered in a thin sheet of black ice. The ice was not truly black, it was actually clear. But most often it became black, by laying over something black, and so it was mostly called black ice. The bushes were a glazed-green, the ground and trees and road mostly grey and brown, and the icicles fringing the boughs were clear, and seemed to refract in endless rainbows spilling out over everything It would preserve its greenness until the ice melted, beyond what was usual.
The sun was at its highest point, so Hildy was not worried. Yes, strange things had been sighted, and more and more strangers had been seen rushing in, a great river of hurried people, frightened people. People with nowhere else to go but south, south, south.
They had a furtive look about them, the strangers. They dressed strangely, wearing every spare scrap of cloth they had until it padded them out like badgers, red-faced, carrying great loads of food and objects on their backs like turtles. They passed by in clumps, five at dawn, twenty at noon, thirty when the sun starts to set. None came at night, and those who came with the dawn had terror etched into their faces like the marks left by bone skates on ice.
Hildy however was not afraid. She had a strong house, and the sun hung high in the sky. As she searched for her traps, the snow crunched under her feet. The pine boughs hung heavy, and released a sweet sharp scent into the clear blue air as she pulled them aside. The other trees branches were black, arching up to the snow-white sky like searching skeletal fingers.
She found a trap, half-hidden under a sudden snowfall. Ensnared within, a rare red fox. The creature had halfway gnawed its paw off to get away.
The freeze must have killed it, Hildy thought, after it had been driven away from its den. Perhaps if it had migrated south beforehand it could have lived.
Still, food was food, and the pelt would be a rare spot of color that winter. Da always said that her hair was kissed by flame. Today she had braided it and hidden it under her hood, so only a few escaped wisps could be seen against the white fur lining.
She slung the fox alongside a brace of white winter hares, and turned to go back to her house. Da was waiting, after all.
On the way back, she dug up some late autumn roots and nuts, and picked up some late acorns. Da would enjoy eating them roasted during the dark winter evenings, sitting around the fire. She remembered the way back like the back of her hand. Past the old oak-tree split by lightning, past the still frozen-over pond, past the stand of coppiced beeches. Then she was past the gate, and setting down her load, and hanging up her catch to drain of blood. It had gotten on her hands, bright smears of red life catching in her nails. She bent over the water barrel, and peered down at the surface. It had developed a thin skin of the clearest ice overnight. In it, her face looked as near as it likely did to others. The brick easily smashed it in. After washing up, she hurried in to stir the fire.
Inside, the house was chill, and the air was close. Hildy was bent over the hearth when she heard a stirring from the bed.
Da must be hungry, or thirsty, or needed to go to the privy. She hurried over to him.
“Hildy….”
“Da? What is it?”
“You must … bury me”
“Bury you?” Hildy couldn’t understand what he meant.
“Under … Under the ash-tree with…Your mother, and the babe”
Last year Hildy’s mother, a woman who laughed often and long, laughed for the last time. Da had wept as he dug their shared grave. He had caught a late-autumn chill, and ever since hes been wasting away in bed. Hildy didn’t know how she was supposed to go on without him. She had thought to steal a husband and they could stay here and take care of him, all three sharing scant warmth. But with the strange talk, everyone had shut their doors and shuttered their windows.
He would live. Hildy was sure of it. It was just a passing fancy. So she made him drink, and butchered the rabbit, and skinned the fox, and set to tanning their hides. A new pair of rabbit-fur mittens and a fox-fur cape would do him well. It was just the chill, after all. The long summer heralded a bitter winter, and he would need to be kept warm.
After night had fallen, she settled down in bed with him, and fell asleep to the sound of his labored breathing. She always waited to make sure that he was still breathing before she slept.
She dreamt of a warm home, under the snow. But she had to go out
She dreamt of starlight. White light pouring down, slipping through every slim crack and insect’s boring-hole in her house, seeping through the very wood. And It was white. A terrible white, like a killing frost, like bleached white bones, like early snowfall.
She felt a creeping chill, as winter itself seemed to push its way through the door like Hildy moving a low-hanging black bough. Snow was blowing in, and beyond the door, behind the head, was a moonless night, black as night and lit only by the alien stars. Yes the stars! Ever-shining, pitiless, eternal. They lived on a different timescale from Hildy, their lives measured in billions instead of decades. And caught in endless dance, their wars could span the life of entire species, their armistices millennia.
The cold was coming in, through the cracks, through the door. She knew if she didn’t wake soon, she never would, instead caught eternally in the star’s silver fishing-net. Forever. So she said Hildy wake up! Wake up!
Hildy woke up. The air was freezing, but the door was shut. It was just a dream, most likely brought on by the fire guttering out. She moved to stir it, to revive it, when felt it. A hand like ice had gripped her wrist. The hand barely felt like a hand, it was so cold it numbed her skin. She turned.
In the dark, she could not see more than the barest outlines of her father. And she could not hear him breathing. Hildy felt cold fingers trail down her neck.
“Da? Do you need help?” she said, suddenly awake.
Perhaps he just needed to be helped to the privy, or was going to complain about the cold.
He must have turned his head, because Hildy heard a rustle. Da’s eyes were green, like hers. But now, they were like twin blue stars, and a terrible white light seemed to emanate from them. A hand closed on her wrist in a punishing grip. And the smell. The smell was like snow, like melt-water. Not like men.
“Da! Da, what are you doing?” Hildy screamed.
She heard a snarl from him. Is this what those strangers meant, with their strange stories? Is this what they feared?
Hildy fought back. She was young, she was strong, she seized the iron poker by her bed and broke his grip. Her wrist still felt cold, then hot. She staggered back, almost tripping in her haste. The… thing, whatever it was, rose from the bed. It moved better than her old father did. She held out the poker in front of her, and tried to remember what the strangers had said. A wight would not be deterred by pain, or injury. Fire! Yes, fire!. She moved to the fire, and seized up a spare stick. She used it to stir the fire, to catch it aflame. The poker she held out, to protect herself. The wight was slow, at least. She had finally caught the brand aflame when she heard it. The door had been broken in. Outside, silhouetted by the light of the stars, she saw it.
White skin like freshly fallen snow, hair like icicles, armor that caught all color. And eyes like strange blue stars, set in a face like new clear ice. It laughed at her horror, and it came in, like Hildy’s house belonged to it. She tried to stab it, but her poker glanced off, and instead of a sound like a stick hitting flesh or leather or wood, it made a high shivering sound like a wailing ghost at midnight. The Other laughed at her again, a sound like icicles clattering on a roof. Hildy brought the burning brand in front of her, forcing the thing back. In the firelight its face looked less like perfect new ice, more like a rotting white fish.
But Hildy had forgotten what Da had become. It clutched her about the wrist and bore her down. The Other raised its sword. As she lay there, waiting to die, she, absurdly, thought about the fox, and its half bitten-off paw.
Later, she was stumbling down the road, her hand clutching her frost-bitten wrist, joining the strangers streaming south. Now they were the only kin left to her, a kinship of cold iron and ice. Her hair matched the fox-fur wrapped around her shoulders, and the both of them were matching with an injured paw. But there were others like her, missing fingers and homes and noses and fathers, and the sun was casting red warmth down across their heads.