My Town Has Been Buried In Snow Since November. A Man Just Showed Up Saying It Never Snowed.

I was on my knees in the hole where the front door used to be, scooping snow with a dented soup pot. It was still dark outside. Not full night, but close enough. The kind of dark that made the snow look gray instead of white. My breath froze on my stubble and fell away in little pieces whenever I moved.

The shovel handle had broken during the previous winter. I kept meaning to fix it, but there wasn't much left to fix. The pot worked better than you'd expect. I scraped the snow loose from the threshold and lifted it out one potful at a time. The snow wouldn't melt on the woodstove.

I tried that the first morning. Put a handful on the iron plate and watched it sit there, white and dry, until I pushed it around with a stick. It only melted after I scraped it thin. Even then it left a gray film behind. I tasted some.

There was no cold. No wet. Just a soft buzzing behind my teeth. I stopped doing that after the first time, but I still thought about it whenever I handled the snow. The taste stayed longer than it should have.

I cleared enough space to get one boot through, then looked across the yard. Four white mounds sat beneath the maple tree. I knew Casey was the one nearest the trunk. Theo was beside him. The two of them had always stood close together, even before the snow.

Caden was farther out where the branches thinned. The fourth mound belonged to somebody I knew but couldn't place anymore. That was how it worked now. You could know the shape without being able to say the name. Nobody in town disturbed the mounds.

The people who were still themselves treated them as people already lost. We didn't dig them up. We didn't call to them. We didn't go close unless we had to. I went back inside.

The house had been buried to the second-floor windows since the snow began on November twelfth, twenty nineteen. The kitchen was below the drift line and the walls stayed damp no matter how long I kept the stove burning. The pallet plant had been silent for almost four years. Sometimes I still caught myself listening for the conveyors when the wind shifted, like the building might start up again.

It never did. I opened the last jar of canned peaches and divided it between two bowls. There wasn't enough for a full serving, so I made the pieces smaller. Meadow watched from the table without saying anything. I fed one leg from the dining chair into the stove.

The wood caught slowly. The chair had been missing that leg for three days, which meant it had already stopped being useful as a chair. That was the way I decided things now. Meadow sat with her hands around the bowl.

"Eat," I said.

She picked up one piece of peach with her fingers. "Is this all?"

"For the morning."

"What about later?"

"We'll see."

She put the peach in her mouth and chewed. I sat across from her and made myself eat too. The syrup was thick and sweet enough to hurt. When we were done I pushed the bowls aside.

"Say your name."

She looked at me. "I already know my name."

"Say it."

"Dad."

"Meadow."

"I know."

"Say it anyway."

She sighed, but she did. "Meadow Curtis."

"Again."

"Meadow Curtis."

I watched her face while she said it. Her eyes were clear. Her voice sounded like hers. That mattered more than the peaches.

"Again."

"Meadow Curtis."

The stove popped behind me. A small orange spark lifted through the grate and vanished. She started rubbing her thumb against the edge of the table.

"Why do I have to keep saying it?"

"Because the snow takes your name first."

She stopped rubbing the table. "Then what?"

"Your face."

Her mouth tightened. "Then what?"

"Then it takes the part of you that knows who you are."

She looked toward the kitchen window. Frost covered most of the glass, but there was a clear patch near the bottom where the heat reached it.

"If you forget your name," I said, "it's already getting inside you."

"I won't forget."

"I know."

"Then why do I have to say it?"

"Because knowing isn't always enough."

I was reaching for the knife to cut the last pieces of peach when somebody appeared at the window. She had no coat on. Snow crusted her hair and covered one side of her face. She stood close to the glass, smiling like she'd just come over to borrow something. It took me a second to recognize Jacqueline.

She lived two lots down. Or had. I knew the house, the porch, the blue trash can she'd kept beside the garage. I knew her face before the snow had started changing it. She lifted one hand and tapped the window.

Meadow made a small sound behind me. I stood up and went over.

"Jacqueline?"

The smile stayed on her face. "Whose house is this?" she asked.

"It's mine."

She glanced past me into the kitchen. "Who lives here?"

"Me and my daughter."

She looked down at the snow around her boots. "I don't know where I am."

"You're in Halstead."

"Is that my house?"

"No. You live two lots down."

She nodded as if that helped, but it didn't seem to. Her eyes moved past my shoulder again, toward the yard and the maple tree.

"Why did I come here?" she asked.

"I don't know."

The window had frozen along the bottom. I worked it loose with the knife and raised it a few inches.

"Come inside," I said.

Jacqueline stepped toward the opening, then stopped. "The snow looks soft," she said.

"Come inside."

"I only want to lie down."

"Jacqueline. Come inside."

She looked at me. For a second I thought she might listen. Then she looked past me again.

"The yard is warmer than the house."

I reached through the opening and caught her under the arms. Her coat was gone, but her sweater was wet and stiff with ice. She didn't fight me. I pulled her through the window and dragged her onto the kitchen floor. Meadow pushed her chair back.

"Stay there," I told her.

I got Jacqueline to the stove and held her against the iron side. Her skin was cold through the sweater. She kept smiling, which was worse than if she'd been crying.

"Thank you," she said.

"Don't thank me. Hold still."

"I'm trying."

I grabbed the blanket from the cot and turned back. Jacqueline slipped out of my grip. She moved faster than she should have. One second she was beside the stove and the next she was through the open window, dropping into the snow in her socks. I climbed after her.

"Jacqueline."

She crossed the yard without looking back. The snow came up to her knees, but she kept going toward the maple. I reached the edge of the buried path before she did. My boots sank deep enough that I nearly lost one.

"Jacqueline, stop."

She knelt beside the mounds. Snow settled on her bare shoulders. Her hair had come loose from the ice and hung against her cheek.

"Say your name," I told her.

She looked at me. "Jacqueline Peters."

Her eyes moved over my face without finding anything. "Say it."

She looked down at the nearest mound. Casey. I knew it was Casey. I could see the broad shape of his shoulders beneath the snow.

"Jacqueline," I said.

"Say your name."

She didn't answer. I stepped closer, but the path ended there. Beyond it the snow had packed hard around the maple roots. I didn't want to put my weight onto it.

"Jacqueline Peters."

She lowered herself beside the mounds and rested one hand on the snow. By daylight, snow covered her lap. By afternoon, it reached her chest. She never moved. I stayed in the doorway and watched until I couldn't see her face anymore.

By nightfall there were five mounds beneath the maple. The place where Jacqueline had knelt was gone. I kept Meadow inside. I didn't let her near the window. She sat at the kitchen table with the blanket around her shoulders and repeated her name until her voice grew quiet.

"Meadow Curtis," she said.

"Again."

"Meadow Curtis."

"Again."

She kept going after I stopped asking. The stove burned low, and the broken chair leg gave off a smell like old varnish. I found the charcoal beside the cold fireplace bricks and stood in front of the kitchen wall. The first word took up most of the space. I wrote Meadow Curtis.

Then I wrote Isaac Curtis beneath it. Meadow had fallen asleep with her cheek on the table before I finished. I pressed the charcoal harder and finished writing Meadow Curtis and Isaac Curtis on the kitchen wall beside the stove.

The next morning I dug the doorway open again. It took most of the morning because the snow had settled overnight, but the air felt different. Colder than it had been before. Not colder by much. Just enough that the metal pot numbed my fingers through the gloves.

Meadow stood behind me in the kitchen with the blanket around her shoulders. The names on the wall were still there. The charcoal had smudged where my sleeve brushed it, but Meadow Curtis was clear. So was Isaac Curtis. I cleared a space wide enough for my shoulders and climbed through.

A man was standing in the yard. He wore a light jacket and work trousers. His shoes were clean and dry. There was no snow on his shoulders or in his hair, and the surface beneath him hadn't been disturbed. He stood on top of the drift like it was a sidewalk.

He looked at me and checked his watch. "Morning," he said.

"I'm Axel."

I kept one hand on the edge of the doorway. He looked past me at the house.

"Can you tell me why Halstead looks abandoned?"

I didn't answer right away. The buried streets ran between the houses, though there wasn't much left of them to see. Roofs and chimneys stuck out of the drifts. The pallet plant stood beyond them with its windows dark and its loading yard covered over. There was no sound coming from it.

No conveyors. No trucks. No machinery starting up inside the building. Axel looked toward the plant.

"It's still operating, right?" he said.

"The pallet plant?"

"It hasn't operated in almost four years."

He turned back to me. "Four years?"

"The town's been buried since the first winter."

He looked down at his shoes. They were still dry.

"It's a warm Tuesday in November," he said.

I looked at the sky. It was the same gray ceiling I'd seen every morning since the snow began. No sun. No break in the clouds. The cold sat against my face and made my eyes water.

"You should have snow on you," I said.

Axel glanced at his jacket. "Why?"

"Where did you come from?"

"I entered from Route nine."

The road was buried under the fields west of town. I knew where it used to be because I'd driven it every week before the snow. The signs had disappeared during the first winter. The road itself was under several feet of packed ice and snow.

"Route nine is gone," I said.

He looked at me for a second. "No, it's not."

"There's no road out."

"I came in on it."

He checked his watch again. It had a black band and a bright face. The second hand moved steadily.

"I was surveying the bridge repair," he said.

"I need to reach the plant gate before lunch."

I heard Meadow move behind me. Her boots scraped the floorboards. Axel looked toward the doorway.

"Is that your daughter?"

"Yes."

She came up beside me, keeping one hand on the wall. Her hat was pulled low over her ears. She looked at Axel, then at the clean snow around his feet.

"Why isn't he sinking?" she asked.

Axel frowned. "Sinking?"

I stepped out farther and looked at the ground near him. There were no footprints leading in. No marks at all. The snow was smooth around his shoes and rose in a clean slope behind his heels. Axel pulled a phone from his jacket pocket.

The screen was lit. There was no crack across it. No dead battery symbol. The date read Tuesday, November twelfth, twenty nineteen. I stared at it.

My phone had stopped working during the first winter. The screen still showed the date from the last time it had charged, four years after the snow began. I kept it in the kitchen drawer because throwing it away felt like admitting there was no use for time anymore. Axel looked from the phone to me.

"What?" he said.

"That's the day it started."

He glanced at the screen. "The day what started?"

"The snow."

He shook his head. "It hasn't snowed."

Meadow moved closer to my side. "Dad."

Axel looked at her. "What?"

"What's your name?"

He seemed surprised by the question. "Axel King."

She studied his face. "Where are you going?"

"The plant gate. I need to be there before lunch."

"You already said that."

"Right."

He looked at his watch again. "It's still morning."

He didn't sound worried. That was the part I couldn't get past. His jacket was clean. His shoes were dry. He stood in a town that had been buried for years and talked about a bridge repair like he was late for work.

I looked at the plant again. The upper windows were black. One of the old smokestacks leaned toward the road. Nothing moved around it.

"I can hear it from here," Axel said.

I couldn't hear anything. "Listen."

I listened. Wind against the roof. Snow shifting somewhere inside the house. Meadow's breathing beside me. Nothing from the plant.

Axel smiled faintly, like he thought I was having trouble with directions. "The conveyors are running. You can hear them if you pay attention."

The first winter, Tammy forgot my face. She stood in the kitchen and looked at me like I was somebody who'd come to the wrong house. She knew Meadow's name for another day. Then she forgot that too. After that she walked into the drifts without her coat.

I followed her as far as the old mailbox, but the snow rose above my waist and she kept moving. I couldn't reach her. I didn't know if she was still walking when I went back inside. I looked at Axel's phone again.

"How did you get here?"

He lowered it. "I told you. Route nine."

"No. How did you get into Halstead?"

"I drove in."

"The roads are buried."

He looked toward the street. "They aren't buried."

"They are."

Axel let out a quiet breath. He wasn't angry. He just didn't understand what I was asking.

"It's unusually warm for November," he said.

"Maybe that's why you think something's wrong."

Meadow looked at me. Her eyes were wide, but her voice stayed steady.

"Dad, can we go with him?"

I looked at Axel. He had come from somewhere that still had roads. Somewhere that still had working phones and bridges being repaired and a plant that made enough noise to hear from town. I didn't know how he'd crossed into Halstead. I didn't know if he could cross back.

But he'd done it once. "If we follow the road," I said, "can you take us out?"

Axel stared at me. "Out of town?"

"Yes."

"I have to get to the plant first."

"Then we'll go there."

He checked his watch again. "I need to reach the gate before lunch."

"We'll keep up."

He looked at Meadow's boots and then at the doorway. "You shouldn't be out in this."

"We've been out in it for four years."

That stopped him for a moment. I went back inside. Meadow followed. Axel stayed in the yard, looking toward the plant as if he could see something I couldn't. The remaining peaches were in the cupboard beside the stove.

I wrapped the jar in a towel and put it in the canvas bag. Then I took the blanket from the cot. There wasn't much else worth carrying. The charcoal went into a side pocket, wrapped in a piece of cloth so it wouldn't break. I took the kitchen knife from the table and slid it into my coat.

Meadow stood near the wall. "Are we really going?" she asked.

"We're going to find a way out."

"With Axel?"

"With Axel."

"What if he can't take us?"

"Then we'll find another way."

I didn't say what I was thinking. If Axel had crossed from the last ordinary morning into buried Halstead, Meadow might be able to cross with him. Maybe the road would be there for her. Maybe the cold would stop at the edge of town. Maybe she could get back to a place where people remembered faces.

I knew better than to trust maybe. I also knew what happened if I didn't. Meadow held still while I pulled her hat down and tied it beneath her chin. Her fingers were already red from the cold.

"Say your name," I said.

She looked annoyed, but she answered. "Meadow Curtis."

"Again."

"Meadow Curtis."

I took the charcoal from the bag and wrote her name inside the cuff of her sleeve. The letters came out crooked because the fabric kept moving.

"Why are you writing it there?"

"So it stays with you."

"I already know it."

"I know."

I folded the sleeve over the writing and tied the named part around her wrist. She watched me work. Her breathing had gotten faster.

"Keep moving," I said.

"Don't stop, Meadow."

"I won't."

I tightened the knot once and checked that it wasn't cutting into her skin. Then I turned toward the doorway. The snow had filled most of the opening again while we packed. I picked up the pot and started digging, with Meadow close behind me. When there was room to pass, I put one hand on her shoulder and helped her through.

I tied Meadow's named sleeve around her wrist and opened the buried doorway.

Axel was already moving by the time I got through the doorway. He walked across the yard without sinking, stepping over places where I could see nothing but packed snow. Meadow stayed close to my side. I kept one hand on her sleeve and followed Axel toward the street. Or what he called the street.

“There it is,” Axel said, pointing ahead.

“Warm pavement. You can see where it runs between the houses.”

I saw a white slope with the tops of two fences sticking out. The snow had hardened over the road until it looked like a frozen river. There were no tire tracks. No pavement. No road signs.

Axel stepped over a drift that came up to my chest. I climbed over it after him. Meadow needed both hands to get up. I pulled her by the arm and lifted her onto the other side.

“Careful,” I said.

“Keep moving.”

“I’m moving.”

Axel checked his watch. The face was bright even in the gray morning.

“We’re still on schedule,” he said.

“Plant gate before lunch.”

He said it like lunch was the part that mattered. Like the road was under our feet and the plant was waiting at the end of it. I took the charcoal from my bag when we passed the remains of a fence. One post leaned out of the snow near the old Welch lot. I scraped the surface clean and marked an arrow on it.

Then I drew a line beneath the arrow so I could tell which way we’d come from. The charcoal left a black mark against the wood. I turned and watched Axel cross the next yard. Meadow was behind me. I looked back at the post.

The mark was gone. Not covered. Gone. The wood was clean where I'd written, with the same pale grain running through it. I rubbed the charcoal between my fingers.

There was dust on my glove. “Dad?”

“Come on.”

I put the charcoal away and caught up with her. The old Welch house was buried almost to the roof. Only the upper half of a window showed above the drift. The maple tree in the front yard had disappeared except for three branches pointing into the sky. Casey and Theo were under that tree.

So was Caden. I knew where they were even though there was no way to see them now. Something moved beside the lot. At first I thought it was a patch of loose snow sliding down the side of the house. Then a face came out of it.

The skin was gray from the cold. Snow filled the hair and covered the cheeks. Only the face showed above the drift. It looked up at me with calm eyes. The voice was Jacqueline's.

“You’re going the wrong way.”

Meadow stopped. I put my arm across her chest.

“Keep moving.”

The face smiled. “The yard is warmer. You should lie down.”

I looked toward Axel. He kept walking along the buried street, checking his watch as if none of this was happening.

“You can hear me,” the face said.

I didn't answer. “Isaac,” Meadow whispered.

“Don't answer them.”

“Why are they talking?”

“Don't answer.”

The snow shifted farther along the lot. Another face surfaced near the buried porch. Then another one beside the maple. They came up slowly, pushing through the drifts until their eyes and mouths were clear. One voice sounded like Jacqueline.

Another sounded older. I knew that one too, but I didn't let myself place it.

“Lie down,” one of them said.

“She's waiting,” another said.

“The snow is soft.”

“You’re tired.”

Meadow pressed against my side. I held on to her sleeve and started walking again. The faces followed us with their eyes. None of them could move their bodies. They didn't need to.

Their voices carried across the yards. “Just for a little while.”

“Come closer.”

“You don't have to be cold.”

Axel stepped over another place in the street that I couldn't see. He turned his head slightly.

“Are you coming?” he asked.

“Keep going,” I said.

He nodded and walked on. The nearest face was almost level with us now. Snow covered the shoulders beneath it. A hand came out of the drift. It reached for Meadow.

I shoved her behind me and pulled the kitchen knife from my coat. The blade looked small in the gray light. Smaller than the hand reaching toward us.

“Back,” I said.

The hand kept coming. The fingers were bare and blue at the tips. They caught the edge of Meadow's sleeve.

“Come on,” the voice said.

“You’re—” It called her by a name that wasn't hers.

Meadow made a sharp sound and tried to pull away. The sleeve stretched between us. I grabbed her around the waist and cut through the cloth near the wrist. The hand dropped back into the snow with a piece of fabric twisted around its fingers.

“Meadow Curtis,” she said under her breath.

I pulled her free. “Meadow Curtis,” she said again, faster this time.

“Meadow Curtis,” I said.

She stumbled over the drift. I caught her before she fell.

“Meadow Curtis.”

“Meadow Curtis,” I repeated.

“Keep moving, Meadow. Don't stop.”

The faces kept talking behind us. The words ran together until they sounded like people speaking from inside a crowded room. Some of them called for us. Some told us to lie down. One voice kept saying the snow was warm.

Meadow held the torn sleeve against her wrist. “Meadow Curtis,” she whispered.

“Again.”

“Meadow Curtis.”

We crossed the last part of the residential block. The houses thinned out there. Fences became short black lines in the snow. The buried yards opened into fields of white leading toward the industrial district. The voices stopped.

It happened all at once. One moment they were behind us and the next there was only wind moving over the drifts. I waited for another face to rise. Nothing did. Axel stood ahead near a line of buried utility poles.

He checked his watch, then looked back at us. “Why'd you fall behind?”

I kept the knife in my right hand. “We had trouble.”

“With what?”

I looked at the houses behind us. The snow sat smooth over the Welch lot. There was no hand. No face. No torn strip of cloth.

“Nothing,” I said.

Axel seemed satisfied with that. He turned toward the plant.

“Gate before lunch,” he said.

Then he started walking again. Meadow's breathing was fast. I kept my left hand around her sleeve and held the knife low in my other hand. The canvas bag bumped against my hip as we crossed the open yards. Ahead of us the pallet plant rose out of the snow, dark windows above the buried loading yard.

The grain silo stood closer, a wide gray shape with one side sheltered from the wind. Axel followed the invisible street toward it. I could hear the wind. I could hear Meadow breathing. I couldn't hear any conveyors.

When we reached the lee of the buried grain silo, Axel was waiting beside the route he still called a street.

Axel was waiting beside the grain silo with one hand on his hip and the other holding his phone. The wind didn't reach us there. Snow had piled against the curved wall, making a narrow space where the three of us could stand without being hit in the face.

"We can rest here for three minutes," he said.

"Then we should keep moving."

I looked at Meadow. She was still holding the torn sleeve against her wrist. The charcoal mark I'd written inside it was gone with the rest of the fabric. Her name was on the wall at home, but that didn't help me here. Axel checked his watch.

"Warm Tuesday in November," he said.

"Bridge survey, no bridge. That's what I get for trusting a map."

He smiled at the joke. It wasn't much of a joke, but he seemed pleased with it.

"You said that already," I said.

He looked at me. "I did?"

"You said it when we left the house."

Axel frowned slightly. He wasn't trying to remember. He was trying to understand what I meant.

"I don't think so."

"You said the same thing about the bridge."

"I just got here."

"From where?"

"Route nine."

"The road is buried."

He glanced past me toward the white fields. "It isn't."

Then he looked at his watch again. The movement was the same as before. Two fingers touched the black band. His thumb pressed against the side of the case. He brought the face close to his eyes even though it was bright enough to read from where I stood.

"It is still morning," he said.

"I need to reach the plant gate before lunch."

Meadow looked up at me. "Dad."

"I know."

Axel checked his phone. The date was still Tuesday, November twelfth, twenty nineteen. The battery symbol hadn't changed. Neither had the time, as far as I could tell. I didn't know what time it was because the screen had gone dim before I could read it, but the date was clear.

I took a flat stone from beside the silo and moved it three feet to the left. It landed on top of the snow with a dull sound.

"Was that stone there before?"

I asked. Axel looked at it.

"What stone?"

"That one."

"I don't know."

"You walked past it."

"I just got here."

"You were standing here when we came around the silo."

Axel gave me the same polite look he'd given me at the house when I told him the roads were gone.

"I think you're confused."

Meadow stepped closer to my side. "He isn't confused."

Axel looked at her like he'd only just noticed she was there. "Is she your daughter?" he asked.

"Yes."

He nodded. "Right."

Then he checked his watch again. I watched his hand. I watched the phone in his other hand. The watch was still moving, but the rest of him wasn't moving with it. His shoes stayed clean and dry.

There were no footprints behind him. The snow around the silo hadn't changed since we arrived, except for the stone I'd moved and the marks my boots had made on the edge of the drift. Axel's shoes didn't leave any marks at all. I took out my own phone. The screen was dark.

I pressed the button anyway. Nothing happened. Axel's phone showed the same date it had shown outside my house. Four years ago, except it wasn't four years ago to him. For Axel it was one morning, one road, one plant gate he still had to reach before lunch.

I had seen people lose pieces of themselves before. Tammy had forgotten my face. Meadow had watched Jacqueline walk into the snow. Casey and Theo and Caden were under the maple, even if there was no longer any way to see them. That kind of forgetting moved in one direction.

It took something, then took something else. Axel wasn't forgetting. He was starting over.

"What did you just say?"

I asked. He turned toward me.

"About what?"

"The bridge."

"What bridge?"

"You said the bridge wasn't going anywhere without us."

Axel looked toward the plant. "I said the bridge survey was going fine."

"No. You made a joke."

"I don't think I did."

"You did."

He smiled again. "That sounds like something I might say."

"Then say it."

Axel looked uncomfortable for the first time. He checked his watch instead.

"It's a warm Tuesday in November," he said.

Meadow's fingers tightened around her sleeve. "Dad, he said that before."

"I know."

Axel looked at the phone. "I need to reach the plant gate before lunch."

"How long have we been standing here?"

He shook his head. "Not long."

"How long?"

"I just got here."

"You said that before."

He didn't answer. The wind moved over the top of the silo and dropped a thin layer of snow between us. It landed on Axel's shoulder. He looked down at it, brushed it away, and found that his jacket was dry underneath. Then the snow was gone from the shoulder.

I stood there for another few seconds, waiting for something to change. The watch hand moved. The screen dimmed. Meadow breathed beside me. The stone stayed where I'd put it.

Nothing else happened. The first time I'd seen Axel, I thought he'd come through the snow from somewhere outside town. That was what I wanted to believe. He had a working phone. He had clean shoes.

He talked about roads and bridge repairs and a plant that was still operating. If he could get into Halstead, maybe he could get us out. But he hadn't traveled through the town. He had brought the same three minutes with him. The road he followed wasn't a road at all.

It was whatever his morning expected to find there. Pavement under his feet. A bridge ahead. The plant gate waiting at the end. He couldn't see the snow because his morning had no snow in it.

I looked at the invisible street running past the silo. Axel had been walking along it since we left the house. He'd stopped here because this was where his three minutes allowed him to stop. He'd said we could rest. He'd made the bridge joke.

He'd checked his watch. Then he'd started again. The joke came back to me in his voice. The same words. The same small smile.

"That's the same joke I made when we started, isn't it?"

Axel said. I hadn't heard him speak. Or maybe I had. I looked at his face.

"What?"

He blinked. "Nothing."

Then he checked his watch. Meadow leaned against my arm.

"Can he take us out?"

"No."

She looked toward the plant. "But he came from outside."

"He doesn't know he came from anywhere."

"Why not?"

"Because he keeps starting over."

She stared at Axel. "Is he sick?"

"I don't know."

"Can we make him remember?"

"I tried."

She looked down at the torn sleeve. "What do we do now?"

I didn't have a good answer. I had the bag, the knife, the charcoal, and the names written on a wall we couldn't see from here. I had Meadow beside me. That was enough to keep moving, but it wasn't a direction.

"We find the edge of town," I said.

"Where is it?"

"I don't know yet."

"Is it by the road?"

"Maybe."

She looked at me. "You said maybe isn't enough."

"I know."

Axel started walking. He stepped over a place where the snow rose in a smooth white ridge. His shoes stayed clean. He didn't look back at us.

"Axel," I called.

He stopped and turned. "Can you take us to the road out?"

He seemed to think about the question, but only for a moment. "I need to reach the plant gate before lunch," he said.

Then he faced the plant again. I took Meadow's hand. Her glove was stiff and cold inside mine. We stayed beside the silo while Axel followed the street that wasn't there. He checked his watch as he walked away.

"Warm Tuesday in November," he said.

"Bridge survey, no bridge. That's what I get for trusting a map."

He kept walking toward the plant gate, saying he'd reach it before lunch.

He kept walking toward the plant gate, saying he'd reach it before lunch. I watched him go for a few seconds. Then I turned back to Meadow.

“We can't follow him,” I said.

“We need to find the edge of Halstead. The road isn't real for him. It only—” I stopped.

The pallet plant stood beyond the buried yards with its windows dark and its loading yard covered over. I knew that much. I knew where it was. I knew it had been there before the snow. But I couldn't remember what color it was.

The thought came and went so quickly that I almost missed it. Gray, maybe. Or red. There had been a sign above the gate. I could picture the shape of the sign but not the letters on it.

The color had gone first. Then the rest of the plant began to flatten into the snow. Meadow was holding my sleeve. Her mitten had closed around the cloth where the other sleeve had been cut away. I looked down at her face.

For a moment I didn't know who she was. She had brown hair under her hat. Gray-blue eyes. A small face reddened by the cold. That could have been Meadow.

It could have been somebody else. Jacqueline had looked different before the snow took her, but I couldn't hold on to that difference either. The buzzing started behind my teeth. It wasn't painful this time. It felt good.

Warm, almost. I moved my tongue along the back of my teeth and listened to the soft sound inside my head. The drift beside the silo looked smooth and clean. It looked soft enough to lie down in.

“Dad?”

I looked at the snow. There was a mound a few feet away, close to the edge of the buried street. It wasn't one of the old mounds under the maple. This one had formed beside the silo, or maybe it had been there before we arrived. The top was rounded and pale.

No face showed through it. No hands. Nothing that needed to be avoided. I took one step toward it. The snow gave under my boot.

Not much. Just enough to make me stop and look down.

“Isaac?”

I couldn't remember why she was calling me that. The mound was waiting. That was the word that came to me. Waiting, but not in a bad way. There wasn't anything to fear about being still.

The cold had already taken most of the work out of me. I was tired. I could sit down beside it and close my eyes. Maybe I didn't need to keep walking. Maybe the plant could wait.

Maybe the road could wait. I bent my knees.

“Meadow Curtis!”

Her voice cracked across the snow. I looked at her.

“Meadow Curtis!” she screamed again.

“Meadow Curtis!”

The name sounded familiar. It came from somewhere close, somewhere I had left behind. I tried to stand, but my legs felt heavy. She grabbed my coat with both hands.

“Isaac Curtis!” she shouted.

“Isaac Curtis!”

The buzzing changed. It wasn't pleasant anymore. It pressed against my teeth and pushed into my jaw. The mound beside me seemed farther away than it had been.

“Meadow Curtis,” she said.

She was crying now, but she kept saying it. “Meadow Curtis. Meadow Curtis.”

I put one hand down in the snow. “Isaac Curtis!” she yelled.

My glove sank into the drift. The surface was soft. Softer than it should have been. I could have lowered myself the rest of the way without any trouble.

“Isaac Curtis,” I said.

The words came out rough and quiet. Meadow pulled on my coat.

“Again.”

“Isaac Curtis.”

“Meadow Curtis.”

“Meadow Curtis.”

We said the names back and forth. Her voice was high and fast. Mine sounded like it belonged to somebody standing farther away. The buzzing faded a little each time. The kitchen table came back to me.

Meadow sitting with her hands around the bowl. The stove burning behind me. The names written on the wall beside the broken chair. I had made her say her name because the snow took it first. Then her face.

Then the part of her that knew who she was. I had told her knowing wasn't always enough. That was the part I hadn't understood. The snow didn't only take names from people who were asleep or lost. It took them from anybody who stopped holding on.

It fed on stillness. It fed on the empty space where a thought had been, then made that space feel comfortable. I pulled my hand out of the drift and stood up.

“Keep moving,” I said.

Meadow wiped her face with the back of her mitten. “Which way?”

“Away from him.”

Axel was still following the street that wasn't there. He had stopped near the edge of the loading yard and was checking his watch. From where I stood, I could see the same black band and the same clean shoes. He looked back at us.

“Are you coming?” he asked.

“No,” I said.

He nodded as if that answered something ordinary. “I need to reach the plant gate before lunch.”

Then he turned away. I took Meadow's hand. Her glove was stiff inside mine.

“We're going toward the trees,” I said.

“Past the last houses.”

“Why?”

“Because that's the edge.”

“You don't know that.”

“No.”

She looked at me. “But we're going to find it.”

She nodded, though she didn't look convinced. Neither was I. The treeline stood beyond the buried yards as a dark line under the gray sky. It wasn't far, but distance had stopped meaning much in Halstead. A short walk could take all morning.

A few steps could put you somewhere you hadn't been before. I kept my eyes on the trees.

“If either of us gets quiet,” I said, “the other one says the name.”

“Which name?”

“Your name.”

“Meadow Curtis.”

“My name too.”

“Isaac Curtis.”

“That's right.”

I tightened my hand around hers. “Say both.”

“Meadow Curtis. Isaac Curtis.”

“Again.”

“Meadow Curtis. Isaac Curtis.”

We started away from the silo. The snow rose around our boots and caught at my legs. I had to lift each foot high before setting it down again. Meadow stayed close enough that her shoulder touched my arm. Behind us, Axel's voice carried across the yard.

“Warm Tuesday in November,” he said.

“Bridge survey, no bridge. That's what I get for trusting a map.”

The words sounded exactly the same as before. Meadow stumbled. I caught her and pulled her upright.

“Keep moving,” I said.

“Don't stop.”

“Meadow Curtis.”

“Isaac Curtis.”

“Meadow Curtis.”

“Isaac Curtis.”

The first buried houses passed on our left. Roofs and chimneys rose from the drifts. One porch light stuck out of the snow with no house beneath it. I didn't look toward the yards. I didn't want to see a face.

I didn't want to hear Jacqueline's voice telling us the snow was soft. The trees stayed ahead of us. Meadow's voice began to weaken. I stopped and waited until she looked at me.

“Again,” I said.

“Meadow Curtis.”

“Isaac Curtis.”

She took a breath. “Meadow Curtis.”

“Isaac Curtis.”

Then we moved on. I held her with one hand and kept the other raised in front of me to test the drifts. The snow took our boots, our warmth, and the strength in our legs. It couldn't take what we kept saying. Meadow Curtis.

Isaac Curtis. We crossed the last buried yards without stopping.

The last buried yards ended at the trees. There wasn't a fence or a sign to mark the town limits. The houses just stopped. One chimney stood by itself on the left, and a row of dead branches came out of the snow on the right. Beyond that was the road.

Or what had been the road. It was smooth white ground stretching between the trees and rising toward the gray sky. No pavement. No shoulders. No ditches.

The snow had covered all of it so completely that there wasn't even a line to follow. It ran forward into the blankness until I couldn't tell where the ground ended.

“Isaac,” Meadow said.

“Meadow.”

Her voice was quiet. “Again.”

“Meadow.”

“Isaac.”

We kept our hands locked together and moved onto the white surface. The snow changed under my boots. It wasn't deep anymore. It felt hard at first, then soft, then hard again without warning. I had to lift my feet high and set them down carefully.

Meadow stayed close enough that her shoulder hit my arm every few steps. “Isaac.”

“Meadow.”

“Isaac.”

“Meadow.”

The trees behind us were still there. I could see the buried yards through the branches. The upper part of the Welch house. The crooked porch roof. A chimney leaning toward the fields.

All of it looked smaller than it had a minute before. Then something moved ahead of us. At first I thought it was another line of trees. A dark shape rising from the white ground. It got taller as we walked toward it, though I wasn't sure if it was moving or if the ground was falling away between us.

Meadow stopped looking at the road. “Keep going,” I said.

“What is that?”

“Don't stop.”

The shape rose higher. It had no face. There was only a tall body made from the same pale gray as the sky, with long arms stretching out from its sides. The arms were thin in some places and wide in others. They bent at sharp angles, like power-line towers without the wires.

Its hands reached all the way down to the white surface on either side of it. The thing stood taller than a house.

“Isaac,” Meadow whispered.

“Meadow.”

The guardian dragged one hand across the ground. The sound was quiet. More like a brush moving over paper than anything with weight behind it. But the place it touched changed immediately. The trees behind us flattened first.

Their trunks lost their shape. The branches spread into thin gray lines, then those lines disappeared too. The houses went next. The roofs and chimneys folded into the snow until there was nothing left but white. The hand kept moving.

“Isaac.”

“Meadow.”

I pulled her forward. “Don't stop.”

The guardian dragged its other hand across the surface. This time the road behind us went flat. The rise and fall disappeared. The snow became one smooth sheet running from the guardian to the place where Halstead had been. There was no wind over there anymore.

No trees. No houses. No yard. No town. Just white.

Meadow's hand tightened around mine. “It can't hear us.”

“I don't think it can.”

“Then why are we saying the names?”

I looked at the guardian. It hadn't turned toward us. It didn't have anything to turn with. Its arms moved across the ground while its body stayed still.

“Keep moving,” I said.

“Why?”

“Because it notices when we stop.”

The thought had been sitting in front of me since the silo, but I hadn't known what to call it. The voices in the yards had used words to pull us closer. Axel had kept talking because that was what his morning did. But the thing ahead wasn't listening to any of it. It didn't react when we spoke.

It reacted when the ground went still. “Meadow.”

“Isaac.”

“Meadow.”

“Isaac.”

We moved faster. The open space between us and the guardian narrowed as its hands worked behind us. Every time one of them touched the surface, something disappeared. A low hill became flat ground. A line of trees became nothing.

The dark shape of the plant sank into the white until I couldn't remember where it had stood. I tried to hold on to the details anyway. The plant had been gray. Or maybe red. I could see the sign above the gate, but the letters wouldn't stay in place.

They slipped apart whenever I tried to read them. I knew there had been a sign. I knew the plant had made pallets. I knew I'd listened for the conveyors during the first winter. The color was gone.

“Isaac,” Meadow said.

“Meadow.”

Her voice had started to weaken again. “Louder,” I said.

“Meadow.”

“Louder.”

“Meadow!”

“Isaac!”

The sound carried over the white surface and came back smaller. The guardian didn't move its head. It kept dragging its hands through the place we'd crossed. I looked down at our feet. There were no tracks behind us anymore.

The surface filled itself as soon as we passed, not with falling snow but with a blankness that erased the shape of anything touching it.

“Meadow.”

“Isaac.”

“Keep moving.”

“I am.”

The ground dropped without warning. Meadow's boot went through the surface. Her knee hit the white ground and her hand slipped out of mine. She fell forward and stopped moving. I grabbed the back of her coat.

“Get up.”

She looked at me, stunned. “Meadow.”

Her mouth opened, but no sound came out. “Say it.”

“Meadow.”

“Again.”

“Meadow.”

I pulled her upright. Her boot came free with a soft tearing sound. The place where she'd fallen was already flattening. The shallow hole disappeared under a smooth layer of white. A hand passed behind us.

It moved across the spot where Meadow had been lying. There was nothing left there.

“Isaac,” she said.

“Meadow.”

“My foot hurts.”

“I know.”

“Can we stop?”

“No.”

She looked back. The houses were gone. The trees were gone. Even the road behind us had disappeared. The guardian's hand lowered over the blank surface and dragged it wider.

“No,” I said again.

“Keep moving, Meadow.”

She nodded. We crossed the flattened stretch together. I put her arm over my shoulder and held her around the waist. She limped for several steps, then started walking normally again. Her face had gone pale beneath the red from the cold.

“Isaac.”

“Meadow.”

“Isaac.”

“Meadow.”

Ahead of us the white began to change. It was hard to see at first. A narrow line of darker air between the surface and the sky. Then I saw what was beyond it. There was no snow there.

The ground dropped away into a clear view. I could see distance again. The colors were faint after so much white, but they were there. Dark earth. Brown branches.

A strip of road that looked wet instead of frozen. The view shook when I looked at it, as if it might close before we reached it.

“That way,” I said.

“Where?”

I pointed. “The opening.”

Meadow tried to move faster, but her injured boot caught on the uneven surface. I pulled her along.

“Meadow.”

“Isaac.”

“Don't stop.”

“I won't.”

“Meadow.”

“Isaac.”

The seam narrowed as we approached it. The clear view ahead was no wider than a doorway now. On either side, the blank white ground rose into the gray air. The guardian stood behind us with its long arms spread across the frozen town. I could hear the surface dragging under its hands.

I could hear Meadow breathing. I couldn't hear anything from Halstead anymore.

“Isaac,” she said.

“Meadow.”

The guardian's hand lifted behind us. I pushed Meadow toward the narrow opening and kept my hand locked around hers.

“Keep moving,” I said.

“Don't stop.”

“Meadow.”

“Isaac.”

We reached the narrowing seam as the guardian’s hand lowered behind us.

I pushed Meadow through the opening. The clear space was barely wide enough for her shoulders. Beyond it the street looked wet and dark, with no snow anywhere. Cars sat along the curb. The pallet plant stood at the far end of the block with lights on behind its windows.

I could hear machinery running inside it. The sound came through the gap like it had been waiting for us.

“Go,” I said.

Meadow caught the edge of the opening with both hands. Her boots scraped against the white ground on the other side. The street was only a few feet below her, but she couldn't get a grip on anything.

“Go, Meadow. Keep moving.”

“I can’t.”

“You can. Push with your legs.”

The guardian’s hand lowered behind us. It moved slowly across the frozen town, but it had already erased the distance between us and the trees. The fingers pressed into the white surface. The ground flattened where they touched. The sound came closer.

I put both hands around Meadow’s waist and lifted. She cried out. Her coat caught on the edge of the seam. I pulled harder and felt the fabric tear near her shoulder. For a second she hung between the two sides with her arms stretched forward and her boots kicking against nothing.

“Meadow Curtis,” I shouted.

“Say your name.”

“Meadow Curtis.”

“Louder.”

“Meadow Curtis!”

“That’s right. Keep saying it.”

I lifted her higher. Her chest went through first, then one shoulder. The warm air on the other side reached my face. It smelled like wet pavement and gasoline. There was a truck somewhere nearby, and somebody had a radio playing inside an open garage.

Ordinary sounds. The kind I hadn't heard since before the snow. The guardian’s hand came down behind me. I shoved Meadow forward. She landed on her stomach in the street.

Her hands hit the pavement and slid. She rolled onto one side, then pushed herself up with both arms.

“Dad!”

I reached for her. The gap had already narrowed. It was no wider than my forearm now. I could see her face through it. Her hat had come loose.

Her hair was spread across the pavement, and there was blood on one cheek where she'd scraped it. She looked older than she had a second earlier, or maybe the ordinary light made her look more like herself. I put my hand through the opening.

“Meadow.”

She crawled toward me. Her fingers reached between mine, but the seam kept tightening around my wrist.

“Dad, pull me back.”

“No.”

“Why?”

“You're through.”

“I don't want to be.”

“I know.”

She grabbed my hand. Her glove was warm. I hadn't felt warmth like that in years. I held on as hard as I could, but the white edge pressed into my sleeve and started closing around our joined hands. The last time Tammy held my hand, it had been outside the house during the first winter.

She'd walked into the drift without her coat. I followed as far as the old mailbox, but the snow had risen above my waist by then. She reached back for me. I took her fingers for a few seconds. Then the snow shifted between us and her hand slipped away.

I never found her again. Meadow's fingers were still wrapped around mine.

“Listen,” I said.

“You have to let go.”

“No.”

“Meadow, listen.”

“No.”

The guardian’s hand touched the ground behind me. The sound moved through the frozen road. A whole section of white vanished beneath it. I felt the seam pull at my arm.

“Meadow Curtis,” I said.

“Say it.”

She was crying now. “Meadow Curtis.”

“Again.”

“Meadow Curtis.”

“You're Meadow Curtis. You hear me?”

“Yes.”

“You remember your name.”

“Yes.”

“Say it again.”

“Meadow Curtis.”

The seam closed another inch. Her hand slipped down mine. I caught her wrist. The sleeve had torn open near the cuff, and the charcoal letters showed against the fabric inside. Meadow Curtis.

The writing was crooked. I had made it while she stood beside the kitchen wall, back when we still had a house to go back to. The letters had stayed when the rest of the sleeve was torn away. I looked at them and knew she would carry the name with her.

“Dad, come with me.”

“I can’t.”

“Why not?”

I didn't have an answer she could use. The opening was too small for me now. My shoulders couldn't fit through it. The white edge pressed against my coat and pushed me back.

“Go,” I said.

“I don't want to leave you.”

“I know.”

“I can pull you.”

“You can't.”

“I can.”

“Meadow.”

She looked at me. “Keep moving,” I said.

“Don't stop.”

Her mouth shook. She tried to pull my arm through the gap, but the seam caught my coat at the shoulder. The fabric tightened across my chest. I could feel the cold on one side of me and the warm air on the other. The street behind her was clear all the way to the plant.

A man in a light jacket stood near the curb with a phone in his hand. He checked his watch. Even from here I knew the movement. Two fingers on the black band. Thumb against the case.

Axel looked toward the opening. He didn't see me. He turned toward the plant and started walking.

“Meadow,” I said.

“Look at me.”

She did. “You're going to stand up.”

She wiped her face with one sleeve. “I’m scared.”

“I know. Stand up anyway.”

She pushed herself to her knees. Her injured foot dragged when she tried to rise. The pavement was dark with water beneath her boots. She looked at the street as if she didn't trust it.

“Say your name.”

“Meadow Curtis.”

“Again.”

“Meadow Curtis.”

She stood. The seam was almost closed. I could see only her face and one shoulder now. My hand had slipped free. Her fingers reached for mine through the shrinking space, but there was nothing left for either of us to hold.

“Dad.”

“Meadow.”

“Isaac.”

That was the first time she said my name without being asked. “Isaac Curtis,” she said.

My throat tightened. I felt the cold inside my coat and the warm air moving over my hand.

“That's right,” I said.

“I'm Isaac Curtis.”

“Meadow Curtis.”

“You're Meadow Curtis.”

The guardian’s hand lowered again. It passed over the place where the seam had opened. The white edge moved between us. Meadow fell backward onto the street. I saw her hat roll away.

I saw the torn sleeve around her wrist. I saw the dark letters inside it before the gap narrowed to the width of my hand. Then it closed. Meadow Curtis lay on the warm street with the name inside her sleeve while the seam closed between her and Isaac Curtis.

I couldn't reach her anymore. My hand was still raised, but the opening was gone. There was only white ground where it had been, smooth from one side to the other. The warmth had disappeared too. I couldn't hear the street.

No cars. No machinery from the plant. No radio playing somewhere nearby. The buzzing stayed. It filled my teeth and ran through my jaw.

At first I tried to fight it. I pushed my fingers into the snow and pulled myself forward, even though there was nowhere left to go. My coat caught on the surface. The snow held me around the arms and chest.

“Meadow.”

The name came out quiet. I said it again.

“Meadow.”

There was no answer. I listened for her anyway. I listened for her boots on the wet street. I listened for her crying. I listened for her to say my name the way she had before the seam closed.

Nothing came back. I looked down at my hand. The glove was gray with snow. My fingers had started to stiffen, but I could still move them. I pressed my palm against the white road and tried to stand.

The buzzing got louder. It wasn't painful. That was the problem. It felt like something was smoothing out the inside of my head. The worry went first.

Then the fear. The part of me that wanted to keep reaching for Meadow became quieter every time I moved. I knew what was happening. I'd seen it happen to Jacqueline. She'd stood by the maple with snow on her shoulders and kept looking at the yard like it was warmer than the house.

Casey and Theo had gone beneath the tree. Caden had gone too. They had all stopped fighting before the snow finished covering them. The stillness made sense once it got close enough. I lowered myself beside the road.

My knees sank first. Then my hands. The snow came up around my wrists and held them there. I could have pulled free if I'd done it quickly. I knew that.

I just didn't see the reason anymore. Meadow was on the other side. She had the name in her sleeve. I had seen the letters before the seam closed. Meadow Curtis.

The writing was crooked, but it was there. She would know who she was. She would remember the kitchen, the peaches, the charcoal on the wall. She would remember me. That was enough.

I sat down with my back against the white slope. The cold went through my coat. My boots stuck out in front of me, half buried already. The road was quiet. There weren't any tracks behind me.

The guardian had erased them when it dragged its hand across the ground. I couldn't see the guardian anymore. Maybe it was still standing beyond the white. Maybe it had gone on toward whatever came after Halstead. It didn't matter.

The town was flat behind me. The houses, the plant, the maple, the buried street. All of it had become one surface without corners. The snow started at my boots. It climbed slowly.

No wind pushed it. It just gathered there, settling around my legs and filling the space beneath my knees. I watched it cover the laces. Then the tops of my boots. Then the bottom of my coat.

I tried to say my name. The first time, nothing came out. I swallowed. My mouth was dry, and the buzzing had spread all the way through my jaw.

“Isaac Curtis.”

The words sounded far away. I said them again.

“Isaac Curtis.”

The snow reached my waist. It was soft against me. Softer than it should have been. I understood why Jacqueline had wanted to lie down. The surface didn't feel like ground anymore.

It felt like a bed somebody had made and left waiting. I kept my eyes open. That was the last thing I could still decide. I wouldn't close them. I wouldn't let the white take the dark behind them.

I looked toward the place where Meadow had gone, though there was nothing there now except a smooth stretch of road. The buzzing became constant. I stopped saying my name. I stopped resisting the snow. It covered my stomach and chest.

It pressed against my arms until I couldn't lift them. My face stayed above the surface for a while. I could still breathe, though each breath felt smaller than the one before it. Meadow had made it out. I held on to that.

Not the street or the plant or the warm air. Not the man with the clean shoes who would keep walking toward the gate that wasn't waiting for him. Just Meadow, standing on ordinary pavement with the torn sleeve around her wrist. She would say her name. She would say it when the snow started falling.

She would say it if the snow refused to stop. She would say it if a dry man came smiling to the door and told her the roads were clear. She wouldn't follow him outside. That was the warning. It wasn't complicated.

If snow began falling and kept falling, stay inside. If a smiling man came to the door without snow on his coat or shoes, don't go with him. Say your own name and keep saying it. The snow reached my shoulders. I could no longer feel my legs.

My arms were gone beneath the surface. My face had started to numb around the mouth, but the buzzing remained. It was the only thing left that belonged to me. I said my name one more time.

“Isaac Curtis.”

The snow covered my chin. For a second I thought I heard Meadow answer. Maybe she was saying my name from the other side. Maybe it was only the sound of the wind moving over the sealed road. I couldn't tell anymore.

The white rose to my mouth. I tried to breathe through it, but there was no air. The surface closed over my face and pressed against my eyes. I stayed still because there wasn't anything else to do. My last clear thought was that she had kept the name.

Then I was part of the snow. On the snow-free street, Meadow Curtis held the name inside her sleeve while the buried side kept only Isaac Curtis’s white shape.