Tiffany closed the door as soon as Harmonia's figure reached the decrepit door. "You're sick, until we get the medicine you should be excessively careful." However, despite closing the door, the Cold did not fully retreat from their abode. Tiffany shivered a few times, fumbling and barely managing to start boiling some water without dropping anything. Even I, covered by the safety of a few blankets, felt the insidious encroachment of Cold. "Tiffany… your sweater has to be magical for you to still be functional." I managed to say after a minor struggle to properly sit up. She laughed a bit, and it was then I realized my grave mistake.
"It might be," she muttered, though her lips felt paler than before. "Just… keep your blankets tight."
I nodded, but the words felt hollow. The blankets were thin, and even now, I could feel the insidious pressure of Cold in the corners of the room. It seemed to breathe along the walls, its presence stretching long, skeletal fingers across the floorboards, curling around the corners of the ceiling. I pulled the blankets tighter, but warmth was fleeting, almost perfidious, like Warmth itself was struggling to hold the Cold back.
I lifted my sleeves slightly, checking my arm. The red spots had darkened. They seemed almost alive, pulsing with their own cold heat. I pressed my fingers to them, feeling the sting of their angry constellation. "They're… worse today," I admitted, my voice catching.
Tiffany froze. For the first time in what felt like an eternity, her usual composure faltered. "How fast have they spread?" she asked, leaning closer. Her eyes were bright with worry, almost luminous in the dim light.
"From the wrist… almost to the elbow."
"Rest," Tiffany said finally, her voice firmer now. "Don't move. I'll check the stove." She moved toward it, and I watched her silhouette tremble slightly against the dim lantern light.
I sat up an unknowable amount of time later. The same eternal twilight that had veiled the sky the past months remained fixed in above, their monotonous colors only being broken by the occasional Aurora Borealis' that shone through. I had always wanted to see them, but by now I had lost hope. The northern lights should have only appeared in the far north. The Aurora danced across the sky, pale ribbons of green and violet that should have been beautiful, but it only deepened the hollow ache in my chest.
I flexed my fingers, feeling the sting of the red spots along my arm. By now I was unsure if I could hold out until Christmas. They were pulsing; almost in sync with the oscillations of the Aurora above. For a moment, I thought I could see them reflected in the snow outside the window, little clusters of fire against the white expanse. My heartbeat quickened, and I pressed my hand to my arm as though I could will the pain away.
And then I saw it: a figure moving under the Aurora's glow, silhouetted against the snow, impossibly far from the cabin, impossibly close to me. I had seen this creature many times before, always lurking at the same distance, staring at me from the treeline. In its right hand it held a gleaming axe lay. A serpentine tattoo stretched down from what seemed to be the creature's elbow, although its ragged clothes obscured my vision.
I force myself to get up once more, calling Tiffany would be of little help… The creature always seemed to vanish temporarily whenever she came along, but it never disappeared. Tiffany's arm was a frigid blue under the lamplight.
"It's getting too cold," I said.
She froze, glancing back at me with her hollow eyes. "Yes… it is." Her teeth chattered faintly as she straightened. "I'll fetch more coal and firewood. We can't let the fire die."
Before I could respond, she was gone, moving swiftly through the cabin and into the encroaching gloom outside. The door creaked behind her, and immediately the temperature in the room seemed to drop, the blankets barely a barrier against the gnawing chill. I shivered, wrapping myself tighter, listening to the faint scrape of boots against the snow, the sudden gust of wind that snuck through every crack in the walls.
I could have sworn the chess board had been on the sofa, not that I would be able to play Tiffany anyways. She knew this technical stuff the best. There was no entertainment to be made. There was nothing in the world… outside my world… except a blanket of white death. By now, Tiffany's presence had been drowned by the sea of white outside. It was always waiting, that and that accursed figure veiled by the treelines had been the only constants in her life the past years… And Harmonia. Harmonia would fix everything. The house shook one time. Then it shook again. Some snowflakes fell from the ceiling. They landed right on her hand, which looked a little blue.
The cold came in slowly. It did not hurt me anymore. I think that is because my body was too weak to feel it. The cold just got inside me like water gets into a sponge. My fingers did not feel like fingers. They felt like sticks that would break if I tried to move them. The cold was around me and it was making my fingers feel like they were going to crack. My fingers were, like twigs now.
There was a layer of frost on the window. It looked like a web. The frost was on the inside of the window. I thought I saw it everywhere I looked. The frost was really something. It was on the window. It seemed like it was, in my eyes too.
Minutes—or perhaps hours—passed. Time was meaningless here, stretched thin like the frost along the windowpanes. Then Tiffany returned, her arms laden with coal and bundled firewood, cheeks flushed red against the icy wind, her movements were almost frantic by now. Who could blame her?
Her hands moved quickly and carefully helping the fire to burn again and for a moment the room felt a warmer. She walked me over to the pile of mattresses that were lying near the fire. Before Tiffany would have said something about being careful, with the fire. Now she just sat there with her cold eyes watching the sparks jump around in the flames.
Down below, the village's festive lights shone brighter than before, a crowd bearing torches had gathered on the village square, dressed in something similar to what my parents had been wearing on that trip to Hawaii all those years ago. Was it really that warm in the village? I'd have to ask Harmonia when she gets back. A warm breeze had carried the smell of salt then.
I thought I saw a shape gliding between the parade floats. Something tall. Something thin. Something that moved like smoke sliding through a keyhole. But when I looked harder, the shape melted into the crowd, indistinguishable from the torchlight. Maybe the village was just celebrating early this year. Maybe warm places looked different from far away. Maybe I was imagining things again.
The cold pressed closer to the window. I stepped back. Yes. I'd ask Harmonia. She would know.