Frost

Phase I - The Winter Prince

Something watched her, and Mari didn’t mean the glassy, staring eyes of the dead piglet on the ground in front of her. Something else was there, too; the hair on the back of her neck prickled, and her shoulders crept toward her ears, hunching defensively against an invisible attacker.

There was nothing there but snow and trees, and with a sigh, she folded the edges of a piece of flannel from the scraps bin more tightly around the little body. She placed him gently in the hole she’d chipped in the near-frozen ground. The first bitter cold night had been too much for him, and when she’d entered the barn to do her morning chores she’d found him kicked into the corner of the sow’s pen, still and cold.

Mari had picked him out of there, set him aside, and decided as she fed the chickens there was no reason for her mother to know. She’d take care of it and no one would be the wiser.

She filled in the hole, tamping the earth down with her gloved hand. This wouldn’t be the last animal they’d lose, much as she hated to admit it. She sat back on her haunches and sighed.

Branches cracked in the brush to her right.

She jerked, head snapping around to peer into the lingering morning gloom for any sign of movement. There was nothing, not even the ruffle of a bird or squirrel. The wind kicked up, the tree limbs overhead creaking in the cold, and she pulled her hat down further over her ears.

There was, as always, nothing there.

Standing, she stuffed her trembling hands in her parka and looked down at the little grave. No, there was no reason for her mother to know.

“The animals all right this morning?”

“Fine,” Mari said, closing the kitchen door to the house and shedding her coat. “They’re fine.” She unlaced her boots. “Smells good, Ma.”

“Well, you know,” Hannah said with a shrug as she poured two cups of coffee, “just the old family recipe and all that.” She handed one to Mari as she passed on her way to the fridge to search for the milk. “You might have to drive into town today, Mari.”

Mari looked over her shoulder, frowning through a curtain of straight dark brown hair. “Sometimes I think you like to forget things to make me go back and get them just to get me out of the house on days I don’t have to work.”

“Now, why would I do that?” she smiled, picking up her fork. “Hurry up, before your breakfast gets cold.”

“Because you think I don’t get out enough.” Mari splashed a little milk in her coffee before returning it to the fridge. “Because every other twenty-two-year old in this town is coming back from college and looking to settle down, shack up, and have babies.” She slid into the hard wooden seat at the scrubbed table and swirled her coffee with her fork. “I don’t want to have babies.”

“What do you want?”

Mari shrugged, rolling up the sleeves of her red plaid flannel shirt so as not to drag them through syrup. “I don’t know. I have a degree in English with a minor in mathematics, and I don’t want to teach.” She drowned her pancakes in Aunt Jemima. “Maybe I want to do what you’re doing.”

“Raising a child and keeping a farm while working odd hours at the local whole foods store?” Hannah said flatly. “Yeah, that sounds like a real winner.”

They lapsed into silence; Mari poked at her pancakes and her mother stared into the depths of her coffee cup like the secrets of the world were buried there, waiting to be found.

“This hasn’t been a bad life for you, has it, Mari?” she asked softly.

“What?” Mari’s head jerked up. “No. Ma, no. No, it’s been anything but bad. If I didn’t like it here, don’t you think I wouldn’t have come back after college?”