By Andrew Winter

The cold had by now numbed and confused my mind, and I could not deny it. I tried to think only of the food for my love. I had it, packages and packages of it, pound upon pound, piled on the sled. In the near-pitch darkness I was now almost a quarter of the way across the great Blackwisp Lake, eight inches frozen over this time of year in the thinnest parts. 

The new-fallen snow had finally allowed me to make the trip up to Tanya’s dear warm house: it gave the dogs wonderful traction. Brunt, Morse, Arc, and Pollux were their names. They were magnificent dogs, and their names were the only thing I had ever held back from Tanya. 

Tanya was my lover after my wife had fallen through the ice six years back. I told Tanya everything eventually, but I kept some small bit of honor for my wife, I guess, so I never told Tanya the dogs’ names, no matter how much she asked after them. 

As I said, it was deathly cold, and the wind urged me on in the same way I urged the dogs. They were good dogs. The wind was blowing so hard that someone watching my coat flapping and my dogs’ fur bouncing would have thought me a grand picture, whipping past in the flutter of the wind’s mouth like a hero on a journey to save his wife. 

But I was going to save Tanya, and it was nearly as good. 

I raised my eyes, squinting in the flying air, and, in between the ears of Brunt and Pollux up front, I saw light from below, not from the moon. As we came closer, I saw it was firelight, and right as my sled reached the middlemost part of the ice of Blackwisp Lake I saw the wreck of a burning sled, abandoned. No blood, no dogs, no water–just the sled and its cargo all burning bright and pale on the ice. 

As I approached the sled cautiously, I could not help thinking of my wife breaking through the ice and drowning in the freezing water six years ago. I knew it was dangerous with the fire but the cold drove me forward. 

But I was not warmed. I even took off my glove and showed skin, but I could feel no heat from any of the flames. And the sled was not sinking, not even into the powdery top snow. I looked above the flames into the smoke and thought I saw a face made of smoke. It wafted away. I looked around, puzzled, and when I looked back, the face was more concretely drawn into the lines of smoke. But again it dissipated. I looked back at the dogs standing there on the ice, and when I was forced to look at the smoke again, a figure was standing in the smoke as sure as the cold flames, but there was no face. I knew at once it was a hooded ghost dressed in a black robe made of smoke, and there was no mistaking it. I shook and backed up towards the dogs. The ghost leaped up on the highest point of the wrecked sled, terribly well-defined now against the smoke rising all around it.

I looked back at the dogs standing there on the ice, and when I was forced to look at the smoke again, a figure was standing in the smoke as sure as the cold flames, but there was no face.

 “You led your wife onto the thin ice and let her fall through six years ago,” said the phantom, standing atop what should have been fully melted water. 

I said nothing. The dogs growled. I could see in their faces that they saw it too. “You only wanted Tanya, Hamilcar Morrill. So you let her drown in the freezing water and went off to love Tanya.” 

Its voice sounded like wind and seemed to be making the wind blow now. I held my breath and wished I could pull my hood over my face, but I had to keep looking at it. I thought of the moment my wife had broken through and disappeared with a small sound into the water. I tried not to think of the thrashing afterwards. 

“What sign can you give?” said the ghost, rasping, “that you regret her death?” 

I did not know, so again I made no answer.

The ghost spoke again, but its voice was warm, and I was warmed by it. “You can repent and set her at rest.” 

I did not think that this was true, but I felt no courage to disagree with the ghost. “Who are you?” I said. 

But now the ghost was rasping again, and the wind picked up savagely. “You must throw yourself in the water of the lake here. If you do not, but press on to the house, you will find only Tanya dead, wearing the gray dead face of your wife.” 

I did not believe him, but a picture appeared in my mind, first of my wife gazing deep into my eyes, and then of Tanya, hurting terribly, her heels on fire, running all about her house, catching fire in every part of her body, and her hair burning up last of all, her crackling eyes gazing up to heaven. And I saw myself finding her dead, but looking like my wife, just as he said. 

“Throw yourself into the water,” shrieked the ghost, and, jumping down from the wreck, he pointed to a cracked part of the ice not far away, where I knew I would fall through. “Untie your dogs, Hamilcar Morrill, that they might roam free after you jump,” said the ghost. 

I could not say a word. I still did not think I would really jump in, but I did as he said. I untied them: Brunt, Pollux, Morse, Arc. As the last thong came undone behind Arc’s neck, they all leaped at me, all four of them at once, with gnashing teeth and claws. They growled, my good dogs, and sprang all around me. I backed away, terrified, and saw at once that they were pushing me towards the thin ice, and all the while the ghost stood behind them, his face still hidden under the cloak. But I could hear him goading them on, telling them to bite here and scratch there. And all bloody I backed up right to the edge of the crack. I felt the ice giving beneath me. The dogs stopped and stood quiet, and I looked at the faceless head of the ghost. 

They all leaped at me, all four of them at once, with gnashing teeth and claws.

“You have no other choice for yourself,” he said. 

“I love Tanya,” I said, “but I loved my wife too.” 

I turned to look at the crack, and the water seemed to gleam out of it, ready for me. Cold as I already was, I could feel the cold of the water, closing over me and engulfing and paralyzing me until I died. I could not imagine the death, but the dying I could imagine pretty well, remembering what it had looked like then. 

“What will you do?” the ghost asked, and as it did, the dogs began barking and howling like I had never heard, like they were wolves. I struggled to think amid the enormous sound, and I looked down at the water and put my toe forward, and the water lapped up around my boot, almost spilling over it so I would feel the utter bitter cold of it. 

The image of Tanya dying and looking frozen like my dead wife came into my mind again, so that I could not see the ice or snow or water anymore. I thought: “I must look just like my wife when I do it,” and stepped forward. 

I heard the crack, but my eyes now were closed and blank. I felt myself slipping and falling instantly, and the water came up and flooded my coat and saturated the fur around my shoulders and hood, and I felt my arms thrashing of their own accord as death swallowed over me. But the water was warm. 

When I started to believe that it was warm I tried to climb out again, but a hand had to help me stand on the ice again. There was no more fire or wreck, and no ghosts. Only the dogs sat and wagged their tails and looked up at me in a half circle. I tied them up again and climbed up on my sled again. 

Right away, I did not go anywhere or do anything or listen to anything. I did look up at the stars for a minute but then I brought my eyes back down. The high crescent moon lit up the snow on top of the ice of Blackwisp Lake, and I felt I should move on. I was wet now and beginning to be very, very cold. I would die before too long if this wind kept up. I grunted at the dogs, and we started moving again, faster than before. Drops were freezing in my eyebrows and eyelashes when we reached the far end of the lake and saw up in the rising ground the lights of Tanya’s house.

They were very inviting lights, and much warmer than the firelight of the burning sled had been. There were three windows in the front of her warm wooden house, making it look like a lopsided face. I stopped the sled just above the bottom of the rising ground, before it got too rough for the dogs to pull. 

I undid the ropes tying down the food boxes and picked up the first one to bring into the house. My hands shook as I lifted it up and turned to look at the lighted, inviting windows of the house. I wondered what I would find and wondered why I was not dead. But I was certainly soaked through and very cold. 

Ten feet from the door, it opened, and light came streaming out onto my boots. As I walked, the icy ground sucked at my boots as I shifted weight from one foot to the other. The firelight from inside lit up my boots, and raising my eyes, I saw Tanya standing in the door, a dark silhouette in the rectangle frame of the lintel. I was afraid again, very afraid. I thought I could tell she was smiling, but I could not see her face properly because of the light behind and the darkness outside. 

I thought I could tell she was smiling, but I could not see her face properly because of the light behind and the darkness outside.

But I stepped into the house and set down my box with jittering arms and then knew I would look up into her face. I straightened and saw. 

It was not Tanya’s face, nor my wife’s face, but my wife herself. I had never been so glad to see her before. She looked at me and smiled as though I had never been away. 

“What delayed you, my love?” she said. “Did Pollux go lame again?” 

I fell immediately into her arms, and she held me very tightly, as though nothing had happened. I closed my eyes against her, and Tanya never came into my mind again with any of the same force. “I have always loved you,” I said, and cried a little before I released her. 

She began helping me remove my wet coat and boots and socks, and gradually my shivering went away. 

“I have never stopped waiting,” she said and sat down opposite me. We were on either side of the fireplace. 

“Is it really you?” I asked. 

She smiled.

Andrew Winter is a senior majoring in English and History.