‘Solstice’ by Melissa Nelson

Every winter some star-crossed vagrant finds themselves at our stoop. Sometimes snow-blind, usually numb with hypothermia, they cry when we open the door. Mother peels away their icy clothes, I fetch the warmest quilts, and little brother puts bricks on the fire.

Mother calls them our winter guests. Sometimes they find their way alone; others Father stumbles upon when he is hunting the barren wood. Nestled in, Mother serves them cups of hot broth and I wait for their voice to return to whisper: What is it like out there?

Most come from far away, places with department stores and paved roads. This year, our winter guest is from another continent altogether, trying to escape the ghost of his young bride. 

She was your age, he says, or maybe a bit older. Consumption, the wicked thing, took her from the world before she got to see it.

On nights when the wind screams, I sneak to the corner of the room to pry up the board behind the basin where I have hidden the book and pencil, a gift he left at the darkest part of winter.

Something to trap dreams with, he said, when I caught him writing in it. When I stared back, he continued, Dreams like to leave you. If you write them down, they are yours forever.

Behind the pages he filled, I write down every detail I can remember of our winter guests’ stories: general stores they bought supplies in, or rivers they followed into the Rockies.