Chapter 32 Whispers In The Snow

• The wind howled like a living thing outside Lucy’s home, rattling against the thin glass of the windows and threading cold fingers through the cracks in the wood. The temperature had dropped even lower in the last few days — so low that water left outside turned to ice within minutes, frost clinging to every surface like a second skin. The cold no longer felt natural; it pressed in from all sides, heavy and unrelenting, like a weight meant to suffocate the last warmth from the world.
• Lucy sat by the fire, the faint warmth barely enough to chase away the chill in her bones. The foxes lay curled together nearby, their fur thick and silver-brushed, eyes occasionally flickering toward the windows as though sensing something she couldn’t see.
• Rumors had begun to spread.