Loneliness Held in Enchanted Frost
Elara noticed winter before anyone else did because the world seemed to fade around her. Loneliness arrived on schedule. Each morning, she sat at the small table by the window with a warm mug cradled between her mittens. Still, she smiled when the cold nipped her skin, grateful for the reminder that she was still here, still able to feel something.
Outside, trees stood bare and honest, their naked branches etched dark against the pale sky, and deer moved carefully along the forest’s edge, conserving themselves, wasting nothing. Elara admired the dignity of deer who knew how to endure the season without spectacle.
One afternoon, snow fell, transforming the village into a blanket of white. Elara pulled on her coat and stepped outside. Near the path, someone had built a small snowman, uneven, earnest, its pebble eyes tilted slightly off-center. Without thinking too much about it, she adjusted the scarf someone had wrapped around its neck and brushed snow from its face, laughing softly at herself when she realized she’d spoken to it under her breath, as if it might hear her.
When she returned home, she wrapped herself in a blanket and pulled the old teddy bear from the corner of the couch, the one she’d kept long past any sensible age. Its fur was worn smooth, its stitching imperfect, but when she held it close, something in her chest eased, as though the body remembered comfort even when the mind resisted it. She rested there for a long time.
Later, she swore she saw something move at the far edge of the trees from her window. It was a shape tall and luminous, antlers catching what little light remained. A stag, maybe, impossibly still, its presence more felt than seen. Elara was afraid that even the smallest movement would shatter the moment, and then it was gone, leaving behind a strange warmth in her chest, like a promise she couldn’t quite name.
The sight stirred an old memory, one her grandmother used to tell her during winters like this, when the nights felt endless and the cold pressed close. A story about a giant bear who slept beneath the village, waking only when the people were in danger, its massive body shielding them through the longest nights. Elara had loved that story because it promised protection and safety, the idea that something large and gentle was always watching, even when unseen.
At night, she noticed Christmas lights flickering on in the distance, soft gold and white strung across balconies and bushes, glowing like quiet beacons against the snow. On impulse, she pulled on her boots again and walked toward them, letting herself be drawn by their warmth. Her steps carried her farther than she’d planned, past familiar streets, until she found herself standing outside a small cafe, its windows fogged, light spilling out onto the snow.
Inside, the air was warm and smelled faintly of cinnamon. She ordered without much thought and turned, only to meet the eyes of someone who felt immediately familiar. He smiled with something like relief, as though he, too, had been waiting for the day to allow this moment to exist.
They talked slowly, as snow continued to fall outside the window. Elara felt it then a sense of being seen without needing to explain herself, of winter loosening its grip just enough to let another presence in.
When he walked her home later, the cold felt different. Loneliness had not completely vanished, but it no longer filled every corner of her mind. It shared space now with memory, with warmth, with the knowledge that even the longest seasons make room for connection when the time is right.
