The First Gift

Journal Entry – December 2, 1871

I found him at dawn, half-buried in snow beneath the orchard trees — the traveling merchant who had tried to leave in the night. His eyes were open, frost clinging to the lashes. His mouth hung slightly parted, not in fear, but in relief.

There were no wounds. No signs of struggle.

Just stillness.

As if he’d stepped willingly into the cold and laid himself there.

The fog slid around him when I knelt beside the body, curling through his hair and along the folds of his coat. When it receded, something in me understood what it wanted.

Not burial.

Not fire.

Not prayer.

Silence.

A place where the world does not echo.

The lake whispered its name to me.

And I listened.