The Snow Woman in Mourning

Carefully, the woman gathered the snow over the silent grave. She packed and pulled it up, into something solid and hard and ice. Her own fingers were ice, but the snow still moved like liquid for her.

When the body was complete, she lifted the tattered sugeboshi she had found over its head and tightened the strings around its neck.

The snow melted again, and then froze in the face of a child who blinked. It shivered. Still cold. Forever cold.

The woman opened her own cold arms. The child fell into them, and the arms closed tight.

"It's all right. I pulled you out, as I was once pulled out, and we will never be buried again."