The Lantern Walk

The first real snow came on a Tuesday, quietly, the way old friends arrive without knocking. By dusk the village had gone soft and blue, every fence post wearing a white cap and every pine bowed under its new weight. Elin lit her grandfather's brass lantern and set out along the path to the cabin at the edge of the woods, her boots pressing small round prints into the hush. The cold stung her cheeks and the flakes caught in her scarf, but ahead, through the falling white, one window glowed amber — a fire already crackling, a kettle already singing, someone already waiting. She had walked this path a hundred winters in her memory, and as the warmth of that little light grew closer, she understood that winter was never really about the cold; it was about the long, patient walk home to the people who keep the window lit.