And then: one quiet and freezing morning Isabel went for a walk. The trees stood bare and skeletal and beautiful with their fingers all crystal and white. The frost had made everything a crunch, the pastures and the fields and the gravel paths. The canals had frozen over. Isabel tested one with her foot and found it solid, and then stood on it in wonder: a miracle, she thought, to stand so solidly on what could also engulf you. The sun came up slow and blushing,
