Winter came at the same time every night. 12AM sharp. Never late, never early, always with a soft dusting of snow like angel feathers. Since she was small Andy had watched winter come to her bedroom window, gentle frost forming stories and faces across the glass, telling tales of clever foxes, brave birds, and little rabbits who found secret keys.

This phenomenon was not hers alone, but sometimes it felt like it was. No one else talked about it much. They shut their doors precisely at seven o'clock in the evening and refused to let in visitors after. The coldfolk were not to be trusted they said. Time ran backwards there, they said, so that if you wandered too far, you'd be found the next morning nothing but a crying babe in your bed.

Andy had never seen coldfolk. Nor had she ever been allowed to go out in the Winter nights. Not ever. Not once. She longed for it, the touch of the snow, the brush of a clever fox's tail, the moonlight on her skin. But her parents kept her bedroom door open and the windows and doors alarmed.

Until one night they didn't come home.

Andy didn't think much about it at first. They were late occasionally. Never so late that they weren't home significantly before seven, but sometimes late enough that it got real dark, and the air started to crisp and fill with the anticipatory smell of mint. The Winter always smelled like mint. Sometimes Andy would press her face up flat against her window just to catch the scent. Fresh. Wild. Dreamlike.

Tonight Andy herself felt like a dream. There were no alarms on. She was alone in the house and it was midnight. There were no rules and there was a whole world out there. She crept down the stairs, sliding in inches, syrupy and dazed as a shadow in the downing sun. The Winter knew her, called her name. She heard a fox bark outside the door. They were ready, they were waiting.

Andy opened the door. The Winter glistened. Lights buried somewhere in the snow shone like crystallized stars. The heavens had shed their weight to the earth and it was beautiful. It was more and bigger and grander than Andy could contain in her heart. She wrapped her robe around herself and edged her slippered feet out the door. It was cold but the cold felt distant. A breath on the back of her neck. A cool palm on her forehead. Nothing more.

She smiled and opened her arms. It began to snow.

A fox rustled out of the front bushes, white with tufts of black at the tip of its tail, eyes that glimmered like the moon on a nighttime lake. It padded up to her and sat patiently as she danced and turned her awed face to the sky. Winter hadn't just added snow, it had added whole buildings to this midnight town.

An ancient church now sprouted in her backyard, its tower miles high and its windows patterned with frost. For a moment, she thought, there was a face up there, small and looking out just like Andy always had. Then it was gone.

The road had turned to a river and at the end of its frigid rapids crested a silver gate. Trellised with some sort of blue ivy and curling with steel and cold. Just across her yard, at the river's edge, there was a small jetty, all gray whorled wood and moss. Tied to the jetty was a boat. Slender and fast-looking, it waited, beckoning with each bob of the water.

Andy looked at the fox and the fox blinked back. It shook itself and then started trotting toward the boat. Glee and terror welled inside Andy at once, a storm, a fire, a great inspiration of unknown courage. She took off after the fox and it looked back once and winked.

The boat rocked as she clambered onto it, but grew steady under the clench of her hands. The fox curled itself up at one end, keeping an eye on her as she threw off the rope and pushed away from her yard. With a mighty heave, the river swept them away, eager and leaping and silent. The river was silent. Andy stared over the edge in fascination, the water silver then blue and then nothing but night, black and depthless and staring back, stars caught at the bottom.

That was how she saw them first. Like stars. Glowing alone somewhere down there, dropped points of light. As Andy continued to stare, the lights grew clearer, closer, drifting upward until they weren't lights but faces.

The faces of her parents under the river.

Andy lurched back and her scream too was silent. The fox lifted its head and watched her, unblinking.

"Bring them back," said Andy, but her words wouldn't obey. She saw them almost, floating in the air away from her, a shimmer of unspoken sound. The fox opened its mouth like it was about to yawn and snatched her words between its teeth.

"Bring them back," said the fox in her voice.

Andy shook her head, voiceless and not understanding. The glee was all gone now, only the terror left. A darting form, just a shadow on the river bank, and then there was another fox. This one silver and big. And yet another beside it, small and black.

"Go to sleep, Andy," said the silver fox, and it was her mother's voice this time. All lullaby timbre and clever with the promise of another day.

"Go to sleep, Andy," said the little black fox, and it was her father's request, warm and safe, and the boat was rocking her, a cradle of arms and her head was tipping back.

Andy didn't want to sleep, but she knew as her head lolled and the white fox continued to watch, that she wouldn't have much of a choice.