“Skadi’s breath, it’s unbelievably cold tonight,” he said as he rubbed his hands together for warmth.
The fire wasn’t cutting it. The cold had woken him in the middle of the night. It was somewhere between where the night ended and the morning began. The wind seemed to sing as it found every imperfection in the siding of his small house. He would have to insulate better next season.
The song the wind sang tonight was different. It was disturbing. He wasn’t sure what cut through him easier, that noise or the wind itself. He could feel it in his core.
He crawled out of bed and threw a blanket over himself. He should really conserve the wood, but he just didn’t care anymore. He threw some more wood on the fire and laid down in front of it.
He couldn’t stop thinking about the disappearances. Had the goats just walked off? He had heard of animals walking North out of town and getting lost before. On a night like tonight, you only had to walk a few hundred feet out of town for it to disappear in the snow. But a dozen goats in half as many nights?
Adding the wood was worth it. He could feel the chill in his bones start to dissipate. Maybe he’d be able to sleep tonight after all. He walked to the window and pulled the curtain aside. Karstaag looked like a town inside of a freshly shaken snow globe. He could hardly see across the street. The wind picked up, whistling a chilling tune. He felt the hair stand up on the back of his neck and quickly drew the curtains closed. What was it that had him so on edge?
Suddenly, in the moment before the wind exhaled, he heard a commotion in the night. He slowly drew the curtains back far enough to look out in the cold with one eye. He scanned the street, between the houses, squinting to see past the snow.
Then his eyes caught something at the edge of town. Just barely visible, it looked like … was something carrying a goat out of town? No, dragging it? The wind howled and a curtain of snow obscured it.
“It couldn’t be, I’m just tired,” he thought.
He drew the curtains closed again and crawled back into bed. As he closed his eyes, he heard a wail ring out through the night.
Was it the wind? Or something else?
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