Wintersmith

cleared all the way to the paddock, but it had been heavy going. When there are fifteen feet of snow everywhere, how can you clear it? Where can you clear it to?
    She waited by the cart sheds while the men hacked and scraped at the snowbanks. They were tired to the bone by now; they’d been digging for hours.
    The important thing was—
    But there were lots of important things. It was important to look calm and confident, it was important to keep your mind clear, it was important not to show how pants-wettingly scared you were….
    She held out a hand, caught a snowflake, and took a good look at it. It wasn’t one of the normal ones, oh no. It was one of his special snowflakes. That was nasty. He was taunting her. Now she could hate him. She’d never hated him before. But he was killing the lambs.
    She shivered and pulled the cloak around her.
    “This I choose to do,” she croaked, her breath leaving little clouds in the air. She cleared her throat and started again. “This I choose to do. If there is a price, this I choose to pay. If it is my death, then I choose to die. Where this takes me, there I choose to go. I choose. This I choose to do.”
    It wasn’t a spell, except in her own head, but if you couldn’t make spells work in your own head, you couldn’t make them work at all.
    Tiffany wrapped her cloak around her against the clawing wind and watched dully as the men brought straw and wood. The fire started slowly, as if frightened to show enthusiasm.
    She’d done this before, hadn’t she? Dozens of times. The trick was not that hard when you got the feel of it, but she’d done it with time to get her mind right, and anyway, she’d never done it with anything more than a kitchen fire to warm her freezing feet. In theory it should be just as easy with a big fire and a field of snow, right?
    Right?
    The fire began to roar up. Her father put his hand on her shoulder. Tiffany jumped. She’d forgotten how quietly he could move.
    “What was that about choosing?” he said. She’d forgotten what good hearing he had, too.
    “It’s a…witch thing,” she answered, trying not to look at his face. “So that if this…doesn’t work, it’s no one’s fault but mine.” And this is my fault, she added to herself. It’s unfair, but no one said it wasn’t going to be.
    Her father’s hand caught her chin and gently turned her head around. How soft his hands are, Tiffany thought. Big man’s hands but soft as a baby’s, because of the grease on the sheep’s fleeces.
    “We shouldn’t have asked you, should we…” he said.
    Yes, you should have asked me, Tiffany thought. The lambs are dying under the dreadful snow. And I should have said no, I should have said I’m not that good yet. But the lambs are dying under the dreadful snow!
    There will be other lambs, said her Second Thoughts.
    But these aren’t those lambs, are they? These are the lambs that are dying, here and now. And they’re dying because I listened to my feet and dared to dance with the Wintersmith.
    “I can do it,” she said.
    Her father held her chin and stared into her eyes.
    “Are you sure, jiggit?” he asked. It was the nickname her grandmother had had for her—Granny Aching, who never lost a lamb to the dreadful snow. He’d never used it before. Why had it risen up in his mind now?
    “Yes!” She pushed his hand away, and broke his gaze before she could burst into tears.
    “I…haven’t told your mother this yet,” said her father very slowly, as if the words required enormous care, “but I can’t find your brother. I think he was trying to help. Abe Swindell said he saw him with his little shovel. Er…I’m sure he’s all right, but…keep an eye open for him, will you? He’s got his red coat on.”
    His face, with no expression at all, was heartbreaking to see. Little Wentworth, nearly seven years old, always running after the men, always wanting to be one of them, always trying to help…how easily a small body could get overlooked…. The snow was still coming fast. The horribly wrong snowflakes were white on her father’s shoulders. It’s these little things you remember when the bottom falls out of the world, and you’re falling—
    That wasn’t just unfair; that was…cruel.
    Remember the hat you wear! Remember the job that is in front of you! Balance! Balance is the thing. Hold balance in the center, hold the balance….
    Tiffany extended her numb hands to the fire, to draw out the