The morning after Christmas did not arrive with ceremony.
There were no bells to mark it, no hymns drifting through open windows, no sense that the day itself expected to be remembered. It came the way most useful things did now—quietly, without announcement, already underway by the time Phillip noticed it.
He woke later than usual, light filtering through the thin curtains in a pale, winter-muted glow. The cold had eased slightly. Not enough to melt the snow entirely, but enough that it no longer felt brittle. The house was quiet. No voices. No footsteps. The fire had been banked properly and still held warmth.
Phillip lay still for a moment, listening.
The sounder was clicking again.
Not urgently. Not in clusters. Just the steady, spaced rhythm of routine traffic finding its way back into the world.
He sat up and reached for his coat out of habit, then stopped himself. There was no need to rush. If something required him, it would announce itself more clearly than that.
