The cabin got small after rest time. Same air. Same walls. Snow still falling.
"There's a village," Franz said. "Forty minutes. We could go for supplies."
"And to see something not snow," Arianne said.
"That too."
The twins were dressed and at the door in under four minutes. Leo had both whales — the stuffed one zipped into his coat, the tablet in his hand. Ready.
The road wound through mountain passes with snow-heavy pines pressing close on both sides. Frozen waterfalls caught in the rock faces. Mountains white against a pale sky that had run out of color without going dark yet.
Arianne watched it through the passenger window. In the back, the twins pressed their faces to the glass — pointing at shadows in the snow, at a crooked pine Lily declared was definitely a witch tree.
Leo typed: Is it haunted?
"Everything up here is haunted," Lily said, with authority. Franz didn't correct this.
