Chapter One: Enchantments

When you lived your whole life in the northern Midwest, there were two certainties you knew at the start of every winter.

The first was that there was no spell nature could cast that was more enchanting than the first nighttime snowfall of the season. The quiet, gentle flakes fluttering in the icy wind all around, glowing in the light of the moon could reach deep within you, captivating you like a siren’s song. It was a confirmation that the ancient troposphere above had decided it was time to slow down. After the preceding seasons evinced their energy through the hiss of rainstorms, the daytime symphonies of birds and the nighttime cacophony of crickets, through overpowering brightness and heat, it was time for the natural world to slip into the placidity of snow-blanketed slumber.

With this in mind, the second certainty was that it was time to shift from exciting plans abroad or outdoor adventures reconnecting with nature to more sentimental plans of reconnecting with loved ones. Aside from the popular gift-giving holidays or days of preparing meals to feed generations of visitors, the winter was time for staying in and planning cozy get-togethers with friends and family. A robust fire in the fireplace, a good meal and a few spirited games brought people comfortably together in a way the frenzied, audacious antics amidst the radiant heat of summer never could.

For thirty-five-year-old Amber Hartfield, owner of the Cozy on the Row bookshop on the main street of smalltown Midway Lake, Minnesota, there was a third certainty; the approach of winter was guaranteed to work its magic and lead more residents into her shop every day. It was an unspoken rule of Midwesterners that nothing paired better with a comfy night in by the fire than a new book. In Midway Lake, these purchases would be augmented with the homemade teas made by her wife, Alyssa. Currently, as the wind was picking up and dusk was coming earlier and earlier, the lemon lavender was the favorite. As the world slipped into its icy rest, however, a stronger, heavier tea would be preferred—something like peppermint chocolate or spiced chai.

A child of generations of Minnesotans (as well as a winter baby, herself), the first bite of cold in the air always gave Amber a feeling of deep relief. It was as though she was releasing a breath held through muggy, humid days finally reaching their end. Ever since she could remember, she had always found she felt more nuances of the air around her than others described. Seasons didn’t just have temperatures to her; they had sounds far beyond birdsong and thunderstorms. The summers, for example, were full of a crackling static, unsettling and overwhelming at times. It was always in the background where it could be missed until she accidentally honed in. Autumn and spring each had a prickling pitter-patter, like the sound of rain forever falling on leaves. The stark difference between the two was that spring seemed to be a higher, more energetic frequency while autumn was subdued and slowing.

Winter, however, was her favorite; a low, pleasant hum of vibration that eased every nerve and muscle like a glass of red wine and a hot bath after a long day of work. As she counted the till of her register in her empty store on this particular night, she reveled in the hum. Her black curls fell over her shoulders as she placed the money in the safe below the counter, a few strands catching in the fibers of her knitted green sweater. She closed the safe and ran her hands under her hair to loosen the grip of the sweater. Ice blue eyes scanned the window of her storefront, looking through the fluttering flurries illuminated by the streetlight at the curb for any movement.

Closing at night by herself was supposed to scare her, according to last minute stragglers that came to check out minutes before she locked the door and turned the open sign over. It never had. She was far from a damsel in distress. At five-foot-ten-inches and a long-time patron of her local kickboxing studio just three shops down, she liked her odds if one of the more troublesome locals tried to bother her during her short walk to her car at the end of the block. Still, good odds never meant no odds, and she erred on the side of caution when she left during the months when darkness came early.

She finished her closing procedures and pulled out her phone to call Alyssa.

The phone barely rang when the sound was cut short.

“Hey, honeybee,” Alyssa said, her voice still scratchy from her recent cold. “Anything exciting going on in the city?”

Amber scoffed. “Paulo’s son apparently snuck his bearded dragon in to ‘give him a tour of the daily grind’ today. Is that what you mean?”

“Ooh, scandal” Alyssa said. “Although does a bearded dragon constitute a health code violation? Especially in an ice cream store where everything has lids?”

“Can’t answer that for you. It’s outside my area of expertise,” Amber said, grabbing her black jacket and fishing through the pockets until she found her keys. “Although judging by how Paulo was telling Vince that he was a rotten child who was giving him gray hairs, I guess there was something he was concerned about.”

“I’m sure Vince took that in stride,” Alyssa said, a small chuckle to her strained voice.

“Oh, of course,” Amber said. “He told Paulo that he’s had grey hairs for centuries and that it’s what he gets for employing child labor.”

“Didn’t Vince . . . .”

“Just turn seventeen? Yes. Do we expect any different response from him? No. The bearded dragon is cute, though,” Amber admitted, flicking the light switch to turn off the back and center lights. “He brought it over after Paulo kicked him out of the store and told him he was disinherited again. How are you feeling?”

“Egh, how long until summer again?” Alyssa asked. She had always been the opposite of Amber in every way. Outdoorsy and having never met a sunny-day activity she wouldn’t try, Alyssa hated what she described as the confinement and virus weather of the winter. “I can talk again, as you can hear, but I swear I lay down for five seconds and my whole face is congested.”

“Poor thing. There’s still some corn chowder in the fridge if you want the rest of that. Go heat it up and make some mint tea and curl up on the couch. I’ll be home in about twenty minutes.”

“I’m out of my mint tea,” Alyssa pouted.

Amber frowned. “What do you mean? There’s tons of it in the can closet.”

“Yeah, for selling, not for personal use.”

“Aly, I think you can make one cup out of the five pounds of mint tea,” Amber said, leaning against the check out counter. “Your profit margins are not that tight.”

“I think mint is going to be a big seller this season,” Alyssa argued.

“Yeah, well, then you’ll need to make more anyway. Please humor me? I’m heading out now.”

“Okay, love you, see you soon.”

“Love you, too.”

Amber hung up the phone and pulled her jacket on. She put her phone inside her pocket, zipping it for extra security and grabbed her keys and purse from the counter.

When she opened the door and stepped outside, something made her stop. The winter’s vibration hummed around her, but something was . . . different. Something seemed to be altered. It wasn’t a slow, stable hum. There were small pockets of discord that interrupted the flow.

Amber had never experienced this. She took a deep breath as a sense of dread started to creep up her spine. She turned and locked the door, holding her keys tightly between her fingers. She began walking to the end of the block toward her car. At first, nothing seemed out of place other than the strange frequency. As she walked, however, she became aware of a soft padding sound behind her. It was too light for a person to make—it sounded more like a dog. She turned and looked behind her.

Nothing solid appeared. There were merely swirls of snow riding the winds. Something about them, however, seemed off. They were moving in just a way that seemed unnatural.

She took another deep breath, now starting to shake. She pulled her jacket closer to her and zipped it up, as though the extra layer would hide her from whatever she was sensing. She began walking again when she heard it; soft whispers in the wind around her. At first, they were completely unintelligible. As she stopped and listened, they became clearer.

“Sweet flesh. Delicious. Tender meat and crunchy bones. Let me feast.”

The result was instantaneous. The words alone chilled her to her core, but the voice . . . the low, rasping, rumbling voice sounded everywhere all at once. It sounded impossible—as though three voices were woven into one speaker. It spoke with a cadence and tone that wasn’t of the world around her. It grated in her ears and froze her blood. For a moment, she couldn’t move. She could barely even breathe, much less think. She didn’t know what she was hearing. She didn’t know if it was right behind the strange swirls of white or farther down the sidewalk.

The only thing she was inexplicably certain about was that she was in more danger than she had ever been before.

Amber steeled herself and started walking again, much quicker. This time, the padded footfall was louder, faster, trying to keep pace.

“The tang of the blood will be so refreshing. I’m so parched. I want for relief. Let me drink. Let me eat. Let me devour.”

Amber broke out into a sprint. Her car had never seemed so far. The padded footfall was matching her speed as the icy air ripped at her throat, stinging all over her lungs, making it harder and harder to take a breath.

She only had feet to go when a shadow launched itself out of the flurries and landed in front of her.

What she saw would not reconcile itself with the reality she knew. A large, lanky wolf-like creature that was nearly as tall on all fours as she was standing watched her with glowing red eyes. It’s mouth was in an open snarl, revealing multiple rows of bloody, yellowed teeth. A long black tongue lapped around the scabbed skin of its lips, wetting the patches of wiry black fur the bristled in random places. It’s feet looked more like human hands, though the fingers of which were long, pointed and the color of burned charcoal. The patchy bristly tail was pointed straight out behind it.

Amber couldn’t make a sound. She couldn’t scream for help as the creature slowly advanced toward her, its finger-like toes gripping the ground as it walked.

“Please,” Amber managed to choke out, her entire body shaking violently as she took a step back. She didn’t know what she was asking for; there was nothing about the creature that offered any glimpse of mercy or humanity. It was simply the only words she could find at that moment. “Please don’t.”

The creature snarled, the sound seeming derisive as took another step. “So tasty. So filling. Human fear such a delicacy. Let me feast.”

The creature lunged. Amber screamed, falling back onto the freezing pavement, putting her arms in front of her as she did. The pain in her back as she hit the curb was nothing compared to the searing fire that burned in her arm and traveled through every inch of her as the creature sank its teeth into skin and muscle. For a moment, in the agony of suffering like she had never known, she felt a part of herself resign. Deep down, she knew there was no way to fight this thing. She only hoped there would be something left of her so that Alyssa didn’t spend the rest of her life wondering.

There was something else, however, that started to unfurl inside her. A prickling sensation in her hands, as though itching to do something. As the creature shook its head, threatening to tear her arm from its socket, the feeling became stronger, consuming more and more of her.

Amber clenched and unclenched her free hand. As she did, she could see something playing out in her mind. A movement she wanted desperately to perform.

She had no wherewithal to think anymore. Now, she simply reacted on the impulses inside.

She opened her palm and placed it on the creature’s head, right between the pointed ears. She closed her eyes as she focused all her attention on the growing sensation that was sending more comforting waves of heat through her hand and wrist.

At once, the jaws let her go as the creature let out a feral shriek that tore through the night.

She opened her eyes to see glass-like items flying around them, diving as though alive and hitting their mark into the creature’s flesh, it’s mouth and even piercing through one red eye.

Ice. Thin, sharp daggers of ice. They followed her hand as she raised it.

She didn’t stop to ponder this. She brought her hand down hard on top of the creature’s head. The daggers hit harder, into its throat, its wild cries straining. The creature backed away from her and she pushed herself up to a sitting position, every muscle in her back spasming. She gritted her teeth, pushing the pain down as she did during the most arduous kickboxing sessions and clenching her fist. The daggers followed the creature, who cried out and ran back into the darkness. The shrieks traveled farther and farther down the street until they quieted.

When the creature was gone, Amber was surprised to hear the soothing vibration of winter’s hum return to its familiar state. She panted as she watched after where the creature had vanished. She quickly lifted her arm to examine the bite.

Her jacket and sweater were torn, but her skin was intact. No evidence of the attack was marked beyond her clothes.

Amber sat on the freezing ground, catching her breath. Slowly, she pushed herself to her feet. Her lower back would definitely need to be checked, but it wasn’t immobilizing. She winced as she took a step toward her car. Despite all seeming right again, there was a new fear. What if that thing came back? What if there were more? She had no idea what she had just seen, no idea how to explain what had happened, so how could she know she was safe?

That prickling sensation in her hand began again. This time, it traveled up both arms, up to her shoulders. She didn’t know how she knew what to do, but she wrapped her arms around herself tightly.

The snow circled around her, creating a curtain of white. She felt hidden and protected. So, with many questions screaming from her mind, she slowly began to walk toward the safety of her car.