Jan. 4, 2026

January Man - Episode 1 - "Cold Snap" (A Romance Weekly Paranormal Series)

January Man - Episode 1 - "Cold Snap" (A Romance Weekly Paranormal Series)

Vera Holloway has spent five years surviving Minneapolis winters, punishing herself with cold she thinks she deserves. When a new client doesn't show for his appointment, she finds him dying in his car—and meets the impossible man who led her there.Callum is a winter walker, a spirit bound to the coldest days, guiding lost souls through January's darkest moments. He's done it for nearly 180 years. But the winters are getting warmer, and he's fading.Vera can see him. Touch him. And she might be the only person who can save him—if she can figure out how before the temperature rises and he disappears for good.

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Calarogu Shark Media. Hello and welcome to Romance Weekly. This

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is the January Man, Episode one, the Cold Snap. The

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cold in Minneapolis isn't like cold anywhere else. I grew

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up in Virginia, where winter meant maybe a few inches

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of snow, maybe a week of temperatures in the twenties,

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maybe the novelty of scraping ice off your windshield before

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it melted by noon. That's not cold, that's winter cosplay.

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Minneapolis cold is different. Minneapolis cold is a presence. It

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settles into your bones in November and doesn't leave until April.

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It makes the air feel sharp, almost brittle, like you

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could snap it between your fingers. On the worst days,

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the days when the temperature drops below zero and the

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wind chill makes it feel like thirty below, the cold

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becomes a sound, a low, constant hum, like the city

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itself is holding its breath. I moved here five years ago.

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People think I'm crazy, a grief counselor from Richmond, Virginia,

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relocating to one of the coldest cities in the country.

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There are easier places to help people process loss, warmer places,

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places where January doesn't feel like a personal attack, but

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That's exactly why I came. My brother, THEO, died on

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New Year's Day five years ago hypothermia. He walked out

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of a party at two a m. In the middle

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of a cold snaping, nothing but a T shirt and jeans.

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They found him the next morning on a bridge over

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the James River. The coroner said he probably lost consciousness

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within twenty minutes. Said it would have been peaceful at

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the end, like falling asleep. I don't believe that. I

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don't believe anything about dying alone in the cold is peaceful.

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So I moved to Minneapolis, into the cold, because if

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I can survive the winters here, really survive them, not

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just endure them, then maybe I can survive the thing

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inside me that froze solid the day they told me

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THEO was gone. It's January fourth, temperature minus eight, wind

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chill minus twenty three. I'm standing at my office window

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watching the snow fall in that slow, deliberate way it

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does when it's too cold for wind. When I see

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him for the first time, he's standing on the corner

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across the street, perfectly still, watching my building. Dark coat,

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dark hair, pale face, no hat, no gloves, no scarf,

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just standing there in twenty three below wind chill, like

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it's a mild spring day. I blink and he's gone,

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not walked away, not ducked into a doorway, gone like

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he was never there at all, just an empty corner,

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snow falling where a man used to be. I press

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my palm against the cold glass and tell myself, I

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imagined it. I've been doing that a lot lately, telling

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myself I imagined things. Shadows in corners that move wrong,

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figures in snowstorms that disappear when I look directly at them,

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Presences I can almost feel, hovering at the edges of

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the bereaved when they sit in my office and weep.

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I became a grief counselor because I wanted to understand

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not just grief that I understood intimately, but the other thing,

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the sense I've had since childhood that there's something just

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past the edge of sight, something watching, something waiting. My

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phone buzzes a text from the front desk. Your two

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o'clock intake never showed. Marcus Chen want me to reschedule.

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I check the clock two forty seven. Marcus was supposed

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to be here almost an hour ago. I pull up

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his file on my computer. Marcus chen fifty two, referred

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by his primary care physician after a divorce finalized in November.

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Notes from the referring doctor patient presenting with severe depression

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a herdonia, passive suicidal ideation, declined medication, agreed to counseling

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as compromise passive suicidal ideation. That's the clinical term for

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when someone isn't actively planning to kill themse but wouldn't

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mind if they stopped existing. It's the gray zone, the

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dangerous zone, the place where people slip through the cracks

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because they're not in crisis enough to hospitalize, but not

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okay enough to leave alone. I grab my coat. The

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parking garage is six blocks from my office, which Marcus's

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file lists as his workplace address, a financial services firm

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on the eighth floor. I called ahead. The receptionist said

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he left for a personal appointment at one thirty and

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never came back. His car is a silver Lexus parked

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on the third level of the garage. The engine is running,

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the windows are fogged, and there's a piece of cardboard

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wedged under the garage door, blocking the gap where outside

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air would normally flow in. I run Marcus I bang

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on the driver's window, but I can't see through the condensation. Marcus,

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can you hear me? No response, The engine hums. The

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exhaust curls white in the frozen air of the garage,

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but not as much of it is escaping as should be.

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The cardboard is doing its job, sealing him in with

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the carbon monoxide. I try the door handle, locked. Of

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course it's locked. I need to call nine one one,

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I say, fumbling for my phone with numb fingers. I

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need to he won't answer. The voice comes from behind me,

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and I spin around, heart pounding. It's him, the man

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from the corner, standing three feet away in the gray

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light of the parking garage, still wearing nothing but that

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dark coat, still unbothered by cold that should be killing him.

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Who are you? I demand? How did you? He's been

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sitting there for forty seven minutes. The man steps closer,

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and I notice his eyes pale blue, almost gray, like

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ice over deep water. He sealed the gap at one

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point fifty two. He's been breathing carbon monoxide ever since. Then.

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Help me get him out. I can't touch the car,

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I can't touch him. The man's voice is calm, but

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there's something underneath it. Frustration maybe, or grief, but you

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can The door's locked. The back window driver's side. It's cracked,

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not much, but enough, he points, Push it down, reach through,

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unlock the door manually. I don't ask how he knows this.

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I don't ask why he's here, or what he wants,

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or how he disappeared from that corner, like smoke in

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the wind. I just move. The back window is cracked

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barely an inch. I shove my hand against it, and

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the frozen rubber seal protests, then gives. The glass slides

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down and I reach through, stretching until my shoulder screams,

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until my fingers find the lock mechanism on the front door. Click.

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I yank the door open, and the fog pours out,

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and Marcus Chin is slumped against the steering wheel, unconscious,

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skin the color of raw. DOAUX help me, I gasp,

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grabbing his shoulders, Help me pull him out. I told

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you I can't touch him, Then what good are you?

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I drag Marcus out of the car, myself, his dead

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weight nearly pulling me down with him. He's breathing, shallow, ragged,

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but breathing. I lay him on the concrete floor of

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the garage and call nine one one with shaking hands.

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The man in the dark coat watches the whole time.

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He doesn't move, doesn't offer comfort, just watches with those

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pale eyes, like he's seen this a thousand times before.

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When the ambulance arrives, the paramedics push past him like

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he isn't there, because he isn't not to them. I

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watch one of them walk directly through the space where

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he's standing, and he doesn't flinch, doesn't move, just reforms

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around the interruption, like water flowing past a stone. You

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can see me, he says quietly, as they load Marcus

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onto a stretcher. You actually see me. What are you?

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He's silent for a long moment. The ambulance doors close,

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the sirens start up, fading as they pull away. My

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name is Callum, he finally says, and I've been waiting

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a very long time for someone like you. We walk.

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It's too cold to walk, too cold for anything, really,

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but Callum doesn't seem to notice, and I'm too wired

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with adrenaline to care. The streets are mostly empty, everyone

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huddled inside. When our footsteps crunch in the packed snow.

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As he talks, I'm a winter walker, he says, one

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of the last. I think we exist in the cold,

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the deep cold, the killing cold. When the temperature drops

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past a certain point, we become present, visible, real enough

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to interact with the world, real enough to talk to me,

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but not real enough to open a car door. The

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rules are complicated, He almost smiles. I can affect air temperature,

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the feeling of a space. I can reach people emotionally,

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give them a sense of warmth, of presence, of not

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being alone. But I can't touch physical objects, can't move things,

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can't save people with my hands. The almost smile fades

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only with whatever's left of my soul. And that's what

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you do. Save people, guide them. There's a difference. He

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stops walking, turns to face me. The cold has turned

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his breath to fog, which seems wrong somehow, shouldn't he

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be part of the cold, not affected by it. January

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is when people break the holiday's end. The darkness sets in,

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the weight of another year becomes unbearable. Every January, people

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get lost. They wander into the cold literally metaphorically, and

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they can't find their way back. Like Marcus, Like Marcus,

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like dozens of others. Every winter in this city alone.

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His eyes meet mine. I walk the cold days, I

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find the lost ones, I guide them back if I can.

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It's what I was made for, made by who, something old,

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something that lives in the space between the first freeze

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and the last thaw. He starts walking again, and I

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fall into step beside him. I was a man once,

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eighteen forty seven, Scottish immigrant, trying to make a life

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in this god forsaken frozen territory. My daughter got sick,

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scarlet fever, and I walked into a blizzard to find

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a doctor. What happened, I died, He says, It's simply

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like it's a fact about someone else froze to death

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about two miles from town. But I didn't stop walking.

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I couldn't. Margaret was sick and I had to save her,

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and the cold couldn't have me until I did. Did

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she survive? Yes? Something shifts in his voice, softer, sadder.

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Something in the blizzard saw what I was doing, the desperation,

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the refusal to stop, and it offered me a deal.

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Walk the winters forever, guide the lost one's home, and

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Margaret would live. So I said, yes, we've reached the river,

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the Mississippi frozen solid, stretching white and silent under the

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gray January sky. That was almost one hundred eighty years ago.

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Callum says, I've walked every winter since, watched Margaret grow up,

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grow old, die surrounded by her grandchildren. Watched the city

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change around me, watched the winters get shorter, warmer, less real.

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He turns to look at me, and I've never, not,

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once in all that time, met someone who could see

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me when I wasn't trying to be seen. What does

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that mean? It means you're a witness, someone who can

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perceive things that exist outside normal time. He studies my face.

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You've seen other things, haven't you, Shadows that move wrong,

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figures in storms. I don't answer. I don't have to.

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The lost ones can feel me, and I guide them.

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Callum continues, A warmth, a presence, But they can't see me,

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can't hear me, can't know I'm there. He pauses, You're different.

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You saw me on that corner from your window. You

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saw me in the garage. You're seeing me now, not

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because I'm reaching for you, but because you're built to

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perceive things like me, things like you. Winter walkers, threshold spirits,

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the beings, that exist in the spaces between. He holds

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out his hand, palm up like an offering. I can

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touch you. Do you understand how impossible that is. I

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haven't touched another living person since eighteen forty seven. I

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look at his hand, long, fingers, pale as snow, perfectly still.

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I shouldn't touch him. Every rational part of my brain

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is screaming that this is insane, that I'm having some

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kind of breakdown, that grief counselors who see ghosts in

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parking garages need grief counselors of their own. But I

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reach out anyway. His skin is cold, of course, it's cold,

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but it's solid, real present. I can feel the bones beneath,

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the texture of his palm, the faint tremor that runs

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through him at the contact. Oh, he breathes, Oh, that's

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He flickers like a candle in a draft. His whole

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form wavers, becomes translucent, then solid again. He pulls his

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hand back, pressing it to his chest, like I burned him.

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What's wrong? The temperature? He looks at the sky. It's

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rising thirty one degrees by morning. The forecasts say above freezing.

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And when it's above freezing, I fade He meets my eyes,

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and for the first time I see fear in them.

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I've been fading for years. The winters are getting warmer,

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the deep cold comes less often, stays for shorter stretches.

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Every January, I have fewer days to exist. How many

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days do you have now? He's silent for a moment.

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The wind picks up and I shiver, but he doesn't move.

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I don't know. He finally says, a week, maybe maybe less.

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He looks at me with those pale eyes, and I

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see something else beneath the fear. Hope, desperate, fragile hope.

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But you can see me, you can touch me. In

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one hundred eighty years, I've never met anyone who could

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do both. What does that mean for you? I don't know.

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He flickers again, fainter this time, But I think I

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think you might be the only one who can help me.

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Whatever happens next, the cold is deepening around us, the

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temperature dropping as the sun sets. Callum solidifies, becomes more present.

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But there's still that waver at his edges, that uncertainty.

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Will you help me, vera? He asks? Will you walk

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with me? While I still have days left to walk?

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I think about Marcus Chen, unconscious on a stretcher. I

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think about my brother Theo, walking into the cold five

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years ago. I think about all the people who get

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lost in January, who wander into the dark and don't

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find their way back. And I think about this man,

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this impossible, ancient, fading man, who has spent nearly two

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centuries guiding them home. Yes, I say, I'll help you.

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He smiles, a real smile, surprised and grateful and heart

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breaking all at once. Thank you, he says, I'll find

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you tomorrow when the cold comes back. He turns and

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walks toward the frozen river, and with each step he

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becomes less solid, less present, until he's just a shimmer

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in the winter air, and then he's gone. I stand

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alone on the river bank, breath fogging, fingers still tingling

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where I touched him. Tomorrow the temperature drops again. Tomorrow

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he'll come back, and whatever happens next, I won't let

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him face it alone