Jan. 18, 2026

January Man - (Episode 3) - "The Polar Vortex" A Romance Weekly Paranormal Series

January Man - (Episode 3) - "The Polar Vortex" A Romance Weekly Paranormal Series

The coldest night in a generation descends, and Callum is more present than he's been in decades. He takes Vera into the deep cold—the realm where winter walkers exist—and shows her the fading spirits of those who came before him. A glimpse of his future, if the winters keep warming.Together, they find James, a grieving widower who walked onto a frozen lake searching for his dead wife. As Vera guides him back from the threshold, Callum finally admits the truth: there's a way to save him, but it would bind Vera's life to his existence forever.She chooses to stay anyway. And in the deep cold, surrounded by the ghosts of forgotten guardians, they finally stop fighting what's been building between them. But the vortex is breaking. And they have one night left to find another way.

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Caloroga Shark Media. Hello, and welcome to Romance Weekly.

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This is the January Man, Episode three, The Polar Vortex.

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Minus thirty one degrees.

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I've never felt cold like this, Cold that burns, Cold

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that makes the air itself feel solid, like you're breathing

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crushed glass. Cold that turns the city into a ghost town.

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Everyone huddled inside schools, closed buses stopped, the whole world

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holding its breath. And Callum has never been more alive.

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Standing in my living room, and for the first time,

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he looks almost human. Color in his cheeks, weight to

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his presence. When he moves, the air moves with him.

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When he speaks, his voice doesn't have that distant echo

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chamber quality it usually carries. This is what I was,

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he says, looking at his hands like they belong to

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someone else before the winters started warming. This is how

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it felt to be fully present. You look different, I

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feel different. He crosses to me, and I can actually

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hear his footsteps on the hardwood, actual footsteps in cold

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like this. I'm almost real, almost solid enough to He stops.

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His hand hovers near my face, not quite touching, solid

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enough to what to forget that I'm not? He drops

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his hand, and that's dangerous forgetting what I am. Outside

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the wind howls. The polar vortex descended overnight, and the

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meteorologists are calling it historic, once in a generation, the

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kind of cold that kills. They're not wrong. The news

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is already reporting three exposure deaths. A homeless man downtown,

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an elderly woman whose furnace failed, a teenager who wandered

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away from a party and couldn't find his way home.

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There are others, Callum says, reading my thoughts, lost ones.

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More than usual, the deep cold draws them out. Then

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we should go, He shakes his head. First, I need

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to show you something, something I've never shown anyone, what

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the deep cold. He holds out his hand, the place

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where winter walkers live. I look at his hand, solid present,

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almost warm, in this impossible freeze. Is it safe? No,

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he says it simply, without drama. But if you're going

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to understand what I am, what we're fighting against, you

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need to see it. I take his hand. The world dissolves.

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The deep cold is not a place. It's an absence,

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a space between spaces, carved out of the moments where

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warmth fails and survival becomes uncertain. Callum leads me through

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it like someone walking through their childhood home. Familiar, comfortable, heartbreaking.

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This is where I exist, he says, when I'm not

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manifested in your world. I'm here, walking these paths, feeling

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for the lost ones. The landscape is impossible to describe.

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It's not white, that would imply color, but it's not

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nothing either. It's the idea of winter, the essence of cold,

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stretched into something almost physical. I can see shapes in

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the distance, trees that aren't trees, buildings that aren't buildings,

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the suggestion of a world filtered through frost, and I

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can see figures. They're faint, fainter than Callum, fainter than

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anything I've ever perceived, shadows of shadows, but they're there,

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scattered across the deep cold, like stars in a dying galaxy.

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The other walkers, I breathe what's left of them. Callum's

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voice is heavy. They can't manifest anymore. The warmth took

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that from them. But they can't fully disappear either. They're

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stuck here in the between, fading but not faded, gone

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but not gone. I watch one of the figure drift

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past us. It was a woman once I think I

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can almost see the shape of her face, the outline

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of a body, the gesture of hands that used to

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guide the lost. Can they see us? I don't know.

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I've tried talking to them. They never respond. He squeezes

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my hand. That's what's waiting for me, Vera. When the

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cold finally fails, when the winters get too short to

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sustain me, I'll end up here with them, a ghost

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of a ghost. The weight of it settles into my chest.

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All those spirits, all those centuries of service, reduced to this,

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drifting through an abstract void, unable to touch anything, unable

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to help anyone, unable even to fade away completely. There

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has to be a way to stop it. There isn't.

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He says it with the certainty of someone who's tried.

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The deal I made was clear. Walk as long as

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the winters need me. When they don't need me anymore,

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they still need you. I've seen it, Marcus in that

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parking garage, Delia in her dorm room. People are still

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getting lost in January, but fewer of them and for

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shorter stretches central heating modern medicine crisis hotlines. The world

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has found other ways to guide the lost. His smile

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is sad and proud at the same time. That's a

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good thing, Vera. That's what we were working toward, a

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world that doesn't need winter walkers. But you'll die. I

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died in eighteen forty seven. This has just been borrowed time.

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I want to argue, want to scream that it's not

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fair that one hundred eighty years of service should count

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for something, that the world shouldn't be allowed to just

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forget him. But I don't have words for any of that.

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So instead I hold his hand tighter and let him

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lead me deeper into the cold. We find James at

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the edge of a frozen lake fifteen miles north of

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the city. He's sixty seven years old, according to the

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missing person's report that pinged on the news an hour ago.

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Retired engineer widower last seen leaving his assisted living facility

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at six pm, heading to find Eleanor Eleanor, his wife

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of forty three years, who died of cancer three years ago.

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He's standing on the ice in a thin jacket and slippers,

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staring at the center of the lake like he's waiting

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for someone to emerge from it. The cold should have

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killed him by now, minus thirty one wind chill pushing

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minus fifty dressed like he was stepping out to get

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the mail. But he's still standing, still, waiting. He's in

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the threshold, Callum says, not fully in this world, not

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fully in the deep cold. The grief is holding him there.

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Can you reach him? I can try. He steps onto

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the ice, moving toward James with that gliding walk that

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doesn't quite touch the ground. I watch him approach, watch

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him reach out, Watch his hand pass right through James's shoulder.

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James doesn't react, doesn't move, just keep staring at the ice. Eleanor,

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he says, his voice cracked and distant, Eleanor, I'm coming.

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Just wait for me. I step onto the ice. It's solid, frozen,

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deep enough to drive a truck on. But it still

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feels wrong under my feet, unstable in some way that

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has nothing to do with physics. The threshold. Callum called

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it the space between living and dying. James, I keep

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my voice, calm, gentle, the voice I use with clients

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who are standing on ledges. They don't know how to

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step back from James. Can you hear me? He doesn't turn.

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She's out there. She told me she'd wait who told

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you Eleanor in the dream? She said? He breaks off, Confused,

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She said to come to the lake, our lake where

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we met. I look at Callum. He's standing beside James,

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hand on his shoulder, even though it doesn't connect, pouring

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something into him, warmth, presence, the sense of not being alone.

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You met Eleanor here, I ask nineteen seventy seven, ice

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fishing with my buddies. She was with her girlfriends, having

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a picnic on the shore. Craziest thing who has a

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picnic in January? A ghost of a smile crosses his face.

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But there she was prettiest girl I'd ever seen. And

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I walked right up to her and said, he stops.

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What did you say? I said, you must be cold?

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Can I share my fire? He laughs, but it turns

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into a sob. That was our joke. Every winter, every

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cold day, I'd say, can I share my fire? And

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she'd say what would she say? She'd say, I thought

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you'd never ask. The ice beneath us groans, not from weight,

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from something else, from the threshold shifting. Responding to the

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memory he's conjured.

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James.

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I step closer, close enough to touch him. Eleanor isn't

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on the lake. You know that, don't you. She said

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to come.

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That was a dream.

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Grief does that sometimes it shows us what we want

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to see. I put my hand on his arm, and

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he's freezing cold enough that my skin protests the contact.

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But Eleanor wouldn't want you to die out here, not

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like this. I don't want to die. His voice is small, bewildered.

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I just want to see her again. I just want

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to know she's still She's still with you. I don't

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know if it's true, but I say it anyway. The

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memories you carry, the life you built together, the love

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that doesn't go away just because someone does. I squeeze

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his arm. That's where she is, James, not on the

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ice in here. He turns to look at me for

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the first time. His eyes are clouded, confused, but there's

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something in them, a flicker of recognition of return. You've

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lost someone, he says, yes. Does it get easier? I

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think about THEO, about five years of carrying him like

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a stone in my chest, about the cold I moved

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into the penance. I've been serving the grief. I've never

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let myself feel, because feeling it might break me. No,

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I say honestly, but you learn to carry it differently,

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and you don't have to carry it alone. James looks

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back at the lake, at the center, where nothing is,

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where no one waits, and then slowly he turns around.

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I should go back, he says. The nurses will be worried.

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I called them. They're sending someone. We walk back to

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the shore together, me and James and a winter walker

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he can't see, but somehow feels. By the time the

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ambulance arrives, James is crying, real tears, not the frozen

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shock he was trapped in before. Crying is good. Crying

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means the thaw has started. The paramedics wrap him in

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blankets and ask questions. I let them answer themselves. Lost, confused, hypothermic,

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but alive. A miracle, they say, A Christmas miracle in January.

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Callum stands beside me as they drive away, his form

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flickering slightly even in this deep cold. You reached him,

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he says, We reached him. No, he turns to me,

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and there's something in his eyes I haven't seen before.

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I've guided hundreds of lost souls, vera thousands, maybe, but

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I've never seen anyone do what you just did You

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didn't just warm him, you brought him back. He wanted

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to come back, he just needed permission. Maybe he reaches

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out tucks a strand of hair behind my ear. His

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fingers are cold, but the gesture is warm. Or maybe

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you're something I've never encountered before, a witness who doesn't

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just see who heals. I don't know what to say

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to that, so I say nothing. I just stand there

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in the killing cold, letting him look at me like

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I'm something worth seeing. We walk back through the deep cold.

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The faded walkers drift around us, closer now, like they're

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drawn to something they can't quite remember.

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Wanting.

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I need to tell you something, Callum says, something I

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should have told you from the beginning. What there's a

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way to save me, or at least to keep me

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from fading completely. I stop walking? What? Why didn't you?

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Because it would cost you? He turns to face me.

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A witness who touches a winter walker doesn't just perceive them.

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They anchor them, make them more real, more present, more

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tied to the living world. That's good, isn't it. It's

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a binding vera your life force connected to my existence.

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When the cold ends each year, part of you would

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go do moment too. You'd feel the loss of me,

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even when I'm just between seasons. And if I ever

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faded completely, if the winter's finally failed, you'd lose whatever

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piece of yourself you gave me. How much would I lose?

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I don't know enough to notice enough to change you.

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His jaw tightens. I won't ask you to do that.

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I won't let you sacrifice part of yourself for someone

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who's already supposed to be dead. That's not your choice,

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it is. I'm the one who would be taking from you.

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I'm the one who would be He breaks off. I've

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watched people sacrifice for love vera, I've seen what it costs.

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I won't do that to you. I think about Margaret,

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the daughter he saved and could never touch, About Eleanor

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waiting for James on a frozen lake that only existed

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in his grief, about thea walking into the cold because

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he couldn't find any warmth worth staying for. My brother

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died because he was alone, I say slowly, because he

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couldn't feel anyone reaching for him, because the cold got

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inside and there was nothing to hold on to. I've

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spent five years punishing myself for that frozen solid just

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like Delia, just like James, just like every one, January

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tries to swallow. I step closer to him. But I'm

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not alone anymore, and neither are you. You don't know

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what you're offering. I know exactly what I'm offering. I

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reach up and touch his face, cold as always, but

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solid real. I'm offering to stay however long you have, days, years, decades.

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I'll walk with you, and whatever it costs me, I'll

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carry it, because that's what you do when you love someone.

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He stares at me. The faded walkers drift closer, drawn

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by something they recognize. Love maybe, or grief, or the

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desperate hope of connection. You love me, His voice is

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barely a whisper. I think I've loved you since you

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told me about Margaret, since I understood what it means

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to give up everything for someone else. I hold his gaze.

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I'm not asking you to make me a promise. I'm

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not asking for forever. I'm just asking you to let

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me stay. He kisses me. It's not like any kiss

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I've ever had, Cold and heat at once, the frozen

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edge of winter meeting something burning underneath. His hands come

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up to cut my face, and I feel it, the

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binding he warned me about, the anchor taking hold. Something

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in my chest shifts, makes room, welcomes him in. When

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we break apart, the deep cold around us is different, warmer. Somehow,

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the faded walkers have retreated to the edges of perception,

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giving us space. I love you too, Callum says. I've

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loved you since you stood in that parking garage and

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demanded to know what good I was. Since you saved

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a man I couldn't touch, Since you walked into the

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cold like you belonged there. I think I do belong here.

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I look around at the impossible landscape of the deep

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cold with you. He smiles that surprised, grateful smile I've

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come to need, and takes my hand. Then let's go back,

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he says. There's one more night, one more chance, chance

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for what. I don't know yet. He leads me through

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the space between spaces, back toward the world of warmth

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and time. But I think we're going to find out.

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I wake up in my apartment to the sound of dripping.

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The temperature outside is thirty three degrees. The polar vortex

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has broken, collapsed, overnight like it was never there. Water

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runs down my windows, ice melting snow, softening the killing cold,

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releasing its grip. Callum is sitting on the edge of

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my bed and he's flickering. Hey, he says. His voice

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is distant again, that echo chamber quality returning one more day.

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Maybe the forecast says it might drop again tonight, might might.

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He tries to smile, but it doesn't reach his eyes.

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I wanted to watch you sleep. In case, don't, I

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sit up reach for him. My hand passes through his

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arm on the first try, then catches on the second.

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Don't say.

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In case, We'll figure it out tonight, whatever it takes.

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I hold onto his flicker pouring form with everything I have.

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You're not fading alone, not anymore. He looks at me,

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This impossible man, this winter walker, this ghost who's more

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alive than anyone I've ever met. I believe you, he

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says softly. I don't know why after one hundred eighty years,

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but I believe you. Outside the January sun breaks through

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the clouds and everything begins to melt.