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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