I sat at the kitchen table, wrapping my hands around a cup of cold tea. It became quiet, empty, and somehow anxious in my soul.
Do not touch the snow.
I shook my head, trying to chase these thoughts away. Foolishness. But something held me back from dressing warmly and going out to shovel the yard as Vernon had ordered.
Fatigue crashed down all at once like a sack of sand on my shoulders. The day had been long. My legs buzzed, my back ached. And the blizzard was raging so hard that everything would just be covered again by morning anyway. What was the point of suffering now?
I decided I would not go out into this bitter freeze to drag a shovel around. I would deal with it in the morning. Vernon was already far away. He would not see, would not know.
I went upstairs to the bedroom, changed into an old, warm nightgown, and lay down. But I could not read. The letters swam before my eyes. My thoughts returned again and again to the strange meeting in the store. Why did she look so persistently, so seriously into my eyes?
Outside the window, the wind continued to howl. The house creaked under strong gusts. I got up, walked to the bedroom window, and looked out. The yard was drowning in pitch darkness. Only the weak yellowish light of the single lamp by the gate snatched swirling thick snowflakes from the gloom.
A strange, anxious feeling seized me, tightening my chest. Something important was happening this night. Something fateful.
I returned to the bed and lay down. I did not want to sleep at all, despite the fatigue. The old clock on the nightstand ticked monotonously, showing 11:00 PM.
Vernon was probably speeding along the snowy night highway, thinking about his own things. What did he even think about lately? We lived like strangers. Maybe it all started after we realized we could not have children. Or maybe it was my serious illness three years ago. Vernon had become especially distant then, as if I had become a burden.
Sleep came in snatches, restless and anxious. I dreamed of that old woman. Her piercing eyes. Her dry fingers. “Do not touch the snow,” she repeated in the dream, like a spell protecting me from an invisible evil.
Read More :
was standing in line at the checkout of our local grocery store, clutching my worn-out tote bag to my chest like a shield. Outside the frosted windows, a blizzard was sweeping through the streets, turning the world into a chaotic blur of white and gray. December had turned out to be especially cruel this year.
Fifty-eight is the age when you stop running around supermarkets looking for the best sales and start going to the familiar place near your house where the clerks know you by name, where the routine offers a small, comforting illusion of stability.
Ahead of me, right at the register, a hunched-over elderly woman in a faded, moth-eaten shawl was fumbling around. She poured loose change onto the counter from a tattered leather wallet, counting the coins with trembling, arthritic fingers. On the belt lay the most modest of purchases: a loaf of bread, a carton of milk, three potatoes, and a small onion.
“Ma’am, you are short,” the cashier, a young woman named Candace with tired eyes, said wearily. “You are short about a dollar.”
“How can that be, baby?” the old woman muttered in confusion, sorting through the coins again, her hands shaking. “I counted at home. I counted everything.”
Behind me, someone sighed in annoyance. The line was growing, and people were in a hurry to get home out of the bad weather. I looked at the shrunken figure of the old woman, at her hands red from the cold, at her cheap groceries, and something tugged violently inside me. How many times had I walked past someone else’s grief, pretending not to notice? How many times had I turned away so as not to see someone else’s need?
But today, something made me step forward.
“Candace, ring it up with mine,” I said, handing a twenty-dollar bill over the old woman’s shoulder. “I will pay for it.”
“Oh, honey, really, you do not have to,” the old woman flustered, turning around. “I will just put something back.”
“Do not worry about it, ma’am.” I smiled warmly, though I felt tired in my bones. “It is nothing, not even worth mentioning.”
The old woman raised her eyes to me, and I involuntarily shuddered. Her gaze was strange, piercing. Her eyes were not old at all. They were clear, deep, and uncomfortably sharp, as if they saw right through my winter coat, straight into my soul. The woman was small and fragile, her face furrowed with deep wrinkles, but in those eyes shone some unusual power, an ancient wisdom.
“Thank you, daughter.” The old woman scooped her purchases into a worn plaid bag, and her voice trembled with gratitude. “Your kindness will not be forgotten. It will come back to you.”
I shrugged, paying for my own groceries. Chicken for a stew, vegetables, bread, a couple of cans of goods. Vernon was leaving this evening for another long-haul run. He’d be gone for a week, maybe ten days. I had to cook for him for the road and also stock up on everything necessary for myself while he was away.
Thirty-two years married. For all this time, I had seen him off on trips, waited for his return, cooked, washed, cleaned. Life flowed in a well-worn groove, monotonous and predictable, like a record skipping on the same track.
I had already picked up my bags, intending to leave, when I felt an unexpectedly strong grip on the sleeve of my old coat. The old woman stood beside me, clutching the fabric with her wiry fingers with such force that I could not immediately pull away.
“Listen to me carefully, daughter,” she whispered, leaning in very close. I could smell mothballs, dried herbs, and something else—elusive and ancient, like ozone before a storm. “When your husband leaves for the night, do not touch the snow in the yard. Do you hear me? No matter what he tells you, do not shovel until morning. Let the white lie untouched.”
“What?” I blinked in confusion, trying to understand the meaning of these strange words. “What snow?”
“Do not touch the snow until morning,” the old woman repeated slowly, distinctly, as if hammering every word into my consciousness. Her fingers gripped my sleeve even tighter, almost to the point of pain. “Promise me. This is very important. Your life depends on it. Believe an old woman.”
“Yes. Okay. Okay,” I agreed mechanically, freeing my arm and involuntarily stepping back. My heart beat anxiously. I felt uneasy from that intense, almost hypnotic gaze. “I will not shovel. I promise.”
The old woman finally let me go, nodded slowly as if satisfied, and quickly—surprisingly agile for her age—walked out of the store, dissolving into the snowy whirl beyond the glass doors.
I watched her go, then shaken my head. Foolishness, I thought. Old folk superstition.But the chill on my arm where she had touched me lingered long after I left the store.
The bus ride home was stuffy, crowded, and smelled of wet wool. I squeezed to the window, leaning my forehead against the cold glass, but I couldn’t shake the old woman’s words.
Do not touch the snow.
What sort of eccentricity was that? Honestly, just this morning, while hurriedly eating breakfast before heading out, Vernon had grumbled that the driveway absolutely needed to be cleared. He said the drifts were piling up high and the walkways were completely covered. He ordered me to take care of it by evening so the paths would be clear. Otherwise, he claimed, he could not turn the car around.
And here some strange, senile lady whispers weird things about snow. A stupid coincidence. Nothing more.
The house met me with dark, empty windows and a biting cold. Vernon had gone to the depot in the morning to prep the truck for the haul and, in his typical thoughtlessness, had not turned up the heat. I went in, took off my wet coat, and walked across the freezing floor to the kitchen.
Vegetables in the pantry, chicken in the fridge, bread in the box. Every movement was habitual, practiced over the years. The house gradually warmed up, but the chill between Vernon and me never seemed to thaw.
At exactly 6:00 PM, the front door slammed. The cold burst into the house along with Vernon.
He walked in with a heavy tread, shaking snow from his jacket right onto the floor I had just swept, paying no attention to the puddles. He was tall, broad-shouldered, with a weathered, hard face and cold gray eyes. Fifty-nine years old, but he looked solid and strong despite a quarter of a century behind the wheel of an 18-wheeler.
“Well, is everything ready?” he asked instead of a greeting, not even looking at me, walking straight into the kitchen.
“Yes, Vern, I am packing it now.” I had already taken out the prepared containers and began neatly arranging the cooled soup, meatloaf, salad, and cornbread.
Vernon sat at the table, heavily poured himself tea, added three spoons of sugar, and stayed silent. He stared at his phone screen, typing something quickly, never once looking at his wife.
I stole a glance at him, at the profile I knew down to the smallest detail. When had this begun? This alienation, this wall of ice? Before, in the early years, he would return from trips tired but happy. Now, there was only silence. Only irritation in every movement, as if I were not a wife, but a tiresome servant he couldn’t fire.
“Clean the snow this evening once it gets dark,” Vernon threw out, not looking up from his phone. “The driveway is completely buried. It might drift even more tomorrow.”
“Vernon, it is already almost dark. The blizzard is bad,” I started, but cut myself off when I saw him raise a cold gaze to me.
“I said this evening,” he cut in sharply. “You are not a child. You can handle it in half an hour. I did not have time. The haul starts early tomorrow morning. The cargo is important.”
I pressed my lips together, continuing to silently pack the containers. The old woman’s words echoed in my mind. When your husband leaves for the night, do not touch the snow.
“When exactly are you leaving?” I asked quietly.
“In about an hour. The load is already packed and sealed. The paperwork is all ready and signed.”
He stood up heavily. “I’m going to take a shower, grab my things, and head out.”
He went upstairs. I remained in the kitchen alone. Outside the window, the wind howled, and snow fell ceaselessly in large flakes. I walked to the window and looked out. The yard was drowning in white. The path to the gate was indeed almost completely buried.
Forty minutes later, Vernon came down, dressed in his road clothes. I handed him the bag of food.
“Will you call when you get there?” I asked, knowing the answer.
“Yeah,” he threw back shortly. He did not even kiss me goodbye. Just gave a short nod. “Look, make sure you shovel the snow, you hear? Or it will drift up again overnight, and you won’t be able to get out in the morning.”
The door slammed with a dull thud. I heard his old pickup truck start up and roll down the snowy street. The sound of the engine gradually faded into the distance.
I was alone.
I sat at the kitchen table, wrapping my hands around a cup of cold tea. It became quiet, empty, and somehow anxious in my soul.
Do not touch the snow.
I shook my head, trying to chase these thoughts away. Foolishness. But something held me back from dressing warmly and going out to shovel the yard as Vernon had ordered.
Fatigue crashed down all at once like a sack of sand on my shoulders. The day had been long. My legs buzzed, my back ached. And the blizzard was raging so hard that everything would just be covered again by morning anyway. What was the point of suffering now?
I decided I would not go out into this bitter freeze to drag a shovel around. I would deal with it in the morning. Vernon was already far away. He would not see, would not know.
I went upstairs to the bedroom, changed into an old, warm nightgown, and lay down. But I could not read. The letters swam before my eyes. My thoughts returned again and again to the strange meeting in the store. Why did she look so persistently, so seriously into my eyes?
Outside the window, the wind continued to howl. The house creaked under strong gusts. I got up, walked to the bedroom window, and looked out. The yard was drowning in pitch darkness. Only the weak yellowish light of the single lamp by the gate snatched swirling thick snowflakes from the gloom.
A strange, anxious feeling seized me, tightening my chest. Something important was happening this night. Something fateful.
I returned to the bed and lay down. I did not want to sleep at all, despite the fatigue. The old clock on the nightstand ticked monotonously, showing 11:00 PM.
Vernon was probably speeding along the snowy night highway, thinking about his own things. What did he even think about lately? We lived like strangers. Maybe it all started after we realized we could not have children. Or maybe it was my serious illness three years ago. Vernon had become especially distant then, as if I had become a burden.
Sleep came in snatches, restless and anxious. I dreamed of that old woman. Her piercing eyes. Her dry fingers. “Do not touch the snow,” she repeated in the dream, like a spell protecting me from an invisible evil.
I woke up early, while it was still completely dark. The clock read just past 6:00 AM. Outside, the blizzard had finally stopped. The silence was heavy, dense.
I got up, threw a warm knitted robe over my shoulders, and went down to the kitchen. I mechanically put the kettle on the stove, lit the burner, walked to the window, and froze.
I blinked, not believing my eyes.
The yard was entirely covered in untouched, smooth snow, absolutely white. But leading from the gate to the house, and right up to the windows of the first floor, were clear, very deep footprints.
Men’s footprints. From heavy, large boots. Definitely not Vernon’s.
I knew his shoes, his size, his walk. These tracks were different. Someone had come to our house at night. They had walked around the yard, come close to the windows, while I remained completely alone inside.
I stood by the window, clutching the windowsill with whitened fingers. My heart pounded so hard it felt like it would crack a rib.
Deep, clear prints led from the very gate straight to the house. They methodically circled it on two sides, stopping at every window of the ground floor as if someone were carefully studying the house. Someone had walked around my house at night while I slept, defenseless.
My hands trembled. I stepped back from the window, pressing my palm to my mouth to hold back a frightened sob.
I forced myself to look again. The tracks did not go chaotically. They were purposeful. They went from the gate to the living room windows, then neatly along the wall to the kitchen windows, further to the back of the house where the pantry and basement entrance were. It was as if someone were methodically walking the perimeter, checking. Watching.
A cold chill ran down my spine. Burglars? But they took nothing. The gate was closed on a simple latch. The lock was intact. The tracks led only from the gate into the yard and back.
That meant the person somehow opened it, walked through calmly, circled the house, then just as calmly closed the gate and left.
The kettle on the stove whistled piercingly. I shuddered violently. I turned off the gas with a trembling hand. I had to do something.
I remembered our community officer, Gareth Pernell. I had known him for many years. He was a conscientious, responsive man. I grabbed my cell phone, my fingers fumbling as I dialed.
“Officer Pernell… this is Elara Vance from Chestnut Street… I have a very strange situation here.”
“Good morning, Mrs. Vance,” his calm, raspy voice answered. “What happened?”
“Last night… someone came to my house. They walked around the yard. Left tracks in the snow. I was home alone. My husband left for a long haul… I’m scared.”
“Did they break in?”
“No. But the tracks… they lead right up to the windows. Looking inside.”
“I will come over right now,” Gareth said instantly. “Do not go out. Do not trample the tracks.”
I hung up and waited, the silence of the house suddenly feeling like a threat. If I had shoveled the driveway last night like Vernon asked, these tracks would be lost in the mess of my own work, or covered by the snow that fell later. But because I listened to the old woman, the fresh layer of snow had captured the intruder’s path perfectly.
Officer Pernell arrived in twenty minutes. He was a large, comforting presence in the kitchen, shaking snow off his heavy boots.
“Show me,” he said.
We went out onto the porch. The frosty air burned my lungs. Pernell squatted by the tracks.
“Boots, size 12, maybe 13,” he muttered. “Deep tread. Work boots. Came from the gate.” He traced the path with his eyes. “Circled the whole house. Checked every window.”
He stood up, brushing off his knees. “Mrs. Vance, any conflicts with neighbors?”
“No. We live quietly.”
“And your husband left at 7:00 PM?”
“Yes.”
“That means this person knew you were alone. Mrs. Vance, do any neighbors have cameras?”
“Mrs. Higgins across the street,” I said, remembering.
We crossed the snowy road to Mrs. Higgins’ house. She was a kind, gossipy soul who let us in immediately, flustered by the police presence. We stood in her living room as Gareth rewound the footage on her security system.
“Here,” Gareth said, pointing at the grainy black-and-white screen.
The time stamp read 11:45 PM.
A dark sedan drove slowly down the deserted street and stopped right in front of my house. A tall man got out. He didn’t rush. He didn’t look nervous. He walked to my gate, unlatched it, and disappeared into the shadows of my yard.
“Lord have mercy,” I whispered.
Ten minutes later, he reappeared. He latched the gate behind him, got into his car, and drove away.
“Pause,” Gareth commanded. He zoomed in on the car. “That’s a logo on the door.”
It was blurry, but legible. HEARTH.
“That looks like a company car,” Gareth muttered. “Not a burglar. Maybe… real estate?”
“Real estate?” Mrs. Higgins piped up. “Oh! That looks just like the car the appraiser used when my daughter bought her apartment! He came late at night too!”
“Appraiser?” I asked, my voice trembling. “Why would an appraiser be at my house at midnight?”
“That,” Gareth said grimly, “is exactly what we are going to find out.”
By lunchtime, we were sitting in the office of Hearthstone Realty. The director, Isaac Graves, looked nervous as Officer Pernell flashed his badge.
“Yes, we sent an appraiser to 17 Chestnut Street last night,” Graves admitted, checking his files. “We have an order for an expedited sale.”
“Sale?” I stood up, my legs shaking. “I never ordered a sale! That house is in my name!”
Graves looked confused. “But Mrs. Vance, we have your power of attorney right here.”
He slid a document across the desk. I looked at it. It was a power of attorney, authorizing Vernon Vance to sell the property.
At the bottom was a signature. Elara Vance.
“I didn’t sign this,” I whispered, the room spinning. “This is a forgery. My husband… he forged my signature.”
“He told us you were too busy to come in,” Graves stammered, pale. “He requested a night appraisal because he said you’d be asleep and he didn’t want to disturb you. He said he wanted to surprise you with the money from the sale.”
“Surprise me?” I laughed, a broken, hysterical sound. “He was selling my home out from under me while I slept.”
“We have a buyer lined up,” Graves admitted, wiping sweat from his forehead. “Cash deal. Closing in two days.”
Two days. If I hadn’t seen the tracks… if I had shoveled the snow… the appraisal would have happened, the deal would have closed, and Vernon would have disappeared with the money before I even knew the house was gone.
“Cancel it,” Officer Pernell ordered, his voice hard as iron. “We are opening a criminal investigation for fraud.”
We spent hours at the police station. I wrote statements. I answered questions. I felt like a ghost in my own life.
Vernon wasn’t just tired of me. He wasn’t just distant. He was a criminal. He had planned to leave me homeless and penniless at fifty-eight years old.
Two days later, Gareth called me.
“Mrs. Vance, your husband returned. We detained him at the depot.”
“Did he confess?” I asked, my voice dead.
“He did. Gambling debts. Slot machines. He owed a lot of money to bad people. He thought he could sell the house, take the cash, and vanish before you figured it out.”
I hung up the phone. I sat in my kitchen, looking at the empty chair where Vernon used to sit. Thirty-two years. Cooking. Cleaning. Waiting. All for a man who would sell our sanctuary to pay for his mistakes.
The trial was quick. Vernon got two years probation and was ordered to pay restitution. He didn’t look at me in the courtroom. Not once.
The divorce was final a month later. He moved in with his brother. I packed his photos in a box and put them in the attic. The silence in the house was deafening, but for the first time in years, it wasn’t heavy. It was the silence of peace.
Spring came early that year. By April, the snow was gone, revealing the green shoots of the flowers I had planted.
I didn’t sell the house. It was mine. I found a job at the local library—a quiet place smelling of old paper and comfort. I made friends with the other women there, widows and divorcees who taught me that life doesn’t end at fifty-eight.
I started drawing classes. I joined a book club. I traveled to the city museum by bus, just because I could.
One evening in June, Mrs. Higgins came over for tea on the porch. The air smelled of lilacs.
“Elara,” she asked softly. “Did you ever find that old woman? The one at the store?”
I shook my head, smiling at the setting sun. “No. No one knows her. Candace said she never saw her again.”
“A guardian angel, maybe,” Mrs. Higgins mused.
“Maybe,” I said.
I thought about her words often. Do not touch the snow. Such a simple instruction. If I had been the obedient wife Vernon wanted, if I had shoveled that driveway, I would have erased the evidence of his betrayal. I would have cleared the path for my own destruction.
But I listened. I listened to the universe, to the old woman, and finally, to myself.
I took a sip of tea, feeling the warmth spread through my chest. The snow was gone, melted into the earth. But I was still here. Standing. Strong. And ready for whatever season came next.
If you liked my story and want to hear more, go ahead and subscribe to my channel. If you’d like to support me, you can do it through Super Thanks. It would mean a lot. In the comments, tell me which city you’re watching from and what time it is so I can see how far my story reaches. I’ve added two more life stories on the screen just for you. Click one now, and let’s keep spending time together. Much love. See you soon.
