All day the sky stayed fair and the winds calm, but during the night a heavy gray blanket of clouds rolled in. Dawn was rosy and sullen with the sun blushing the mass of dirty gray clouds with pink. By mid-morning the temperature had dropped ominously and the wind had picked up. Ugo, Moira and Wiz all scurried about last-minute tasks.
It started to snow that afternoon. Large white flakes swirled down out of the clouds, driven by an increasing wind. Thanks to the clouds and the weak winter sun, dusk came early. By full dark the wind was howling around Heart’s Ease, whistling down the chimneys and tugging at the shutters and roof slates.
For three days and three nights the wind howled and the snow fell. The inhabitants warmed themselves with the wood Wiz had cut and amused themselves as they might in the pale grayish daylight that penetrated through the clouds and snow. They went to bed early and stayed abed late, for there was little else to do.
Then on the fourth day the storm was gone. They awoke to find the air still and the sky a brilliant Kodachrome blue. Awakened by the bright light through the cracks in the shutters, Wiz jumped out of bed, ran to the window and threw the shutters wide.
Below everything was white. The snow sparkled in the mild winter’s sun. Tree branches bore their load of white. Down in the courtyard of the keep, the outbuildings were shapeless mounds buried under the snowdrifts. The whole world looked clean and bright and new that morning from Wiz’s window.
After a quick breakfast Wiz and Moira went outside.
“It appears no damage was done,” Moira said as she looked over the buildings in the compound. “The roofs all seem to be secure and the snow does not lie too heavily on them.” Her cheeks and the tip of her nose were rosy with the cold, almost hiding her freckles. “We will have to shovel paths, of course.”
“Yeah, and make snowmen,” Wiz said, sucking the cold crisp air deep into his lungs and exhaling in a huge cloud.
Moira turned to him. “What is a snowman?”
“You’ve never made a snowman?” Wiz asked in astonishment. “Hey, I’m a California boy, but even I know how to do that. Here, I’ll show you.”
Under Wiz’s instruction, they rolled the snow into three large balls and stacked them carefully. There was no coal, so stones had to serve as eyes and buttons, while Moira procured a carrot from the kitchen to act as the nose.
“What does he do?” Moira asked when they finished building him.
“Do?” said Wiz blankly.
“Yes.”
“It doesn’t do anything. It’s just fun to make.”
“Oh,” said Moira, somewhat disappointed. “I thought perhaps it came to life or something.”
“That’s not usually part of the game,” Wiz told her remembering Frosty the Snowman . “It’s something done only for enjoyment.”
“I suppose I ought to do more things just for enjoyment,” Moira sighed. “But there was never time, you see.” She looked over at Wiz and smiled shyly. “Thank you for showing me how to make a snowman.”
“My pleasure,” Wiz told her. Suddenly life was very, very good.
He spent most of the rest of the day helping Ugo shovel paths through the drifts to reach the outbuildings. For part of the afternoon he cut firewood to replace the quantities that had been burned during the blizzard. But with that done, they were at loose ends again. The snow was still too deep to do much outside work and most of the inside work was completed. So Wiz suggested a walk in the woods to Moira.
“If it’s not too dangerous, I mean.”
“It should not be. The storm probably affected all kinds of beings equally.” She smiled. “So yes, Wiz, I would like to walk in the woods.”
They had to push through waist-high drifts to reach the gate, but once in the Wild Wood the going was easier. The trees had caught and held much of the snow, so there was only a few inches on the ground in the forest.
Although the weak winter’s sun was bright in the sky it was really too cold for walking. But it was too beautiful to go back. The snow from the storm lay fresh and white and fluffy all around them. Here and there icicles glittered like diamonds on the bare branches of the trees. Occasionally they would find a line of tracks like hieroglyphics traced across the whiteness where some bird or animal had made its way through the new snow.