A Night of Small Fires

Evening came down over the settlement like a soft blanket, painfully and slowly. The chimneys were smoking in straight lines. The odor of smoke and snow and soil. It was a harmonious peace in a modest kind of manner, the sort of peace that did not inflate the idea that the world was in place. Just a pause. A held breath. Where life could pause a moment and pass on, A little rest.

Annabelle was seated by the fireside in one of the lengthy houses. There was a small fire ...