Chapter 11: The Market, the Dog, and the Neighbour, Finale
Although winter had started with a figurative dropkick to the midsection, knocking everyone breathless with the sudden cold, it was now coasting in a far kinder, gentler manner. Unless something strange happened within the next four days, it was going to be an über-white Christmas. Fat snowflakes fell like ash, clinging to eyelashes and hats, and what had been a mere dusting when Thom and Justin had woken that morning was already a blanket. Underneath that covering, the market existed in an almost soundless state. It was a calm, happy sort of silence. As if human, animal, and even machinery had all paused alongside the resting Earth, finally getting to take the kind of break this weather brought with it. The busy cleanup of spring
