The snow had piled so high against the windows that daylight barely filtered through.
Afternoons stretched long and lazy, the kind where time felt optional.
I’d taken to wandering the upper floors when the brothers were busy—Matthew chopping wood, Mark and Luke clearing the path to the shed, James and John fixing something in the garage.
The lodge was bigger than I’d realized—hallways that turned unexpectedly, rooms no one seemed to use.
I found the attic by accident.
A narrow staircase behind a door I’d thought was a closet.
The air up there was colder, dustier, smelling of old wood and forgotten things.
Boxes stacked against the slanted ceiling.
Old skis.
A dress form draped in a yellowed sheet.
And a small trunk, lid half-open like it had been waiting.
I shouldn’t have looked
