Chapter 40: First Snow

It snowed on Christmas Eve, a little before dawn.

I knew before I opened my eyes.

The cabin had gone quiet in a way it never did, as if someone had laid a hand over the whole bluff.

Chan was asleep on my left with his curls flattened against the pillow.

Hyunjin's side of the bed was empty, and the loft ladder creaked.

"Mara," he said, softly, from the dark above. "Come and look."

I put on Chan's shirt and my glasses and climbed.

The little round window in the loft had frosted at the edges.

Beyond it the world had turned white.

The lane, the woodshed, the porch rail and the long slope down to the harbour lay under a clean, thick fall of snow.

More was still coming down, slow and big as feathers.

The lighthouse stood at the top of the hill, red cap powdered, its beam turning through the flakes.

"First snow," Hyunjin said.

He was kneeling at the window in a sweater three sizes too big.

His hair was in a messy knot.

"It is."

"You said, when it snows."

"I did."

"Then I'd like to ask you something. Can I get Chan?"

"Get him."

I heard the two of them on the ladder, one whisper in Korean and one in English, and the bed creaking, and a thump as somebody found the beam.

They came back up and sat on either side of me on the mattress, wrapped in the quilt, shoulder to shoulder.

Chan had his hair sticking up and sleep still in his face.

Neither of them spoke for a moment.

"I had a speech," Hyunjin said.

"He had four," Chan said.

"I threw them all out."

He turned toward me and took both my hands in his.

"I don't want you to come to Seoul because the board bought you a seat," he said.

"I don't want you to come because we're afraid of an empty cabin.

"I don't want you to come to hide with us from anything."

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