By Danielle E. Coakley

The streets rang out with their footsteps, those of a child and those of the policeman running after her. As Madge tripped and fell to her knees, dropping a piece of stale bread onto the pavement, she looked back and saw that the gap between them was quickly disappearing. She shoved herself to her feet, not taking the time to replace the bread in her arms, and hastened her pace, slipping through openings too narrow for the officer to follow. The streets were empty, the town’s inhabitants already filling the church. The families were huddled together inside the warmth of four walls, but that wasn’t for Madge. That was for people who had someone. Someone to love them and hold them close in the cold. As Madge staggered around a corner, the bitter air whipped at her face. Her legs, frail and eroded from hunger and a merciless winter, threatened to give out beneath her. But still she fought her way forward.

She wandered aimlessly, for she had no home to go to, no family waiting up for her. As harsh reality set in, the tears froze on her cheeks. Her secret spaces had long been discovered, only so many hidden shelters left to turn to. The remaining few had little protection from the persistent elements and were now futile with the arrival of her first winter alone. Yet there was still one place she could go, somewhere they wouldn’t look for her. She altered her course to follow the path she knew by heart and stumbled through the city streets, struggling against the frigid wind that threatened to topple her onto the snowy cobblestone.

When her eyes fell upon the graveyard, she turned to make sure she wasn’t being followed, then ran between the snow-covered graves and memorials, slipping and sliding in the snow until she reached the corner. There, beside a small headstone, she sank to the ground to rest, shivering. The policeman’s distant footsteps echoed through the empty street. They came nearer but passed without hesitation, and as they grew fainter and fainter, Madge relaxed a little, taking in shallow gasps of air. She pulled her tattered cloak tightly around her protruding ribs as she fought to keep her eyes open. In the distance, the faint sound of carols caught on the wind.

As she glanced around her at all the stones honoring those who laid there, the spirits of all who were at rest beneath the hardened ground arose from their graves to welcome her. Their transparent figures, ghosts of what they had been, crowded around her. She knew them all. She smiled, for she knew that though she was alone in this world, she had a family waiting for her in the next. There was the tailor, and the minister’s mother, and the woman from across the way. And the little girl who had suffered a long and painful sickness that was only relieved in death. But there was one person missing. Madge turned to the frozen gravestone beside her, and with all the strength left in her body, she dusted away the snow with her hand. Her heart thawed at the sight of the name she knew so well. As she stared at the familiar letters etched in granite, she yearned to feel those arms around her. But all she felt were the icy fingers of an unforgiving winter. She traced the frosted letters, her frostbitten fingers shuddering with each stroke. Then, finally, one last spirit appeared, and her mother was there before her, holding out her hand as she smiled gently at Madge.

As Madge carefully placed her hand in her mother’s, she felt all her troubles melt away, and she moved into her mother’s embrace. Her mother’s body, warped and twisted in life, was strong and whole in death. The Christmas Eve bells resounded in the steeple, calling all lost souls home. And Madge felt warm, loving arms around her at last.

~

When time had passed, and winter began to give way to spring, the town’s people went out to the graveyard to bury their loved ones in the thawing earth. And as the snow melted, it revealed the broken body of a young girl, lying beside a small gravestone, a smile still frozen on her lips.