The Curtain of Frost

The summer we turned ten, my sisters and I were packed off to our cousin Lena’s farmhouse in the dreary wastes of the Northern Marsh. The house was a relic of a century past, creaking on its foundation like a ship at sea. Our room was a cramped attic space, its single window looking out onto a black expanse of peat and stunted pines. The only light was a kerosene lamp that we were forbidden to use after dusk, so we navigated the dark by touch and memory.

I was wedged between Mira, who was seventeen and already dreaming of escape, and Petra, who at nineteen had a practical soul and a sharp tongue. The nights were oppressive, heavy with heat and the drone of insects. We slept in thin shifts, the sheets sticking to our skin. I remember lying awake, listening to the boards settle and the wind’s low moan through the eaves, feeling the sweat crawl down my ribs.

On the fifth night, I woke to Petra’s hand clamped over my mouth. Her eyes were wide and white in the dark, and her breath was ragged. ‘There’s someone in the room,’ she whispered. I thought she was joking, playing a prank to get a rise out of us. But then she pointed toward the door, and I saw nothing but a faint shimmer in the heat haze. Mira snorted, told her to go back to sleep, but Petra wouldn’t budge. She was trembling, and I felt her nails dig into my arm. ‘It walked past me. It came from the hall and went to the dresser.’

I laughed, but only for a second. Then I felt it—a drop in temperature, as if the air had turned to ice. My skin, slick with sweat, went cold, and a chill spread from my spine to my fingers. The hair on my arms stood up. The presence was real, a weight in the room, pressing down on us. It stood by the dresser, a tall shape of deeper blackness against the gloom. The mirror above the dresser fogged as if a cold breath had passed over it. Petra pulled the sheets over her head. Mira’s sarcasm died on her lips; she was staring at the same spot, her face ashen.

We froze, not daring to move. The presence didn’t move either. It just stood there, watching us from the corner of its non-face. The heat of the night was gone, replaced by a clinging frost that began to form on the window. I could see my breath, and the smell of damp earth and old blood filled my nose. The presence seemed to grow, its edges blurring like ink in water. Then, slowly, it raised a hand—or what I thought was a hand—and pointed at me. I felt a pressing hunger, a desire to be seen, to be acknowledged, to be taken.

Time lost its grip. I don’t know how long we lay there, staring at that dark shape. The lamp on the dresser began to flicker, as if its flame were being drawn into the darkness. Then, as suddenly as it had come, the presence dissolved, like smoke dissipating. The room warmed again, and the frost on the window receded, leaving only water droplets. But we all knew it hadn’t left. It had retreated, but it was still in the room with us, waiting, patient.

We didn’t sleep the rest of the night. When dawn finally came, we saw the curtains were shredded, not by wind, but by something with claws. And on the dresser, in the film of condensation, was a single word: MINE.

We never spoke of it again, but we all knew the presence had chosen one of us. And for the rest of that summer, every night, we lay awake, feeling the cold creep in from the corners, knowing it was waiting for us to give in, to let it take what it wanted.