Outside, snow fell in slow spirals beneath the lamplight, blanketing the sidewalks and rooftops in a clean dusting that hadn’t yet melted or been trampled. Main Street looked like a snow globe scene, picturesque and almost too perfect. Each lamppost was wrapped in twinkle lights and finished with a scarlet bow. Every shop window glowed with its own kind of cheer. A few doors down outside of Verdance, Iris had arranged bundles of eucalyptus and white pine in galvanized buckets along the entryway.
Through the glass pane before her, Hazel could just make out Greyfin Studios on the opposite side of the street, lights already twinkling from inside. She spotted Malcolm there, dressed in his finest brown plaid blazer, carefully arranging bottles on a table near the front of the shop. A group of people had just arrived— she recognized Sylvia’s long, curling grey hair even from here— and the soft hum of music drifted faintly into the air each time the door opened. By the time it crossed the street and reached Rise, it was muted, mostly a hum heard just above the radiators.
Hazel turned from the window and made her way back to the kitchen, where the smell of caramelizing sugar clung to the air. The final addition to her baked good boxes was ready— the tartlets were perfectly golden, their pecans glossy and tight to the crust. She let them cool a minute longer before sliding them into the last box, tucking a folded note with a description beneath the lid, then tied it shut with a strip of twine and a leftover cinnamon stick.
It was silly, maybe. Overdoing it, probably. But there was something deeply comforting in the ritual, in sending something small and sweet out into the world, in baking for her friends.
She gathered the stack of bakery boxes into her arms and nudged the light switch off with her elbow. The bakery fell instantly into shadow. Only the porcelain town remained lit, casting a drowsy glow across the front of the shop. Hazel stood still for a long moment, her eyes fixed on the slow loop of the little train circling the frozen pond. It clicked gently as it passed the same tiny fir tree again and again, headlights flickering like the blinking of a tired eye.
Something in her chest pulled tight.
That little train had never gone anywhere, not really— just the same endless circuit around the rink, through the trees, past the bakery with the dog asleep outside. But still, even now, part of her waited for it to arrive somewhere. Like if she watched long enough, the loop might break and take a new path.
She adjusted her grip on the stacked boxes by the door, fingers curling tighter around the ribbon on the top one, and took a step forward.
And then, she froze.
There was a voice coming from just outside, a few doors down. Low, controlled, but sharp at the edges, like ceramic rattling on a high shelf. It cut clean through the quiet. Not loud, not even particularlyclose,but its cadence pierced the stillness like a hairline fracture through ice.
Hazel’s spine straightened instinctively. The sound of that tone— half-held, half-brittle— chilled something inside her, like a draft sweeping under the door. It wasn’t loud, but it sliced through the quiet with the precision of something honed by disappointment.
She stood perfectly still, her hand resting on the worn brass of the doorknob. The street had been empty a minute ago. She’d watched it herself. There had been just a few guests heading toward Greyfin, coats trailing behind them, their laughter low and wandering. Whoever was out there now hadn’t knocked, hadn’t called out, but they were close. Close enough that their voice carried in that particular way, when the air is cold and the world is quiet and emotion sharpens sound into something clean and inescapable.
Slowly, Hazel bent and set the boxes down on the table closest to the door. Her movements were careful, practiced, but her pulse had picked up— just slightly, like the flutter of wings against her ribs. She moved toward the door and leaned closer, not yet intruding but hovering dangerously near.
There was something about the tone of the person’s voice, worn thin at the end, edged with resignation, but still carrying that quiet, persistent hope that clings to people who haven’t yet learned how to stop expecting more from those who never gave enough. It struck a chord Hazel didn’t want to name. One she recognized all too well.
“I left a message,” the voice said, muffled by the door. “Last week. And the week before that.”
Hazel’s brow furrowed. The voice was familiar, but it wasn’t until the next breath that she placed it. Her own breath caught, not sharply, but like her lungs had gotten caught on something too heavy for them to hold. It was the kind of pause that didn’t hurt, exactly, but still signaled something was wrong, like hearing your own name spoken in a dream, half-remembered and rimmed in static.
She turned the lock as quietly as she could and opened the door just a few inches, just enough not to engage the bell hanging above.
Cold air rushed in like an inhale. It slid around her ankles, tugged gently at the hem of her dress, lifted the scent of vanilla from her collarbones and scattered it into the street. Her breath curled faintly in the air, gone in seconds.
She leaned her shoulder into the frame and angled her head toward the right, down the row of darkened storefronts and past Verdance, where the buckets of eucalyptus swayed slightly in the breeze,toward the narrow alley that branched off behind Iris’s shop, toward the quieter part of town.
There, half-shadowed at the mouth of the alley, stood Imogen.
She was backlit by the lamplight behind her, the soft halo of it outlining her hair, her coat, the sharp angle of her shoulders. Her phone was pressed tight to her ear, her other arm wrapped around her waist like a ribbon pulled too tight. Her stance was elegant, but in the way that told you she’d rehearsed it.
Her coat was beautiful— cream wool, perfectly belted, cinched with a gold buckle at the waist. Her boots were polished, her hair pinned. She looked like she belonged on the front page of some winter editorial spread.
But her voice gave her away.
“I wasn’t sure if you were still using this number,” she said. “But I just… I wanted to check. Just in case.”
Her tone was light, casual on the surface, but Hazel could hear something else beneath the gloss. The slight delay afterjust, the effort it took to keep her voice level. It was the sound of someone trying to make it easy for the person on the other end. Trying not to sound too hopeful.
Trying not to hope at all.
Imogen shifted her weight, heel to toe, then back again, like she wasn’t sure whether to run or stand her ground. Her fingers twitched against her arm as if resisting the urge to wring them.
There was a long silence after that.
Hazel didn’t move. She knew she should shut the door, turn back inside. But she stood there instead, caught in that awful, invisible gravity that pulls you toward someone else’s pain even when you know it’s not yours to witness. It wasn’t voyeurism. It was empathy, or something lonelier, maybe—recognition.
The realization clawed at something jagged and rough, buried deep within Hazel’s chest.
