Grace slipped out and left Anna humming to herself and clicking through her phone at the table, reading some legal memo about land use or, knowing Anna, trashy local gossip on Nextdoor. She changed into jeans and a heavy sweater, feeling a pang of nervousness about the skates and the open lake. But Anna was right: she was owed a day off, and if she tried to research any more, her brain would start leaking out her ears.
When she returned, Anna was admiring the fireplace. “Your house is the best,” she said, sounding a little wistful. “If you ever want to swap for a weekend, let me know. I’ll even water your plants.”
“Ha. The plants water themselves, you know that, right?” Grace pulled on her coat and gloves, checked her pockets for keys, and then paused, unsure why she suddenly felt like she was forgetting something vital.
“Just us, or are we meeting the others?” Grace asked, half-hoping Caroline would show up in some sequined skating outfit and distract everyone from Grace’s predictable flailing.
“Caroline’s probably still asleep, and Olivia hates the cold. So, just you and me. We can’t both fall on our asses, one of us has to document it for posterity,” Anna replied.
They collected their things. Anna insisted on carrying the skates, despite Grace’s attempts to take her own pair. “You need both hands to hold onto the railing,” Anna said, eyes glinting with mischief.
As they left the Lantern House, Grace caught a last glance at the beautiful house she now owned. For the first time in days, she felt something close to peace, or at least the possibility of it, carried in the promise of sharp air and dull blades and a friend who believed in her even when she didn’t believe in herself.
The sky was still smudged with morning, and Grace shivered as she stepped down the path to Anna’s car. Anna popped the trunk and stashed the skates, then motioned for Grace to get in.
“I call playlist,” Anna said as she started the engine.
“Just nothing with the word 'ice' in the title, please,” Grace pleaded, pulling her seatbelt.
“Too late!” Anna chirped, and cranked the dial.
They drove off, leaving the gray haze and the questions and the unseen ravens behind them, at least for a little while.
The drive up to Holiday Hollow’s lake was always beautiful, but in deep winter it was something out of a snow-globe fever dream. The frost-rimed woods boxed them in, the narrow road twisting past white-dusted pines whose boughs bowed under the weight of last night’s squall. Even Anna, who’d lived her whole life surrounded by water, slowed to take it in. “This is the only time of year I don’t miss the ocean,” she said, then corrected herself: “Okay, I miss it, but I’m not actively pining for it.”
Grace sipped her thermos of now-lukewarm tea and watched as the lake came into view just beyond the parking lot, the water was a blue coin under the morning’s pale sun, the surface glassy and already scribbled with the lines and arcs of early-bird skaters. Holiday Hollow had gone all-out as usual: garlands and wreaths looped every lamp post, a trio of local teenagers ran a cocoa cart beside a bonfire ring, and a flock of toddlers in matching puffer coats penguin-waddled around the kiddie rink. There were enough twinkle lights to make the shoreline visible from orbit.
Anna found a spot near the edge and parked. “Brace yourself,” she said, “I heard the ice is so good today you could do a double axel and not die.”
“Remind me to thank the Parks Department for that,” Grace said, slinging her bag over her shoulder. She breathed in the cold and immediately felt her sinuses seize; there was a sharpness to the air that made her feel clean in a way sleep and caffeine never could.
They made their way down to the bank. Grace’s boots slipped a little on the tamped-down snow path and Anna steadied her, laughing. “You really are a land mammal,” Anna said.
“Embrace your evolutionary destiny,” Grace shot back, but let Anna guide her to the bench where everyone swapped shoes for skates.
Grace eyed the white boots with skepticism. She’d skated maybe twice since grade school, both times under extreme social duress. But Anna looked so genuinely delighted to be out there, she couldn’t chicken out now. Anna was already lacing up, her hands moving fast and sure. “It’s just like riding a bike,” Anna said, “only when you fall you look way cooler.”
Grace wobbled as she stood. Anna took her arm and, with a dramatic bow, led her onto the ice. At first Grace couldn’t make her feet do anything but shuffle, and she flailed her arms for balance, certain she was about to wipe out in front of an audience of fifty. But Anna was a patient, if mischievous, teacher. She coached Grace through slow, careful pushes, and when Grace nearly lost it on a patch of bumpy ice, Anna yanked her upright with an easy strength that was, she remembered, probably supernatural.
They circled the lake’s edge, moving cautiously at first, then gaining a little speed. Anna kept up a running commentary: “Don’t look at your feet, look where you want to go,” and “Bend your knees, not your pride,” and, after a particularly elegant near-splat, “That one’s called the Reverse Swan Dive.” Grace started to laugh, and it surprised her how much she didn’t care if anyone else was watching.
After a few laps, Grace managed to let go of Anna’s arm for almost an entire minute. “You’re a natural!” Anna whooped, pumping her fist. “Or, at least, you’re not actively trying to die.”
“High praise,” Grace said, grinning. Her cheeks hurt from smiling and the cold. For the first time in months, she felt something unburdened in her chest, a weight she hadn’t realized she’d been carrying since October.
Around the far bend of the lake, a cluster of adults glided in easy, practiced loops. Grace recognized several faces from the town’s holiday committees: there was Tom from the flower shop, in a pea-green scarf; the librarian, who skated withgraceful, economical strokes; and, of course, Martha Lane, whose platinum hair was visible halfway down the shore, a shock of tinsel in a crowd.
Martha skated with her husband, a tall man with a very rectangular chin, who looked like he’d spent his life holding court at the Chamber of Commerce and had never once fallen down. They didn’t speak, but moved in a rhythm, their hands sometimes touching, sometimes not. Grace found herself oddly moved by the sight. This was, after all, the woman she’d seen in her vision with a broken arm. For a moment she wondered if it was worth warning her, but then remembered how the last attempt to warn someone had gone: sideways, at best.
Anna must have read her mind. “You okay?” she asked, voice softening. “You look like you just saw a ghost.”
Grace shook her head, blinked hard. “It’s nothing. I just—sometimes the future is too much in my face. I’m trying to be here, you know?” She gestured at the sky, the ice, the goofy Christmas playlist blaring from the sound system.
Anna squeezed her hand. “Good. That’s what today is for.”
They kept skating, sometimes talking, sometimes just moving in companionable silence. Anna told stories about law office drama, a client who tried to pay their retainer in live turkeys; a junior partner who’d accidentally sent a risqué meme to the entire county court listserv; her own boss, who had a secret stash of single-malt for the “really hard days.” Grace laughed at all of it and told her about Caroline’s theory that the true killer was an “incel Santa Claus” who wanted to ruin every holiday. “That’s… both horrifying and plausible,” Anna said. “If you ever catch him, I want an exclusive interview.”
They were in the middle of a slow, careful lap when it happened. Grace saw the event in a kind of double exposure, both as it actually occurred, and as she’d seen it in the vision days before. Martha Lane, skating backward to show off, caughtthe toe pick of her blade on a stray branch embedded in the ice. There was a split second where her arms windmilled, then she went down, hard, right side first.
