68

The sun was setting somewhere behind the uniform gray of clouds, the only indication a further dimming of the weak winter light. Hard pellets of newer snow hissed across the frosted-over surface of the layers and layers of the old. The undulations of the land were smoothed nearly flat, filled in with those layers and drifts.

Trees poked out, dark and brittle-looking, giving no sign of the spark of life hidden deep within, waiting. When individual trees became groups, and the groups of trees finally became forest, the snow thinned enough for dried leaves and bare earth, made still by the freezing temperatures.