of them in the second-floor hallway, a shadow in the fading light. A shadow that is quite clearly Dorian’s body, suspended from the ceiling and displayed like the doorknobs below, tied and tangled in a net of pale ribbons.
An innkeeper kept an inn at a particularly inhospitable crossroads. There was a village up the mountain some ways away, and cities in other directions, most of which had better routes for traveling toward or away from them, particularly in the winter, but the innkeeper kept his lanterns lit for travelers throughout the year. In summers the inn would be close to bustling and covered in flowering vines but in this part of the land the winters were long.
The innkeeper was a widower and he had no children so he now spent most of his time in the inn alone. He would occasionally venture to the village for supplies or a drink at the tavern but as time passed he did so less frequently because every time he would visit someone well-meaning would suggest this available woman or that available man or several combinations of eligible village dwellers at once and the innkeeper would finish his drink and thank his friends and head back down the mountain to his inn alone.
There came a winter with storms stronger than any seen in years. No travelers braved the roads. The innkeeper tried to keep his lanterns lit though the wind extinguished them often and he made certain there was always a fire burning in the main hearth so the smoke would be visible if the wind did not steal that away as well.
The nights were long and the storms were fierce. The snows consumed the mountain roads. The innkeeper could not travel to the village but he was well supplied. He made soups and stews. He sat by the fire and read books he had been meaning to read. He kept the rooms of the inn prepared for travelers who did not come. He drank whiskeys and wine. He read more books. After time and storms passed and stayed he kept only a few of the rooms readied, the ones closest to the fire. He sometimes slept in a chair by the fire himself instead of retreating to his room, something he would never dream of doing when there were guests. But there were no guests, just the wind and the cold, and the inn began to feel more like a house and it occurred to the innkeeper that it felt emptier as a house than as an inn but he did not dwell on that thought.
One night when the innkeeper had fallen asleep in his chair by the fire, a cup of wine beside him and a book open on his lap, there came a knock at the door.
At first the now woken innkeeper thought it was the wind, as the wind had spent much of the winter knocking at the doors and the windows and the roof, but the knocking came again, too steady to be the wind.
The innkeeper opened the door, a feat that took longer than usual as the ice insisted on keeping it shut. When it relented the wind entered first, bringing a gust of snow along with it, and after the snow came the traveler.
The innkeeper saw only a hooded cloak before he set his attention to closing the door again, fighting with the wind which had other ideas. He made a remark about the weather but the wind covered his voice with its indignant howling, enraged at not being allowed inside.
When the door was closed and latched and barred for good measure the innkeeper turned to greet the traveler properly.
He did not know, looking at the woman who stood in front of him, what he had expected from someone brave or foolish enough to traverse these roads in this weather but it was not this. Not a woman pale as moonlight with eyes as dark as her night-black cloak, her lips blue from the cold. The innkeeper stared at her, all of his standard greetings and affable remarks for new arrivals vanished from his mind.
The woman began to say something—perhaps a greeting of her own, perhaps a comment on the weather, perhaps a wish or a warning—but whatever she meant to say was lost in a stammer and without a word the innkeeper rushed her to the fireside to warm her.
He settled the traveler into his chair, taking her wet cloak, relieved to see she