The lovely E. Catherine Tobler has a story in the forthcoming Candle in the Attic Windowby Innsmouth Free Press. Here, she chats about “The Snow Man”.
The dream was always the same, except when it wasn’t.
The season was cold, fog stretching low across every hill and meadow, tucked into the valleys and over the rooftops, and no wind did rise to stir it. Even the sails of the old windmill stood still. Should something move in the gloaming, it would seem odd indeed, for no one ventured out into such weather, and the air was, all about us, still.
He would take me by the hand–his own not gloved, fingers twining warm and firm about mine–and lead me through the fog, up the hillock with its dew-wet grasses (faded to amber with the coming of autumn), and into the meadow beyond. The gate would unlatch, the sheep unseen, and we would make our slow and steady way toward the windmill which rose in dark relief within the clouded air. The bare oak and apple trees made a fringe behind the old mill, only half there in the gloom; he pulled me through thorn bushes which caught at my skirts and tried to hold me back.
(Thanks to Marshall Payne for the link!)