Footsteps in the Frost
The morning offers only a hint—a quiet promise—of what lies ahead: the first frost of the season.
The land has been washed clean and repainted in shades of winter. Every blade of grass is white at the tip, like a field of tiny quills dipped in moonlight. The trees shimmer as my torchlight passes over them, their branches catching the frost and scattering it in delicate glints, as if dusted with ground glass. We walk through the darkness with only the faintest blue glow rising behind the hills, the sky still black, but softening at the edges.