“It’s s-still m-me,” he said, tripping over the words. It could be a struggle to get them out, whereas his thoughts always ran so smoothly. He hated words sometimes.

Mathias’s hand clasped the back of Diego’s neck and pulled him close.

“I was scared you wouldn’t come,” he said, hugging him tight. Oliver, who was not only a year younger than they were, but smaller, too, soon joined their embrace.

“I r-ran away,” he said. His mother didn’t want him going out.

Inside the circle of their arms, Diego felt like he was in a nest of familiar smells and shared breaths. But someone was missing.

“L-Lucia?” he asked.

Mathias shrugged.

“She might not come today,” he said.

Diego noticed a mark on Mathias’s neck. He stretched his finger out to push down the collar of Mathias’s coat, but Mathias wouldn’t let Diego touch him; he knew what question he’d be asked next.

“Mom can’t do anything about it,” he said. “Otherwise there’d be hell to pay for her, too.”

Diego and Oliver exchanged a sad look.

“Does it hurt?” asked the younger boy.

Mathias rolled his shoulders as if to shake off the pain he was not willing to acknowledge.

“It’s not me I’m worried about, it’s my little brother, Markus,” he said, breaking the embrace. He picked up a rock and flung it at the river. It shattered the ice and sprayed frozen shards onto his flushed cheeks. He picked up another rock, larger than the first, but this time his hand froze mid-air.

Diego saw him staring at the trees across the stream, squinting as if he were trying to focus on some distant object.

“W-w-what are you l-looking at?” he asked.

“Someone’s watching us from the forest,” Mathias replied.

Diego followed his gaze but couldn’t see anything.

“It must be a deer,” said Oliver. “My dad says the cold drives them down into the valley and closer to the village.”

“If it’s an animal,” said Mathias, “then this will scare it off.”

He pulled his arm back and threw the rock. It whistled in a taut arc through the air and vanished into the vegetation, swallowed by the snow.

They stood staring at the spot where the stone had disappeared.

“I g-guess it was n-nothing,” said Diego. He wasn’t sure why, but he was breathing a little easier now.

Mathias started laughing.

“You should have seen your faces!” he said. “You fell for it!”

“Idiot!” Oliver protested.

“J-Jerk.”

It landed not too far from their feet, its dull rattling cloaked by their laughter, which quickly died down. The thing rolled onto the flat rock they used as a diving platform during the summer, then came to a stop and stared at them.

They turned toward it in unison. Whoever had thrown it had taken good aim.

It was white and not much larger than a fist.