This day has not unspooled like I thought it would.

Instead of wallowing, I began job hunting. I need to get better at taking care of myself. I want to prove to myself that I can hold down a job, that I can build my savings, that I’m going to be okay without relying on wishes. I went door to door in town, asking businesses if they had jobs available, and the experience wasn’t anything like how it used to be, when I lived in big cities where people recognized me from tabloids. Here, they recognize me as the granddaughter of the formidable woman who leers down at them from her nightmare gargoyle house, and they are all very nice to that woman’s granddaughter.

The Blue Moose Café needs a dishwasher, a job I’m confident I could perform. North Park Realty said they’ll hire me if I obtain a real estate license. Last Dollar Lanes has a job opening, but I’d be the only staff on third shift and I’d have to deal with the rowdy Late Night League—I don’t know what the Late Night League is aside from it being for old people, but the teenager who explained the job to me sounded scared. I’ve gotten a couple other offers, too. I’m not sure what I want to do yet; I’m giving myself another day to mull it over.

I position one skate in front of the other, wobbly at first. I hear music, laughter, as doors open and close, businesses locking up, flipping their signs from good to see you to meet again soon.

I skate through the darkness, on and on, surroundings shrinking down to the circumference of this rink, the blazing lanterns. My legs grow accustomed to the exercise, calves and thighs burning as I push myself to go faster. I am successfully skating without any help. I can do this, which is a pleasant shock. I can do this on my own.

The wind in my hair, biting cold or not, gets the endorphins pumping, and it’s as if the ice isn’t here at all, as if I’m soaring through sky. My reflection in the silver mirror below ripples as if I’m burning, smoke trailing off my fingers and hair. I gain confidence, trying out a twirl. I sway, but before I can fall, I feel a pressure, a presence. A force without weight. It coils around me, easing me back up.

I don’t fall.

Phantom hands lightly stroke my jaw, as if there is something alive in the wind that has taken a shine to me, that wants me to know I am precious. I gaze up at the place where Hall’s face should be, his secret freckles and lopsided smile, springy locks of brown hair that gleam mahogany when he turns just so, and a hot tear slides down my cheek, freezing into a star.

An invisible thumb wipes it away.

All I can think is please, please, but it’s stuck down low inside my ribs. I am stock-still, the blood racing to my heart, pulse so clamorous in my ears it’s like a relentless fist pounding on a door. As each snowflake drifts onto my collar, it melts instantaneously, as though flickering out from the warmth of another person’s breath.