Abandoned Letter at Blackwood Grove Shrine 23

To whoever tends this shrine next,

I leave this as record, do not put your faith in the old prayers.

For three mornings now the grey frost has returned to the low fields before dawn. It does not sparkle. It lies flat, like ash pressed into the grass. Where it settles, the soil hardens and cracks as if drained of warmth entirely, though no true cold follows.

The kilmei refused to cross it. Even when driven, they balked and cried until pulled away. One knelt frozen to place, stiff as a stone, and would not rise until the frost receded with the sun.

I thought it coincidence until I saw the marks.

They are not tracks in the snow, but displacements, as though something long and heavy was dragged just beneath the surface of the earth. The frost gathers thickest along these lines, as if drawn to them, even within the flesh of the kilmei.

I will not claim to know what walks our lands this winter.

Only that it walks slowly, and returns to the same places.