MargenI have lived alone on the mountain since I was widowed. Nobody comes up in winter; the track is cut off by the first snowfall and they don't clear it until March.
This morning everything had turned white and I went out to the woodshed for firewood, barely a hundred metres. I went, filled my arms, came back. At the door I turned, as I always do, to look at the valley in silence.
That was when I saw my tracks in the snow. One line going, one line coming back, mine. And pressed against them, treading exactly where I had trodden, another line that came out of the wood, stopped behind me, and did not come out again.
Only two lines of footprints went into the house. The ones going out weren't there. Somebody had rubbed them out, carefully. Somebody who was already inside when I left.