The Winter Lord

December is a time of cheer and goodwill for most of the world. People exchange gifts, sing songs, houses are decorated, big meals are eaten with friends and family. Molly didn't learn about any of this until after she left the village. She'd spent her first year away from home getting odd sidelong stares and hearing repressed mumbles as she asked about their preparations and inquired about their sacrifices. No one seemed to know about Him, which filled Molly with hope.

No one knew what it was like to live in the shadow of His fear, which made Molly hope she had escaped him.

Ten years later, Molly had a home of her own with a husband to keep her warm on cold nights and children to fill her heart with joy. She'd worked hard to leave behind all traces of her old life, moved to America, and found a place where she could forget the darker things that still lurked in the old world. Molly's home was now covered in lights every December, snowmen standing sentry on the lawn, and her home was filled with the smells of cakes and cookies and the laughing of happy children.

It was Christmas Eve again, and Molly was hard at work in the kitchen. Jake was ten, Hannah six, and Molly had been baking and cooking all day in preparation for tomorrow's dinner. Joseph's family would be coming over to exchange presents, and she wanted this meal to be the best yet. The children were preparing for bed, brushing teeth and washing faces, and as the last of her preparation went into the stove, Molly sat down and sighed happily. Everything was done, everything was ready, and now it was time to relax before Joseph came home and

"Mama! We're ready for our story!"

Molly sighed, but it was a happy sigh. She had forgotten about storytime. She scratched the bandage on the back of her hand as she made her way to the back of the house. The blood stains on it stood out a little, and when Joseph asked her about it, Molly had told him she'd burned her hand on the stove. Maybe, she thought, she should tell him what actually happened. The more Molly thought about it, the more she knew that she wouldn't know where to begin.

The children were nestled all snug in their beds when Molly arrived, and as she took her seat in the big wooden rocker in the middle of the room, asking them what story they wanted tonight.

"Three bears?"

"No, mama, that's a baby story!" Hannah exclaimed with deep indignation.

"Mickey Mouse Christmas, maybe?"

"Pfff, that book is lame." Jake said, making full use of his new "big kid attitude" he seemed to have acquired when he turned ten.

"Well, what do you want to hear?" Molly asked, rubbing the bridge of her nose as she felt a headache developing.

"We want to hear a scary story!" said Jake

"I want to hear a Christmas story." said Hannah, adding timidly, "That's maybe a little scary."

Molly tried to squash her frustration. She was just thinking that she didn't know any scary Christmas stories but realized that wasn't true. Molly knew an absolutely terrifying Christmas story. A story made all the scarier because it was true. A story made all the more frightening because Molly had lived it.

"You want a scary story, do you?" She asked, and both leaned forward from beneath their covers. "I have a scary Christmas story if you'd like to hear it,"

Molly asked the question coyly, knowing they would want to hear. Her children were not the children Molly had grown up with. They were not children of the cold and the snow. They wanted to be scared but had no clue what genuine fear was. They didn't know what it meant to shiver in the corner as you hear the Green One tromp down your street. They had never felt the terrible cold that signaled the end of someone you loved.

Molly prayed they never did, but maybe a taste wouldn't hurt them too badly.

Molly almost felt the cold creeping up her legs as she began, returning to a time when she had known the fear she hoped to instill.

Mama is not from here. Unlike daddy, mama was not born in this great country. Once, she lived in a town called Ingsfield. Ingsfield was a small farming town, far away from the hustle and bustle of the city. We had no cars, no phones, no televisions, and our light came from candles and the fire you cooked your meals over. Our town was a simple one, our ways simple too, and that was how we liked it.

When autumn began, we began preparing for His arrival for winter.

"Whose arrival, mama?" Hannah asked, her voice a little excited.

"His arrival," Molly intoned, "the coming of the Winter Lord."

"Whose…"

"Hush, Child, and listen." Hannah fell silent again, and Molly continued.

The Harvest was always a time of celebration. The whole town worked together to bring in the bounty of the farmland. The livestock were brought in from the field, and knives were sharpened in preparation for the slaughter. The meat was salted and packed for storage, food was stored and canned and placed in cellars for the long winter ahead, and then, when everyone was set aside for winter, we put our excess together and prepared the end of Autumn feast.

On the last week of what you would call November, we held an Autumn fair. It was always held on the village green, a long few acres near the town hall, and was always highly anticipated. There was music at the bandstand, dancing on the pavilion, tables laid with food and drink, games for the children, and prizes to be won. The celebration went on for a week. Some people celebrated all seven days and only slept when their bodies demanded it. The people seemed to dance and play all the joy and warmth out of themselves during that week. Many knew that the next four months would be hard, knew that they might not see another autumn festival. So they lived a whole year in one week, and the whole town seemed to shrink when it was over.

On December first, we began to feel the first real chill of winter.

That was when we began to build the altar.

They were both wide-eyed now, their questions squashed for the moment. She drew them in with her story, painted a picture of the idyllic life she'd once known, and now came time for the real story to begin. It was time to show them a place where Santa Clause did not stop. A land where Christmas trees brought no joy. These symbols would not save them from the Winter Lord, and it was time they knew of what waits in the cold and the gloom.

The town of happy revelers changed overnight. Now happy faces red with drink became somber and knowing. They went to the quarry and brought the altar stone, the stones they'd used for many and many a, still red with the dried leavings of last year's unfortunate chosen. They spent the week stacking stones and adjusting them just right so that their shape might please Him when he came. After a week of stacking and preparing the altar, the offering was chosen, and the contents were inspected. The Lord's Offering, the last crop planted that year, was harvested, and the vegetables and grains were inspected for flaws that might anger Him. Once this was done, two calves were chosen and brought forth to be inspected for defects or weaknesses. These were usually the two calves who'd taken home the Best in Show at the Autumn Fair, and their owners always looked sad, knowing that these two would never grow to adulthood and would never know the fear of the sharpened knives next year.

Only then, only after these things were chosen, did the town choose the real sacrifice.

They were shivering now, and why not? Could Molly not feel the coldness in the room? That frigidity couldn't be dispelled by fire or blanket. Its coldness was as old as time and as bleak as the tundra. It had been felt by the first man who shivered in his cave on a winter's night. It was the coldness that man felt when The Winter Lord came to his cave and offered him a better way, a darker way.

Cold as they were, Molly had their attention. Both were huddled beneath their blankets, shuddering from either cold and fear, but they could not look away. She saw that Hannah wanted her to stop before the story got really scary. Molly could also tell that Jake wished he had never asked for a scary story at all. There was magic in this tale that neither had ever known, making it all the more tantalizing.

They would know of Him even if the knowledge drove them mad in its knowing.

The townspeople never chose their sacrifice.

They would not have had the nerve to cut their own flock.

The mark always chose for them.

The mark would appear on the door of the sacrifice, a circle of blood with three slashes through it, and the sacrifice would feel it burned into the skin of their hand one night as they slept. Its appearance was unquestioned by any and all though some sacrifices did try to claim falseness. I remember the mark being contested only once, and the man's protests made little difference. He owned the biggest farm and the most land within the village. He claimed that his sons had made the mark so the father would be put out of his way and inherit his lands. His son claimed no part in this, but it mattered not. The farmer had been chosen in the traditional way, and thus, he was locked away until the night of sacrifice. He screamed when that night came, but his screams didn't last long.

Some went quiet, some went screaming, but they always went the same way.

They went with the cold.

At sunset, the snow began to blow in. Sometimes the snow would come before Him, but the snow that preceded Him was always thick and unforgiving; snow from the mountain tops that killed if you stayed in it too long. The snow blew, and the wind howled, and as the darkness settled over the town, we heard him approach. He came a horse, the steel-shod hooves cutting through the ice as it solidified on the dirt streets of our small village. I remember peeking one year when I was tiny, and before my mother saw me and pulled me beneath the sill, I saw Him mounted on his horse. His skeletal horse was thin as a rail, its legs like sticks with frost for skin, and its eyes shone red with the fires of hell as its mane of shadows rippled like thistle from its scaly head.

As terrible as he was, he was beautiful when put against his rider.

His rider, The Winter Lord, The Green Man, He Who Accepts the Flesh.

Though he was man-shaped, that was where the resemblance ended. He came dressed in armor of the deepest forest green, a cape of blue trailing behind him. His cape was ragged, covered in old red stains and stiff with frost, and as it trailed out, we could hear the ice on it breaking as it snapped in the wind. He held a two-handed ax in one clawed hand, and whether those claws were armor or his own hand's, no one knew. The ax was monstrous, its edge ever dripping the blood of his victims. He held it down at his side, so it dragged the snow and left a red trail behind him. On his head sat a helmet topped with a magnificent rack of antlers, and charms and sigils of unknowable meaning hung from those horns. No one had ever seen his face and lived. He kept it hidden beneath the helmet, but his eyes were as red as his horses. If they fell upon you and met your own, he would raze your hovel to the ground and seek out their bloodline until it was expunged from the earth.

He came to town on the twenty-fourth of December, a day which had some significance for him. With him came a mighty blizzard. It would cover the town and hide his deeds from sight as he went about his business. There were some who held the idea that he took pity upon the sacrifice and took them back to his realm to be his guest. There were those who believed that those he took would stay in the court of Queen Mab, Fairy Queen of Winter, who must be the ruler of the Winter Lord and thus his master. Those with hovels close to the altar, those like my family, had no such illusions. Sometimes you could hear them screaming and begging over the wind and hail, and sometimes you could only hear the metallic slap of the ax as he went about his butcher's work.

When the storm ended, all that was left was the fresh blood upon the altar.

All else was taken, never to be seen again.

"No way!" Jake whispered, but he didn't sound very sure.

"You doubt your mother's words?" Molly asked, feeling the old way of speaking coming back to her.

"There's no way this kind of thing could happen. Someone would hear about it and put a stop to it. Plus, why didn't they leave? This Winter Guy probably wouldn't follow them, right?"

She smirked at him, "The people knew what the sacrifice bought them, Jake. If they appeased the Winter Lord, then the winter only lasted four months and was mellow in the month before Spring. With Spring would come the bounty of the crops, and on the years when the sacrifice was good, the crops were the best they had ever seen. "He only took one person. A fair trade for a year of peace and a bountiful harvest," they would say. I, too, said it. I said it for sixteen years until my own time came."

"Your...your time?" Jake asked, but he knew what his mother meant.

"Until the mark appeared on my door." she said, "until the brand appeared on my hand."

My mother cried, and my brothers offered to hide me, but my father was staunch in his resolve.

"The mark cannot be argued with. She will go to the council hall to wait for His coming."

I spent that week in the mayor's house, awaiting my fate. A dress of snowy white was made for me, a garland of green steel forged for my head. Upon my feet were slippers of the softest doeskin, and I just knew they would pinch when I put them on. Many believed that if the sacrifice was female, and the Winter Lord found her beautiful, he might take her to his castle in the mountains and make her his Queen of Winter, where she might live out her days as his consort and wife. The blood on the altar screamed of their stupidity, but the lies we tell ourselves are often the coziest.

I did not need to be dragged to the stone when the time came. I walked up the street, mud squelching against my shoes, as the townspeople watched me with a mixture of sorrow and resolve. "We are sorry for your sacrifice, but it must be. Death for you and life for the crops," that look said. Had I not looked at the sacrifice just that way? Had I not known that the mark might appear on my own hand one day? I had been selfish all these years, I had taken of the towns well, and now it was time for me to give. I mounted the altar as the sun began to sink, but despite all my assuredness, I didn't feel selfish.

"Why should I give up my life?" I asked myself. Because it was a tradition? Because it was expected? Because it had always been? I began to see what I had never seen in the years of living in this town. Why did we give him what he wanted? Why did we let him take? Why didn't we just say no?

As young as I was, I shouldn't have been so naive.

When the sunset, the show began. The snow blew up out of nowhere, and the wind only pushed it in my face. I could hear the clomp of His horse as He came on, and as I squinted into the blowing wind, I could make out His antlered helm as He approached the altar. His ax made a sharp sound on the cobbles as He neared, and when He stopped before me, I could see Him staring at me from under the visor of His helmet. He hadn't yet raised the ax, and from my vantage point, He seemed to be waiting for something.

He was staring at me, His red eyes holding disbelief, and I saw my opportunity at that moment.

I jumped from the altar, snow, and ice battering me on all sides, and ran towards the woods.

He screamed into the gathering night, and His voice sounded like the howl of an angry east wind.

He came after me, hooves thundering steps behind me, but as I entered the woods, I was ready for Him. I'd played in these woods all my life, and I knew it would be impossible for a horse, even a horse as thin as His, to move quickly among the tightly packed trees. The forest flowed around me in a long brown blur, and I heard him roar as he realized he couldn't ride me down. I heard his ax slap futilely into a tree as I ran, but I didn't stop to see what he was doing. I ran and ran until I found a burrow in the bottom of an ancient tree. I sank into it, ignoring the roots and spider webs that nestled there, and spent that night shivering against the bitter cold.

As I shivered, I heard something I had not expected to hear.

I heard the screams of the town as He laid it to waste. Other people ran into the woods but took no notice of my hiding place. They ran like frightened rabbits, certain He would be behind them, but I knew better. They would die of the cold, likely I would too, but as I pulled at the crunchy leaves that the hollow had swallowed up, I felt surer and surer that I would survive. I bided there till morning, the screams dying out in the wee hours, and when I awoke, I was homeless and an orphan.

I returned to town long enough to get my things and leave. The houses were destroyed, hollow husks that would sit silently forever. The few people who still abided there looked at me with sullen eyes full of hate. They wanted to hurt me, wanted to kill me, but these sheep had stood by as their friends and family were taken by that winter knight. I knew they would not raise their hands against me, and when I left, I left for good.

"What did you do then, mama?" asked Hannah, her lip trembling as my story finally ended.

"I met your father six months later. He was backpacking through Europe and took me for another backpacker. I'd been homeless for those last six months, scrounging food and looking over my shoulder for Him. When he offered to let me come with him, I accepted. By the time we reached London, we were in love, and when he brought me home to meet your grandparents, we were already planning marriage. That's how I came to be in America, children. That's how I came to escape the place of my birth."

She let them sleep then, kissing their foreheads and turning off the lights. Molly could hear them rolling in their beds, their dreams filled with ice. A fitful sleep was better than nothing, though. Molly sighed as she came into the living room. She hadn't told them everything, of course. How could you tell your children everything? Sometimes the truth only brings fear. Molly took off the bandage and looked at the burn on the back of her hand. The circle with three slashes through it was as plain as it had been on the night she was to be sacrificed. Its meaning was as clear now as it had been then, too.

He was coming for his lost sacrifice.

She went to the window and looked out into the backyard. Molly could see Him there, mounted on his ice horse and staring at her balefully with those piercing red orbs. He stood between the children's swing set and the wooden play fort they'd gotten last Christmas, looking as out of place as an altar stone at an autumn festival. Ten years was a long reprieve, she reflected, and as Molly stood holding his gaze, she knew what must be done. Joseph wouldn't understand, and the kids would be devastated, but maybe her sacrifice would stop them from being involved. As Molly opened the sliding door on the back porch, she felt the winter blizzard kiss her face as it had on that night ten years ago.

He walked His horse towards her, and as the ax came up, Molly knew there would be no throne of winter for her.

She spread her arms and welcomed Him to His sacrifice.

Molly welcomed Winter as her people had for generations.

With Blood and Resolve