As winter put its vice on the land the trees became burdened with snow. Wagons and carriages had long been traded for sleds and with school turned out for the weather the children of Natt Fristad took their own vehicles to play. Sleds, boxes, ice-skates and their own two feet carried them through Amber Forest and down to Collect Lake.

The water was frozen solid and by the time the four friends arrived all the other children where already there.

"It's your fault, May, you took too long getting dressed!" Margaret said. Grumbling she dragged her sled up a hill ordering the younger children to make room.

Alice gave May an apologetic smile then hurried away with her fancy red sled decorated with holly berries. The other children surrounded her and awe and she let the less fortunate take turns on it.

"Don't worry, Sunny," Pleasant said. "Margaret didn't mean it." She found a stomp where she sat down to strap on her ice-skates.

"You've gotten so good," May said, standing with her blades over her shoulder. "I'm a little nervous about skating on the lake. It's a lot grander than Stags Pond."

"You heard Baldwin Monhollen Sunday," Pleasant said. "It's frozen solid." She got up from the stomp so her sister could have a turn.

"What if it's not, what if I fall in?" May worried.

"You won't fall in," Asmund Monhollen said as he approached. His gray eyes seemed to match the winter world around them. Like all his brothers his right one had a stray brown dash through it that they had inherited from their maternal grandmother. "I'll help you."

Pleasant couldn't help but notice how embarrassed her sister looked. Baldwin had taught them both to ice skate and while it came easy to Pleasant, May was having great difficulty.

"Come on, Pleasant, come on May!" Minas shouted from the ice.

Pleasant turned to her sister anxiously.

"You go ahead," May said. "I'll catch up in a minute."

"I'll help her," Asmund said. He then turned to May to help her get her skates on.

Pleasant wadded down the beaten path to the lake and glided onto the ice. As the other children spun and giggled she glided gracefully over the cold surface under the pale gray sky and naked surrounding trees. Bringing her arms in she spun gracefully and until she came to a slow stop.

When she had first came to Natt Fristad she found it hard to find anything to like about it. Then she met the horses and other animals at the farm. Not long after she discovered sledding and snowball fights and then came skating on the pond. Possibly, this could be home.

After Collect Lake froze solid the girls went just about every day. Some children had built snowmen spectators and no one was mischievous and tore them down. There was a certain harmony in Natt Fristad that prompted everyone to get along. It reminded Pleasant and May of the little porcelain villages displayed in the window shops in town.

Mrs. Walkup loved to have the town children over to her large house where they were allowed to play in the winter garden of Rose Parade. Afterword they sipped hot chocolate while they waited for their gingerbread men to come out of the oven.

"I think this is my new favorite season," Pleasant said as they took a sleigh ride home.

"But it's so cold," May said with a shiver.

"You just have to dress warmer," Margaret said. She then turned to wave her muff at passersby in their own sleigh.

As evening came and the nightly snow began to fall the girls went up to Margaret's rooms after supper.

Taking the pins from her hair Margaret sat at the piano. "We shall begin where we left off," she said in her authoritative manner.

Pleasant resigned herself to the window seat to watch the snow fall lightly in the moonlight. "What's it like here in the springtime?" she asked once Margaret had finished playing.

"The snow melts and the flowers bloom," Margaret said as she rearranged her sheet music.

"I never would have guessed," Pleasant said sarcastically.

"Well we get to wear brighter colors," Margaret said. "And then there are the tea parties at the Purefoys' with Rose and Violet. Mrs. Monhollen has lunches and my mother and I are always invited. There are the baby animals at the farm... You know, everything is how one would imagine it."

"It sounds lovely," Pleasant said. "I'll have to write, Mama about it."

"Her letters aren't as lively as they used to be," May said. "They used to look like paintings themselves.

"Isn't she an artist?" Margaret asked.

"Oh you should have seen her paintings, Margaret," May said. "She had so many of them. Each was more beautiful than the last. Too bad they all burned in the fire."

"I think it broke her heart a little," Pleasant said. "And losing Papa too."

"Do you think she'll come visit us before the New Year?" May asked.

"I don't know, May," Pleasant said. "Perhaps you could ask her the next time we write. Now it's getting late and we'd best be getting to bed."

"Good night then," Margaret said. "Perhaps we can go to Collect Lake again tomorrow."

As Pleasant snuggled up in her blankets she lifted Landry to her chest. It was safer for them now that Mrs. Singer had stopped watching them so much. "May is right," she whispered. "Mama's hand is not as gay as it used to be. I know she is sad, but this far away I don't know how to make her happy." Rolling over she hugged the turtle to her as she looked out the window.

Deciding she wouldn't be able to sleep she took a candle from her night stand drawer and lit it. After melting the bottom she stuck it onto a tray then sat down on the floor. Reaching under her pillow she pulled out her card of Ursa Major and held it up to the light. "Mama will come to us," she said. "It shouldn't be hard now." She ran her fingers under the stars, caressing the soft light. She had to keep looking up.

/

On Monday after school Margaret had Bertie take them to the top of Moon Thread Hill so they could look down Fanfare.

"No one lives there anymore," she explained. "My father says an old woman used to but no one in that family wanted it after she died and now they are trying to sell it." She turned in the other direction and pointed. "You can see Collect Lake from here. And the covered bridge over Broken Brook. And of course Amber Forest."

"It was a lot more amber in the autumn," May said as she looked at the naked trees.

"There is the Ghostwell," Margaret said hauntingly. "They say you can look down it and see loved ones passed. You can hear Johann Monhollen cry for his mama." She grinned. "Do you want to go look?"

"No!" May said and hid behind her sister.

"No one ever does," she said. "This is how you make it work." She cupped her hands around her mouth. "Ghostwell, Ghostwell, show me the face of the one I love!" Her voice echoed over the cold land and she turned to her cousin. "You have to shout down it though."

"I don't believe in ghosts," Pleasant said despite thoughts of the Red Man. She turned to the lake to see that some people were already out on it. "Race you to the ice!" she shouted and took off down the hill with May and Margaret following her.