Thin line shapes on the side of a foot

The snow has sealed the pass for nine days now, and Mr Okonedo has taken to counting the guests the way other men count sheep. There are six of us in the Hollin Inn, which is more than the innkeeper expected and fewer than the stove can comfortably warm. I am writing by the window in the back room, where the glass is clear enough to see the ridge against the sky: a black triangle of rock, with the wind-cut line of the cornice running off it like a wave that has frozen mid-break.

Yesterday the carter, a silent man named Tobiah Ferrar, drew it for me on the frost of the glass with his thumb. He said his grandfather had called the three marks the sea, the peak and the lookout, and that anyone who could read them could find the inn in a whiteout. I laughed at him, and he did not laugh back, so I have been turning it over ever since.

Last night I went out to the bell post with the lantern, meaning only to ring it so the lost could hear. The wind dropped for a moment and I saw, very clearly, the ridge, the curl of drift below it, and the lamp of the lower house where the ferryman's widow sits up. The three shapes lined up exactly as Tobiah had drawn them. I stood there until my fingers stopped working, then rang the bell until morning.

I think I will stay until the thaw. Tell Father the stove is fine and the soup is better than his. Your loving sister, Marit.