The Bell Under the Snow
Ting. Pia stopped in the middle of the lane. Snow came down slow and soft, and the air pinched her cheeks. She heard it again. Ting, under her boot. She knelt and dug with one mitten until she found something small and round. A little brass bell, colder than the snow around it. Wisp drifted down beside her, edges glowing. Pia held the bell up to the lamplight. "Somewhere there's a door missing this," she said.
Pia closed her hand around the bell and tucked it inside her mitten. It was cold at first, like a pebble from a stream. Then it went warm, because her hand was warm. Wisp bobbed once and floated ahead down the lane. The lamps were on. Snow sat on every roof like a thick wool hat. Pia followed Wisp, breathing clouds. Her boots made two soft sounds in the snow, over and over, all the way down.
The first door was green and low. Pia stood on her toes and looked above it. A bell already hung there, big and bright and busy. It shook when the door moved and made a loud, happy noise. That was somebody else's bell. Wisp glowed, then drifted on. Pia blew warm air into her mitten and went after them. The snow had filled her footprints behind her already. She did not mind. There were more doors ahead.
The second door was red, with an iron ring to knock with. No bell. No string. The third door had a basket of firewood beside it and a long icicle hanging down like a tooth of glass. Pia touched the icicle. It was so cold it felt almost hot. She laughed and pulled her mitten back on. Wisp waited at the corner, round and patient and bright. "Somewhere there's a door missing this," said Pia, and hurried to catch up.
At the top of the lane the wind was thin and cool. Pia could smell woodsmoke and something sweet, like milk on a stove. She stopped and listened for a while. Snow does that to a village. It makes everything quiet enough to hear a bell think. Wisp floated out ahead, a small lamp of a cloud. Then Wisp went very bright, the way they do, and stayed still above a little blue door at the end.
Pia came and looked up. Above the blue door hung a short piece of string, frayed at the end, swinging in the cold. Nothing on it. Just an empty place where something used to be. Pia took the bell out of her mitten. It was warm now, warm as toast, warm as her own hand. She held it up to the string. It was exactly the right size. "There you are," she said, very quietly.
The string was too high. Pia looked around. A wooden crate stood by the step with snow heaped on top like icing. She swept the snow off with her arm and dragged the crate over, squeak, squeak. Then she climbed up. Her fingers went cold and clumsy tying the knot, so she stopped and breathed on them until they could bend again. One loop. Two loops. Pull. The bell hung there, small and brass and exactly home.
Pia climbed down and nudged the blue door with one mitten. Ting. Ting-ting. The sound ran up the street and came back. Warm air slipped out around the doorway and touched her face, and she could smell bread and hot milk. She let the door swing shut. The bell kept ringing a little while after, the way bells do, getting softer and softer until it was only snow falling again.
Pia's legs felt slow and heavy now. Wisp came close and settled under her, soft as a quilt fresh off the line. Pia leaned back and let herself be carried, warm from her mittens to her boots. Lamplight slid by. Snow landed on her sleeve and stayed there, each piece a tiny star. "Somewhere there's a door missing this," she whispered, about nothing at all. Then her eyes closed, and Wisp glowed, and the village hushed them both home.
