You didn't do nothing.

    I pulled my jacket tight against the frosted wind. The same wind that had brought me out,  driven me from my cabin. Now, it pushed me back, froze my eyes close, making me sleepy. Hearing your song fading had brought me out, bringing only my flashlight and axe. I gripped them to keep my fingers from going numb.
    The snow had been falling all day. It didn't change when I ran out of my cabin, searching for you. Your cry had been faint, but it wasn't distant. I could feel you on that wind, as if it was your breath. I was hunting for you, in frozen temperatures with only a coat.

    I ran until I couldn't, heavy breath and sweat tricking me into feeling hot. My body wasn't made to go fast, and I was realizing this slowly. I missed a step, fell and tried to reach for the nearest tree but missed. I lay there in that snow, unable to feel the cold through my skin, unable to feel the numbness through my fatigue. I listened, could not hear you anymore. I shone my light at a movement in the shadow, saw a mouse scurry down a hole, frost on it's whiskers. It was in its burrow, waiting until the sun brought it out again. I reached for a tree to help myself up. Soft bark against my hand brought me back to reality. I looked at the tree, feeling the smoothness of its rough exterior. I waited to catch my breath, to go back to my cabin and sleep.
    When the sun goes down, you sleep. But sleep hadn't come that night, as if you kept it back. It wasn't the first time I lay in bed, thinking.
    Childhood stories and folklore were on my mind that night. A cold dinner and strong drink had brought them up. They danced around my head, trying to teach me morals. The story of a drunk bee, of a controlling fox. So I let them talk, and waited to sleep. But I heard your voice. And standing there, with my hand against that cold tree in the cold night, rough bark under my callused hand, listening, I heard your cry again. It was weaker, but close. I lifted my axe, and brought my flashlight up. I could follow my tracks where I had come. Find out I had travelled in circles. The wind brought your escaping life, and I started to chase it.  I sunk into the snow now, two feet of fresh powder. It was slow work, so I ran, falling every few metres but standing up before I felt the cold. In the distance, I thought I saw you fall. Stumbling in that moment of doubt, as I went off that cliff. But catching myself, getting up before I hit the snow, holding on to that tuft of grass. I came to the edge of clearing. There, I found Sarah in a circle of virgin spruce.
    Lying on the snow, as down white as the sky, her head was cocked to one side. I stepped from the trees carefully, not wanting to disturb the pagan scene. My feet balanced carefully on top of the snow, slowly pushing it down as I put weight on it. It crunched and sank down, packing until it could hold me up. I stopped, and waited for her to move. Standing there, I felt the cold seep through my coat again as snow began to gather on me. The growing weight pushed me down, and I was on my knees beside Sarah.  I lifted her up, checked her breath, felt the coolness of Sarah's skin as I wiped blood from her neck. Golden eyes watched from beyond my flashlight as I sat. They circled, disappearing behind trunks and boughs. I noticed them, shined my light as they disappeared again. I looked around, but they didn't come back, the sound of me caring for Sarah sending them away. The clearing was lit by the moonlight, so I put my flashlight down and my coat on Sarah.
    Her cheeks are missing. There's no colour on her skin, and her slender face is calm. The snow around her is barely disturbed, her light weight not even pressing it down. A gust of wind comes through the trees, and I shield her, scared that she'll be blown away. It stops, and I start patting her dress down, which had spread like a pair of wings. It's white, and adds to the mystic of the blood on her neck. The snow around her head is stained red, telling me that it's too late.
    Sarah was a girl from my childhood. I spent most afternoons throwing mud at her and looking at clouds. Like most children, we did the same thing every day with no complaint. Sometimes, we would wander our neighbourhood looking into other yards or trying to climb the tallest trees. We always chickened out at the same time. Sarah would always have to go home before I did, but I would walk her back and promise to meet her again the next day.
    My life was like that until I turned ten, and I was old enough to help out my family. I had less free time, but I always tried to spend it with Sarah. We became older, and Sarah and I realized the differences between us and became attracted. Sarah was the most beautiful girl I ever knew. My time became more and more focused on helping my family, and by the time I dropped out at fifteen, I barely ever saw Sarah.
    She asked me out one time. I didn't know how to respond, telling her I was busy so I couldn't. And then I left the town, letting her parents know to tell her. I was twenty by then, and had contracted a job to go away. That was a long time ago, and I've moved since then. I haven't lived with anyone for twenty years.
    But Sarah was right before me. Lying in my arms, her eyes opened and she smiled. I picked her up and brought her back with me. I put her under my blanket and tried my best to tie her wounds up. She didn't talk, but she trembled as my big hands tried to stitch. I fought with the needle and thread for an hour, and finally put it down and let Sarah go to sleep. I turned on the furnace and brought in wood to keep it alive, started heating up some water for soup. I put more blankets on top of her, felt her skin under the blanket. It was slowly warming up.  I then sat back into my chair and waited for the water to boil. I felt the wind again, through the cracks in the walls, and it pushed my eyelids down, and I was asleep.
    Sarah and I married after that.  She healed quickly, and started to adjust to my life. She was home alone most of the time, but when I came in she was never bored, always fixing up a part of the house or cooking something. Our marriage was not one sanctioned by white collar, but by each other, the nearest church being too far away to make the trip for something so trivial. Sarah found me by following trail I had left since I started working. She asked people who saw me, old bosses and bartenders, where I had been going. And she went from place to place, looking for me, until one night, hiking out to here, she was attacked. But I had found her just in time, and now we were happy.
    Our life was rudimentary and simple, our routine almost always the same. But Sarah never asked to leave, never wanted to go to town. We lived off what we had, and were happy about it. I would wake in the morning, try to leave without waking her, but always she would reach out to say goodbye. And when I got back, I would knock and she would open the door. Her skin never gained colour, even as mine tanned in the summer months, but she was always strong enough to care for me when I was sick. When injured, either by animal or falling limb, she always cared for me. Our life was perfect.
    But in the downtime, when nothing was happening and Sarah was asleep while I lay there, I thought back to that night. Of what life would be like if Sarah wasn't there. Of my years of solitude left behind, and what this cost Sarah to come out to live with me. We had never been the same people. When we climbed trees as children, I chickened out to make her feel better. She had dropped everything to come out and see me. Was I even happy with her here? Sometimes, when I came back and knocked on the door, Sarah would talk longer to answer. I knew she was thinking about that same night, about what she had chosen to do. If she had died, and I hadn't found her or hadn't heard her, would I have missed it.
    As the years passed, I developed a nasty cough, and Sarah started to tend to animals. There was one bird whom she favoured, who hung around the house while I was out and kept Sarah company. She told me she talked to it, let it know about her life and her dreams, things I was never interested in. I would come home, and she would have dinner ready. Then, while I coughed into my meal, she would tell me about the bird, it's species and reactions to what she said. One night, a coughing fit brought me to the floor, and Sarah made me stay home. The bird came while I was in bed, and Sarah sat there, talking to it.
    In that moment she was a queen. The bird sat on the table, staring at her while she flourished her hand, looked up while relating her story. She would stay up to exclaim, spreading her arms wide like a pair of wings trying to fly away. But always graceful, always with precision. Her snow white skin reflected the incoming light, shining as this bird flew around the room, around her. I got up to sit at the table, but the bird swooped at me as I tried to sit down, sending me back to my bed. Sarah said the bird wanted me to get better, but as I looked at her, the bird swooped at me again. Sarah's white dress hung off the chair like a royal gown while I watched her talk to her subject.
    But as birds do, that one left for the winter, and Sarah was broken. She had lost her one fried, and all she had left was a sickly husband. I hadn't recovered since that coughing fit, and soon I was too weak to do anything. I asked Sarah to leave, to let me waste away in the middle of nowhere, but she wouldn't leave me. And as I lay there on my death bed, I asked her why she had given up everything to me. And she told me she hadn't. I closed my eyes, unable to hold on any longer as the depths of the ocean submerged me.
    But life is not ideal like that, and there is no one content with another's dream. Sarah did not hunt me for years, following a trail that did not exist. I sat there in the snow, thinking of my life that couldn't be as I held a dying swan in my arms, its last song going out. I put it down, knowing that my hopes of Sarah would never come true, that she would never come looking for me.
    The snow was falling hard then, and I turned to leave the clearing when I saw those golden eyes again. They had returned, to claim it's dinner. I brought up my axe and followed it around, turning with it until it disappeared again. I turned to the swan, to look one more time at my disillusion, and the wolf jumped out. I swung and hit, sending it away as I heaved with the effort, started coughing. The blood rushed to my head as I locked eyes with it, both of us limping, me from the exertion and it with a cut on it's side. Our tracks in the snow started to link together, and a thin layer of power developed on the wolf's fur as we were locked. I stopped in front of the swan, knowing that the wolf wanted it. It was mine to protect. I looked down at it, saw that it was still. I coughed, then, and stumbled into the powder, one leg sinking as I shook. The wolf leapt, and I swung as hard as I could. In that moment, I saw into those golden eyes, the black pit in the centre swallowing me as I watched my dreams eaten by reality. Sarah wasn't coming back. I was to live alone. I had made my decision.
    A wolf is a beautiful creature. When you see those golden eyes, under the moonlight in fresh snow, you forget about it. When I was swallowed by that eye, by the thought that sometimes you can't go back and you need to accept it, when you're all alone and no one can fix it but you. When I swung my axe and missed, that wolf taught me that. My neck came free as I fell to the ground, beside the swan, seeing Sarah's slender face again.