The tarn is a dark plate in a white bowl. You stay on the packed edge because the center is a story about wet socks and worse math.

The ice sings. It groans. It pings like a dropped wrench in a cathedral. A crack runs like a zipper and stops, proud of itself, not opening into a cartoon hole, just relieving a stress you cannot see. When temperature drops fast, ice contracts. Ice that cannot shrink without complaining, complains.

Folklore heard ice-people walking. You hear thermal stress, which is a worse name for a party and a better name for a notebook.

Ellis, if Ellis came, wants it to be footsteps. You ask Ellis to stand still. The song continues. Feet do not.

The cabin stovepipe, behind you, answers in the same wind with a vowel. Two instruments. One weather.

You count a ping, then another, like stars if stars were rude. The ice is not thin-looking at the edge where snow is packed and dirty and honest. The center is blacker, a plate that could be thick and still not your business. Priya’s rule is not poetry: wet clothes plus wind is a math problem that ends with a ranger and shame. You prefer cocoa.