The bramble hallway ends in a bowl of ferns the frost has not finished with.

The Pale One is there.

Not a horse. A hart—a deer of the old word—white as a page nobody has written on yet. One antler, still in velvet’s last pale shreds, rises from its head. The other side is smooth: shed, or never grown this season. A pale vine, frost-caught, loops the remaining antler in a spiral. Dawn had called that a horn. Dawn is a famous liar and a pretty one.

It is still astonishing. Color gone pale—Nan has a fussy word for it if you want one. Not a spirit. Not a curse. In summer a white coat is a shout. In frost it is a disappearing trick. Rarity makes a legend. The animal remains an animal, breathing, listening, real.

You taste leaf-mould and your own heartbeat.

It has not run. You are downwind, crouched, a stump among stumps.

Mira’s hand finds a fern and holds it like a promise.

You could sit until the hart chooses to move, which is how neighbors behave.

You could try to slip the vine off by hand, because a vine is not a horn and you want to help.