YOUR NARRATOR: 

Well, my friends, a new year is upon us. 

You know something? I haven't been awake for a New Year's celebration in quite a long time.

Interesting.

The whole thing is rather interesting.

I celebrated it with you, too. First, I celebrated it by disguising myself for the first time in a long time. A simple hood would suffice; just something to hide under, should I need it. I crept out of our Tower just as the sun had set, so as to get a head start. I ran and I ran and I flew through the night, the winter wind sharp against my face, my strong black eyes stinging. I flew.

Hiding in the evening's crowd of that busy city I had grown so tired of, I walked and I witnessed. I witnessed you, celebrating. In many different ways. Some by drunkenly reveling in the freedom the evening brought (Whatever that was). Some, by putting on their finest clothes and going to the finest establishment the year could afford them. And others, by living out their lives as normal. Even if that was your New Year's Eve, the joy of the new year is still yours.

They all began to count down. All around me, a swelling kind of magic started to move around me and within every person in the crowd, everyone who was celebrating being alive another year, the possibility of the next year to come, the sweet joy of dreams that have yet to be fulfilled.

And as the count hit 3, 2, 1, and then Happy New Year, music erupted around me. Cheering. Applause. Everyone found a person and kissed that person.

Have I ever celebrated like this?

I don't think so.

How lovely. Lovers kissed. Family members kissed. Friends kissed. Strangers kissed. I felt a little sad, suddenly, watching them, but then a stranger beside me reached over with both arms and embraced me, and pressed their lips against my cheek. I didn't have time to recoil. And for a moment, I felt myself take just a little of their life. Not a lot. Not enough to hurt them. Just enough to feel their glee and brightness. And they didn't mind the cold of my skin, the strangeness of it. They didn't seem to notice how frightening I am.

And then another body beside me reached over and leapt at me, kissing my cheek. I felt a little of her life, now, creep into my own. And this one felt like innocence and youthful frustration. A burning dissatisfaction. One that suddenly made me long to travel, to learn, to grow, to create. I haven't felt that in a long time either, listeners. And she moved on before my inadvertent touch could hurt her, too.

I cannot forget the brightness of the first stranger. Or the drive of the second. And I marvelled at the feeling of peace that the touch of a human - you, who I have had so much pain and longing at the mere sight of - brought me, that night. It brought tears to my eyes. For, they were being kind, that is all. They didn't know me. They likely wouldn't choose to kiss me if they truly knew. But the optimism of the new year brings a goodness we don't usually have. And they had wanted to help a stranger such as myself. Help me not to enter the new year alone.

I wept in the crowd of people that somehow seemed to move as slow as a glacier around me.

And I felt someone hold my hand.

No one was there. There was no person standing anywhere near me.

But this ghost's hand held on tight, and it squeezed.

Someone was watching me.

Who? I can guess and I can dream. But it was a thing of kindness. And I won't forget it.

I have a story in mind for you. A short story. A strange story.

Once, there was a young girl who was sent away to boarding school. Her father travelled the world, making discoveries and having adventures and becoming famous and beloved by scientists and archaeologists and newspapers everywhere. The world was beginning to learn of far-off places and ancient history, and he was at the forefront of it; yet, to his thirteen year-old daughter, he couldn't have been more of a stranger. Since she was a small child, she had been sent off; a responsibility for someone else to take on. Sure, the schools were expensive and her education was thorough; the teachers weren't particularly cruel, but they weren't particularly kind. She had some passing friendships and some passing rivalries with her school mates, but none of those really mattered. In the big scheme of things, what was a rapped knuckle or an argument in a dorm room? Her father was unearthing tombs from two thousand years ago. He was redefining history as it had been known until that point. That was real. That mattered. She did not. Or, so she felt.

Every year was the same. She would stay at school, achieve reasonably good grades, and she would be there all summer and winter long. No home for the holidays; she didn't even know if her father had a home in the country any more. He didn't have need of one. He had nothing to tie him to her here. And so every year was the same. Empty.

[The sound of a girl humming, slow and joyless, is heard] 

She would lie in her bed and stare at the ceiling at night, a feeling of hopeless surrender overwhelming her. What's the point? What is there for me to do? There are only days upon days upon days.

"Wouldn't you love to see the world? What will you do when you're grown and you leave here?" a friend of hers asked her one day at breakfast.

She simply shrugged. "I don't know. I suppose I'll have to figure something out," she said. Completely devoid of hope or aspiration.

[The sound of a girl humming, slow and joyless, is heard] 

She wandered around, sometimes. She knew the old school better than anyone else here, because she had spent the most time here. She was walking around one evening, looking for a change of scenery but finding none among the grey and the shadows that surrounded her. She snuck into the chapel; it wasn't very special or interesting, but it was her favourite part of the school. With a few small, stained glass windows, it had a little colour to it. A little bit of imagery and storytelling. And so it was her favourite place.

Tonight, she snuck up into the chapel's upper storage area, a sort of attic, where everything was dusty and neglected. Occasionally she'd find a bird to care for, play with a little, and release. A mouse, sometimes. Some books she'd taken from the library and hidden here. Some drawings she'd made. Little things that made this place seem slightly more like a home. Not very much, though.

Tonight, she found something altogether unexpected.

She noticed a light streaming in that she'd never really seen before. At this time of night, in the dead of winter, moonlight this bright was not often found, especially in the dusty passageways of this old, desolate place. But tonight, this white, sparkling light shone through, and right on to her face, blinding her for a moment.

She followed it. Up, up and up a few ladders, climbing the buttresses and rafters, she followed the light up to the highest place she'd ever been in the school. Right under the angle of the chapel's roof, it was almost like an attic to the attic. But it was completely empty. The only thing that was here was a window. A beautiful, old window, unlike any she'd seen in the entire place before. It was large and it was well-built, and surprisingly clean. There was a little candle on the windowsill; if it had ever been lit, it was a long, long time ago, for it was so dusty she didn't know if it would even light.

But, as she pulled a matchbox from her pocket and struck a match, she found that the wick took, and the warmth of the thing immediately lit up the whole tiny attic.

She sat, and stared out the window. The moon, large and full, shone through so clearly, and she suddenly felt she was very high up. She realized she was at the tallest point in the school, and it was all hers. The stars seemed so clear that she questioned whether there was even glass in the window, just for a moment.

But there was, because she could see her reflection faintly in the glass, orange and warm and obscured in the light of the candle.

She found herself unable to look away. She was surprised to see that, surrounded by the stars and the moon and a warm golden glow, she liked the way she looked. She looked into her own face, and it seemed older. Wiser. Yet more mischievous. More playful. Adventurous, perhaps. She looked into her own eyes, and she kept looking for at least fifteen minutes.

Have you ever looked into your own eyes for too long, and felt that -at some point - someone else started looking back? You didn't recognize the person you were looking at any more? The eyes seemed different...and they seemed to see you, too?

I have. But I know who looked back at me.

At any rate, this young girl saw a new girl in the window. And when that new girl smiled at her, she smiled back. She lifted a hand and pressed it against the glass, and - given the snow falling in the sky behind the window - she expected it to be cold. But it was warm to the touch. And when this made her laugh a little, the girl on the other side laughed a bit too.

She came back to this spot every night that December. She visited the girl on the other side of the window; the girl who looked like her, but hovered outside the window at the highest part of the school. She didn't seem to be afraid of the height. She didn't seem to be cold or afraid.

One night, the girl sat and read stories about her father from the other side of the world. She read them, and was pleased to see that the girl in the window was also reading them. But, instead of feeling anger and sadness in reading those stories, the girl in the window seemed to be thrilled and joyful at the news of his travels. She was smiling broadly, a glint in her eye, while the girl who was inside the attic sported a frown and a furrowed brow.

"Why are you amused?" The girl asked the girl outside the window. "It's not funny."

The girl outside the window stopped smiling. She put down the newspaper and turned to face the girl inside the window. Her eyes suddenly seemed empty and joyless. And a voice - a voice she didn't recognize - said to her: "Tell me what you wish for."

The girl felt a deep fear inside of her. She knew she was no longer reading with herself. She didn't know who this was, but she knew it was not her reflection. She knew that it wasn't even a young girl.

But she would tell it her wish.

"I wish that I could go on an adventure. Like my father." she said in a small whisper. "I wish I could be far away from here."

The reflection nodded with a preternatural slowness and steadiness. And it replied: "Tell me again tomorrow."

And so the girl returned the next night, and met the creature in the window once more. Again, she lit the candle and told it her wish. And it told her again to come back tomorrow. And she did. For fourteen days, this happened every night.

Until one night. The 31st. The moon was high in the sky, and it was large, and just as orange as the light of the candle. Strange, seeing a harvest moon in winter. It seemed to light up the snow on the ground with a candlelight glow, and the sky seemed to be a deep red.

She lit the candle, and waited.

Her reflection did not appear. It was completely gone.

She tapped on the glass a little. Nothing came.

She told her wish again. Nothing came.

And then, she heard the sound of that voice behind her. Right in her ear. Inside, with her.

And it whispered, "Happy New Year".

And the ladder she had propped up to the attic fell. She heard it crashing and crashing into other ladders, falling against the rafters, and landing in the chapel below.

She had no means of going back down.

She tapped on the glass. She knocked on the glass. She pounded the palms of her hands against the glass. No one came. No reflection, no face, no voice.

Screaming, she slammed the glass even harder.

And it broke.

She fell forward, the crisp, cold night air prickling against her skin and inside her lungs. She fell forward, and onto the roof, where she tumbled down, and down, and down. Her arms flailed as she grasped at whatever she could, but the bricks and the tiles were old and loose and offered her no help. She rolled and tumbled down and down and down, grasping, clawing, screaming, and she ended up holding tight to a gargoyle, dangling above a four story drop.

Perhaps she would be all right. Perhaps the snow was thick enough that she wouldn't be hurt. But the gargoyle was cold and icy, and her hands began to slip, and she wasn't quite so sure of either of those things.

She heard someone shouting her name from below. She squeezed her eyes shut. It was most likely the groundskeeper or the priest, or the headmistress...and she would be punished, severely for this. Perhaps even expelled. And her father would be furious...

Just as she thought that, she fell.

[The melody that was hummed before is back, emotional and jubilant, with a gentle guitar strumming underneath]

She fell, and someone broke her fall. Someone who had their arms open and waiting. They both fell to the ground. But when the person didn't let her go, she realized something.

She had felt this embrace before. Perhaps it had been ten years ago or so. But she felt it before.

"You're alive. You're alive. You're alive." the man whispered over and over.

She looked up and saw her father; his face was pale, as if he'd seen a ghost. His eyes were sunken and tired, as if he hadn't slept in weeks. His cheeks were wet with tears of joy.

"I'm alive, father," she said, her own eyes wide in disbelief.

"I saw you. You came to me in the window. You were hurt, you had fallen, you said. And you looked so cold. So alone." And he could barely continue to tell her, but he did: "No one found you. You said no one found you. I saw you, in the snow, hurt, and alone, and-"

She held him. And he held her. And they didn't let go.

She didn't know if the old window was good, or if it was bad. Perhaps she was meant to die. Perhaps she was meant to fall to her death and die alone in the snow, the wind carrying away her cries of help.

But someone went to her father. 

And he came to her.

I imagine they had adventure after adventure together after that. I imagine time became so much more precious to them both, that year.

I don't think that the beginning of a new year is magical, or anything like that. But I do think that the strength of our wants and needs, our love and our longing, is what makes them manifest. We make it magical.

Happy New Year.

Hello everybody. Thank you so much for listening to episode 46 of On a Dark, Cold Night - this is Kristen speaking. I'm so excited to get 2019 off to a good start, sort of focusing on positivity and productivity.

Some housekeeping stuff:

First, I'd like to thank Dani Twitch, who pledged $1 a month to supporting On a Dark, Cold Night on Patreon. I'm so grateful that you're enjoying the show and want to help me as I keep it going. Thanks so much, Dani.

Next, thanks so much to Tasha on Facebook, who shared some really lovely words about the show on Facebook in her recommendation. Tasha writes, "narrators voice is soothing and intriguing and she keeps you wanting more. she feels like a friend you just met that you want to know more and more about. Well done Bravo!!". Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts, Tasha!