WINTERGLOOM

Christmas lights hung on the porch as most houses did in December—but, it was late August.

The thick black wires were tacked gently onto my copper gutters. I didn’t mind the slight intrusion, they went well with the wind chimes and glass bottle suncatchers. Of course, other houses on the block look pristine with their manicured lawns and freshly painted siding, but they were empty shells. Cold, sterile frames made from generic wood and drywall. I was different. I breathed. I felt. I saw. I knew. 

I had been built hundreds of years before, and was the oldest house still standing in Wallowshill. My owner, Lindsay Newell, was a young, quiet woman who spent her days working at the local library. Most of the neighbors thought she was just another eccentric homeowner who let her lawn grow a little too long and forgot to take her winter decorations down. They complained about the yearlong lights, but they didn’t get it— she wasn’t neglecting me. She was feeding me. If they paid more attention, they too, would understand.

As the summer twilight bled into the sky, the lights suddenly clicked on around me, hazing my eyes in clouds of blue, purple, and orange. They weren't the traditional red and green of Christmas fun and festivities—no—these were the colors of a bruising, formidable dusk. Their currents coarsed through my framework, a pleasant, buzzing warmth that tickled me down to the studs.

From somewhere inside, I felt Lindsay stirring about. Emerging quietly onto the porch, her steps light and deliberate, careful. She didn't walk on my bones the way the intrusive utility workers did; she stepped with a gentle rhythm that felt like cat kneading against my joists. She knew my secrets and she treated me well. Often reading to me before turning in to bed, but tonight was different. A cloud hung over me, a feeling, a rush I couldn’t quite escape, couldn’t explain. She didn’t have a book for me tonight, it seemed. No story before bed.

“You feel it too,” she whispered, coolly, her voice traveling up through the transoms and gutters and into the eaves and peaks where the chimney sat.

I rattle, ever so slightly at her feet in reply. Unsure of exactly what she meant. It is apparent she is waiting for something, looking out into the empty street, watching."

Hope you are having a good evening," she added, her voice a soft rustle, her hands rubbing the front support beams with a gentle, knowing pat. I vibrated my windowpanes in response, a low, purring frequency only she could hear.

Above us, the heavy August air shifted. A cool breeze passed through with enough of a bite to give my peeling paint a humbling chill. The stifling humidity began to sour. Drops of something cold fell—two or three at a time, against my shingles, my siding. Chilling my joists.

It’s too early for this. I hadn’t prepared. I stiffened nervously under her hands. A few more drops pelted against my skin. This wasn't rain. It was too thick, smelling faintly of dirt, copper, and old sky. The wrong season was upon us.

The drops crystallized. White flakes began to drift through the twilight, falling haphazardly onto my dry grass. It was snow. Snow in the dead middle of summer, on one of the hottest and driest weeks on record. No hurricane or rain was planned for days—or so Lindsay had told me during our morning coffee.

“It’s okay, Barnaby, things will soon change,” Lindsay mused, a playful smile on her face. “I have something for you, an early Christmas present.”

Off in the distance, a shadow moved at the edge of the property. It was the latest neighborhood association president, Naomi. Metal clipboard in hand, she was already aggressively tearing off strips of blue painter's tape, slapping them onto my improperly kept lawn ornaments, her boots heavy and disrespectful on my paved walkway.

She marched up to my porch, ready to stick a citation directly over my glowing blue, orange and purple lights. A fine attached to this one, the seventh in so many days.

Lindsay smiled, words I couldn’t hear tumbling from the slight, dark tilt of her lips. A spell, an order, a command. I felt the sudden rush of warmth—the olfactory memory of sugar cookies, hot apple cider, and fresh frost bloomed from somewhere deep inside my belly. A small fire roared to life in my brick hearth. Puffs of cedar-hinted smoke billowed into the falling night.

“Maybe a bit of seasonal cheer would do this street some good,” she murmured, stepping back inside, leaving my front door slightly ajar.

“You know what to do,” she whispered, her fingers lingering on my latch. Her lips tense and determined—“serves her right, she is a busy-body, but a few days in the chute will do her good.”

Sensing her intent, my hungry floorboards flexed, opening a yawning space beneath the old welcome mat, ready. It had been weeks since my last real meal. 

The second Naomi’s heavy footsteps hit the porch, a sharp rip of blue tape echoing through the sudden winter air—my foundation closed with a satisfied sigh around her, pulling her quickly under. Silencing her focused attempts at neighborhood order. My foundation creaking and groaning under the weight of her body as it digested through my bowels.

By midnight, the local news reports were frantic. Anchors sat in disbelief, flashing live footage of a single, localized anomaly: a heavy blizzard blanketing exactly one street on the edge of town. It was most unfortunate, it seemed, there was just enough news coverage for Naomi’s disappearance to go wholly unnoticed.

The next morning, the snow on Banks Street was over a foot deep while the rest of the city cooked in ninety-degree heat. The neighbors peered out their windows, whispering, staring at 1234 Banks Street with pale faces. Children played in the wet ice, building snowmen, windmilling their tiny bodies into snow angels and screaming shrilly at the errant pelt of snowballs.

The neighbors had always thought Lindsay and myself to be strange—the way she talked to me, how most would talk to plants or the sky. Now, they looked at my unseasonal lights nervously—wondering if she had cursed the very earth beneath them. Maybe she had, it wasn’t my story to tell.

Besides, Lindsay wasn't looking at the neighbors. She was looking at the thick, wax-sealed envelope that had materialized in her mailbox, addressed explicitly to myself: Barnaby Banks. 

It bore the golden crest of the Magistrate, a place she least expected to see mentioned here—the Highest Courts of Mostly Misused and Overextended Magic.

It would seem they knew her little secret, or maybe, they knew mine—it was too soon to tell.

She was only in the mainland on a partial magic-extend visa, to lay-low among the common folk. But looking out at the impossible blanket of white covering the dry grass, her smile widened, it was too late for that.

“It worked,” Lindsay whispered, running a soft brush along my entryway wall. Removing any trace of blue tape glue, or negative Naomi. It would be worth whatever the courts might bestow. She couldn’t just live here without having some fun.

Breaking the heavy wax with the tip of a silver letter opener, Lindsay pulled out a stiff sheet of parchment. The ink glowed with a faint, punitive crimson light. The color of guilt.

OFFICIAL WARNING FROM THE OFFICE OF THE MAGISTRATE:

Visa Holder: Lindsay Newell

1234 Banks Street C/O Barnaby Banks, Sentinel House

It has come to the attention of the Highest Court of Mostly Misused and Overextended Magic that a localized climate displacement event has been triggered at your coordinates. You are strictly permitted to reside in the mainland under the Secrecy Act of 1863 without the use of improper magic. Transforming an August twilight into an unsanctioned midwinter blizzard is a severe breach of environmental cloaking. You have until DUSK—or within SIX hours of nightfall, or whichever comes first—to restore the natural temperature of your cloaking charm. Failure to adhere will result in your partial visa being revoked, your hearth will be permanently extinguished, and Barnaby will be dissolved.

Lindsay stiffened, the parchment trembling in her hands. "Until dusk," she breathed, her gaze darting to the grandfather clock in my hallway. The ticking felt suddenly heavy, matching the nervous pulse in my wallboards. I could feel my own magic beginning to dwindle.

Before she could form a plan, a heavy, frantic hammering rattled my front door.

Thud. Thud. Thud.

“Lindsay!! Open up!"

A voice shouted from the snow-covered porch. It was Gary, Naomi’s husband. I watched through my bay windows as he paced nervously, his breath clouding in the freezing air, his boots tracking slush over my welcome mat. I could feel myself trembling with the want to shake the snow. To toss him from my premises, permanently.

“Naomi’s car is still in the driveway, but she hasn't made it back yet. I know she came down here to give you another citation last night.” Lindsay closed her eyes for a brief second, forcing her breath into a steady, calm rhythm. She shoved the Magistrate's letter into her coat pocket and smoothed the front of her skirt before pulling the door open with the polite librarian smile she had so perfectly practiced.

"Gary! Good-morning,” she said, her voice gliding into the air. "A bit cold out, isn't it?"

“Cold? It's freezing. Absolutely frigid,” Gary yelled, gesturing wildly at the foot of snow blanketing outside. “The city thinks an errant cloud blew over from the Candid Islands. They have an early snow...” Gary paused. His toes kicking at the welcome mat in frustration. 

“I know it's something with this old house of yours. And where is Naomi? She was heading to your house. I watched her...”

As Gary stepped closer, his boots pressing heavier, and heavier into the exact floorboards that had swallowed his wife just hours before, rippling with an involuntary hunger. I was almost certain he might smell her perfume if I burped.

I was still sluggishly digesting Naomi—the heavy metal of her clipboard, the rubber boots, and the plastic of her blue tape settled deep within my cellars—and the proximity of another pushy visitor made my wooden grain groan with anticipation. Settling with a gurgling hunger. 

Underneath the welcome mat, my seams began to split open, just a peep. Lindsay felt my floorboards shift beneath her feet. She subtly shifted, pressing her heel firmly against my threshold beam, a silent command for me to hold still.

"I haven't seen her since yesterday evening, Gary," Lindsay lied, her eyes wide and full of innocent concern. "She left a note about my holiday lights on the lawn ornaments, but that was all. I hope she's alright. We’ve had terribly bad luck with the weather, have you checked the wood line?”

Gary squinted, staring past her into my warm, cedar-scented entryway. His eyes lingered on the roaring brick hearth, then moved back to the still falling snow.

“I don’t know... this is all so very strange. If she doesn't come back tonight, I'm calling the police to search every inch of this block, including this house."

He spun on his heel and headed back down the steps, his boots crunching loudly in the deep ice. Lindsay slowly shut the door, leaning against my solid oak framework. Her hands shaking as she pulled out the Magistrate's warning letter again.“

We are in a bit of trouble Barnaby, but don’t you worry, they won’t find you guilty of any wrongdoing.”

Her panic reverberated straight into my heartwood, a frantic, vibrating current that made my doorframes ache. Lindsay still belonged to the old world, but she knew my history just as well as I did. She had spent months tracking my lineage through the faded ink of the centuries-old spellbooks and letters left rotting behind the floorboards of the master bedroom. She knew I had been built hundreds of years before from the oldest, most sentient timber pulled from Rotting-Moors ridge—steeped in wild, foundational magic. She knew that as decades passed and the world grew loud and sterile, my magic had died, leaving me in a deep, decades-long slumber.

She brought her own magic, she saved me. She hadn't just seen a dying structure; she had recognized the sleeping sentinel exactly as the old texts described. With careful whispers and deliberate, heavy spells fed through my hearth, she had reawakened me, tying her magic to my wooden heart until I breathed, felt, and saw once more. We were a witch and her sentinel, bound together to protect the boundaries of our worlds.

Lindsay closed her eyes, leaning her forehead against the grain of my entryway wall, letting the steady hum of my heartbeat anchor her racing thoughts.

“A sentinel doesn't falter over a little threatening snow, or the weight of the Magistrate...does he, Barnaby?" she murmured, a fierce, breathless warmth passing from her rigid palms straight to my studs. “I woke you to protect this home, and we aren't letting them take what we have built."

But understanding the deeper truths didn’t change the clock. The magical blizzard was still locked tightly in my core, fueled by the heavy meal of Naomi’s lifeforce. To satisfy the Magistrate and save her visa, Lindsay had to reverse the spell and melt the foot of snow before the sun dipped below the horizon.

"We need a massive burst of heat," she whispered, moving quickly toward the kitchen. She bypassed the standard tea leaves and floating tinctures, reaching deep into the hidden hollow of my pantry where she kept her old-world ingredients. She pulled out a jar of dried black-ember-root and a vial of compressed summer wind—highly forbidden artifacts to possess on a partial visa.

If the magistrate was mad now, they surely would be pissed—but one would have to cancel the other if she was to undo this anomaly. It was the Covens oath—and she took that quite seriously. 

Lindsay rushed to my roaring brick hearth. Kneeling before the flames, tossing the black-ember-root into the coals and uncorking the vial, whispering a reversal incantation into the smoke.

For a second, the fire died down to ashen embers. Then, with a deafening roar, a massive wave of golden, magical heat erupted from my chimney. Puffs of cedar-hinted smoke billowed into the darkening sky, but this time, the smoke carried a blinding, radiant warmth that spread across Banks Street like wildfire.

The snow didn't just melt; it vaporized. Pulling back into the sky, opposite the setting sun. Within minutes, the foot of snow covering the dry grass vanished into a thick, low-lying fog. The freezing air dissolved, replaced instantly by the familiar, heavy humidity of a late August evening. By the time the sun dipped fully below the horizon, a sudden, steaming summer rain began to fall, washing away every last trace of the impossible winter.

From their windows, the pale-faced neighbors watched the fog clear, whispering among themselves that the bizarre weather anomaly had finally corrected itself. Gary stood in his driveway, soaked in the sudden summer rain, looking utterly bewildered as the evidence of his claims melted into the storm drains.

Inside 1234 Banks Street, the crimson glow on the Magistrate's letter faded completely, leaving the paper entirely blank—the warning had been satisfied. Lindsay stood by the front door, a coy, victorious smile returning to her lips as she watched the rain wash my shingled porch clean. She ran a soft brush along my entryway wall, smoothing down the wood where the tension had finally eased.

“It worked," she whispered into the quiet twilight. “Just our street is raining.”

I vibrated my windowpanes in a slow, deep purr of satisfaction, my foundation perfectly settled and secure. Lindsay was safe on her visa, the old secrets remained hidden, and we were ready for whatever the mundane folk of Wallowshill, or the Magistrate, might try next.