By Maradas Graham

In the dead of winter, the child of the winter kin was born. Blue and still, the babe lay on the blankets, the midwife looking on with a barely covered satisfaction. She had not wanted to awaken in the middle of the evening to oversee the birth of the players' son, and felt that such an end was the just reward for stealing a woman from her bed on a cold winter night. The child's father, the leader of the players' troupe, pushed past the midwife, throwing her back against the side of the wagon. Pulling the infant from his wrappings, the man ran to the cooling pot of water that has been heated for the birth. As he immersed the baby in the water, crying aloud to the winter wind for help, the child began to turn pink. When the boy was pulled from the water, his cry mingled with that of his father.

The man handed his son to his wife, who smiled a broad smile that included all present, save the midwife, who scowled in the corner. With anger, the father turned to the midwife, thrusting six copper coins upon her. The price of birth for the dead child, and the live, he said. The midwife, insulted by the looks and the comments of the rest of the troupe, began to swear oaths against the boy, naming him a winter's kin. He would thrive during the winter, but perish during his first hot summer days, unless his cold kin came to claim him. The players pushed the woman out into the cold. The harsh rain hit her face, and as she walked, snow and ice caused her to slip and fight to keep her balance. With a great crack, a branch broke over head, falling upon the midwife and killing her. When they found her frozen body in the morning, the six copper coins were missing.

The player was blamed for the death of the woman, and was hanged within two weeks' time. The wife, with no one else to turn to, soon re-wed, to provide a shelter from the icy winter which taken her husband from her. Her new husband was a hard and brooding man. As the little boy grew older, his reserve and quiet grated upon the man's nerves. He hears voices upon the wind, the man would complain, he is cold towards the family. In truth, it was the man who was cold, and the voices of the liquor bottle which told him to beat his wife and stepson. The little boy watched with little concern when his stepfather was on the rampage. Then he would turn, and look again out the frost covered window panes, his too warm breath fogging the glass.

As was foretold, the boy was healthy and spirited during these winter months. It was not until the first flowers of spring began to bloom that his bloom failed. Listless and pale through the hot months, the onset of fall always promised the return of health. During these summer months, the boy's mother kept him awake and interested with tales of the winter kin. Though these tales were usually written on the spur of the moment, the boy knew them to be true. The Winter King, his mother called him, lord of all the winter kin. On the cold winter night that his mother was taken from him by his stepfather's drunken anger, the boy did not cry. He slipped past the man's sleeping form, and stepped out into the snow. Without shoes, and with little clothing, the boy ran in the snow.

He ran far and long, and finally came upon that which he was searching for. There, upon the crest of the hill, mounted on white horses whose breath made fog in the crisp air, sat the winter kin. Dresses in white furs, and with skin of the faintest, palest blue, his people stood and stared at him. With joy, the boy ran towards them. As the horses turned, the wind whistling around them, the boy's cry rang out with the wind. When the horses disappeared over the horizon, the boy was still crying out. The old woodcutter found him there in the morning, cold and blue, lying still in the snow. When the woodcutter placed the boy in the warm water of the washtub, the child became pink once more, as a healthy child should be. The boy saw where he was, and began to cry. He did not cry for his mother, who had been his only tie to the mortal world, but for his lost kin and their prancing white horses. After he stopped crying, the woodcutter asked him why he had been in the north woods. Those woods belong to the king, said the woodcutter. And so I am, replied the boy. And so are we all, laughed the woodcutter, so are we all.

For the next five years the boy lived, and grew up, with the woodcutter. They chopped trees in the south wood during the warm months, the boy obeying the man perfectly, but once the cold winds began to blow, nothing could keep the boy from the window which over looked the north wood. When the old man died, the boy left without even stopping to cross the man's arms across his chest. He wandered into the south woods, noting the grass and flowers beginning to sprout in the melted snow. Spring was nearly there, and three seasons left until the return of winter. Suddenly, an icy blast caught the boy from behind. On the wind was carried the scent of ice and snow and horses. Turning on his heels, the boy ran northward. As he ran, he tore the clothes from his body; they seemed unnecessary. He ran into the north wood. The king's wood. His wood.

The snow still lay on the ground in drifts and piles, and there stood the winter kin. On their great white horses sat his people, dressed in their furs. At the head of the group sat a beautiful woman. Her long white hair was braided into a hundred braids, and her pale face was, at once, both beautiful and strange. When their eyes met, she leapt from her horse. My Lord, she cried, a smile upon her face. My king, my love, you have returned to me. When the boy ran towards her, she welcomed him in with open arms, and wrapped him in her fur robes.

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The king's woodsmen stood beside the boy's body. There was very little blood from where the arrow protruded from the boys heart. It's a shame we had to shoot, the one man said to his companion. The other man nodded, He was that foundling boy, who lived with the old woodcutter, crazy as a loon they say. Shame, really, said the first, but he was in the king's forest.

The boy lay naked in the snow. Clutched in his blue hands were coins, three copper coins in each. Twice the amount needed for a birth, said one woodsman. Yes, said his friend, and the exact amount needed for a wooden coffin and a pauper's burial.