A precaution. That’s all it had seemed at first. And a burden, because men like Sol had to stand out all hours in the cold weather.

After the day they’d just had, it seemed like a necessity.

It was bitter cold, and light snow was falling. Sol could hear the hiss and whisper of it. From his vantage, with the town at his back, he had the edge of the woods and the open land of fairground ahead of him. To his left, he could see the slight glow of the solamps in the heathouses. To his right, like a dark and cloudy phantom behind the snow, he could just make out the bulk of Firmer Number One.

The cold was getting to him. He had a small brazier for warmth, crackling near his feet, a flask of broth, and he made sure he did not stand still for too long.

Pacing kept his feet warm. He left the end of his shovel resting on the ground, supporting it with one hand, and kept the other hand tucked inside his coat for warmth.

Every few minutes, he would change hands and stuff the other away.

Sol put both hands on the shovel and raised it. He had heard something. He was sure he’d heard something. Across fairground, out near the woods. It sounded as though something had moved. He waited, listening, peering into the darkness, seeing nothing. It was probably just snow-gather building up on a branch, finally snapping it under its accumulated weight or sloughing off. Since the snows had come, that sort of odd sound, noises of slumping and fluttering as fallen snow redistributed itself, had become very common.

Sol glanced back towards Beside. Lamps were burning throughout the heart of the settlement. It looked reassuring, almost cosy. He longed to be down there, at a fireside, talking with friends and eating a good supper. That community and companionship was what life was about. The hard toil and struggle of the Morphan existence was made bearable by the simple reassurances of hot food and a hearth, and a circle of friends.

Sadly, Sol reflected, that was not why the lamps were lit in Beside tonight. The council and the community were meeting in the assembly.

Crisis talks, Cat A.

Bill Groan stood in the porch of the assembly hall under the light of a solamp, listening as Old Winnowner read out the list.

Eight names. Eight good Morphan men of Beside who had not returned at day’s end. Eight fathers, eight strong labourers, part of the backbone of the community. How could eight men go missing in the snow during the daytime? A fall or other mishap might take one, two if things were really unlucky. But eight?

They were all his friends.

Winnowner read the other names on the list.

Harvesta Flurrish, of course, the poor girl whose disappearance had started the search in the first place.

Winnowner had reminded Bill that it was the anniversary of Tyler Flurrish’s death. Perhaps Vesta had been marking that loss. Perhaps that was why she had not come for labour at the chime of Guide’s Bell. It seemed a particularly cruel twist of Guide’s will for her to disappear on the anniversary of her father’s passing.

What horrible fate had befallen her, Bill wondered.

Had the dog got her? Had it cornered her and brought her down like a lamb? Or, Guide help them all, was there some truth in these stories of giants in the woods?

Arabel Flurrish was missing too. No one had seen her or Samewell Crook since the morning meeting. Bill Groan knew Arabel Flurrish well. She was one of the brightest and best, strong-willed and quickwitted. Bill had no doubt Bel would rise to a high Morphan office like Nurse Elect in her time. Vesta was sweet and kind, but Bel was strong and driven. Bill was certain Bel had gone out to look for her sister anyway, permission or no permission. It was typical of her headstrong behaviour. Samewell Crook, well he was driven by his hopeless heart and good nature. He was so struck on Arabel, if she’d told him to jump in the mill race with his boots on, he’d have done it. He’d gone with her, to help her, that was obvious too.

But they hadn’t come back. By nightchime, they had not returned. Worse still, just after noon, Jack Duggat had discovered that the two strangers had vanished from the compter too. Jack had gone down to take them some food and water, and found the cage open.

Had they let themselves out? If so, how? The lock on the cage was a good, strong one, and it had not been forced.

Bill suspected that Bel, perhaps in some delusion, had let them out. He would not put such unilateral action past her, especially when she was so lacking in patience and concerned for her sister. She’d been eager to question the strangers, after all. Perhaps they had promised to show her where her sister had gone in return for release?

Even so, how had Bel opened the cage? A want of patience was a true vice, and certainly one of Arabel Flurrish’s personal flaws, but even she, fired up and on a mission, could not manufacture a key out of nowhere.

Perhaps the matters weren’t connected. Perhaps Bel and Samewell had gone off, and the strangers had got out of their own accord.

All Bill Groan could plainly see was that in the middle of the hardest winter the Morphans had ever known, two strangers who seemed to come from no plantnation, which was the only place anyone could have come from, turned up on the self-same day eleven Morphans of Beside went missing.

‘They’re taking their seats, Elect,’ said Chaunce Plowrite, stepping out of the assembly to speak to Bill.

Bill Groan nodded.

‘We should go in,’ said Winnowner. In the low solamp light, she looked older than ever. Age and effort, and the stress of the current times had shaved more years off her. Bill felt a tightness. Winnowner Cropper could be difficult and set in her ways, but he relied upon her. A doctrine of continuity had kept the Morphans alive for twenty-seven generations, and it was just as vital as the doctrine of patience. One generation learned from the last. Knowledge and skills were stockpiled and maintained. The young did not have to make the same mistakes their predecessors had done, because the result of mistakes were taught so they could be avoided. Time and effort were not wasted by learning through experience. Morphans prospered by listening to their elders and learning.

Hereafter was a hard place to live and a slow place to terrafirm. It did not offer second chances, but if you paid attention to the wisdom of your elders, it reduced the chances of you needing any.

Bill could not bear to think of Winnowner going. He did not know what he would do without her. He could not imagine being Nurse Elect and not having her years and counsel to call upon. If this crisis of ice and mysteries had hastened the end of Winnowner Cropper’s life, then he…

He tried not to think about it. The plantnation records and oral histories both attested to the fact that it was always a sorry time when the last of a generation passed. It always marked the end of an era, and reminded the Morphan community of the vulnerability and the sheer duration of the lifecycle they had been born into. Bill knew that Winnowner’s death would be a watershed in his service as Elect, and his life too. He prayed to Guide that it wouldn’t happen when they were in the midst of such an unprecedented Cat A calamity.

‘We should go in,’ she repeated.

‘And tell them what?’ Bill asked.

‘Speak fairly to them,’ she replied. ‘There’s nothing we can do tonight except keep warm and keep watch.’

‘And tomorrow?’

She shrugged. ‘We search again.’

Bill sighed. ‘What if they are true?’ he asked.

‘If what are true, Elect?’

‘The stories of giants.’

‘There is nothing in all of Guide’s words about giants,’ she said.

‘There was nothing about strangers either,’ he said,

‘but today strangers came.’