The Mountain Hut Keeper – Part 2: Snowbound

The storm lasted three days.

They spent them close to the stove: playing cards, drinking tea, reading each other's battered paperbacks. Kasia taught her a Polish card game and cheated shamelessly. Rebecca taught her a terrible English song, and made her sing it. In the evenings they cooked together, chopping onions side by side, her hip occasionally bumping Kasia's.

On the fourth morning, the wind stopped.

The silence was enormous. Rebecca woke to a blaze of white light through the shutters. When she opened them, the mountains stood revealed in crystalline splendour: rank on rank of peaks, glittering with new snow, the sky a hard bright blue. She gasped aloud.

"Come," said Kasia, behind her, already in her boots. "There is a place."

They climbed through the knee-deep powder to a small ridge above the hut. The air was thin and sharp and cold enough to sting. The whole range spread beneath them, white and gold and blue.

"It's impossible," whispered Rebecca.

"Every day."

"You live in this?"

"I live in this."

They stood on the ridge, side by side, bundled in coats. A chough wheeled overhead. Far below, a thin thread of smoke rose from the hut chimney, a tiny sign of home.

"Can I ask you something?" said Kasia.

"Yes."

"Will you come back? In the summer?"

"I'll come back," said Rebecca. "And not just for the mountains. May I kiss you?"

"Yes," said Kasia, slowly. "And if you say stop, you must carry the water to the hut."

"All year?"

"All year."

Rebecca kissed her, softly, her glove rising to Kasia's reddened cheek. Kasia kissed her back with solid, quiet tenderness, tasting of tea and cold air. The sun poured down on the white slope, blinding and warm.

When they parted, both of them were smiling.

"Green?" asked Kasia.

"Green," said Rebecca. "Very green."

She came back in June. The wildflowers on the slopes were extraordinary. She stayed until the first snow.

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