Cold Rose.

The air in Corinth, Georgia did not move; it pressed. It was August of 2020, and the humidity hung over the town like a wet wool blanket, thick with the scent of rotting magnolias and exhaust from the logging trucks that rumbled down Highway 411.

Clara Hollister adjusted the air conditioning vent of their Volvo, but it only blew a weak, lukewarm sigh across her face. Beside her, her husband Benjamin, kept one hand on the steering wheel while his fingers tapped rhythmically against the plastic. He was humming--some obscure jazz melody from the 1920's that he'd been obsessive about since he accepted the chair at the college.

"Are you sure the realtor left the keys under the porch stone?" Clara asked, lifing her straight, dark hair off the back of her neck to let the faint breeze touch her skin.

"That's what the email said," Ben replied, his voice carrying that soft, reassuring cadence that had first drawn her to him during his graduate seminars. He turned his head toward her, his soulful dark brown eyes crinkling at the corners. He reached over, his long, lanky arm stretching effortlessly across the gear shift to squeeze her knee. "Don't worry, Clare. It's an old town. People still leave their back doors unlocked here."

Clara looked at him, feeling the familiar, grounding warmth of his presence. Ben was twenty-nine, tall to the point of slight awkwardness, with a mop of curly brown hair that never quite stayed where it was brushed. He looked exactly like what he was: a brilliant, slightly romantic, history professor who spent more time in the archives than in the sun.

The job at Corinth College was the tenure-track position they had prayed for, the sole reason why they had packed up their entire lives and bought a piece of land sight unseen.

The car turned off the county road, the tires crunching heavily over a driveway of packed red clay.

Through the overgrown branches of weeping willows, the house appeared. It was a classic, albeit decayed, 1920's craftsman bungalow. The white paint was long gone, replaced by a weathered, silver-gray patina that looked like dead skin. The front porch sagged on the left side, supported by crumbling brick piers and a wild, unpruned rosebush climbed up the wooden columns, its flowers a strange, unnaturally pale pink-almost white.

"It has charecter, " Ben murmured, killing the engine. The sudden silence of the country layout settled over them, broken only by the dry , metallic rattle of cicadas in the pines.

"It looks like an artifact," Clara said, stepping out into the suffocating heat. Her boots sank into the red dirt.

Ben walked up the creaking porch steps, his lanky frame leaning down as he fished beneath a flat river stone near the door. With a soft grunt of satisfaction, he held up a heavy, tarnished brass key. "See? Trust the local realtors."

He fitted the key into the lock. The door gave way with a loud, protesting groan, throwing open a draft of air from the interior.

Clara stepped across the threshold, but she stopped three feet inside the parlor. The air inside wasn't just stale; it was freezing. It was an unnatural, localized winter that seemed to radiate from the very floorboards, a cold so sharp it made the breath hitch in her chest.

"Wow," Ben said, walking past her into the dim living room, completely oblivious to the chill. "The original crown molding is intact. Look at these built-ins, Clare."

Clara didn't look at the molding. She looked toward the back of the house, where a long, narrow hallway led toward the kitchen. At the far end, a single window looked out over the overgrown backyard. The cold seemed to be pulling from out there, a deep, heavy draft that smelled faintly of damp earth and old linen.