Winters Child
The night Suki Voss was born, the power went out across three counties.
Not flickered.
Not dimmed.
Gone.
Every light vanished beneath a sky heavy with snow.
The storm had appeared without warning just after midnight. By one o’clock, roads were impassable. By two, the wind screamed around the old Voss farmhouse with enough force to rattle the windows.
Inside, Suki’s mother labored for twenty-three hours.
Outside, winter seemed determined to tear the world apart.
“Something’s wrong.”
The doctor spoke so quietly that Suki’s father almost didn’t hear him.
“What do you mean wrong?”
The older man removed his glasses and wiped sweat from his brow despite the freezing room.
“The baby’s heart rate.”
His voice trembled.
“It keeps disappearing.”
Another contraction ripped through Suki’s mother.
The lights overhead flickered.
The room temperature dropped another few degrees.
Everyone noticed.
Nobody spoke.
The doctor checked the monitor again.
Nothing.
No heartbeat.
His face went white.
Then suddenly—
A cry shattered the room.
Sharp.
Clear.
Beautiful.
The storm outside stopped.
Instantly.
Silence swallowed everything.
The wind died.
The snow ceased falling.
Even the old house seemed to stop breathing.
For one impossible moment, the world stood still.
The doctor stared down at the newborn in his hands.
His mouth slowly opened.
Then closed.
Then opened again.
“What is it?” Suki’s mother whispered.
He didn’t answer immediately.
His hands shook.
The baby wasn’t crying anymore.
She was simply staring.
Watching.
Quiet.
Far too quiet.
The doctor looked down into eyes that shouldn’t exist.
Eyes black as midnight.
No white.
No pupil.
Nothing but endless darkness.
A chill crawled up his spine.
He handed the child over so quickly it was almost rude.
Neither parent noticed.
They were too busy crying with relief.
Too busy admiring their daughter.
Too busy missing the thin layer of frost creeping across the metal equipment surrounding them.
By morning, every flower outside the farmhouse had frozen solid.
It was late April.
Nobody could explain it.
Suki’s first heartbeat never came.
Doctors searched for months.
Then years.
Specialists ran every test imaginable.
Machines failed around her.
Monitors glitched.
Results disappeared.
No matter what they tried, the answer remained the same.
There was no pulse.
No heartbeat.
No explanation.
And yet she lived.
Healthy.
Growing.
Watching.
Always watching.
By the time she turned four, her parents had stopped seeking answers.
Not because they had found any.
Because they were afraid of what they might discover.
The first snowfall happened in July.
Suki still remembered it.
Not because she understood what she’d done.
But because it was the first time she realized she was different.
She had been sitting alone beneath an oak tree while her cousins played tag across the yard.
Nobody ever chose her.
Nobody meant to be cruel.
They simply didn’t know what to do with the strange little girl who barely spoke.
The girl whose hands were always cold.
The girl who never laughed loudly enough.
The girl who watched snow globes with a fascination bordering on obsession.
One of her cousins eventually wandered over.
A boy two years older than her.
“What are you doing?”
Suki looked up from the book in her lap.
“Reading.”
He frowned.
“That’s boring.”
She returned her attention to the page.
A moment later, the book vanished.
The boy had snatched it away.
She blinked.
Once.
Twice.
Then her eyes began to sting.
Not from tears.
From anger.
A strange sensation spread through her chest.
Cold.
Sharp.
Wrong.
The air around her shifted.
The boy noticed immediately.
“What—”
Snow began falling.
Tiny white flakes drifted from a cloudless summer sky.
The yard fell silent.
Children stopped running.
Adults turned.
Everyone stared.
Within seconds, frost spread across the grass.
Flowers wilted beneath a layer of ice.
The oak tree creaked ominously.
The stolen book slipped from numb fingers.
The boy screamed.
Not from pain.
From fear.
Suki looked around in confusion.
Snowflakes landed in her dark hair.
Melted.
Vanished.
Her mother reached her first.
Strong hands wrapped around her shoulders.
“Inside.”
The word came out harsher than intended.
“Suki, now.”
The snowfall stopped the moment the front door closed behind them.
After that, things changed.
Her parents became careful.
Then cautious.
Then frightened.
Windows stayed covered.
Visitors became rare.
Questions went unanswered.
Every strange thing was ignored.
When frost appeared across mirrors, nobody mentioned it.
When flowers froze after she touched them, nobody reacted.
When winter birds gathered outside her bedroom window in the middle of summer, her father quietly drew the curtains.
Life became a collection of silences.
Unspoken rules.
Things nobody discussed.
On her tenth birthday, Suki overheard her parents arguing.
She hadn’t meant to.
Their voices simply carried through the hallway.
“We should tell her.”
Her mother’s voice cracked.
“We can’t keep pretending.”
“And say what?” her father snapped.
“That she’s a monster?”
Suki froze outside the door.
Silence followed.
Heavy.
Painful.
Then her mother spoke again.
“She’s our daughter.”
“Do you think the world will care?”
His voice lowered.
“The moment people find out what she is, they’ll take her from us.”
“What if she hurts someone?”
The question lingered.
Neither parent answered.
Suki quietly returned to her room.
That night she stared at her reflection for hours.
Watching.
Waiting.
Trying to figure out what made her different.
What made people afraid.
The girl staring back looked normal enough.
Mostly.
Except for the eyes.
Those endless black eyes.
They frightened her too.
The older she grew, the harder it became to hide.
By thirteen, temperatures dropped whenever she became upset.
By fifteen, frost formed on her bedroom walls during nightmares.
By seventeen, she could accidentally freeze water simply by touching it.
And despite the passing years—
She never seemed to change.
Her classmates grew taller.
Older.
Different.
Suki remained eerily unchanged.
As though time itself had forgotten her.
The realization came shortly after her twenty-first birthday.
No new lines appeared.
No subtle signs of aging.
Nothing.
Months passed.
Then a year.
Then two.
She looked exactly the same.
Frozen.
Preserved.
Like winter itself.
That was when fear truly settled into the Voss household.
Because by then, there was no denying it.
Whatever lived in their bloodline had not faded.
It had returned.
And it had returned through Suki.
On the evening of her twenty-fourth birthday, Suki stood alone outside her bedroom window.
Snow drifted softly beyond the glass.
Her fingertips rested against the cold pane.
The darkness reflected her face back at her.
Pale skin.
Black eyes.
Long black hair.
A stranger’s face.
A monster’s face.
Or perhaps something far older.
