Beneath the Snow

The snow fell steadily that winter—soft, silent, and deceiving. It blanketed the small town of Halewick in a calm white coat, masking everything beneath with deceptive purity. Roads disappeared under inches of ice. Trees stood still like graveyard sentinels. But beneath the snow, something was hidden—something old, something no one talked about anymore. Or rather, something everyone had chosen to forget. It was the kind of winter mystery that wrapped itself around you, cold and patient, waiting for someone reckless or desperate enough to dig beneath the surface.

I returned to Halewick after thirteen years. Not for a reunion, not for the holidays, but because I had nowhere else to go. My journalism career had stalled. My relationships had frayed. My bank account was running on fumes. So when my mother offered to let me stay in the old family cabin near the lake, I said yes. Part of me hoped the isolation would spark creativity again. What I didn’t expect was to walk straight into a mystery that the town had buried under a decade’s worth of silence and snowfall.

It started the second day after I arrived. I was taking a walk along the frozen path that ran behind the cabin, camera in hand, looking to capture the stillness of the snow-covered woods. That’s when I saw it—something red, half-buried in the snow near a pine tree. I brushed it off gently with my boot. A scarf. The fibers stiff and frosted over. Faded tartan print. At first, it seemed random. Someone could have dropped it recently. But when I picked it up, I noticed the tag—hand-stitched initials: “A.M.” My breath caught. That scarf had belonged to Anna Merrick. And Anna Merrick had disappeared fourteen years ago.

Her disappearance had haunted my senior year of high school. She was only sixteen, quiet, kind, often alone. She lived just three cabins down from ours. One night, she vanished. No note. No signs of struggle. Just footprints in the snow leading out into the woods—and then nothing. Search parties combed the forest. The lake was partially drained. Nothing was ever found. Rumors swirled. Some said she ran away. Others whispered about something darker—a family secret, a town cover-up, a body buried in the ice. But the snow fell again that winter, and like everything else, the town moved on.

Seeing her scarf brought it all back. The night she vanished. The way our teachers spoke in hushed tones. The way her mother stopped coming to town meetings. I took the scarf back with me to the cabin, unsure what to do. Curiosity turned to obsession. I started researching again, digging through old articles, talking to locals who still remembered. Most gave polite shrugs or changed the subject. But a few, especially the older residents, had stories they weren’t quite willing to tell out loud.

One name kept coming up in murmurs—Walter Finch. He had been the groundskeeper for the north trail when Anna disappeared. Lived alone. Kept to himself. Rumors swirled around him for years—strange behavior, unexplained absences, and a personal feud with Anna’s father that no one dared bring up in court. But there had never been any proof. No evidence. Just the chill that lingered in people’s voices when they mentioned him.

I found his cabin at the edge of the woods, more ruin than residence now. Snow had collapsed part of the roof. The windows were long broken. But inside, I found remnants of something strange—a box filled with photos. Old photos of the lake, the trees, and children playing in the snow. Taped beneath one was a news clipping about Anna’s disappearance. On the back, in faded pen, someone had written: “She knew. She saw it.” That was the moment I stopped thinking this was just a cold case. It was something worse. Anna hadn’t just vanished. She had uncovered something. Something worth being silenced for.

The winter deepened. Snowstorms came in faster than weather reports could track. I became more isolated in that cabin than I expected. No internet. Spotty electricity. But I kept digging. I remembered that a week before she disappeared, Anna had been taking photos for a school project—“Frozen in Time,” she’d called it. I reached out to our old art teacher, who still lived in town, and asked if she had any of Anna’s work. She hesitated, then agreed to meet me. In her attic, she pulled out a faded cardboard box labeled “Class of 2010.” Inside were drawings, crumpled essays, and a roll of undeveloped film. “I always meant to give this back to her parents,” she said. “But they never asked.”

I took the film to the only photo shop still operating two towns over. When I returned three days later, the technician looked pale. He slid the photos across the counter without saying a word. In one of the shots—barely visible in the background of a snow-covered trail—was a dark shape. Human. Dressed in black. Watching. The next few photos zoomed in, as if Anna had spotted the figure and tried to get a closer look. In the last one, the figure was gone. But something else appeared. A gloved hand. Partially visible at the corner of the frame, as if reaching out for the lens.

That night, I didn’t sleep. I stared at the photos for hours, heart pounding, half-convinced someone would knock at the door. Or worse. But no one came. In the morning, I packed everything—scarf, photos, notes—and took them to the sheriff’s office. He was different from the one who had investigated back then. Younger. Skeptical. But he listened. Took the evidence. Promised to reopen the file. I don’t know if he meant it.

A week later, I left Halewick. The snow was melting by then. Roads reopening. The lake beginning to thaw. But as I crossed the bridge out of town, I looked back at the white hills, the trees frozen in time, and wondered what still lay hidden beneath the snow. Maybe Anna’s truth would come out. Maybe not. But I knew one thing: winter hides many things—memories, secrets, and sometimes, justice delayed but not forgotten.

Beneath the snow, the silence is never empty. It's waiting.