The snow did not melt, not for weeks. It blanketed the village of Meerfeld in a silence too thick to bear. Even the birds had grown quiet.
When the villagers found the house, still and cold as the grave, they knew what awaited inside. But they did not expect to find the small girl, her fingers blue, arms wrapped around her sister's ribbon and her family's corpses. She did not speak. She did not weep. She simply blinked, dazed, as if her soul had frozen too.
The burial rites were held the next day beneath the cracked bell of St. Thalor's chapel. The village gathered in heavy coats and heavier silence. Snow flurried as Father Gerwin, his voice worn and warm, recited ancient prayers and newer comforts. He named each of the dead with the slow reverence of one used to loss.
"Wenzel, woodsman and husband. Ilsa, healer and mother. Linna... little blossom."
At the third name, something trembled in Liora's chest, but it did not reach her eyes. She stood with her arms crossed tightly over Linna's ribbon, her lips drawn shut.
No tears fell.
When the last handfuls of frozen earth were cast into the open grave, Father Gerwin laid a sprig of blessed evergreen atop the mound. "May the ground remember them," he whispered.
Nan Theda's cottage smelled of dried rosemary, boiled potatoes, and firewood. It was smaller than Liora's old home, but warm. Cozy in the way old blankets are worn thin, but still clinging to kindness.
Nan did not ask her to speak. She fed her broth with chunks of root vegetables and pulled her into bed with thick quilts and whispered lullabies. When Liora woke in the night screaming, Nan was there, her hand gentle on her forehead, no questions asked.
Liora said nothing for four days.
On the fifth day, she helped Nan gather water from the well. On the sixth, she picked dry herbs from the rafters and separated them into jars. On the seventh, she began following Nan into the garden. There was comfort in the dirt, its damp richness grounding her, reminding her the world had not ended, even if hers had cracked in two.
She still didn't speak, not really. She answered when spoken to, short murmurs. But she watched everything: the firewood stack, the hens, the moss creeping along the garden stones. Her silence had a shape. It was heavy, but not empty.
And always, the ribbon remained. She wore it tied to her wrist, fraying, faded. Nan noticed but never asked.
"Grief has no rules," she told Liora one morning, as they steeped dried lavender into tea. "You let it in, but you don't let it take root."
That night, Liora dreamed again.
She was back in the orchard, where spring always bloomed early. Linna stood at the far end, her hair tangled with blossoms. Her laughter rang like bells. "Liora!" she called.
Liora ran. The sun was warm. The blossoms rained.
She reached out, but her hands passed through air. Linna vanished. Only a ribbon remained, caught on a branch.
Liora awoke weeping for the first time since that night.
Nan said nothing. She simply sat beside her and hummed an old song, the kind only grandmothers remembered.
Over the next weeks, Liora began to return, piece by piece. She swept the floors. She mended old shawls. She learned how to mix sage and yarrow into healing salves. Nan taught her to watch the sky for signs, the color of the clouds, the songs of birds.
"Everything leaves its mark," Nan would say. "Even sorrow."
Some evenings, Liora would sit by the fire and stare into the flames. Her hand would slowly move to the ribbon, fingers curling around it.
"She sang nonsense songs," Liora said one night, her voice hoarse from disuse. "About marshmallow clouds and sugar foxes."
Nan smiled gently. "Children know truths we forget."
"She wasn't supposed to die," Liora said.
"No," said Nan. "But neither were your parents. And still you're here."
Silence settled between them, soft as ash.
Spring did not come easily that year. The snow lingered into the first of planting days, delaying the orchard blooms. But slowly, the ground softened. Shoots pushed through the frost-hardened soil. And Liora, too, began to change.
She wandered to the edge of the orchard alone one day. The trees were still bare, but one had a small curl of buds at the end of its branch. She reached up and touched it.
Behind her, the wind rustled.
She thought she heard Linna's voice, humming. Just once.
She did not turn around. Instead, she smiled.
Maybe, just maybe, she was still listening.
And Liora, little by little, began to hope again.
Later that month, Father Gerwin visited Nan's cottage. He knelt beside Liora as she pulled weeds from the garden.
"You've grown strong," he said.
She looked up. "No, I haven't."
"You're still here," he replied. "That's stronger than most."
She said nothing, but she pressed Linna's ribbon tighter in her palm.
A breeze stirred the herb jars hanging in the window.
Nan whispered from the doorway, "The forest keeps its secrets, child. But it also remembers. And sometimes... it blesses."
Liora didn't know what that meant. Not yet.
But she would remember those words, under the blossom trees, years later.