It hasn’t snowed for 213 days, and the town of Winterbend is smelling like dust. The pine trees stand bare and gray against a sun that refuses to dim. The lakebed cracked weeks ago, splitting along the old dock like puzzle pieces forced apart.

Harper Cole keeps a tally on his porch railing, tiny notches he carves with a steak knife, one for each day without snowfall. People tease him about it, but they still glance up at the sky when they pass his house. Same blank blue. Same weightless quiet.

The ski lodge never opened this season. Todd from the feed store says the weather doesn’t feel right, like something is holding its breath. The news keeps promising “unprecedented weather stability,” which sounds too neat for what this really is—an absence spreading wider by the hour.

Last night, Harper heard a faint crackle over the radio. It was under the county announcements. It sounded like static until a voice came through, soft, whispering, “We’re still falling, Harper. We’re just not reaching you.”

This morning, he wakes to find frost on his porch railing. Not ice, not snow. Just a dusting of white shimmer that melts before he can touch it. He sharpens his knife anyway and carves one more mark into the wood.