'My pleasure,' she said, waving as the two women hurried across the street to their car, their shoes leaving tracks in the newfallen snow. As a kid she'd loved snowstorms, but as the adult owner of a restaurant, snow days were few and far between … and very bad for business. 'Thanks for staying open.'Įlla smiled, feeling foolish for the way she'd let the weird isolation out on the street get under her skin. 'Night, Ella,' one of the women said, pushing her blond hair out of her eyes. Quiet music-the lilt of an acoustic guitar-carried out to her as well, just before the door swung shut.

Alone on the street, she might have been the last woman on Earth, the only human voice remaining but afraid to interrupt the quiet conversation between snow and sky.Ī squeak of hinges and a burst of laughter came from behind her and she jumped, startled by two women emerging from the restaurant at her back. Ella shivered, and not entirely from the cold. The only sound was the snow itself, falling so hard and fast that she could hear the strange shush of it accumulating. She took a long drag on her cigarette and huddled deeper inside her down jacket before exhaling the smoke from her lungs. The city of Coventry had given itself over to the storm, and suddenly Ella felt foolish that she hadn't already gone home and crawled into bed with a mug of tea and an old movie. The bank and the boutique and the music store and the other restaurants on that stretch of Washington Street had all been closed up for hours, windows dark and abandoned.

For a couple of impossibly long minutes, no cars or plows appeared on the street. The storm seemed to loom around her, holding its breath and waiting for her to go back inside. Ella Santos stood on the sidewalk with a cigarette in her hand, watching the snow fall and feeling more alone than she ever had in her life.

Snowblind book christopher golden