Madio made a good living with his wheel and his pots, and he had a good heart. He cooked soup to leave on the doorsteps of sick neighbors, took in stray dogs. But he had no wife, being too shy to go courting. Loneliness crept under his covers at night and got out of bed with him in the morning. Sometimes in the long evenings he walked to the inn to sit over a glass of whiskey and listen to the chatter. The innkeeper’s widow, a tall woman whose hair was still black and whose cheeks were rosy, would say a few words to him, then he would duck his head and smile in the direction of the floor and go sit in his corner.

One morning he got up, and the world was covered with snow: it made a cushion on the windowsill; it lay all over the yard like feather ticking. He went out in his old coat and mittens, and the dogs leaped around him, leaving round paw prints. When he cleared some snow to put down seed for the birds, it was heavy and resisted his hands like clay. Maybe it was the dense snow, that reminded him of boyhood fun, or the sun sparkling on everything, but he was seized with the urge to make a snow figure. He began to build, rolling the base, then adding another, smaller ball. He packed them together and stepped back. It had a waist, like a woman. His hands wanted to shape it, adding snow here, taking it away there. He spent time on the breasts, rounding and smoothing them.

When he carved locks of hair, his blade slipped, and a few drops of blood fell onto the snowmaiden’s cheek. A tongue whipped out, long and slender and pale, and lapped up the blood. She straightened. A little color came to her cheeks. Madio stepped back, blade dropping to the ground, scoring the thick leather of his boot, but he didn’t notice. The dogs sat and looked at this new person, heads to one side.

Stretching, she seemed to try out muscles. She ran her hands down her sides, rubbed her belly. Madio caught himself staring at her nakedness and blushed. He ran into the house for a moment, just for a moment, to get her a cloak. There was a yelp, then a chorus of barking. When he ran out, she was tearing apart one of the dogs and shoving strips of steaming red flesh into her mouth.

He dropped the cloak and stood with his hands pressed to his cheeks. She looked up at him and snarled, showing pointed white teeth between red lips. As she feasted, the dogs whined and huddled against his legs. After a while the snowmaiden appeared replete. She set down a furry haunch, yawned, and curled up in the snow.

Madio sat on the stoop and watched her sleep, absently patting the dogs. The sun swung toward noon, warming the yard. The snowmaiden’s edges blurred. He continued to sit as the sun went to afternoon, long rays slanting across the hedge. The snowmaiden softened into a formless heap of snow streaked with red.

Madio built a fire and shoveled the snow into it. The fire leaped up as if gulping, and settled, and leaped up again. The snow hissed as it melted to water, then to nothing.

Now the evening star was climbing up the deep blue sky. Madio went inside. He brushed his hair and put on his good shirt. Then he went out, pausing next to a bush on which green buds were just beginning to show, and broke off several slender branches. His feet found the familiar ruts in the road to the inn.

The door creaked open onto the warmth of the fire and the yellow lamplight, the smells of roast chicken and yeasty beer, the sound of voices raised in an old argument. The innkeeper’s widow smiled from behind the bar and greeted him. Madio took a deep breath and said, “I brought – I brought you some forsythia. If you put it in warm water, the yellow flowers will come out.”

The innkeeper’s widow accepted it, smoothing the buds with her fingers. “Well, now. I’ve been wishing for a sign of spring.”