Chapter 2 - The Dying Batteries
The cold was not a temperature; it was a physical weight.
It pressed against the boy’s thin blue cotton pajamas instantly.
He stood up, his small shoulders hiking up to his ears.
The snow beneath his bare feet felt like crushed glass.
He pressed his small, trembling hands against the frosted decorative glass of the door.
The glass was freezing.
He thought of his toy robot in the playroom.
When he left the robot by the window in winter, the cold made its batteries stop working.
The robot couldn't talk or walk until the sun warmed it up again.
Is the cold going to take my batteries too? he wondered.
He didn't want to stop moving.
He didn't want his chest to stop buzzing.
A shadow fell over the snow.
Heavy, measured footsteps crunched up the driveway.
A tall figure in a dark, wool overcoat stopped at the base of the porch steps.
The man had silver hair, perfectly combed, catching the moonlight.
He didn't speak.
He took the steps two at a time, moving with an agility that defied his seventy years.
The old man knelt.
He wrapped his massive, gloved hands around the boy’s shivering shoulders.
The rough wool of the overcoat smelled like pipe tobacco and old paper.
It was the warmest thing the boy had ever felt.
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The old man lifted the boy effortlessly into his arms, tucking the small frozen feet against his chest.
With his free hand, the old man reached for his iron skeleton key.
