Her father's hand caught her chin and gently turned her head around. How soft his hands are, Tiffany thought. Big man's hands but soft as a baby's, because of the grease on the sheep's fleeces.

"We shouldn't have asked you, should we…" he said.

Yes, you should have asked me, Tiffany thought. The lambs are dying under the dreadful snow. And I should have said no, I should have said I'm not that good yet. But the lambs are dying under the dreadful snow!

There will be other lambs, said her Second Thoughts.

But these aren't those lambs, are they? These are the lambs that are dying, here and now. And they're dying because I listened to my feet and dared to dance with the Wintersmith.

"I can do it," she said.

Her father held her chin and stared into her eyes.

"Are you sure, jiggit?" he asked. It was the nickname her grandmother had had for her—Granny Aching, who never lost a lamb to the dreadful snow. He'd never used it before. Why had it risen up in his mind now?

"Yes!" She pushed his hand away, and broke his gaze before she could burst into tears.

"I…haven't told your mother this yet," said her father very slowly, as if the words required enormous care, "but I can't find your brother. I think he was trying to help. Abe Swindell said he saw him with his little shovel. Er…I'm sure he's all right, but…keep an eye open for him, will you? He's got his red coat on."

His face, with no expression at all, was heartbreaking to see. Little Wentworth, nearly seven years old, always running after the men, always wanting to be one of them, always trying to help…how easily a small body could get overlooked…. The snow was still coming fast. The horribly wrong snowflakes were white on her father's shoulders. It's these little things you remember when the bottom falls out of the world, and you're falling—