Through the heavy weave of the blue tarp, a faint, flickering amber glow ignited.
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A candle.
Arthur stepped down the muddy incline, his shoes slipping through the brambles, thorns tearing at the fine wool of his trousers, until he was standing five feet from the rusted steel wall of the container.
He could hear them through the sheet metal.
“Look, Mommy!” Chloe’s voice was filled with a pure, miraculous delight that nearly brought Arthur to his knees in the mud. “You lit the bayberry candle! It smells like real Christmas!”
“It is real Christmas, sweetie,” the mother answered, her voice trembling with exhaustion as she worked. “Now sit on the cardboard. Pull your boots off. Let me see those toes.”
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The sound of wet socks being peeled away was followed by the soft, rhythmic rubbing of skin.
