Through Winter's Veil​​
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Kraków exhaled needles on the afternoon that three boys gathered beneath the last living gas-lamp on ÅšwiÄ™tego Tomasza. Powdery snow stippled their boots, melting into dark stains their imaginations conjured into warring angels and demons. The sky bruised deeper into a promise of continued dark as two brothers ambled off together, their mittened hands waving soft goodbyes.
Alone, Karol ebbed down a cobbled vein that usually pointed home. But daylight had leaked away. Cornices hardened into fangs, alleys cinched into keyholes. Street signs vanished under sleet, as though the city had entombed its own language in rime. Even the cathedral bells were muzzled; their bronze tongues struck dumb by cold.
He tallied his steps—thirty to his favorite baker’s window, fifteen more before he saw the stained glass of His sanctuary—but his count betrayed him. Gardens, once his landmarks, had shriveled into boneyards of frostbitten phalanges; windows he trusted for light now blinked shut like sullen eyes. Each breath fled him as a pale chit, snatched by the wind before it could total anything comforting.
The gale conscripted the air, corkscrewing through courtyards, wrenching laundry lines and toppling bicycles beside the boy in a chain-metal avalanche. Karol flinched, then let out a brittle laugh, chastising himself for the tremble in his slight frame—until the snow squall swelled, sanding roofs to slate, folding the horizon into itself. Sky and street fused into a single faceless sheet.
He pressed on—one block north, left at the statue of Piotr Skarga, right past the iron gate sore with rust—but the city had re-dealt its map. He felt suddenly hinged out of the world, a loose page fluttering in someone else’s novel.
A muscular gust lashed his cheeks with stinging flakes and pitched him into a drift so deep it knocked the air from him. He lay there, stunned, while his heart seemed to dig its way out.
Crunch.
Crunch.
Two footfalls scored the snow beside him. A figure emerged from the blur: tall, wolf-fur hood drawn tight, shoulders crusted with diamond dust.
Karol jackknifed upright and ran.
He tore across ice-slick cobblestones, boots skidding, but the figure thundered behind—closing the distance with every stride. Karol’s cries ricocheted through hollow streets, only to be devoured by the howling wind.
The boy slipped. Stone met spine. He lay stunned as the figure loomed above—mute, immovable, less man than reliquary, limned in vapor and frostflake.
Karol flinched, eyes clamped shut, bracing for agony as a gloved hand reached for his chest.
Suddenly, a radiant warmth bloomed within him—a soul-deep light akin to the first verdant thaw after a bitter winter.
Opening his eyes, Karol looked up in awe as the man gracefully drew back his hood,
revealing a face more familiar than his own reflection.
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​​By Felix Bou
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Felix Bou is a psychologist and professor from Tampa, Florida. After living briefly in the American Southwest, he drew inspiration from the region’s landscapes, blending the strange beauty of desert scenery with his clinical insights to craft narratives rich in imagery and introspection. His work spans genres including magical realism, noir, thrillers, and poetry. His short stories have appeared in literary magazines both in the U.S. and abroad, most notably Crimson Tide and The King of Indio. His poem To a Seasoned Friend won the Spring 2025 poetry contest at Wingless Dreamer magazine.