The first snowflake of the year floated, deliciously languid, on a teasing eddy of wind. With her tongue outstretched, Hope scampered back and forth beneath it in breathless anticipation as she tried to follow its dance. Freida watched, her arms bare to the elbow as she absently stirred a vat of soap, as the delicate snowflake veered at the very last minute and landed on the little girl's nose instead of her tongue. Hope let out a little squeak of surprise and her eyes crossed as she tried to focus on the tip of her own nose, and Frieda let out a laugh.

"You caught it! Good job, honey," she called out from the shed, where she was working.

Hope looked up and tensed briefly, like a startled deer, but she recovered quickly and nodded in grave acknowledgment of Frieda's statement. It made Frieda's heart hurt to see that serious look on the face of a girl who should still be playing with dollies and getting grass stains on her knees. It was the look of an old man who had seen too much of the world's dark underside. And then it was gone, another snowflake flitting past her face and instantly capturing her full attention, and the little girl ran after it with her tongue determinedly thrust out.

Frieda looked down at the foul-smelling vat of soap. Though it was a hot and unpleasant job, the soap needed to be made, and this batch had to be cooked longer and then poured out and cut into bars before the task would be complete. The chickens needed their coops cleaned, and she really should make some more headway on carding that new batch of wool if she wanted to have any hope of weaving it into a blanket before the bitter cold of midwinter set in. The linens needed washing and airing. The gutters needed cleaning. And somehow, despite all the demands on her time, she needed to make time to cook dinner for her husband and their son to eat when they returned from a hard day of work.

Hope ran past her field of view again, now running at random with her mouth open as the skies opened up and the snow began to fall in clouds. Someday, Frieda thought, Hope was going to have to live the life of a country woman, with all its hard work and heartbreak and hard-earned rewards.

There would always be time for work, and always more work to do. Childhood was fleeting, and there was never enough joy.

"Hope, honey," she called, "this early snow's got me in a Satinalia mood. What do you say we get a head start on the decorating and baking?"

Hope slipped and slid to a stop in the thin layer of slush – the snow wasn't sticking, the ground not yet frozen – and looked at her blankly for a moment as though she'd forgotten the holiday. Then her face brightened and she said, "Cookies?"

"Of course!"

Together they brought down the bright ribbons and swags, and they cut fresh boughs from the holly bush hedge that kept the sheep out of the garden. After hanging the beribboned boughs over the door, Frieda opened a cask of cider and set it to simmer with one of their precious sticks of cinnamon, filling the humble house with its fragrance, and then they set to the serious business of baking cookies. They chopped walnuts, mixed dough, formed it into balls and rolled those balls in the nuts.

"Now this is your most important job," Frieda told the little girl, who stood on a stool beside her. "Only a child can do this job, and Willem's not here, so I need you to do it. I need you to take your thumb, and press it down on the cookie to make a hole." Frieda demonstrated, though her own thumb made much too large a hole.

Hope nodded and bent over the sheet of cookies, her lower lip sticking out in concentration. Part of the charm of thumbprint cookies, Frieda thought, was the fact that they never came out perfect. The hole was always off-center, too deep, too shallow, or accidentally smooshed the entire cookie in half. Hope fussed over a broken cookie until Frieda told her that she should "save" the cookie by eating it immediately, raw. This was an acceptable solution.

While the cookies baked, Frieda set another pot over the fire and filled it with water, carrots, and split peas. It wasn't her most gourmet meal, but it was filling, and she had important business to attend to.

"Now, do you want raspberry jam or strawberry on those cookies?" she asked Hope, holding up two small jars of her own preserves.

Hope wrung her hands in an agony of indecision.

"How about both?"

Hope nodded so hard her ponytail bounced wildly up and down. They began spooning the jam into the finished cookies, filling the holes left by Hope's thumb.

Watching Hope's efforts to pile more jam onto a cookie than could possibly fit, Frieda suggested, "Maybe that's enough jam."

"Nuh-uh," she said distractedly. She fished a big chunk of strawberry out of the jar and balanced it on top of the jam pile. After examining it from several directions, she was finally satisfied that there was no way to add any more jam, and stuffed the overloaded cookie into her mouth.

"Is it good?" Frieda asked, amused.

"Mm-hmm."

"Shall we finish the rest?"

"Mm-hmm!" Hope wiped her mouth with her hand, smearing red jam across her face, and settled down once more to push the boundaries of just how much jam a cookie could take.

They were on the last row of cookies when someone knocked on the door. Frieda raised her voice to be heard from the kitchen. "Come around back! It's open."

Boots squelched in the slush as the visitor circled the house. The back door opened and Gatekeeper stepped in, his movements somehow tentative, as though unsure of his welcome. Snowflakes dusted his shoulders and clung to his gray-shot hair, and he had a new scar across the back of his right hand, the skin pink and shiny. His eyes flicked around the room and when he saw Hope, he went very still.

The girl's eyes widened. Then she snatched a cookie in each fist and ran, jam dripping between her fingers, to thrust the cookies at Gatekeeper, radiating pride. "I made these," she announced.

Gatekeeper's cold-reddened cheeks went pale, and his mouth dropped open in shock. Frieda realized he had never heard Hope talk before – for that matter, it was the first complete sentence Frieda herself had heard from her. Very carefully, Gatekeeper went down on one knee, lowering himself to her level. In a soft voice, he said, "They smell good. What are they?"

"Cookies! Eat them," she commanded, and shoved one cookie into his mouth, liberally smearing red jam over his chin in the process. Then she stepped back, a sort of quivering uncertainty in her posture, suddenly worried how her boldness might be taken.

Gatekeeper gulped, managed not to choke on jam, and smiled. "Mmmm."

Her face lit up as brilliant as the summer sun, and she flung herself at him, grabbing fistfuls of his jacket in her sticky little hands and burying her face in his chest. Gatekeeper closed his arms very gently around her tiny shoulders. He raised his head to meet Frieda's gaze, his own eyes shimmering with tears. "Thank you," he whispered.

"It was my pleasure," Frieda said, smiling. "Will you stay for dinner?"

"If I'm welcome."

"Of course you are!"

Gatekeeper grinned and lifted his chin to sniff appreciatively at the air. "In that case, I definitely want to share some of what smells so good."

This entirely spontaneous interlude popped into my head while I was doing the Christmas Eve baking. We'll get back to Twilight's plight and the other wolves soon, but until then, I hope you enjoy this :)

Jam Thumbprint Cookies

2/3 cup butter

1 and 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 cup sugar

2 egg yolks

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 slightly beaten egg whites

1 cup finely chopped walnuts

Jam

Preheat oven to butter, sugar, vanilla and egg yolks together until light and creamy. Slowly add the flour until it forms a dough (don't overmix).

Form dough into 1-inch balls. Dip the balls into egg whites, then roll in walnuts to coat.

Place the cookies on a greased cookie sheet and press the centers with your finger (or a child's thumb!) to make a well for the jam. Bake for 10 minutes or until edges begin to turn golden. Remove and cool on a rack.

When cool, fill the wells with jam. I like using more than one kind for the different colors, although mille libri and I discovered that cherry preserves are especially awesome and deserve a large share. Thanks, mille libri, and I'm looking forward to baking with Crewell Lye next week too!