I looked up at the house. It was cold, and it was snowing.

Swirling snow tumbled down, dancing and weaving amongst themselves. Billowing clouds of snowflakes everywhere, and the entire view was white, white and grey.

A snowflake landed on my bare skin and melted into a small droplet of water.

The exposed fingers that held the envelope trembled and I gripped it harder.

I entered the grounds slowly, hearing each footstep crunch loudly as I went on. I had to go on. I had promised.

It had snowed at my grandmother's funeral; frosting the roses I had placed on her coffin. They were red ones, and I had focused on them all the time the priest was talking, barely aware of him other than his monotonous voice in the distance. Slowly the flakes had landed on them and made them brittle, icy, cold crystalline shapes, instead of the soft velvet red that they had been.

She had given me three envelopes, one to read… and one to take up there and one to read after doing that. They were ordinary envelopes, white, like the kind you find in any stationary store. On the front she had written the addresses in a red pen, even though they would never be sent.

My stomach churned. I couldn't really believe she was gone. It was like she could still be around, she would still come visit, but she wasn't ever going to do that anymore.

We'd grown apart, and now she was gone for good, I was being attacked by sharp pangs of regret.

When I was younger we talked more, but when I had grown older I had alienated her. I hadn't wanted to explain the details of my life to someone who wouldn't understand. It hadn't really crossed my mind that she was my age once.

It had surprised me when she gave me the envelopes. I had never really thought about Edward as a real person, but going back, I remember looking into her faded eyes, and she had not been lying.

It was easier when I was younger. I didn't have to think of the truth, I could just accept it. It was true, and that was all the facts of it.

Swirling snow. I pulled my coat tighter around me and stepped into the courtyard.

It was filled with weird shapes, and suddenly I was scared. The idea of meeting him in the person scared me.

All around me were fantastical shapes, each suddenly menacing and macabre, but dead. Dead with snow on them. The dark green of the topiary contrasted with the white that was upon them, smothering them.

The path wasn't overgrown, it was cut neatly, which seemed even more sinister, the pallid grass all the same height, carefully done and lovingly looked-after.

I nestled my chin in the warmth of the dark blue scarf, feeling numb and wishing I was with my boyfriend Dan, or anywhere but here in this sparkling frozen world.

I looked back, my footsteps already filling with more snow, and I started up the steps.

My Grandmother had left for university after the final semester was over. She fell in love while she was there, and remained in the state until 20 years later, when my Grandfather, Eric died. After that she moved back here, gazing up at the forbidden building.

The steps ended and I was at the door. I froze and looked back again. White snow had settled on the town below and it looked quiet, inaudible. Like a big blanket, settled over everything.

I knocked the door, but there was no answer. It was quiet, and I breathed in and opened the door.

It opened silently, not like a squeaking door you would expect in this kind of place, or in a horror movie.

"Hello?"

My voice echoed around the room, and I couldn't hide the quaver in it.

"Edward?"

I started towards the machinery, when I heard a voice on the stair.

"Kim?"

I looked around and saw him. I gasped, my breathing turning raspy and my heart beating faster.

He existed.

He came down the dark staircase and stopped only a few metres away from me. He looked like I had been told, and I was shocked.

His face seemed to be a single network of scars, and yet it was so pale. His eyes were dark, but he didn't seem frightening. Not until you looked at his hands.

I shook my head.

He took a step back, his face making a strange expression and I realised in a bizarre moment that he was afraid of me. I didn't understand how. He was a tall man, dressed entirely in a black kind of leather, and he had sharp blades. I was small and totally unarmed.

"You don't have to be frightened," I said, trying to hide my own fright.

He took several steps forward and looked at me in the pale light.

"Where's Kim?" He said softly, and I realised he was unused to talking to people. "Do you know her?" His distorted face was animated yet dark, understanding.

I looked at the grey stone floor.

"She asked me to give you this." I held out the envelope but he couldn't take it. I held it there while he snipped off the top of the envelope and I removed the object inside and held it up for him to see.

It was a necklace, small and golden, with a single heart shape in the centre.

He looked at it, and all the hope on his face left him.

"She wouldn't come?" He said, in a mixture of puzzlement and despair.

"She couldn't come." I said, unable to hide the trembling in my voice. I looked at the door behind Edward.

"Can you help me?" He said, looking at the necklace and changing the subject.

"Of course."

"Thank you."

I fastened the tiny clip around his neck, feeling uncomfortably close to him, and looked at it where it hung, a gold heart against the black.

He looked at me again, and I realised that behind the horrible mask there was a person, and that person was in pain.

Inside his eyes there was a depth I hadn't seen before. It wasn't filled with anger, nor threats, not even sadness at being alone for so long, but with resignation.

He accepted that it was dangerous for her to come here again; he acknowledged that they could never be together, but still he loved.

How long was he going to remain here for? Her time was over, but it was like he was frozen in time. He didn't have a time he could belong to. What was it I read? 'It is better to burn out than to fade away?' Maybe it was true.

This wasn't something you learned about at school. This wasn't something you could be told. I just knew, and I hurt for my Grandmother.

A song ran through my head and I tried to ignore it. 'How long must you wait for me?'

A headache started pulsing a constant rhythm. 'How long must you pay for me?'

I looked up at the man. He seemed older now.

"I didn't mean to intrude"

"You haven't."

'How long must you wait for me? Forever?'

I looked in his eyes. They were almost black and surrounding them was a deep region of purple. A long scar went barely a few millimetres from the corner of one of his eyes but he still might have been handsome once.

His body was tall and thin but he stood awkwardly, scissors downwards, snipping nervously occasionally.

'I was scared, I was scared.' I frowned. Edward snipped again, and I realised I was still anxious. I could hear my heart, playing a fast additional drumbeat to the music in my head.

'Tired and under prepared' There was a silence.

"I'm Laura." I said

"Edward."

'But I'll wait for you'

"I should go."

"Please stay."

He spoke quickly, shortly, with an almost childlike tone. He still seemed younger, more awkward than me even though he was decades older.

"How do you know Kim?" He said all in one go, not looking at me.

I paused for a moment. 'If you go, if you go.'

"She's a relative."

I looked around at the hall. There were dusty machines and metal everywhere. Books littered shelves and light filtered in through small windows.

"You're all alone here?" I asked, even though I knew the answer.

He nodded.

"Will you show me around?"

He nodded again

"Thank y-"

"You're welcome." He said and I followed him down the hall.

'Don't leave me down here on my own'

He went up some stairs and I was in a large room. Washed-out light and spiralling snow came in through a hole in the ceiling, which was half-collapsed. It looked like it could fall at any second. On one side of the room there was a bed, and newspaper and magazine clippings on the wall.

In the centre were ice sculptures. Beautiful art, like the kind you see at weddings, but bigger, more vivid, real. So real, but so still and frozen.

"You made these?" I said before realised how pointless the question was. "They're beautiful."

"Thank you." He said, and I thought I saw him smile fleetingly before he turned his head into the shadows.

I pulled the dark green raincoat I was wearing closer to me. His life seemed so cold, bleak, frozen. He stayed here, waiting for someone who was gone, but I could go. I could go have fun, I could go and fall in love, live in the sunshine.

'And I'll wait for you' I tried to remember where I had heard it but it refused to come to me.

"Do you want to see the rest?"

"Yes." I said, swallowing.

'How long must you wait for me?'

I put my hand on one of the statues, subconsciously checking it was real, and it was. 'How long must you pay for me?' I looked at my hand. Pearly drops of ice had melted on it, like tears.

I followed Edward's quick walk down the stairs and across the hall. Two pairs of footsteps pattering across the stone floor.

He paused outside a room, and then leant against the door. It didn't open.

"Can you…?"

I turned the door handle and it opened.

"This is his study."

There were books everywhere, moulding paper littered the floor and diagrams were pinned to the walls. I walked past Edward and over to the desk and opened a thick book. It was about Edward. It showed how he had been created, and how he would he would be when he was finished. I didn't understand that Edward was just a creation. Did that mean he wasn't a person who could think, or feel? How could he love so deeply?

I dropped the book where it made a mushroom cloud of dust. Edward flinched and there was a line of red across his face.

"I'm really sorry." I said, aghast and walked towards him. He held his scissors in front of his face, not as a threat, but as a place to hide. 'If you cut us... will we not bleed?' I thought stupidly.

"Are you okay?"

He gaunt face showed nothing, but he nodded.

"Yes. Thank you."

He went out the room and I followed.

The hallway continued to a pair of dark doors.

"His rooms." He said, quietly, already moving onwards, further into the dark house.

"Uh.. Edward?" I said, my nerve breaking

He stopped and looked at me.

"I have to go."

His look again was one of acceptance; he knew that I would probably never return, or that he would never see Kim again, even though he didn't know she was dead.

"Goodbye."

I had already started walking.

"Goodbye Edward." I said softly, but I know he didn't hear me.

Outside the house it was snowing more furiously than ever. I thought I saw him at one of the cracked glass windows, but then it was gone, and I stumbled onwards through the snow.

Tears went down my face. I had abandoned this man, this man with no friends in the world, just like I had ignored my grandmother. I hated them, I hated myself.

She was dead, Edward was worse; he was frozen.

'How long must you wait for me? Forever?'

I reached the end of the path, and I didn't look back again.

'Singing please, please, please, come back and sing to me,

To me, come on and sing it out, now, now

Come on and sing it out to me, me…

Come back and sing it…'

I felt naïve. I felt like my heart was crying too, and I felt like a wretched fool.

'In my place,

In my place

Were lies that I couldn't change

I was lost, oh yeah…'

In my pocket there was an envelope with red writing, creeping over it like a scarlet spider's web.

I walked on, and out.