Phantom Hollow A blizzard night

He went on, barely hearing Pema's response. "There were these clumps of poppies just outside the whelping den," Shale murmured, seeing vividly in front of him those flowers, that place. "They were so beautiful, against the snow. She was the littlest." He looked up at Pema. "Four. I had four children.

"Jack, Liam, Dove, Poppy." Just saying their names aloud gave him this unusual feeling, pain mixed with a little joy. Something that squeezed his heart yet released a weight he'd been carrying on his shoulders for so long. He hadn't uttered the names of his babes since Lucy was alive. "My wife named the boys; I named the girls."

He hung his head, breath coming in a slow mist from his nostrils, cooling on the chilly breeze. "They're dead. My wife, too." The taste of poppy flowers grew bitter in his mouth, even as he remembered. "We were starving. I gave my wife poppy seeds, to ease her pain. I would have died alongside her, had it not been for the kindness of a few strangers."

Shale blinked, turning his gaze to the medic once more. "That, I hope, explains my behavior with the poppies, earlier."