The earth was softening. Winter's shell was breaking, falling away. Huge floes of ice cracked and started moving again, losing mass as they integrated into the waters around them. The sun shone a little brighter, a little warmer with each day. More and more skin began to reveal itself around town as layers were shed like the layers of decay that helped warm the earth through the harshest months.

Blackened leaves began to give way to shoots of grass. Soon the glacier lilies would pop their heads out of the ground and bring color back to the world. The tourists would return to their jobs, the mountain would be returned to the animals who were already starting to swell with new life.

Audrey Rose could barely contain herself inside. The glass windows felt like a prison. Only when she could sit outside and filter the smells of wet earth, melting snow and the sun baking in the remaining evergreens did she feel all the pieces of herself come together. Invisible stitches that broke and mended made up the emotions that washed over her.

She had spent the night in Mitch's bed. Her head rested on his feet. When he slept, his toes twitched. He had naked toes, not a hair on them and they wriggled in Audrey Rose's hair. More and more she had been resting on Mitch's soles for comfort.

As Audrey Rose made her way up Buff Pass, the air warmed, morning's blush faded adn the sky deepened into an impossible blue. Up and up she climbed, until she crested a hill, to see the shadow of a hawk swoop down upon her. As she turned the hawk was ten feet off to her left, so close they could look into each other's eyes. The hawk pushed away the air and was gone over the snow, hunting the mice and voles that were beginning to make their way up above ground.

Audrey Rose was in the mood for hunting. Something inside her was restless. She shook her head and let her hair fly around. She tilted her head up and howled. She howled as loud as she could. Nothing responded, except in the distance she could hear the engines of a few snowmobiles.

Then she realized her world was too crowded. There were too many noises in her head. Snowmobiles, cars, planes, talking, doors opening, closing. She needed to be away in a place where the only sounds were those of survival, not sounds of getting by, of getting through the day to see another day. That is where life lay.

Her feet left the newly softened earth, oozing up between her toes and returned to ice, to snow. She climbed and climbed. Her breathe came more regularly, her body remembered how to exist. Her shoulders dropped, relaxed finally. Her chest expanded, no longer afraid to face what was to come and her eyes took in the world around her. Audrey Rose herself seemed to disappear, became just a tiny piece of a world that could care less about her and it was a freeing experience.

Whatever happened back here was just a part of life. There was no blame. Whatever came out here was as it was supposed to be. If the clouds covered the sun then that was good. If snow fell from the sky, that was good. If a mountain lion succeeded in capturing prey, that, too was good. And out here, Audrey Rose was good. She was the best part of herself she would ever be. The only question was, how do you return from here?