Cellar

Every night was colder than the one before it. That was the arithmetic that mattered and she did it without wanting to. The nights were closing on the days from both ends and the grass had gone from gold to gray and the mornings had a blade in them now. Winter came early and hard in that country and stayed long. She had four of them behind her to know it by.

She crossed the yard to the shed and lifted the rusted red door of the cellar and went down the plank steps into the cold dark that was colder even than the morning, a dead earthen cold that did not change with the seasons, that was the same in July as in January, and she stood a moment at the bottom letting her eyes come up to it while the smell of the place settled around her, dirt and dust and the ghost of the onions that used to hang there and the flat mineral smell of the tin cans going slowly to rust on the shelves.