The door is locked and it’s snowing outside. I’m in the sick room. I’ve memorized everything on the rows of shelves hung high on the walls. Every cracked label on every cloudy glass jar, and the musty contents inside. I’d been told not to get out of bed, that I’d heal faster if I just lay down and slept, but I’ve been in here for a week and a half and sleeping doesn’t feel good anymore. I drag myself to the shelves, stand on the stepstool, lift the jars and decipher the pencil-scratched names. Heh, her handwriting is so bad. Chicken scratch, thin little lines etched on the labels and re-darkened when they faded. One by one I made out the names of the herbs inside. Agrimony. Fennel. Horehound. Feverfew. Hundreds of names. I shake them, crack open the lid and peer inside. Some are leaves half as thick as a sheet of paper; some tiny, shriveled seeds. Some hit me in the face with a bitter or acid odor, while others are sweet or a little musky. By then the fever is getting to me again and I have to close the jars, set them back so she wouldn’t notice, replace the stool and collapse onto bed again. I don’t pull the covers over me. The heat of the sickness is enough; it makes my forehead slick with sweat.
     It’s too hot in here. I sit up and grip the windowpane over the head of the bed. My fingernails squeak against the glass. Bracing my shaky arms, I heave the window open, and the cold air blasts me. I breathe in. My throat constricts. I’m flushed with cold, and it feels wonderful. Snowflakes land on my face.
 I lean my chin on my hand and gaze out at the snow. I suppose it’s beautiful. Everything covered in white, everything silenced. No birds, no sound of the river flowing—it’s almost depressing. Then again, that might just be my state of mind.  I lick the snowflakes from my lips, which makes me realize I’m thirsty, and I turn my face back into the hot stifling room. There’s a half-empty mug of tea on the nightstand. I hate tea. I pick it up anyway, bring it to my lips, and sip the lukewarm, spicy liquid. Instead of soothing my sore throat, it burns all the way down.  I wince.
     Staring out at the white landscape again, I’m forced to think about everything I’ve been avoiding for a week and a half. The burning in my throat is a good way of summing it up. Bitter, harsh, painful. Afraid, inferior, unworthy, nervously anticipating the future. Mostly afraid. Afraid this wasn’t something I could conquer. I mean, having people come after you and attack you, try to hurt you, that was one thing. If I couldn’t conquer that, I’d have some bruises, cuts, broken bones at the worst, and they’d be gone in a matter of weeks. But this…man, if I mess up…well, let’s just say it’ll be more than me being scarred for life. And I don’t mean physical scars, either.
 All this gets to me and I suddenly remember the locked door. I get up again, dropping the mug on the floor, and stagger over to it. Even though I know it’s locked—I’ve tried it a million times—I can’t stop myself from grabbing hold of the cold metal doorknob and rattling it like I’m trapped in the room with a mama grizzly.  Of course nothing happens. It’s locked. Has been for eight days, ever since I got out and went wandering deliriously in the snow. The fever was worse then. I rattle the knob harder and louder. Maybe she’ll hear it and take pity on me. I rattle it until my wrist is sore.
 “Hey. What’s the matter?”
 I turn around, shocked, and look out the window. Standing in the snow a ways away, watching me is my brother-in-law. He’s carrying his infant daughter at his side, and her blue eyes are trained on the snowflakes like they’re sparks from a wizard’s wand. He nods at me, smiling vaguely. “Door locked?”
 My hand sticks to the doorknob. I peel it off and wipe my sweaty forehead with my sleeve. “Yeah.”
 He walks up to the window. “You all right?”
 “I don’t like locked doors,” I say hoarsely.
 He nods. “I know.”
 I don’t say anything.
 We both stand there for a long time. The fresh air is making me feel a little better but I’m still sweating. The baby babbles something, and the noise breaks the silence, but not the tension. Breathing hard, I swipe my sleeve across my face.
 “Well,” he says finally, “I don’t think she’d listen to me if I told her to unlock it.”
 “No, probably not.”
 “She’ll probably get mad about the open window too. Something about hyper-thermo…”
 “Hypothermia.”
 “Yeah. That. I don’t blame you, though. I can feel how stuffy that room is from out here.”
 I wrap my arms around me. “Rather get hypothermia than suffocate in this tiny room behind a locked door.”
 There’s a long sigh from out the window. I don’t look at my brother-in-law. The following pause lasted almost as long as I’d been trapped in here. At last he mutters, “Oh, for pity’s sake. Come on, I’ll help you climb out the window. You can at least walk around a little, and when you fall over frothing at the mouth I’ll throw you over my shoulder and haul you back.”
 I exhale and stumble to the window. “She’ll kill both of us, you know.”
 “Meh. Your sister tries to kill me every day. I think I’ll survive.” He grins and holds out his hand to me. Climbing up on the bed, I put my foot on the windowsill, grab his forearm, and he pulls me through the window. My feet crunch in the snow. For a moment my knees buckle under me, until I recover and stand up straight. The cold rushes all over me, and it feels great, and the fresh air fills me up, and for about three seconds I’m feeling glorious until the air inside heats up and my sock feet go numb and my teeth are chattering. At the same time I’m boiling and freezing.
 My brother is already taking off his coat. He’s got it mastered, doing it with one hand and still holding the baby. “Won’t you get cold?” I ask.
 He gets the coat off and throws it over my head. The heavy gray wool scratches my face. It’s still warm. “Your crazy sister made me put on layers before I went out. I have on two coats and three pairs of socks. It’s hot in here.”
 I pull the coat off my head and slip my arms into the sleeves. It’s so big that it makes me look like a small, emaciated child, but the coat is extremely warm. I look at him and he’s balancing on one foot tugging off his boot.
 “Oh, that’s not necessary. I’ll be fine, really,” I protest.
 He gives me a look that reminds me of my sister. “Yeah,” he says. “Right.” And he throws the boot at me. I catch the rubbery object against my chest. For a moment I think about throwing it back, but knowing him, we’d end up in a boot-fight and both get soaked. I bend over and put it on. As soon as I finish, he throws the other one at me.
 When both my feet are covered, I look up at him again. He’s standing there in his sock feet grinning at me. “Better?”
 I nod.
 “Good.” He slaps me on the shoulder. I stagger a little. Apologizing, he motions for me to come, and we walk. Our feet crunch through the snow. His have got to be freezing, but of course he doesn’t say anything.
 We go about fifty feet in silence, save for the baby’s babbling. She’s batting at the snow with her white fluffy mittens. I watch her intently. She looks at me and sticks her mitten in her mouth. I wonder if she’ll keep her blue eyes like her mom.
 Her father clears his throat. “You know…”
 I stare straight ahead.
 “The whole locked door thing—” He coughs.
 I cringe and look away.
 “Just because it happened to you…” He breathes in and out. “Just because your parents did that to you doesn’t mean you’ll do that.”
 I wipe my sweaty face with the back of my hand.
 “So don’t worry so much,” he says, “all right? It’s why you keep relapsing. You won’t calm down and let yourself heal.”
 “I know,” I say, very quietly.
 We keep walking. He doesn’t say anything else. I get the feeling that’s why he let me come out in the first place, to say that to me. Like it’ll help. I still have all the worries in me, and they’re still chewing me up like rats on a grain bin. I suck on my lip and watch the baby as she pats the air with her mitten, fascinated by the snow, completely naïve and trusting her daddy unconditionally.
 “I want to go back,” I said. “It’s cold outside.”
 He looks up, and looks at me, and sighs. “Not as cold as you think.”