The One With the Girl in the Snowstorm

Veronica sat up in bed, unsure what woke her. Shackleton was stretched across her feet, pinning her feet under his bulk.
“How’d you get in here?” she asked softly. His tail wagged enthusiastically but did not answer the question.
“Walking through walls, now?”
She shivered under the blanket and realized what woke her was the absolute cold. The wind rattled against the house. She needed another blanket.
Veronica wrapped the blanket tightly around her as she stood up from the bed. There were more blankets in the linen closet in the bathroom down the hall. If she walked fast enough, she’d be back in her warm bed.
Carrying a heavy quilt, Veronica crossed by the window. Under the wind, she could hear voices.
Delicate, lacey patterns of frost were traced across the window. Veronica pushed aside the heavy curtain, literally plunging her hand into an inch layer of chilled air.
An unknown care was parked in the driveway. Four doors, a boxy foreign car. In the dark it was hard to tell the color, green or maybe blue.
Snow was falling, the first snow of the season. It drifted down in large white clumps. It was coming down fast and pilling up on the ground. The wind had already made a drift against the house and covered the front steps.
There were foot steps in the snow leading from the porch.
Keith was out in the snow, stamping his feet and rubbing his hands together. Clouds of steaming breath drifted upwards.
Veronica did not recognize the woman he was speaking to. The hood on the coat was up and obscuring her face.
The snow seemed to isolate them, make them seem like the only people who existed in the world at that moment.
Keith did not look happy. Her reached into his back pocket and withdrew a white envelope.
The girl took it with one hand, the other pushing back the hood. She looked upwards.
Flakes of snow had collected on her face but not melted. Her skin was so pale and her hair so blonde, she looked as if she could be made of snow.
Keith followed her gaze and looked up, towards Veronica.
Gasping, Veronica stepped back from the window, the curtain falling back into place. The stormy look on Keith face let her know that she just witnessed something she did not need to see.