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Francesca Agnelli leaned forward to rest her elbows on her daughter's bed. If she prayed right now, she was worried her daughter would think that was a bad sign. Gabriella was on the cusp of life, yet to experience half of what the world would give her. She pursed her lips and put one hand on her daughter's. "A big heart shouldn't be a bad thing," she whispered.

In Bethlehem, in Israel,

This blessed babe was born

And laid within a manger

Upon this blessed morn,

The which His Mother Mary

Did nothing take in scorn:

Oh tidings of comfort and joy,

Comfort and joy,

Oh tidings of comfort and joy.

The long stretch of road between Bethlehem and the intersection at Whitefield followed a series of languid curves and rural woods. I switched my focus from the GPS strapped to my sled just by my left hand to the watch strapped to my right wrist. Six thirty, according to the glowing hands on the watch. Estimates had the storm coming into the county in forty minutes. I raised my head and looked off into the darkness ahead.

"Skynda!"

"Sweetie, I know they gave you some heavy stuff," she whispered into her daughter's ear. "I'm just letting you know I'm here. Hold on, baby. I know your thing's sprinting, but this is like what Mommy did, okay? You've got to hold on a long time, pace yourself, keep yourself just going forward. Don't worry about time, worry about finishing." She laughed. "I bet you're having dreams about running now, huh? Maybe I should plant a subliminal message to clean your desk off."

Watching from the doorway, Freddy Bellevue put one foot forward across the threshold. "No," he murmured, stopping himself. "Wes has always been right about what to tell them. No crystal balls, Freddy." He moved again, this time headed to the bank of instruments next to Gabriella's bed. "Mrs. Agnelli," he said. "Your daughter's signs are looking good after that last incident. I'm just giving everything a once-over to make sure she stays stabilized. Keep encouraging her; she can make it."

He looked down at the mother. "And don't give up on miracles." He ignored his own mind's revulsion at such a glib platitude. His heart didn't have a single problem with it.

From God our heavenly Father

A blessed angel came,

And unto certain shepherds

Brought tidings of the same,

How that in Bethlehem was born

The Son of God by name:

Oh tidings of comfort and joy,

Comfort and joy,

Oh tidings of comfort and joy.

At times now, as we passed the Whitefield junction of Routes 3 and 302, I had my feet off the skids, adding whatever small bit of strength I could to our journey. Bipeds don't have much to add, I lamented. To my right, the Ammonoosuc River still rumbled under sparse sheets of ice. The Zealand Recreation Area was coming up. Wind swept the road, and I started to worry if it would be strong enough to blow away the snow that my sled relied on when I passed other, more open stretches of the highway. Half past the hour now, I laughed at myself. "I'll have plenty of snow soon enough," I said.

"You're a miracle," she whispered when the doctor had left. "Gabby... Gabriella. You're our angel. You know, people say a marriage changes after a child is born, and it does. It got harder, harder to make ends meet, harder to have time to ourselves, harder to find time to relax. But that’s just the responsibility of a parent. And your father, he was always so quiet, and so shy, and just couldn't stand up for himself. You melted him, honey. Everything he did, he started to do for his little Gabby. He started to stand up in meetings, to stand up to the people trying to pull a fast one on him. And he started to show the love that I thought had faded with those honeymoon years. You changed him, and you changed me. And you've got too much more to give, to go away now. This is your time, baby. Make a miracle."

The shepherds at those tidings

Rejoiced much in mind,

And left their flocks a-feeding

In tempest, storm and wind,

And went to Bethlehem straightway,

This blessed Babe to find:

Oh tidings of comfort and joy,

Comfort and joy,

Oh tidings of comfort and joy.

Past the Mount Washington Hotel now, I saw the clouds looming deep over the massive landmark behind the red and white grand hotel, lower than they had been hanging in Littleton. I didn't have to check my GPS to know the road was curving to the south. The watch showed that I had fifteen minutes before the expected arrival of the storm. I looked out over the heads of the dogs, reading their movement. Down the road ahead, the true mouth of Crawford Notch at the crest of the hill past Mount Willard and Elephant's Head rock.

Down that hill would be the treacherous descent Doctor Lenard had reminded me about in his parting cautions. On clear summer days, I remember parking our car at the turn-outs on the side of the road and taking pictures of the twin cascades that would be on my left. Opposite them was a breathtaking view of the Willey Brook Bridge. A picture of the two of us posing with the bridge in the background hangs in my house. If I wasn't careful, I could be in the foreground of many other pictures of the bridge, this time as a little white wooden cross. If my luck held out -- keeping in mind what kind of luck I was thinking of -- that was where I would be when everything started.

It was quiet enough right now, but the wind was picking up. It carried back to me the sounds of the dogs breathing. I listened to it a moment, and called out, "Seinn." Slow. Trying to escape a streak of bad luck was just as foolish as Oedipus trying to escape the Oracle's whispered predictions. All that got him was a heap of misery and a bad reputation.

Everyone dies. Doctor Gates's words repeated in her mind, but not in the way he meant them. He meant to make her feel better, that the inevitable part of another person's life could give her daughter more time to do so much with hers. If all the pieces fell into place. How much had all the pieces fallen into place for her at this point? It seemed at every point, when something could go two ways -- good or bad -- it was going bad. How? And how could things possibly get better? That last thought hissed in her mind, like a serpent in the garden.

And with that last thought, she heard the song. She remembered the gift the doctors had bought Gabriella, an iPod with a speaker dock. They had already, with the help of several of her friends and teachers from high school, uploaded hundreds of Christmas songs to the device. Playing right now, conveniently enough was Bing Crosby singing “Count Your Blessings” from White Christmas. She closed her eyes.

As bad as it was, no, it wasn't as bad as it could get. She was holding in when doctors said the severity of the disease put her at high risk for going into cardiac arrest. If it was as bad as it could get, the scene played out an hour ago would have ended in the sound of tears instead of the resumed beep of the heart monitor. It was a blessing. It was just hidden, like all the others had been. Each time the worst could happen, their gift was just a little better than the worst.

She didn't pray out loud, but still, looking down at the blankets slowly rising and falling with her daughter's breathing, she closed her eyes. She didn't ask for anything, didn't beg for her daughter to suddenly sit up and live the rest of her life healthy and happy. She didn't even ask for the simpler gift of just that one little improvement on the condition that had seen so few. She apologized, first, to herself; her continued laments and doubts did her, did Gabriella no good. And she sent only thanks to Heaven, and to God; her daughter was strong, and every time she needed Him, He was there. In small ways, unseen, but still there.

It was the kind of prayer that was so light, that it reached His ears the fastest of any.

But when to Bethlehem they came,

Whereat this Infant lay,

They found Him in a manger,

Where oxen feed on hay;

His mother Mary kneeling,

Unto the Lord did pray:

Oh tidings of comfort and joy,

Comfort and joy,

Oh tidings of comfort and joy.

There's an image of death people know. Dark and foreboding, he is a tall specter wielding a terrible scythe with which he comes to reap your soul. He is clad in a black robe, a hood casting shadows over his visage, and you are thankful it is. For deep within the darkness, a cold grinning skull stares out at you with empty eyes; he has come for you and there is no escape.

We live decades fearing it. That day. The thought of it, that this nightmare creature had just swept into the hospital, reached out its fleshless hand and plunged it into Faye's very being to rip away everything she was... no. She had been given the news. Six months, one month. A day. After the first time, we grieved, we went through those stages they talk about, and we got to acceptance. And after that, we were ready for six months. And then she held on for another year. And we were ready for one month. She held on again. When it came, she had no fear, because she knew.

No, death is not the grim terror waiting to pounce. He is a simple man, with a gentle face and a gentle voice; he walks behind you your entire life. On his shoulder is a large bag, and with each step you take, he takes what is intangible about that step -- your feeling at that moment, the deed you had done, the deed that was done to you, or the one that wasn't -- and he places it gently into the sack. And some time in the course of your journey, this man, your fellow traveler leans forward and whispers in your ear, "Let me lead." When that time comes, you may hesitate, you may hang on for a while, but it comes. And he has been preparing: each moment he has saved, you will see and it will be all you need in the adventure he will take you to.

Out there, that night. Of all nights, that night. There I was, the sound of the dogs barking, the harness straining, the sled creaking. No glow of a star guided me, just the glow of the GPS and the trust my own sense of direction, but it was like that night long ago: this journey, for one little boy. Clouds hung low, but they only threatened so far. I knew what had hit North Conway, and I knew it was sweeping up the notch. The AMC lodge at the Crawford Depot was in view now, Saco Lake coming up on my left. I knew that there was something waiting for me ahead, and prayed it would let us make it down the long, steep road just past Mount Willard. But it was the face people feared.

It was there three years ago to steal our son. It tried to steal Faye that same spring night. And there, on a night that I would have been telling our little boy to get to sleep fast so Santa could come, it was trying to steal another. Death, the real death, was not the one I cursed as the first snowflakes fell, cresting that hill. The imposter and the thief, the demon hiding itself in the shadows wanted that girl's life tonight too. It wanted to keep Faye's gift from her. And if I dared challenge it, if my team dared continue, it was showing me just what it intended. The sheer drop to my right, the roads slick from the two cascades on the left. I couldn't see either; just a curtain of white.

A flicker of light caught my eye, and I looked down. The guiding glow from the GPS showed a battle to punch through the oncoming cloud cover. I turned it off; it was best I not trust it now. The wise men had a star, but I didn't think anyone would call what I was doing wise. Santa had Rudolph, but none of the dogs had glowing noses, just wet ones. But it was what I carried -- not gold and spices, not toys for all the children in the world-- that convinced me, not that I could make it through, but that I had to make it through.

But the thief was not going to give up. Before me it placed not all the demons of Hell but the very depths of Perdition itself. The barren chill of the storm bit at me. The driving snow blinded me to anything beyond Odin's and Freyja's upright and alert ears. The wind plunged my world into a silent world where only its harsh roar was given voice. This was the deepest level of Dante's journey, the barren plain of Cocytus wherein were frozen the damned souls of the greatest betrayers. Focusing all the senses that I could on the road ahead, knowing that time demanded we keep moving, I coaxed the dogs forward. I'd read the Divine Comedy. I knew Dante's next destination.

He had touched the lowest places, and had nowhere to go but up.

Hurried footsteps shuffled outside the room. Her daughter's heart monitor trilled out an odd rhythm, returned to normal, slipped back to the strange discord, back to normal. A nurse swept in, flashed a quick smile to Francesca, punched some buttons on one of the instruments, checked some other instruments, and just as quick she was gone. No alarms. No soul-freezing blue light from the hall. Yet the air in the room grew thick.

How could this end any other way? She cursed the thought the instant it snuck back into her mind. She willed herself to answer. It will pass like the storm. My daughter is something worth fighting for. "God," she whispered, forgetting herself for that one moment, "help her."

There was a little more weight in that one, but the first one already had His attention.

Now to the Lord sing praises,

All you within this place,

And with true love and brotherhood

Each other now embrace;

This holy tide of Christmas

All others doth efface:

Oh tidings of comfort and joy,

Comfort and joy,

Oh tidings of comfort and joy.

"No!" I growled, feeling the sled slip along an icy patch. I didn't need my senses to tell me I was passing the cascades. I stared into the snow, almost able to make out the thief’s face in my mind. "Not here, not at the bottom, not just before I make it -- where I know you would just love to leave me. You're a play-god. You're a joke. You're nothing without my fear to feed on. And I will starve you."

I saw Odin's head turn a small bit to his sister's. "The human's losing it..." I heard a voice say in my imagination.

"He lost it long ago," my mind responded in its interpretation of Freyja's soft bark in response. "Don't forget what it was like with him in Alaska."

My voice and my whimsical musings grew silent again. The dogs picked their route down the blessedly straight span of road without any command from me. I was too busy walking the sled down, providing enough resistance to avoid making our descent a break-neck avalanche of fiberglass and fur. The Hallelujah Chorus rang in my ears, imagined just as much as the dogs' voices but beautiful nonetheless, when I felt the incline level off. I glanced down at my watch. The chorus quickly changed to O Fortuna.

I don't tend to be the type who lets out expletives -- namely the "F" bomb or the "S" bomb, as I call them -- and I didn't that night. It was Christmas after all. That didn't stop a very long hiss of "Shhhhh..." from escaping my lips. Nearly nine o'clock and I had only gone so far as a few hundred yards. That was a lot of time to be made up, and while I could keep traversing the storm with little problem, I was not about to drive recklessly into the blinding snow.

"Worry later," I mumbled to myself. "Go now."

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