The Collector of Almosts

Snow had just begun to fall when my youngest climbed into my lap, her mittened hands still dusted with frost. Outside, the world was turning quiet and white — the kind of stillness that makes secrets feel heavier. It felt like the whole house was holding its breath. She looked up at me with a seriousness that didn’t match her small face.

“Mama… is the Collector of Almosts real?”

The question settled over the room like another layer of snow. The fire cracked softly. Her siblings lifted their heads from their blankets, watching me with wide, waiting eyes.

I pulled them closer, drawing their blankets around them. The hearth warmed our little circle, but the cold near the window carried that sharp winter feeling — the kind that makes you feel like the night itself is listening.

“Come here,” I said gently. “All of you.”

They gathered in, shoulders touching, breath warm against my sleeves. Their father was still out in the workshop. He always stayed out a little longer when the first snow fell.

“It starts on a night a lot like this one,” I said.

Outside, the snowfall deepened. A few flakes drifted past the glass in a way that made them glow for a moment. My eldest leaned forward, studying them.

“They look like sparks,” he whispered.

“That's because,” I told him, “the sky lets go of more than snow on the first night of winter. The sky lets go of tiny lights. Not stars — those stay where they are. I mean little pieces of things people almost did. The words they almost said. The goodbyes they almost gave. The chances they almost took."

My middle child breathed, “Almosts?”

“Yes,” I said. “Almosts.”

Another glowing flake passed by, slow and weightless. “If you look closely, you can see shapes inside them. A ring. A letter. A promise someone never kept. Sometimes even a choice someone wanted to make but didn’t.”

The wind brushed the window, long and low, as if it remembered.

For a moment, so did I.

Back then, I didn’t think anything of it. I just went on with my day.

“I saw one once,” I murmured before I could stop myself. “I was still too young then to understand what Almosts meant. I thought it was just strange snow."

Three little faces turned toward me.

“It drifted through a storm, glowing like it wasn’t sure it wanted to fall.”

“Do they fall for everyone?” my eldest asked.

“Not everyone,” I said softly. “Only for those standing close to a moment that could change their life.”

Their eyes widened, and something quiet settled over them, deeper than before.

“The Almosts don’t stay where they land,” I continued. “They drift toward the lake. Always the lake. Always the ice.”

My son swallowed. “Why the lake?”

“Because that’s where he waits,” I said. “Under the frozen surface.”

My daughter pressed closer. “The Collector?”

I nodded. “That’s what people call him.”

The fire popped sharply, and she jumped. I smoothed her hair until she settled again.

“What does he do?” my eldest asked, his voice thin and careful.

“He gathers the Almosts before they grow too heavy for a person to bear.”

The children exchanged a look — half fear, half wonder. I let the firelight warm my hands before speaking again. Outside, the snowfall blurred the world into a soft white, making the glass glow faintly.

“There was a winter,” I said, “long before any of you were born, when I came close to making a mistake I couldn’t undo.”

Their faces softened into a different kind of silence.

The kind that listens.

I watched the snow drift past the window, thick and steady, and felt the past rise inside me like something surfacing beneath thin ice.

“Winter has a way of catching the things we almost lose,” I said quietly. “And that was the year the Collector came for me.”

The memory opened slowly, the way frost spreads across a window.

I could still feel that winter — colder than any I’d known since. I had been young enough to think running would fix the ache inside of me. Young enough to believe distance could quiet a heart. I’d convinced myself he was better off without me, even if I never said it aloud. I didn’t want to leave him. I just didn’t know how to stay.

That night, the wind never rested. It pushed against houses, swept through trees, and chased me all the way down the narrow path to the lake. Snow gathered in soft drifts at my feet, and each step felt like walking deeper into a world pulling itself apart.

I carried a small wooden charm in my pocket, smooth from years of handling. He had carved it for me one winter long before, the first gift he ever gave me. I didn’t even want it with me, not then. But it was the last piece of a life I thought I needed to leave behind. I held it anyway.

Sometimes the things we try hardest to leave behind are the things we hold onto the tightest.

The lake was a wide sheet of white glass. No cracks. No movement. Just silence. I stepped onto the ice and let the cold rise through my boots. Snow drifted around me in slow spirals, settling on my coat, my hair, my lashes. I remember thinking the ice looked thinner than I expected.

For a long moment, I just stood there.

Thinking I could walk away from everything.

The wind rose again, sharp enough to sting. My fingers tightened around the charm. Maybe it was the cold. Maybe it was fear. Whatever it was, my hand opened without meaning to, and the charm slipped free.

The charm skidded into a thin patch near the center. Then it was gone, swallowed by the dark water underneath.

Part of me tried to believe it meant the past was better off behind me. I turned away telling myself that walking off that lake meant stepping into a new life.

But then something shifted beneath the ice. At first, I thought it was just the light playing tricks, or my mind trying to fill the silence. But it moved again — a shape drifting under the surface, slow and sure, tracing a path directly beneath where I stood.

The ice began to glow faintly.

A pale light spread outward as if something below was trying to rise through the darkness.

And then came the sound.

A soft knock from underneath.

Not loud. Not sharp.

Just enough to make the hair on my arms lift.

Something was alive beneath the lake that night.

Something knew that I was there —

And knew exactly what I was about to walk away from.

As it neared the surface, details began to gather around it, like frost finding form.

The figure rose through it without breaking a sound. He was tall, almost weightless, built of pale light and ice. Droplets slid down his limbs and turned to frost before it touched the ground. His ribs looked like thin glass, and inside them drifted into small glowing shapes — objects carried like memories. A ring. A scrap of paper. A feather. A child’s button. A broken key.

And then I saw it.

My wooden charm.

The one I’d dropped only moments before.

It glowed warmer than the rest, suspended inside his chest like it belonged there. Like it had never really left at all.

His eyes opened – pale, tired, aware.

“You almost let it go,” he said. His voice sounded like shifting ice, low and hollow but steady.

“You almost left what mattered.” He didn’t say it harshly. Just like a fact I’d been avoiding.

I couldn’t speak.

The wind swept snow across the surface, but it curled around him without touching.

He looked down at the charm inside his chest, then back at me.

“You dropped more than this.”

The meaning of those words settled heavily in my chest. He wasn’t talking about wood. The charm was only the first piece. I had been letting go of him long before I stepped onto the ice.

He lifted a hand toward me.

“Come,” he said. “You need to see what nearly slipped away.”

I stepped toward him. The ice didn’t shift under my weight. It felt steadier than the world around me did. Snow drifted across the lake in thin ribbons, falling so quietly it barely made a sound.

The Collector touched the surface with his fingertip, and the frozen lake cleared beneath us.

Darkness turned silver.

Silver turned to light.

A small glow pulsed beneath the ice, and shapes rose through it like memories surfacing.

I saw a house first. Warm light spilled from its windows, soft and golden against the snow. Smoke drifted upward from the chimney. Someone stood in the doorway, watching the road with a stillness I recognized even before his face came into view.

Him.

The man whose charm I had carried for years.

The man I almost left behind.

He held the wooden charm in his hands — whole again, as if the lake had never taken it. It’s a strange thing… how you don’t realize what matters most until you feel it slipping. The way he looked at it… the way his shoulders sagged… he had no idea I could feel him missing me. It told me everything I needed to know. Losing me had already begun to hurt him.

The scene shifted.

Two children ran across the small room inside the house, laughing as they dodged around the furniture. One climbed into his arms, pressing their cheek against his. Another tugged at his coat, smiling up at him with eyes that seemed to glow.

I didn’t even know their names, but I loved them the moment I saw them.

They weren’t faces I knew.

But something inside me recognized them instantly.

A future I hadn’t lived yet, but suddenly ached for.

I didn’t know you could miss a life you hadn’t lived yet.

It didn’t feel imaginary. It felt possible.

The Collector watched me instead of the vision.

“This is the life waiting for you,” he said. His voice wasn’t cruel. It wasn’t even sad. It was simply true. “This is what grows from what you are about to abandon.”

The children in the vision laughed again. The man lifted one into his arms, holding them close, and the warmth in his face tightened my chest.

The vision wavered once, then faded back into silver.

Then back into darkness.

My wooden charm glowed inside the Collector’s chest, steady and warm.

“You haven’t lost it,” he said. “Not yet.”

The snow settled around us in soft layers.

The world held still, waiting for my choice.

The light beneath his ribs dimmed to a slow pulse. The charm floated gently inside him, as if held by breath alone.

I knew that shape.

I knew every notch, every uneven curve.

He had carved it for me when we were young — a shy winter gift neither of us had the words to talk about. He had sanded it smooth with the sleeve of his coat and handed it to me with trembling fingers. The feeling between us was quiet, warm, and unspoken.

And I had almost left it behind.

Almost left him behind.

The realization cut through me like the cold.

The Collector watched me, silent, as if letting me carry the truth on my own.

“You still carry him,” he said. “Even when you tell yourself you don’t.”

I knelt, unable to stand beneath the heaviness in my chest. My breath fogged the air in front of me, breaking apart in small, trembling clouds.

“If I walk away…” My voice felt thin. “This — I gestured toward the fading vision beneath the ice, the warm house, the man in the doorway, the children whose faces I already missed — “it disappears?”

The Collector’s eyes softened.

“Almosts are all fragile,” he said. “Some fall into the lake and vanish forever. But some are caught in time, before the world loses them.”

His hand drifted outward, palm open.

Almosts aren’t accidents. They’re warnings.

The charm inside his chest brightened.

“You can still choose him,” he said. “But the choice must be yours.”

Some people are never Almosts. They’re meant.

I knew he meant more than the charm.

I stood slowly. My legs shook, but something inside me felt clearer than it had in years.

The Collector stepped aside, giving me a path across the ice.

The glow beneath his ribs dimmed, and my charm drifted into his chest like a coal settling into ash.

“When you are ready,” he said, "the Almost will return to where it belongs.”

He faded into the snowfall, sinking back beneath the lake like a fading lantern.

I didn’t look back again.

I ran.

Snow fell fast as I crossed the village. My breath burned in the cold, and the world blurred white around me. By the time I reached his door, my hands were numb and my heart felt like it might crack.

A warm light flickered behind the window.

I lifted my hand to knock — but the door opened first.

He stood there.

Eyes tired.

Jaw set.

As if he’d been waiting by that door longer than he’d ever admit.

His gaze dropped to my empty hand — the place where the charm should’ve been.

“I’m sorry,” I breathed. It was all I could manage.

His shoulders softened — not much, just enough to let a breath escape him. He stepped aside, letting the warmth of his home spill into the doorway.

“Come in,” he said gently.

And I did.

That night was the first time I realized some futures don’t depend on perfect choices.

Only honest ones.

The fire crackled softly as I finished speaking. My children sat in a small cluster at my knees, the blankets pooled around them like fallen snow.

My youngest looked up first.

“Mama… was that charm from Dad?”

I nodded. “Yes.”

“And you almost left him?”

Her voice wavered — not accusing, just trying to understand.

I brushed her cheek gently. “I thought running would make things easier. But it would’ve taken everything that was supposed to come next.”

My eldest swallowed hard.

“And the Collector… he showed you all that?”

A soft smile pulled at me.

Not happy. Not sad. Just full — the kind of full that makes your chest warm.

“Yes,” I said. “He showed me what was waiting if I stayed. What I almost lost.”

The wind pressed against the window, carrying the hush of falling snow.

My daughter leaned closer.

“What did he show you, Mama?”

I looked at all three of them — faces warm in the firelight, eyes so full of life, full of the future the Collector had shown me years ago.

And I whispered the only answer that ever mattered:

“He showed me you.”