In Vermont, the cold settles deeper than the skin — it curls around the bones and waits. Ghost stories drift like woodsmoke through the valleys, stitched into the mist that clings to the maple forests and the roads that disappear into the hills. In Stowe, Emily’s Bridge still groans under invisible footsteps, the echo of a girl who never made it to the other side. In the deep woods of the Bennington Triangle, people vanish into the trees, lost without a sound, as if the forest simply decided it was time.
The old towns lean into the wind, their inns and taverns heavy with centuries of whispered confessions and restless sighs. Graveyards crumble slowly into the earth, their stones worn down to nothing but memory. In Vermont, even the snow seems to fall too quietly, covering the land like a soft, patient hand — not erasing the past, just tucking it in for another long, cold sleep.
You may leave Vermont with your boots clean and your eyes clear. You may think you slipped past whatever was waiting in the mist.
But in the still hours of winter, when the world holds its breath, you’ll remember.
And the land — cold, slow, smiling — will remember you too.