By midnight, the thermometer at the house reads -49 ºC. At the barn, it reads -51 ºC. My nose hairs instantly freeze when I inhale. The air makes me cough. All exposed skin starts to dry out. My boots creak on hard, compacted snow as I walk across the yard. I help my parents drag square hay bails into each stall. A habitation fog starts to trail after us like smoke.

Our horses watch from behind the fence. Their thick coats glisten with frost, their nostrils chuff air like an engine. I can see small icicles dangling from their whiskers. They know what's about to happen.

I open the back door of the barn. The horses trot in, ice shimmering on the angles of their eyelashes, manes, backs, and fetlocks. They already have their own preferred stalls. When I shut the door again, the only light comes from the tac room at the opposite end of the barn. It's dark and warm, smells of manure and hay. The shadows are full of rustling hay, grinding teeth, an odd whuffle or two. I can see the suggestion of bums and glint and hiss of flicking tails.

We turn off the lights and close the front end. I'm sweating under my jacket, but I don't bother to loosen it up. The sky overhead is like something taken by a satellite. There are more points of light up there than grains of sand on all the world's beaches. They feel closer to us in the unearthly cold.