title: Keeping Warm: Essays and Stories
author: First Last
description: Following the Reflections of a StorytellerEssays and Stories by Max Schott
zlib_text: ![](Images/image00267.jpeg)
  
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  **1**
  
  The history of the world begins in ice, and it will end in ice.
  
  Or at least, that's how the dawn chill felt in the bedchamber as I shrugged
  out from beneath the cozy feather comforter under which my cousin and I slept.
  I winced as I set my feet on the brutally cold wood floor. Any warmth from
  last evening's fire was long gone. At this early hour, Cook would just be
  getting the kitchen's stove going again, two floors below. But last night I
  had slipped a book out of my uncle's parlor and brought it to read in my
  bedchamber by candlelight, even though we were expressly forbidden from doing
  so. He had even made us sign a little contract stating that we had permission
  to read my father's journals and the other books in the parlor as long as we
  stayed in the parlor and did not waste expensive candlelight to do so. I had
  to put the book back before he noticed it was gone, or the cold would be the
  l