Chapter One

the way back

The cloud cover parted; silvery moonlight revealed the verdant, tree-lined forest path ahead.

There was a streak of frosty white ice down the length of the trail. The same trail. The trail we had raced down only minutes ago.

...how hadn't I noticed? Anna - I was holding Anna before. We had stopped at the edge of the valley and I had slipped off my mare and carried her straight on, into that strange and humid place, past steaming vents and mossy boulders -

I hadn't looked back.

Elsa. Now, on our return, she rode with me.

I looked down at the top of her pale blonde head. Her braid was coming undone. I tucked a loose strand of her hair behind her ear, drew my fingertips over the side of her soft cheek, and she turned and glanced up at me, her blue eyes glinting in the moonlight - like the sparkling ice before us, leading us back down the misty trail to the town and the castle.

I smiled at her, stroked her brow and kissed her head. She leaned against my chest and nestled there silently.

I was wrong. I had been wrong. Oh to think that only a week ago - no, less than a week, only days, just days ago - I had stood my ground and disallowed Agdar to - but now? I couldn't then, but now - now this. It's my fault. It's mine - how could I have let this happen?

I glanced to my right, at my husband, sitting straight in the saddle, looking calmly ahead, dressed in his black waistcoat and golden-tasseled court uniform, grasping the reins with one hand and carrying our littlest girl in the crook of his other arm. She still slept. Her face - eyes closed, head lolling upon his forearm as their muscular white stallion trotted along...a pale blonde streak amongst her strawberry blonde strands. Wait, was she...?

She was smiling in her sleep.

Anna.

I closed my eyes. Fools, Agdar, we are fools.

I exhaled so loudly that my daughter stirred below me. I looked down at her and she looked up at me.

"Darling - you should try to sleep."

She nodded and pressed against me again, her fingers grabbing the velvet of my dress, face turned to the right...

Her eyes were still open.

"Elsa, rest darling."

"Anna - "

" - she'll be alright. Remember? That's what the troll said."

She looked across at her father and his horse and her sister. Her eyes closed for a moment...then reopened. Watching. She glanced at her open palms. Then she buried them in my skirts.

I gripped the reins in one hand and reached down with my other in search of my daughter's own small hands, somewhere hidden in the folds of plush cloth. I found their shapes and clasped them within my palm.

"It'll be alright," I told her. Sleep, darling.

But she said: "She won't remember tonight, Mama?"

"No. I don't think so...not as it was."

She was silent for a moment. Then: "Is that good?"

"It's for the best," I echoed softly.

"It makes me feel strange."

"Strange?"

"That Anna won't know what happened. What really happened."

"Sometimes...secrets are good to keep."

"And sometimes it's best to forget?" she added.

I looked down at her and her eyes were closed. And she was resting, she was. My little girl.

Oh Agdar. I am foolish. You were right. You were right, I was wrong, I did not maintain control, you did, I should have trusted you. I should have listened. This time I will. This can never happen again.

I will remember this.

I remembered:

five days before

"Come sit next to me, Idun."

I walked slowly across the room, to the bed, and glanced at the place where his palm had touched the top of the bedding. But I didn't sit.

I looked down at him.

"Idun..."

"...yes?" Lightly.

"Please." He touched the blue duvet again. "I want to show you what I've come up with."

There was a pink sunset outside. Warm, salty air circulated into the room through the open windows. What a pleasant evening it would be.

"I would rather stand."

He folded his hands. "Fine." He glanced at the little white box at his side. "I have been thinking all day about...the talk we had last night. I believe you are right," he said. "The curse is connected to her emotions."

I crossed my arms over my chest and glanced to the left, at the adornments lined upon the mantelpiece.

"Elsa's our responsible one. She'll do whatever we tell her to do. Why we haven't taken advantage of that before now..." He lifted off the lid of the white box.

"What happened was an accident," I said.

"Yes, I know. She couldn't help it. So. We have to do something to help her because, as you said...her emotions make her dangerous."

"I did not say that. I did not say Elsa was dangerous."

"You said her emotions could be." His fingers tucked into the open box. "Remember that it was you, you, who identified Elsa's condition months ago. You called it a dangerous curse."

Months ago. My shoulders slumped. I covered my face with my hands. Control yourself, now's not the time, control - but oh how I wanted to let it all out. All that I felt. How I wanted to escape it. I shook my head.

"Idun, Idun. Please. I know how stressful it's been for us these past few days. Please. Sit and look."

I dropped my hands and, yes. I went to the bed, sat, and looked.

He said, "What she needs is some help...something that will keep her mind off of the curse - by keeping her emotions in check. And I've been thinking of a way to help her do that," and he held out his palms.

Gloves? I said: "...gloves."

He smiled. "Yes." He spread them out on the bedding between us. They were a pure, snowy white color. Almost seamless. I reached and touched them with my fingertips. Supple, leather, snowy white gloves.

My husband watched me closely.

"They are beautiful," I said.

He nodded and turned his head away and looked out the open window, at the pink colored sky over the fjord. "She could put them on whenever she needs to. Just for this purpose - "

"...purpose?"

"When she feels that she may be losing control of her feelings. To help calm her."

"...whenever she needs to?"

He nodded.

"No." Forcefully. "This is not a good idea."

He looked at me. "But why?"

"I can see where this will lead."

"And where will this lead?"

"She'd learn to never take them off."

"Why do you think that?"

I picked up one of the child-sized gloves and showed it to him. "What are we teaching her if we do this?"

"Idun - "

"We'd be teaching her that she has something inside to be afraid of, ashamed of, something to hide."

"She does have something to hide. But this is not just to hide. It's to help her control."

"No. I don't agree. We're not giving her special gloves."

His hand lifted and he rubbed his forehead with his palm: a headache? I touched his arm. He said, slowly, "If it's true that she can never be cured...than this is the best thing possible for her. The curse...soon, it could get out of hand, something far worse could happen - "

"You don't know that."

"Idun, she froze the interior of her room."

"And?"

"Door, windows, carpet to ceiling. Because of nothing more than a scary dream."

"...and?"

"She's eight."

She's eight. "What is your point?"

"My point," he said, "is that Anna was shivering horribly when I went in and checked on them. What if - "

"No." My voice raised. "I won't allow this. I can't."

"Idun, it's getting worse every year. We have to do something to help her control it, conceal it, help her feel and be normal. Don't you want to help her be normal?" He smiled at me.

I slipped my hand into his and squeezed. "Maybe she doesn't have to be normal. There has to be something else we can do to help her. Other than this."

"You told me we can't ignore it anymore. Remember?" His warm, hazel eyes. He was doing all he could to win me over. The gloves were beautiful. "And you're right. We must face it now, before anything else happens."

"But this is not facing it," I said. "This is hiding it again. And now you want to take it even further? This will not work."

"But we haven't tried it like this before. If she can learn to forget that the curse is there - imagine how much less stress, less of a burden she'd have to bear - " His hand rose imploringly.

I shook my head. "We'd only be teaching her to pretend that she's something she's not. Agdar, we are raising a future monarch. If we do this, if you give her gloves, we'd fail to even raise her to be well-adjusted. As an individual. Let alone..."

His expression hardened and I stopped talking. He took the glove from my hand and scooped its pair from the bed and dropped them back into the white box. He closed it with the lid. Then he rose from the bed and walked across the carpet to the doorway.

"Agdar, how could you ever expect her to competently rule, or even to live, with such a secret lurking just under the surface? I am right - it's as much a part of who she is as her emotions, her - her personality, her body - would you ever ask her to pretend those things don't exist?"

"No," his voice rumbled, and I wasn't sure if he meant -

"...Agdar?" I ventured quietly.

He stood still, and breathed in deeply several times. Then his shoulders straightened. "I told you that I would not do anything without your consent." He looked back at me from over his shoulder. "I hope you think carefully about this. Let - let me know," he said, his chin dropping, his voice dropping, barely more audible than a whisper, "what else it is that you'd have us do for our daughter. Otherwise I am giving her the gloves."

He was gone.

I sat upon the bed until the sun sank below the horizon and the coolness of the evening air filled the room, the white box there beside me. Eventually, I opened the lid. I looked.

Only the finest for his firstborn. Elsa would like them. They were beautiful.