“Sure,” he said. “I get it, I really do. Take as long as you need to. Like, a week? I’ll text you in a week.”
“Thanks for the coffee,” I said. “I’m going now.”
“You’ll let me know in a week, right?” he said, looking up at me anxiously. “I think I was scared of how I felt about you. I think that’s why I messed up with Gerda.”
“A week,” I said, making no promises. But I could already feel myself weakening. He looked at me so appealingly, after all, like a child who wanted approval. Would it be so hard to care about him again? Had I ever actually stopped?
I texted Stephanie, to catch up on the departmental gossip. What happened between Gerda and Kay?
It only took her a moment to respond. I heard they had a big fight. He broke up with her, she threw her Norton Anthology of American Literature at him, and it hit a mirror in his dorm room. He got some glass close to his eye. Had to go to the emergency room to get it out plus a couple of stitches. That girl is batshit crazy.
Why hadn’t he told me about that? Probably because he was ashamed of it, of having gotten involved with someone who would pull a stunt like that. And also of being hurt by a girl.
* * *
When I don’t know what to do about a situation, I ask my mother. Kay was a situation I didn’t know what to do about, so I went home.
I sent my mother a text to let her know I was coming, but she didn’t answer. Well, she often had her notifications off—if she turned them off by accident, she never knew how to turn them back on again. She was hopeless at technology. It had taken me a year to convince her to give up her flip-phone for something more practical. It was Thursday, which was her weekday off, so she wouldn’t be at the library.
“Mom!” I called as I pushed open the front door. “Mom, are you home?”
No answer, but I heard the murmur of voices from the living room. Did she have guests?
I walked from the hall into the living room. My mother was standing by the fireplace that had once been functional in our nineteenth-century brownstone, but was now purely decorative. Around her stood a group of men and women in business suits, with sashes arranged diagonally across their chests. I recognized the light blue and white of Winter’s national flag. There was the Matriarch, in her white hat. On either side of her stood a priestess in a white robe with silver collar and cuffs. But most prominent among them was a woman in a red dress, the color of geraniums. In that company, my mother looked plain and small in her black t-shirt and jeans.
“Vera!” she said, as though startled to see me.
The woman in the red dress turned sharply toward me, then looked me up and down.
“Your Royal Highness,” she said. She was tall and striking, with short white hair and a sharp nose. I was startled when she made me a deep curtsey. The men and women in sashes bowed or curtseyed, according to whether they were wearing trousers or skirts. The Matriarch and her priestesses remained upright.
“Excuse me?” I said. “I don’t understand…”
“Vera,” said my mother, coming forward. Suddenly, she was the most authoritative person in that room. The transformation took me by surprise—my mother did not often take charge, except in the library. “This is Baroness Hapsenkopf”—at least, that is the closest approximation in English. “She is the prime minister of Winter. When you were a little girl and your father was killed by his younger brother, she helped us escape, or we would surely have been imprisoned by him and his allies. He was not a good ruler—under his management, the country took on a great deal of debt to finance industries that have not made a profit. Now there is inflation, and no money left to repair the roads or educate the children. There is discontent among the people. Three months ago, he was overthrown by the army. The loyaltists who helped your father were released from prison, and they have been attempting to form a new government under the Baroness. Now, they would like you, as the only direct descendant in the royal line, to return as ruler.”
“But my father—” I said.
“Was Luthorion VII, King of Winter,” said Baroness Hapsenkopf. “You will be Veriska II. The first Veriska was a warrior queen who battled against the Ice Trolls. What we need now is not a warrior but an economist, a ruler who can repair roads, fund schools, and create jobs for the people. And the Ice Trolls have long been our allies. I have been approached by the Ice King himself, who has offered his son in marriage to cement an alliance between our nations. You are, of course, under no obligation to accept, but it would be an advantageous match.”
For a moment, I could not think of anything to say. It was as though the entire world had suddenly shifted under me, as though reality was not at all what I had thought, but something else altogether. The Baroness and the semi-circle of dignitaries from Winter were staring at me, as was my mother—waiting. I had to say something. But what?
“I’m neither a warrior nor an economist,” I said, finally. “I’m not qualified to be queen of anything. I mean, I’m just a grad student. The most responsibility I’ve ever had is being an R.A.” This was ridiculous—I had an oral exam to study for, and suddenly I was supposed to rule Winter? Marry an Ice Troll? Fix an economy when I could barely keep track of my credit card balance, even with the banking app? And yet suddenly, a great many things in my life that had perplexed me came into focus, as though I had put on a pair of glasses for the first time. All the pieces of a complicated puzzle were fitting together. They showed me a picture: of Winter, and who my father had been, and why my mother claimed to have forgotten his rank. No wonder Nana Anna had taken such care to teach me the history of my country. A moment ago, the future had stretched before me, shapeless, formless. Now, it took a definite shape, as though flakes of snow had fallen and formed a pattern: a woman made of snow.
“Veriska,” said my mother, calling me by my full name for the first time since I was a child. “Your choice has repercussions here as well. You see, the snow has not gone away. It is still cold in Boston. Winter is more than a country—it is also an idea. It exists among the mountains, and also in the imagination. There must be a king or queen of Winter to maintain balance among the seasons.”
Okay, I sort of got that. I had been trained to understand metaphors. I mean, it didn’t really make sense, but then neither did a lot of other things that were nevertheless real and tangible. Somewhere, there was probably a Summer kingdom as well. But I was still not comfortable with the whole concept. “Why does it have to be a king or queen?” I asked. “Can’t you elect a president or something?”
“You may abdicate, if you wish,” said the Matriarch in her sonorous voice. “But doing so will plunge our country once again into chaos. There is no other clear heir to the throne, and several claimants in an indirect line who will fight each other to death if given the opportunity.”
So a constitutional monarchy it was, then. A republic was clearly not in the cards. “Can I have some time to think?” I asked.
“Of course,” replied the Matriarch. She looked at her wristwatch. “We can give you an hour.”
One hour to make the most important decision of my life? These people were crazy, the whole situation was crazy. I was about to say that when I saw the Baroness’s face. It was carefully neural, but there were dark circles under her eyes and cheekbones.
Nana Anna had told me about the men and women who had been sent to prison—or worse, to labor camps in the mountains—for supporting the last king. She had simply neglected to mention that he was my father. The dignitaries in front of me, with their blue and white sashes, were some of those people.
“All right, one hour,” I said. I walked out of the apartment and down to our street of brownstones, then turned and made my way to Commonwealth Avenue. It was the middle of summer, but the people who passed me were still wearing winter coats. I walked around for a while, randomly, then went down to the Charles River and stared at the ice still floating on the surface. It wasn’t thick enough to walk on—there was black water underneath
. Should I agree to become Winter’s queen? I felt completely inadequate to the task.
Suddenly, the ice on the river cracked into large chunks. The chunks had nowhere to go, so they simply lay on top of the water. The cracks made a pattern in the language of Winter: they spelled out Queen Veriska. I rubbed my eyes, absolutely certain that I was hallucinating.
“It’s not an illusion.” Who had said that, in the language of my country?
Next to me stood a woman in a light blue dress, with a white fur collar and cuffs. She was wearing a white fur hat on her gray hair and carrying what I thought was a ruff of the same fur until I realized it was a fox as white as snow. Behind her stood a sleigh carved of white wood with silver runners, to which were harnessed six white geese.
“Lady Moon,” I said. I mean, it was obvious who she was—Nana Ana had told me enough stories. Either I was ready to be committed to a mental hospital, or I was having an encounter with a supernatural being.
“Winter needs you,” she said. “You see, it is calling to you all the way here in Boston.”
“But I don’t know how to be a queen.” I looked back down at the ice. Now it was spelling out Come home Queen Veriska.
“When have you known how to do anything before you did it?” she asked. “Did you know how to swim before you learned at Walden Pond in summer camp? Did you know how to write a paper before your eleventh grade teacher taught you in Honors English? You will learn this as well. Baroness Hapsenkopf will teach you, as will your mother, the Queen Dowager.”
It was disconcerting how much Lady Moon knew about me. But then, she was Winter’s equivalent to Santa Claus. She probably knew everything.
“This is different,” I said. “No one was going to drown if I didn’t learn to swim but me. No one else was going to get an F on her paper if I failed. But if I fail as queen…Anyway, I don’t understand this whole business about balancing the seasons.”
“The Snow King or Queen brings winter,” she said. “Then as the year turns, the King or Queen of Summer—currently Rudolph IV—brings back warmth and sunlight, banishing the cold and darkness until it is time for winter again. But the two monarchs must coordinate carefully. If Rudi comes while snow is still lying on the ground, it will cause terrible floods. So you must work with him, you must hand off responsibilities, as it were—he has been waiting for months now for the coronation of Winter’s queen.” I could tell from the tone of her voice that she was being patient, but I had maybe five or ten more minutes of her putting up with my nonsense. At least, that’s the way Nana Anna would have said it.
It all sounded—well, a little crazy, and like a lot of responsibility. How in the world was I supposed to do all this?
“Hold out your hand,” she said. “Over the ice. Just there—hold it steadily.” I had overestimated: by her tone, I had maybe a minute more of her patience. I didn’t think she would frown at me the way Nana Anna had. She was much more likely to turn me into a rock, as she had the daughter of Ivor the Ice Troll in fairy tales, and then smash me to smithereens.
I held my hand over the icy river. What was this supposed to do?
The cracks in the ice reformed themselves into the words What do you wish, O Queen?
What did I wish? I didn’t even know anymore. “I wish winter would end,” I said. I did, at least, want that. Let the high school students play Ultimate Frisbee on the university’s small patches of green space. Let people eat ice cream while walking down the street in T-shirts.
Your wish is our command, wrote the ice, and then it broke along those cracks. The pieces of ice stood up on end and danced on the choppy black water, then melted. The sun came out from behind the gray clouds. It was not warm, exactly—it was still a winter sun. But it was something.
“I shall tell Rudi that you are on your way,” said Lady Moon with a tight-lipped smile, the same smile her fox seemed to have on his face. I could tell that I had sorely tried her patience. “Run along, Veriska. Give Queen Agata my best wishes, and tell the Matriarch that I will be back in Winter for Christmas, as usual.”
I walked back to the apartment in a daze. When I entered the living room again, I walked up to Baroness Hapsenkopf and said, “All right, I’ll do it. I’ll be Veriska II. I mean, you’ll have to teach me how, but I’ll try.”
“What convinced you?” asked the Matriarch, sounding as though she did not particularly approve of me—but I was the only Veriska II she had, so she would have to make the best of it.
“Lady Moon,” I said. “She…well, we had a talk. I mean, she did most of the talking.”
My mother looked at me with astonishment, but the Matriarch nodded as though she were not at all surprised.
“Then it is time to leave,” said the Baroness. “There is a helicopter waiting for us on the roof.”
Somehow, I had been expecting a sleigh drawn by snow geese, or something equally improbable. But a helicopter would work as well. I turned to go pack, but no, I would not need to pack. There was nothing here I needed, not even my tattered and heavily underlined copy of The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson, and anyway from now on my packing would be done for me. I had more important things to do—a country to save, a balance to restore, if I could just learn how.
“All right,” I said. “I’m ready.”
* * *
A week later, I got a text on my cell phone. It was still my old iPhone with an international plan. I was getting 3G even in Winter.
Holy crap it’s all over the Daily Free Press you’re like a queen. Do I call you majesty or what. Summer finally here.
I was standing in the greenhouse attached to the palace, under the quince trees. I had spent the morning in a meeting with the finance minister, and would spend the afternoon in a meeting with the ambassadors of Sweden, Norway, and Denmark. Should I write back? At least to tell Kay that I was meeting with a representative of his country. Or not—I doubt he was texting me to hear about politics. Why was he texting me? Oh yeah, it was a week after our meeting in the Blue Moon café.
Winter here. In royal palace. Coronation yesterday, so yes, I’m officially queen. Your majesty, ma’am, whatever. ;)
The response came almost as soon as I had written mine.
So no hope of getting back together I guess. Ma’am.
I had to laugh. The gall of him! I still cared about him—I did, didn’t I? Despite the whole Gerda incident. But at a royal reception, I had met the crown prince of Trollheim, whose name was Edrik. Trolls are a lot better looking than you would expect. He had really pretty blue eyes, and excellent taste in British rock bands. We had a long discussion of existentialism once we’d escaped from the reception with a handful of canapés. I didn’t know if I wanted to marry him, but I wasn’t ruling out the possibility. He wasn’t sure how he felt about the arranged marriage either, but we’d already decided to spend a weekend skiing together. I’d learned to ski as a child and wasn’t sure if I remembered how. But if he had to teach me, that wouldn’t be such a bad thing, would it? Anyway, Winter needed an ally against the frost giants. Or maybe I would look into joining NATO?
You can’t date me from Boston, I texted back.
What if I came to Winter.
Do you even know how to get here?
Pretty sure there’s a Lufthansa flight to Finland. From there I don’t know. Reindeer? It could be like a quest. Or like a road trip except with sleighs.
I looked around me at the glass walls of the greenhouse. Inside, it was all trees and leaves and blossoms. Outside, the snow was just starting to melt. At this altitude, summer came late, even in ordinary years. Here I was, the Snow Queen—what I was born to be, at least according to my mother and Baroness Hapsenkopf. I did not feel like much of a queen. However, in the last week, I had met with members of parliament from the three major parties, the heads of various labor unions, the generals who had participated in the recent coup, the Matriarch and her council of priestesses, the director of the Central Bank, and at my insistence, a selection of ord
inary citizens chosen by lottery, from university professors to plumbers and seamstresses. I had been interviewed by both major newspapers, all three state television stations, and an online journal called WW for Women of Winter.
I did not know if I would make a good queen, but I was starting to see what needed to be done, how to restore the economy of my country. It would take a while, but these things always did. Slowly, Winter would regain its former reputation and independence from the IMF.
All right, I texted. If you can figure out how to get here, come find me.
Would Kay make it to my palace of white stone veined with quartz, or get lost along the way among the snows? If he made it, would I choose him or Edrik, who was after all a prince? I didn’t know, but today I was the Queen of Winter, and I had more important things to think about.
For a moment, I stood among the quince trees, whose white blossoms looked like snow on the branches and fell like snow to the ground. Outside, a dusting of snow fell from the roof, like blossoms blown by the wind. Then, I turned and walked into my palace, where my future, whatever it was, awaited me.
How to Make It Snow
First you must fall down the well.
At the bottom of the well
is the country at the bottom of the well.
That is its name, the only one it has.
You have two names, either the beautiful girl
or the kind girl, depending
on what day it is.
At the bottom of the well is a green meadow,
just like in the country you came from
but different. For one thing, the cows can speak.
They say, “Scratch our backs, scratch us
under the chin,” and you do.
The meadow is filled with poppies
and cornflowers. The air is warm,
and the sun is shining.
Snow White Learns Witchcraft Page 20
