by Jen Calonita
The queen looked up with bloodshot eyes. “You mean someday it will be safe for Anna and Elsa to be together?”
“Yes.” Grand Pabbie looked up at the aurora borealis that shone above them. “I know this isn’t the answer you seek, but your daughters’ love for each other can overcome any curse.” Mama smiled through her tears. “For now, though, they must be kept apart. No one can say how long this magic will hold.”
Throughout the grassy area, trolls whispered to one another about the situation. Mama and Papa were trying to process their new reality, but it was clearly devastating.
“How will we explain this to them?” Mama asked. “They’ll be heartbroken.”
“The girls are always together,” Papa told Grand Pabbie. “They won’t want to be separated.” He looked at Mama. “Can you imagine trying to keep them in separate wings of the castle?”
“No,” Mama agreed. “Nor would it be safe. They wouldn’t understand the consequences of being near one another. An accident could happen in a heartbeat. Putting this sort of responsibility on them at such a young age is impossible.”
“This is true,” Papa agreed. “And if word got out about what could happen to Anna if she was near Elsa, our enemies could try to use the knowledge to their advantage. We can’t let our daughters be pawns in someone else’s game,” he said firmly.
“No.” Tears streamed down Mama’s cheeks. “What do we do?”
Grand Pabbie looked from Papa to Mama sadly. “Separate wings, I fear, are not enough. And the king is right—the world cannot know Anna and Elsa’s weaknesses. They are both heirs to this kingdom. It’s too dangerous.”
Elsa could tell what Grand Pabbie was saying weighed heavily on her parents.
“They won’t be able to stand the separation,” Mama said. “I know my daughters.”
Grand Pabbie thought for a moment. “Perhaps I can help.” He looked at Mama. “Magic can still make the impossible possible. I could do a spell that will hide one of the children’s identities from all but the two of you until the curse has lifted. It will keep both your daughters safe from harm in the kingdom, but it will also protect their fragile hearts if we remove their memories of each other as well.” Mama looked startled. “Only until the curse lifts,” he assured her. “If we do that, neither child will remember the other when they wake.”
Realization of what the troll was saying was written all over Mama’s face. She looked from one daughter to the other one, just feet away. “This feels so cruel. And yet, I don’t believe we have any other choice.” She looked at Papa. “At least they won’t have to live with the truth their father and I possess.”
Grand Pabbie looked at her sadly. “It is not fair,” he agreed.
Mama rose to her full height. Her lower lip wobbled as she looked at Papa, her eyes filled with tears. “We have to let Grand Pabbie help them forget each other’s existence until the curse lifts. We need to find someplace safe for one of them to go. It’s the only way.”
Papa appeared as devastated as Mama. “But how do we decide who stays with us?”
Even some of the trolls were weeping for the king and queen. Elsa watched the scene with tears streaming down her face. She felt her parents’ pain. Mama finally spoke.
“Elsa will stay with us,” she decided. “She is next in line to the throne, and her powers are too strong for her to control on her own.” Papa was crying now, too. “You know this is how it has to be, Agnarr. Once Elsa remembers she has them, we need to be there to help her understand.”
Papa nodded. “You are right. But where will Anna go?” His voice was breaking.
“Is there someone you trust to look after your daughter as if she were their own?” Grand Pabbie asked Mama.
“There is,” she whispered. “I’d trust this friend with my life. But raising my daughter is a lot to ask.”
“Nothing is too much to ask when it is done out of love,” Grand Pabbie reminded her. “And to ease your anguish, Anna can be hidden in plain sight.” Grand Pabbie looked at Mama. “You are the only two who will remember her true birthright. You can still see her when you want, but she won’t know her true identity.”
Papa and Mama looked at each other from across the valley. Both of them had tears steaming down their face. Papa turned to Grand Pabbie. “Do what you must. Just protect both our daughters.” He hesitated, the words almost too hard for him to say out loud. “Help Elsa forget she has a sister, erase Anna’s memories of her past life, and…remove Anna’s existence from the kingdom’s memory.”
Watching them, Elsa understood her parents’ decision, but she could also feel their pain, which mirrored her own. If only she hadn’t interfered…
Closing his eyes, Grand Pabbie raised his hands to the stars again. The images of Anna’s and Elsa’s separate lives swept past them like clouds. He rolled the images into one and pressed a hand to Anna’s forehead. Then he walked up the steps and did the same thing to Elsa. A flash of bright white light rippled across the valley like an earthquake, traveling to the far reaches of the kingdom before disappearing.
“It is done,” Grand Pabbie said. “And now I have a gift—your future.”
Grand Pabbie raised his hands into the sky again and showed Mama and Papa new images. One was of Anna playing happily in a village courtyard with a group of children. The other was of Elsa studying with her father in the library. Both girls were smiling. Both were thriving. They just weren’t together. Mama and Papa attempted to smile through the sadness.
“When the time is right, they will remember and be reunited,” Grand Pabbie promised.
That was the last thing Elsa heard before Grand Pabbie touched the memory in the sky and it seemingly swirled back into his hand, which he pressed again to his forehead. “Do you understand now why it isn’t safe for you to find Anna?” he asked gently.
“But I remember Anna,” Elsa said, her voice rising. “Doesn’t that mean the curse is broken?”
Grand Pabbie shook his head. “It is starting to break, but if the curse were truly broken, not only would you remember your sister, the whole kingdom would as well.”
Elsa’s heart sank. Grand Pabbie was right. She was still the only one who knew who Anna was. Aside from Olaf, and he was an unreliable source at best. She tried to hold back fresh tears. “How do you know Anna doesn’t remember me yet? What if she’s out there right now looking for me, too?”
Grand Pabbie squeezed her hands. “I would know. You would, too. Elsa, you must stay calm—I can see beyond the valley, and I know what fear is doing to your magic. The kingdom is wrapped in an eternal winter.”
“I didn’t mean for that to happen,” Elsa said softly. “I don’t know how to fix it.”
“You will figure it out,” he assured her. “You must concentrate on controlling your powers. The rest will come. The magic is fading. I can feel it! You are remembering your past. Soon Anna will as well. But until she does, you must keep your distance. Your sister’s life depends on it.”
Elsa looked at the way out of the valley. Beyond the rocks, she saw the snow squall.
She had thought finding Anna would change everything, but she was wrong. Elsa had given her all the past few days and fought to find her family. She couldn’t even do that now. If she got too close to Anna, ice would consume her.
Even after all that time, she was destined to be alone.
“Snow. Why did it have to be snow?” Anna asked, shivering as Kristoff and Sven led the sleigh into the mountains with her and Olaf tucked inside. “She couldn’t have had tropical magic that covered the fjords in white sand and warm sunshine?”
“I love the sun!” Olaf butted in, his personal flurry crashing into the front seat of the sleigh as they bounced along the uneven path. “I mean, I think I like it. It’s hard to tell what it does from inside the castle.”
“I don’t think you’d like it much.” Kristoff squinted hard at the path ahead of them.
The snow had started to fall harder since they’d
left Arendelle, and it was coming down in sheets. Anna wasn’t sure how Kristoff and Sven could see where they were going. Night had fallen, and the tiny lantern that hung off the edge of the sleigh wasn’t giving much light. They’d have to find shelter somewhere soon, but Anna hadn’t seen any houses or villages in hours. Suddenly, they came to a wall of snow that made the route impassable. The alternative was a hilly incline that didn’t even look like a real path.
“Are you sure Elsa went this way?” Kristoff asked Olaf as he led Sven up the uncharted terrain that was covered in ice.
“Yes. No.” Olaf scratched his head with one of his twigs. “Again, everything I saw was through a window. I heard shouting and saw ice freezing, and then I looked out and saw Elsa—at least, I think it was Elsa, because who else can make snow?—running across the fjord as it turned to ice. Then she disappeared into the trees!” Olaf frowned. “And I lost sight of her.”
Kristoff took his eyes off the path and looked at Anna. “Remind me again why we listened to a talking snowman? We’re in deep snow, the wind is howling, we have no shelter, and I’m sledding up a mountain based on a hunch.”
“It’s not like we had a better option,” Anna pointed out. “It’s going to be fine! Olaf will help us find her. He knows Elsa better than anyone, don’t you?”
“Yes!” Olaf insisted as the sleigh took a narrow turn and started to climb again. “I know lots about Elsa, because she made me three years ago and I never left her room.” His eyes lit up. “Wait! I’m wrong. Sometimes she snuck me through one of the secret passageways and we went up to the bell tower or the attic. Once, we got to go to the Great Hall and Elsa made a giant snow hill that we slid down. But that was in the middle of the night.”
Anna felt the hair on the back of her neck stand up. Suddenly she remembered being very small and sliding down a snow hill inside a giant hall with a blond girl—and they were both holding on to a snowman. She looked at Olaf again. “Did you just do that?”
“Do what?” Olaf asked.
“Make me see that,” Anna answered. Maybe the cold was getting to her.
“See what?” Olaf asked as the sleigh hit a rock and took air. It crashed back down, and Olaf’s flurry smacked Anna and Kristoff in the face.
Anna rubbed her eyes and felt the memory fading away.
The gruff look on Kristoff’s face was replaced with an expression of mild concern. “I think you’ve been in the cold too long.”
“I think so, too,” Anna agreed. “I’m starting to see things that aren’t there.” She glanced at the snowman again. “Like you. At least, I think it was you. The two of us were riding a snow hill together inside a big room.”
“That’s because we did!” Olaf said.
Anna’s breath started to come faster. “When?”
Her parents had told her they’d adopted her as a baby, but what if that wasn’t true? Anna’s earliest memories with Tomally and Johan were later—starting school, standing on a stool and baking bread next to her mother, waiting for Freya to pull up outside their home. In all those, she was a girl of about six or seven. True, no one remembered being a baby, but the little girl in her visions looked and sounded just like her. She couldn’t be more than four or five. What were these sudden flashes of memories she couldn’t fully remember? Were they memories of her first family?
Sometimes she wondered who her birth parents were and why they had given her up, but she never asked Tomally or Johan. She didn’t want to hurt them by asking. She always said the only thing she remembered about her former life was being kissed by a troll. It had seemed a funny thing to say when other kids asked about her adoption, but the truth was—she really remembered this happening. It felt like a dream—a fuzzy memory, really—of being asleep while a troll talked to her and then kissed her on the forehead. She had seen it in her dreams so many times that she truly believed it. She just didn’t share that with other people.
She’d mentioned it to her parents once or twice. Now that she thought about it, they’d never denied it.
“Olaf?” Anna tried again. “Did you and I really go sledding…indoors?” Olaf nodded. “But how is that possible? I’d never left my village before this trip. Are you sure you haven’t traveled anywhere outside the castle?”
Olaf’s face fell. “I don’t think so. Have I?”
“I don’t know,” Anna said, feeling frustrated.
“Neither do I,” Olaf admitted.
“Can you two stop talking?” Kristoff cracked the reins again. “It’s getting harder and harder to see with all this snow. I’m trying to concentrate. This path is too rocky to stay on. We need to find you somewhere warm to thaw out and then figure out where we’re going next. We are not staying on a wild-goose chase with a talking snowman who doesn’t know where he’s going.”
“But—” Anna said.
Kristoff ignored her. “Give me a second.” He stood up, holding the lantern into the growing darkness. “I thought we were near the valley, but all this snow is changing the view.”
“Which valley?” Anna asked. She was suddenly shivering.
“A valley that has no snow,” Kristoff said, sounding as if he’d answered without thinking.
“How can a valley have no snow when the whole kingdom is covered in snow?” Olaf asked.
“How can a snowman talk?” Kristoff countered.
In the distance, they heard a wolf howl.
I need to find Elsa, Anna realized, the need almost overwhelming her.
She closed her eyes, trying to shut out the strange thoughts. Maybe Kristoff was right: she needed sleep. “I don’t feel right,” she said, and leaned her head down on the sleigh.
“Anna?” Kristoff shook her. “Don’t fall asleep. You hear me? We’re going to find shelter.” He sat her up. “Olaf, I can’t believe I’m going to say this, but keep talking to her till I can find us somewhere to stop.”
“Okay, about what?” Olaf asked.
“Maybe about why the princess went all ice crazy?” Kristoff snapped the reins again, and Sven continued to climb.
Anna gave him a dirty look. “She’s not crazy, she’s—” Another flash caused her head to feel like it was going to explode.
Elsa, do the magic! Do the magic! she heard a small voice say. Next she saw herself sitting on a chair in her nightgown, clapping her hands. Had she just said the name Elsa? That was impossible! Anna started to hyperventilate. What is happening to me?
“Faster, Sven!” Kristoff cried, holding Anna up with one hand. “Anna? Stay with me, okay? Hang on.”
“Trying,” Anna whispered, but her head felt like it was on fire and she was so tired.
“Talk to her, Olaf!” Kristoff shouted. “What can you tell us about Elsa?”
“She loved flowers. Hans sent her purple heather every week,” Olaf told them. “He was one of the only people who could get her to leave her room.”
“That’s nice,” Anna said dreamily.
Kristoff shook her again. “Olaf! Keep talking!”
“She loved gloves!” Olaf added, bouncing so high in his seat that his head popped off for a second. “She always wore blue ones, even in the summer, and I started to wonder…maybe she has a thing about dirt. Oh! And she liked to read maps and books the king and queen left her. I never met them,” he said sadly. “Elsa told me that was when she stopped coming out of her room. Until this year, when she had to get ready to be queen. Then she had to leave her room a lot.”
“That’s so sad,” Anna said. Her voice seemed far away. “It was like she was locking herself away from the world. Sometimes I felt like that in Harmon—kept apart from the rest of the kingdom. I wanted to see more.”
“You will—but you have to stay awake. Barn!” Kristoff shouted. “Thank goodness. Stop, Sven!”
Anna saw the barn through the driving snow and then the world went dark.
Next thing she knew, she was somewhere warm and she could smell hay. She heard a fire crackling nearby. Her eyes fluttered open.
“There you are!” Kristoff said. “You’ve been out for hours. Olaf, she’s awake! I thought…I don’t know.” He ran a hand through his hair. “You need…you need soup.”
Sven snorted.
“Soup?” Anna said groggily. She was covered in a wool blanket and appeared to be in a large barn. She could see horses nibbling hay in their stalls and chickens in their coop. A cow mooed close by. Everyone was sheltered indoors in this weather.
“Yes, she needs soup,” Kristoff argued with the reindeer. “She needs to eat something. She didn’t have any glogg at the castle like I did, and you ate all the carrots.” Sven snorted again. “I’m just concerned, that’s all.” Sven pawed at the ground. “Yes, that’s all. Enough, Sven.” Kristoff held out a mug. “Here. You’ll be happy to know I asked the family if we could stay in the barn this time, and they said yes. They were just happy to get news from Arendelle. Not that we have much news, but seeing a talking snowman seemed to make the kids happy.”
Olaf giggled. “They liked my personal flurry, but they said they were tired of the snow.”
“Even I’m tired of the snow, and I harvest ice for a living,” Kristoff said. “Anna? Have some soup.”
She sat up slowly. Her head was still pounding. She groaned.
Kristoff held the mug to her lips. “Come on. Just have a little.”
Anna took a sip, feeling the soup warm her insides. For someone who was so cranky all the time, Kristoff could be really sweet when he wanted to be. “Thank you.”
Kristoff blushed. “Yeah, well…” Sven snorted again and Kristoff looked away. “You’re welcome. I just need to get you home in one piece. And that’s where we’re going—home.”
Anna’s eyes widened. “We can’t! We’ve got to find Elsa!”
Kristoff sat back and sighed. “Look at how sick you’re getting in this weather.”
