by T.A. Barron
She wasn’t getting anywhere. After all this digging, she had moved only a few feet, if that. Who could tell how far she still had to go? This was hopeless!
She slapped her hand against the wall of snow, half expecting it to splinter into pieces. She was freezing! Her hands and feet had no feeling left. What would Grandfather do now? What would he tell her?
At once, she knew: Perseverance, Kaitlyn … If there is any quality I wish for you, it’s perseverance.
A rush of longing filled her heart—longing for Grandfather, for his voice, for his arms around her. Just to hear him tell one of his stories … just to hear him laugh. Maybe he’s in trouble, too. Maybe he needs help! Suddenly, Kate knew what she had to do, despite the pain.
She had to try.
With grim determination, she started again to dig. To dig and to sing.
All praise to thee … my Lord this night,
For all the blessings … of thy light.
With each phrase, she climbed a little higher, although she could not tell whether she was six feet or six hundred feet from the surface.
Keep me, O keep me … King of Kings …
Like a relentless machine, she pressed ahead. Her hands, feet, and face were now completely numb; she couldn’t even feel the touch of her own tongue on her lips. Her entire body felt heavier and heavier and she knew she had little strength left.
Beneath thine own Almighty …
Without warning, she slipped backward, bouncing violently against the snow. She could not fall very far; the loose snow she had dug had filled up the cavern beneath her. But it felt as if she had lost all the ground she had gained. She landed with her leg twisted beneath her body. Yet the limb felt only a vague, dull pain: It too was beginning to turn into lifeless stone. Exhausted, she sank back against the snow, too weary to move.
Then, in a distant memory, she heard Grandfather’s voice again. Perseverance, Kaitlyn.
She shook herself, determined at least to clamber back to the place from which she had fallen.
Desperately, she tried to concentrate. To dig. With a final effort, she swung her hand into the snow above her head.
In a dazzling blaze of light, her hand burst through the surface. Crisp, cold air flowed over her. Utterly exhausted, she mustered barely enough strength to climb out of the tunnel before collapsing, face down, on the snow. Her frosted braid lay across her back as stiff and straight as an arrow.
VII
Ariella
The vast snowscape was as still as it was silent. But for the prominent plumes of snow blowing from the ridge of peaks encircling the valley, there was no movement at all.
Then, from out of the drifts appeared two figures, glistening with the same whiteness as the snow itself. One, shaped like a large hexagonal snow crystal, rolled across the crusted surface with ease, leaving no trace; the other, built like a lanky column of ice, moved more clumsily. They approached the helpless body sprawled upon the snow.
“There it is,” said the hexagonal being, pointing to Kate with an outstretched arm. The delicate voice tinkled melodically, like a wind chime made of brass. “There is the creature who made the sounds.”
“An ugly thing, isn’t it?” observed the other being. “Just like the sounds.”
“Don’t be silly, Spike. Those sounds were beautiful. A little strange, but still beautiful.”
“Nothing this ugly could do anything beautiful. Ariella, you’re always imagining that things are better than they really are.”
“Does that include you?” she retorted, surveying the columnar crystal with disdain. Then, focusing on Kate, Ariella opened wide her eyes—eyes that glistened with the same silvery sparkle as the other People of the Snow. She gently laid one of her six delicate arms on Kate’s back and listened intently.
“I think it’s still alive,” said the young snow crystal at last. “Just barely.”
“Forget it, Ariella!” Spike lifted himself to his full height of almost three feet and regarded his friend scornfully. “We don’t have the slightest idea where this creature came from, or whether it’s dangerous to Snow People. It definitely doesn’t belong on this planet, with that sort of body. It probably carries some terrible disease that could contaminate us all!”
“I don’t think so,” replied Ariella, bending closer to Kate. “But I am sure of one thing: If we don’t act quickly, it will certainly perish.”
Spike shook his long face from side to side. “So let it perish! Why can’t you Hexagonals just leave well enough alone? You’re always trying to heal things, even when the world would be better off without your help. I suggest we forget about it and go back home.”
Ariella gazed at Kate with her round, soulful eyes. “Any being that can sing so beautifully deserves to live.”
“I suppose you know some kind of secret Nurse Crystal remedy that can bring this creature back to life,” said Spike sarcastically. “Didn’t your mother teach you one?”
Ariella glowered at him. “The Nurse Crystals brought you back … or have you forgotten that already?”
Spike shifted uncomfortably. “So they got lucky! So what?”
“They may have repaired your body, but they couldn’t do much for your personality.” Ariella turned again to Kate. “Now,” she said quietly to herself, “what was that remedy for frozen tissue?”
She lifted Kate’s lifeless hand, then closed her eyes in deep concentration.
“Give up, Ariella,” urged her companion after several seconds had passed. “This creature is beyond hope.”
Ariella continued to hold Kate’s hand and sang softly to her. The gentle song, full of soothing tones, filled the silence of the snowy valley. Her crystalline face, set in the middle of her hexagonal body, glowed with a warmth that seemed radically out of place on this frozen planet. Outward the warmth poured, through the crystal’s ornamented arms and into the girl’s ashen body.
“Yes, yes,” whispered Ariella, her eyes still closed. “Not too fast, now. The slower we go the less risk of damage. Take your time, take your time.”
Slowly, imperceptibly, a touch of color returned to Kate’s face. At length, she moved her fingers in Ariella’s hand. Soon a ruddy tone returned to her skin. Then, with an effort, she opened her eyes.
She started at the sight of the strange creature bending over her. “Who are you?” she cried, trying to crawl away.
“You tell us first,” replied Spike, peering down at her. “You tell us, then we’ll tell you.”
Two creatures! realized Kate. All that work just to end up trapped by—
“I am Ariella and I am your friend,” declared the hexagonal snow crystal, her telepathic words cutting short Kate’s thought. She cast a sidelong glance at Spike. “Don’t mind him. He never learned any manners.”
“And you never learned any common sense!” blustered Spike angrily. “You don’t even know if this creature is good or evil!”
“I don’t know if I’m good,” answered Kate weakly. “But I don’t think I’m evil.”
Ariella’s eyes glowed with humor. “That’s a pretty good answer.”
Spike pointed to Kate’s leg. “If you’re not evil, then what is that?”
Clinging fast to Kate’s left ankle was the remains of the tentacle that had grasped her in The Darkness.
“Oh!” Kate jumped with fright, rolling into Spike. “Get it off! Get it off me!”
“You claim it’s not part of you?” questioned Spike, as he regained his balance.
“Get it off!” shrieked Kate. She yanked at the tentacle, finally pulling it free with a crackle of negative energy, and hurled it hatefully against a drift.
Ariella cringed at the sight of the horrid appendage that had twisted itself into a twitching knot of blackness sizzling on the snow.
“So cold!” cried Kate as she put her hand under her armpit to warm it again. “That thing is ten times colder than even this frozen planet.”
“You see?” Spike observed cynically. “She�
�s not from this planet.”
“No, I’m not!” Kate couldn’t keep the tears from flooding her eyes. “I’m from someplace warm! I’m from Earth! I came here searching for Grandfather—and I’ve got to find him! Everything was fine until the dark thing attacked us and I fell off Morpheus’ back and it tried to suffocate me and—”
Suddenly she felt dizzy and started to fall backward. As she collapsed on the snow, the chill from her hand deepened. Swiftly, like a cancer, the frozen feeling again began to spread throughout her body.
“I’m—I’m freezing!” she chattered, flapping her arms against herself.
“Of course,” said Spike scornfully. “That’s what you get for digging in the snow when you’re not built for it. I’m built for it—and I never dig unless I’m forced to.”
“Be quiet, Spike.” Ariella looked at Kate sympathetically. “You moved too quickly, I’m afraid. Your body is still on the edge of iceness.”
“I’m so c-cold!”
“You must relax.”
“I can’t relax! I’ll freeze. Even my tears are freezing!”
Ariella closed her eyes in concentration. She began turning herself around and around on the snow, until she was twirling in place like a crystalline top. Faster and faster did she spin, so that soon she was no longer a flat hexagonal crystal but a glittering globe, whirling with a subdued silver radiance.
Shivering with cold, Kate watched as Ariella suddenly stepped out of the whirling globe. Instantly, it began to condense into a transparent veil of shimmering light.
Ariella reached for the silver veil and draped it over Kate like a large beach towel. She spread it over Kate’s head, arms, and hands, taking special care to cover the hand which had torn the dark tentacle from her leg. Then she stretched the veil over Kate’s legs and feet, sealing it at the edges with swift movements of her six long arms.
“How do you feel now?”
“C-cold,” chattered Kate.
“Just wait,” said Ariella, gently touching Kate’s forehead with the tip of one of her arms.
To Kate’s surprise, the crystal’s touch was not icy and hard, but warm and mysteriously soft. Then she noticed that thousands of delicate white hairs covered Ariella’s crystalline body. Her broad face had no mouth, since the People of the Snow could communicate telepathically, nor even an obvious top or bottom; its only features were the two round eyes that glowed like full moons.
Slowly, Kate could feel herself relaxing. “I feel—I feel a bit warmer,” she said.
“Good. Just rest a moment so the cloak can do its work.”
As Kate sat on the snow, the airy veil began to seep gradually into her body. As it did, her entire self grew warmer, from the inside out as well as from the outside in.
“This is better than a cup of hot chocolate,” she joked.
Ariella’s face wrinkled in concern. “A what? You’re delirious. Just relax.”
Kate smiled, and a new surge of warmth filled her body. “Hot chocolate. I’ll explain it to you later.”
By now the veil of silver light had soaked into her body so that it was completely invisible. Kate felt warm and protected, as if she were covered by an arctic suit of heavy down. Slowly, awkwardly, she rose to her feet.
“You have traveled a long way,” said Ariella softly. “How would you like to come home with us?”
“Speak for yourself, you stupid Hex,” muttered Spike, still keeping his distance.
“I am speaking for myself,” glared Ariella. “You can stay out here forever, for all I care.” She turned again to Kate. “By the way, what is your name?”
“Kate. Kate Prancer Gordon.”
“And you say you’re from somewhere called Earth? Is that a long way from here?”
“Not if you’re made of heartlight.”
“Of what?”
“Heartlight. I can’t explain it. Something like imagination, but better.” Kate hung her head. “Anyway, I’ll never make that trip again, because I’ve lost my ring.”
“Your what?”
“My ring.”
“What is that?”
Kate hesitated. “It’s like—like a bracelet, but instead of being for your arm, it’s for your finger.”
“And what is a finger?”
Kate waved her fingers and saw Ariella study them curiously.
The snow crystal’s eyes reflected her puzzlement. “Why do you need little arms like that at the end of your arms? They could freeze so easily! And you say this thing called a ring brought you here?”
“Well, sort of. It’s a special kind of ring that brings out your heartlight. So you can travel anywhere. It was Morpheus who really brought me here, but unless I’m wearing the ring I don’t think he can find me again.”
Ariella’s face showed complete confusion. Meanwhile, Spike’s face showed mostly disdain, although his eyes glinted with something more.
“Oh, well,” said Ariella, erasing her doubts for the moment. “Would you like to come home with me? My mother doesn’t have any rings, I’m sure, but she does have some beautiful bracelets. And perhaps she will know some way to help you.”
Kate nodded.
Ariella faced Spike squarely. Her silver eyes opened to their widest, as she declared: “You’re welcome to come, too, but only if you start to show some manners.”
“No, thanks,” answered the columnar crystal. “I’d rather not be seen with an alien. And I’d like to do some more exploring. That’s what we came out here to do today, until you decided to play Nurse Crystal.”
Kate turned to Spike. “I know you don’t like me, for some reason,” she said. “But I still want to thank you for saving my life.”
He merely grunted and looked away.
Lifting her eyes to the pinnacled ridge of peaks, Kate’s gaze floated over them like a slow-flying hawk. She exhaled a puff of frosty white vapor. The air tasted fresh and clean, not unlike the mountain air of the Rockies or the Scottish highlands where she had hiked with Grandfather. Yet it was different: fuller, richer, and more humid. This air had weight where the air of earthly mountains had none.
She walked a few steps on the velvety blanket of snow. Despite her brush with death, she felt light and strong, almost glad to have a body again. Perhaps it was the fact, which she had no way of knowing, that this planet had only eighty-five percent of the gravitational pull of Earth; perhaps it was the richness of the mountain air, which flowed over her like a tumbling brook. She drew in another full breath, tasted its crystalline quality, then exhaled.
“This place is like Shangri-La.”
“I don’t know that place,” replied Ariella, who was leaning against a small drift nearby. “But I do like the sound of the name.”
Her voice lifted into a sparkling, musical laughter, the sweetest laughter Kate had ever heard. It sounded like the chiming of distant church bells.
Focusing on the snow crystal, Kate looked deeply into the eyes that resembled bottomless pools of light. “I owe you my life,” she said quietly.
“You looked very peaceful there,” replied Ariella. “But I felt you wanted to live some more.”
“How could you tell?”
“That song you sang,” answered the snow crystal. “It sounded so full of faith and love … like the music our star Trethoniel used to make.”
“Used to make?”
“Before the Great Trouble began,” replied Ariella, suddenly somber. Then, just as abruptly, she bubbled up with a playful thought: “How would you like to go sledding with me? It’s the quickest way home, and the most fun, too.”
“What do you mean by the Great Trouble?”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“But it might help—”
“Let’s go sledding.”
With those words, Ariella instantly cartwheeled to Kate’s side, then slid herself like a large dinner plate under her feet. “Now, sit down,” she commanded. “Then push! You’re heavier than what I’m used to.”
Awkwardly, Kate sat upon the crystalline creature. She grudgingly gave a push against the cold snow, then grabbed two of Ariella’s outstretched arms for balance.
Suddenly she realized that they were starting to slide down the same slope that had nearly buried her alive not long ago. “Not too fast!” she yelled as wet snow began to spray in her face.
“Don’t worry!” called Ariella. “I never get caught in avalanches, except for fun.”
“Fun!” Kate almost fell over sideways.
“Don’t worry!” called Ariella. “I know all the safe routes.”
They gathered speed like a bobsled on its run. Ariella did indeed seem to know her way as she glided along ice walls, careened away from snowy overhangs, and slid past towering outcroppings of rock.
As they sailed down the slope, Kate noticed row after row of rainbows in the spraying snow. Towering above them were the glistening ridges of mountains more than twice as high as any on Earth.
“Hold on!”
At that instant, she saw an enormous wall of ice looming directly ahead. They were heading straight for it, at terrifying speed, with no time to make any turns. Kate gripped Ariella’s arms tightly and closed her eyes.
Without warning, they dropped into a hole in the snow. Darkness instantly surrounded them, as they slid down a chute of ice. After taking several rapid turns, the tunnel began to angle gradually upward, and Kate could see a hole of light fast approaching.
Like the cork of a champagne bottle, they shot out of the tunnel and into daylight. For an instant they were airborne and Kate felt sure they were about to crash.
But Ariella landed smoothly, skidding across the snow in a wide curve to slow herself down. So much snow was spraying that Kate could see nothing else. Finally, they came to a halt.
Her head was spinning, but she rolled off Ariella with a laugh. “Wow! What a ride! That was amazing!”
“Not bad, if I do say so myself,” declared the snow crystal as she brushed the snow off her back with two of her arms. “I especially liked that finish.”
“I thought it was our finish,” replied Kate. “That wall came up so fast I was sure we’d be flattened.”
