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They told Anna she'd had scarlet fever. It could be made to account for so many things . . . the gaps in her memory, the disorder of her thoughts, the need for isolation, and above all, the fact that when she woke up we no longer shared a room and they wouldn't let her see me. They still hoped that they would be able to teach me to hide what I was, to control my powers so that Anna need never know what had really happened to her. That at last, life at the castle could be normal.
I knew it was necessary. Our parents wanted what was best for us both; I had never doubted that, and I never would. Father told me stories . . . legends, some of them, out of the mists of time, of other kings and queens of our line who had shared my curse—for we always spoke of it as a curse now—and who had gone on to rule wisely and well, keeping their powers hidden and under control. I would be a great queen one day, he told me, once I had learned self-control. And then I would be able to play with my sister.
I thought it would take weeks, at first, or maybe months. I think Father believed so, too. He did not have the powers himself, but he had grown up on the same tales he was telling me now: not the vague old rumours and fairy tales that still persisted, only half believed-in, among the peasants, but the true lore recorded in manuscript tomes whose original and only copies were kept under lock and key in the darkest corner of the Royal Library.
He had been preparing for this moment all his life: had dreamed as a boy of becoming a Frost King himself, and when that dream died he had prepared, with as little bitterness as he could muster, for the chance that he might need to train a son or daughter in the use and control of the ancient family arts. Mother had, with quiet patience, persuaded him to leave me be as a child: to let me play and laugh and discover what I could do. She'd wanted me to have a 'normal' childhood, had been sure I was too young to dedicate myself to serious study. He had acquiesced, with great misgivings. Now it was irrefutably time to begin my training in earnest, and he was sure that he was ready.
So Anna was told that she must be patient; that she must not risk making 'Sister' ill; that once she was better, she would see me. And then she was told that in spite of precautions I had taken ill, also: that she must not worry because the doctor said I was sure to recover, but I was too weak to see her. My convalescence was probably the longest on record, but five-year-old girls are not given medical histories to read, and my little sister has a trusting nature. Of course, she believed them.
I remember, vividly, the first time they let her see me. I had already seen her . . . had been brought in quietly while she slept, so I might reassure myself that she was well and safe. She was almost the same: pink cheeks flushed on her pillow, arms sprawled out wildly across the covers so that she took up far more space than a child of her size should have been able to. She was still my baby sister, and I wanted to hug her so badly that I ached. But there were differences that even I could see. Her fingers, always so soft and open when she slept, were balled up into little fists against her sheets. She was not sprawled on her back, arms open to the sky, but flat on her stomach, as if she was trying to leach human contact from the bed itself. And her hair was streaked with white, a permanent reminder of how easily I had hurt her.
I didn't run away, that first time. I stayed as long as I could, drinking in the sight of her, breathing slowly and trying to imagine that I could watch her eyes flutter open and hear her shriek my name; that we could be sisters again, the way we always had been. I clenched my own hands into fists, as if that could keep them from betraying me. But my eyes kept travelling back to the white in her hair, and eventually I let Mother lead me away.
Anna didn't even have that much. In almost a year, she had never laid eyes on me once. And I—I was not unchanged. I wasn't really the same girl at all. I hadn't learned the things I was supposed to learn. My parents were encouraging, kept telling me how far I had come and how proud they were of me, but I could see the disappointment in Father's eyes, and the sadness in my mother's. Our meeting was not to be the triumphant reunion I had dreamed of. I was not safe for Anna to be with, and things could not go back to the way they had been . . . not yet. It had simply become impossible to put her off any longer. So she was told another lie, disguised as a half-truth: I was recovering, but I was not yet well enough to come downstairs. She might come and visit me in my bedroom, but she must not excite me. I was not well enough to play.
Looking at my reflection in the window, before she arrived, I thought that I made a believable invalid. I had grown thinner in the past year—the result of a growth spurt and too many sleepless nights—and I was very pale. My eyes looked too big in my face. I wasn't sure my sister would even recognize me. I let Gerda dress me in my nightclothes in the middle of the afternoon and put me to bed. I was ashamed of the lie, but it was necessary to keep Anna safe. If she knew . . . if she knew, it might kill her.
My door flew open with a bang, and my sister blew in on the scent of honeysuckle, clover, and sunshine. If I had thought that the change in my looks, or the darkness of my rooms, or even the time that had passed would quell her exuberance, I had already begun to forget my sister. She was on my bed in seconds, the flowers she had gathered scattering over the covers, small arms tightening around me with frightening strength.
“Elsa!” Her voice was the sun breaking through clouds, clear and sure and joyful. For a moment I hugged her back, arms tightening around her wriggling body without a thought, heart welling up with love and relief as it beat against my sister's. For a moment I was a real girl again, whole and warm and loving, and there was nothing to fear. And then I opened my eyes. I saw the blue snowflakes, like stars, stencilled over my walls. I saw the streak of white in Anna's hair, the one she hadn't been born with, whatever she had been made to believe. I remembered what I was, and I stiffened in my sister's arms.
She didn't understand, not then, what that meant. She didn't know it would always be like this, that I was never going to hug her back anymore. It still hurt. She shook it off quickly, bounced on my bed and chattered at me about all the things she had thought and dreamed of and done while I had been “sick”, until I told Gerda I was tired and they gently ushered her out. But I had seen the confusion and hurt in her big, round eyes when I had pulled back, and I couldn't bear to see it again. The next time she knocked at my door, I told her to go away.