As soon as her lessons were done for the day, Princess Anna took off towards the castle library. Anyone she jogged past on her way were greeted gaily with a wave and then immediately forgotten about when next she turned a corner. The princess's mind had strayed in the direction of the library all day, so despite having been seated for hours, Anna's legs now carried her as easily as if floating. For the last stretch, she even decided to sprint.
Once inside the library, Anna locked the door using a key no one knew she had. She couldn't help but smile as she rounded a large bookshelf in the middle of the room and saw another door, this one painted blue instead of white. It was locked; Anna had never found the key for it. The princess lifted her skirts so she could sit down in front of the closed blue door before she cupped her hands around her mouth and called quietly into the keyhole, "Elizabeth! Are you there?"
There came a sound from the other side like a chair scraping along the floor. Then footsteps. And then, "I'm here, Anna."
The sound of Elizabeth's voice was muffled by the door, but Anna easily recognised its unhurried melody. There was nothing that could make her feel safer.
Anna first met Elizabeth some months earlier when she made a habit of sneaking into the library to read a play she wasn't supposed to read. It was the only text she had ever enjoyed; the books from her lessons bored the young princess out of her mind, and her performance in all subjects was abysmal. One of the royal tutors once remarked that Anna would have made a horrible queen.
Her tutors would not have been pleased to know what it was that kept Anna coming back to the library, and her sister the crown princess certainly did not read anything of its sort, this old play. It was Hamlet—a story about royalty and revenge, ruinous love, of crushing loneliness, and of a ghost. Part of the appeal was how forbidden it seemed, but if she thought about it, Anna had to admit that her sister wouldn't care whether she wasted her time with crass tales full of violence. For as long as Anna could remember, the crown princess had ignored her calling outside her door, and ever since the king and queen died, Anna had stopped trying to reach her sister.
In the private time she spent reading, Anna not only found hints of her own isolation in young Hamlet's gloomy soliloquies, but she also found that the story's fictional drama offered a much needed distraction from the reality of her wasted education and from her sister's humiliating rejection.
As she neared the story's climax, she was utterly unable to put the book down, so she ended up reading late into the evening. Anna felt herself choked up with something like catharsis as she read the last pages. When she was done, she put the book aside and peered out the window she was seated at. The sun had set, but it was summer, and the new day would dawn in just a few hours. The dark blue sky was mostly bare of both stars and clouds. What great empty space, Anna thought, and felt very alone. She'd found no other works of fiction—at least not in a language she could understand, and now that she was done, she felt as though she'd lost her only companion.
Just as she had turned back to the first page to start the whole thing over again, she heard a faint sobbing. Anna stood from her chair and wandered about the room, searching for whoever it was. The sound came from behind a blue door which Anna vaguely recalled leading to a reading room, or maybe a study. She put her ear against its cold wood. The sound was indeed coming from within.
The stillness and the darkness of the evening made Anna unwilling to raise her voice to be heard through the door, so she bent down and whispered into the keyhole, "Hello? Who's there?"
The sobs quieted immediately.
What followed was a very long moment of silence, long enough for Anna to start wondering if her loneliness was making her imagine things, before a voice spoke from the other side of the door.
"Anna?" It was a girl's voice, soft and melodic. Anna did not recognise the voice. And she could not tell if she ought to; the girl was addressing the princess by name, yet the fearfulness behind the way the girl said it made Anna believe that she was quite unfamiliar to her.
"Yes, it's me," answered the princess. She didn't mind the way the girl had addressed her. She was more concerned about what had had her in tears. "What's your name?"
There was another minute of silence. It was getting cold, and Anna's breath came out as mist. She was looking about the room for an open window she could shut, when she heard the voice again.
"I am the spirit of Princess Elizabeth." It was the same voice, but the frightened girl was gone—Anna could tell that she was being spoken to by royalty. "It has been my lot for a hundred years to walk the earth while my body rots underground. Those who have seen my face have all turned mad with horror! But I do not wish for you to suffer the same fate. Leave this place at once."
The library grew even colder—unnaturally cold—and Anna realised that it was not merely the chill of nighttime.
"A ghost?" Anna dropped to her knees. The floor had been replaced with ice. Then, remembering the vengeful spirit from the play, she asked, "Tell me your torment! What can I do for you?"
Princess Elizabeth sputtered in disbelief, a sound which Anna found very human and which made her slightly less intimidated.
"My curse is that I died without the love of a friend in my heart," said Elizabeth, at length. She wavered at the word love as if it hurt to say. "Don't worry, Anna. There is no favour I need from you."
"I heard you crying."
"I have been watching over you for many years, and I feel that our curse is very much the same. Whenever I see you cry, I am reminded of this. When I see you, I am reminded of my own lonesomeness." She sounded to Anna like she'd waited a long time to get this off her chest. Elizabeth's melancholy was rather more reminiscent of young Hamlet than of the ghost of his father, but she was being much more kind. Then, a muttering that was not for Anna's ears at all: "Oh Anna, I hate to see you cry."
"You've seen me cry before?" said Anna, embarrased. It did happen that—in private—the sting from her loneliness was too much for her. Weeping made her feel even more pathetic, and she sometimes screamed and punched too. Regardless of whether Elizabeth already knew her, to Anna she was still a stranger; the young princess would rather Elizabeth had seen her naked than in such a pitiful state!
Desperately, she spoke without thinking. "Can I ask, how did you die?" It was only meant to avert the attention from her, but as soon as she'd asked it she wanted to take it back. "I'm sorry! It has to be difficult for you to talk about."
"It's okay, Anna," the ghost reassured, and hearing Elizabeth say her name made Anna feel a little better. "I will tell you: I died of consumption when I was nineteen years old."
That's my sister's age, thought Anna, though this poor soul seemed to need her company more than her sister did. "Elizabeth, why didn't you reveal yourself to me sooner?"
"I feared what you would think of me if you knew what I was," answered the ghost honestly.
"But you obviously have kindness in your heart, even in death. How could I be afraid of you? I'm not afraid! Let me prove it. Come out here so I may look at you!"
"Anna, I can't," said Elizabeth. And yet she sounded like she wished she could, which is why Anna was struck by a notion which at once made her ashamed and excited. Anna tried to force it from her mind, but it would not completely leave her. It was the hopeful, stimulating, ridiculous notion that perhaps Elizabeth could be her family in her sister's place.
Standing up, Anna took care not to slip on the frozen floor. Then she said resolutely, "You're restless because you're lonely, so let me be your friend. Please, let me—" But fear of Elizabeth's rejection made Anna lose her nerve. She could not bring herself to make the same plea to another door as she had made so many times at her sister's.
The blue door remained silent.
"Elizabeth, are you there?" called Anna. She felt tears threatening to spill, and her gaze dropped to the floor. It was no longer covered in ice.
"I'm here, Anna."
And she was there even the next day when Anna returned to the library after her studies. And she was still there the day after that. They went on like this, week after week, month after month. The ghost in the castle library quickly became the best friend Anna had ever had.
Elizabeth was confused when Anna started filling silences with a strange chanting: "Encyclopaedia, A to B; encyclopaedia, C to L; encyclopaedia, M to Z; cyclopaedia, first volume; cyclopaedia, second volume," and so on.
"What are you saying?"
"The bookshelf opposite this door is filled with encyclopaedias. Their sequence has started to ingrain itself in my head, quite involuntarily," said Anna with a laugh.
Elizabeth seemed amused by this. "But what a useless thing to memorise. You can be a peculiar creature sometimes."
"I can't help it!" She pointed at the books—her mirth made her forget that Elizabeth couldn't see it. "I've spent so much time in here that I could probably recite their ordering far easier than any of my lessons."
"After all this time, I still don't understand why you keep coming here but never so much as open a book." Elizabeth had shown herself to value wisdom over almost anything. She'd said it was how she'd been raised as crown princess, because a queen's success should never be determined solely by the quality of her advisors.
"My days are filled with books and lessons," said Anna, wrinkling her nose. "I would much rather listen to you. I love listening to you talk about anything. You're far more interesting than any book I've read."
"You flatter me," said Elizabeth, and Anna thought it might've been the first time she heard bashfulness in her voice. "But I must know that you understand the danger in meeting with me. You cannot tell anyone else that I am here. Please, say you know it."
"I don't understand what it is that could go wrong, but you have so frequently reminded me of the peril I am supposedly in that I've started to believe it must be quite terrible."
"Yes. I have seen it."
"Weren't you lonely before I came?" She thought of the play she hadn't even looked at since meeting Elizabeth. "Being a ghost must be such a lonely existence."
"It is. But it also means that I get to watch over the ones I love. Not from heaven, but from here."
"How long have you been watching over me?" asked Anna selfishly.
She could hear Elizabeth smile when she responded, "Since the day you were born."
Elizabeth remained shy, and she refused to come out from behind the blue door. At first, Anna didn't mind. Who knew what form ghosts took after a hundred years? She decided that she would understand Elizabeth's shyness. But one day, which they would remember as the last day of the summer, Anna felt the need to tell her, "I don't care how fearful you might look. I will easily love any face imaginable if it's the face of a friend, and you're my dearest friend in the world."
"You mustn't say sweet things like that," was Elizabeth's sad response. "It only makes it more painful that it has to be this way."
"What do you mean?"
"You do it all the time. You tell me how you value my company, my guidance. You say that my entrance into your life has saved you. Don't you know how it hurts! Those sweet confessions make me long to be closer—to hold your hand and kiss you, to have you in my arms. But I can never! I have left my body behind: such is my fate. And for a hundred years there has never been a time when I've cursed my fate like when I'm with you."
"Elizabeth, I don't know what to say," whispered Anna. She reached out her hand but it only met wood. While she longed desperately to make Elizabeth's pain go away, the words had moved her in another way also. Never in her whole life had Anna felt so cherished. For the first time, she felt like her existence held some meaning, and she loved Elizabeth for giving it to her. "I would do anything," she said.
Over the next few days, Anna tried everything she could to get into the reading room behind the locked blue door, but it was not easy to get inside without revealing her secret companion.
Anna walked up and down the hallway outside the library looking for another way in. There were none. Her sister the crown princess's chambers were at the end of the hallway, and all of the rooms adjacent to the library were reserved for her private use only. Anna had no hope of acquiring the key to any of them.
However, if the hallway had no door leading directly to the reading room, then it could not be any deeper in the castle than the library was. Since the library had windows, this meant that the reading room most likely had windows as well. Anna hit her fist upon her palm. Of course, she would climb in through the second story window.
The next day, she went outside to locate the correct room. She spent a whole hour searching for it. Everything looks so different from the outside, thought Anna to herself.
She spotted the library windows. At least she thought she did—it was possible that one of the rooms in the same hallway served as her sister's private library and held other bookshelves. What made her believe that she had found what she was looking for was that the curtains of the next pair of windows had been drawn shut; before, as she had peeked through the keyhole of the blue door, she had only seen blackness even though it was then the height of summer and the sun shone brightly still in the afternoon.
Anna looked for clues on how to get in. The summer was turning into autumn, and every day was shorter than the last. The sun had already started its descent though it was barely evening, and it created sharp glares in the windows of the wing opposite the library. Anna recognised it as the place where she spent most of her time studying. She briefly wondered why she had never noticed this; she'd had a clear view from the library above.
There seemed to be no obvious way to climb the façade of the castle. Although Anna was willing to try it with some rope, she decided to look inside one last time in case she had missed something.
It was an early morning when Anna stood peering down the corridor at the door leading to the crown princess's chambers. She walked over to it—for the first time since their parents died. Simply standing next to the white painted door reminded her of years spent trying to reach her sister and being ignored.
"Hi, Elsa. It's me," said Anna. Of course, there was no response. "I've come to apologise to you. I was angry with you because you didn't have time for me, but I've met someone who've taught me how demanding it is to be the future queen. I'm sorry that I let myself grow bitter."
There was a sound behind her, and Anna turned around, thinking it might be Elizabeth watching her. But it was only a maid entering the hallway with things for cleaning.
Anna continued, "I have learned something else, too. I have learned that sometimes people hide for reasons I don't understand." She lay her hand on the door the way she had done so many times in the library. "But I promise that whatever your secret is, I won't find it fearful or embarrassing. You're the only thing that's missing in my life, Elsa."
"Your highness," said the maid, making Anna startle. How much had she heard?
The maid entered the room beside the crown princess's, and Anna looked on dumbly as the way into the rooms around the library—indeed, the way into Elizabeth's room—opened up before her eyes.
By the time of her lessons, Anna had nothing in her mind but Elizabeth. Her teacher went on about some thing that transpired in America long ago, but Anna had already heard it from Elizabeth who had made the story much more interesting—entertaining, even.
Anna instead pondered the maids and their schedule for cleaning her sister's private rooms. When asked, the girl who had interrupted Anna said that the crown princess wanted them cleaned as infrequently as possible, which by royal standards was really very often. Thinking about the abundant opportunities, Anna nearly vibrated with excitement.
However, when the lesson progressed to the topic of national history and Anna turned the page to find a familiar name, she was completely thrown off. There it was, the chapter on princess Elizabeth, unmistakable in her placement in their family tree. The book described the correct time period, but Anna had to stop herself from objecting against everything detailing the late princess's life. It said that Elizabeth's only sibling was the crown prince, but Anna knew that she had been the crown princess and had had a younger sister, not a brother. It said that she'd died in a riding accident, when really she had died of consumption. It said that she'd been sixteen years old, but she had been Elsa's age.
Anna wanted to rip the pages, wanted to shout and make a row. Instead, she sat frozen as her teacher kept feeding her lies—lies that burned like ice and blighted her heart with doubt.
Afterwards, Anna did not rush on her way to the library. She didn't know what she would say to Elizabeth. She felt like the world's biggest fool. Her feet dragged as the frost spread in her heart. She found herself slumped against the blue door inside the library, with no memory of how she arrived.
"Anna, is that you?" came Elizabeth's voice from behind her. She sounded weary for some reason.
Anna had to collect herself somewhat before responding, and then she stared into the library as Elizabeth spoke.
"Anna, there is something I've been meaning to tell you." She had likely sensed Anna's anxiety, because she hesitated before she pushed on. "There is something I need to confess."
Anna squeezed her eyes shut. She felt as if on a mountain, helplessly watching an avalanche crashing down towards her. But Elizabeth wouldn't stop talking. "I haven't been entirely honest with you."
Anna braced herself, but what Elizabeth told her was not at all what she had feared.
"Anna, I love you. I thought that I knew you before, when I could only observe, but being with you is another thing entirely. Our time together has been my greatest pleasure in life and in death, and I have grown to love you... more than a friend should."
Anna shivered and clutched at her heart. It was no longer freezing, but burning in her chest.
"Anna, are you still there?" said Elizabeth, trying not to run away. "I have given you my heart, and you may do with it what you wish. You are all I think about anymore. I know it will stay that way whatever happens, whatever you decide to do. I just need to know, could you ever understand what I am feeling?"
Opening her eyes, Anna's moist eyes were blinded by the setting sun shining its orange light through the library windows and warming her face. She squinted against it and saw the bookshelf with the encyclopaedias on it. As always, they remained in the same arrangement she'd memorised. At length, she let the back of her head rest against the door and her eyes fall shut again. Her heart soared, and she smiled like someone who after a long day finally lies down to rest.
"I do understand, Elizabeth. I love you, and I will always be here," said Anna.
She never tried to get into the reading room again.