It was shortly after lunch, which Elsa hadn't attended, when Anna ran up to her sister's room. They had built a lovely snowman the day before, and she wanted to do it again. She pulled at the door. Opening the door was always a bit of a challenge for little Anna, because she had to reach up to twist the handle, so she did not immediately realize that it was locked. Elsa didn't usually lock her door, but sometimes she would when she wanted to read one of the books she had in there and didn't want to play with Anna. Anna didn't understand the appeal of books, because they were just paper covered all over in little squiggles, but Elsa could look at the squiggles and then know things she didn't know before. This was why Anna thought maybe her sister had magic powers. Anna sang their snowman song, but Elsa didn't reply. This was a little odd, because usually she would tell Anna to go away if she didn't want to play. Maybe she had to say magic words to get the knowledge out of the squiggles, and she had just been saying them really quietly when she showed Anna, and that was why she wasn't responding. Anna decided that she would ride their bike on her own instead.
The next day, when Elsa missed breakfast and lunch too, Anna got a little worried. Not a lot worried, but Elsa usually didn't stay in her room for that long. So she went to investigate. First, she tried to open the door to Elsa's bedroom. It wouldn't open. Then, Anna knocked. Anna didn't usually knock. Usually, she would try to open a door, and if it didn't open, she would yell or sing to ask for it to be opened, but one of the maids had told her that morning that adults would knock on doors, not sing. Anna thought that maybe Elsa didn't want to talk to her because she was too childish, so she knocked. She heard no reply, so she knocked harder. Elsa still didn't say anything, not even to tell her to stop making noise. Anna decided to move on to singing. Adults always did things the wrong way anyway, like eating their broccoli when they could be eating dessert, and eating their sandwiches with the bread facing down instead of the not-bread facing down, which let you get more of the taste of the jam or honey or sausage and less of the taste of the bread. Not that Anna didn't like bread, but she liked honey better. She had tried to explain why her method was better to her parents, but to no avail. They just send her to her room instead, without even letting her finish her sandwich. However, Elsa didn't respond to singing either. Anna knew what to try next. She could ask one of the maids to open the door for her. They had keys, so that they could bring food and clean the rooms and all the things that they did. Anna felt like it took longer to find a servant that usual, but eventually she stumbled across Helen, the daughter of the head of the kitchen, a girl no older than 10 with curly hair who had played with her a few times. To Anna, 10 was very old indeed, but she could see that the other adults acted like Helen wasn't one of them. Anna always thought it was weird that Helen's hair was called blonde and Elsa's hair was also called blonde, even though they were completely different colors. Anna asked Helen to help her get the key to Elsa's room, but Helen said that Elsa had asked to be left alone.
There was only one option left. She would have to pick the lock. Anna did know how to pick locks, because a little boy from outside the castle had taught her in exchange for her sandwich. Anna didn't understand why anyone would do anything for a sandwich when they could just go get one from the kitchen, but the knowledge was useful anyway. Anna found a stool and some hairpins and got to work. It took her a long time, and she thought that any minute, someone would come around the corner and stop her, but there seemed to be far fewer servants today. Maybe there was a holiday she didn't know about. She'd have to ask about that later. Finally, there was a click. She turned the handle and pulled the door back, but her stool was in the way so it didn't open very far. She had to get off the stool and move it to the side before she could open the door properly and come inside.
The entire room was covered in ice. Everything had at least a little frosty sheen, and the walls and floor and ceiling were covered in ice several inches thick. Cracks in the ice went in the direction of the corner she couldn't see behind Elsa's bed. The first time Anna tried to walk towards the corner, she slipped on the ice on the floor and fell, so on her second try she had to be more careful and take steps slowly, but she slipped again, so she decided to crawl instead. When she made it to the corner, she found Elsa, covered in ice like everything else. She grabbed Elsa's hand to lead her out of the room, because it was very cold. Elsa's hand broke off, the way frozen meat breaks.
Anna screamed.
