The first page
"suddenly the mirror shook so terribly with grinning, that it flew out of their hands and fell to the earth, where it was dashed in a hundred million and more pieces"
This fairytale started with ice.
It was everywhere; under his nails, around his breath, in her hair, inside her mouth, on the soft like fluff carpet that used to be scorching black but now became white. The frost left wavy fingerprints on the windows facing the garden. It had been covered by flowers once; they were all dead by now.
He was kneeling on the carpet, the not-soft carpet bristling with the sharp crumbs of ice and broken mirror, watching his hand. Red… He cut himself when he fell; the scarlet drops were running down his fingers and soaking into the fluff, marked it with stains as beautiful as spring roses.
But it was winter. And it was beautiful. This red, touching the ground, made him understand how white her ice was... His ice was turquoise, like the cave carved in the glacier where they had hid in the past.
And now the room was white - like snow, like her dress, like winter, like her skin, like hellebores she loved so much. A foolish thought – he wanted to lay down flowers on her knees even though he couldn't. Light coming through the window was stopped by the icy glass, and the wind was singing between the empty garden alleys.
The flowers will not bloom.
The mere sight of her face, as absent as if reflected in the mirror, stuck in his heart. Would hellebores make her smile? He knew the answer and still wanted to ask: why did flowers stop whitening? Why was the carpet covered with black, then white? Why…
"Why?"
She didn't say a word. Instead, she looked off in the distance - she always did it, didn't she, always so close to him, always within reach, got through life with her eyes closed on him. Why– he slammed his fist against the icy wall and left a poppy bud of blood.
"Why did you do that?"
She was sitting across from him, leaning against the white ice as if it was a bed, and she refused him last words. Two tears glistening in the cool light crystallized on her cheek.
At the second time, he touched the ice gently. His trembling fingers run along the smooth surface, feeling biting kisses of frost, and his skin adhered this cold, hugged it, missed it. Only coldness... He didn't feel crying warmth on his face - it was stony and serious, made of ice. But his hands trembled, stubborn. He trembled like a child.
Calm down. It's not like you. Think about it. You have been left on your own many times. Now you can handle it, too.
His whisper was quieter than the wind outside, "What should I do? Tell me, one more time."
She always knew what to say. The question was answered by the blueing lips. She was right; this ice was clear, too clean, too much like a glass coffin... And what she loved about winter was the sun taking a look in the frozen lake; the glow of aurora that crossed the polar sky like a sleigh with bells! Only these long and dense winter nights teach you the beauty of dawn on the snow-covered hills, she told him in silence. Do you remember cocoa with marshmallows, fire cracking on the fireplace – he did – me and you, our sledges and reindeers, us immersing in sunlight and snow, like angels...? Do you remember?
If she didn't love light...
"I remember," he said, "I remember everything. And I will do what I need to do."
Flowers waiting for spring to bloom. Her needing fire to smile. Ice demanding a flame to melt away.
Spring's far away.
A new thought broke his heart – the Winter Solstice was coming. The snow would move to the four winds and bury the green, envelop shorter days like a shroud. The little white hellebores would bloom soon on the dead earth. How tragic, but he was lucky. It all happened tonight, and he was lucky on this December night.
Before leaving, he looked at her calm face for the last time, trying to remember every small detail. He saw everything as though a velvet curtain of white; everything was white. She still didn't look at him, no; until the very end, she avoided his eyes, lost in her own world, together with the frost bringing out the beauty of her eyelashes.
This made him want to scream. Do you see what you did? Do you know, you know that you turned your back on me? First he, now she... He could understand him, but you... The Snow Queen took everything from him.
And it was all his fault.
But soon it should change. The red fire would melt the ice of the Snow Queen.
When he crossed the threshold of his house, he felt her stroking his hair, her touch like a breeze. But it was the wind that pushed him out the door.
I planned to upload the prologue together with the first chapter as the beginning is pretty enigmatic but it turns out that I'm too impatient. This story is very different than what I usually write and so I'm pretty excited about this project. Keep fingers crossed, will you?