I never did understand why Mother locked herself away every night. She would kiss us on the forehead and whisper goodnight my snowflakes in our ears, and she would touch her chest over her heart and we would do the same. She always had that small crease between her eyebrows that meant she was worried. Krystal never noticed it, but I saw.
She would tell us the same story at bedtime every night, because she loved it so much. It was of ice and snow and magic. An extraordinary little girl with the power to create ice with a swift flick of her hand. Trolls, talking snowmen, the lot. I listened intently to every telling, even though I knew it off by heart by the time I was 6. My mother has such a way with words, like it had really happened once, even though I knew that it didn't.
Pff, magic. No such thing. I thought, but I loved that story more than any of my most valuable possessions in the whole world.