I was awoken by the sound of her voice.
"Elsa," she whispered into my ear, "Psst." I groaned. Maybe if I didn't say anything, she wouldn't bother me. But if there was one thing I knew about my little sister, it was that she was incredibly stubborn. Not deterred in the slightest by my unresponsiveness, she climbed onto my bed and sat right on top of me. "Elsa! Psst!" she continued, bouncing up and down, "Wake up, wake up, wake up!"
I sighed and gave up pretending. "Anna, go back to sleep," I said, looking drowsily up at her with one eye. What time was it, anyway? Our bedroom was still dark, illuminated only by the moonlight that shone through the large, triangular window.
Not giving up, Anna rolled onto her back, still on top of me. I felt my breath being pressed out of me. For a little girl, she was surprisingly heavy. "I just can't," she said in a dramatic voice, "The sky's awake, so I'm awake. So we have to play." I smiled to myself. Even at this late hour, my five-year old sister was still full of life, full of energy. Even though I was only three years older than her, I wasn't quite as lively as she was.
This was becoming a bit of a routine for her. Just a few months earlier, she had started getting in the habit of waking me up each morning, asking me to play (with varied success). Eventually, as the days passed by, she started waking up earlier and earlier, wanting to play for longer before Mama and Papa woke up. But this was just plain ridiculous; the last time she had woken me up, it was around seven o'clock. Now, the sun wasn't even up yet, and she was acting like it was the most normal thing in the world to be up at this hour.
"Go play by yourself," I replied jokingly, gently pushing her off the bed. I heard her land on the floor with a slight thud. And then, silence. For a while, I thought she gave up. Again, I learned how stubborn she could be when she climbed back onto my bed and resumed her sitting position right on top of me. She put her warm hand on my face and forced my eyelid open. Looking me right in the eye, she asked with a sly grin, "Do you wanna build a snowman?"
A smile spread across my face. She always knew how to get me.
Fifteen minutes later, I found myself running down the castle's moonlit hallways, Anna pulling me enthusiastically by the hand. Our stifled laughter was the only sound that echoed throughout the otherwise silent hall. "Come on! Come on!" she yelled repeatedly. I had to remind her to keep quiet, in case we wake up our parents. But even as I tried to calm her down, I could barely keep my own voice under an excited whisper. By the time we reached the large doorway that led to the Great Hall, Anna was practically jumping up and down with excitement. We burst through the doors and ran into the room, giggling.
"Do the magic! Do the magic!" Anna pleaded.
Laughing, I brought my hands together and concentrated. A familiar icy feeling formed in my chest, spreading up my arms and into my hands. Suddenly, a gorgeous pattern of glowing snowflakes appeared around my hands, swirling in the air. "Oooh," Anna said, as her big, expressive eyes glowed in wonder, reflecting the light from the magic. She stared at the swirling waves of magic with wide eyes, like she was seeing them for the first time, though she had already witnessed my ability several times. She never got tired of it, I guess.
"Ready?" I asked in a near whisper. Anna nodded eagerly as I concentrated my shimmering creation into a snowball, which I then threw up as high as I could. The snowball traveled higher and higher, leaving a beautiful trail of glowing, blue snowflakes behind it. When the snowball touched the ceiling, it exploded in all directions with a satisfying poof, causing a twinkling flurry of snow to fall upon the room. Anna jumped around in near euphoria, catching snowflakes on her tongue.
"This is amazing!" she exclaimed, hopping around. I smiled, happy to see my sister having so much fun. And then I remembered that trick that I discovered a few months earlier.
"Watch this," I said, lifting my skirt just enough to show my foot. Anna watched, her mouth open in surprise, as I stomped my slippered foot onto the marble floor. Immediately, a layer of ice formed on the spot where I set my foot, spreading throughout the Great Hall's floor. Soon enough, the entire room was a giant skating rink. Anna slid around, laughing.
We spent a good deal of the night playing in the winter wonderland I created. At one point, I created a snowman - a favorite activity of mine. "Hi," I said in a goofy voice, standing behind my creation as Anna sat on our father's royal throne, laughing, "I'm Olaf, and I like warm hugs!" Anna wrapped her tiny arms around the snowman, which stood a good two inches above her.
"I love you, Olaf!" she squealed, burying her round face in the snowman's cold body.
I still remember that night, and the many fun activities we did. I remember having a snowball fight with her (in which I defeated her quite soundly, as per usual), and ice skating with her and Olaf the snowman, using my magic powers to propel the three of us around the ice. I also remember sliding down a high snowbank with her. She put her hands up and screamed excitedly as we slid down the white slope. When we reached the end of the slide, she jumped off my lap, squealed, and landed face-first on a large pile of snow. She got up, giggling, and jumped off the snow pile.
Both she and I were unaware that this innocent little action would eventually trigger a chain of events that would come to ruin me for the next few years.
"Catch me!" she said, laughing.
"Hang on!" I replied as I cast another wave of magic, forming another pile of snow beneath her. She landed on it, then jumped off without a second thought. I created another pile of snow to catch her, and she bounded off that one as well.
Soon, I was having trouble keeping up with her. "Again! Again!" she repeated, jumping from pile to pile.
"Slow down!" I said, trying desperately to create new peaks of snow to catch her. But she was going too fast. When she leaped off a particularly high peak, I lost my footing and slipped on the icy floor, my breath being knocked out of me as I landed on my rear. I watched helplessly as Anna, still laughing innocently, began to fall.
"Anna!" I yelled, reaching out to form a cushion of snow. But when I extended my hand, the magic I summoned missed its target completely; instead of hitting the ground, forming a cushion for her to land on, it hit her head in midair, causing her laughter to end abruptly. She landed with a horrifying thud on a snowbank below, completely motionless. I froze in place, horrified at what I just did.
Oh no, I thought to myself, desperately wishing I could undo my mistake, what've I done? Quickly, I ran towards my unconscious sister and dropped to my shaking knees. I scooped her frail, delicate body into my arms and almost immediately noticed that she was getting paler. No, no, no... My breathing grew shallow as I saw that a streak of her strawberry-red hair turned ice white. I'm sorry, Anna, I wanted to say, feeling my breathing grow heavier. It was all my fault. I couldn't save you. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry... Instead, all that came out was stunned silence, and a numbing pain in my chest. I gazed through blurred eyes at her waxen face, which, a few minutes earlier, was full of life and happiness. Unable to handle the intense guilt, I became overcome with emotion and broke down, letting my tears fall over Anna's ice-cold, comatose body.
I held my sister for an unknown amount of time, wallowing in my own grief. Some time later, I snapped back to my senses and called for help. "Mama! Papa!" I screamed, my eyes still wet with tears. My desperate cries echoed around the castle halls for a while, followed by the sound of footsteps rushing towards the Great Hall. I never took my eyes off my sister. "You're okay, Anna," I said to her, "I've got you..." Was she going to make it? The winter playground I had created a while ago began to fall apart. Olaf the snowman crumbled to pieces. Layers of ice started crystallizing involuntarily around the room. I now realize that that was the very first time I had lost control of my powers. It would happen many more times in the future.
Immediately, my parents burst into the Great Hall, frantic with worry. They gasped as they eyed the scene that presented itself before them - a grand hall, filled with snowy structures that were quickly falling apart. A layer of opaque, white ice was quickly spreading around the room, reflecting my growing panic. And in the middle of it all, I knelt on the ground, my little sister lying motionless in my arms.
Now that I think about it, that was the very first time I showed my power in its full strength to my parents. Don't get me wrong, they knew I had magical abilities. Even when I was a baby, my parents said that I would form a small layer of frost on my toys as I played with them, oblivious and happy as a toddler could be. But ever since rumors of a sorceress in the magic family started spreading around the town, Papa urged me to keep my abilities under wraps. And that was the first time I ever felt ashamed of my powers. This was the second.
"Elsa, what have you done?" Papa demanded, rushing towards me, "This is getting out of hand!" I tried to fight back my tears. But I didn't mean to do it! I wanted to say. Instead, I stayed kneeling on the ground, frozen in fear and worry.
"Anna!" Mama cried, distraught with worry. She ran over to me and took my sister's cold body from my arms.
"It was an accident!" I pleaded, looking up at Papa. I turned my gaze towards my sister, lying like a ragdoll in Mama's arms. "I'm sorry, Anna."
"She's ice cold," Mama remarked, probably not listening to me. She looked at Papa in desperation, clearly unsure what to do.
Papa's brow furrowed in deep thought. "I know what we have to do," he stated, "Idun, get the horses ready. And Elsa..." He paused and looked at me with an unreadable expression. But I couldn't bring myself to look at him, I was so ashamed. Finally, he spoke, "Come with me." I nodded, and hurried behind Papa obediently.
As I followed Papa down the wanly moonlit hall, Mama went over to rouse the servants and order them to prepare the horses. "Papa?" I asked, holding my hand to my chest in shame, "where are we going?" He didn't answer. Instead, as we entered the dark library, he raced to a dusty shelf, full of very old books that Anna and I were never allowed to touch. He hastily shifted through them and pulled out a brown, leather-bound tome. He flipped frantically through the book's pages, stopping when he reached a page that showed some sort of ancient map. Papa studied the old page, the anxiety clearly building in his eyes as he traced his finger across the yellowed paper.
"This is where we have to go," he hurriedly muttered as he tapped a green patch on the map. I looked over the table's edge, standing on my tiptoes. In the darkness that surrounded me, I struggled to clearly make out the spot on the map where his finger rested. The name of the place was written in some language that I couldn't understand.
"Where is it?" I asked, unable to read the map. Instead of answering, my father put a gloved hand on my back and led me towards the castle gates.
"You'll see when we get there. Now, come with me, Elsa."