THE FROZEN QUEEN

-O-

SECOND TALE

A PRINCE AND A GIRL

In the western reaches of Norway stood Arendelle, a shining city that lay at the foot of the mountain range, built partially on the cool river that emptied into the Norwegian Sea. Arendelle was peaceful and prosperous, thriving on its trade, priding in its merchant's guild. In the big city it was crowded with houses and people that few found room for even a small garden, and most people had to be content with a flowerpot, Gerda certainly was. Gerda was a little girl who lived in the city with her parents. They had a large box in which they planted vegetables for their use, and a little rosebush too, and each box had a bush which thrived to perfection.

Gerda's mother was really good with her garden for she also worked on bigger, more elaborate toils at the royal palace, the queen adored her gardens and adored the woman that kept them, often the two would wander around amongst the oak trees and the flowers just talking. Gerda's father however was employed as a taskmaster for the servants as such, this meant Gerda would spend a great amount of time in the palace. There she had a friend, someone she considered her best friend—his name is Kai, but one must address him with the utmost of respect, I guess one would address him as Prince Kai, heir apparent to the throne of Arendelle.

I guess to children none of that really matters. A boy is a boy and a girl is a girl, a friend is a friend, now and forever. It's something us adults would call naivety, but to us fifteen, twenty or thirty years ago this was a fact, this was what was.

One afternoon while the children's mothers were talking in the greenery, Gerda and Prince Kai were among the bushes and trees, sticks for swords as they revelled in make believe; a battle with ogres and trolls. They were running around, laughing and yelling until they all fell to the ground, beside each other with their heads touching, staring up into the tree tops. Then Gerda spots a little bee buzzing by and landing on her nose, she gasps a little frightened. Kai is first to the rescue and gently allows the bee to crawl onto his finger. He smiles at the little creature and presents it to Gerda who's still a little bit creeped out by it.

"This bee is one out of a billion, swarming around doing one job," said Kai.

"Do they have a queen bee?"

Kai nodded. "They do, in fact they're whole existence is to make sure the queen is alive and happy." The bee then began to fly again, buzzing about as though he weren't being watched by a couple of giants, small giants as they were. Gerda asked Kai if the buzzing was how the bees talked to each other as she found it strange they could not tell any difference in the sounds to mean words. Kai simply smiles and tells her that they communicate by dancing and then pulled them both up onto their feet. They started to twirl around, dancing freely among the roses. You see Kai was a very smart lad, he had a very expensive education and he made sure to take full advantage of it. He could do his multiplications and his fractions, all in his head while he practiced the lyre.

During the summer their days were just like that one, filled with these moments. Winter, of course, put an end to this pleasure. Gerda would always skip about happily on her way to see Kai during the summer, but in the wintertime, it was a bit trickier. The streets were deserted, people were more reluctant to get out into the freezing cold. Which surprised Gerda and her family when one winter's night someone knocked on the door, her father opened the door, greeted by none other than the prince himself.

The two children sat by the fire working on their picture book where Gerda drew the animals and Kai named them and then they chatted as Gerda worked on a special puzzle which she could not solve. She laughed when she presented her attempt and then when Kai tried he presented to her a sphere.

Soon Gerda's grandmother had them listening as she told them a little story. Looking out of their window as snow began to fall upon the window pane. "See the white bees swarming," the old grandmother said.

"Do they have a queen bee too?" the little boy asked, for he knew that real bees have one.

"Yes, indeed they do," the grandmother said. "She flies in the thick swarm. She is the biggest bee of all and can never stay quietly on the earth but goes back again to the dark clouds. Many a wintery night, she flies through the streets and peers in through the windows. Then the glass freezes over in a strange fashion, as if they were covered with flowers. Her gaze was so cold it could even turn one's breath into ice, on the inside."

"Oh yes, we've seen that," both children said, and so they knew it was true.

"Can the Snow Queen come in here?" the little girl asked.

"Well, let her come!" cried the boy, standing up defiantly and ready for action. "I would put her on the hot stove and melt her."

But Grandmother stroked his head, "Oh, you don't want to do that, my prince. You might make her cross, and if the Snow Queen got cross…Booh!"She had the children scrambling in fear and she started to chuckle, soon they were all laughing and Grandma began to tell them other stories again.

That evening when little Kai was back at the palace and half ready for bed, he climbed on the chair by the window and looked outside. A few snowflakes were falling, and the largest flake of all alighted on the edge of one of the flower boxes that aligned his windowsill. This flake grew bigger and bigger, until at last it turned into a woman who was dressed in the finest white gown that looked as if it had been made from millions of star-shaped flakes. She was beautiful and she was graceful, but she was ice— shining, glittering ice. She was alive, and her eyes sparkled like two bright stars, but in them there was neither rest nor peace. The woman nodded toward the window and beckoned with her hand. Little Kai was frightened, and as he jumped down from the chair, it seemed to him that a large bird flew past the window.

After a few days the snow thawed, and springtime came. The sun shone, the green grass sprouted, swallows made their nests, windows were thrown open, and once again the children played their little games throughout the town.

That summer, the roses bloomed their splendid best. The little boy had learned a hymn from an old book about the history of the many lands across the seas and it reminded him of her own flowers. He sang it to Gerda and she sang it with him:

Flower, gleam and glow

Let your power shine

Make the clock reverse

Bring back what once was mine

The children held each other by the hand, kissed the roses and looked up into the clear sunshine and thanked His blessings. What a glorious summer days those were, and how beautiful it was out under those fragrant rosebushes in front of Gerda's house that seemed as if they would never stop blooming. Prince Kai and Gerda were looking at the picture book they'd just finished, proud of their achievement, a mix of their crafts with her art and his cleverness to know their names who wouldn't be.

"Oh, aren't the roses beautiful this year. You should come and smell them Kai!"

Kai cheerfully got up and came to breathe in their scents and it was then— just as the clock in the church tower was striking five—that Kai cried out:

"Argh! Something hurt my heart!"

"Kai! What's wrong?"

The he was thrown onto his bottom, his head pushed back. "Now there's something in my eye. Gerda, help me!"

The little girl put her arm around his neck, and he blinked his eye. No, she couldn't see anything in it.

"I think it's gone," he said. But it was not gone. Now, it was one of those splinters of glass from the magic mirror. You remember that djinn's mirror—that one that made everything great and good that was reflected in it appear small and ugly, but that magnified all evil things until each blemish loomed large. The poor prince! A fragment had pierced his heart as well for though the pain had stopped, the glass was still there and soon his heart would turn into a lump of ice. Kai threw a worried Gerda off of him saying that he was getting a little sick of her and her stupid garden, proceeding then to whack away the roses. "All of these flowers look like they've been eaten by caterpillars, and they stink like rotten cabbages, and look, this one's crooked. These roses are just as ugly as they can be." He then walked off but as he did so he stomped onto their picture book and his shoes had torn the book into pieces.

"Oh, Kai! What are you doing, you've ruined it!" the little girl cried.

"Why are you crying?"

"You made me cry, Kai. You never did that before."

"Well stop it. It makes you look so ugly. There's nothing the matter with me, so I'm going home to work on my new jigsaw puzzle all by myself," and suddenly he stormed off for the castle, leaving dear little Gerda crying alone among her flowers.

Autumn came around and Kai's behaviour had gotten worse. He would go out in the streets and cleverly imitate the walk and talk of everyone who lived in his kingdom. Everything that was odd or ugly about them, Kai could mimic so well that people said, "That boy has surely got a good head on him!" but it was the spec of glass in his eye and the shards in his heart that made him tease even little Gerda who loved him with all her soul. He did so in front of his new friends, other boys who cheekily teased girls. "Look, Mr Baker, I'm all rickety and old, just like you. But don't worry, not long now until you're at peace."

When Gerda presented to him with their old book he said it was fit only for babies in the cradle. Gerda couldn't understand why Kai was so mean to her now.

Now his games were very different from what they used to be. They became more sensible one could say. When the snow was flying about one wintery day, he brought a large magnifying glass out of doors and spread the tail of his blue coat to let the snowflakes fall on it. "Now look through the glass, he told Gerda. Each snowflake seemed much larger and looked like a magnificent flower or a ten-pointed star. It was marvellous to look at. "Look, how artistic!" said Kai. "They are much more interesting to look at than real flowers. They are absolutely perfect, not a flaw in them until they start melting."

Still Gerda worried for him and told him to put his coat back on, for the boy was wearing now a loose flowing white shirt and armless vest. Wasn't he afraid he'd freeze?

"The cold never bothered me anyway," was his answer, though he was just acting tough, ignoring the goosebumps that formed on his arms, and then away he ran.

"It just isn't like him," she told her saddened grandmother.

"Maybe Kai thinks he's being grown up, dear. Some boys get like that."

She nodded but in her heart she knew there was something very wrong with him. She just knew there was.

By the time winter came along, Kai barely had time for Gerda at all. In the town square, some of the more adventurous boys would tie their little sleds to the back of the farmer's carts to be pulled along for quite a distance, sending large quantities of snow on the streets onto the civilians as they walked by, as annoyed as it got, they could not say much, it was after all, their future king at play. The boys guffawed at the displeasure of the other adults but Kai stopped short when he spotted Gerda at the corner in her fur coat, looking at him with such sadness.

"Something on your mind?"

"What's happened to you, Kai? You've hardly spoken to me all year."

"Well I've got new friends now and I don't like flowers anymore," he marched over to her. "They're messy and unmathematical."

Gerda was shocked though he outraged looked to Kai as bewilderment so he thought to explain it to her with an insultingly patronising tone. He allows a small snowflake to fall onto her gloved hand and again with his magnifying glass explains the perfection of the tiny spec.

"You see, regular and ordinary…it's so beautiful and perfect…like the Snow Queen herself," he began to trail off for a bit. "Compared to this, roses are just…well, ugly and untidy."

Suddenly one of the boys hurled a snow ball at him and he threw one in kind but missed and hit one of the guards. Quickly he pointed at little Gerda and placed blame on her before running off again. The guard knew Gerda and was not fooled but again all he could do was shrug at her disappointment.

While the fun was at its heights for the boys, a big sleigh drove up. It was painted entirely white, and the driver wore a white, shaggy fur cloak and a white, shaggy cap. As the sleigh drove twice around the square, Kai was dared to tag it. The young prince quickly hooked his sled behind it, and down the street they went, faster and faster. The driver turned around in a friendly fashion and nodded to Kai, just as if they were old acquaintances. Every time Kai started to unfasten his little sleigh, its driver nodded again, and Kai held on, even when they drove right out through the city's gates.

Then the snow began to fall so fast that the boy could not see his hands in front of him as they sped. He suddenly let go the slack of the rope in his hands in order to get loose form the big sleigh, but it was no good. The ropes had frozen solid. He gave a loud shout but no one heard him. The snow whirled, and the sleigh flew along like wind. Every now and then it gave a jump, as if it were clearing hedges and ditches. The boy was terror-stricken. He tried to say his prayers but all he could remember were his multiplication tables.

Before long, night had fallen and Kai had no idea where he was anymore. He was shivering, his lungs suddenly made it painful to breathe. When he finally roared out for the driver to stop, the big sleigh finally did and the driver stood up. The fur coat and cap were made of snow, and it was a woman, tall and slender and blindingly white—she was the Snow Queen herself.

"It's you!" he gasped.

The horses that had been pulling the sleigh began to transform into glistening ice as she walked over to the little boy, frozen in fright. "Yes it is I, the Queen of Snow. We have made good time," she said in an airy almost inhuman voice. "I have been looking forward to making your acquaintance, Kai. Is it possible that you tremble from the cold? Crawl under my bear coat." She took him up in her sleigh beside her, and as she wrapped the fur about him, he felt as if he were sinking into a snowdrift. "Are you still cold?" When he answered with more shivering, the Snow Queen kissed him on his forehead. That kiss was colder than ice. He felt it right down to his heart which was already half frozen to begin with.

Kai felt as if he was dying, but only for a moment. Then he was quite comfortable and the cold would indeed never bother him again. She urged the horses on and as they went, she kissed him again on the forehead and the Kai started to forget about little Gerda, and his parents and his kingdom. But she then stopped at that for if she'd kissed him more, he would surely die.

Kai looked at her. She was so beautiful, her hair so white. She no longer seemed to be made of ice, as she had seemed long ago, outside his window and beckoned to him. In his eyes, she was perfect, and he was not at all afraid. He told her how smart and clever he was, that he could do mental arithmetic even with fractions, and he knew the size, population and politics of all the countries. She kept on smiling and he kept looking up at the great space overhead, as she flew with him high up on the black clouds, while the storm whistled and roared as if it were singing old ballads or a secret army marching hidden in the wind.

The sleigh flew over forests and lakes, over many lands and seas. Below them, the wind blew ever colder, the wolves howled, and black crows screamed as they skimmed across the glittering snow. But up above, the moon shone bright and large, and on it, Kai fixed his eyes throughout that long, long winter's night and by day he slept at the feet of the Snow Queen.

And Ba'al Zebul laughed out loud to have caused such mischief.

—II—