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"Elsa! Elsa!"
Elsa groaned, rolled over, and wondered if every morning from now on was going to begin this way.
"She came."
Elsa looked up to see Anna holding a dollar bill, her eyes huge with awe.
"She actually came!" Anna breathed. "The tooth was gone an' everything!"
"See, I said she would," Elsa smiled. Anna's excitement was infectious.
"Whoa." Anna looked under the pillow. "Can you believe it? The tooth fairy was actually here and touched the pillow and touched this dollar!" Anna held the piece of paper up against her face.
"It's pretty crazy," Elsa agreed. "Also, I have something for us."
"You do? What?" Anna stopped bouncing on the bed, blue eyes wide with excitement.
"This!" Elsa showed Anna a box of Cheerios and some bread and peanut butter.
"Where'd you get it?!" Anna gasped. "Oh Elsa! Could I bring some of it to school for lunch, like the other kids?"
"I got it from the store with some of my own money. And of course! Just don't tell your parents. This is just for us," Elsa told Anna seriously.
Anna nodded eagerly. "I won't tell them!" She launched herself at the platinum blonde. "Thank you Elsa, you're the best ever!"
Elsa found that for some reason she was happier than she had ever been.
It made zero sense, but it was undeniable all the same.
"You're a lot more talkative than when you came here. You would just mope around then," Astrid told Elsa at recess one day.
"I wouldn't mope!" Elsa protested, adjusting her blue sweater. The air was crisp, fall beginning to turn to winter. They probably only had a few more days before it would be too cold for outdoor recess.
"Uh, yeah you would," Hiccup agreed. "And you didn't smile."
It was true. And the reason was that, for the first time in her life, Elsa found herself being needed. Anna needed her. All her life, Elsa had been unwanted and ignored. But now she had someone to love and protect and life had more meaning than it ever had before.
She had always wanted a foster home with a little sister. And the circumstances weren't ideal by any stretch of imagination. But it didn't matter because for the first time, Elsa had a family. A sister that needed her.
"Whatever," Elsa didn't bother responding to Hiccup, her eyes on the door of the school building. Her recess overlapped with Anna's and she wanted to check that the small girl's cold wasn't getting worse.
"There she is." Astrid knew exactly what Elsa was doing. Elsa never spoke to her friends about her home life, only after a while giving them the fact that she was a foster kid. But they knew her well enough to realize how protective she was of her foster sister, although not knowing exactly why.
Astrid pointed to a small redheaded girl.
"Elsa!" Anna's voice sounded funny because of her cold.
"Elsa!" Anna's friend, a little black haired girl named Vanellope, echoed.
"Hey! Are you feeling better?" Elsa knelt to look at Anna.
"Her nose is bright red!" Vanellope offered. "And she keeps coughing."
"My head feels weird," Anna complained.
"Does she feel hot to you?" Elsa asked Hiccup. The scrawny boy placed his hand on Anna's forehead.
"She feels hot," he confirmed.
Elsa bit her lip. She trusted Hiccup's assessment, the boy had a way with animals and other living beings.
"Tell her teacher, she'll take her to the nurse," Astrid suggested.
"I want to stay with you," Anna pouted, hugging Elsa tightly. Elsa took the whiny tone as another symptom of possible illness, it was unlike Anna.
Elsa considered skipping school and just taking Anna home, but her social worker was meeting her right after school. And if she wanted to stay with Anna, she had to make sure everything appeared alright and make sure she didn't skip school too much.
"Alright, let's go talk to Belle then," Elsa sighed.
When Elsa got home late in the afternoon after her meeting with the social worker, the house seemed empty.
"Anna!" Elsa called out, her pulse increasing. Hadn't the nurse sent the small girl home with a fever? She had checked after school and was told Scott had picked her up. So where was she?
"Anna!" Elsa put down her backpack and walked to her room, checking the bed.
Her pulse was rising. She should have never trusted Anna to go to the nurse and have a parent sent for her.
"Elsa!"
The cry was faint. Elsa spun around, scanning the ragged furniture and dirty floor, trying to find the source of the noise.
"Anna? Where are you?!"
"I'm here!"
"Where's here?!" Elsa followed the voice into the kitchen.
"Here!" There was a banging on the door to the basement. Elsa immediately dropped her backpack and ran to the door, her face paling.
Oh God. She should have taken Anna home. Scott had locked his own daughter in the basement.
"Hold on!" Elsa tugged at the door while Anna coughed and sniffled on the other side. "I'm gonna try to pick it okay?" It was a handy skill another foster kid had taught her once.
"It's dark, Elsa." Anna's voice made it clear she had been crying.
Elsa felt her heart break. Anna was scared of the dark.
"Just hold on. I'm coming." Elsa pulled out a paper clip.
"Daddy was scary," Anna sniffed. "He was mad the school called him to get me."
"Did he hurt you?" Elsa demanded, her voice low.
"No. Just put me in here," Anna coughed. "I said I was sorry too."
Elsa swore under her breath. Scott, she had observed, was getting worse.
There was a tiny click and Elsa threw open the door. Anna tumbled into her arms.
"Elsa, I was so scared," the small girl sobbed into her shirt.
"I'm so sorry, I should have come sooner," Elsa picked her up with a little difficulty. Anna was small, but Elsa wasn't that big herself either. Anna was trembling in her arms.
"I thought I was gonna be in there forever like last time," Anna tightened her grip on Elsa as they made their way to their bedroom.
"Do they lock you in there a lot?" Elsa helped Anna onto the bed and wrapped a blanket around her tiny frame.
"Just when I'm naughty Sometimes when I'm really bad, I havta go into the shed outside." Anna's eyes were already closed, but one hand clung to Elsa's.
Elsa watched the tiny girl sleep, her blue eyes fixed on the small freckled face.
I'll protect you Anna. We both don't have anyone else to do it, so I'll do it for you.
Elsa locked their room that night. Nobody came home anyways.
The next day, Anna was feverish. She shivered one minute then was sweating and throwing the blankets off the next. Elsa didn't want to leave her so she stayed home too.
Scott still hadn't come home yet. Jill didn't seem to notice what Elsa and Anna did anymore.
The next day, Anna was about the same and Elsa was scared. She was only nine-years-old, albeit circumstances had caused her to act much older, and she didn't know what to do.
One day, earlier in the fall, Anna and Elsa had walked home with Belle, Anna's teacher, and found out she actually lived in the same neighborhood, although a nicer part. Elsa had noted the location and made sure she didn't forget.
Now Elsa stood on the doorstep of the house, thin jacket wrapped around her form, ready to knock.
Elsa was a pro at lying. But by the time she left, with information on how to help Anna, she knew Belle suspected something was up.
But Elsa couldn't worry about that.
And when Anna was back bouncing off the walls at school, Elsa ran into Belle in the hall.
"Elsa, I don't have enough to substantiate any report to the school. Anna won't talk to me about what is going on at home." Belle's chocolate eyes were fixed on Elsa's, the unspoken question hanging in the air between them.
"I don't know what you're talking about."
Elsa wasn't about to let Anna go into the foster care system. She knew how hard it could be, first hand. If Anna was with her, she could protect her.
Belle looked at Elsa with a hint of disappointment.
"I just want to help Anna, just like you. If you ever need anything, you know where to find me."
Elsa nodded and scurried down the hall.
Walking home was harder in the cold weather. Anna seemed especially sensitive to cold, her thin frame shaking with shivers. Elsa on the other hand, wasn't very affected for some reason. However both girls loved the snow and glittering icicles.
Elsa switched from mowing lawns to shovelling snow, and the job opportunities were even better. Soon she had enough to buy Anna and herself a cheap plastic sled.
It was pure bliss to hold onto each other, screaming, rushing down a hill, snow falling around them.
However after another cold, Elsa quarantined Anna inside for a little while.
Scott was home a lot more because it was cold. He liked to sit on the couch and let the TV blare. Elsa and Anna avoided him as much as possible, but once and awhile would claim the living room for play space when Scott retreated to his room.
That was when the incident happened.
"I'm gonna get you!" Elsa playfully threw her arms around Anna, wrestling her gently. "I'll let you go if you give me the ball!"
"Never!" Anna shrieked, pushing Elsa away, laughing.
"I need the ball! It contains magical icey powers," Elsa whispered, making her way around the table.
"Alright then! Catch it!" Anna gleefully threw the baseball.
Elsa moved to catch it and tripped on a bottle laying on the floor. She stretched her arm out and the ball brushed her fingertips. But she couldn't get it. The ball hit the broken leg of the rickety table the TV was perched on. It had broken earlier but was glued back into one piece. However as the ball hit it, the wood cracked again and the TV crashed to the ground.
The sound was deafening but the silence that followed was even more so.
Anna and Elsa stared at each other in silent shock. Elsa looked back at broken TV on the ground, limbs still frozen with horror. Anna was looking at her, blue eyes filled with panic.
And then all of a sudden, adrenaline surged through Elsa.
"Come on, come on!" she wrapped her arms around the smaller girl and tried to pull her out of the room. But it was too late.
"What have you done?!"
Anna was sobbing as she was torn away from Elsa.
"Let me go!" Elsa screamed. "Anna!"
"Elsa! Elsa!"
"Let go of her!" Elsa fought to get to the small redhead.
"Shut up! Be thankful you aren't my kid or I would tan your miserable hide, foster brat!"
Despite her fighting and screaming, Scott easily pushed the girl into the basement and locked the door.
"Anna!" Elsa pounded on the door, tears streaming down her face. "Anna!"
Anna's whimper of pain through the door caused Elsa to tug frantically at the door, her blood running cold.
He hasn't hurt her before.
The change in Scott's behavior scared Elsa. She banged, tugged, and kicked at the door. She had to get to Anna.
A door slammed and suddenly Elsa couldn't hear Anna's sobbing anymore.
Elsa pulled and yanked at the door but it wouldn't budge. She desperately flew down the stairs into the basement and looked around for something that could help her. Suddenly she spotted an window, high up. Elsa dragged a couple boxes across the cement floor and tried stacking them. They were too heavy for her to lift. She found a bucket and turned it upside down and put a tool box on top of that. Perilously she climbed on, swaying back and forth, but managed to catch the edge of the window with her hands and pulled herself onto the sill.
Fiddling with the panes, she managed to open it, tumbling outside into the snow.
She shivered, but not from the cold.
Anna. Where was Anna?
Sometimes when I'm really bad, I havta go into the shed outside. Anna's words rang in her ears.
Elsa desperately ran around the house.
"Anna!" she flew to the wooden door, trying to tug it open. It was locked. "Anna are you in there?!"
"El-Elsa-a-a," Anna's small voice sobbed.
"Hold on, I'll get you out. Are you hurt?"
She could hear a sniff but no answer.
"Okay, is it serious? Are you bleeding?" Elsa frantically twisted, pulled and kicked at the door.
"J-just a little bit-t-t, I don't k-k-know where from."
"Hang on." Elsa threw her meager paperclip lock pick onto the ground in frustration after a couple minutes of fruitless effort at unlocking the door. She circled the wooden structure, checking for windows or anything she could get Anna through.
"It's dark in here, Elsa." The fear in her voice was breaking Elsa's heart.
"I can't get in," Elsa stood in front of the door. Her heart was thudding in her chest boom boom boom.
"Elsa, p-please don't leave me!" Anna begged. Elsa leaned against the door, wishing with all her heart it would open, her heart literally breaking in her chest.
"Is there anything in there you could use to open the door?"
"No-o I don't think s-s-so." Anna's voice trembled. "I'm cold-d."
Elsa could image Anna's tiny frame shaking from the cold surrounding her, knowing how easily the small girl got chilled.
Elsa made up her mind right there.
"I'm getting help. I'm going to get Belle."
In that moment she knew that the next day she wouldn't be with Anna anymore. The foster system would swoop her out of the house and she might not see Anna ever again. This was the choice she had been dreading. Maybe she shouldn't have put it off for so long.
It would hurt Anna.
But at least Anna would be alive and safe.
"I will be right back, Anna. You're going to be okay, just hold on. I'll be right back."
"P-p-promise?"
"I promise."
Elsa turned and ran as fast as she could. She couldn't even feel the cold, only her heart pounding in her chest.
It seemed to take forever to get there, one step then another, seconds, minutes ticking by, time she didn't have to waste.
Finally she arrived at the small little house where she knew Belle lived. Racing up the steps, she pounded on the door. Please please please open the door!
"Hello?"
Belle's pretty face appeared in the door. Her brown eyes widened as she recognized Elsa, taking in her tear streaked face.
"What are you doing here Elsa? Are you okay? Is Anna okay?"
Elsa lost it and started crying.
"She's trapped, in the shed, she's hurt, I tried to stop him but he locked me in the basement. He's never hurt her before, I didn't know... I couldn't get the door open, she's cold and I didn't know what to do," Elsa broke down. "Please, I can't get her out!"
Belle's face went white. She disappeared into the house and reappeared a moment later with a box of tools.
"Tell me where you live."
"Anna? Anna?!" Elsa called through the door as Belle running up behind her.
The silence was deafening.
Belle's face was tight and strained.
"Call 911." She handed Elsa her cell phone and pulled out a screwdriver and attacked the hinges of the door.
The door of the shed finally came off around the same time that the sirens in the distance became audible.
Anna was lying still on the floor, sweet mouth slightly open, completely still.
"Anna!" Elsa threw herself at the small girl. "Anna! It's okay. I've got you." She cradled the girl's head in her lap. "Belle!" she wailed.
"She's cold as ice," Belle gasped, touching Anna's forehead. Quickly she placed two trembling fingers on Anna's neck. "Her pulse is steady. Just hold on. The ambulance is almost here."
Elsa didn't say anything, her head bent over her foster sister's form.
Belle could barely catch the words the blond was mumbling, but they broke her heart.
"I'm sorry Anna. I had to do it. To keep you safe. You'll be okay now. We'll always be sisters, okay? Even though I won't get to see you anymore, we'll still be sisters. Forever."
The sirens screamed in front of the house, people jumping out of cars, police heading to the door, paramedics running towards them.
For a moment Elsa hugged Anna tighter. Then she let her be taken by the paramedics and loaded into the ambulance. She let her go. For Anna's sake.
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