Anna
I couldn't hear my own screaming for the roaring of wind in my ears. Fat snowflakes and sleet pelted my face as we shot upward, higher and higher and higher. I only stopped screaming when a small piece of ice caught in my throat, causing me to gag. I held painfully tight to my dad (it was really weird calling him that) as he took us up through the clouds, laughing the whole way. I shut my eyes, scared out of my mind.
After a second or two, the flying became steadier, and I dared to open my eyes just a tad, and after glimpsing a bright light, I opened them completely and gasped. I had never seen anything so beautiful. I could see the sun now that we were above the storm, and the clouds below us shone in various shades of pink and orange and all sorts of colors that were too stunning to give names to. It was a surreal experience. Dad was smiling at my reaction to it all. We flew along calmly for several minutes with me trying to reach out and touch the beautiful clouds until Dad called back to me, "Do you want to do something really fun?"
"Um..." I said, not quite sure what his idea of "fun" was when we were already flying thousands of feet above the earth.
"That's a yes!" Suddenly, we jerked straight upward again, but I hadn't the time to grab on properly, so I was scrambling to keep hold of him. Then, of course, he flew upside down. I fell fast and hard, shrieking at the top of my lungs while he floated there, waving goodbye as he grew farther and farther away from me. He was crazy! Then, he was flying right next to me, smiling and laughing at my flailing.
"Help me!" I screeched at him, and he rolled his eyes. In one swift motion, he hooked his wooden staff around me and swung me onto his back again before I had even reached the clouds. I latched on immediately, shaking and gasping for breath from fright. Dad pulled up until we were flying in a straight path once again. "What the heck? That wasn't fun! I could have died!"
"I had everything under control," he assured me.
"Sure, you did," I replied sarcastically.
"It's fun when you're not freaking out."
"And why wouldn't anyone freak out?"
"You shouldn't worry about it if you trust me," he answered, somewhat solemnly. I started to inexplicably feel guilty. "Anna, do you trust me?"
"Yeah..." I answered carefully. He was my dad, after all. Looking down, I could see him start to smile again.
"Do you wanna try it again?" he asked, sounding more excited.
I knew I was going to regret this, but I nodded anyway. "Mmm-hmm..."
With a shout of delight, we rode straight up again, and this time, I let go. I let myself fall. He stopped suddenly once I did, not quite expecting that, but he went along with it anyway, circling around me as a screamed. Again, he hooked his staff around me and put me back on top of him, and not knowing quite why, I started to laugh. The thrill of it all was still fresh in my mind, and though I trembled from it, I couldn't help but laugh. "Again!" I blurted out before he had completely leveled off, and laughing with me, we went again and again until I was very tired. "That was some kind of crazy trust exercise!"
I noticed after a while that the clouds had disappeared below us suddenly, and we were over the ocean. Dad flew down to the waves, close enough for my dangling feet to catch to sea spray. The water spread out all around us for miles around, the closest bodies of land only dots on the horizon. I had never imagined the world being so big compared to my world, which still felt confined to the palace gates. Dad took us back up again for a gentler flight, and even though it was still early afternoon, I felt myself drift to sleep on his back, exhausted from the journey.
"Anna, wake up! Anna, we're here!" he shouted, bringing me out of a most wonderful dream of ships sailing off to distant lands with strange and colorful flowers. I slowly lifted my heavy, reluctant eyelids, and could tell by the sun that the day was nearly over. I rubbed my eyes and stretched, careful not to fall off of his back. That had been the best dream I'd had in a while. "Anna," Dad asked tentatively, "Now that you see me, would you be willing to believe in other crazy things?"
"I guess." I shrugged.
"Say, like, Santa, or the Easter Bunny, or...the Tooth Fairy?"
"Wait, what?"
"Would you believe in them?"
"They're real?" I exclaimed.
"Do you trust me?" he repeated.
"Of course," I answered, no longer a doubt in my mind. I found it so easy to relax around him. He knew who I was and what I liked and wanted, and I knew that he would never let me fall or get hurt.
"Then, yes. Now, look around you." I had been looking down at him to hear him better over the wind, but I did as he directed, and my mouth fell open. It appeared to be a some kind of magnificent palace, gleaming gold in the setting sun. It had many parts to it and each appeared to be floating over a deep cavern around a central dome. Small birds flitted about everywhere. Dad landed in a large, gilded cage-like structure and helped me down. With a grand, sweeping gesture, he announced, "Welcome to the tooth palace."
I twirled around in place, trying to take everything in at once, the colorful tiles, the golden towers, and the strange birds that had begun to buzz curiously around me and Dad. One flew right around my head, and I saw that they were not birds, but tiny, strange, feathered creatures with insect-like wings and violet colored eyes that resembled a humans. Fairies! I had often read about them in my books, and when I was younger, I always dreamt of finding them out in the garden. As I grew older, I figured that they really were fictitious, much like everything else that I was quickly realizing was real, and I never, ever thought that I would see one until now. There had to be thousands and thousands of them in the palace, carrying teeth and money back and forth.
"Come on! There's someone that you need to see!" Dad took my hand and led me over a thin bridge towards the central structure. I had to hang onto him tightly, not quite sure how he could keep his balance so well. We appeared to enter the hub of activity as fairies swarmed all around us, tapping little compartments on the walls that immediately popped out. As we walked by, I saw that each little compartment was labeled with a face. "Tooth! Toothiana!" Dad called over and over, though I could barely hear him over the high-pitched squeaks of alarm from the fairies as he passed by. Several of them flew ahead of us upon seeing him. A minute passed, and Dad turned to me. "I wonder if she's out at the moment."
Out of nowhere, a much larger fairy appeared from the swarms, throwing her arms around my dad. "Jack!" she exclaimed. She was as beautiful as the castle she lived in. A few inches taller than me, the fairy was covered head-to-toe in brightly colored, shimmering feathers. Her eyes were a brilliant purple, hooded by long, thick lashes. She smiled widely as she swung my father around excitedly, and her teeth were so white that I thought I might go blind, but I simply couldn't take my eyes off of her.
"Hey, Tooth!" Dad hugged her back, and they separated, her hovering just a foot or so off the ground.
"Oh my goodness! I thought I'd never see you again! I mean, it's been so long since I last saw you, since anyone last saw you, actually..." I noticed that the fairy had a tendency to rush her sentences.
"C'mon, it hasn't been that-"
"Over twenty years, Jack."
"Oh." Dad suddenly went quiet, and I realized in that moment how much he had given up for me and our family, even though I had never seen him. This fairy was obviously a friend of his, but around the same time Elsa was born, he had alienated her. I still couldn't understand the reason behind it, but I knew it had to be because of us, and it reminded me of how Elsa shut me out. She'd had a good reason, I think, and I knew that Dad probably did, too. I reminded myself to try and ask later if nothing else was revealed during this visit.
The fairy looked over his shoulder and finally noticed me. "Oh, my," she gasped.
Awkwardly, Dad introduced the two of us. "Anna, this is the Tooth Fairy. Tooth, this is Anna, my...daughter." He'd hesitated on the last word, and it was killing me to know why. The Tooth Fairy flew over to me, and studied me curiously.
"I'd heard rumors, but...wow. I never really thought...this is just...wow." It felt kind of weird having this odd woman look at me so closely and be amazed. I shifted awkwardly and began to fiddle with the clasp on my cloak. It was much hotter here than back home. "North told me about the presents he delivered for you, Bunny said he'd seen at an egg hunt in a kingdom several years ago, and Sandy, well, he described as best he could. Heck, even my fairies told me, but I just never..."
"You never came by yourself?" Dad asked, sounding very depressed, totally different from his jovial attitude up in the air.
"I just figured that you wanted to be alone again, or something. I didn't really want to bother you if you wanted to shut us out," she said, turning back to him, also very sad, all of a sudden. "I just avoided you, I guess. The other Guardians can't really do the same; I can have my fairies handle a certain section, but they felt kind of the same way. You just sort of disappeared, Jack." Tooth sighed. "I should have come, but Jack, you do know that-"
"Yes," he interrupted, glancing nervously at me. "Yes, I know." They shared a long look where something was understood between them that I was left out of. I was biting my tongue, trying not to burst with the million questions bouncing around inside my head.
"She's beautiful," Tooth complimented, breaking the silence. I felt a little put off that she wasn't speaking directly to me. I might have said something if she didn't suddenly gasp. "Oh! If the rumors are true, isn't there another one? I hear one of them has powers, Jack, like you! Is it her?" She pointed at me, but still didn't ask me herself.
"No," I answered before Dad could, trying to break into their annoyingly exclusive conversation. I didn't understand why I wasn't being treated like an adult here. I was eighteen.
"Then, where's the other one?" Tooth continued, too excited to pay me any mind.
"That's a long story," Dad responded, also appearing to ignore me. I was really starting to get annoyed.
"What's a Guardian?" I questioned, still vying for attention.
"That's also a long story."
"So, if you've been gone all these years, why show up now? Why here?" said Tooth, crowding him.
Dad slammed the end of his staff down on the tiles with a resounding crack, and frost spread out from the point of impact in swirling patterns on the floor. Both me and the Tooth Fairy grew silent. "Will someone just give me a chance to explain?" he huffed. First, he turned to me. "A Guardian is a character chosen by the Man in the Moon who protects something in children. Nicholas St. North, aka Santa Claus, protects wonder. E. Aster Bunnymund, aka the Easter Bunny, protects hope. The Sandman protects dreams, and Tooth here protects precious memories."
The Tooth Fairy put a hand on my shoulder and smiled. "And your, uh, father is a Guardian, too. He protects fun."
Though completely weirded out by all of this, still, I shrugged. "Makes sense."
"And about the memories," my dad continued, "That's what we're here for. I need to see Anna's teeth."
"My what?"
"No problem!" Tooth said, and she gave a few directions to passing fairies. "But may I ask what for?"
"There's something she needs to see that happened a long time ago, but something happened, and now she can't remember," Dad explained.
"What? What can I not remember?"
"Oh, okay." Tooth nodded.
"Also, there's one more thing I've been wondering about," said Dad. "Is it possible to look into other people's memories? I remember that when I saw mine, Baby Tooth couldn't, even though she was right next to me the entire time."
"Jack, I'm sorry, but no. Why?"
"Uh, it's kind of...well, the thing is..." Dad fumbled around for words.
"Oh, here it is!" Tooth announced as a small group of fairies dropped a cylindrical, golden canister in her hands. "Princess Anna. If I remember correctly, you had quite a bit of a sweet tooth," she teased as she handed the box to me.
"Still do," I giggled. I examined the box. On the front was very clearly my face, but something seemed a little off about the picture. On top was a diamond-shaped button.
"Go on," both my dad and the Tooth Fairy urged. Not knowing what might happen next, I pressed the button, and as the box opened, I was enveloped in a brilliant white light. When the light left, I found myself standing in the castle hallways.
"But how?" I wondered out loud. How had I gotten back so fast? In a rush of cold air, Dad flew past me. I tried to call out to him and ask what was going on, but he didn't appear to see or hear me.
"Catch me if you can!" he called, turning a corner.
Before I could even wonder why he was playing games at a time like this, an all too familiar voice sounded behind me. "Anna's it! Anna's it!" Elsa rushed past me, but she was much, much younger, and she was laughing, running, and playing, nearly nothing like the Elsa I had come to know. Then, I saw myself race by, and I finally understood. This was a memory, but the odd thing was that I didn't ever remember this. I followed the trio of old around the corner and saw that little Elsa had leaned against a wall and had accidentally frozen it. Dad looked slightly concerned, but little me only kept giggling and tagged Dad.
Wait, what? I had seen him? I knew he had existed? And I didn't even react to Elsa's magic! It was as if it was completely normal for me. I watched Dad clean up little Elsa's mess and tousle her hair before the image faded to something else. It was snowing inside the bedroom that Elsa and I used to share, and little me was playing late into the night until she slipped on the ice that was quickly spreading. I watched myself run to Elsa and shake her, but she refused to wake up. She was too caught up in some strange dream. Little me tried leaving the room, but the door had frozen shut, so I watched myself trudge over to the bed and shiver underneath the covers, waiting for morning to arrive.
Had that been the horrible thing that had happened? Was that why Elsa moved out and her powers were kept a secret from me? No, that still didn't explain why I couldn't remember any of this. I watched the image change once again. Little Elsa and little me were playing in the ballroom, Elsa using her magic to coat the ground in ice and snow. We were dancing to joyful music outside until I fell into the snow. Little me got up and made up a game where little me would jump off a snow pile while little Elsa caught her with another one. I watched that game continue until little me was dancing on snow drifts high enough to touch the chandelier. I knew this was about to end badly.
Little me jumped, little Elsa slipped on the ice, and instead of creating a soft pile of snow for me to land in, Elsa's blast of magic hit me squarely in the head. She ran over to where I fell. "It's okay. I've got you, Anna!" she cried, but I was unconscious, and where she had hit me, my hair turned white. Little Elsa began to cry, starting a blizzard in the room. The image quickly faded, and I saw Mother singing, her long hair wrapped around little me. Mother was crying, and little Elsa and Dad stood in the background of the image, surrounded by a circle of frost. The image changed again.
It was morning in this image, and little me was perfectly fine and bouncing around, asking to play with Elsa. Little me burst out of the door where Father waited, arms outstretched...and I ran right through him. Little me didn't acknowledge him in the slightest, not remembering the games or the fun or anything about magic whatsoever. Suddenly, I was yanked back into reality.
Dad and Tooth were still talking. "I'm sorry, Jack, but that was before my time," Tooth was saying. They didn't seem to notice that I was back yet.
I looked at the white streak running through my right braid, then back at the image on the canister, where it was noticeably absent. The streak wasn't natural. It was made by magic, which apparently doesn't count when it comes to baby teeth. I looked back at Dad, who was nodding, looking somewhat disappointed, to Tooth. I could never forget that horrified face of his that was in the last memory. That image was burned into my mind. An expression full of all the pain in the world, caused completely by me. I couldn't stop the tears running down my cheeks.
The two finally noticed me, and before anyone could ask what I had seen and why I was crying, I ran to Dad and hugged him. Surprised and probably a little unsure, he didn't hug me back at first. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry," I sobbed into his shirt. "How could I ever forget you?" I felt him heave a heavy sigh and wrap his arms around me. The embrace was cold, but I couldn't care less. "I love you," I told him, and I felt him kiss the top of my head.
"I love you, too," he replied, his voice breaking. We could have stayed like that forever, but that would have been too happy of an ending.
"Jack?" Tooth said, worry evident in her voice. We parted abruptly, and the first thing I realized was that I was still cold. We both looked up and saw the dark clouds gathering overhead, and one after another, snowflakes began to fall, causing the little fairies to panic. "It never snows here!"
Dad held up his hands defensively. "I'm not doing it!"
"Jack, what's going on?"
Instead of answering her, Dad looked at me. "How about the bogeyman? Are you willing to believe in him?"
Tooth started to panic. "Wait, what? What's all this about Pitch? What's going on? What does he have to do with this? Do I need to get the other Guardians? Jack, answer me! Don't you just-!"
It was too late. Dad had already thrown me onto his back, and we were flying into the darkening sky. "It's getting worse," Dad muttered, which worried me, but not more than the Tooth Fairy's reaction to the mention of the bogeyman, something Mother had told me never to worry about. Could it be...could he be real? And how dangerous was he if Tooth's first reaction was to call the other Guardians? As we fought the winds going upward to the clouds, I had an awful feeling that something terrible was yet to come.
(Whoo! Fun chapter! Can't wait to write what's up ahead. I mean, I would now, but my finger hurts from accidently sewing myself to a dress that I'm making that's based on Elsa's. Yes, I was using a machine, and no, I have no idea how I managed to get that needle stuck through my finger. Anywho, what do you think Jack was asking Tooth about when Anna was taking a trip down memory lane? I'd love to hear your theories. Review! Review! Review!)