CHAPTER 26- Stranded
Spiralling through the air in a kind of panic, the dragon bumped against one treetop, then another, nearly shaking Elsa off, before it swung low towards the ground, skidding to a halt against a rocky outcrop at the edge of the tree line.
Thrown clear of the tumbling beast, Elsa found herself suddenly airborne in a quite different way to before. Seeing rocky ground shooting up towards her face, she stretched out her hands and filled the general area in front of her with as much snow as she could muster.
The long and the short of it was, she ended up eight feet deep in a twenty foot instant snowdrift, which was like a world of cushiony comfort after clinging onto the angular spine of the ice dragon for dear life a moment before.
She found she couldn't really breathe, though, and so she quickly dissolved the snow, letting herself sink down to ground level as her creation dematerialised.
She stood there, feeling rather battered and bruised, and looked around her in the twilight. On one side of her was a rock face which would have been scalable to an experienced climber, but definitely wasn't for her. On every other side she saw a dense forest of pines, tall and dark-needled. The air was cold, even in summer, and part of her instinctively knew that this was about the only time of year when there wouldn't have been snow on the ground anyway.
The dragon was flapping off into the distance, having thought better of saying hello to its troublesome creator again. It was hard not to feel rejected.
Oh no. Anna. I left... after all that. What must she think?
She had to get back to the others. Elsa tried to figure out which direction to head in. It was roughly away from the sunset. Straight into the woods.
Mind you, every path from where she stood was straight into the woods.
There was no point in hesitating. She had no food, and every delay in getting home put Arendelle in greater danger. Steeling herself, she stepped into the forest.
. .
. .
"Because I'm going after her, that's why!" Janna looked through the bag one last time before laying it over the back of her little palfrey's saddle.
"By yourself?" asked Anna, incredulous. "I thought those woods had all the evil in the world in them, or something."
"Magic. Very dangerous magic." Janna rested her head against the saddle. "If you want to search an ocean, send a fish..."
Anna fidgeted with one of her plaits, looking at the deep blue-green sweep of the high forest across the feet of high, grey mountains. "What about Elsa?"
Janna took a deep breath, and carried on readying her horse. "Your sister may be the most supernaturally powerful human being in the world. Yet somehow, she has the survival skills of a kitten. Her chances are... the sooner I find her, the better."
Olaf seemed as shaken as Anna was. "She didn't mean to leave us, did she?"
Anna hugged him. "I... hope not. I hope not."
She looked up, to see Janna checking her sword and strapping it to her side.
"I should go with you!"
"No!" Janna pointed at the camp. "It isn't a place where you can survive. You need to stay here and take care of the others. My men will follow your orders. Within reason."
"Take them with you, if I can't go!" Janna's eyes hadn't lost their fire since she had seen Elsa leave. Sparks of blue flashed out with every turn of her head. "Are you even thinking straight?"
Janna sprang up onto the horse. "No. Not in days. But I'm going alone."
"Manner!" The old ferryman stepped up. Janna leaned over. "They have plenty of supplies, what with all the dead. Lead them up to the old castle- they'll be out of the way there."
She reached down to reassure the old man with a hand on the shoulder. "The castle is empty, Manner. Believe me, what I kill stays dead. I've ordered the magpies there to keep watch for trouble, and not to make any."
She turned back to Anna. "I'll be back with Elsa in a few days. Please, just be patient."
Anna wasn't reassured. "And if she left on purpose? If she doesn't want to come back? This... following her thing, it doesn't always work out so well..."
Janna ran a hand through her tangled hair. "I don't know. First I stop her from getting herself killed."
She smiled at Anna. It was probably meant to be cheery, but in combination with blazing black and blue eyes it was more nightmarish than anything.
"Goodbye, Anna. Goodbye, Olaf."
"'Bye, Janna." Olaf held his hands together anxiously. "So, if I said goodbye to Jani, would he be able to hear me?"
Janna blinked, trying to process that question, then rolled her eyes when she understood. "I don't have multiple personalities, Olaf. So, goodbye from both of me, I guess..."
Spurring her horse, Janna set off into the south-west, towards the deep, dark forest.
"How will you even find her?" Anna shouted after her.
"I dunno", she shouted back. "Follow the tug on my sodding leash, maybe..."
Anna had no idea what that meant.
Turning back, she looked at the rag-tag collection of middle-aged servants, northern warriors, fishermen and magical snow beings before her. All now looking to her for leadership, apparently.
. .
. .
The forest was dark.
Elsa made a ball of ice in her palm, and pumped magical potential into it until it glowed like a blue lamp. It made it easier to avoid tripping on tree roots- again- or catching her foot on thorny growth- again- but it also cast a ghostly blue pall on the world around her.
Here she was, alone, in a universe of grey shadows and eerie murmurings. She could feel the tiny hairs on her arms standing on end, as if electrified. Every animal, instinctive part of her was telling her to run screaming.
This was one of the haunted forests Rinne had been talking about, wasn't it? It had all the signs. Except for actual, visible ghosts- but the night was young.
A harsh call ripped through the air above her; she ducked down, fingers brushing the ground. As a few sparks of Elsa's power escaped, icicles rose up to meet her fingertips.
Stalagmites, stalactites.
Something within her spasmed with pain at the memory. It was hard to believe how happy she had been, a day or two before, amid life's adventure with that beautiful stranger. Even fighting for her life had not been too fearful. Being marooned far from home had been bearable. What a difference a day makes.
It had been frightening, yes, but... not like this. A hollow, suffocating dread which seemed to snake its way into her lungs with every fevered breath, choking the spirit out of her. A grey darkness filled with muttering, which ate up the light a few feet from the ice in her hand.
What has she done to me? Why am I still thinking about him? A confection of method acting and carefully chosen clothes?
She realised that she no longer had any idea what direction she was walking in. She should really stop. She should stay still and wait until dawn. But with every step she took forward, the voices behind her drew closer. If she stopped, even for a minute, she would be overwhelmed.
So she kept walking
Get it under control. Don't feel it.
Don't feel it...
Don't feel it...
The whispering shadows seemed to spit her thoughts back at her. Mocking, laughing.
Don't let it show...
She wheeled around. Was that Pappa's voice?
She was losing her mind out here.
More laughter. Scorn. Shame. Children's delight turning to screams as a courtyard fills with ripping talons of ice. Oh God, someone help me...
Croak.
She looked up.
She had fallen to her knees. The light in her hand still shone, and she could see a magpie standing a few feet in front of her. It burbled hoarsely, and took off, landing a few feet away.
"Are you one of Jani's?" That's Janna, you fool...
The magpie gave no response. Could Janna listen through them? Could she talk to her? Elsa didn't know the rules.
The bird hopped a few feet further away.
"You want me to follow you?"
The magpie croaked in a tone that was strangely offensive, and hopped away another foot.
"Okay, I get the picture..."
Pulling herself upright, Elsa continued walking, following her strange little guide through an unfamiliar landscape.
. .
. .
It had only taken another few hours to travel up to the fox castle, as the old ferryman Manner was calling it. The ruin almost overlooked the bay, and would have been visible from the village of Larkspur, but was shielded from sight by the shape of the hills and dense tree growth.
Once they had reached it though, it was memorable. The castle was just a castle, a simple keep, fallen into pieces- she'd seen that before.
But from culverts at the base of the castle flowed twin streams, running and branching through vast flower beds which surrounded the main building on both sides.
And the flowers were all dead. Great pools of grey, brown and black, filling the castle grounds, which must once have been alive with colour.
Anna sat on a low wall, alongside Manner and Gerda- she was pretty sure they were sweet on each other, although it could have been wishful thinking on her part- and decided she had to ask.
"What happened here?"
Manner shrugged. "Janna happened." He swept an arm across the wilted landscape. "'Drum and distaff, we destroy', and all that." He jabbed a thumb back at the ruined keep. "That too. It was a fortress when she arrived. Clever little girl."
"Why do you call it the fox castle?"
Manner looked grim. He fidgeted with his bandana, which he had now taken to wearing around his neck like a kind of deep blue retort to the red scarves of Kaarlo's revolutionaries, letting his greying hair float free on the breeze. "The... woman who lived here kept foxes. As servants."
Anna frowned. "That's so weird! I don't get it. Did she train them?"
Wordlessly, Manner placed something in her palm. Anna peered at it. A tiny dead flower, black and shrivelled, from the garden. As she teased the brittle petals apart, something like a cluster of tiny golden bells fell out, with the faintest rustling sound.
Anna took a deep breath. "Witch blossom."
"Aye. What he kills, stays dead. And the Crow Lord can kill anything."
Anna snorted to hide her discomfort. An eerie statement, which didn't make her feel any less creeped out or overwhelmed by the whole situation. Gerda opted for a change of subject.
"This forest that Elsa flew into... why is Janna so afraid of it?"
Manner sniffed. "The Lady is afraid for her sister's dainty hide. I've seen proof enough that she fears nothing for herself. But those forests..." He stopped speaking for a while. Eventually Anna had to nudge him to get his attention.
"I'm sorry, you just trailed off there, and I really need to know about this very dangerous forest my sister is maybe lost in..."
"Oh, excuse me, it was just... a man has to wonder." Manner chewed thoughtfully at a dried sausage. He offered Gerda some; she shook her head politely, but smiled.
"I remember when I was younger, people would bring tribute to the forest. Reindeer, sheep, rabbits they'd trapped alive. Just leave 'em in the forest, for the spirits. For generations, like. Blood and bone, they'd say. Take blood and bone to the pines."
"What changed?"
"The king ordered it stopped. And, you know, you don't argue with the army, so people just... did. They stopped, I mean.
This was, oh, fifteen or twenty years ago. Poor King Rikhard's father. And ever since, I swear to you, the woods have been getting worse. Wilder. Madder."
Anna was trying to process all this while sitting in a witch's smashed up castle holding a dead magic flower. There was far too much surreal in her life at this instant.
"Hungry spirits?"
Manner shook his head. "I don't know. Never actually did it myself. Seems off... Maybe it's more like they're angry we stopped showing respect, or maybe it was a deal we had with them. We don't pay them off anymore, and now they're pissed off and complaining about it."
He took another bite of sausage. "Oh, and there are ghosts and ghoulies and little sprites that try to drown you. And a couple of nameless horrors no one knows how to describe. Pretty much everything wants you dead up there."
Gerda looked like she was choking back tears. Anna buried her face in her hands. Geez, thanks for the reassurance...
"Well, we think they're all still in there. Been a year since anyone who went into the forest actually came out again..."
. .
. .
Elsa wasn't sure how long she had walked after the magpie, as mental fatigue made minutes seem to stretch out endlessly. She no longer held a light- her hands were squeezed tightly together, as she tried to contain her powers. With every ragged, rapid breath, more ice crystals hung in the air, leaving a trail of diamond mist in her wake.
Love. It's love. Think of Anna. She tried to imagine seeing her sister again, saying sorry for yelling like she had. But then she would insist she spoke to Janna, and she would never take no for an answer, and the thought of her made anxiety and confusion blossom through every part of her...
Putting some distance, physically and metaphorically, between herself and Janna and the others changed her perspective somewhat. She had been thinking very hard about the events of the past two days, and was finding it harder and harder to escape the conclusion that she had done a terrible, terrible thing.
She remembered Niska's horrible taunts, the sick gnawing of shame and exposure in the bottom of her stomach. But Janna had been beaten; she had been stripped. They had been about to take her off to the man who had murdered her father and stolen her home away. An old and trusted friend, her only ally from home, had been killed in front of her.
Elsa had been boiling over with fear and rage and hurt; she had wanted to yell something at Janna, to get her to keep away. But why had that come out? Why had she been cruel? Stabbed at her when she was so vulnerable? Replaying those moments in her mind over and over, she saw an Elsa she truly did not want to be. Her words had been hateful, and she didn't hate Janna.
She didn't hate her at all.
She couldn't even really blame her for what had happened. It was rotten luck- fate's bizarre joke at their expense. She had been travelling incognito, in danger from within the party. Elsa had arranged for them to be alone. Elsa had kissed her- she blushed to admit it. Although... she had reciprocated. Briefly. It wasn't her fault Elsa still had these... feelings.
Wasn't it time to admit that they weren't going away? The dreams, the longings, the stupid, impossible crushes? How could she deal with her feelings when she never acknowledged them or thought about them?
I can be better than this. She was decided now. She would try to apologise to Janna, patch things up with Anna, and... things were fine with Olaf, right? She didn't remember upsetting him in any specific way. She would find her dragon again, wherever it was, and maybe, just maybe, they could all be friends again...
And maybe, if she kept promising herself these things, it would relieve this chilling guilt...
She couldn't have been more relieved when, up ahead, she could make out a faint golden light amid the shadows and fog. Stumbling over roots and puddles, she drove herself forward as quickly as she could still manage, eventually coming upon a very strange little house.
The house was plainly magical. For one, it had to be the only building for miles. It was also rooted to the ground. The walls and roof were sculpted wood, sprouting small branches from which hung a variety of random assorted objects. Buttons, a cigarette case... several appeared burnt or melted. A yellow light shone through the translucent window panes- somebody was home.
The magpie perched itself over the door, and croaked... something. Elsa didn't know why Janna thought she would understand anything the bird said.
"I assume I'm supposed to go in."
The bird didn't respond. Elsa went to knock, but her hand started to tremble as she raised her knuckles.
She looked back at her guide. "Is... she in there?"
She wasn't ready for that. Not after all this...
"Hey, you out there!"
That wasn't Janna's voice... A woman's... old, and hard to place in terms of accent.
"Yes?" she answered.
"Are you going to come in or not? Houses don't move easily, and some of us aren't getting any younger."
Elsa looked around at the subtle, consuming darkness of the high forest. Whoever was in that house, it had to be the better option.
She opened the door.