CHAPTER 21 – REMINISCENCES
"Don't be so worried! Anna is just fine, trust me," Olaf said as Elsa called Anna for the tenth time. He took a bottle of sunscreen from his backpack and began to apply it all over his face, for the midday sunlight was scalding hot. "You know how clumsy she is. She probably dropped her phone in the toilet or something."
"She's not answering... again," Elsa huffed, and for a moment she almost threw her communicator away; but then decided to attach it back to her belt. "We were supposed to have lunch together, like an hour ago. I think I'll fly there really quick to check on her... and then come back here."
"But didn't you have some sort of tracker on her phone? You have been checking that GPS on your belt for like an hour, and Anna's location never changed," Olaf said. He spat a lump of sunscreen that accidentally got into his mouth and almost tripped as he strapped his backpack over his shoulder. "She's still in Ahtohallan, isn't she? Oh, and by the way, the tracker is super creepy. You didn't strike me as a high-level stalker, but—"
"I already told you, it was for her protection!" Elsa cried out, looking away as soon as she felt her cheeks heating up. Only now did she realize how loud they'd been talking to each other, as their surroundings were extremely noisy: an old man played hang drum to entertain a group of dressed-up kids, which swirled around him in a cacophony of giggles; the loudspeakers announced an upcoming superhero parade, and an ice cream cart honked nearby, advertising a bunch of superhero-themed popsicles. Elsa sighed, starting to feel headachy, "Yes, it's true. I installed a tracker on her phone after she first got robbed, so I could keep an eye on her during the late-night drives. But she doesn't, and mustn't, know about this, alright? I don't even know why I told you—"
"You two always get so nervous when talking about each other," Olaf said. "Especially you, when talking about Anna, I mean."
"W-What?" Elsa exclaimed. "I don't get nervous! Why would I?"
"Oh, you know what I'm talking about! Anyway, you just need to keep your mind occupied! Did you know that anxiety, irritation, nausea, and heavy perspiration are symptoms of missing someone?" Olaf grinned, but Elsa just narrowed her eyes at him. "Look, Anna shouldn't—"
"Snow Queen! Snow Queen! It's you, isn't it?" a little girl tugged Elsa's cape, which made the heroine flinch. "I'm your biggest fan! Could you give me an autograph, please?"
Elsa looked down at the girl, taking a deep breath, "Here, take this," she produced a small, hastily made snowflake sculpture and gave it to her. "I'm a little busy now, right sweetie? Now take this and go," she patted the girl's head and turned back to Olaf. "Don't make me regret telling you about the tracker. Anna can't know."
"Meh, my ice sculpture is more detailed..." Olaf said, and there was a faint pang of jealously in his voice. He watched the girl go, carrying a glistening ice snowflake. "But I bet you made that girl very happy with it. An ice statue coming from you is ten times better than an autograph, you know?"
"Oh..." Elsa was taken aback by Olaf's reply. She glanced at the girl and then back at him. "I-I'm sorry. I didn't mean to reduce the significance of your gift. I just thought—"
"Nah, don't worry about it," Olaf waved her off. "I'm just fanboying about you. Another fan with your statues makes me a tiny bit jealous, though. I admit."
"Well... you have been doing pretty good so far. You don't seem to be starstruck with any superhero, or even with me, to be honest. The fainting phase seems to be over, it seems," Elsa let out an uncomfortable, awkward laugh.
"And that's where you're wrong!" Olaf smiled. "I actually have a small heart attack each time we interact!" As if to demonstrate, he suddenly made a growly, retching sound and then struck his chest. "See? And gosh, when you said to Battle Sabre that we are friends! I practically peed myself a little. And when we touched hands... amazing. I probably won't wash my hand for a week after that."
Elsa's eyes almost popped out of her face. "What? B-but—"
"But I know you get super uncomfortable with all of that. You're the nervous type, the one that doesn't know how to deal with fanatics, so I try to keep my reactions all bottled up. You think I'm super chill around you, but the reality is that I'm nearly exploding inside. Just like you and Anna!" Olaf winked.
"Me and Anna? What does that even mean?"
"Sometimes, I feel like the roles are reversed! Anna is the superhero, and you're the nervous, jumpy fan that faints when interacting with her. But the funny thing is that I could say the same for Anna! It's just like us, when we first met..." As Olaf spoke, he realized Elsa was getting more flustered, her cheeks reddening like a volcano on the brink of eruption. "Ok, hmm, how about... we go to that place? Keep your mind occupied, remember?"
Elsa followed his gaze to what appeared to be a small circus tent, colored with green and purple stripes. Beside the entryway was an easel, with a sign that read MIND READING AND ILLUSIONISM WITH THE TRICKSTER AND COSMO GIRL, in a fifties retro font.
"Hmm, I don't know... maybe we should—" Olaf grabbed Elsa's hand before she could finish, intent on leading her towards the tent, but she didn't budge an inch. Moving the blonde was like pushing a mountain. Olaf tried to pull her a few more times, to no avail, and then switched tactics, staring at her with his most persuasive eyes and sweetest grin. Elsa couldn't keep her stern face for too long; she shook her head and went along with him.
By the time Anna arrived at the topmost floor, her heart was racing, and her legs felt numb.
She exited the elevator into a small landing, a bare box room with nothing but a single hefty and opaque glass door. It had a warning message engraved on its center — AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY — and the doorknob had been replaced with an electronic keypad. Anna prayed to god that nothing would go wrong and swiped her badge into the device. Nothing went wrong. The keypad beeped, red lights changed to green, locks creaked and unlatched, and the door opened completely.
"Are you inside the server room?" Kristoff asked.
"Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's it," Anna said.
There is no mistaking this place with anywhere else.
Anna stood before rows upon rows of what appeared to be black cabinets, massive, rectangular boxes with swirly wires and colorfully lit buttons. The racks stretched out until the far end of the room, dozens of them, a myriad of computers containing every byte of data Ahtohallan possessed. And everything was interconnected together in the same place, ready to be taken by a single, innocent girl like Anna. The space was illuminated with white fluorescent lights, and the halls were immense and annoyingly drafty, probably due to the cooling equipment and air conditioning.
Anna decided she didn't like that room — there was something oppressive and ominous about it.
"Aight, let's get started. Go to the end of the corridor and see if you can find the central server," Kristoff instructed, "It should be the biggest cabinet."
"Ok, biggest cabinet," Anna repeated and sneaked stealthily through the aisles, searching for a rack that stood out amongst the others. The clack of her heels and the faint drone of the machines were the only sounds she could hear inside the room. And the more Anna lurked around, the more she felt that something was wrong. It was an instinctive feeling coming from deep inside her subconscious, warning her about a terrible, upcoming catastrophe. She should turn around and flee, the voice inside her head said. But Anna had no time to consider it; she found the rack on her immediate left. It was the tallest cabinet on sight, dark as onyx, stuffed with wires and multicolored pins.
"I think I found our guy," Anna said.
"Good. See if you can remove one of the connectivity panels. They're usually at the bottom of the rack and have a logo on it," Kristoff described.
Anna glanced down and saw a small cover with a symbol that roughly resembled a USB. Assuming this was what Kristoff was referring to, she crouched, looked one last time behind her back to check if anyone was watching, and then removed the lid. Anna found much more hardware in that tiny space than she thought she would — big circuit boards, wires of all colors twisted in beautiful curlicue loops, plastic receivers, and many more gizmos that Anna could not name.
"There are... lots of wires and some weird shit in here," Anna said.
"Great. See if you can find any port to connect the drive. Any will do."
"...you sure?"
Kristoff puffed, "What are you waiting for? Wanna get caught? Just do it. We'll do the rest from here."
"I... hold on. Just a quick reminder... If I connect this thing right now, you guys will take all the data from Ahtohallan instantly, right?"
"Not instantly! Ahtohallan security is tight. It will take—"
"You told me you could prove Elsa's innocence under a minute!"
"Are you stupid? We can't do it that quickly. Proving the Snow Queen innocence will be our top priority, but we need the data first, Anna. Look, we are losing time here—"
"We had a deal, Kristoff!" Anna said, holding off the panic that wanted to leap free. "What about the cameras? They've been filming my ass this entire morning. You told me I could walk away as if nothing happened—"
"Anna, for fuck's sake! I told you we would handle it. Flynn's virus is powerful enough to jam their cameras..." all of a sudden, Kristoff's voice became slurred and indistinct, mixed up with external shouting. Anna could swear she heard: shut up, Flynn! Even so, the transmission came back to normal no less than a minute after. "We have no time, Anna. We'll take care of any issues. Just plug the drive, please."
Please...
For some reason, that plea seemed genuine for Anna. "Can I trust you?"
"What other choice do you have? You have come this far."
Anna's heart beat heavily but slowly in her chest. This was it, then; if she was going to do it, she had to plug the drive right now. Elsa was waiting at the Northuldra park, hopefully with Olaf, to spend a lovely afternoon of fun and comfort with her. Not only that, but Ahtohallan's darkest secrets were also at her grasp, waiting to be unraveled. Anna glanced into her heart one final time and saw that, yes, she did intend to go ahead with this. She nodded to herself, almost imperceptibly, and then proceeded to connect the drive. It fit seamlessly into one random port.
Nothing immediately happened.
"Kristoff, can you hear me? Did it work? I connected the thingy, but nothing is happening," Anna said, repeatedly tapping the earpiece on and off, but she got no response save for some garbled sounds. Kristoff had gone mute. She suddenly clutched her body when a current of chilly wind swept over her, as if delivering a final, punitive warning for what she'd done. The room was way too cold.
"Kristoff? Can you hear me? Do we have any info on the Snow Queen or Ahtohallan? Kristoff!" The fucking idiot abandoned me, she thought.
When Anna considered removing the drive, the lights darkened to an alarming level, and a deafening alarm blared. Anna uttered a cry of surprise, shooting both hands out in a primitive warding-off gesture; she stumbled backward and fell on her butt, thudding her head against a nearby cabinet. A lance of pain flared in her skull, but Anna wasted no time and rolled over, still holding her head, and regained her footing. A series of dim, red emergency lights began to flicker inside the room.
"Kristoff! Can you hear me? The alarms went off!" she hollered, tapping the earpiece multiple times but having no answer from him. Kristoff had deserted her.
If anyone comes up here, I'm screwed, Anna thought, spinning around desperately, looking for a way out as adrenaline suffused her. It was hard to think clearly while the alarms boomed. She dug her nails in her scalp hard enough to bring blood. The elevators! I can't let anyone come up from the elevators!
Frantically and stumblingly, Anna ran all the way back to which she came, hoping to at least press the emergency 'stop' button of each car and lock the elevators in place. It seemed like a good contingency plan, but she never got past the opaque glass door — it was tightly latched, its keypad beeping red, and that's when Anna understood that the whole room was sealed as a security protocol.
Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit, I'm locked in here! "Fuck!" she screamed, slamming both hands at the door, shouldering it, but only hurting herself more at each attempt.
Kristoff had betrayed her; that was the only explanation for his silence. Anna gave Ahtohallan's deepest secrets to him on a silver plate, and she would take all the blame for it. What would the heroes do with her when they found out Anna implanted a virus in their servers, and most importantly, how would Elsa react to this? Anna dreaded her reaction profoundly, considering how she handled the bug fiasco. With the doors locked and the alarm still shrilling nonstop, the situation seemed totally hopeless until a faint, unintelligible sound came through the earpiece—
"Anna! Anna, it's Flynn. Can you hear me?"
"My God, Flynn! Help me! They are coming!" Anna said shakily, about to laugh or cry or just curl miserably into a fetal position. "What do I do? The alarms are on! They know what happened! They Know! They gonna find me and—"
"Calm down!" Flynn yelled, "Listen to me, or they gonna get you, understand? We have no time."
"I — I under — what about Elsa? I—"
"Anna, calm down! I need you to focus," he said firmly.
"Yes! Ok," Anna closed her eyes, strangling the urge to sob, "I'm listening."
"Do you still have the drive?"
"Yea-w-wait," Anna ran her way back to the central rack and unplugged the drive, almost dropped it, juggled it, caught it. "Y-Yes. I got it!"
"Don't lose the damn thing, ok?"
"Y-Yeah," Anna fumbled around to find a safe place to store it. With no more time to lose, she popped two buttons of her shirt and decided to put it in between her cleavage.
"Right, do as I say. Go to the end of the row, and check the windows at the end of the hall."
"B-But—"
"Go now!"
Taking a large inhale, Anna darted down the aisles as fast as she could, almost crashing into a rack during a sharp turn. At the farthest corner of the hall, she found a wall with six large casement windows. "I'm here!"
"Open the rightmost window. Check if there is a scaffold outside."
Anna looked out the window. Admittedly, there was a maintenance scaffold a few inches away from where Anna was peeking through. It had a steel framework, and the operators were using it to repair the broken panes damaged by Elsa's snowstorm. It was currently unoccupied. "Y-Yeah..."
"Use the scaffold elevator and take it to the streets."
"W-what?"
"There are two ways out of this building. Using that scaffold, or in Ahtohallan's custody. Rapunzel and I will be waiting for you down there."
Anna's eyes widened. There is no way to reach that scaffold from the inside!
"W-wait! Flynn, wait! I can't do this! Flynn!" Anna screamed, but Flynn had already disconnected. "Fuck!" she flung the earpiece away.
It was only a matter of time before someone came inside the server room. If there was one way out of this situation, Anna knew it was through that scaffold. The problem was, considering how far it was from the window, Anna would need to walk across the ledge to reach it.
I can do this, I can do this.
Anna exhaled, rolled her shoulders, and bounced from toe to toe, mustering every ounce of courage she had. She opened the casement and stuck her head out, and, by natural instinct, her eyes looked down towards the ground. The view, the gigantic and deadly height, brought a sudden wave of vertigo running over her; Anna felt the wind sweep past her in a constant current, lifting her hair from her brow and off her ears. It was too much to ask of her. She recoiled with a whimper, frightened, I can't do this, I can't do this! I'm going to die!
Yet a distant sound, distinguishable even amidst the constant loud alarms, caught Anna's attention — muttering. There were people behind the glass doors, speaking rapidly, arguing, smashing the keypad buttons. The security arrived, and they were coming for her. The thought of getting caught, along with a primal sense of self-preservation, fueled Anna with resolve. She tightened her bun, chucked her stilettos away, and approached the window again, hitching a leg over the windowsill. This time Anna didn't look down, focusing on getting both of her feet onto the ledge; the touch of the cold stone against her bare skin made her wince with fear. And she had to move. Anna couldn't stay still like a gargoyle on a parapet, couldn't close her eyes, couldn't cry. She had to move. Looking firmly at the scaffold, her destination, Anna pressed herself flush against the wall and began to shuffle across the ledge. Her nails dug whatever surface she could latch on, and her toes clenched tightly for better purchase.
The farthest she got from the window, the more her legs trembled.
Just don't look down! I can do this if I don't look down, one step at a time. It's not that far off. I can do this...
She would succeed if she maintained that pace. The scaffold, her salvation, was just a few inches away—
Anna heard a loud explosion coming from inside the room.
The glass door had been shattered, blasted away into countless splinters that rattled on the floor. The shock reverberated through the building, causing Anna to lose her balance even from the outside. She barely managed to hold back a scream, clamping her teeth shut, but, inevitably, glancing over the edge — the sight made her legs weak. So weak that they ultimately faltered, making Anna cower toward a steel column that jutted off the wall. She nearly fell. Yet her hands scrabbled at the steel and stone, desperate for a firm grip, and she managed to steady herself. It was pure instinct that saved her. And at that moment, Anna had an almost irresistible inclination to stay still.
But her phone began to slip from her blouse pocket.
"No!" Anna hissed, letting go of the column and snatching it mid-air. The compulsive movement made her lean forward, carelessly, hurriedly. Anna gasped inward when she realized her body was tilting at an angle, and she pin-wheeled her arms for equilibrium. One of her nails broke from the frantic scratching, her pencil skirt billowed, and her bun almost came undone, but Anna slammed her back against the wall. The only thing that happened to fall was her employee badge, and Anna watched it drift away and disappear in the streets of Arendelle, terrified but thankful that she was still alive. Up there, a hundred stories above the ground, with the wind whipping mercilessly at her skin, Anna felt herself grow smaller. But she didn't make any noise. Her heart loped in her chest, tears ran down her cheeks, and she breathed in snatches, but she still didn't scream.
And she could not because that would mean her demise. Anna could already hear the stampede of boots rushing into the halls, coming to arrest the intruder. And yet, against her own reasoning, Anna decided to peek through the window one last time: she saw Megara, accompanied by a dozen swat-looking guards. The heroine was holding what seemed to be a hammer (presumably what she used to break the door), although it wasn't made of steel or wood, but some otherwordly, pulsing pink energy that flickered like electricity.
"Search the place," Megara told the guards.
And as if blessed by the gods, Megara had not seen Anna peeking at them.
That's my chance! Anna told herself, biting her lip enough to draw blood. The pain helped her to get up, clinging to the wall as if her life depended on it — and it did. She was still unspotted. She could still escape. And so, Anna teetered across the narrow ledge, not caring about the height, not worrying about the men searching for her just beyond the wall, not minding the chilly wind, just sliding one foot after the other, focusing on her weight. Anna blocked out all her fears, shielded herself from any emotions.
And before Anna registered wherever she was, she had reached the scaffold.
"Fuck," Anna muttered, kneeling on the ground with a groan of relief.
Looking back, the distance Anna covered atop the ledge was downright insane. But she had no time to mull over it. Anna clambered inside the scaffold elevator, which seemed like a boxy, red iron cage. She pulled the gate across, as quickly and quietly as she could possibly manage, and studied a small panel in front of her. Without thinking much, Anna yanked hard on a yellow lever. The cage gave a jerk and began to descend, by fits and starts at first, then more smoothly.
Anna wrapped her hands around the gratings and closed her eyes.
...
...
...
"Ma'm, the room is completely empty. But we found this..." one of the guards handed Anna's earpiece over to Megara. The alarms were off, and the server room was quiet.
With noises akin to static, Megara's pink hammer vanished. She took the earpiece and inspected it curiously. By her side, a pair of stilettos lay scattered on the ground. Megara looked at them and frowned, "Whoever was here didn't use the elevators to escape. It was either the air vents or..." she looked at the windows. The casement was not fully closed.
"Seal the building and send an alert to the Five Spirits," Megara ordered. The guard nodded and marched off. Megara sauntered towards the windows and stuck her head out.
The scaffold elevator was nowhere to be seen.
Mind reading and illusionism with The Trickster and Cosmo Girl...
This seems like a place Anna would be amused by, Elsa thought as she pushed the tent flap open.
Once inside, she found what appeared to be an antique library or alchemy room. The lighting was scant; most of it came from electric flambeaux, fashioned like old gas lamps, and a few candle lights scattered around bookshelves and desks. A lush crimson carpet covered most of the floor, and at the center of the room stood a big table made of redwood, laden with old tomes and odd glassware that resembled Erlenmeyer flasks. A small group of kids and their parents crowded around the table, observing a short and stout young man standing on a small dais that elevated him above everybody else. His physique was verging on grotesque, muscularly deformed with a severe hunchback and a crooked lumpy bump above his left eye. He wore a short-sleeved tunic and a jester hat with a green and yellow color scheme.
"And now, little ones, watch closely!" the man said enthusiastically. He twirled his fingers, and a glass jar appeared with a green flash of light. He held it high for everyone to see, letting out a few jerky, half-suppressed laughs. The kids weren't impressed in the slightest, appearing more grossed out by the man's face than excited with the show. Still giggling, the hunchback placed the jar on the table and waved his hand to the side — more than a dozen jars appeared in a straight line, completely identical, in a show of holographic green lights. "Ta-da!" he shouted, opening his arms wide.
There was no reaction in the room.
"Dad, can we go to the Sea Princess fashion show now?" a boy whispered to his father, breaking the awkward silence.
"Oh, w-wait, wait!" the hunchback said, wobbling towards the boy. "The show isn't over yet! This is the first trick. I can do much more, you'll see. What's your name, my dear?"
"Caleb..."
"Caleb, such a beautiful name! Everyone calls me The Trickster, but my real name is Quasimodo! Pleased to meet you, Caleb," Quasimodo extended his hand and stroked the boy's hair, his touch a bit too gentle and intimate for two complete strangers. Caleb's father didn't seem to like it in the least. He harrumphed, cowing Quasimodo into retreating his hand. "Would you mind being my volunteer for the next trick, Caleb?" Quasimodo insisted, but Caleb just clung to his father, silent and wary. Not minding the rejection, Quasimodo clicked his tongue and tottered towards a girl in her early teens, who was carrying a Cosmo Girl action figure. "Well then, how about you? What's your name, m'dear?"
"Jill..." she replied, taking a step back.
"Oh, my precious, what a cutie pie you are!" Quasimodo giggled like a little girl. "May I use your Cosmo Girl figure for my next trick?"
"Sure..." she lent the miniature statue to him.
"Thank you, sweetheart," he said, tweaking Jill's ear playfully. "I'll return it to you in just a second!" But Quasimodo stood stock-still, only the tiny bells at the tips of his jester hat jingling. Not a single muscle moved except for his eyes, which trailed from Jill's face to her cleavage to her feet and back again. The crowd's silence was a good illustration of secondhand embarrassment. At last, he dragged his gaze away with some glaring effort, licking his lips. He returned his attention back to his guests, "I'll show you all the basics of illusionism!"
Placing the Cosmo Girl figure on the center of the table, Quasimodo held both of his hands above it, flourishing his pudgy thumbs. Three identical statues suddenly appeared, just like the jars. "Now Jill and Caleb, come closer! Which one do you think is the real one?"
"This one?" Caleb tried to grab it, but his fingers went right through it as if he had touched a hologram. The statue flickered in a hazy, green light. "Woah!"
"It gotta be this one, then," Jill guessed. To her delight, the statue she grasped was solid. She looked at her parents proudly, yet before she could celebrate her correct guess, Quasimodo snorted like a piglet. He snapped his fingers, and the She-Beast statue turned into one of those old, dusty jars.
"No way..." Jill stared at it, astonished. "So, the only one left is..."
"The first lesson about illusionism is: never trust your senses! Sight, smell, touch, taste, and hearing. They all serve my powers!" Quasimodo said. He smashed his hand over the last remaining figure (more vehemently than necessary), and it disappeared in a puff of green powder under his palm. "Ta-Da!" he exclaimed.
But once again, there was no reaction in the room... until everyone heard a little whimper coming from the far end of the crowd. The loud bang of Quasimodo's hand had frightened a little baby girl, and she started to cry in her mother's arms.
"Oh, no! Don't cry, sweetie pie!" Quasimodo shambled off his dais, genuinely distressed.
As this happened, Elsa and Olaf watched the show from the sidelines, still unnoticed by the spectators. It was inexplicably discomforting to see Quasimodo interact with his guests, and Elsa supposed it wasn't solely due to his appearance. There was something exceptionally freakish about his behavior. The mother rocked the girl back and forth in her arms, trying to ease the tension, "Marie doesn't like loud noises," she said to Quasimodo, who now hobbled around them.
"Ssh, don't cry, baby doll. Hey, look at me!" Quasimodo crooned. Marie did as she was told, only to see an awfully deformed face staring back at her. His appearance (that crooked grin, that misshaped brow covered with lumps) just made her even more scared, and she began to cry harder than before. "Oh, no. Ugh, look at this!" Quasimodo said, aiming both of his palms upwards: confetti and multicolored paper strips exploded from his fingers, fluttering and glittering in a garish lighting display, only to fade away a few seconds later in dull shades of green. The trick didn't work. Marie was still sobbing. "Oh, I know! I can get something from your ear!" Quasimodo produced a grisly grin. He drew closer and grabbed a coin out of Marie's ear, but the touch, the close proximity, just made her cry even more. Growing rattled now, Quasimodo caught the penny on his hand and, with a simple wave, transformed it into a bird. "See? Look at the birdy! It's beautiful!" Quasimodo pointed up as his creation took flight, and although impressive and entertaining, it was just an illusion destined to disappear. Marie wept when the bird started to fade, slowly disintegrating into green, sandy particles.
"He's so creepy," Caleb mumbled to Jill.
"Oh, am I?" Quasimodo turned around, glaring at the boy. Somehow, his face appeared to be getting even uglier than before, so much so that his whole body began to shine very rapidly, unsteadily, until he transformed into an exact copy of Caleb. "What about now?"
Everyone gasped in surprise, and the awed murmurs soon followed throughout the whole tent. Caleb looked seriously struck, watching his clone approach him with a stiff, uncharacteristic gait. "It looks so real, right? Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, don't you think?" the fake Caleb (or Quasimodo) said wryly. "So watch out when you call others creepy, you naughty little boy!" Quasimodo raised his voice in a brusque, hectoring manner. He grabbed Caleb's arm forcefully. "Never say that again!"
Marie and a few children started bawling, "You're scaring them!" her mother said.
"Hey, just give me my statue back, please..." Jill complained.
"I think we get your point, Mr. Quasimodo," Caleb's father said, visibly anxious.
"Now that I'm a strong, charming boy like you..." Quasimodo leaned closer and started kneading Caleb's bicep, a predatory glint in his eyes, "... are you going to take me seriously and behave? Or is a lovely, sweet girl like Jill more preferable?" This time, his transformation took no less than a second — Caleb's dark brown hair turned blonde, hazel eyes became blue, and the chubby build grew pencil-thin.
"Hey! T-That's m-me! Stop it!" Jill said, distraught.
Quasimodo (now donning Jill's body) looked at himself, chuckled, and bit his lower lip. "Sometimes I wish I could take such form for longer—"
But he stopped speaking, suddenly, when a white light shone from behind him. It came without sound, soothing and calm, not aggressive to the eyes, brightening the gloomy atmosphere of the tent. Quasimodo realized Marie and the kids had stopped crying. The light source was a small bird that hovered mildly above the group. It landed on Marie's hand, and instead of flinching, the girl smiled widely.
The bird was made of snow.
"We don't need any more demonstrations, Quasimodo," The Snow Queen said, and her presence dispelled all that tension that tormented the guests. Jill and Caleb breathed out in relief more than surprise.
"Ahhh, of course... t-the Snow Queen," Quasimodo said bitterly, shifting back to his normal appearance. He hesitated to speak, getting jittery and stumbling over his own words as people moved past him and towards Elsa. "I-I was wondering when you would interfere—"
"Snow Queen!" Caleb shouldered him aside, and so did everyone else.
Elsa tended Marie first. She transformed the snow bird into an ice toy, dainty and harmless, perfect for amusing a frightened baby girl. Marie didn't shed a single tear after receiving the gift. Olaf gave all of the extra fanart and sculptures Elsa received along the way to Jill, leaving the teenager's arms full of souvenirs and a satisfied smile on her face. And finally, Elsa complemented Caleb's courage and strength, making the boy blush as if he was in love. Everyone had practically forgotten about The Trickster until—
He appeared besides Elsa and Olaf, magically, in a mix of gold and green sparkles of light.
"Woah, woah, calm down everyone! It's alright," Quasimodo said to his guests, his voice low and husky. He couldn't bear to lose the limelight on his own show. "I think I owe everyone an apology. I might have lost my temper with those devilish little children here... yes, I might have been too... loud. Alas, the show has to continue. Especially now, with our surprise guest!" he gestured to Elsa, laughing in his excited, jumpy way. The crowd still seemed cautious, uncomfortable.
"You knew we were here all along?" Olaf asked.
Quasimodo tittered, and the bells of his hat went ting-a-ling. "Awn, such a naive boy. This place is my domain. I knew the Snow Queen was here the moment she stepped inside!" As he said it, several copies of Quasimodo manifested around the room at different spots, giggling, "I'm here!" or "I'm also here!". They were perfect projections, visually, but the images glimmered and vibrated as if they would disappear at any moment. There was an occasional translucent, sometimes fluorescent quality to his illusions. Olaf seemed torn between touching one or leaving it be.
Elsa looked thoughtful. "I assume this whole tent, furniture, and decoration is also an illusion—"
Quasimodo slapped Elsa's hand before she could touch a bookshelf. "Ohh, you're a clever one! Please, don't ruin the fun for the others!" All his clones disappeared then, leaving only the original Quasimodo standing next to Elsa. "I beg your pardon. I don't believe we've actually met in person, Snow Queen. I'm Quasimodo, aka The Trickster. Pleased to meet you," he bowed in a formal greeting, but his hunchback made the movement difficult; he inclined his body so low he almost fell on his knees. And to aggravate the embarrassment, he kissed Elsa's hand as if asking her for a dance, smearing it with saliva. His lips were dank.
Elsa grimaced, wiping the back of her hand on her suit. "Indeed, this is the first time we've met. I've heard about..." The horrible accusations made against you. Assault, pedophilia, sexual harassment, and judging by this single minute we interacted, I reckon it's all true. "... your reputation."
"Only heard good things, I hope," Quasimodo quipped. He doddered past the children and beckoned Elsa to accompany him, moving toward his dais and sorcerer's table. Elsa felt she had no choice but to follow him, so she did. Only then did she notice the gargoyle face carved on the grandfather clock behind her, looking rather forlorn and empty, just like the rest of the decoration inside the tent. It made her skin prickle. Quasimodo licked his lips before saying: "Mesdames, messieurs, ladies and gentlemen, it's time to begin the second part of the show. Mind reading, as promised! Yes, I can peer into one's mind, unspool the brain and sift through it, share one's most private, deepest thoughts! And what a better mind to explore than the one from our beautiful guest, the Snow Queen!" he pointed at Elsa with bated breath, and a ray of green light magically fell down to spotlight her presence.
The statement stirred an intense curiosity within the crowd.
Elsa laughed dryly. "Absolutely not. I'm—"
"Ohh, I must insist, Snow Queen!" Quasimodo interrupted, and then he did the unimaginable — something reckless, audacious, something Elsa never thought he had the guts to do.
Quasimodo transformed himself into the Snow Queen — an exact, perfect copy, just like when he had done Caleb and Jill.
"What?! What are you doing?" Elsa asked in disbelief.
If this was meant to be provocative or done out of pure spite, Elsa couldn't really tell. The sight was so unsettling it made the hackles on the back of her neck rise. Every unique trait she had was replicated flawlessly: the swath of freckles on her cheeks, the glossy fabric of her costume, the alabaster skin. Not a single detail was left behind. When Quasimodo walked her way, Elsa instinctively recoiled, perhaps intimidated by her own image. It was repulsive to stare back at herself and see her own features, to know that it was a hideous hunchback behind it all. The man had become three times taller, blonde, svelte, and surprisingly imposing — Elsa finally understood why so many thieves were frightened of her. She certainly had an intimidating presence.
"Oh please, I'm sure our guests will be thrilled to know you better!" Quasimodo said, and Elsa's own voice issued forth, having the same tone and timbre. Hearing it made her stomach backflip. Naturally, people wanted to see more of the Snow Queen. Caleb and Jill looked very excited.
"Ok, stop. Turn back to normal now," Elsa demanded, trying to keep her composure. Quasimodo scowled (and Elsa wondered if that was how her scowl really looked like because it was more sinister than she imagined) but obeyed. The sulky face remained when he transformed back to himself. Caleb's and Jill's enthusiasm disappeared instantly. "I'm sorry, but no chance at all. I won't allow anyone to go inside my head," Elsa said calmly. "I know it seems pretty exciting, but I'm sure you can find someone else to—"
"Hey! I could volunteer... I guess," Olaf somehow came out from beneath her cape, chuckling. "I'm still here, you know."
Elsa's eyes bulged, "What? No. Olaf, you're not going—"
"What a sweetheart, he offered himself!" Quasimodo rubbed his hands together, his tongue dangling from his lips. "It's perfect! Monsieur Olaf will go first, ladies and gentleman, and then the Snow Queen is next," he dragged Olaf to the center of the room so everyone could see both of them clearly. There was an eerie aura surrounding him that Elsa couldn't quite understand. His eyes studied Olaf hungrily, and a clammy hand went south to rearrange his pants, "Such a dear boy... little chubby, but pretty cutesy nonetheless. Now, sweetheart, just stare into my eyes and say whatever comes to mind! You might feel a little sleepy..."
"Hm, right, well, I think—" Olaf began, but he had no chance to finish a complete sentence. Quasimodo flourished his hands around Olaf's head, and the boy's eyes glowed green; he looked spellbound, staring straight ahead with glassy eyes and mouth agape. It was subtle, but thin wisps of energy had poured out of Quasimodo's fingers, disappearing inside Olaf's skull.
"Olaf! Quasimodo, stop. He's not your plaything," Elsa said, giving an awkward little shake on Olaf's shoulder. His head lolled from side to side as if it was boneless or lifeless.
"Relax, the boy offered himself. Let's just take a peek inside, just a tiny one, shall we?" Quasimodo said blithely. His fingers made a pinching movement, and a stream of images started to flow out of Olaf's head, taking form in murky, smoggy clouds that drifted about the tent. At close inspection, Elsa realized they were Olaf's memories but also his thoughts and dreams, situations that could have only happened in his mind, in the realm of fantasy. The sight reminded her of a constellation, luminous yet ill-defined in the typical greenish hue of Quasimodo's magic. Sadly for her ears, each vision produced slurred, unintelligible sounds that overlapped with one another. It was slightly chaotic. On one side, Elsa could see Olaf wandering through the Superhero Convention, his conversation with the She-Beast and the Boy Wonder, his unfortunate experience with the twins, and his encounter with Shang. On the other side, mixed among actual memories, there were Olaf's whimsical and fantastic creations: Olaf was a super-powered, flying snowman in one of them.
"Did he really think of that? A snowman?" Jill snickered.
"Snowman! Snowman!" Marie babbled, apparently entertained.
Elsa would have smiled if what they were seeing wasn't terribly intrusive.
"Ahh, it seems monsieur Olaf is enthralled by superheroes," Quasimodo pointed to a misty cloud, and it suddenly enlarged, showing Olaf hanging superhero posters in his bedroom. "I don't blame him. Who wouldn't want to be one of us?" he sneered when the images changed to a big, muscular version of Olaf dressed exactly as Hercules. "He needs a lot of more protein to get to that level, I must say." The snide remark prompted a few laughs from the crowd.
"Hercules... he's pretty awesome, right? I wish I was that strong..." Olaf mumbled like a zombie. He seemed to be voicing his thoughts out loud, his mouth barely moving. "Yeah, he's great, but... he was kind of an asshole to me today. Everyone is. Except for Elsa and Anna."
"That's enough, Quasimodo!" Elsa raised her voice. "You're exposing him in front of the crowd!"
"Is that the Snow Queen?" Caleb said incredulously, pointing up. "He knew her!"
Elsa turned around and looked up, watching as the clouds changed once again, showing new memories. Practically every interaction she had with Olaf started to play before everyone's eyes. "My... birthday..." Olaf murmured, "I met her on my birthday..."
"He's talking about you, Snow Queen," Quasimodo stated. "I'm not sure how you two have met, but I would've never guessed this. So many memories and emotions rushing through me. Fascinating!"
"Yes... the Snow Queen is the best..." Olaf answered automatically, not even looking at him.
"Stop!" Elsa finally yelled. "You should be ashamed for doing this. This has to stop—"
"Wait, wait! My goodness, just look at that!" Quasimodo pointed to a vision of Elsa and Olaf combating crime together, likely to be a dream. "Mind reading is not only about showing one's dreams and memories, ladies and gents. I can feel some intense emotions as well! Admiration. Desire. I think monsieur Olaf has a deep affection for you, Snow Queen. I wouldn't blame him, really."
"This... has to stop," Elsa said, and suddenly there was an unusual weariness in her voice. She felt drained. The headaches were resurfacing in all their thudding glory, starting to consume her again.
"Why don't we give him a bit of what he wants, huh?" Quasimodo asked the people around him. They nodded, a trifle uncomfortably, but enough for Quasimodo to feel emboldened. He transformed himself into the Snow Queen again, in spite of Elsa's earlier criticisms, and then decided to be even bolder — a single clone just wasn't exciting enough. With undeniable satisfaction, Quasimodo created multiple copies of Elsa around the room, possessing different haircuts and wearing all kinds of clothes, from casual to formal dress code: sweaters, hoodies, jeans, beachwear, and gala dresses.
Olaf, even in his zombie-like state, was utterly dumbfounded. "Elsaaaaa?" was all he managed to say.
Quasimodo glanced at the Snow Queen (the real one) and noticed she had closed her eyes; the headaches were gaining more force. Her head throbbed, and Elsa felt like the world was rocking gently under her feet.
It only made things more fun for him.
"So... just what you would expect from an angelic beauty like her, right Olaf?" An Elsa clone wearing a revealing, low-cut dress approached him from behind. She leaned closer and raked a hand down Olaf's chest, completely invading his personal space. Meanwhile, another Elsa neared him from the front, attired in a black bikini. She bent forward, and her breasts bounced with a boing right over his face. With all those deviant versions of Elsa around him, Olaf felt like he was inside a lewd Japanese anime, erotic and satirical at the same time. He was almost surrendering to it when—
"Wait, no! That's wrong! This is a trap. I shouldn't be happy just because she's exposing skin, busty, and a statuesque beauty in spite of her huge frame! This is not Elsa, this is... damn, she's gorgeous... No! She belongs to Anna!"
"I'm not sure who Anna is, but..." Quasimodo lowered his voice, so much so that Elsa, possessing super hearing, could barely hear him. "I could play with you in this form backstage, you know?"
"Enough!" Elsa's voice cracked through the hubbub of the tent as loud as a thunderclap. "This is an embarrassment. You'll get out of Olaf's head right now, whether you like it or not. And I won't be mocked to my face, do you hear me? I will not—"
Elsa grabbed Quasimodo's hand.
And that was a huge mistake.
In her abrupt fit of rage, Elsa didn't consider the consequences of touching Quasimodo mid-spell. She was just so frustrated about Olaf being exposed, once again, to nearly public humiliation that she acted impulsively. Even her own image had been disrespected, overtly sexualized in front of children and teenagers just so Quasimodo could incite more laughter, or perhaps, arouse Olaf in his sick, perverse way.
The moment her hand touched his, Quasimodo's wisps of energy thickened and crawled up her arm and into her head, as though drawn to it, compelled by a higher force.
As Olaf became free of his trance, the Snow Queen was put into one. Her eyes turned green, and her mind was plunged into enveloping darkness, sinking until it was completely submerged by Quasimodo's magic. She couldn't move nor feel her body, as though she had been detached from it, reduced to a mere observer. Her consciousness simply wavered in and out, offering her cuttings and snippets of what was happening inside the tent. The memory clouds had begun to change, swapping Olaf's recollections for her own, plucking them from her head, and throwing them into the physical world. Perhaps subconsciously, Elsa could even hear people's reactions, the curious whispers, Olaf's complaints, but she had no idea where she was. The sounds seemed to come from an echo chamber. She knew, with profound dissatisfaction, that her whole life was on display for everyone to see, but the inability to fight back was what bothered her the most. Her mind was now bound to the spell, and there was nothing she could do.
Even Quasimodo seemed at a loss for words, and all his Snow Queen illusions vanished. He returned to his own form, perplexed, "Fascinating! The spell left the boy and rebounded into you! I couldn't even control it."
"Stop..." Elsa snarled, her body inanimate like stone. A vein popped in her forehead as she fought against Quasimodo's spell, but her headaches were also bringing her strength down.
"What the hell happened..." Olaf said, and one look at Elsa was all he needed to understand. "Hey! Guys, I think we've gone too far with this!" he grabbed Elsa's waist (he was too short for her shoulders) and shook her hard without result.
Nobody responded. Quasimodo, Caleb, Jill, Marie, and every person in the tent observed Elsa's memories in complete silence. It was hard for Olaf not to look as well. He thought the ones that belonged to her childhood were the most prominent and distinguishable, some of which Elsa probably treasured, holding personal sentimental value. They were the most beautiful, too. Olaf also learned that the Snow Queen's puberty had been precocious and turbulent. The memories from her teenage years seemed more fragmented, jumbled, with no significance to anyone except Elsa.
"Who's that girl? They are kissing..." Caleb whispered.
"Anna!" Elsa's breath caught in a harsh sound that was too outraged to be a gasp. Despite her eyes opening and closing in a trancelike state, she knew what the people were seeing: her encounter with Anna at the Northuldra Park, Anna's interview at Ahtohallan, their hangout at Oaken's Bar, Olaf's birthday party, and their first kiss... and it made her insanely furious. Her migraine had reached its peak, hurting so much Elsa thought her brain had been wrung out and dipped into a bowl of lava.
"Oh, so that's who Anna is..." Quasimodo grinned, lost in a daze of his own. He stared at the Snow Queen's memories as if they were alien artifacts, not even bothering about his guest's approval anymore. "This girl got such bewitching charisma that even the Snow Queen was charmed! Incredible!"
"Anna... I'm afraid..." Elsa said, voice thin as a whisper.
Quasimodo guffawed. "You? The Snow Queen, afraid? Do my powers make you afraid—"
"I'm afraid of her... knowing about..." Elsa said, and her face flushed with either anger or indignation. Quasimodo blinked, confused, as his energy started to lose its green shade to a darker tone of red. Guttural sounds came from Elsa's throat. The memories, dreams, or whatever they were seeing up to that moment didn't look so pleasant any longer. Screams. Gunshot sounds. Scenes of war and death. People on the run. Snow. Ice stained with blood. The images weren't crystal-clear, but Olaf felt like he had stepped inside a grinding nightmare where only death, destruction, and pain existed. It cast a terrifying gloom over the whole tent. He could almost feel the weight of those memories (or dreams?) bearing down on him from above, a sinister power, shrinking him, as if everyone's life force had dwindled to a mere spark.
"Ok, I think that's enough..." Jill said to Quasimodo.
"Stop it! That's scary..." Caleb pleaded.
Marie and the other children had started screaming, wailing, sobbing.
"Elsa..." Olaf said sadly. A slow trickle of blood ran down her nose and cheek as she struggled.
"I-i-its all under control! I-i can f-fix this, just a moment!" Quasimodo panicked. Elsa was still grasping his hand, and he couldn't escape her grip no matter how hard he tried. He pulled himself back desperately, and a floundering arm knocked a jar and flask off the table. Both shattered amidst the screams.
"What's the meaning of this?" A brown-skinned woman stormed into the tent, her voice high and accusatory. Her hair was long and raven-black. Olaf immediately recognized the white top she wore, the teal and gold bodice, and her trademark purple sarong. "In god's name, what the hell are you doing, Quasimodo?"
It was the strongest member of the duo, the Trickster's partner, the superheroine Cosmo Girl.
"I can explain, Esmeralda!" Quasimodo said fearfully, trying to enforce his spell. "She's struggling against me, somehow, but I can control it—"
"Everyone out!" Esmeralda yelled, and people hurried from the tent, pushing their way roughly, almost stepping over one another. Olaf stayed, and she didn't seem to care.
Elsa could feel it inside her head. Not just Quasimodo's magic, but something beyond her typical headaches, burning inside. A force, strong and so eager for expulsion. It was, possibly, the source of all those dark thoughts, maybe even the cause of her mysterious migraines. Sometimes it felt like the concrete manifestation of them. It even resonated with her own powers, and it wanted to be released fast.
It was tempting to let it go.
"I leave for twenty minutes, and you're inside people's heads!" Esmeralda screamed at Quasimodo's face. She then gestured to Elsa, "And her head, of all people! What were you even thinking? Call off the spell—"
"Wait! I can control it," Quasimodo insisted. "Just let me—"
"No!"
Anna... Elsa thought while drowning in her painful stupor. Where are you, really? Why do I feel so worried? Why do I sense that something bad might be happening to you right now? I need... I need to get out of here.
Elsa's eyes suddenly cleared.
She had allowed that force to roam freely — it was powerful enough to break the bindings of the spell. It coursed through every sinew of her body, shocking her synapses, sending energy pulsing around every nerve, bone, and vein. It was intoxicating. When released, her headaches were gone, and so was Quasimodo's magic. A supernova had exploded inside her brain, and her mind cross-patched in that minuscule instant.
And the result of that phenomenon was, for some reason, electricity.
With a scream that echoed in her own head, Elsa jerked herself out of her trance. Her teeth came together with a hard click as electricity coursed through her, and by extension, electrified Quasimodo and jolted him away. Incomprehensibly, a lightning bolt tore from the point where they had been touching, moving upward as they parted. It was centimeters from hitting the tent's fabric (and likely setting it ablaze) when an opaque, dark and purple-rimmed sphere appeared in front of its trajectory. The bolt zigzagged into it and disappeared; even its light seemed to be absorbed by the orb. Olaf realized Esmeralda's eyes had been shining purple, and with a mere glance, she narrowed the sphere and closed it like a fissure in space.
Olaf had just witnessed Cosmo Girl's powers in action, and she had saved them.
Still, halfway through the chaos, Quasimodo's magic had gone out of control. The entire decoration of his circus tent was a product of his powers, and he had no strength or concentration to sustain it anymore — everything collapsed. The whole arrangement seemed to cave in on itself: desks, tables, carpet, furniture, all popped into a glowing, foaming green energy. Olaf ended up standing on a dry-cement floor, inside a bare, unfurnished marquee.
"Anna!" Elsa's hands flew up involuntarily from her waist to the level of her chest and then settled back again. For a moment her eyelids fluttered limply, with no conscious control, and Olaf worried her mind had gone cuckoo. "What happened?"
"Elsa! Can you see me? Can you see my fingers?" Olaf held out his hand and waved it back and forth.
"I... I can. I'm ok, Olaf. Don't worry, I don't have a concussion..." Elsa said, more calmly now.
"I have no idea what just happened, but I'm glad you're back!" Olaf hugged her tight. "Darn it, that thing was scary! It gave me the heebie-jeebies. It was like an out-of-body experience. And oh no, now everybody knows I have a Snow Queen underwear—"
"It's alright, I don't mind. You're fine now," Elsa said to him and then looked icily at Esmeralda. "Ahtohallan will know of this. Consider yourself lucky to not have your hero license suspended. What happened here—"
"What happened here is that my partner meddled with powers he doesn't have mastery of," Esmeralda said gravely, heaving Quasimodo to his feet. The hunchback stood for less than a second before tumbling onto the ground again. "At least I made it back in time. That bolt could have burned the tent down if I didn't zap it to another dimension."
"The lightning bolt wasn't me!" Quasimodo got up, out of breath.
Elsa threw a glance back over her shoulder and saw a large group of people observing the aftermath from afar. Some families had experienced what transpired there, while others were just curious. A few members of the festival staff circled them around, trying to assure their safety or block their line of sight. "What if any of those families had gotten hurt? Imagine the uproar that would ensue, the lawsuits, the legal troubles? Put that pupil of yours on a leash, Esmeralda. He's lucky I didn't punch him on impulse."
"I will handle him. And I'll take care of the Convention patrons, too." Esmeralda gave Quasimodo a nasty stare. "Nobody is going to bad-mouth the Superhero Convention. I'll make sure of that."
"If I see this on the morning news tomorrow, I swear to god..."
"Hey, Elsa, there's... there's smoke coming out of your butt," Olaf said.
Elsa caught a whiff of burnt rubber or exhaust fumes. She squeaked and twirled around quickly, like a dog chasing its own tail. There was smoke spiraling out of her back, near the lumbar region. Or more precisely, from her utility belt. The shock caused by the lightning bolt had fried her communicator.
She wouldn't be able to contact Anna anymore.
"Perfect," Elsa unfastened the singed belt and dumped it into a garbage can.
Anna...
Why do I sense that something bad might be happening to you right now?
...something bad...
...something bad...
...something bad...
...something bad... the jarring thought replayed in her head like a tuneless record player.
Elsa shivered, "I... I think I'm done here. Olaf, we're leaving."
"Oh, okay. To where exactly? I was hoping for a little break in a cafe or something. This last attraction nearly mowed me down," Olaf said.
"I'm going back to Ahtohallan."
"What? Why?"
"We've been here for too long already. And my communicator is deep-fried. What if someone needs me?"
"I know, but... there's still a lot of cool stuff to see. Just two more hours, please?"
"I'm not sure, Olaf, I... I need to go back. I need to go back to—"
"Need to go back to Anna, right?" Quasimodo started to giggle, a high-pitched, girlish noise.
Elsa looked at him with a neck-snapping turn. The blood drained from her face, "What did you say?"
"Oh, you heard me. I was inside your head, and I know what I saw and felt! I know what you've done. I really know what you've done. I wish I had seen more of it. Anna won't be happy about it."
"What you saw wasn't real."
"Oh, it was very much real, I can tell."
Elsa's temper slipped another notch, "Are you doing this to pick a fight with me? Provoking me on purpose like that?"
"I just wanted you to know that I'll keep your secrets if you keep mine, that's all."
Elsa remained silent. A bit of frost began to collect around her feet.
"That's enough, Quasimodo. Leave her be," Esmeralda dragged the hunchback away. "I'm sorry for this, I really am. And don't fret about what he said either. You're not a superhero if you don't have a stinking secret. We all have plenty of those."
"We do..."
"We'll be going, then. I need to talk with the staff and clean up this mess. Quasimodo, let's go."
"Au revoir, Snow Queen." Quasimodo dipped in a curtsy.
And just like that, Elsa was left alone with Olaf. Nobody approached them this time, not even fans or festival employees. It seemed like the whole world had come to a halt, just to give Elsa a peaceful minute to reflect, to assimilate what had been said. The wind whined, and packs of aspen leaves whirled and skittered aimlessly across the park.
I'll keep your secrets if you keep mine.
You're not a superhero if you don't have a stinking secret.
Why do I sense that something bad might be happening to you right now?
Elsa sighed and offered her hand to Olaf, "Let's go, Olaf. We're done here."
AUTHOR'S NOTES:
That's what happens when you have the sudden urge to write a creepy, unsettling depiction of Quasimodo.