The first time I saw Anna herself was on the one year anniversary of her death. When I went to sleep that night the castle was curiously quiet. I was so grateful that I did not question it; I slipped instantly into sleep. I woke up in the ballroom. I think it was the smell of decaying wood and mouldering carpet that roused me, or perhaps it was the wet, soggy flooring pressed up against my cheek. I screamed, but the dark paneled walls seemed to swallow the sound.
"Anna! Anna!" I called. "Anna, I'm scared!" I don't know why I thought calling out to her for help would be successful, but I knew no one else was listening.
"I know, Elsa," she said. "That's why I brought you here. I want you to be scared. Because no matter how frightened you are, it's never as scared as I was when your ice froze my heart."
She hadn't grown at all in the year since her death. For some reason that was the first detail I noticed. She was still small. Still smiling, too. But the innocence was gone from the expression. Somehow, I wondered how many eons of unfathomable pain she'd had to endure over the span of my one year of harassment.
"Anna." I paused. "I miss you." I picked myself up off the floor and walked in her direction. The closer I got, the more the temperature in the room seemed to drop.
"You miss me?" There was confusion in her voice.
"Of course I do, Anna." It surprised me that I was saying these words. But I meant them; I was speaking to my sister, whom I still hoped hid somewhere within this creature.
Anna looked over her shoulder at something I couldn't see. Her hands fluttered at her sides, her face, still childishly round, seemed to clear of its cruelty and become recognizable for a moment. Then the moment passed, and I was in hell again.
"Of course you miss me. As if, Elsa. You know mom and dad always liked me best. That's why you killed me. You wanted them all to yourself."
"You know that isn't true!" I said, falling to my knees at the feet of the apparition. "It was an accident."
"Bad people always have some excuse," Anna said, kicking my leg lightly with her shiny black shoe.
"Anna, I've been so scared since you left."
"You're so big, Elsa. So grown-up and pretty. You're almost a real lady now."
"I'm not big! It's only been a year since we were sisters! And how can I grow when you won't even let me sleep?" I grabbed her skirt and buried my face in the fabric to cover my tears.
"Stop! It's not my fault!" She stamped her foot. "You did it, you're the bad one, not me. I didn't do it." A fat tear rolled down her cheek. "Now I'll never get to be big and pretty like you. And it's all your fault."
"No, Anna, I-" She kicked me away, violently, her foot making contact with my jaw. I bit my tongue. Blood ran down the side of my chin as I looked at my sister.
"I hate you! You and your stupid snow, you and your stupid cold! It's all your fault, and I hate you!" She lowered her voice. "And I will never, ever go away. Even if you say you're sorry five hundred times."
Then she disappeared. I sat there, crying, blood dripping onto my nightgown, for several minutes, maybe even several hours. Eventually I crawled to the door. I collapsed before I made it out of the room. My parents found me in the morning. They said nothing as they pulled me up from the floor.
Time passed. I rarely left my room. My conscience could never clear. I was afraid of what I would see or hear if I left. My childhood since Anna's death was full of shadows, half heard singing behind the door in the night. Snowmen huddling in the corners of my room, disappearing when I looked again.
The scariest thing about nighttime was its inevitability. I spent my days knowing there was nothing I could do, that night would come and Anna would come back for me. Sleep was a fitful thing. You'd think one would get used to a little girl singing to them, but I never did. Sometimes I woke up to an ice-cold touch, colder even than my own skin, and feel that the life was being sucked from me.
"Do you wanna build a snowman?"
"Go away, Anna," I sobbed, over and over.
It's funny how Anna's death became the new marker of time for me. The years were measured in years since her death. She visited more often after that first night. Though I grew, she never did. Her accusations were stubborn in the way that only a child can be; not that they choose not to see your point of view, but that they are mentally incapable.
One single night, just one, she broke down and cried in my lap.
"Oh Elsa," she said. "I miss you too."
The attacks doubled in frequency and severity after that. She never once let anyone but me see. My parents wanted me locked up, but decided it was unfit for the future queen of Arendelle. I couldn't believe they still had me in line to rule this place when they passed on, but they were steadfast in upholding the traditions and keeping the power within our family. Even I began to believe what they said, that I was nothing but delusional. I would have believed them, but once, Anna bit me and it left a mark for days.
My parents died at sea when I was thirteen. Anna laughed and laughed. It was an iceberg that sank their ship. Somehow, she blamed me for this too.
"Maybe if you weren't so cold, maybe if you could control your power better, ice wouldn't hurt people so much."
She had a point. My power was incredibly sporadic. I could freeze a whole room in a bout of fear. I tried distracting myself from the terror at night by practicing, but the tension created by the singing, the taunting, was too much. I froze the window of the room I used to share with Anna, and it shattered. My parents were gone. I didn't know who could fix it. The people of Arendelle left me here alone, figuring perhaps I had died, too. The citizens had problems that I couldn't fix. I was useless to them.
Now that I no longer had a bedroom, a place of safety, I wandered the halls, trying to hide from Anna. She hunted me with renewed vigour now that our parents weren't around to catch her. Sometimes, though, I was happy she was there to chase me, to haunt me with her army of misshapen snowmen. It kept the silence at bay; gave me something to think about other than my isolation and grief. When Anna wasn't around, I was the only one from my family left, and that thought scared me almost more than she did.
When I couldn't hear her, I let my powers run free. I didn't have to think to cloak an entire hallway in icicles. When they melted in spring, even more of the castle fell into ruin. I was lucky it was so big; lucky that I always had somewhere to escape to from the mould and damp. But there was nowhere to go to escape Anna.