We hurried inside after that. There was one bedroom that I hadn't destroyed by freezing, and we hid in there. Sven immediately curled up against the door.

"He'll keep out any intruders," Kristoff said. If only I could be so sure.

The first thing Kristoff did in was to walk over to the fireplace and pull two stones out of his pocket. There was still wood behind the grate, as if someone else was going to walk in here at any moment. Night poured in through the window. The room was high up in one of the towers, the view over the city was spectacular. The setting sun filtered through the surrounding mountains and crested the rooftops. A very small portion of the village lights were on. It really did seem as though much of the population had left. I closed the blinds against the darkness.

Kristoff was smacking the two rocks together over the wood. "I need some tinder."

I tried to look as though I knew what he was talking about, but I didn't.

"You know," he said, "stuff that catches fire easily to light the wood."

"Oh." Kristoff walked over to the bookshelf and started pulling off books at random. I wanted to say something, but I didn't see the point. I sat on the edge of the bed and put my head in my hands. "She'll be awake soon."

Suddenly a fire flared up in front of Kristoff. The room was flooded with more warmth than I had known in so many years. I ran to the fireplace and thrust my hand into the orange glow, just in front of the flames.

"Woah there," Kristoff said. He pulled me back from the blaze. "You'll burn yourself."

"It's just so warm."

"It's… fire. That's kinda what it does."

"We haven't had fires here since Anna died."

"How did you stay warm during the winter?"

I laughed. "Lots of blankets." Having perfect tolerance of the cold helped, too.

"Why not light a fire though?"

"I guess I just… I never thought of it. It never occurred to me." All those nights spent curled up, terrorized by the darkness, and I could have lit a fire. All this time I'd lived in this cold emptiness when I could have warmed myself and brought a hint of life to the rooms. "I never even thought to."I hung my head. "I could have helped myself but I didn't know how to."

Sven started to whimper at his post by the door.

"Elsa…"

We passed the night with very little sleep. Anna was furious, but she did not appear in the room. It seemed she was kept away by the fire, or maybe by Kristoff and Sven. Whatever the case, all she could do was shriek in fury at us, a fury that mounted in intensity as she realized she couldn't reach us directly. Never before had she screamed so loud or reached such a frenzied rage. I was half tempted to put out the fire and run alone into the hall just to stop the yelling, even if it meant I'd have to face her. Kristoff and I squeezed hands tightly, curled up against Sven. The fire roared away. Staring into it allowed me to tune out the screams for a time. Since I was used to her presence, I was able to drift off to sleep for a few hours. When I awoke, Kristoff was still awake, eyes wide with horror. He looked like someone who was losing their mind.

"Go," I said.

"Out there? Not a chance."

So we sat there while the storm raged on around us. Finally I got up and peered outside the curtains. It was still night, but the sun was just beginning to lighten the sky above the mountain peaks.

Sven yelped and jumped to his feet. Water was trickling in under the door. All three of us backed slowly up against the fireplace as a slow thudding began from the other side.

"Elsa, why are there others here? Elsa, why did you let them in? Elsa, I don't want them here." The thudding grew louder. The two small fists of a young girl could never produce such a racket, and I could tell that Kristoff realized that too. He was so pale. I saw him grab a fire poker from the hearth behind him, curling his fingers around the iron. Self-defense, another idea I'd never thought of. But Anna was my sister.

"Put it down," I said through the side of my mouth.

"What?"

"Put down that poker."

"It's the only thing we have to defend ourselves with!"

"Put it down!" I said, not bothering to keep my voice down. "Now!"

"But why?"

"Just… trust me."

There was a tense moment while the thudding grew louder. I jumped when the poker hit the floor, ringing against the stone edge. The thudding stopped.

"What are you doing in there?" Anna asked. "I'm coming in." There was one final thud, and the door splintered off its hinge.

She stood in the door frame, absolutely still. There was no sign of the Olafs; my sister was alone. A little girl with two tiny orange pigtails, dressed in a clean green dress, her face screwed up as though she were about to cry. She looked like any normal child, and yet for years I'd been more afraid of her than of anything else. But now, with the fire at my back and the promise of dawn about to break, with Kristoff and Sven beside me, I was not alone, and I was not afraid.

"Go away, Anna," I said. There was a calmness in my voice that I was not used to; an authority. Anna's mouth opened in surprise, but I cut her off. "I said go away."

"But Elsa –"

"Go. Away." She crumpled to the ground. Underneath the victory I felt was a desire to run to her side, to pick her up, to comfort her. But then she screamed.

The Olafs poured past her into the room. I was knocked down almost instantly. I couldn't count how many there were; I covered my face as they trampled into the room. Beside me, I could hear sounds of struggle from Kristoff, who seemed to be faring better than me.

"You're creepy," he said, no sounds of fear in his voice. The poker was lying not far from my arm; I grabbed it and began beating frantically at the stopped moving suddenly, and Anna spoke again.

"Stand up, Elsa." Angry and shaking, I did. Anna wasn't a little girl in a clean green dress anymore. She was in the dress she was buried in. It was white. Back then, at the funeral, she'd looked like a sleeping angel. I'd read somewhere that they sewed a dead person's eyes and mouth shut before their funeral, and that they filled their mouths up with rags or something. Apparently it was true. It seemed Anna had found a way become a specter of her old body, here in this room. Her eyes were rotted out of their sockets, leaving her closed eyelids sunken into the empty space behind. It couldn't be real. After all this time, her body could be nothing but bones. She mumbled incoherently against the stitches sealing her mouth before reaching up and tearing her lips apart, leaving a gory red trail across her face, a parody of a grin. She tried to speak, but only white cloth came out. Most of the strips she pulled out with her small fists, but when she began to speak again a shred hung just a little outside of her mouth and there was a muffled quality to her voice.

"Go away," I said with much less conviction than before.

"You can't tell me what to do!" Anna screeched. She began walking toward me. I was still holding the poker. She was about five steps away when I cautiously raised the poker and held it between us.

"Don't come any closer."

"I will. You're not the boss."

"I'm not the boss of you, but I am the boss of me, and if you come any closer to me I will defend myself."

"You're such a mean sister, Elsa!" Through the rotting vocal chords, that little-girl's voice Anna spoke with was rough and deeper; it was the voice of the spectre, not a child.

"You're not my sister."

"What? Yes I am!" She stomped her tiny foot. "I am!"

"No you aren't. My sister would never scare people. She had a big heart and she knew how to forgive. You're just a ghoul, and all you do is hurt people! Anna loved making new friends, but you stay cooped up here in this castle, never letting anyone in who might dilute the festering dark atmosphere you've created. You're not Anna. You're a monster." Anna tugged on her frayed pigtails.

"That's not true!"

"It is!" Then, very timidly, I extended the poker until it was just touching the fabric of her dress.

"Go away Elsa! Put that down!" Ever so slowly, I pushed it just a bit forward, until I felt the resistance of her stomach through the cloth. Anna stopped yelling, stopped tugging her hair. She stopped everything. The Olafs that had been shifting restlessly from foot to foot behind her tumbled into shapeless heaps of snow and began to melt. Kristoff had his back pressed against the fireplace, and I could see in my peripheral vision that he was sucking his ribs in, holding his breath. Sven stood beside him, still as the stones in the wall. I began to worry that I'd wounded Anna with the poker, that I'd pushed too hard. No stain of read appeared on her filthy white dress, though, and I could still hear the rough sounds of her breathing, which was accelerating rapidly towards hyperventilation.

"Go away, Anna," I whispered. Her eyes focused somewhere behind my head, and I realized that it was morning. The pale, greyish light burned away all of the rot, all of the decay. When Anna was completely awash in the glow, she looked back to me.

"I hate you." The window shattered behind me. I jumped and whirled around in surprise. When I turned back, Anna and her snowmen were gone.