Mary's eyes shot open, but the world didn't look any different. She was in total blackness. Mary wished not for the first time that she had lungs so she could hyperventilate. At least then she'd have some way to express her panic. It was just the dark, she reminded herself. It wasn't the same as being erased. Mary was still there – She could still wiggle her icy fingers and sit up on the sofa. She just couldn't see anything.
Mary had let her mind wander, and while she wasn't paying attention, the candle had gone out. Mary's hands had a habit of moving themselves towards any heat source, which of course had caused her personal flurry to snow all over the candle to keep said hands from melting. Mary hadn't been able to help herself – Heat felt so good.
Mary groped around in the darkness, but the candle matches eluded her. Oh well, it'd been too dim to read properly anyways. Mary rose to her feet and fumbled blindly for the library exit.
Arendelle was one of those places up north where the daylight worked overtime. Nobody in their right mind ought to be awake at this hour, and yet here Mary was. Yes, she was supposed to be asleep – In fact, her icy eyelids even felt heavy – but rest eluded her. Something was troubling Mary. Something that had brought her to the castle library at two in the morning to look at anatomy books. The only problem was, the light had started to fade, and even with a candle, this had made reading challenging. Now Mary was once again restless, and it was still hours until sunrise.
Eventually, Mary felt her way into the hall. At least, she thought it was the hallway – The ground felt like cold stone against her feet, not like carpet. Mary assumed this was the hallway's floor, but honestly, the exact layout of the castle alluded her. She hadn't been here that long. Well, actually, Mary had run around the halls with Elsa all the time back when she was just an imaginary friend, but oddly, snowmen seemed to have trouble remembering anything from before they came to life.
Mary inhaled and exhaled – though given her lack of lungs, it was only for the sake of comforting herself. There was no reason to feel anxious. This was the exact same castle as it was during the daytime. All that had changed was Mary's ability to perceive it. It was nothing but a trick of the mind. Mary forced herself to focus on the differences instead of the similarities. When she'd been erased, she hadn't been able to breathe. Hadn't been able to wiggle her toes. Hadn't been able to think. This wasn't the same. This wasn't the same. The darkness couldn't hurt her.
Suddenly, Mary caught the sound of footsteps. Something was coming closer to her. Consciously, Mary knew whatever it was probably couldn't hurt snowmen, but it didn't stop the anxiety from welling up inside her.
"Hi, Mary!"
Mary flinched as a little lump of snow waddled towards her. The hallways were lit by a lantern, which Olaf was struggling to lift with his twig-arms. From what Mary understood, regular, non-snow people's eyes would've been hurt by the sudden brightness.
"Olaf?" said Mary. "What are you doing up?"
"Hunting for phantoms," said Olaf. "I thought I heard a thump in the library-"
"That was just me reading."
Olaf's mouth curled into a bucktoothed frown. "But isn't everyone else asleep? Who reads to you?"
"I know how to read," Mary said somewhat defensively.
Olaf was awestruck. "You mean you learned the numbers of the alphabet all by yourself?"
Mary shook her head. "I didn't learn anything. I just know how to read. I've always known." This gave her pause. That was... peculiar, now that she thought about it.
"Well, what were you reading?"
"A human anatomy book."
Olaf's face was a perfect blank. "Wow, that's... neat." But his enthusiasm only wavered a moment. "Ooh, ooh, Gerda's been reading me a way better book! One about phantoms! C'mon, I'll show you!" He scurried into the library, and Mary was forced to follow after him lest she be left alone in the dark again.
Olaf set down his lantern and retrieved a book he'd left on one of the tables. "This book says that phantoms are ghosts that get stuck in this world, and they love haunting big old castles like this one."
"And you actually believe that?" Mary laughed.
"Mary!" Olaf pointed to the book's title: Do Not Laugh at Phantoms!
"Oh, sorry." Mary put on a more solemn face.
"Ghosts are totally real," said Olaf. "I'm pretty sure the only reason they seem so spooky is because they're lonely. That's why I've been spending every night looking for them. I bet a warm hug would cheer them right up."
Mary smirked. "Well, then, I hope you can help the poor little ghosts."
"Mary!" Olaf pointed to the book's sequel: Do Not Patronize Ghosts!
"Sorry, sorry..."
"Now c'mon, you can help me ghost-hunt." Olaf's twig-arm grabbed her icy one. "I know the perfect ghost hiding spot!" Mary barely had time to grab the lantern before Olaf dragged her back into the hallway. The two of them dashed through twisting staircases and creaky doors.
"Slow down!" said Mary in a harsh whisper. She held the lantern closer, admiring its warmth. But while Mary was glad for the light source, something about the shadows it cast over everything made the castle even more unnerving.
"Hmm... It'd be easier to find the perfect hiding spot if there was more light in here," said Olaf, "but then the ghosts wouldn't want to come out. Ghosts only come out at night. That's the phantom rules."
"That reminds me, I was reading something really interesting in the anatomy book about how eyeballs use light," said Mary. "Light comes into the pupil, and then the lens focuses it into the retina-"
"Oh, don't worry, I already know how eyeballs work," cut in Olaf. "You just point them at stuff, and then you see it, right?"
Mary faltered. "I guess so..."
"Aha! Here it is." Olaf triumphantly led Mary towards a large mirror on a nearby wall. "There's a bunch of secret passageways behind this thing. I found it when Elsa, Anna, and me got stuck back here and had a wacky misadventure. It'd be a great plot for a book, come to think of it..."
But Mary's attention was fixed less on Olaf and more on her reflection. Her mama, Elsa, had designed Mary to resemble a beautiful girl just younger than Anna. Mary's snowy white hair hung unbraided off her head, trailing well past her shoulders, and her ice-skin was flawless and clear, nearly transparent. Mary's face had been based off of Elsa's, Anna's, and their late mother's. It was important, Elsa had said, that Mary looked like part of the family. She'd even provided Mary with an ice-dress of her own – one with a slightly different design from Elsa's – as well as a pair of ice-high heels, though walking in them was a pain. Once her mama wasn't looking, Mary had ditched them and gone barefoot. They'd probably melted by now without her personal flurry.
Overall, Mary looked like an ice-statue brought to life, though her body was magically much softer, fleshier, and flexible than a statue's. Unlike Elsa's other snowmen, Mary was shaped almost exactly like a regular human – at least on the outside. She had cavities for her mouth, throat, and eye sockets, but everything else inside Mary was solid ice. No heart, no lungs, no stomach, just ice. When you thought about it, it... didn't really make sense.
"Isn't it weird that we can move without any muscles?" Mary asked aloud.
Olaf pondered this for a moment. "I guess being a moving talking snowman's not any weirder than being a talking snowman."
"And what about our eyes?" Mary leaned forward to examine her face in the mirror. "That book said people's eyes have rods and cones and optic nerves and all sorts of things, but ours are just ice." On closer inspection, Mary's eyes were nothing but ice-orbs. Even her pupils and irises were just blue frost "painted on" by Elsa's magic.
"Hmm... I'd never thought about it before..." Olaf brought a stick to his face and gouged out an eye. It plopped into his twig-hands so he could examine it closer. Unlike Mary's, Olaf's eyes seemed to be made up of some sort of shiny snow with coal embedded in them for the pupils. "I don't have a medical degree, but I think the scientific explanation is that they're magical eyeballs."
"But that raises even more questions!" said Mary. "If snowmen use magic to see, why do we need eyes in the first place?"
"Well, Marshmallow gets along fine without 'em..."
"And what about brains? How do we think without brains?"
"You're worrying about this way too much, Mary," laughed Olaf, squeezing his eye back into its socket. "I don't need a brain. Look how smart I am already!"
Mary was less than reassured by this.
"Okay, enough chit-chat, we've got ghosts to hunt." Olaf waddled over to the mirror and swung it open like a door, revealing a tunnel behind it. Mary reluctantly followed him inside, holding the lantern close. If she didn't like the regular castle at night, Mary especially didn't like this secret tunnel.
"You know, I was reading another book earlier." Mary spoke more because she was nervous than because she had anything to say. "It was about cats."
"Oh, so you can read books that aren'ttotally boring," Olaf said earnestly (He didn't have a sarcastic bone in his body. Or any other kind of bone, really).
"Cats can-" Mary's voice caught in her throat.
It was hissing in agony as frost trailed down its limbs, into its mouth, its fur whitening, the horror in Elsa's eyes-
"Cats can see in the dark," Mary forced herself to finish.
"How did the guy who wrote the book know that?" asked Olaf. "Was he a cat?"
"It got me thinking," said Mary. "If Elsa made a snow-cat and brought it to life, would it be able to see in the dark, too?"
"Probably."
"So then, if it could see in the dark, why can't we?"
"Because we're not cats."
"But the snow-cat wouldn't have real cat eyes," said Mary. "They'd be magic ones. And if Elsa can make magic cat eyes for a snow-cat, why can't she give me cat eyes? Why can't she make me see in the dark?"
"Wait, I'm confused," said Olaf. "Are you saying you want to be a cat?"
Mary let out a huff. "No, aren't you listening? I'm saying I want to see in the dark."
"I mean, I don't blame you. Everybody wants to be a-"
"Oh, forget it!" Mary turned away from him, scowling. "You don't understand."
"Wait a minute." Olaf spun his head her way, his eyes narrowing. "Are you just saying all this because you're scared of the dark?"
Mary gave a start. "N-No, of course not. I'm not a baby."
Olaf immediately eased up. "Oh, okay, just checking." Suddenly, he froze. "Do you hear that?" he whispered.
There was a dead silence.
"No," Mary whispered back.
"Exactly," said Olaf. "Total quiet is a sign of a Class-Three Haunting if there ever was one! I betcha there's a ghost right down there." He pointed to the bottom of a nearby staircase.
Somehow, the thought of this made Mary's stomach churn – figuratively speaking. "Olaf, do you... do you honestly think phantoms are real?"
"Yeah, of course," said Olaf.
"But don't they scare you?"
"I don't see what's so scary about ghosts," shrugged Olaf. "Even if they act mean sometimes, they're probably just misunderstood, like Elsa or Marshmallow or Hans. No, wait, Hans is a bad example."
Mary hugged the lantern tighter, letting the warmth soothe her. "But nobody knows anything about phantoms. How do we know they won't hurt us?"
"Oh, I know plenty about phantoms," said Olaf. "A phantom's a lost soul who wanders the castle at night. They were supposed to die, but they were too scared to, and they got stuck. Since they're not supposed to be here, they don't really have a point, so they're end up being sad all the time."
"I see." Mary bowed her head, the lantern light casting her face into shadows.
"And there's probably one right down the stairs! Come on!" Olaf scurried down the stairs and into the darkness.
"Olaf, wait-" Mary hurried after him with the lantern, but she was too late. From the dark, she heard an "Oof!" and then a plop. By the time Mary reached the foot of the stairs, Olaf was splattered all the way down the steps. Not only had he split into his three segments, but the segments had lost their shape, so now Olaf was nothing but a pile of mush with some twigs and coal mixed in.
"Olaf!" Mary ran to the blotch of snow with the carrot in it, which was where Olaf's mouth seemed to have magically manifested now that he lacked anything resembling a head. "Are you okay?"
"Yeah, I, uh, might have tripped." Olaf's voice sounded a bit distorted coming from the shapeless mush. "Man, talk about falling apart..."
"You have to be careful, Olaf!" Mary once again found herself wishing she could hyperventilate. "You're lucky I was here. You could've been stuck like this!"
"So? I come apart all the time. It's no big deal."
"Yes it is!" Mary's lip was trembling. She knelt down to mold Olaf's head back into its proper shape. "People never come down this way. You'd be trapped forever! You wouldn't be able to move or think and it would be dark and Elsa would forget you existed and-"
"Mary?" Mary had returned Olaf's head to its approximate shape, and how he was peering at her with concern. "You okay?"
Mary paused. Her insides were in a vice grip. "I'm fine." She forced a smile. "You're my brother. I worry about you."
Olaf smiled back. "Hey, could you do me a favor and grab my butt? I know it's around here somewhere."
Mary let out a sigh. "I'm no good at building snowmen. I know a way to fix you faster. Stay here. I'll be back in a minute, I promise."
"Sure, I can stay here," said Olaf's disembodied head. "I, uh, don't exactly have much choice..."
Mary scooped Olaf's snow into one big pile so his personal flurry could cover it, then grabbed the lantern and ran off. She hurried out of the mirror, through the castle halls, up a spiral staircase, and across the bed chambers, where she finally reached her destination.
Mary stopped at a bedside and shook the shoulders of the person under the covers. "Mama, Mama!"
"Ugh... Mary?" Elsa rolled over towards her, rubbing her eyes. "What is it?"
"Olaf tripped, and his pieces completely split apart!" said Mary. "You have to come help him!"
"Alright, alright..."
Elsa didn't seem incredibly happy to get out of bed at – according to the clock on the wall – three in the morning, but nonetheless she ran through the halls in her ice-nightgown, letting Mary guide her through the mirror and to the foot of the stairs. One wave of Elsa's hand and flash of magic later, Olaf was back in his proper shape, good as new. Elsa's wintry winds even returned his twigs, coal, and carrot to the right locations.
"Phew! Thanks a bunch, Elsa," said Olaf.
"Be more careful, little guy." Elsa yawned, then walked back up the stairs.
"Alright, back to hunting for ghosts."
"You go on without me," said Mary. "I've had enough ghost-hunting for one night."
"Whatever you say." And with that, Olaf grabbed the lantern and scurried off further down the tunnels.
"Hey! He took the light!" As the shadows fell, Mary impulsively drew nearer to her mama.
"Don't worry." Suddenly, the hall was filled with a brilliant blue light. Elsa had held out a palm and conjured up a glowing mass of snowflakes.
With Elsa here, Mary's fears vanished alongside the darkness. "That's a new use of your powers." This time, Mary's smile was genuine. "Makeshift lantern."
Elsa nodded. "I need to get back to bed," she said groggily. "Council meeting tomorrow..."
She didn't object when Mary took her hand. As the two of them walked side-by-side down the hallway, Mary felt like a weight had lifted off her shoulders. She wasn't erased anymore, and she had her creator. Her beloved. Her Elsa. All was right with the world.
But as quickly as it came, the moment passed. Elsa returned to her bed, and Mary had to release her hand.
"Goodnight, Mary. Love you."
"Goodnight, Mama. I love you, too."
Elsa brought her head to her pillow and closed her eyes.
Mary glanced at the clock on the wall. Three-ten. That meant Mary had to wait approximately forever until sunrise. And it was still too dark to read.
"Mama," she said softly, "can I have cat eyes?"
Elsa's answer was hardly more than a garbled syllable. "Whuh?"
"Never mind..."
Mary, unlike her mama, didn't feel the least bit tired. She didn't even bother pulling up a chair – it made no difference whether she sat or stood. And so, as she waited for sunrise, Mary watched Elsa sleep. Watched her chest rise and fall. Watched the breath escape her mouth and watched her eyebrows clench and wondered if her creator was having a nightmare.
Mary's thoughts drifted, once again, to her anatomy. That's what had kept her awake in the first place. Snowmen didn't need to eat food. They didn't need energy – They were kept going purely by magic. So then why would a snowman even need to sleep in the first place? It made no sense.
Nothing about Mary made sense.
"Mama?" For all the differences between human eyes and snowmen eyes, Mary could still cry. "Am I a phantom?"
The question received no response but the rise and fall of Elsa's chest.