My name is Kai, and I am mad. I know this because I have been locked up in this freezing asylum – “the Palace” – because of the snowflakes thing.
No-one visits me here. The only person I ever see – aside from the snowflakes – is the Matron, who prefers to be called the Queen – or Your Majesty – so maybe she is just another inmate.
Here’s what I remember. There used to be sunshine and laughter – my laughter, and someone else’s. There were flowers – roses, I think. And I was happy. Then suddenly everything changed.
It began with a terrible pain in my chest, like ice growing inside me, freezing me from the inside out. It grew and it spread, to my knees, elbows, toes, then – worst of all – up through my throat to my jaws, my teeth and in through my ears and my eyes, piercing my brain from all sides at once.
After that I hated roses, and sunshine, and laughter. I saw through everyone and everything to the ugliness underneath. I hated everything.
So when she came – the Matron – to take me away, I went willingly. We climbed onto a sleigh, and she wrapped me in fur, and still the cold ate away at my heart. I knew I was leaving someone – someone important to me, someone who laughed with me – but by then the cold and the pain were too strong and I didn’t care about anything else.
The Matron – the Queen – shook the reigns and we were off. Then she did something very terrible and wonderful – she leaned across and kissed me lightly on the brow. Her lips burned where they touched my skin, worse than anything that came before, and for a moment – one eternal moment – the two opposing forces of ice and fire seemed to join together, driving me closer to insanity.
That’s when I started hearing snowflakes.
Then the heat from the kiss began to spread, warming my aching teeth and toes, bones, ears, until the pain – and all other feeling – was numb. But the chatter of the snowflakes remained.
And something else – a memory, a face, a voice, a laugh – but even before I realised what – or who – it was, the Queen bent and kissed me again, and the face faded like an old dream and was gone.
The journey here was long – I didn’t count the days – and I have been here ever since. I see no-one but the Queen, but I am not lonely – she makes puzzles for me in the ice, and I listen to the snowflakes – they don’t know I hear them, so I learn a lot from their buzz.
They are growing excited. She is coming, it seems, but they don’t say who. They are frightened. But I do not fear – somehow I am sure that whoever comes, it will be good.
A figure appears in the distance. I feel something – yes, I actually feel again, at last – and I know that what I feel is hope.
She’s here.
Submitted by: Alison Proom