Kai clasped Gerda’s hand tightly. “Thank you, Gerda. Let’s go home.”
They paused to watch a snowflake dance before them. Then another. And another.
“They’re so beautiful,” Gerda breathed.
Kai tugged her hand. “We must hurry. The Snow Queen has many tricks.”
A snowflake floated toward Gerda. She reached out a hand to catch it. “Look, it’s not melting. Oh, I love it.” She lifted it close to her face to smile at it.
Gerda, love Gerda came whispered on the air.
“Gerda we need to go,” Kai whispered.
She looked up into Kai’s eyes that were wide with alarm watching the snowflakes that were now swirling around her so fast her hair was lifting in the wind.
She laughed and reached out to catch another snowflake. They began to alight on her, speckling her brown hair and clothes until only her eyes peeked out. “It’s wonderful!”
“It’s a curse,” Kai’s hands were clenched into fists.
“It’s magic,” came the Snow Queen’s voice from behind them.
Kai and Gerda spun around. The Queen was barely upright, clinging to the doorway for support. Water poured off of her, but before any drop hit the floor it became a snowflake that swirled over to cover Gerda.
“How do we stop it?” Kai called to the Queen.
She laughed derisively. “You can’t. It will have her until it finds the next pure heart. Run, boy, before she kisses you.”
“What?” Kai looked between the melting Queen and Gerda, who was standing with arms outstretched, smiling amid a maelstrom of snow.
The snowflakes began to disappear. But they didn’t melt off of Gerda; they were evanescing into her. She stood immobile, her arms and legs stretched out wide, transparent eyelids tightly shut. With each second, her clothes and skin became more and more transparent until Kai could see the deeper layers of tissue that became transparent the deeper the snowflakes went. Finally Kai was looking at Gerda’s vibrant, red heart. With horror, he watched the organ beat slower and slower as it changed until it ceased altogether.
Kai held his breath, afraid that Gerda was dead.
With a sudden blinding radiance, light shot out of Gerda’s heart as it resumed beating. From one blink to the next, Gerda went from transparent to a deep, icy blue. Her clothes changed into the long flowing robes the Queen wore.
With a regalness he’d never seen in his childhood friend, Gerda turned to Kai. “Hello, Kai. I love you so much. Let me kiss you.”
Kai screamed and fled out the door, past the sodden mass that was the Snow Queen who’d captured him, away from the new Snow Queen who wanted to keep him.
Submitted by: AMANDA HARE