“The Snow Queen is angry today,” said Veli’s grandmother, following his gaze. “Look how the snow lashes against the glass!”

Lying back on the floor beside Veli, his best friend Aphelion yawned, stretching like a sleek, lazy cat.

“They say,” said Veli, “that the Snow Queen comes at night to steal people away.”

“I bet she’s an ugly hag,” said Aphelion, “with warts on her face, and a voice like a bullfrog. Brittle as frost – I could break her with a prick of my finger.”

“Why would she steal people? What does she do with them?” asked Veli.

“She devours them.” Aphelion seized Veli by the shoulders and nipped at his neck with bared teeth, making Veli shriek and laugh.

“Never fear, Veli,” said Aphelion, springing to his feet and rushing to one of the windows. “I’ll protect you from the Snow Queen.”

“Aphelion?” said the grandmother, putting down a sweater she had been mending. “What are you doing, child?”

Suddenly the window was open and the white bees exploded into the room.

“I dare you to come here, you white witch!” Aphelion screamed to the snowy sky. “I’ll throw you on the stove and watch you melt to a puddle!”

“Aphelion!”

He looked back at Veli, grinning, and turned to close the window. Just then a blast of frigid air scattered more snowflakes into the room. Aphelion let out a sharp cry and caught his breath. Veli was immediately at his side.

“What’s wrong?”

“Something’s in my eye.” Aphelion touched his right eye.

“Don’t rub,” said the grandmother, rising slowly from her chair. “Let me have a look.”

She asked Aphelion to hold the eye open for her. Veli had his arm around Aphelion’s shoulders.

“There is nothing there,” she concluded. “It was only a snowflake.”

“But I feel something,” he whined, “and – I’m freezing, like I swallowed a chunk of ice and it’s stuck in my chest.”

“Only snowflakes,” said Veli’s grandmother, looking at his eye one more time. She grabbed Aphelion’s chin and shook it. “What were you thinking, opening the window and screaming like that?” She laughed, her eyes sparkling. “Well, I’ll start dinner. Will you eat with us today, Aphelion?”

Aphelion gazed about the room as if he had never seen it before.

“Eat here? No, not here.”

The grandmother frowned. “Very well,” she said, walking to the kitchen.

When she was out of sight, Aphelion burst into laughter.

“What’s so funny?”

“Your grandmother walks like a goose.” Aphelion waddled across the room, shoulders hunched, neck craned forward, left foot at an odd angle; an imitation so precise that it unsettled Veli.

“What were you thinking?” cried Aphelion, imitating the grandmother’s nasal voice perfectly. “What were you thinking?”

“Aphelion!”

“And you – you have a face like a reindeer’s, and your eyes are crossed.”

“No, they’re not. You’re being silly. And mean.”

For the rest of the afternoon, Aphelion baffled Veli with absurdities: he stooped behind Veli’s grandmother and mimicked her facial expressions with unnerving accuracy; he looked about him and declared that everything in the house was ugly and unsightly; when the grandmother tried to tell them stories Aphelion interrupted her frequently with “but,” until the woman grew flustered and forgot where she had left off.

Veli was actually relieved when Aphelion announced that he was going home.

At the open doorway, Aphelion turned his face up to the sky.

“Isn’t the snow perfect?” he said to Veli over his shoulder, before shutting the door behind him.

“What is the matter with Aphelion today?” asked the grandmother, who had not seen Aphelion mocking her but had heard his odd comments.

Veli shrugged, and presently fed more wood into the fire. He hoped that whatever game Aphelion was playing would be over by tomorrow, so that he could have his friend back.

* * *

Veli and Aphelion lived in a northern land of sunless winters and nightless summers, in a town tucked between a river and a mountain range.

From infancy inseparable friends, one was rarely ever seen without the other, and the town came to think of them as siblings, though they were not.

Aphelion had that pale blond hair particular to northerners, almost white. His skin was tawny in the summer; his ice-blue eyes were mesmerizing. Veli’s hair was dark as charcoal, his skin pale, and his brown-eyed gaze was so earnest, so penetrating, that some turned away from it; as if afraid that he could somehow read their thoughts.

Things came easily to Aphelion: friends, gifts, favors, attention. His good looks and playful charm had always been endearing and, as he grew out of childhood, those looks, that charm, were becoming irresistible. Veli, far from being unattractive, lived overshadowed by Aphelion; yet, because he also thought him beautiful, Veli did not care. He was fiercely proud of his friend; as if Aphelion’s beauty, his every accomplishment, were Veli’s own.

Veli seemed Aphelion’s complete opposite, which made many wonder what possible interest he could hold for Aphelion. A soft-spoken daydreamer, Veli was dismissed by some as being quiet and fey, but if he did appear at times distant or strange, it was only because his mind seethed with a fertile imagination that often drove his attention elsewhere: the arc of a swan’s wing in flight; the carmine and mint foxfires pulsing across the night sky at its clearest; the indescribable scent of a lily-of-the-valley – these held more interest and mystery to him than did most of the subjects they force fed him in the schoolroom.

“Every thing in this world is alive,” Veli was told by his grandmother, who earned her living by washing, mending and, for those who knew, providing amulets and herbal remedies. “If you look and listen, carefully, you may learn what they have to tell.”

* * *

Over the next few days Aphelion’s new talent for imitation became well known. He could flawlessly imitate anyone, young and old, man, woman, or child, not only in their gait and mannerisms but in speech as well. Most people laughed, including those he made fun of. Not only is Aphelion handsome and charming, they would say, but he is also clever and talented. He would make a fine stage actor one day, some predicted.

But Veli was among those who were not amused by Aphelion’s art for mimicry. He was troubled by his friend’s casual cruelty, by the coldness which others did not perceive, or which they chose to ignore because Aphelion was perfect and could never do or mean anything malicious.

What had Aphelion meant, then, when he approached a young woman with a faded scar on her forehead and said, “It’s disgusting how you walk about with that worm-ridden gash for all to see. Get yourself to a doctor, for heaven’s sake.”

What had Aphelion meant, then, when he took Veli’s illustrated bestiary, the same treasured book they had both pored over many times, and proceeded to rip it to shreds, declaring, “You fill your head with nonsense, Veli. Are you about to cry? Please don’t. Look, here’s something worthy of your wonder,” and Aphelion pulled out a burning-glass from the pocket of his midnight blue coat. With his free hand he held out his coat tail, allowing the falling snow flakes to land upon it.

“Look through the glass,” he commanded and Veli, despite of the sob choking his throat, looked, and saw how each snow flake was magnified, appearing like crystallized flowers, frosted stars. “See? They’re more interesting than your stupid book. The snow flakes are perfect.”

“Until they melt.”

“What?”

“Why are you being so cruel?”

“Oh, Veli. You can be such a nuisance.” Aphelion put the burning-glass back in his pocket. “I’m going to Hitch-a-Ride in the square.”

“Be careful – “

“Are you my mother, now?” He sighed. “I have to leave; they’re waiting for me.”

Veli watched Aphelion pick up his sledge, which he would later hitch to wagons returning to the country and go with them for a ride – a game taken up by some bolder youths Aphelion had befriended.

In a daze, Veli walked home, the icy wind blowing flowers and stars in his face.

* * *

One night, when the skies were sheets of snow, Aphelion lay restless in bed, looking out the window across the room, listening to the snow skitter against the glass. From the pearly light coming through he could see the frost coating the panes like lace.

Despite of the incessant snow fall, Aphelion had wanted to remain outside, but his parents had forbidden it.

“What a boar you are, Father,” Aphelion responded, and then turning to his mother, laughing, “and you, his prize sow.”

They were both so stunned that they watched speechlessly as Aphelion stomped away to his room. And they stood there for some time afterwards, unsure if they had heard correctly, for Aphelion had never before addressed them in such a manner (though they had noticed his odd behavior. “Boys’ games,” his exasperated father concluded; his wife meekly agreed).

In bed Aphelion longed to be outside, in the midst of the falling snow. And then, as he gazed out the window he saw, through the thinnest frost, a pale face peeking at him with eyes like bits of moonlight.

He wondered if he was asleep, dreaming, but the face remained there, staring.

Was that a hand he saw, summoning him with slim white fingers? And was that a smile flashing like ice at him?

Aphelion smiled back. Something about the face felt familiar. It hinted at a wonder he wished to behold closer, and so he drew aside the heavy blankets and stepped out of bed.

In his scarlet night-shirt he walked to the window and undid the latch. His heart raced with anticipation to see the beckoning figure.

And then the window was flung open, the night roared into the room and Aphelion was face to face with the Snow Queen.

He knew that it was she, Winter’s albescent bride, for no other could float in the snowy air three stories high, cloaked in a mantle of flickering snow flakes.

Gazing at Aphelion the Snow Queen caught her breath, making a sound like ice crushed in someone’s fist.

Her flesh was marbled blue-white ice. From her head flowed the long, white snow-hair, a billowing tempest behind her. The moon eyes sent chills through Aphelion but the cold did not bother him; it delighted him the way sunshine would, and when she placed her hand, weightless as breath, upon his chest Aphelion’s heart, which had remained cold since that afternoon at Veli’s, quivered and froze.

For a moment Aphelion was so cold that he thought he would die, but that passed, and though he could not feel himself breathe he could see his breath, white smoke before him.

“Come.”

The Snow Queen’s voice washed over him as flurries of ice crystals, pulling him into her open arms. She wrapped him in her mantle and swept them both down into an alabastrine sledge harnessed to four majestic horses of driven snow who impatiently tossed their heads, eager to resume flight.

And fly they did. They flew through the frigid night sky; their neighs and snorts showered the earth with hail.

Sitting beside the Snow Queen, Aphelion gazed up at her face, lovelier to him than anything he had ever seen. Likewise, the queen looked at him as if he were the most precious, most delicious of morsels.

“Sweet boy,” she said, kissing his forehead and lips with her icy mouth, wrapping him in layers of snow blankets until Aphelion thought himself buried in snowdrift.

“Are you pleased with your white witch?” She laughed, or rather, something resembling laughter issued from her mouth. “What will you do to me now, boastful one?”

“I’m sorry. I was wrong. You are … beautiful.”

Aphelion snuggled against the queen’s glacial bosom. She ran her icicle fingers through his snow-blond hair and kissed him again.

Each of the queen’s kisses not only made him more immune to the cold, but also turned his mind into a whirlwind. Faces he knew should be familiar swirled in his head, but he could not think of their names or of how he knew them.

One face was sharpest, however, that of a youth with crossed eyes and the face of a sad reindeer. The boy’s name was at the tip of his tongue but just then the Snow Queen kissed him again.

“No more kisses for now,” she said, “or I shall kiss you to death.”

Aphelion closed his eyes and fell asleep to the howling wind, which to his ears was as sweet as a ballad.

And so the Snow Queen’s sledge flew over white carpets of land and waters frozen into silver mirrors, further away from Aphelion’s home to the queen’s palace at the top of the world.

* * *

A mother’s scream tore through the sunless dawn.

Soon, everyone in town knew of Aphelion’s disappearance. The window had been found wide open, the empty room wind-swept and coated white. Had Aphelion sleep-walked out of the window and into the sea of snow? His parents and their neighbors dug and shoveled for hours in the vicinity. If he had wandered off or been taken by force all tracks were long erased by the storm which had raged through the night and which still fell that morning.

A search party was organized, complete with hounds. Speculations mounted as the town prepared for the worst. Aphelion had walked over the river and fallen through. Aphelion lay frozen beneath a shroud of snow, his body not to be found until the spring. Aphelion had been assaulted by famished wolves from the mountains.

In the bone-chilling cold, clad only in his night-wear, there was no possibility of finding him alive, and so his parents grieved, and the town mourned, for it was a small town and in some ways Aphelion, with his beauty and infectious charm, had been the town’s son, as well.

* * *

And Veli?

If he could have expressed in words the effect of Aphelion’s absence upon him, Veli would have said it was like having his very soul wrenched from his being. His world, his life, lost all of their relevance.

His friend’s disappearance affected Veli much more than the absence of his parents ever had. When Veli was barely a year old, his parents had left him in the care of his grandmother to search for better employment in the southern lands, from which they never returned, or which perhaps they never reached. Though never spoken of directly, except in the cruelty of school yard taunts, Veli had always been aware of the stigma of being an orphan.

But his parents, dead or alive, Veli could not remember; they were figures of myth to him. Aphelion, however, was real.

And Veli knew what had happened to his best friend, but no one believed him.

“The Snow Queen took him!” he cried to anyone who would listen, bawling as if his heart were being torn, tears dripping off his face. “He made her angry and she took him – I know it!”

At first, people were sympathetic. They knew the adolescents as inseparable and thought they understood Veli’s grief. But then they grew weary of his screams, of his conviction that Aphelion had been snatched by the Snow Queen because he had threatened her with death on the stove top.

Some were unkind, blaming Veli’s grandmother. “She fills the boy with fantastic nonsense,” said a schoolteacher who, on more than one occasion, had secretly purchased love potions from Veli’s grandmother. “He lives in a dreamworld. What did such a sensible boy like Aphelion see in him?”

Even Aphelion’s mother, having enough of Veli’s stories, lost her patience and slapped him in the face. During the uncomfortable silence that followed, the mother brought her hand to her mouth, as if she had uttered the slap.

“Forgive me,” she began, but the boy turned away and fled outside, marching through the frigid streets, wandering blindly with tears freezing on his face, until someone found him and brought him back home.

From that day Veli would not speak. His grandmother tried to get him to talk but she could not reach him; it was as if he had been struck mute, and his vibrant spirit had vanished along with Aphelion.

Veli’s pain weighed on her old heart, but she knew that the wound would heal with time. She cared for him as she always had, told him stories to soothe his anguish; tales of courageous characters winning over adversity and loss. She reminded Veli that he was a special youth, that he would grow to be a wonderful man, and she waited for spring to thaw her grandson’s frozen spirit.

* * *

Spring arrived early, a child who could not wait a moment longer to shed its stifling winter coat.

Everywhere the sounds of breaking ice, melting snow, lakes and rivers shouting their freedom, migrating birds announcing their return. Naked trees exploded with fine new greenery caressed by warm, fragrant breezes, and the clear spring light spread over the land.

The search for Aphelion’s body was resumed but he was nowhere to be found.

Veli had remained mute all winter. It got to be such a problem at school, where he would not answer the teachers when called and his classmates taunted and avoided him that finally his grandmother let him stay home.

A narrow passageway separated Veli’s building from Aphelion’s. Along the facing outer walls grew, every spring and summer, a carpet of climbing roses that in full bloom reached the garrets. In this passageway Veli and Aphelion invented adventures for themselves, or they just lied on the ground and stared up at the ivory and alizarin blooms.

That spring the roses seemed wilted to Veli, and with a soured scent. Sometimes he would sit or pace in the flowered passageway, as if expecting Aphelion to show up at any moment with his half-smile and stray tufts of hair like small white flames.

* * *

One morning a restless Veli left the house and took a walk. The townspeople he passed greeted him with a hello or a nod, or a gaze, but Veli walked on, seemingly unaware of them.

He walked through the town’s main street, past the town gates, a pale somnambulist amidst the bustle of carriages and crowds. He walked away from cobble-stoned street to fields interrupted by sprouting wildflowers and greening fells.

Veli felt as if invisible threads were pulling him forward, but he had no idea where he was being pulled to, until he reached the banks of the river, where a small black and red boat nestled amongst reeds.

Aphelion and Veli used to play there often on summer days, sometimes splashing in the water when the days were hottest, at other times playing inside the abandoned, oar-less boat.

Veli glanced at the sky. He and Aphelion would name the shapes the clouds made: bears, castles, swans, plumed knights on horseback – the shapes were as endless as their own imaginations.

He recalled what his grandmother had told him, about everything being alive with knowledge, and for the first time since Aphelion’s disappearance Veli spoke out loud, addressing the clouds above in a ragged voice.

“Where is Aphelion? What’s happened to him? Please tell me. Please.”

Veli looked at the golden plovers in flight, at the murmuring river, and the birch trees across the water, still bare and waiting to flower. He looked at the ground beneath his feet, at the fells behind him, and asked of them the same questions.

The more he asked the more the knot in his throat tightened; a knot that had been there since Aphelion disappeared.

Veli would not bring himself to believe his best friend was dead. Death was not for someone like Aphelion. To think of his vibrant body lying lifeless somewhere was impossible.

The throat-knot tightened until it wrung fresh tears out of Veli.

Weary from the long walk, the long cry, Veli climbed into the boat, curling up on its damp floor. Presently he dozed off, dreaming that he was flying above the land in search of Aphelion, until finally he did find him, but it was only a cloud shaped like Aphelion’s face. Veli flew toward it and the cloud-face laughed at him, vanishing at Veli’s touch.

When next he opened his eyes, Veli felt the boat moving. He darted upright. The boat was in the middle of the river and he did not recognize the landscape on either side.

Had the current somehow dislodged the boat from the riverside, or had some mischievous children seen him asleep and pushed the boat off into the water? Veli would never know.

The river was swift. The land was too far from the boat and Veli was not a good swimmer. He looked out for other boats but found none.

It was so quiet, except for the rippling water and the occasional sound of birds, that Veli felt as if he were the only person left alive on earth, and he had no idea where the river was taking him.

“Maybe the river will carry me to Aphelion,” Veli thought, and this eased his anxiety. Maybe the river had answered his question and would guide him to his friend.

Unable to do anything else, Veli sat back and was entranced by the river banks unfolding before him. Spring had arrived in full force here; the hills were a vibrant green and everywhere flowers bloomed in dazzling hues of red, yellow, and white.

Time passed – minutes, hours, Veli could not be sure, except that it was past midday, judging from the sun’s position in the sky.

The river began to narrow and then, on the left bank, appeared a cherry orchard whose pale pink blossoms scented the breeze, and in the midst of this orchard was a curious little red-bricked house with a sloping turquoise roof and stained-glass window panes.

Two life-size angels of carved lavender granite stood at either side of the front door with bowed heads, their stiff hair flowing to the ground.

The boat, as if compelled by the house, drifted towards the shore, and Veli saw an old woman on a crutch appear from the back of the house.

“Hello!” he called to her, and again when she did not seem to hear him. This time the woman turned and saw him. She leaned on her crutch and squinted.

“What is this I see,” she cried. “Child, why are you all alone?”

The boat drew closer, kissing the land, and the old woman came to meet him. Veli could now see that the crutch was really a walking stick, or more like a staff, made of a gnarled ebony wood with carvings on it. The woman extended it towards him and Veli used it for support as he stepped out of the boat.

From her leathery brown face, the woman’s milky blue eyes regarded Veli and she smiled, adding more wrinkles to her worn face. Though she looked nothing like his grandmother, the woman’s kind smile reminded him of her; and he knew how worried she must be by now, not knowing where he was.

“Now tell me, young one,” said the old woman, “what brings you here?”

Veli told her how he had fallen asleep inside the boat and ended up in the river. The woman, putting her thin arm around his shoulders, led him into the house.

Inside, the air was scented by rosemary, basil, and other herbs growing in small clay pots on the windowsills. There were bowls of cherries, pears, and peaches on the table, and chairs with plush velvet cushions. The sunlight streaming through the stained-glass created a mosaic of colors upon the walls and the floor.

Here Veli sat with the old woman and, at her insistence, he told her about Aphelion.

“You poor thing,” said the woman, who fed him fruits, sweet cakes, and gave him glasses of peach nectar. “You have suffered much for your friend,” she continued, gently stroking his tear-stained face. “What a precious, loving boy you are. I wish the Good Lord had blessed me with a child like you. How fine your hair is, black as a crow at midnight – here, indulge this old woman and allow me to comb it.”

She brought out a silver comb adorned with bits of colored crystals. Veli, enchanted by the house and grateful for the woman’s generosity, let her comb his hair. It seemed to him that each stroke of the comb made him drowsier and drowsier, until he fell into a dreamless slumber.

When he awakened the woman wished to show him her garden, and when he saw it Veli cried out in delight.

It was the most beautiful garden he had ever seen, and it seemed to contain every flower in existence. Veli walked among the flowers, nearly blinded by their dazzling colors, inhaling the surprisingly subtle mixture of fragrances. Each breath made him pleasantly light-headed.

He had been taught the names of flowers and he began naming those that he knew: carnations, daisies, marigolds, tulips, poppies, zinnias, forget-me-nots; those he did not know Veli asked the woman to name. The garden’s high brick walls were covered with ivy, and at the center of the garden stood a water fountain making music with its trickling shower. At the far end were pear and peach trees and a small bench beneath their shade. Butterflies and hummingbirds floated through the foliage like winged flowers.

Walking along the garden’s pebbled pathways, Veli lost all sense of time. Later the woman prepared some food and afterwards gave Veli a white silken night-shirt to wear to bed.

Even as he fell asleep, listening to the garden’s water fountain, his head upon a downy pillow, Veli was unaware that he could not recall any memories prior to his arrival.

* * * The beauty of the old woman’s home and garden held Veli in thrall. Every moment there made him giddy with happiness. There were always delicious things to eat and drink, and the garden to play in. The woman treated him like her own grandchild; she spoiled him with loving attention and kindness. Veli soon grew fond of her.

As content as he was, however, something kept nagging at him with growing persistence, but no word or image revealed itself. He would walk in the intoxicating garden and think that there was something missing, something that belonged there and was absent.

Once, the old woman came out to the garden, where Veli was sitting beneath the peach tree. She wore a pale blue bonnet embroidered with flowers. When Veli saw her he stood and ran to her.

“Come and see, there’s a nest in the peach tree and there’s – “

Veli stared at the woman’s bonnet. Among its violets and daisies he recognized another flower.

“Roses,” he cried. “That’s what is missing! Why are there no roses in your garden?”

The woman averted Veli’s questioning eyes. She took off the bonnet, letting her dove-gray hair spill onto her narrow shoulders, and shook her head, staring at the bonnet.

“I have been foolish.”

Veli felt invisible eyelids lift from his eyes.

“Why are there no roses? Why?”

Tears spilled down Veli’s face; an overwhelming sadness grabbed hold of him. He remembered the roses that climbed the walls of his home. One winter Aphelion had rescued a single white bloom from the snow-frosted bushes and given it to Veli, for it was said that a rose found in winter brought good luck.

He became aware of a cold weight against his chest. A locket. His grandmother had dried the winter rose and placed it inside the locket, so that he would wear it and always have good fortune.

Aphelion.

“Where are the roses?” he cried again, running through the garden whose vastness now seemed a cage. As he ran tears spilled to the ground and wherever they fell blooming rose trees sprang from the earth, filling the air with their scent.

Astonished, Veli halted, wiping his face. The old woman came and stood behind him; she also stared at the rose trees in disbelief.

“Your tears,” she finally managed. “I have never … never … I knew you were special. I knew, but – I can conjure, you see. Well enough that I can keep winter at bay from my land. I can make a spell so a boy like you will stay and keep the loneliness away. I never did find a spell against loneliness.”

She raised her ebony staff and pointed it at a rose tree, reciting something under her breath. The ground swallowed up the tree.

“Why did you make the roses disappear?”

“You told me about the roses in your home and of the winter rose in your locket. I knew my roses would remind you of your friend and break the spell.”

“But you forgot the bonnet.”

“Forgive this foolish old woman, Veli. Stay with me. There is so much I can teach you, and when I die this can all be yours.”

“I can’t stay here,” Veli said, looking at the woman with fear and pity. “I have to find Aphelion.”

“Forget him. Seeking him will only cause you much sorrow and hardship. I foresee it.”

“No, I can’t forget Aphelion. He’s my friend and I love him. I’ll find him and bring him home.”

“Don’t go. Please.” The woman grasped Veli’s shoulder but he dashed away from her toward the arched door built into the garden wall.

“I’m sorry. I must go.” He could not look at the woman; if he did he would take pity on her, fall under her spell again. It would be so easy, he thought, to stay in the paradise of her garden, so easy.

“Good-bye.”

Before his resolve crumbled Veli pulled the garden door open. It groaned horribly on rusty hinges and he missed part of the old woman’s shout:

“…cold – “

Veli ran out of the garden, past the cherry trees whose blossoms fell like pink snow about him. He wondered if the conjurer made it so the petals were forever scattering in the wind.

He kept running, intent on getting far away from the enchanted garden. It was only when his legs could take no more that he fell to the ground, and he found it strewn with countless dry leaves. And as his breathing slowed down, the heat of exertion waning, Veli felt the chill in the air.

“But it was barely spring – “ Veli’s mind hushed in wonder at the old woman’s magic. “I’ve wasted so much time. How will I find him now? I don’t even know where I am.”

“Not dressed for weather, you.”

The high-pitched croak of a voice made Veli sit up and look around. There was only a crow gazing at him from a nearby rock.

“Did you just speak?”

“No one else here, yes?”

Veli raised his knees and rested his chin upon them, looking back at the crow.

“Do all crows speak?”

“Yes, but few hear us anymore.”

“Why?”

“Who can say?” The crow cocked its head. “Why are you here?”

Veli told the crow. When he mentioned the Snow Queen the crow shrieked, shaking itself.

“You’ve seen her!” Veli cried.

“Riding through forest in white sledge, yes. Four white horses. A boy in her lap.”

“Aphelion! You must have seen Aphelion!”

“Maybe. Maybe not. Queen takes many pretty ones.”

“Why? What does she do to them?”

“Who can say?”

“I must find them. I must bring Aphelion back.”

“You? Stick-boy is no match for Snow Queen.”

“I will find him.” Veli shouted with such conviction that the crow shook again.

“Special, you.”

“That’s what Grandmother and the conjurer said. I don’t understand. I’m just Veli – I just want my friend back.”

“Seer might help you.”

“Who?”

“Seer. Wiseman. A day’s journey beyond the trees. Round hut on a hill. Magic against Snow Queen, seer would know.”

Peals of giddy laughter rang suddenly nearby, punctuated by the rustle of crushed leaves.

“Someone’s coming,” said Veli, standing up.

“Good luck, stick-boy,” said the crow, spreading its wings.

“No, please wait,” but the crow had already taken flight, disappearing into the trees behind Veli.

More laughter and then, out of a grove of birch trees a young woman in a crimson overcoat ran up the slope in Veli’s direction. Behind her a young man in a voluminous indigo cape chased her; he had grabbed her trailing skirt when she saw Veli and halted.

“Oh! Brother, we have found a wood sprite,” and she laughed so sweetly that Veli could not help but smile.

“Indeed,” said the young man, grinning like a child.

Veli gaped at the siblings. They were in their early twenties, tall and lean, but their restless energy gave the illusion that they were much younger than Veli himself. Her hair streamed to her waist in abundant chestnut curls; her brother’s hair was a dark mane falling in soft waves upon his shoulders.

“Why the sad face, wood sprite?” asked the young woman, gazing at Veli with long-lashed gray eyes whose clarity reminded him of Aphelion. “Oh, you are shivering! Brother, we must take him with us and get him warm clothing. Come, take my hand. You will be our guest of honor tonight.”

Before Veli could protest she grabbed his hand and, along with her brother, they ran past the birch trees through an unkempt garden with worn cobble stone paths and broken statuary, then up a small hill to the top where their home was. By that time it had begun to snow, at first softly, then heavily.

When Veli saw the three-story mansion it confirmed his suspicions about the siblings; he had noticed their rich clothing, the cultured voices, even the way they had taken for granted that he would go with them; they were used to being obeyed.

The mansion, though impressive with its gray stones and high walls, had surely seen better days. To Veli it seemed that a dullness surrounded the great house, and once inside he saw very few servants; he imagined that there should be an army of people to care for such a place. Many of the rooms appeared neglected or closed off, adorned by dust and spider webs.

But the siblings were unlike their surroundings, though at times somewhat absent-minded. Vivacious, talkative, and curious, they almost made Veli dizzy with their incessant talk and laughter. They were exactly like children left alone by their parents with a full run of the house.

“We are twins,” said the woman over a dinner of pheasant and wild mushrooms, served by two of the servants. “The last of our line. We have always been closer to each other than to anyone else and – “

“– we swore never to marry,” continued her brother, “so that we may always be together and care for one another.”

“We are each other’s happiness. We have no need for anyone else in our lives.”

Veli could see their deep affection for one another and a blast of envy filled his being. He thought of himself and Aphelion living in such a mansion, it’s many rooms and hallways perfect for games and exploration; when they had exhausted one room’s secrets they could move on to another, each one an adventure to be treasured.

We are each other’s happiness.

That had been the unspoken element of Veli and Aphelion’s friendship, yet it had begun to change before Aphelion’s disappearance. Would it still hold true when Veli found him?

He had told the twins about him and they were so moved by his plight that they offered him a carriage and coachman to take him to the seer’s hut beyond the forest.

That night Veli slept in an enormous bed canopied with satin. He was unable to sleep, not out of discomfort, but out of anxiety and restlessness. He could not wait for the morning to come so he could begin his journey.

Before leaving Veli’s chamber, a middle-aged maid had told him that, should he hear or see anything unusual during the night, he should not be frightened.

“In this house our dream selves wander off, you see,” she explained, fastening a button on Veli’s night-shirt. “So don’t be scared for your safety. They’re only dreams.”

Sometime during the night Veli heard soft giggling outside his closed door. He tiptoed across the room and slightly opened the door.

The wide corridor was dark except for the moonlight pouring through a round window at the end of the hallway.

Then Veli caught a glimpse of the twins’ dream selves floating in gossamer draperies, entwined, laughing. They disappeared round the corner and Veli went back to bed.

He felt an odd stirring in his chest and stomach as he thought of Aphelion. He wondered where his dream self would go that night, and what would it do.

* * *

The next morning brought blustery winds, pale sunlight, and snow. It had snowed all through the night and the ground was coated white.

As they had promised, the twins provided a closed gilded carriage pulled by a handsome chestnut gelding. They also gave him clothes: a long fur coat and matching cap, doe-skin gloves, and fur-lined boots. They had their cook prepare cakes and sandwiches for his journey.

The twins wished him good luck. They seemed to Veli saddened at his departure; he could only conclude that they did not get many visitors. He thanked them for their generosity and they waved good-bye to him as the carriage pulled away.

Soon they were on the road which snaked through the forest. One could hardly see where the branches met in the sky. Veli looked out of the window at the blur of trees and snow, the occasional forest beast darting through bushes, and began to feel drowsy.

The horse’s scream jolted him. The carriage came to an abrupt halt, throwing Veli forward and to the side against one of the doors. Shouting voices, the crack of a whip. The coachman cried out but his scream was silenced.

The carriage door was thrown open, spilling Veli onto the road where the coachman’s bulging eyes stared back at him, blood spurting from his slit throat. Veli shouted, scrambling to his feet, a blur of male faces before him, but strong arms grabbed him from behind, holding him tight. A suffocating stench assaulted his nostrils.

“We have us a prince!” The voice was female, hoarse with drink. “Look at this fur.” Veli felt the cold edge of a knife at his neck. “Too bad I’ll have to slit your throat open, too, Fancy Boy. Any last prayers?”

At this two men, busy pilfering through the carriage, laughed with raucous glee. Tears clouded Veli’s eyes but he was too stunned, too frightened to muster any words or even to scream again.

“Let him be, you drunken bitch.” The voice was that of a young man, and though soft it carried through with unsettling menace. “He’s mine.”

The woman let out a startled yelp and let go of Veli, who fell in a half faint. He looked up and saw a husky young man in tattered clothes spinning the woman round a few times and then pushing her so she fell into some snow-laden bushes.

The two other robbers howled with laughter.

The young man turned to Veli, bowing in mock curtsy.

“You must forgive my mother,” he said in that soft voice. “She has no manners. I’m Ehro. Don’t worry, prince. I’m not going to kill you. At least, not today.”

* * *

Against the spectral foxfires of the northern sky rose the Snow Queen’s castle.

Over time the cutting winds had carved crystalline spires and jagged towers like columns of salt. Inside, the walls were a combination of clear and opaque ice. Its doorways and windows were of the bone-chilling wind. Its bare corridors converged throughout the monolith, but each path inevitably led to the center of the palace, a cavernous room where a vast frozen lake gleamed bright as a polished mirror.

In the middle of the lake stood a throne, a sculpted block of ice marbled by milky streaks. And sitting rigid upon the throne was the Snow Queen, her marbled-ice hands on her lap, her snowy vestments an avalanche pouring from the throne onto the lake.

Only her eyes moved, hard as hail, watching.

Assembled across the mirror, like skaters frozen in time, were statues of men, women, and children with blue black skin.

At least they appeared to be statues, but they were not.

Slowly weaving his way around the blue-black statuary, silver skates spitting crystals at their feet, was a figure in a scarlet night-shirt, and it was this figure that the Snow Queen’s eyes followed with unwavering intensity.

He was also blue black with cold, but his heart continued to beat within his frozen chest. Tiny plumes of breath wisped from his lips and nose.

He had circled the lake in his silver skates for countless hours. He knew that the frozen figures (Hundreds? Thousands? He had counted them before but kept forgetting the total moments after he counted them, so that he had to start all over again) had been brought there by the Snow Queen, and that once they had been living beings, like himself.

He understood that he should be frozen too, stiff and lifeless amongst them, but his heart, now a lump of ice, refused to stop beating, even as the Snow Queen’s caresses continued to numb not only his body but his mind.

At times he would halt before a figure he found of interest, and peer closely at it, like a critic studying a work of art, trying to rob the work of its essence by dissecting it, re-defining it, familiarizing it so as to not be overwhelmed by the terror it provoked.

“Come.” The Snow Queen’s voice fell over him like flurries.

He skated towards the throne and fell to his knees at her feet. She took his chin in her hand and gazed at him without saying a word. He would have smiled if he could, but it was getting harder to move his lips.

For a moment he thought he saw a frown upon her glacial brow.

“Have I displeased you?” he murmured.

Silence.

“I never wish to displease you. You are everything to me.”

He laid his head upon her lap and she stroked his frozen white-blond hair.

“Why are you different?” she said, not expecting a reply. “I look at you and see myself clearer than I have in … such a long time. Do you remember what you said that day, when you opened the window?”

“No.”

“You cried it out to the winds, and I heard. I came for you.”

“What did I say?”

The Snow Queen did not respond. Instead, she reached for him and touched her cold lips to his.

* * *

“Off with the coat, prince.”

Inside the gilded carriage, Veli sat alone with Ehro, the young robber who had saved his life. Ehro had ordered the others to sit up front and drive the carriage back to their lair.

Veli huddled in the corner opposite the robber, avoiding his gaze.

“I won’t repeat myself.”

Veli took off his fur coat. The robber watched him with fox-like eyes as he took off his own frayed, soiled coat.

“The boots, too. And the hat. Now put these on.” He handed Veli his coat and boots. Veli hesitated but one look from Ehro spurred him on. The coat smelled of old sweat. The boots were tight and the soles worn thin.

Ehro put the fur coat on, then the boots. He took off his black cap and Veli was surprised by the luster of Ehro’s wavy, rust-orange hair. When he placed Veli’s fur hat on his head he asked, “Do I look like a prince? Look at me and answer.”

Veli glanced at him and nodded.

“You’re patronizing me.” Ehro pulled a knife from his belt and watched the blood drain from Veli’s face.

“It’s so easy to scare you,” he said, laughing. “You’ll be safe as long as you do what I tell you.”

“Please let me go. Take everything, just please let me go. I must find my friend before it’s too late.”

“Late? Tell me about this friend, prince.”

“I’m not a prince.”

“I’ll call you whatever I like. Talk.”

So Veli talked, all the while watching the robber’s knife. By the time he was done the carriage had come to a stop.

“Get out. We’re home.”

Veli obeyed. Ehro jumped out after him.

The robbers had taken over a castle so ancient and ruined that the forest had claimed most of the crumbling structure, surrounding it with tall crooked trees, choking its nooks and crevices with abundant vines and weeds.

“How do you like me now, Mother?” asked Ehro. “Am I handsome?”

The woman cackled, raising bushy dark eyebrows. “You? Handsome? That’ll be the day I die.”

Ehro ran up behind her and kicked her left shin.

“I take after the bitch that birthed me. I’m taking the prince to his new chamber.” Ehro put his arm around Veli’s shoulders and led him inside.

The courtyard they entered was a madman’s market: piles of books lay speckled with pigeon dung; a bride’s trousseau spilled from a trunk where hens lay nesting; a marble bust sported a top hat and broken spectacles. The place reeked of sweat, urine and feces, mingled with the lingering smells of roasted meats, spilled alcohol and shed blood.

“Here we are,” said Ehro. They had reached an alcove across the courtyard where a makeshift pallet, covered with dirty silk fabrics, shared space with strutting pigeons and sauntering cats. Picture frames, broken mirrors, birdcages and other objects crowded the corners.

“Please – “

“Shut up.” Ehro pushed Veli so that he fell on the pallet, nearly sitting on a fat gray cat that hissed at him and jumped away.

“Stay there, and don’t even think about trying to run off. It would be a shame to have to slit that throat open after all.”

Veli watched him stride away to the courtyard, where someone had started a fire and already had several rabbits roasting. The smell reminded him that he was hungry, but the thought of eating anything touched by the robbers repulsed him.

From where he sat he could see the robbers in their motley clothing, hear their rough laughter and rougher words. Though the two other men were much older than Ehro, it was the young man who seemed to be in charge. Veli could guess that the others were afraid of Ehro.

He turned away from the courtyard and noticed that the wall opposite him had a large hole through which a reindeer’s head regarded him with somber eyes. A rusty chain was tied around its neck.

“Admiring my pet?”

Ehro stood behind Veli with two chipped gold-rimmed bowls containing brown-black rabbit meat. He thrust one bowl at Veli, dropped the other on the pallet and took his knife out.

“Come here, Ba,” said Ehro sweetly, as if to a child, standing next to the hole in the wall.

The reindeer shrieked, tossing its head, but the chain held it still. Ehro placed the sharp tip of the knife beneath the reindeer’s jaw and flicked it lightly back and forth. The reindeer did not move; its eyes rolled wildly in their sockets.

“I like to remind Ba that I’m her master. That with one push of my knife I can end her life whenever I wish.”

Ehro put the knife away, stroking the reindeer’s neck. Then he sat next to Veli and took up his bowl.

“You better eat that.” There was a clear warning in Ehro’s voice. Reluctantly, Veli grabbed a piece of rabbit and bit into it.

“You don’t eat like a prince.”

“I told you I’m not a prince. I told you where I was going and why.”

“Your friend’s dead.”

“He is not.”

“How do you know?”

“I know.”

Ehro snickered. “Bastard means that much to you.”

Veli did not reply.

“Look at me when I’m talking to you.”

Veli stared back at Ehro, and for the first time he noticed that one of Ehro’s eyes was dark green while the other was the color of amber. Ehro’s nose was long; it reminded Veli of a fox’s snout.

“Does the sight of me offend you? Maybe I’m not much to look at but I’m sure I could teach your friend a thing or two.”

“Like how to cut someone’s throat?”

“You owe me your life. Don’t make me change my mind.”

“What are you going to do with me?”

“What do you think I’ll do?”

Veli did not answer.

“You’re here for my amusement. If you please me I might let you go. If you don’t – “ Ehro smiled, and Veli shivered.

Later, when it was time to sleep, Veli was dismayed when Ehro told him they would be sharing the narrow pallet.

“Lie on your side,” Ehro commanded. Once Veli had done so Ehro lied behind him, wrapping one arm around Veli’s neck while holding the knife in his other hand.

“I’m a light sleeper, prince. Don’t try anything you’ll regret.”

Tears trickled down Veli’s face, but he stifled his sobs, afraid of enraging Ehro. He remembered how he and Aphelion had lied together this way when they were little. He could recall the spicy-sweet scent of the back of Aphelion’s neck, and the downy white-blond hair tickling Veli’s nose. But this was not Aphelion, this was a robber, a killer, and his body, his warmth, stifled him.

For a while it was quiet, except for the occasional sound of the cats prowling in the dark. The others had drunk themselves unconscious by the fire.

Veli thought Ehro had fallen asleep but suddenly the robber spoke.

“I robbed a young woman once,” Ehro whispered drowsily into his ear; Veli could smell the alcohol in his breath. “She had a pretty mouth like yours. She begged me not to kill her. I said I’d spare her life if she gave me a kiss. Whore readily puckered up for me, so I kissed her. I bit into her lip so she’d always remember me.”

Veli felt the icy tip of Ehro’s knife against his cheek.

“Give me a kiss, prince,” Ehro murmured, almost sweetly. “Give me a kiss or I’ll carve up your face.”

Ehro pressed his face against Veli’s. Veli could feel the feverish heat coming off the robber’s body, and he thought that he would faint. As their lips touched, Ehro’s head drooped onto his shoulder and Veli’s ear was filled with the roar of his breathing.

Afraid to wake him, Veli endured Ehro’s weight, crying in silence.

Then, from where the reindeer was chained, a voice whispered:

“He’ll sleep now. You can push him off. He’ll not wake.”

Veli did as the voice told him. Ehro slid off and settled into a low purring snore. Veli curled up on the pallet, facing the hole in the wall; the reindeer’s head poked through, its antlers scraping the sides.

“Try to sleep.”

“He’s going to kill me.”

“I think that every time that he tickles me with his knife. I’m still here.”

“I’m scared.”

“If I could I would carry you away upon my back.”

“You’re kind.”

The reindeer whispered to Veli through the night, telling him how it used to roam the fields and the forests before its capture, until Veli finally fell asleep to its comforting voice.

Bickering voices woke Veli the next morning. He looked over across the courtyard to find Ehro and his mother arguing. There was no sign of the other robbers.

The reindeer was asleep. Veli wondered if the reindeer had really spoken last night or if he had dreamt it.

“His Royal Highness is awake,” said Ehro when he returned. From his hand a large red apple flew at Veli, who caught it just before it could hit him in the head.

“There’ll be goat milk once my lazy mother gets to it. So difficult to get things done around here.” Ehro sat next to Veli, taking a bite from another apple.

Veli could not look at Ehro; he wondered if the robber remembered what he had done the night before. What would he try next?

“Listen, prince. I’ve been thinking about leaving these imbeciles to strike out on my own. Yes. Maybe I’ll even follow you on your idiotic quest, just to see you fail.”

Veli leaned forward. “You’ll let me go?”

“Shut up.” Ehro glanced over at his mother in the courtyard and then, in a low voice: “We’ll take Ba and ride off on a sledge. The others won’t come back till the afternoon. The bitch will drink herself to sleep in a few hours.”

“Is she really your mother?”

“Unfortunately.”

“I never knew my mother.”

“You can have mine if you want. Now shut up and stay out of the way until I come for you.”

So Veli stayed out of the way and later, just as Ehro had predicted, the woman drank until she passed out. Ehro returned to unchain Ba; he led the reindeer to the back of the castle where he harnessed it to a fancy sledge that had most likely been stolen.

Ehro did not say a word and Veli remained silent. When the robber was done he pointed at the sledge and Veli stepped into it. Ehro went to make sure that his mother was still unconscious.

“Do you know where to find the seer?” Veli asked Ba.

“I do. He is my friend.” Before Veli could reply Ehro returned and stepped into the sledge, grabbing hold of the reins. In a matter of seconds they were off.

“The seer is on the other side of the forest,” Veli said.

“Don’t worry. We’ll find your seer.” Under his breath Ehro murmured, “I must be goddamned mad.”

Veli heard him, though, and for the first time since he had been captured, he smiled.

* * *

The sky was a dusky dark blue by the time the sledge emerged from the forest and came upon a wooden hut at the crest of a hill. Smoke spiraled from the middle of the cone-shaped rooftop.

The reindeer halted and refused to go any further.

“This must be it,” said Veli, getting out of the sledge and walking toward the hut. Ehro was about to yell at him to come back when the hut’s door creaked open, revealing a small man’s silhouette against the orange glow of fire flames.

“You are late,” said the silhouette in a velvety tenor tinged with amusement. “I expected you days ago.” The man turned toward Ehro, who was still inside the sledge. “Ah, you’ve brought my friend Ruska with you. If you would be so kind as to un-harness Ruska and bring her inside.”

For once, Ehro had nothing to say. He got out of the sledge and began to un-harness the reindeer.

Veli reached the door. There was something about the man’s presence that immediately set him at ease, though he could not exactly say what.

“Come in,” the man said, walking back inside. Veli followed him.

There was a fire burning in the middle of the hut, encircled by stones. Veli was surprised to find the hut’s interior much larger than its exterior had led him to believe. Brightly colored fabrics and feathered wooden masks lined the walls. Dried herbs hung on strings from the ceiling, scenting the room, and on a large table sat many bottles and containers. Veli felt the man’s gaze upon him and he turned to gaze back.

Veli could not guess how old the seer was; he had one of those smooth, ageless faces, and his head was shaved, with only a sprinkle of stubble. He had a small, wiry body and he wore only a patterned cloth draped about his middle. From his neck and wrists multicolored beads caught the fire light.

“Aren’t you cold?” Veli asked, but then he noticed the drops of sweat upon the seer’s brow and, feeling the intense heat coming form the fire, knew that his question was foolish.

At that moment Ehro came in, leading the reindeer.

“Please close the door. Ah, my Ruska. I knew you would come back.” The reindeer went to the seer and rubbed its muzzle against his outstretched hands. “I’ve saved you some hay and moss; help yourself.” He pointed to a corner of the hut. The reindeer sauntered toward it and began to feed on the goods.

“You’re the seer.” Ehro said. Veli was amused to see that the robber would not look at the man straight in the eye.

“So they call me.”

“This boy seems to believe you can help him find his friend, who’s probably a dead icicle by now.”

“He’s not dead,” Veli cried.

The seer’s eyes remained on Ehro, who finally met them with defiance.

“So you’re going to do some magic trick and tell him what he wants to hear? That there’s a queen holding his friend captive?”

“What do you think?”

“I think that he’s crazy, and that you’re probably a charlatan.”

The seer chuckled. Then, in a perfectly lively voice, he said, “Maybe he is crazy. Maybe I am a charlatan. Maybe I’ll put a curse on the thief who kept Ruska in chains.” With a deftness that made Veli gasp, the seer reached into Ehro’s coat and pulled out the robber’s knife. Alarmed, Ehro stepped back.

“Or maybe,” continued the seer, studying the knife with feigned interest, “I’ll slit the thief’s throat and bathe in his blood.” The seer shrugged. “I will hold on to this for now; I hope that you don’t mind.”

Veli and Ehro gaped at the seer as he tucked the knife into his belt.

“Now,” said the seer, “you may as well take your coats off, sit down, and tell me what it is that you want from me.”

The seer sat on the floor, cross-legged before the fire, and waited as the boys removed their coats and sat round the fire. Veli told the seer why he needed his help while Ehro sullenly stared at them, still visibly shaken.

After Veli was done speaking, the seer remained silent. He had been gazing at the fire, which made his brown eyes bright as the flames. He said nothing for such a long time that Veli grew anxious. He was about to say something when the seer turned his bright gaze upon him.

“What will you do if I find that he’s alive?”

“I’ll go find him.”

“And you believe that you can bring him back home? Do you even know what you’ll be up against?”

“I’ve come this far. I must go on, no matter what.”

The seer’s eyes widened briefly, and then he smiled, nodding to himself.

“All right,” he said. “Let’s begin.”

* * *

While Veli and Ehro sat silently sipping a hot spicy tea, the seer journeyed to the Snow Queen’s castle.

First, he fed more wood into the fire, and sprinkled incense into it, filling the room with the scent of aromatic tree bark.

He drank of the same tea he gave to the boys and sat before the fire with eyes closed, legs stretched out, wearing a splendid caftan of blue-black feathers. Between his legs was a small drum which he beat rhythmically while he sang in an incomprehensible language.

Veli was fascinated by the whole ritual, by the strange beauty of the drums and voice, even if he could not understand the meaning of any of it, even if he found it somewhat scary, as well. From time to time he would glance at Ehro and notice that the robber was fascinated as well; his heavy eyelids would lift, his thin lips part in wordless wonder despite his best efforts to appear unamused.

The seer’s voice gradually diminished, as did his drumming, until his head drooped down onto his feathered chest and he was still. He had warned them that he would appear unconscious for a long time and that under no circumstance were they to break the silence or attempt to revive him.

Ehro lied down with his back to the fire, murmuring something to himself. Veli sat and kept watch, along with the reindeer Ruska, who lied with its gaze upon the seer.

Veli lost all sense of time in the hot room. He dozed off several times only to see that the seer was still journeying. The idea that a spirit could travel while the body remained still was wondrous to Veli, though he imagined that it was similar to the sleeping body and the wandering dream self.

The fire was down to a flicker when the seer began to shake; after a moment he fell sideways, coughing, limbs trembling. Veli wanted to do something but he had been warned not to interfere, so he sat still, and waited.

After a moment the seer opened his eyes and rose to his feet. Without a word he rekindled the fire and prepared more tea; Veli could see that his hands were still trembling and that a far away look was in his eyes.

When he was done, the seer sat down again and drank the tea in three large gulps. He put the cup down and finally turned toward Veli.

“He is alive. Barely alive. He sits on a frozen lake, moving pieces of ice around, as if trying to make something. There are others there, countless others, scattered throughout the cavern and lake. They’re dead. Frozen. Your friend should be dead, also, but he is not.”

Ehro, who had dozed off earlier, turned around on his side and faced them, watching the seer as he spoke.

“Did you see her?” Veli asked.

“No. She is out spreading her chill across the land. But I felt her presence everywhere. I have never felt such absolute coldness, or such sadness.” He paused. “I must tell you something; you will need to know this to understand what has happened to your friend, and how you may save his life.”

The seer told Veli what he needed to know and, as if triggered by the revelation itself, Veli was overcome by fatigue. The seer wrapped him in a turquoise blue and ruby blanket, and bid him good-night; he offered another blanket to Ehro, who refused it and turned his back to the seer.

“May your dreams be pleasant,” said the seer. Ehro grumbled something and the seer chuckled to himself.

Later, when he thought Veli was asleep, Ehro called to the seer.

“If she really is out there, shouldn’t you give him something to fight her? Look at him, he’s never thrown a punch in his life.”

“A magic sword, you mean? Or a spell? There is nothing I can give him, no object, no spell that could match what he already has.”

“What’s that?”

“I don’t believe you would understand if I explained it. A gift; it has brought him this far unscathed, even brought him help from a thief like you.”

“I’m not helping him. I want to see how far he’ll go. I want to see if his friend is worth all this trouble.”

In the silence that followed, Veli thought about the seer’s words, Ehro’s words, and wondered how on earth he would tear Aphelion from the Snow Queen’s enchantment.

The next day, with Ruska once again harnessed to the sledge, Veli and Ehro took off northward to the Snow Queen’s castle. The seer provided them with a lantern, food, and blankets. Before they left, Ehro gave Veli back his fur coat, hat, and boots to wear.

As if by unspoken agreement neither of them spoke during the journey. Though wrapped in layers of blankets the cold was so brutal, so sharp, that it made their eyes water, so they had to keep brushing ice crystals from them.

The land they sped through was barren wasteland; not even pines or hills grew there. Only shades of white, and the unending sky.

So when finally the white towers of the Snow Queen’s palace were visible, Veli caught his breath. He had never seen anything like it, not even in dreams. He had no words to describe its effect on him; awe was too inadequate a word, and so was terror. Veli’s heart raced, a feeling like nausea climbed his throat the closer they got to the palace. Ehro shouted a curse and brought Ruska to a halt. They were about one hundred paces from the palace, and the cutting winds made billowing clouds out of the snow.

The snow clouds headed towards them, except that as they got closer they were no longer clouds. To Veli’s horror, the moving snow was gradually taking on shapes like giant, bristle-haired bears and porcupines, twisting serpents and bat-like birds, howling with the roar of storms.

Ehro tried to drive the sledge away from the snow beasts, but Ruska was paralyzed with fear. Veli began murmuring something, and his steamed breath trailed from his mouth, also taking shape in the freezing air.

These shapes, which multiplied with Veli’s every breath, resembled the angel sculptures outside the conjurer’s house, with their flowing robes and hair, but in their hands they carried swords and lances of frozen breath.

The snow beasts howled at the breath angels, who raised their weapons and glided towards them. With swift movements the angels struck the beasts, sending cascades of living snow flakes into the sky. Veli and Ehro watched in wonder as the army of snow beasts was reduced once more to harmless snow. When they were all destroyed the angels grew faint and disappeared.

Veli looked at Ehro, who sat rigid inside the sledge with the look of someone who has seen the impossible and has no language to express himself.

Then, without a backward glance, Veli left Ehro and the reindeer behind and walked into the Snow Queen’s castle.

* * *

Once, the Snow Queen owned a mirror which could distort beauty and warp goodness.

Some idle demons, learning of it, stole the mirror from her so that they could fly to the heavens and terrify the angels with it. But before they could get half-way there the mirror’s weight became too heavy to bear and it slipped from their grasp, plummeting to earth and crushing into innumerable shards, each retaining its distorting qualities.

Some of the larger shards were found and used as hand mirrors or as lenses, causing much sorrow and madness, but most of the pieces scattered into the winds, invisible as dust motes, tiny as pinpoints, lodging themselves in eyes and noses, into hearts and lungs, freezing parts of their hosts’ spirits and turning them into kindred of the Snow Queen, who had once owned the source of these shards but through the passage of time had forgotten the mirror’s existence and theft.

On the way back to her castle, the Snow Queen thought about the youth who refused to die like all the others before him had. Why did he not cease to breathe? What made him different? True, his beauty had captivated her and she had wanted to possess him, add him to her menagerie. But she had wanted more than kisses and embraces from him. She remembered the boastful threat he had cried out to her that day, which the fierce winds had carried to her ears. His words had caused a tiny flame to leap inside the ice cage of her heart, and its presence within her both alarmed and exhilarated her, feelings long alien to her.

Freeze these emotions up like panes of glass, her mind shouted. Freeze them until they are hard as ice.

What had he done to her? Forgotten memories were disturbing the calm of her cold mind, a calm it had taken her lifetimes to attain. She longed for the end of those memories; she longed for peace. Would the youth’s death liberate her from his spell?

As she thought about what she would do to him when she returned to the palace, the Snow Queen saw in her mind’s eye a mirror, a large mirror made not of glass but of frozen tears. But whose mirror, and whose tears?

When the Snow Queen reached her palace, she sensed that something was awry. She saw, not far from the entrance, a reindeer harnessed to a sledge. Her own horse-drawn sledge landed upon the snow and the Snow Queen entered her home. Instead of walking down the frigid corridors, as was her habit, for she loved the feel of snow crunching beneath her soles of ice, she floated over the aisles in a hurry. Who had dared enter her domain, and how had they got past her snow-flake minions?

She reached the cavern with the frozen lake and there, next to her throne, she saw a figure in furs embracing the youth she intended to kill. She halted and her feet touched the ground. They had not heard her enter and the Snow Queen watched them silently for a very long time. It was a boy wrapped in the fur coat, and he was crying against the other’s breast.

He came here for him, she thought. He came all the way to the end of the world to save him from me.

Suddenly, she felt something inside her crack; the small flame in her heart leapt and she felt something she had both dreaded and secretly longed for, something she had thought would never happen. The youth had threatened to do it on that winter afternoon so long ago, and now it was another youth who had accomplished the deed. Ice turned to water within her, running through the corridors of her veins, filling her with the strange sensation of warmth.

Is this what it comes down to? Finally, I’m melting; not from a stove, nor a raging inferno, but from the mere foxfire of a foolish boy in love?

As her heart cracked and melted, as her being disintegrated in swirls of blue-and-white smoke, the Snow Queen was assaulted by a clamor of voices, cries, and screams, all distorted, thundering about her like a tidal wave of relentless gnats. They were the voices of her victims, of the objects of her warped lust and cruelty; and of others, too, forgotten but now stabbing at her memory like ice picks, teasing her with painful flashes of lucidity.

And then, the Snow Queen heard a voice she did recognize, a voice buried longest within her frozen spirit, and it shook with the violence of the long-caged, the abused, the abandoned.

It was her voice; her voice in the life before she became the Snow Queen. And the voice’s piercing shrill bounced against the cavern walls, and the mirror lake cracked beneath her feet.

She never felt the knife that pierced her back.

* * *

Ehro ran away from the Snow Queen, leaving his knife lodged in her disintegrating body. He skidded across the lake toward Veli and Aphelion.

“We have to get out of here,” he shouted. Pieces of the walls and ceiling came tumbling down, and the lake’s surface kept cracking, making a terrible sound. When he reached them he helped Veli lift Aphelion to his feet and they dragged him away, swerving around the blue-black figures which began to fall as the ice shattered.

They ran into one of the corridors and hurriedly made their way through it, stumbling until, after what seemed hours, they came to the entrance and went through it into the dark afternoon. Without stopping they ran toward the sledge and climbed into it. Ehro took the reins but Ruska was already speeding away from the Snow Queen’s crumbling palace.

A thunderous rumble filled the air. Veli looked back and saw the white towers toppling, and great billows of snow rising into the sky. He thought that he could still hear the Snow Queen screaming, and he knew that he would remember that sound for as long as he lived.

They only stopped when they were well away from the shattered palace. Veli turned to Aphelion, who sat like a statue between Veli and Ehro, and as cold.

“Where is she?” Aphelion murmured. “What have you done to her? Take me back. I love her; take me back.”

Hearing these words the tears flowed once again from Veli’s eyes. He felt helpless and mad with grief at what Aphelion had become. And he sat there, holding Aphelion in his arms, because he did not know what else to do, did not know, after all, how to bring back his friend.

“Do something,” cried Ehro. “The seer told you what to do.”

“But not how. He’s got pieces of the queen’s mirror in his eye and heart. How can I get them out? I can’t help him!”

More tears spilled down Veli’s face. He couldn’t help their falling, though he knew they were useless. And then, the image of the conjurer’s rose trees springing from the ground came to him. His tears ….

He fumbled with the buttons of Aphelion’s scarlet night-shirt and exposed his blue-black chest. Veli touched his finger tips to his face and moistened them with tears, and then he ran his fingers across Aphelion’s chest, right where his frozen heart was barely beating. He did this again and again, letting the tears penetrate Aphelion’s skin, into his pores, through muscle and bone and into his heart.

Nothing happened, and despair took hold of Veli. He laid his head upon Aphelion’s chest and sobbed into it. And then Veli felt Aphelion shudder beneath him. Veli lifted his head and watched as Aphelion continued to shudder; he watched as Aphelion’s face contorted with pain.

Then Aphelion cried out, as if he was being burned alive, and tears filled his eyes, flowing down his face. He began to shake and cough, until at last he was still again. He opened his eyes.

“Veli,” he said hoarsely. “Veli – what – where are we? Have I been asleep? I’m cold, cold.”

* * *

It was unbelievable.

The townspeople were awestruck when Veli returned with Aphelion. They could not believe their eyes; they also could not believe their fantastic tale. They were ready to believe anything but the truth, and what did it matter anyway? Let the youths have their fantasy, they said; both were back home alive, and that was all that mattered. Veli was hailed as a hero, the rescued Aphelion for once overshadowed by Veli’s deed.

Only Veli’s grandmother believed him, and that was enough, had to be enough.

“In their hearts,” she told Veli, “they know the truth. But they think they need to believe otherwise, so that they don’t have to admit that the world is not as they have painted it.”

The seer had helped to restore Aphelion’s health, but it was not until late spring that Aphelion fully recovered from his ordeal. His good looks returned, yet an icy pallor remained on his face, and there were times when his eyes took on a bewildered look whenever snatches of his time with the Snow Queen surfaced in his mind.

And Veli?

He thought about the journey that had led to his best friend’s rescue and knew that he could no longer see the world as he had before.

Love had been the driving force behind his quest, love for someone he had valued more than himself. And he had seen what love, or the lack of it, could do; he thought of the lonely conjurer, the twins in their dream-haunted mansion, Ehro’s sadism, the seer’s selflessness, the Snow Queen and her destructive nature. How did they compare with his love for Aphelion? He had risked his life for him, only to find that his own life meant something, after all. Though he still loved Aphelion, he was no longer the center of Veli’s universe.

Before they parted ways, Ehro had told Aphelion, “You better be good to him. If I ever go to your town and find that you’ve mistreated him, you’ll have to answer to me.” The robber had been changed by his encounter with Veli. He was going to see what the rest of the world was like, see if he was capable of anything other than the life he had been born into.

As time passed, the Snow Queen and her palace began to seem only a nightmare to Veli, so much so that he would wonder sometimes if he had really been there, really seen the Snow Queen as she became undone, exploding into glittering shards. What had happened to her? He doubted that it was Ehro’s knife which had done her harm. What had it been then?

To think of her was to feel the blast of a snow storm, even in the warmest weather.

Once, in the summer, as Veli and Aphelion lied on their backs in the rose-garlanded passageway between their homes, Aphelion said, “I dreamt of her last night. I was skating on a frozen pond, and suddenly the ice trembled, and there was a rumble, as if something beneath was trying to get out. And I knew that it was her, trapped in the cold water, wanting to be free. What do you suppose it means?”

“It means nothing,” said Veli, but he knew that in reality it meant that, as long as she was in their thoughts and in their dreams, the Snow Queen would never be truly dead. She would live on every winter, in each snowflake and hailstorm, in every shiver of the flesh.

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