Elsa stared up at the ice-covered ceiling while snow fell around her.
It had been three days since she had learned her parents’ ship was lost at sea. She hadn’t left her room. She didn’t sleep in her bed. She hardly touched the food left outside her door. She refused to see anyone, including Lord Peterssen, who was the closest thing she had left to family. All she wanted was to be left alone.
Snowflakes fell onto her nose and cheeks as she stared at the icicles hanging from the ceiling. Icicles she had somehow created.
How ironic that she had been given these strange powers at the exact moment she no longer had anyone to share them with.
She lifted her hand, fingers trembling, and felt the ice slipping loose again. The ice formed a frosty path across the ceiling. Elsa still wasn’t sure how it worked, but at least she could sense when it was about to happen now. She would feel tingling in her fingers and her heart would speed up. She noticed it always happened when she was thinking about her parents. Did she even think about anything else now? No.
She was not getting up off the floor anytime soon.
There was a quiet knock at the door. She knew who it was without asking.
“I am leaving soon for the memorial. Please consider coming with me, Elsa.”
It was Lord Peterssen. Even though she hadn’t left her room, she knew what he was talking about. Kai, Gerda, Olina, and Lord Peterssen had been talking to her through her closed door for days.
Nothing they could tell her was of importance. She already knew who would run the kingdom. Papa had told her before his trip that if anything ever happened to him, Lord Peterssen would handle affairs until Elsa came of age at twenty-one and could be coronated. Anything else they had to say didn’t matter.
It upset her to think she didn’t know her parents as well as she had thought she did. When she considered the argument she had overheard before they left, the trunk in the attic with the mysterious letter A, and her strange powers, she had to wonder. There were so many questions she wished she could ask her parents. Did you know I was capable of magic? If you did, why didn’t you tell me? Were you ashamed I was born with this power? Scared? Worried about what our people would think? I’ll never know. You’ve taken your secrets to the grave and left me alone to figure things out.
“Elsa, please? Your parents would want you to be there. Open the door.”
She closed her eyes tight. The memorial service for her parents was being held high above the fjord. Even though Papa and Mama had perished at sea, markers were being placed up there in their honor. Hundreds of subjects were expected to turn out. They’d want to offer their condolences and sympathy, but she knew she wouldn’t be able to handle the situation. Ice would shoot out uncontrollably. They’d brand her a witch or a monster. They’d demand she abdicate the throne. Her parents’ legacy would be gone in a moment.
No, she couldn’t go to her parents’ memorial. She couldn’t go anywhere in public till she got a handle on her magic.
Until then, she would stay locked in her room. She’d never leave the castle. She would avoid contact with most of the staff. Her sole purpose would be to conceal her powers. Don’t feel it, she reminded herself. Don’t let it show.
Her parents had loved her so much. She still needed them—she was desperate to tell them what had happened. What if she couldn’t handle the power on her own? She couldn’t tell Lord Peterssen for fear of frightening him. The throne was at stake. She had no choice but to suffer in silence.
“Elsa? Can you hear me?”
“What is she saying?” said a second voice, much more insistent than the first.
Elsa heard Lord Peterssen patiently trying to explain the situation.
“I know she’s upset,” said the second voice, “but it won’t look right for the future queen not to be at her parents’ memorial. What will the people think?”
It was cleary the Duke of Weselton. He had no say in their kingdom, but he seemed to feel that being a close trade partner allowed him to weigh in on things. He had raced back to Arendelle when news broke of the king’s and queen’s demises. As much as his presence frustrated her, she knew he was right. She should honor her parents and be at the service. But that would mean she’d have to pick herself up off the floor and risk everyone’s finding out what she was capable of.
“Please leave,” Elsa croaked.
Silence.
“She isn’t coming,” Elsa heard Lord Peterssen tell the Duke. He didn’t argue. Moments later, she heard them walk away.
Elsa sat up and looked at Sir JorgenBjorgen lying on her bed. He had been there since she’d thrown him days before. Now he was covered in ice. She suddenly wished she could reach him. When she was a child, she had truly loved that toy. Not just because the doll had been such a good listener, but because he was her constant companion. She had liked to imagine that the doll loved her in return.
For a split second, Elsa recalled a new memory of her younger self. She was building a snowman with another girl. They pulled the snowman around the room laughing. It was clear they loved each other. Her hands started to tingle in an unfamiliar way—they were warm—then the sensation was gone and she was left with a sharp headache.
What was that? she wondered. The girl had to be in her imagination. She had never used magic before that week. Had she?
Elsa stood up, her legs shaking. She held on to her bed frame to keep from falling. Heart pounding, fingers aching, she closed her eyes again and tried to remember the love she had just felt coursing through her veins. The emotion was stronger than fear. This feeling had come from building something out of love—a snowman for the two girls to enjoy. If only she could capture that in a bottle and hold it close. Especially now, when she was more alone than she ever had been before.
It couldn’t hurt to try.
Swirling her arms right and left, Elsa allowed the ice and snow to burst forth, but this time, she tried to focus on the love and leave the fear out of it. She thought again of the vision of her and the girl laughing and building a snowman. When she opened her eyes, the snow was swirling like a cyclone in front of her. It funneled up from the ground, creating snowballs that were pulled into the air and formed into a snowman. He had a wide bottom and two stubby snowball feet, a modest middle section, and an oval head with a large mouth and prominent front teeth. Elsa stumbled back in disbelief at her creation. Had she really just controlled her powers to build a snowman? She almost laughed at the absurdity of it. But Elsa pushed forward and focused on the snowman in front of her, grabbing kindling from the fire for his arms and hair, some coal from the ashes for buttons, and a carrot from last night’s dinner plate for his nose. When she stepped back to admire her work, she noticed something strange. The snowman suddenly glowed with the same blue haze her powers had. When the glow faded, the snowman blinked his big eyes. Elsa jumped back in surprise.
“Hi! I’m Olaf, and I like warm hugs.”
Wait, the snowman was alive? Her powers could do more than create snow—they could make a real being? Elsa’s breath was shallow as she watched the snowman begin to walk—walk!—around her room. She stared at her hands in wonder. How was this even possible? “Did you just talk?” Elsa whispered, not believing her eyes or ears.