The Snow Queen

Kai and Gerda lived in two attic rooms across a narrow alley in a town that smelled of rain and coal smoke. In summer they grew peas on the roof and traded stories through the window. In winter they pressed their noses to the glass and drew faces in the fog.

One evening a splinter of glass flew into Kai’s eye. It was troll glass, thin as a needle and cold as January. It went into his eye, and then, smaller than a seed, it went into his heart.

“Your eyelash is in my eye,” Kai said, rubbing it. “Don’t fuss.”

Gerda brought a warm cloth. He pushed her hand away.

After that, the roses on the roof looked like weeds to him. The snow on the windowsill looked like sugar. He stopped knocking on her wall in the morning.

“You used to laugh at my drawings,” Gerda said one afternoon. “Look at this one. It’s the cat with the crooked tail.”

“It’s a scribble,” Kai said. He was polishing his boots. “You should learn to draw properly.”

Gerda put the paper down. Outside, the snow came faster, and the wind made a sound like someone humming.

That night the Snow Queen came. She stood at the window in a coat the colour of moonlight, and her face was calm and beautiful. Frost ferns grew where she breathed.

“You have a cold in your heart,” she said. “Come and see my palace. It’s very quiet there.”

Kai pulled on his coat. “I’ll be back,” he told Gerda, but he didn’t look at her when he said it.

He climbed onto the sleigh behind the Snow Queen. The runners left two silver lines down the street. Gerda ran to the window and shouted his name, but the snow swallowed it whole. She stood there until her feet went numb.

***

Spring came, and Kai did not. Gerda put on her red boots and went to the river.

“Have you seen Kai?” she asked, kneeling on the bank. “A boy with dark hair and a cold look?”

The river didn’t answer with words. It pushed a small boat against the mud, and the boat had a name carved on the side: Kai. Gerda stepped in. The current took her.

She floated for a long time. When the boat bumped a flowered bank, a woman was waiting with a basket of apples.

“Poor dear,” the woman said. “You look half-starved. Come inside. I have warm bread and a soft bed.”

“I’m looking for Kai,” Gerda said.

“Of course you are. But eat first.” The woman smiled. “I have a garden where it is always summer. You’ll like it.”

The garden was beautiful. Roses climbed the walls, and bees hummed in the lavender. Gerda ate bread with honey. She slept in a bed that smelled of sun.

Days passed. Maybe weeks. The woman braided Gerda’s hair and sang to her, and the song made her sleepy.

“Stay here,” the woman said one morning. “Nothing bad ever happens in my garden.”

Gerda looked at the roses. They were the same roses from her roof, or almost. A thorn pricked her thumb, and the small pain woke her up.

“Kai is still out there,” she said. “I have to go.”

The woman frowned. “The gate is locked, dear.”

Gerda waited until the woman was picking apples. Then she ran through the garden, past the bees and the climbing roses, and climbed the wall. Her red boots caught on the stones, but she didn’t stop. She dropped down on the other side and kept running until the summer garden was far behind her.

Ahead, the road turned north, and the air began to cool. She pulled her coat tight and walked on.

By evening the road turned to gravel and the air smelled of pine. Gerda’s boots were wet, and her coat was too thin for the cold. A golden coach came rattling toward her, pulled by two white horses. The driver wore a fur hat, and inside sat a young prince and princess, their faces bright with curiosity.

“Stop the coach!” the princess called. “It’s a girl, all alone.”

The prince leaned out. “Where are you going in this weather?”

“North,” Gerda said. “To find my friend Kai. The Snow Queen took him.”

The princess pulled her inside and wrapped a blanket around her shoulders. “You’re frozen. Come to the palace. We’ll feed you.”

At the palace, Gerda ate soup with crusty bread and told them everything: the mirror, the splinter, the garden with the roses. The princess listened with her chin in her hands.

“You’re not very big to be doing all this,” she said.

“I know,” Gerda said. “I just keep going.”

The prince nodded. “Then you’ll need better boots. And a coach of your own.”

In the morning, they gave her a fur-lined coat, mittens, and a pair of sturdy boots. A coach painted gold waited in the courtyard, with a driver and warm bricks for her feet.

“Go north until the road runs out,” the princess said, hugging her. “Then ask the reindeer.”

***

The coach rolled through the forest for two days. On the third night, the driver stopped. “We’re not alone,” he whispered.

Gerda heard branches snap. A band of robbers stepped out of the trees, their coats patched and their faces smudged. The driver ran, and the robbers surrounded the coach.

A girl with tangled hair and a knife in her belt opened the door. She was about Gerda’s age, but her eyes were sharp as a fox’s.

“What’s in here?” she said. “Gold?” She poked Gerda’s coat. “Or just a little girl?”

“I’m going north,” Gerda said. “To the Snow Queen’s palace.”

The robber girl laughed. “You? Alone?”

“I’m not alone,” Gerda said. “I have friends. And a reindeer would help.”

The robber girl stared. Then she whistled, and a reindeer stepped out of the shadows, its antlers wide and its breath steaming.

“His name is Birch,” she said. “He’s fast. But you can’t have him for free.”

“What do you want?” Gerda asked.

The robber girl thought. “Tell me a story. A true one. About why you’re going.”

So Gerda told her about Kai, and the splinter of glass, and the tears she hadn’t cried yet. The robber girl listened without smiling.

“All right,” she said at last. “Take him. But if you don’t come back, I’ll be angry.”

Gerda climbed onto Birch’s back. The reindeer stamped his hooves. “Hold tight,” the robber girl said. “He knows the way to the snow.”

They rode north all night, past frozen lakes and hills of white. Birch never slowed. When dawn came, the sky was pale as milk, and far ahead, a castle of ice glittered on the horizon.

“That’s it,” Birch said. “I can’t go closer. The cold is too much for me.”

Gerda slid down. Her breath made clouds. She touched his neck. “Thank you, Birch.”

The reindeer turned back toward the forest. Gerda faced the ice castle alone, and her boots crunched on the snow as she walked toward it.

The hall was bigger than the sky. Walls of ice rose up and up until they disappeared into a blue-white blur. Nothing moved except the cold, which drifted like dust. Gerda’s boots squeaked on the frozen floor.

At the far end, on a floor like a frozen lake, sat Kai. He was trying to build a word out of flat pieces of ice. His fingers were blue. He didn’t look up.

“Kai,” she said. “It’s me.”

He placed a piece of ice carefully. “I know that word,” he said. “I almost have it.”

“Kai, look at me.”

His eyes slid over her like she was furniture. “You’re in the way.” Then he went back to his ice puzzle.

Gerda knelt beside him. Her hands were shaking, but not from the cold. “I walked a long way,” she said. “I lost my shoes. A lady kept me in a garden. A prince gave me a coach. A robber girl lent me a reindeer. All for you.”

“That’s a nice story,” Kai said. He didn’t sound like he thought it was nice. He sounded like he was reading a label on a jar.

“It’s not a story!” Gerda grabbed his shoulders. He felt like a coat left outside in winter. “It’s true. It’s all true.”

Kai stared at her. For a second, something flickered behind his eyes. Then it went out. “I don’t remember you,” he said.

Gerda sat back on her heels. Her throat hurt. All that walking, and he didn’t remember. She wanted to be angry. She wanted to shout. Instead, she did the only thing left. She cried.

Tears are warm. Hers ran down her cheeks and splashed onto his chest. She didn’t wipe them away. She just let them fall.

One tear landed right over his heart. Kai gasped. His whole body jerked, like he’d been pulled out of deep water. “What—“ he said, and then he blinked, and his eyes went wide. “Gerda?”

“Yes,” she whispered.

He touched his chest. “Something broke,” he said. “Something sharp. It’s gone.” Then he looked at her properly. “You’re here.”

“I’m here.”

Kai’s face crumpled. “I was horrible to you.”

“You were frozen,” Gerda said. “It wasn’t your fault.” And she helped him stand.

***

They walked out of the ice palace together. Kai leaned on Gerda, because his legs were stiff and his feet were numb. The cold didn’t bite as hard with two of them.

At the edge of the snowfield, a familiar shape waited. Birch the reindeer stamped his hooves and blew steam from his nose.

“You came back,” Gerda said.

“The robber girl sent me,” Birch said. “She said I’d better, or she’d make me into a rug.”

Kai laughed. It was a rusty sound, like a door opening after years. “I missed that,” he said. “Laughing.”

They climbed onto Birch’s back. The ride south was long, but the air grew softer. By the time they reached the forest, the snow had turned to rain.

The robber girl was waiting by a fire. She had a blanket over her shoulders and a knife in her belt. When she saw Kai, she nodded once. “You got him.”

“I got him,” Gerda said.

“Good.” The robber girl handed her a piece of bread. “Eat. You look like a ghost.”

Gerda ate. It was the best bread she had ever tasted.

The prince and princess met them at the edge of their kingdom. The princess hugged Gerda so hard her ribs creaked. “We thought you were lost,” she said.

“I was,” Gerda said. “But I kept going.”

The prince gave them a cart and a horse. “No coach this time,” he said. “The last one got robbed.”

“That was me,” the robber girl said, and she grinned.

They traveled for days. Kai talked the whole way, about the ice puzzles and the cold dreams, and how he never wanted to see a snowflake again. Gerda listened. She didn’t tell him to be quiet. She liked his voice too much.

When they finally reached their own street, the windows were lit. Their families ran out. There was shouting and crying and a lot of hugging.

That night, Gerda sat by her window. Kai sat beside her. Outside, the first stars came out.

“You came for me,” Kai said.

“I just didn’t stop,” Gerda said.

Kai nodded. “That’s the same thing.” He was quiet for a moment. “I’m glad you didn’t stop.”

Gerda leaned her head against the window frame. The glass was cool, but the room was warm. She could hear her mother humming in the kitchen. She could hear Kai breathing beside her.

“Me too,” she said.