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She is three years old, and her fingertips trail glittering snowflakes across her curtains. Delighted, she taps the windowpane, and watches the fragments trace lovely little patterns as they spread. She doesn’t see how the crystalline ice frosts over the rosebushes outside her window. She doesn’t see them wither, and fall, perfectly preserved in shimmering glass.
—————
She is five years old, and Mother is forcing her to a dinner party. She hates dinner parties, even if they’re “for the good of the kingdoms.” She makes sure she throws a tantrum on the way out, nearly tearing the lace off of her dress. Frost spreads from her feet as Mother drags her to the carriage.
There’s a little boy at the dinner party. He might be her age, but she can’t tell because he’s wearing a mask. She says that she’s Princess Vanessa, and he says that he’s the Prince.
What’s your name, though?
What’s a name?
His mask is beautiful, dark and covered in pinpricks of stars, and they make little constellations. But she doesn’t care very much. She just wants to see his face, but he won’t take the mask off!
I’m not allowed to! Little kids have to wear them all the time.
All the time? That sounds awful!
It’s really not.
It absolutely is.
—————
She is seven years old, and plants can’t seem to grow in the manor anymore.
Mother plants them, cares for them lovingly, and they wither and die. Nothing she tries ever works.
Whenever Vanessa tries to help, she only makes it worse. She can feel them recoiling from her.
They don’t like me very much.
That’s nonsense, my dear. Come, we’ll try a new fertilizer.
(When she steps outside, the grass yellows and crumples and cracks under her feet. She picks up the bag of fertilizer, and when her mother takes it, it is frozen solid.)
—————
She is nine years old, and her tantrums have gotten dangerous.
NO, NO, I WON’T GO!
She just doesn’t want to get her dress dirty, is that so wrong?
She stamps her feet, and flails her arms and when Mother grabs her wrist, she screams.
When she opens her eyes, Mother’s sleeve is pinned to the wall by glittering shards of ice. She knows that something very bad could have just happened. Mother is still staring at her in quiet shock.
But—she can’t help but notice how pretty the ice is, reflecting the light like that. It’s making little patterns on the floor, in a hundred different colors.
How beautiful!
—————
She is thirteen years old, and she’s at another dinner party. She doesn’t throw a tantrum this time, and the lace on her dress is perfect and untouched. It looks a little bit like snowflakes.
The boy is there—the Prince. He’s not wearing a mask this time, but he’s sitting in the corner away from all the people with a stolen plate of food and a truly enormous book.
When he sees her, he smiles brightly, and she waves and grins, running up to him. His eyes are lovely and gold, and they match Vanessa’s hair!
She decides right then that she’ll marry him someday, and they will make the loveliest fairytale.
—————
She's fourteen years old, and they sneak away for a walk in the forest. He’s shyer than she thought he was, but he can talk for a long time about the stars and words and music and laws. And he likes to listen to how much she used to love the rosebushes outside her window, and he laughs with her at her rants about itchy dresses and blistered feet from her heeled shoes.
She traces a finger on the trees as they pass by. Wherever she touches, the bark blackens, crumples. Her footsteps wither and yellow the grass.
Behind her, the Prince traces the same path. Where his fingertips touch, the trees brighten. His footsteps follow her own, and where he walks, the grass is green once more.
(Neither of them notice how the trees almost part for her, but seem to follow closer to him.)
He hums a lullaby for her, and blushes, quietly telling her that someday he’d like to play it for his daughter.
(Neither of them notice how the shadows are thicker where he goes.)
—————
She is sixteen years old, and she is afraid.
Her Prince has gone.
He’s only at school, my dear.
His teacher is a woman, Mother! How can he love me when I’m not there, and there are so many others?
You’re overreacting. I’m sure it’s fine.
I’M NOT OVERREACTING!
Mother is getting too frail for her tantrums, for the glittering ice that freezes the room over. Mother sighs, and turns away, leaving Vanessa to clean up her own mess.
(Glittering snowflakes fall into her hair at night, and leech her of warmth until her fingertips are blue. The ice makes such pretty patterns on her window.)
—————
She is seventeen years old, and she is terrified.
Mother is gone. Mother is dead.
Vanessa is Queen.
(Her fairytale romance is over.)
It’s always a Prince and Princess, it’s always a Prince and Princess, a Prince can’t marry a Queen—
He came back to visit for the funeral.
She screams at him. He’s used to it by now, so she doesn’t feel bad about it.
(Neither of them notice how the shadows underneath him congeal and shiver, restlessly.)
She tears at his hair, because he doesn’t feel like hers anymore—he’s spent so much time away. Her hands are cold and they leave dusted snow across his cheek, and lovely crystalline patterns under his eyes.
He smiles at her, and takes her hand. He looks tired.
She kisses him on his ice-painted cheeks, and she adjusts the dark band of mourning on his arm. He smooths out her midnight-black dress. It was always her least favorite.
The flowers, newly-planted over Mother’s grave, are roses. She reaches for one, and it withers and falls to pieces from her feather-light touch. It is dust on her gloves, and she brushes it away.
She does not say a word to Mother, to the stone that marks the dirt, or to the dead roses. She stands, and leaves, and takes her Prince’s hand.
—————
Her Prince is coming home today! Forever! Forever and ever and ever! They’ll finally be able to be happy!
She trails glittering snow as she rushes to the marketplace. The east wind follows her, and the tree limbs above her shiver.
(What did I do? What did I do wrong, Vanessa? Tell me, so I can fix it! Please!)
—————
She is tired.
And angry.
So very, very angry.
The fury in her is uncomfortably hot and she hates it, she hates it she only wants the cold, the winter is the only thing that’s ever truly loved her since her Prince and Mother abandoned her for autumn and the spring, and now she is alone with her ice and her snow.
And no one will ever touch him again.
The chains that she’s kept him in are lovely and cold, and his fingertips are bruised-blue and shivering.
(It’s cold it’s cold it’s cold it’s cold it’s cold it’s cold)
It’s not enough.
No, no, it’s not enough.
What if he escapes? What if someone tries to rescue him?
No, no, no, no, it’s not enough.
The ice is encasing her manor now, and she lets it. Why not?
It turns her fingertips into blackened claws, and she lets it.
It’s building inside of her, and she lets it.
And she lets it go.
All of her rage and her fury and her mine, all mine, let the forest fall!
(She doesn’t see the shadows. She never saw the shadows.)
The forest hates her. It never loved her like it loved him—it was always afraid of her and now it hates her, and she doesn’t care because now it can’t breathe. Now it is perfectly preserved in lovely glass.
(She forgot about the children.)
—————
The permafrost hardens the earth and tears at the roots. The forest, in its panic, reaches for something—anything—but the only living heart is the one it despises the most.
It finds the gathering shadows and the once-soul that it loved, that it raised. Its fury matches hers, and it takes him for its own.