Winter's Child (18 page)

I made my way to the tower. Even from this secluded location, I could feel a buzz of excitement throughout the palace. First the Winter Child had returned home, and now she was a Winter Child no longer.

I wish I could tell you that I shared their excitement. The truth is, for the first time in a long time, I was absolutely terrified.

As I entered the room, I looked across it to Kai. He was sitting in a great wooden chair. Since ushering me into the castle, he had kept his distance. His face was tight, an expression that said he was dreading either the speaking or the hearing of bad news.

Grace sat on the window seat. At my insistence, she’d selected several dresses from my wardrobe. The one she was wearing now was a rich and vibrant green. A peregrine falcon perched on the windowsill beside her.

Just as we’d entered the palace gates, the bird had swooped down to land upon her shoulder. Grace had accepted his presence as if they were old companions, and so the two had come indoors together. She reached up absently from time to time to stroke a finger along the bird’s white throat.

The room was filled with silence. A silence that was mine to break.
Quit stalling, Deirdre,
I thought.

“I suppose you’d like an explanation,” I said.

“Only if you want to give one,” Kai spoke up quickly.

I heard Grace make an exasperated sound. “Of course she wants to give one,” she said. “Just as we both want to hear it.”

She looked at me then, our eyes meeting for the first time. In hers I saw a strange mixture of amusement, irritation, and compassion.

“You’ll have to forgive him,” she said. “He’s feeling a little confused at the moment.”

“I know just how he feels,” I replied.

Grace cocked her head then, in perfect imitation of the bird beside her. “I didn’t think I’d like you,” she said suddenly. “And I was
very
sure I didn’t want to.”

“I could say the same about you,” I said, and with that, I discovered that we were grinning like fools. In the next moment, as much to her surprise as to mine, Grace rose to her feet and curtsied low before me.

“Then may I ask you to speak, Your Highness?” she asked. “Will you explain why you are no longer a Winter Child?”

“I will,” I answered, a good deal more calmly and regally than I felt.

Grace resumed her position on the window seat.

“I do not need to tell you how I became a Winter Child,” I said. “For that tale is well-known. Just as it is known that, of all the hearts I would be called upon to mend, the one that would always remain out of reach would be my own.

“Only one thing could mend my heart. Only one thing could make it whole: the heart that was my heart’s true match.”

I heard Kai catch his breath.

So quick, he is so quick,
I thought. He looked at me then, and I met his gaze. It took everything I had to keep mine steady.

“It wasn’t my heart you needed at all, was it?” he said quietly.

“I wouldn’t say that,” I answered. “I
do
need your heart, Kai.”

“What? Wait a minute.” Grace suddenly exploded. “What are you two talking about?”

Kai turned to look at her. “Can’t you guess?” he asked. “We’re talking about you, of course.”

“It was your heart that I needed, Grace,” I said. “A heart willing to set out upon a journey of its own free will, a journey with no signposts along the way and no foreseeable end in sight. A journey that could only be completed by always putting one foot in front of the other.

“It is the heart willing and able to do all this that is the true match to mine. For this is precisely what my own heart was called upon to do.”

“But I thought,” Grace said, and then she paused. She shook her head, as if hoping to rearrange her thoughts. “I thought you loved Kai. What about his heart?”

“I do love Kai,” I said, though I was finding it hard to speak around the lump in my throat. “I love him even though we must part. I need his heart. But his heart was not designed to mend mine. Yours was.”

“Are you going to send me away?” Kai asked. I turned and saw that he had risen to his feet. “Is that what you want?”

“Of course it isn’t what I want,” I said.

“Then
why?”
Kai cried.

“Because—” I broke off. “Wait a minute,” I said. “What do you mean, why? Don’t you know?”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Kai!” Grace exclaimed. “Don’t just stand there. Tell her!”

“I’m trying to,” Kai snapped back. “But you keep interrupting.”

“Tell me what?” I asked.

“I love you,” Kai said quietly. But in his quiet tone, I heard absolute certainty.

A great wave of emotion rolled through me.

“I think I have to sit down.”

Kai laughed then, and the whole room suddenly was flooded with bright sunlight. From the window-sill, the falcon gave a sweet, sharp cry.

“But I thought you loved Grace,” I said.

“And so I do,” Kai replied. “But not the way that I love you.” He knelt before me and took my hands. “The truth is, I’ve loved you my whole life.” He stood and gently drew me to my feet. “Close your eyes, Grace,” he said over his shoulder.

I was laughing as my true love placed his lips on mine. Kai’s lips were warm. By the time the kiss was over, I knew I would never be cold again. With Kai’s arm still around me, I turned to Grace. She was standing by the window with the sun on her face and the falcon by her side. Her eyes were wide open. In them I thought I caught the glint of tears.

“Kai will tell you I almost never do what he says.”

“Thank you,” I said. “For your heart has helped to mend mine twice. I would like it very much if there was something I could do for yours.”

“But you’re no longer the Winter Child,” Grace protested.

“True enough,” I answered. “Nevertheless, it lies
within my power to grant a wish to the heart that has restored my own. What would your heart choose, Grace, if it could?”

“The same as it has always chosen,” Grace replied. “My heart has never wanted to be in just one place. It has always longed for the journey, to see what lies over the horizon.

“It isn’t that I don’t love familiar things. It’s that I love the unknown more.”

At her words, the falcon suddenly spread its wings. It threw back its head and made the tower room echo with its cry. Without warning, the sunlight became blinding. I heard both Grace and Kai cry out, even as I lifted a hand to shield my eyes.

When I lowered it, the falcon was gone. In its place stood a tall young man with fine, pale skin and wide gray eyes. Long dark hair brushed the tops of his shoulders.

“Oh dear,” Grace said.

The young man threw back his head and laughed, a bright, pure sound. Then he knelt at Grace’s feet. He extended a hand, palm up. After a moment’s hesitation, Grace placed one of hers within it.

“Thank you,” the young man said simply. “Your words have rescued me from an enchantment I have carried for many years.”

“Now I’m the one who wants to sit down,” Grace said.

The young man chuckled. Still holding Grace’s hand in his, he rose to his feet, then turned to me with a bow.

“Your Majesty,” he said. “I hope you will forgive my somewhat unusual arrival.”

“Gladly,” I said, my tone warm with surprise. “On the condition that you explain yourself.”

“Long ago,” the young man said, “I made a great mistake: I mistook false love for true. The young woman I rejected was a powerful sorceress. She placed a curse and a burden upon me, dooming me to wear the form of a falcon until I could find a heart that would choose me of its own free will, yet not be aware that it had done so.”

“A heart that would choose the unknown,” Kai suddenly said.

The young man nodded. “Precisely. I have flown throughout the world for many years, so many that I began to despair of ever breaking the curse.”

He turned back to Grace.

“Until one day, I saw a girl in the mountains. A girl who refused to give up, who kept her wits about her. My heart has been yours from that day to this one.”

“I don’t suppose your name is Peregrine, is it?” Grace asked.

“It’s Constantin, as a matter of fact,” the young man said.

“Constantin,” Grace echoed. “And will you be as true as your name?”

“With all my heart.”

“In that case,” Grace said, her tone mischievous, “I will give you mine again, knowingly this time. I only wish I could have learned how to fly.”

“I will grant that wish, if you’ll let me,” I said.
“If you will, for three weeks out of every month, you will both be as you are now. But in the fourth week, Constantin may return to the form of a bird and, since Grace’s heart has chosen his, hers may also. Let your body soar as your heart has always longed to, and let this be the final gift of the Winter Child.”

“I thank you with all my heart,” Grace said.

“As I thank you for the gift of mine.”

E
PILOGUE
A Few Thoughts Concerning Happy Endings

And so it came to pass that the two couples were married in a single ceremony in the great palace of ice. People came to celebrate from miles around.

Grace sent word to the city far away. Petra and Herre Johannes came to the wedding, traveling all the way in Herre Johannes’s flower wagon. He presented Deirdre with a bunch of snow drops, which she carried as a wedding bouquet. Petra gave Grace back her oma’s shawl.

The wedding feast lasted for a full week, after which Petra and Herre Johannes began their journey home, while Grace and Constantin took to the skies. But Grace and Constantin promised to return to the land of ice and snow each year, for the bonds of love and friendship between the two couples were strong.

Of course they all lived happily ever after, and not just because that is the way these things usually
go, but because their hearts had been tested and had remained true. That is the happiest ending of all.

“Well?” Kai asked, just at sunset on the day the wedding festivities concluded. He and his bride stood together at the palace gates, watching Grace and Constantin disappear from view.

“Have you decided?”

“I have.” His new wife nodded. She leaned back against him, and then tilted her face to look into his. “I wonder if you can guess what my new name will be.”

“I can tell you what I always thought it should be,” Kai said. “Will that do just as well?”

She turned in his arms then, so that they were face-to-face. “Tell me.”

“Hope,” said Kai.

At the sounding of this single syllable, she threw her arms around him.

“I love you, Kai.”

“I take it I got it right, then,” Kai said.

She thumped a fist against his chest. “There’s no need to be insufferable.”

And now, finally, Deirdre, the Winter Child, she who had once been named for sorrow, chose a new name, and the name that she chose was Hope. For, now that she was restored to her true self at last, she understood that this was the name her heart had carried within it all along.

For even as the winter carries within it the seeds of spring, her heart had nourished, as all hearts must, the strong yet fragile seeds of hope.

Author’s Note

The structure of
Winter’s Child
is a little different from other stories I’ve created for the Once upon a Time series. This is a direct inspiration from my source material, Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Snow Queen.” As a matter of fact, the official title is “The Snow Queen: A Tale in Seven Stories.” As is the case with
Winter’s Child
, in Andersen’s tale each individual “story” has its own heading giving a hint of what’s to come.

In the original, the queen herself is pretty much the bad guy. As I am never that interested in stories where one character is always good and another always bad, I decided to mix things up. It also took me more than seven stories to get my characters where I wanted them to go! I tell myself this is okay as my tale is much longer. I hope you enjoy the
Winter’s Child
journey. May it inspire your heart on the journeys it will make.