Chapter 7
It was so much warmer outside than I remembered. Sure, it was still cold, but the wind wasn’t threatening to tear your skin off with its icy lashes, and the air wasn’t so thin that it felt impossible to breathe.
The sun still peeked through the clouds, warming the tip of my nose in a way that I never imagined I’d feel again. I hurried out of the royal courtyard, not planning on giving Blamore any more chances to chase me down and pull me back into his clutches.
A small part of me felt bad for hating him for a crime he had yet to perform in this timeline, but the seeds of distrust had been too deeply sown, and I knew all too well what could still grow in this winter.
Fortunately, the streets were walkable without the need for snowshoes or sleds, making it easy to know the direction I was heading. I tugged my cloak on good and snug, careful not to let too much cold in even if it felt pleasant for now.
I made it to the main street that went through the center of the surrounding town, and my breath caught as I saw the first scene that truly made me feel like I had stepped back in time. The citizens were still here...
Children played joyously in the fresh piles of snow, parents and shopkeepers busied themselves selling hot cider and knitting quilts while relaxing on their front porches in snuggly clothes, and so many other people simply walked about like it was a beautiful winter’s day.
The snow had been an inconvenience, but not one that they couldn’t still make the best of.
A tear actually formed in the corner of my eye as I took in all the life and joy that was still residing in the city. They had absolutely no idea that only a few months from now, they would be forced to leave everything behind, or worse, be left behind when their legs failed to stand.
I looked down at my gloved hands, wiggling my fingers for what must have been the hundredth time today to test that they were still responding the way they should. The nightmare of the blackwood poisoning continued to haunt me, startling me when my pinky ever so subtly hesitated to move.
It’s just cold, of course my fingers will be stiff.
I swallowed back the fear, then rubbed my hands together to try and warm up the disobedient finger.
As I passed the citizens, I spread the word to everyone I could find about the blackwood, pointing it out in stacks of logs and telling everyone to hold off on burning it until the royal physician made an official statement.
It was good to find that there were hardly any blackwood logs to be seen. It was early enough in the frost that the citizens hadn’t started looking into alternative trees to chop down.
Good, things are already looking much better this time around.
Hours passed, and so did the city as I left the center of the kingdom and worked my way toward the outskirts.
The cold had started to settle into my bones, but it wasn’t nearly as brutal as it could have been.
The houses grew sparser, and fewer people were out socializing as I found my way to the base of the snowy mountain that shadowed all of Averglas.
The snow king’s mountain.
“There you are,” I huffed, my breath short from my long walk. “So this is the scary old mountain Blamore says your castle lives on. I do hope you have that blanket waiting for me.”
I could barely see the tips of something that looked like castle towers peering over the trees. They refracted the light so much that they had a blinding glow, making it impossible to see what you were looking at until the clouds swept through.
Blamore and the rest of the staff spoke very little about the infamous snow king, only referring to him as a reclusive monster who sought to expand his control through ice since he could only reside in reflections.
Everyone feared him, but no one could truly tell me why he had become so monstrous.
He was like a ghost that everyone had seen but no one wanted to acknowledge.
It made one question whether his powers were even real.
I suppose it was time I found out for myself.
I took my first step toward the mountain, when all of a sudden a young voice called out from behind me.
“Hey you!” A young girl, maybe eight or nine years old, squealed at me from across the snow. “Don’t go that way! Granny says it’s dangerous!”
She ran over to me, snow flying out from under her boots as a little tagalong followed in her footsteps. A younger boy, who looked very familiar, ran up behind the girl, puffing and panting as his short legs struggled to keep up.
“We’re never ever supposed to go up that mountain,” the little girl said firmly with a wiggle of her finger. “Or else you won’t get any sweet rolls from Granny.”
Her springy red curls caught my attention once she’d stopped running, and suddenly I realized where I’d recognized them both from.
“I think I’ve met your Granny before,” I said, crouching down to meet them at their level. “Well, not recently, but I brought her a blanket once and she did me a very kind favor.”
I thought back to the box of matches that saved my life, remembering the sleeping faces of these two children as they were cozied up by the fire. I wondered what happened to them in that timeline. Did they escape with the others?
“Wait! You know Granny?” The boy gasped, looking at me like I was his new best friend.
“I do, though I doubt she remembers me,” I said, giving him a sweet smile. “You should definitely listen to her. She is very wise. Unfortunately for me, I don’t think I’ll be getting any sweet rolls today. You see, I’m going on a special mission where I have to find the snow king.”
The little girl gasped so loudly I was surprised she didn’t choke on a snowflake. “A secret mission!” She clasped her hands over her mouth. “That sounds way better than sweet rolls! Can we come?” She switched to a covert whisper.
“Goodness, aren’t you afraid of the snow king?” I asked, folding my arms with an inquisitive smile.
“I am!” the little boy said proudly. “But if Gilly is going up the mountain, then I want to come too!”
“Yeah! Let’s gather everything we need!” Gilly said. Before I could say anything, the girl pulled off her cloak and laid it out in the snow like a picnic blanket.
“Wait just a moment—”
“We’ll definitely need these.” Gilly dumped a handful of pre-molded snowballs she'd hidden by a tree stump onto the cloak, then ran back toward a bush to pluck some nicely shaped leaves. “And these too. Harley, help me out!”
“Here!” Harley dumped an armful of rocks into the cloak, popping his hands proudly on his hips as he looked down at his impressive packing abilities. “Perfect!”
“Um...” I nibbled my lip, watching as Gilly grabbed a large stick to tie her bundle of goods around, lifting it up like a perfect hobo sack. She struggled to lift it but still managed to sling it over her shoulder despite it being filled to the brim with rocks.
“All right, let’s go,” she said, narrowing her eyes at the mountain. “I’ll lead the way, and you can stay in the back since you’re scared.” She pointed at me, then took two steps toward the mountain before I stepped in front of her.
“Hold your horses, adventurers,” I said, trying my absolute best not to laugh. “I’m afraid there’s an age restriction on this quest.”
“What!” Gilly pouted. “How come?”
“Because it’s dangerous, and I don’t think your Granny would appreciate you leaving her all alone,” I said, kneeling down in the snow to place a hand on her shoulder. “What other brave little girl and boy would be able to look after her?”
Gilly and Harley looked at each other, sharing a defeated but understanding sigh.
“Fine,” Gilly dropped her bag and began untangling her cloak to use again. “But you can’t go too far from home either! Granny says it’s been getting colder.”
“She’s right,” I said. “But this isn’t my home anymore. That’s why I need to go find a new one.”
Harley crouched down into the snow to play with the rocks his sister had dumped out, clearly bored with the conversation now that he wasn’t getting to do something dangerous.
Gilly continued to study me, her eyes twinkling like they were trying to look past the life she had now and see the future I was hiding from her.
I couldn’t explain it, but somehow I felt that she understood the urgency I felt.
“Okay, you can go,” she said, giving me her much-needed blessing. “But I need you to take something with you.” She dug her hand into her cloak pocket, pulling out a small worn box that nearly made my eyes pop out of my head.
The matchbox.
“Gilly, I can’t possibly take this,” I said.
“Then I can’t let you go alone,” Gilly said with a firm stamp of her boot.
“Granny told me to save it for an emergency, and not having a home sounds like an emergency to me.” She forced the box into my hands, my heart jumping as I relived the moment I’d last held it.
“No arguing. I know my Granny, and if she were here, she would want you to have it.”
I turned the box over in my hand, popping it open just enough to see three unused matches inside, just like before.
“You’re probably right, Gilly,” I whispered, gently closing the box up as I wondered if these contained the same magic as before.
It felt wrong to take something so powerful from this sweet family, but even in a different timeline, these matches were still destined to come back to me.
“I’ll save them for someone who needs them. ”
“Granny would like that.” Gilly smiled, looking pleased with her gift to me.
“And take this too!” Harley ran over to me, thrusting a large, snowy rock at me that he had hand-selected from the pile. “I know you’ll need it more than I will. He’s a good one.”
I stared at the rock for a moment and ultimately had to agree that it was indeed a very nice specimen. “Thank you, Harley,” I said, graciously accepting the rock with a polite nod.
“His name is Douglas,” Harley said with a toothy grin.
“Douglas?” I blinked.
“Yes,” Harley said assuredly. “Promise me you’ll take good care of him.”
I tucked Douglas safely into my bag alongside the matches, showing Harley his safe living quarters so he could feel confident in Douglas’s care.
“I promise,” I said, giving them both a farewell wave as I finally turned to face the mountain.
My bag was heavier, but my heart was lighter as I heard the children shout their well wishes toward me as I disappeared up the trail. This time, I would be a queen capable of protecting all of them.
Gilly, Harley, and even Douglas.