Winter's Child Read Online Free Page B

cannot continue her own life until her task is done. For most of us, the Winter Child is invisible, for she is not made to be seen by ordinary eyes.
    “Even so,” my oma continued in a hushed and reverent tone, “in the silence after a winter storm has ceased to howl, in the soft whisper of a morning snowfall, in the way the moonlight sparkles over new-fallen snow, you can feel when she has been nearby, ever searching. You can sense the presence of the Winter Child.”
    “But ...,” Kai said yet again, and with that single word, he broke the storytelling spell.
    “Oh, for goodness’ sake,” I cried. “Why must you always take everything apart to see how it works? Can’t you just close your eyes and enjoy the story?”
    “Grace,” my grandmother said softly.
    I immediately fell silent, for I knew that tone. All of us have heard some version of it at one time or another from those who love us most: the sound that says, I am disappointed in you. That was badly done.
    “I’m sorry, Oma,” I mumbled.

    My grandmother fixed her dark eyes on me, but she said nothing. I gave an inward sigh. I love my oma with all my heart, but there’s no denying her will of iron. She says I am like her in this, but I’m not so sure. For when my will comes up against hers, mine is always the one that bends.
    “I’m sorry, Kai,” I said, for my grandmother’s point, of course, was that she was not the one who truly deserved my apology. “Please, go on.”
    “I just want to know one more thing,” Kai said, and I could hear him struggling to keep the surliness out of his voice.
    “And what is that?” my grandmother asked.
    “What about the heart of the Winter Child? Who will mend that?”
    At this, Kai’s mother, Frue Holmgren, who had been silent for so long I’d almost forgotten that she was there, made a small sound. She performed a strange gesture, as if trying to snatch Kai’s words right out of the air.
    “Ah,” my grandmother said with a sigh. “Now you have come to the heart of the Winter Child’s tale, Kai.
    “Even if Deirdre finds all the other wounded hearts and mends them, one by one, dissolving all the slivers of ice, driving out fear so that the hearts may know true love, there is still the matter of who will mend the Winter Child’s own heart.
    “Does the task fall to her or to someone else? No telling of the story I have ever heard has answered this question.”

    “Then perhaps,” I said, determined not to let Kai outdo me when it came to observation, “the solution lies not in her tale at all, but in someone else’s.”
    “Perhaps,” agreed my oma.
    There was a moment’s silence. Kai stared down at his sewing. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw my oma reach out and take Frue Holmgren by the hand. And suddenly, I realized how late it was. The room was close and warm, and I was tired.
    “I still think the king gave his daughter the wrong name,” Kai said. “He should not have named her Sorrow.”
    Oma squeezed Frue Holmgren’s fingers, and then let them go. “What name would you have chosen?” she inquired.
    Kai looked up, his eyes fierce as they stared at my grandmother’s face. “Hope,” he said. “That’s really what she brings, isn’t it? So that’s what her father should have named her.”
    My grandmother’s expression softened. But as she leaned to place the palm of one hand against Kai’s cheek, I was astonished to see that tears had risen in her eyes.
    “Your true love will be fortunate in your heart, I think,” she said. “For it is strong and whole. So will your love be, when you choose to give it.”
    With that, Oma leaned back and took up her sewing, and none of us said anything more.

T HREE
    My grandmother told us many stories, but somehow, it was always the tale of the Winter Child that Kai and I loved best of all. Awakening in the morning, we imagined we saw the flare of her gossamer skirts in the patterns the ice formed outside our windows overnight. We heard