Sun and Moon, Ice and Snow - Jessica Day George [0]
Jessica Day George
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
Part 1 Woodcutter’s Youngest Daughter
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Part 2 Lady of the Palace of Ice
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Part 3 The Lassie Who Should Have Had the Prince
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Part 4 Beggar at the Palace of Gold
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Epilogue Princess of the Palace of Golden Stone
Acknowledgments
Glossary
Select Bibliography
Also by the Author
Imprint
For my parents:
You gave me life, you gave me love,
you gave me a plane ticket to Norway.
Thank you.
Part 1
Woodcutter’s Youngest
Daughter
Chapter 1
Long ago and far away in the land of ice and snow, there came a time when it seemed that winter would never end. The months when summer should have given the land respite were cold and damp, and the winter months were snow filled and colder still. The people said the cold had lasted a hundred years, and feared that it would last a hundred more. It was not a natural winter, and no one knew what witch or troll had caused the winds to howl so fiercely.
There was nothing to do in the long nights when the sun never rose and the day never came but huddle together by the fire and dream of warmth. As a consequence, many children were born, and as food grew scarcer, the people grew even more desperate.
It seemed that there was no bleaker place than the house of the woodcutter Jarl Oskarson. Jarl himself was a kind man, and devoted to his family. But Jarl and his wife, Frida, had been blessed, or burdened, depending on one’s outlook, with nine children. Five of them were boys, who were a help to their parents, but four were girls, which displeased Frida greatly. She had no use for girls, she would say with a sniff as she sat by the fire. They were empty-headed and would one day cost the poverty-stricken family the price of a dowry. No one dared point out to her that the four girls did all of the cooking, washing, and mending, leaving Frida with ample leisure time.
So disappointed was Frida at seeing that her ninth labor had resulted in yet another worthless girl that she thrust the screaming baby into the arms of her eldest daughter, Jorunn, and refused to give her a name. Because the naming of daughters was a task for mothers, and her mother had refused that task, the ninth child of Jarl Oskarson remained nameless. They simply called her pika, which meant “girl” in the language of the North.
The nameless state of their last child worried Jarl. Unnamed children could not be baptized, and the trolls had been known to steal unbaptized babies. Jarl loved his children despite the family’s poverty, and so he set out gifts to appease the troll-folk. Cheeses, honey-sweetened milk, almond pastries, and other delicacies that they could barely afford. Frida called it a waste, for she did not believe in trolls, but Jarl spent most of his days deep in the forest, and he had seen troubling things there. When the food disappeared, he held it up as evidence that such creatures were real, but Frida just sniffed that it was more likely their neighbors’ dogs were growing fat while she starved.
When the pika was nine, the eldest child, Hans Peter, came home from the sea. He was a tall young man, blue-eyed and handsome, or at least he had been handsome before he left. Now, after five years aboard the merchant ship Sea Dragon, he was stooped and tired, his hair more silver than gold, and his blue eyes had a haunted look. He had traveled far, he said, and seen some things more wonderful than he could describe and others too terrible to relate. He had been injured on a journey so far to the north that sun and moon seemed to touch in the sky as they passed, and now he was home to stay.
This vexed Frida greatly, because she had been very