Sun and Moon, Ice and Snow - Jessica Day George [90]
A young male faun approached the lass with a shy smile. He swung her unwieldy pack from his own back, and offered it to her. Tied to the top was Hans Peter’s parka.
“I found this when I was cleaning the prince’s chambers this morning, my lady,” he said in a soft voice.
“Oh, thank you!” The lass started to put it on, then stopped. “But really, it’s yours if it’s anyone’s,” she said to Tova, offering her the parka.
“And you can wear mine,” Asher said. Another faun had come up to them, holding up a brilliantly white parka with red bands of troll embroidery on it. “I doubt that it will turn you into a bear.”
“Perhaps, though, if you wouldn’t mind,” the lass said, hesitant.
“Yes?” He took her hand.
“Perhaps you should put it on and carry us away from here.”
The prince’s jaw tightened at the idea, but finally he nodded. He pulled on the parka, then the boots that another servant—a brownie—brought him.
Nothing happened.
“The spell is broken,” he said. He took off the parka and wrapped it tenderly around the lass. “We’ll have to find another way. If we swim to the nearest ice floe, then warm ourselves as much as possible—”
“You’ll all freeze to death,” said a voice that came swirling around them.
“North wind!” The lass clapped her hands and then winced as the clapping hurt her burns. “You came back!”
He took on his human form, standing before them white and silver and proud. “I felt the troll queen’s hold loosen, and had to come and see what had happened.” He smiled. “Truth be known: I wasn’t far off. I hoped that you would succeed in defeating her.”
“And she did,” Asher said, smiling at the lass with pride.
“I can carry you south,” the north wind said. “Not all of you, though.”
Frowning, the lass looked at the creatures assembled around them. They all stared back, faces screwed up with various emotions, from hope to dismay to grim resignation. She shook her head.
“How many of us could you take at a time? I won’t go if even one of these poor creatures has to stay.”
“I agree,” Asher said.
“And I,” said Tova.
The north wind whistled thoughtfully. Tendrils of air curled around the servants, lifting a few of them off the ground as if to test their weight. Then he surveyed the ice floes floating in the frigid water off the shore.
“I’ll lift you all onto the ice floes and blow you south. I don’t know how long it will take, but I’m sure I can get you to civilized lands. You’re on your own from there, unless one of my brothers will carry you farther.”
“Thank you!”
A great gust of frigid air picked up the lass, her prince, Tova, Rollo, and the centaur. Some five others that were near them shrieked as they were gathered up as well. Without another word, the north wind commenced dropping them onto ice rafts for the long journey away from the island of ice that lay east of the sun and west of the moon.
EPILOGUE
Princess of the Palace of Golden Stone
By the time the lass reached her old home in the forests and valleys of the North, the troll queen’s winter had broken. Everywhere there was green; flowers bloomed beneath the fir trees and birds sang in their branches. Their companions had dwindled, going off to their own homes until only the lass, Rollo, Tova, and Asher remained. As they came around the side of the mountain where once Askel and the villagers had hunted the white reindeer, Tova stopped.
“I can’t,” she said. Her face was white and still. She put her hands up to her cheeks. “I can’t.”
The lass went to her and put her arms around the other woman. “Of course you can!”
“It’s been too long. For the past ten years, I’ve lived among trolls and talking bears and centaurs and—”
“And what wonderful stories you shall have to tell your children,” the lass said, interrupting her increasingly hysterical rant.
“He won’t want me,” Tova