Council of Ice and Bone

The castle stands before me.

Frigid wind burns my neck and drives me towards the entrance, while flurrying snow obscures everything around me. I can barely see an arms-reach in front of me. I notice something strange as I reach for one of the door handles on the grand double door. The knob isn’t metal, or wood, or porcelain, but clouded ice. It looks like there’s a wishbone frozen in the middle of it. I hesitate to touch it with my bare hands, but have little other choice. My hands are frozen enough from the elements that it’s hardly a shock to the skin.

In the foyer, twin curved staircases lead up to a set of doors. Even from below, I can see the frost coating them. Feeling a rising sense of dread, I look away from the second floor. Both to my left, to my right, and between the two staircases, are hallways. I call out a hesitant “hello,” and am met with the echo of my own voice in the frozen palace.

At least I’m out of the storm.

I walk into the left hallway, try the first door I come across, and find it locked. The third door of five opens without a fight, revealing a barren kitchen, with dark wood cabinets and marble counters all along the walls and an island with the sink and oven in the middle. Once upon a time, many meals would have been prepared here. The cabinets are all in various states of open, and shattered plates and glasses litter the floor beneath them. Something crunches beneath my foot as I step inside.

I kneel down to investigate, and find a broken chicken bone covered in teeth marks. There’s a torn cloth napkin snagged on one of the corner of a drawer, dotted with some sort of brown stains. I progress into the room, and spot strange semi-circular marks on the edge of the cabinets. Closer inspection brings a chill to my spine.

There are human bite marks in the wood. Not evidence of a poorly-trained dog, but of a person possessed by something I can’t fathom.

Finally, I hear the first noise not caused by myself: a scuffle from the other side of the island. I freeze, waiting to be mauled by some deranged person, but the attack never arrives. Careful not to step in broken glass, I slowly round the island. There’s nothing there but a scuffed cellar door. Scratch marks and brown stains surround the edges. I kneel down, my heart pounding in my ears, and listen for any more scuffling. There is silence. Perhaps I had imagined it.

I lift the iron handle of the cellar door and heave it open. The old hinges creak out a complaint. A stone staircase descends to darkness, but I can just barely make out a pull chain for a lightbulb at the bottom. I start down the steps slowly. There is no handrail, and a fall could easily be fatal. There isn’t much appeal in the idea of hitting my head and dying alone and unfound. As I grasp the pull chain and firmly pull it down, I hear a growl.

The lightbulb flickers to life. It swings from its chain, casting moving shadows about the room. The walls here are like the doorknob outside, bones incased in ice of an inperceptible depth. The floor is stone, like the stairs. But the being crouched by the far wall is beyond comparison.

The boney woman registers more as creature than human. Each disc of her hunched spine juts up against her skin as if trying to escape. She is naked, and dark, stringy hair falls over her face. Though her toenails are long and cracked, her fingernails are little more than bloodied stumps. I can see the blood and desperate gouges in the ice behind her. She spits out a bone that she must have retrieved from the wall and crawls towards me on her knuckles and feet.

“Who is this one?” She rasps with a voice surely not often used. She peers as me with pale blue eyes set in a pointed face. “Oh.” She sounds disappointed. “The Convicted. Not food.”

“What do you mean, convicted?” I ask.

She crawls closer, and sniffs me.

“Does the Convicted bring food?” She sniffs loudly.

“I’m not-“

“No,” She growls like an animal, “No food. No food.” She crawls back to the wall. “The Convicted should leave before the hunger grows. The Convicted can become food.” She picks up the bone and starts sucking on it.

I hurry back up the stairs and slam the cellar door closed. My mind reels as it tries to understand how such a feral creature came to be. I heave the oven over top of the cellar door and return to the entrance.

There’s a creak from above. I look up at the doors at the top of the stairs, and find one slightly open. I ascend the staircase, flinching as I touch the freezing handrail.

The grand grey doors are intricately carved with finials. A shining plaque above them proclaims the room in the name of “Queen Amaranth.” I look closer, and find not just the doors themselves, but even the mortar between the stones in the wall have been replaced with ice. I wrap my hand around the curved lever door handle and pull it open.

The room within is adorned with ornate solid wood furniture indeed fit for a queen. The poster bed is protected by a gauzy canopy and piled high with silk pillows. Damask wallpaper has been tacked to the ice walls. Against all laws of heat rising, it is much colder here than down stairs.

A woman stands from her powder table and faces me. She is wearing a flowing pink gown that drags across the ice as she walks towards me. Her hair is tangled around an iron crown, each point of it sharpened to a dangerous dagger.

“Who dares enter the Queen’s room, unannounced and uninvited?” She snarls. Though her pale shoulders are bare, the sleeves of her dress fitted in a tulle puff around each bicep, she doesn’t seem to feel the cold.

“I-I-“ I stutter, paralysed by her anger.

“A little gutter rat, hiding from the cold? Such a weakling. You can’t make your journey alone, can you? Such a shame you’re not worth love.” She lifts my chin cruelly, letting her nails dig into my skin and forcing me to meet the hate in her eyes. I see now how she isn’t cold. She is burning up inside.

She shoves my face to the side and laughs. It’s an entirely unpleasant sound, somehow bringing to mind the image of beaten animals and natural disasters. Her words sting like a slap to the face.

“How is a Queen, charged with caring for her kingdom, so cruel?” I ask quietly.

“Cruel?” She giggles, “I’m just being honest. I mean look at you. You’re simply not enough. Is that a lie?” She asks innocently. Then her face changes, contorting in rage. “You’re such an idiot. Do you think power comes from kindness?” She spins and in one motion, tears down the wallpaper. Behind, the bones in the ice are not bleached and picked clean like the ones I’ve seen before. The ice is stained from their residue. She presses her hand to the wall, and the ice melts fast beneath it. When she lifts her hand, it is not water that drips from it.

She advances, and grabs my hair in her bloody hand. She flings me to the ground. The ice pulls the heat from my body and burns my face as I slide across it.

“Is it kindness that preserves this castle? You’re a child, not even worthy to be in my presence.” She says. I try to rise from the floor and find myself face to face with a human skull in the ice. I stare into it’s eye sockets for a moment as the Queen raises her arms and twirls while singing “rock-a-bye baby,” her voice changing unpredictably from sweet to harsh.

The skull doesn’t feel so much like a threat, as a message. It feels like it’s telling me “don’t make the same choices I did.”

Through my body shakes and feels reluctant to move, I struggle to my feet.

“Cruelty doesn’t make you mature.” I say. She stops spinning and glares at me. I notice the hem of her dress is now wet and stained, the pattern she danced around the room in bare feet having melted slightly into the floor. “You’re just a bitch.”

“Ugh! I’ll have you beheaded!” She snaps, and charges towards me. But something catches the hem of her dress and the sudden resistance sends her falling to the ground. Her outstretched arms melt perfect impressions into the floor, leaving her elbow deep in the ice. She shrieks in outrage and struggles to get up as her rage-fueled burning hands only make her sink deeper. I step past her, and spot the cause of her downfall: a broken bone jutting up out of the floor, melted free by her own victory dance. I reach down, tear the hem of her dress off, and use it to tie the door handles together after I leave the room.

I descend the stairs slowly, my breathing ragged and feet slow to lift as the Queen’s screams diminish.

I’m about to leave this place behind in favour of the snow storm when I hear someone humming a familiar tune. It’s a sweet, clear sound, one that the woman in the cellar wouldn’t be able to produce. The Queen’s voice would be too raw from screaming to make such a sound. It echoes through the castle, making it nearly impossible to track. I step into the right hallway.

There are only two doors, though one of them has no door handle. I peer into the hole left behind, and see a neatly made child’s bed with blue blankets. Though there’s clearly no lock on the door, it doesn’t budge when I put my fingers in the door knob hole and pull. I knock, but there is not a sound from within. I shudder to think of a child living here, and I’m both relieved and alarmed that the room has no occupant.

I turn to the other door, which is slightly ajar. I pull it open and find this room empty as well. There is nothing but a worn red couch on a threadbare rug in the middle of the room. Somehow, I feel disappointed that there’s no one inside.

I leave the hallway and follow the humming to the centremost hall. Only the door at the end of the hall is unlocked, and it’s clear that it’s the source of the humming. I knock.

“Come in!” Calls a cheery voice. I turn the doorknob and slowly pull the door open.

The room is wallpapered in a vintage but bright floral pattern. Juxtaposed with the kitchen, it’s impeccably clean, and juxtaposed to the winter outside, there are vases of flowers all around the room. Roses, daisies, and carnations seem to beam at me, proud of their survival here. A comfortable looking couch is set in front of a barely crackling fireplace, a few books set on the coffee table. A simple wooden table sits behind the couch with two chairs on either end. A record player in the corner of the room spins out classical music.

A woman sits up from the table, setting down her cup of tea. She has bright, kind eyes and short, blonde hair. She looks reassuringly older than me, like she knows all the answers to questions I don’t understand.

“Oh, welcome! I so rarely have the pleasure of entertaining guests, please make yourself comfortable.” She smoothes down her apron over a pretty embroidered brown dress and gestures to the couch.

Feeling immediately at ease, I sit down.

“Where am I?” I asked. I look up at her, and she sets a tray of tea things on the coffee table in front of me. She laughs.

“It’s rather silly to ask questions you already know the answer to. Please, help yourself.”

I serve myself tea with two sugars in a fine China tea cup. The lady looks pleased as she sits down next to me.

“Who are you?” I ask.

“You can call me Julia.” She smiles, then frowns, reaching to touch my face. I wince at the contact to the raw skin that had dragged across the ice. “I suppose I know who did this.” She murmurs.

“But…” I frown, thinking of the two threats I faced, “How can you?”

“Don’t think I don’t know about the woman in the basement. She’d never hurt you. She’s just protecting herself in the only way she knows how.” She stands and fetches a wooden box from a high shelf. “Oh, I ought to bring her something to eat. She’s got such an appetite.” Julia looks lost in thought for a moment, then shakes her head. “No, I’m glad you got away from Amaranth with only a scrape to show for it. Some are better off facing the storm outside.”

She takes out a clean, white cloth and a small silver tin. Dabbing the cloth into the greenish paste in the tin, she gingerly applies it to my face. I wince, but quickly get used to the rhythm of her care. The burning on my cheek subsides.

“There, that ought to do the trick.” Julia says, and puts the cloth and tin back in the box. She places her hand over mine. “You’ll be alright.”

She stands from the table and approaches a window in the back wall. With a quick motion, she draws the pressed lace curtains to the sides, and motions me over.

Snow tumbles unhurriedly to the ground outside, it’s blanketing effect broken by the clouds parting to reveal a couple slivers of pale blue sky.

The storm isn’t quite over, but at least I can see where I need to go.