Strange

"Strange," the servants murmured, carrying their whispers around the little princess like delicate pieces of glass. Sharp and deadly, concealed beneath a mass of forced bows and strained smiles.

"Strange," the ailing queen lamented, watching her youngest daughter sit silently in the snow beneath her window.

"Strange," her brother pondered, as he sat by the fire while his sister captured snowflakes on her tongue. The flames crackled in front of him.

"Strange," the little girl whispered into the flurries, "Why is everyone afraid of the snow?"

-

Every winter, the moment the first flake of snow fell to the ground was the beginning of the cycle of strangeness for the young princess. The cold drove everyone around her inside the warm walls of the palace, under mounds of blankets, closer to the roaring fire. Yet something about the frost and the bite of the wind, the piles of snow and freezing temperatures, drew the little princess in. The winter wrapped her up tightly in its clutches and refused to let go.

The girl would seat herself on a soft mound of snow, unravel her coat and drop it from her shoulders, and wait expectantly for mere moments, before parting her lips and letting the words tumble from them. It seemed only the roaring wind could hear her murmurs, could decipher the mumbles of the strange little girl.

And the inhabitants of the castle could only watch, with apprehension, with fear, with curiosity, as the princess refused to come inside. When cajoling and bribing and threats and begging proved useless against the allure of the outside, she was dragged inside by force. Her legs were cut against the rough ground, her skirts tattered, her hair tangles. Yet the princess did not utter a word or release a cry. She accepted her fate silently and did not react when her mother tucked her tightly into bed, or her father admonished her for her disobedience, or her brother stared warily at the sister he had once known.

It was only after she had been left alone, her door bolted and guards posted, that she slipped from her blankets and threw open the window. The next morning she was found seated on a fresh mound of snow, a few feet away from the castle, below her still-open window thirty feet above.

The princess refused to return inside, and this time her family let her be. "She will return once it grows too cold," they reasoned, faces taught with worry. But the princess didn't come inside. They pressed their faces to the windows, watching her sit silently, and when night fell, they watched as she walked into the forest. Expecting for her to return within moments, they waited patiently, but moments turned into minutes, and minutes into hours.

"What a strange little girl," they murmured, and there was hint of fear in their voices. "Perhaps it's better that she is gone."

Months later, as the last of the snow melted on the ground along with the memories of a strange little girl, she emerged from the forest. Unscathed but months older, she rebuffed any questions, wearing a bemused grin instead. "What are you talking about? I just went for a walk."

Relived, her family welcomed her inside, shoving aside their questions. What did it matter that their daughter was a little strange? The winter had released her, and never again would the blanket of cold steal her away.

-

A year later, they found the little princess outside again. Memories resurged, and they left her be. That night, she disappeared from her mound of snow, winter again stealing her away. And as the last of the snow melted away, she returned once again, as if nothing had ever happened, as if winter had never darkened their door.

Her family could do nothing as she disappeared year after year, winter after winter, until her sixteenth year, when she failed to return at all. The seasons changed, the snow melted, the flowers sprouted, but she never returned.

As years passed, memories turned to myth, to cautionary tales told around the fire. "Never go out in the winter," mothers would warn their daughters as they tucked them in tightly. "Never go out into the forest in the winter." The wind would whistle outside their windows, and they would shiver. The little princess may have been gone but her tale lingered. Never underestimate the wrath of winter.

-

It was many winters before memories of the lost, strange princess returned in the form of a reckoning. The young prince, now grown with a wife and daughters of his own, awoke on the first morning of snowfall to see his youngest daughter sitting upon a fresh, soft mound of snow.

He rushed from the castle, pulse thundering as he pictured a different little princess sitting in the very same spot. He caught his breath as he reached the girl, placing a cold hand on her warm bare arm. "Darling," he murmured softly, reaching his arm out to beckon her towards him. "What are you doing out here?" His voice was timid and shaky, memories from his past bombarding him as his daughter slowly turned toward him.

"Your sister says hello Daddy," she said, her voice high and lilting, so unlike the voice he knew. She turned back to the forest, her lips moving and uttering words the wind stole from the air before they could reach his ears.

He staggered backward, snow piling atop his shoulders and hair, the wind blowing, familiar and strange.