What Happened?!

The blond first grader dashed towards the playground. However, the rusty swings creaked creepily, the deflated tires sighed and groaned under the tear-filled children’s eyes and the slides tiredly jutted out from the mini tree houses like sore tongues. None of the children could play today.

As the child hid his face into the stomach of an older student, tears leaking down his face, another child said they all play dodge ball in the gym. A joyful cry arose, and the children stampeded into the gymnasium. Yells of war towards the young kindergarteners and older second and third graders filled the place.  The blond first grader stood there, thinking of what to make of the playground. She had magical powers, but she struggled not to cause an earthquake or hurricane or tornado, destroying the world—especially when it came to defending herself (and especially her timid best friend) against their abusive, emotionally neglectful, abandoning parents. The first grader turned and smiled. Her best friend, a white-haired girl with icy blue eyes, blinked worriedly yet curiously. “I hope. We better be able to make it past dodgeball. Friday’s going to be brutal. The fifth graders are merciless!”

The blond first grader nodded. “I have an idea.”

The first grader told her best friend to step back as she was about to encase the whole playground in ice. Then she turned to her best friend with a frown as every white patch melted for some reason. She, the best friend, stared in disbelief at the whole thing. “But I thought you couldn’t use your powers—”  

The first grader scowled.  “At least they’d have fun spinning and sliding—”

“No!” The best friend begged. “They’d fall and cry. Just imagine—children all over the place. A broken bone. A fractured skull. You don’t want that. And,” she stopped her friend’s hands from turning the whole playground turn into a bonfire. “You don’t want our classmates to become corpses, right? So they don’t—”

“Get cut with the shards of disappointment that is me!”

The best friend grabbed her best friend's arm. “You don’t need to be so hard on yourself. Mom and Dad left me, too. We can’t convince them they have two beautifully lonely daughters whose gym class is target class for the other students. We just need to fix the problem in front of us.”

“That’ll have to depend on whether you are willing to do so.”

The first grader looked up curiously, the best friend’s eyes shining fearfully. A gorgeous midnight blue dress was owned by a silver-haired woman with a weirdly cute smile. Dimples showed, and she was so endearing the girls just wanted to hug her. “Yes, my children. Come!” Bangs stretched a little past her eyebrows, but she was very gracious and gentle, warmly welcoming them into her ice palace. The girls gazed all around at the ice horses neighing and bowing before the two little girls, their heads protruding from the barn’s stalls. When they saw the woman’s white room with fashionable dresses, the girls asked whether she was a queen. The woman lead the girls past the open turquoise and crystal glass doors to another room in which hung many beautifully and intricately woven dresses with unique designs.

The woman showed the first grader a small dress, and the first grader took it, putting it on. Curtseying before her best friend, the first grader watched as the other girl became a cotton-candy dress-wearing girl, twirling her skirts. When the woman claimed she had made them all, the first grader shrugged.

“Mom and Dad wouldn’t approve. We’ve never experienced this before. Mom and Dad would get angry at us wearing these expensive clothes—”

The woman stopped her immediately. “You’re here. Not with Mom and Dad. How dare such wicked words fill your heads!” She threw some more dresses at the best friend, who caught them and wore them one at a time. “They’re discouraging you because they’re not very bright. If they had the right idea, they’d be loving towards you!”  

The girls looked doubtfully at the kind woman.

The woman gathered them on little white plushy seats near a roaring fire. It crackled and snapped, warming the girls. Then, the woman stilled it with her icy powers. The first grader jumped up. “Hey—we were enjoying that!” 

 “I have some news for you. The first thing, is that there is a witch who lives way down below us. In her own volcano castle, where embers and soot and fire and ashes and charcoal all thrive, she lives with her tiger and raven pets. Her vases and jars and other precious items—all scarlet and nightmare-black and silver and grey and gold—go between inanimate objects to her pet tigers, ravens and silver-tailed deer. However, she’s the bad news. I’m going to present you the good news. That you can defeat her.”            

“Us?” The first grader’s best friend squeaked, turning pale and swallowing hard. “How? We’re just children.”    

The first grader’s eyes was determined but still wary. Attacking someone would be nice for a change. Maybe she’d win the war. Maybe her parents wouldn’t settle for the same-old dry talk they’ve concocted since their daughter’s toddler days.

The woman urged the girls towards the fire. “Please. We don’t have all the time in the world. She’d love to melt my castle and turn it into another volcanic castle. She’d even turn my horses and beautifully white bucks to ashes for disobeying her and feed them to her fire. Do you want her to destroy your world, telling you that you can’t—”

“No!”

“Can you come with us?” The best friend gripped the woman’s dress. “Please?”

“I’ll be here.” The cherry dimples returned. The woman nodded encouragingly, and the best friend giggled. The first grader slid a small smile up onto her face, and nodded before turning to leave.  

The best friend turned away, hugging herself. She sniffled, and started shaking, crying. “I can’t even complete a math problem. I can’t even dodge a simple foam ball in gym class. I can’t even draw a complete picture of something. A stick figure is a failure. I’m just going to be taking out the trash and scrubbing the toilets and making the beds and dusting the furniture—”

“Go!”  

The best friend stood there, like she was frozen. When the first grader shook her slowly, her eyes went wide with terror, tears forming in them. She took refuge in the woman’s lap. She wrapped her small arms around the woman, but the woman bent down, soothing her hair. “I trust you. You’ll have me to return to.”   

The first grader moved the fire apart as if they were curtains and then sneezed as the two girls stood in a pitch-black area. She kept sneezing and ran, eyes squeezed shut, until she tripped and fell. Getting up, she coughed, wiping sooty hands on her face. Before she continued, she looked back. Her best friend wasn’t there. She must’ve gone back. Poor Skylar! Blinking, she saw a bright fireplace glowing, it being the only source of light within this weird volcano. A black tiger with golden stripes lay a short distance away from a long, hard (but cushioned) black metallic couch. Jars and pots and vases, beauteous in nature, did indeed decorate the rock walls. She looked over at the tiger. Yawning, the girl went over to the beast, kneeling down beside it. It succumbed to her warm touch, laying back, letting her pet it. Smiling, she enjoyed her new friend’s huge paws against her own small hands.

A squeeze of a hand tightened the girl’s own, and she looked back. A woman in a floor-length soot-colored dress came into the room. She went over to the couch, turning it into a throne. This royal chair was embezzled with emerald and midnight blue encrusted jewels. The first grader looked over. Thick black makeup extenuated her already beautiful features. Intimidated, the little girl stood rooted to the spot, not daring to go near her. The tiger leaped up, going over to its mistress. The girl followed, wanting to ride it. The woman told her she’d be better off sitting in her lap.

Morphing the throne into a ruby-encrusted throne with charcoal within it, the woman relaxed into it, muttering softly to the girl, stroking her hair. Her tiger stayed below her. The girl wrapped her arms around her, hoping this blood-red crowned woman would love her.   

“What a beautiful tiger you have!” The girl said.              

“I know emotions. I can distinguish between sadness, anger, madness, any emotion.”

The first grader didn’t understand, but the woman put a scarlet ringed finger under her chin. Lifting it, the woman told her not to worry. The girl lay her head on the queen’s chest. “I wish my mommy did this. But she doesn’t.” Stroking her cheek, the queen sung her to sleep, laying the sleeping girl on the other side of her. She slid her eyes up to the vases and pots. One of them morphed into a raven.

He flew down, the raven studying her until the girl woke up. When she did, the girl giggled, sitting up to hug the cawing, annoyed raven. He struggled to fly away. The woman walked around to the fire, her charcoal dress ending in iron red hot hairs the floor becoming searing hot. She split the fire in two like the first grade had done, entering the woman’s palace. With the ice melting and the water beneath hardening into ugly charcoal, she turned the woman’s beautiful aquamarine and cerulean jeweled throne, into a pretty orange and black throne. Seeing another girl—her face white and her hands clutching the woman’s dress—the woman said. “Now you two can serve me!” The whole castle had become a dungeon of ashes and mortar.

“Where’s my best friend?” said the other little girl. The woman told her to stay where she was, and she did.  

“She’s asleep.” The witch said.

The woman told her to go wake her up.   The witch marveled at the revealing midnight sky. She whipped up a golden cup of wine from which she drank nonchalantly. She looked over at the woman. “What would you do if you had no one else? A solitary life is no good for anyone.”

The woman smartly kept her lips shut.

The girls were trapped in either world—everywhere they went, they stepped on coals or charcoal or soot or ashes or heated rocks, lava quietly living under them like a pool of water. The first grader tried hard to change the new volcano home back to an ice palace, but to no avail. “Why isn’t anything working?”

The girls returned to the volcanically reigning atmosphere that was the former ice palace. The witch widened her eyes in a sweet motherly way, but the girls avoided her at all costs, the first grader protecting her best friend and herself, smoke rising from her hands. Red hot, they charged at the witch, the first grader expecting blisters and sores to break out upon her skin. Her face was the last to go, but the woman had yanked away, rising up and yelling down at the foolish girl. “Stupid kid! You think you can reduce me to ashes? What kind of stupid kid are you?”

The girl’s powers switched to ice, covering all the witch’s volcanic work. The witch laughed. “Stupid girl!” She lounged on her throne. “It’s mine now.”

Stupid girl. The girl’s mother’s voice echoed. Why do I even bother coming home to you? You’re just wasting my time, making me cater to you all the time. Just go somewhere else, where I don’t have parties and a daughter to take care of—

“Stop it!”

Slamming her hands over her ears, the first grader wished this witch who just brought her mother’s ugliness to mind, reminded her of her own worthlessness, to dust. The best friend said something, but the witch ignored her. .  She dashed into the other room, the buck and horses stamping impatiently, their noses snorting frosty breaths. She mounted one of them.  Charging back into the place, the best friend told the first grader to get on!  

“We’re going to end our horrible childhood once and for all!”

The first grader saw the vengeance burning in her eyes. She returned from the barn on a buck and went after the witch. But the witch disappeared, back into her first volcano cave. The girls chased after her, but when they started melting, they returned to the woman’s castle. The first grader and her best friend jumped clear of the melted animals, landing in the woman’s outstretched arms. She was on the witch’s second throne. The woman said that the girls better get back to the ugly truth that was their real world—this place was a lava pit, and that was that. Her own ice powers just melted against the volcanic heat—the witch was just too powerful. “Even my own animals all melted!” She wailed.

But, for the girls’ sake, the woman smiled warmly, promising they could come back anytime. The best friend begged. The first grader grumbled, leaving with literally hot hands. Back at home, the first grader tried getting her parents to explain why she wasn’t their daughter. This went on for over a year. Frustrated, the girl threatened to run away. They never listened. Sneaking out of the house late that night after their parents had gone out somewhere, the two dashed off to the witch’s lair.

“You going to burn us to the ground?” The first grader blurted out sarcastically. “How about the woman and I freeze this your home?”

The first grader felt a hand on her own, but jerked away. She had fought her parents so much—only succumbing to the psychological abuse heaped upon her—that it wasn’t just this woman’s very presence that made her want to just burn everything—even herself and her best friend. Her best friend told her that if she eradicated this woman from the world, she’d be eradicating her mother’s slap and her father’s abandoning disgust towards her. But, the first grader protested, new memories came back; killing the witch wouldn’t kill the reality of abuse. The best friend disagreed.

When the witch threatened to take the first grader’s powers away, the girls fled.

“Where are you going?”

But the woman’s words were lost to the loud fireplace as the two girls ran and ran. When the girls stopped outside their school, they looked for a water fountain. The best friend suggested they change something to ice, melting a little for them.

The first grader was quiet.

The best friend grabbed the other girl’s arm, a fierce grip. “That woman was so kind to us. I know the witch is just a nightmare, but at least we can try, right?”

“The kind woman is not our parents! And doesn’t the witch remind you of abuse, too?”

“Are you going to run until you die of thirst?” The best friend pointed out. “Exhaustion? You’re not just your parents’ outlet of anger and frustration! We’re not. Stop wanting them to listen to us. They won’t, no matter what.” The best friend took the girl’s hands in her own. “You’re my best friend!”

“I know.” The first grader nodded. “You’re the only one I’ve got.”

 The ice palace had been restored, but the first grader wasn’t rejoicing like her best friend. The woman begged the first grader to prevent the witch from ever turning this place to volcanic ash again.

Instead, the first grader showed her parents and her best friend’s parents her powers. Feigning excitement, the parents jumped up and down, amazement written all over their faces. The girls, sad for her parents’ inability to demonstrate love to their own children, ran away, hiding together in a cornfield. Falling back and laughing together as the warm summer breeze of this world made them close their eyes, they made snow angels in the dirt. Giggling together, the girls found a secret hideout. Abandoned, it stood pretty well. The girls camped out, taking what was left of the goodies somewhere in there.

The woman could reign in her own ice palace, right?

Skyler nodded boldly at Ashes’ suggestions to turn this place into their own fort. After they made a tent for themselves, Ashes said, “Thanks for being there for me all the time. You’re my best friend!”

Ashes grabbed Skylar into a hug, and Skylar squeezed her back.  

Lying on her back on her couch, the witch, who knew the ice palace was restored to the woman, and the bucks and horses were the woman’s again, looked over past the tiger to the archway that was her volcano’s entrance. She thought of those girls. I’m queen. And I never had servants. Those girls never had parents. Thoughts streamed through the queen’s head, and she got up, forming beautiful clothes for them.

“Shall we fetch them, Your Majesty?” The raven cawed.

The queen told her raven and tiger to fetch the two girls. The tiger jerked awake, and the raven cawed in protest. The queen threatened the raven with fire if it didn’t obey her.

“No,” the raven cawed, bowing low, “No. You’ll enslave them. We won’t allow it!”

“You disobedient raven! Stop questioning me.” The angry queen’s hands smoked with black smoke—darker than that of the first grader. The raven and tiger left. The raven rode on the first grader’s shoulder while the tiger carried the best friend, both of them laughing and screaming with joy in the corn field. Back in the lair, the witch had returned to her couch. Stretching out so her feet nearly touched the other end, she looked calmly at the entrance. A small smile slithered up her prettily wicked face.

That ice palace is mine, no?