Heart of Ice

Teeth. Biting my skin. Claws. Clutching my bones. Tendrils. Sneaking down my throat and into my lungs. Cold.

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I opened my eyes to white. Blinding and cold. As my poor eyes adjusted, I saw green blurs dotted throughout the white. Squinting, I could see some softer white in the endlessly blue sky, and then, further away, I could see some darker grey. And then almost black. Snow. I don’t know how I knew this, but it just came to me, Yes, snow. That’s why the clouds were black. That’s what I was laying on, and… something else. Something else to do with snow. But I couldn’t think what. I sat up, and a sharp pain pierced my head like a lightning bolt. Lightning. Hmm, that was familiar as well. Something to do with snow and lightning…. I couldn’t quite grasp it. I shook off the weird feeling and looked around. There was a tree to the left of me, and it still had snow in the branches. I remembered that word tree as well. But for different reasons. Reasons I still couldn’t quite put my finger on. I got up to study the tree and found that some of its bark was missing. Ah, bark, the hard stuff that protected the trees from cold and attacks. Something was written on the tree, where its bark should’ve been. A name. My name? No, my name was…. Huh, do I have a name? Why do I need a name anyway? Despite these thoughts whittling around my head, I studied the name. It was familiar. Ir- Iri- Iriel? Yes, that was it. Iriel. It’s a pretty name. I like it. I am Iriel. Hmm, that sounds right. I look down at my body, curiosity sparkling in my mind as to what Iriel, me, looks like. I was wearing a… dress, yes that’s what it was, a dress. It was an off-the-shoulder dress, I could tell because I could see my pale shoulders. I frowned noticing my skin was almost the same colour as the snow. That couldn’t be right, could it? Anyway, I could see my shoulders and all of my legs after my knees. It had a fluffy…trim? Yes, trim, and it must’ve been… fur? I think that’s it. And the fur was the same colour as the snow as well. The actual dress itself was a different colour. Like a combination of the sky and the snow. It was a very light blue, and it…sparkled in the light. I twirled around a couple of times, and the skirt of the dress flew out around me. I decided I liked this. I did it again, and again, until…. What was that? A … voice? Yes! Two of them! And then a deeper rumbling. I shivered, the rumbling reminding me of… ahh, I still couldn’t put my finger on it. I looked in the direction of the voices and rumbling, and through the trees, I could see… something. It was throwing the snow behind it as it sped towards me, weaving through the trees gracefully. It was a colour I didn’t recognise, and there were two… people on it. But they weren’t dressed like me, they were… different. Bigger. They looked as if they had eaten too many… what was I going to say? What was that thing you ate? Food? Yes, as if they had eaten too much food. I realised they didn’t have proper heads, either. Their heads were big as well, but I couldn’t see their faces. There was only a dark strip, darker than the clouds in the sky. I could hear them making strange noises as well as talking. They were yelling as if they were in danger.

Suddenly, one of them pointed at me, the one in front, but there was something wrong with its hand. Its fingers were too big, like the body, but the whole hand was the same shade as the strip on the head. The whole thing swerved towards me, and there was more yelling. As it got closer, I backed myself into the tree, scared of this noisy beast heading right for me. Then, it all went quiet. The thing stopped rumbling, and it slowed rapidly until it sank into the snow slightly. The two people got off and… Wait, were they taking off their heads?! I turned my face and closed my eyes, not wanting to see the gore. Then, I hear crunching snow. Were- were they still alive? I cracked one eye open and saw one of them standing in front of me. I gave a little eep! And flinched against the tree. It was a… boy? Where had I last seen one of them?.... I couldn’t remember. His face was almost the same colour as the thing he had been riding, and his jaw was as sturdy as the tree behind me. His eyes were lighter than the tree’s top, but only slightly. He was holding the strange head covering under his arm, like a basket of some kind. He was frowning at me, and then he spoke.

“Who are you? And why are you out here all alone without a jacket?” He reached for my arm, but I jerked it back out of his reach.

“Woah, ok, but you really need to come with me, otherwise, you’re going to freeze. Seriously, sheila, you need to get warm.” He looked at me… expectantly. Almost as if he thought I would turn into a snowflake and disappear. He held out his hand, obviously hoping for me to join him wherever he wanted to take me. I looked over his shoulder to the other person, noticing he was also a boy. He had a weird smile on his face, and he was looking me up and down.

“Harri! Come on! Either tell the ghost to come with us, or leave her to become one with the snow again!” He yelled to the boy standing in front of me. I then noticed something strange about the way they talked. Both of them had strange ways of pronouncing some words. But I understood all of it.

‘Harri’ offered me his hand again, and this time I took it.

“Crikey! You’re hand is freezing! Right, Cooper, we need to get her to the cabin immediately. She’s ice cold. Maybe that’s why she’s not talking, she might already be in some sort of shock.” As he was talking in that funny way of his, he led me to the thing they were riding on. I stopped short of it, and Harri almost pulled my arm off.

“What? What’s wrong, you’ve never ridden on a snowmobile before? I assure you, it’s perfectly safe, except when Cooper’s driving.” Cooper made a little sound, in protest to what Harri had said I assumed. I shook my head, trying to get my voice to work.

“Yes,” I croaked, “But I was also wondering if you could tell me what colour it is?” I said, getting used to my voice. I spoke differently from the boys, and I noticed the differences even more because of it.

“Oh, this is an iridescent coat I got for it specially. It’s red into orange. See on the edges there?” He said, pointing to the snowmobile, “Where the light reflects off of it right there? Can you see the orange colour?”

“Harri! Quit it! We don’t want this sheila getting frostbite! Get her on in front of me, and you can drive if you think my skills are so poor.” Harri looked at me as if to ask permission for something, and evidently, I gave it because the next thing I knew, I was straddling the snowmobile and Cooper was holding me on by my waist. I tried to wiggle out of his grasp, but he just held me tighter.

“Cooper, can you radio Miss Barr to tell her we found someone? Ask her when she can be back.” Harris said as he made the snowmobile rumble again.

“W-what’s it doing?” I asked, slightly alarmed. Cooper laughed.

“You’re a funny one you know that? It’s called a motor, and it makes this thing FLY over the snow. That’s why I would recommend holding on to Harri’s waist. But you don’t have to.” I decided against holding on and then regretted it as soon as Harri made the snowmobile go. I fell into Cooper’s lap, screaming a little as he laughed.

“But I would highly recommend holding on.” He said, pushing me back to a relatively normal sitting position. I grabbed onto Harri’s torso like my life depended on it, which it probably did. Harri gave a little chuckle too, and took a big breath, losing my grip on him.

“I’ve gotta breathe as well, sheila!” He said, but he had his head thing back on, so it was hard to understand him. I released my hands a little bit from around his stomach but continued to hold on tightly. It also helped that Cooper was holding onto me steadily, not moving much when we swerved around trees or rocks that were sticking out of the snow. Eventually, I could see a dark shape in between the trees, and Cooper saw it too.

“Hey, Harri! This has got to be the first time you’ve gotten us to the cabin first time!”

“Yeah, well, sometimes necessity can do wonders.”

“Oooh! Harri’s get himself a little ice princess in distress to rescue!”

“Shut up Cooper! I’m just trying to keep her alive!” Harri stopped the snowmobile in front of what I assumed to be the cabin and took off his head thing.

‘Come with me and we can get you nice and warm. Ignore Cooper as much as you can, he’s just a dipstick.” Again, Harri took me by the hand and led me inside.

*I am terribly sorry, but I ran out of time, and this will be continued in the Heart of Ice Part 2. This is not the end!*