The Raven and the Reindeer

by T. Kingfisher

This boy was named Kay.

His eyes were blue when he was born, pale as a winter sky. The frost glittered in them, in little

“He’ll be a devil, with eyes like that.”

The granddaughter was born a few days later, and her eyes were brown. They named her Gerta.

There are not many stories about this sort of thing. There ought to be more. Perhaps if there were, the Gertas

of the world would learn to recognize it. Perhaps not. It is hard to see a story when you are standing in the middle of it.

Kay would open the window in his family’s garret and Gerta would open the window in hers.

Then one or the other would step across the gap and into the other one’s home.

bet he doesn’t say things like that to the other boys. That’s the part of himself he only shows to me. That’s the important bit.

Kay had kissed her behind the stove. It was a new experience and it made her feel strange and squashy.

“Make Kay sweat a little, for a change.” “I don’t like

any other boys.” “Yes, and he knows it, too.”

And the snow fell and fell and fell. “A hundred-year storm,” said Gerta’s grandmother. “The Snow Queen rides tonight.”

Snow Queen?” asked Kay.

“The mistress of ice.

far north

She rides in a sleig...

ice and pulled by great white bears who u...

“She’s Circe’s cold cousin, always turning men into other beasts.

“She wears the furs of white foxes and her sleigh is cut from birch trees.”

sleigh was pulled by snow-white otters.

The woman was very tall and very slim. Her face was as angular as a fox and her hair was white, yet somehow she did not look old.

The Snow Queen reached down and took his hand.

He gasped and for a single heartbeat, his eyes glowed like ice in the moonlight.

He settled himself in the sled, under a blanket trimmed with white fox-fur.

I have something you want, and it’s mine now, and you’ll never get it back.

In the morning, Kay was gone.

There is a great deal that goes on when someone goes missing, and none of it is good. It is a tiresome sort of panic, because there is no end to it.

She lived the last moments of the dream a thousand times, seeing Kay look up, his lips parted, looking at the strange cold woman with an expression of lust and worship.

“He isn’t dead. I saw him leaving in a dream.”

“The night Kay…that night. I saw a sleigh on the roof. There was a woman in it, all over white. I thought I was dreaming, but Kay’s gone. He’s not coming back. I think she has him.”

“I have to go after him.”

should tell you not to go. I should tell you one child lost is enough.”

should have known he’d take it to heart. There always was a spot of ice in him.”

She was going somewhere. She was doing something. She would get Kay back.

Making someone a fine wife had not included learning how to sleep in the woods without freezing or getting soaked. This struck Gerta as an enormous and unexpected gap in her education.

Feeling bad about feeling bad was not significantly better than feeling bad in the first place.

farmhouse in the distance.

“My name is Helga,”

“Just keep me company,” said Helga, patting Gerta’s knee. “I’m so glad to have you here, my dear. I was so lonely without you.” Tomorrow, Gerta thought. I’ll remember it tomorrow.

The days passed, and the spell on Gerta deepened. Helga was not a powerful witch, as such things are measured, but she did not need to be powerful for this.

But to plants, most humans look alike, and so the dreams they sent Gerta ranged far afield, in distance and in time, based on some unknown vegetative logic.

the spell grew thicker and more entrenched, and she did not think of leaving.

Kay. She shuddered suddenly, violently, as if she had sobbed. She did not know it, but it was the spell sundering.

“Seven months,”

“It’s coming on winter. She’ll be at the height of her power, if you even reach her, traveling in the snow. Come inside. You can go in spring…”

“He isn’t dead,”

“The plants haven’t seen him.”

raven

It held the wing away from its body, not as if it were in pain, but as if it didn’t bend quite properly.