Sun and Moon, Ice and Snow by Jessica Day George

Hans Peter all day made tears rush to her eyes. “My brother Hans Peter most of all.”
    “I’m sorry,” the bear sighed. “I will see if arrangements can be made.”
    “What kind of arrangements?” For a moment, a flutter of hope rose in her breast. Would he bring Hans Peter here to stay with her for the rest of the year?
    “I will try to have letters sent to them, and from them to you,” the bear clarified.
    “Oh.” The lass felt her elation ebb, but consoled herself that letters would be better than no contact at all. And she had been in the ice palace for a month now. There were only eleven months left of her stay here.
    The bear lumbered away. “I will see you at dinner,” he said over his shoulder.
    Moody, she got to her feet and wandered over topoke at the fire with the silver-handled poker that hung from the mantel. While she jabbed at the half-burned logs, she rested her free hand on the carvings of the mantel. It felt like her dress: slick and slightly cold. Something about the pose stirred her memory, and for a moment she had a strange doubling sensation, as though she were simultaneously in the bear’s palace and back at home in the cottage.
    The fingers holding the poker felt numb, and the lass dropped the heavy instrument with a clatter. She stumbled back from the fireplace, not wanting to catch her skirt on fire in her dizziness. She half sat, half fell into the chair, and when her head cleared she rubbed her face and looked up at the mantel.
    The ice mantel felt exactly like the mantel back in the cottage. She got to her feet and moved closer, squinting at the greenish white patterns on the mantel. It showed more of the same angular symbols that graced the support pillars of the great hall and ran in bands around the white parka.
    “It doesn’t just look like the carving on our mantel at home,” she mused aloud, her breath misting the air a little because her nose was only inches from the mantel. “It’s an exact copy of the mantel at home. Or rather, the cottage mantel is the copy.”
    Two years ago Hans Peter had said that he “wanted a change” and made over the cottage mantelpiece. He hadworked for days, fitting some new wood across the top, reshaping the old, and then finally carving those strange symbols that had captivated his youngest sister since his return from the sea.
    “Do they mean anything?” the young lass had asked, tracing the raw new markings with a finger.
    “It’s a story,” Hans Peter had told her as he mixed some oil to rub into the wood.
    “What story?”
    “A wonderful story,” he had said, his voice grim. “A wonderful story about a princess in a palace who is more beautiful than the dawn and longs for a handsome young man to love her.”
    “It sounds silly,” the lass had said. She had been at the age when she scorned anything remotely girlish.
    “It’s actually a horrible story,” Hans Peter had told her, his voice darker than ever. “Because it is all a lie.” And then he would speak no more of the carvings or the strange story.
    “I bet I can piece it together,” the lass said now, frowning at the marks and moving to the far left of the mantel. “Love.” She traced a familiar mark with her finger. “Liar, man, sorrow, alone, tower.” She frowned harder, and then on a hunch, she walked to the right side of the fireplace. “The symbols run backward,” she said with satisfaction, upon seeing the marks for “long ago,” “princess,” and “beautiful.” “It’s a language, a backward language. And Ican read it!” She slapped her hands on the ice in triumph. Then another thought came to her, and her hands fell to her sides like weights.
    I can read this because Hans Peter taught me how. He can read this language. He knows this story. He has been here.

Chapter 12
    Once she interpreted the story on the mantel, the strange language began to open up for the lass. Some of the nuances were lost on her, and she didn’t know all the words,