Page 6 of The Enchanted Frost (The Christmas Chronicles)

CHAPTER 6

M y uncertainty deepened as I reluctantly followed Frost through the castle, a confusing labyrinth of directions whose navigation eventually ascended a winding staircase within one of the turrets. Apprehension weighed my steps, each heavier than the last. When we finally reached the top, an empty room awaited us, bathed in the soft light of the approaching sunrise; glimmers of dawn danced across the icy floor, casting an ethereal glow.

Curiosity momentarily eclipsed my reservations. “What is this place?” The room didn’t seem like the kind of place where Frost would complete the freezing process that for whatever reason had been miraculously paused…unless he intended to set me back on death’s fatal course by pushing me from the balcony.

I hovered in the doorway, afraid to venture any further into the mysterious room. Upon noticing where apprehension had halted my footsteps Frost paused and turned back to me, his expression softened by an unspoken understanding. He extended his hand toward me, a silent invitation to trust him .

I wavered, caught between fear and the faint stirrings of hope. I slowly placed my hand in his. His touch was cold, as expected, but the way his fingers gently encircled mine offered a surprising warmth. With cautious steps, I let him guide me over the threshold, venturing into the mysterious room.

“This is the viewing room,” Frost explained, his tone tinged with an undercurrent of concern. “I wondered if revisiting your life might help us uncover why your soul is trapped in this state of in-between.”

A wave of trepidation washed over me, eclipsing the fleeting awe I’d felt at the mention of this mysterious power. Reflecting over one’s life was often associated with someone’s final moments before death, a grim confirmation of the fear I didn’t want to face…not to mention that I would derive no pleasure from viewing the downward spiral of my life as luxury gave way to misery.

“Is there really no way to reverse it?” I asked, my voice barely holding steady.

He shook his head, his expression somber. “Once the process has begun there’s nothing I can do to stop it. I can only claim your soul to allow you to finally enter eternal rest. I’m sorry.”

His dreaded pronouncement settled over me with heavy finality. I’m going to die . The realization cinched my chest with a helplessness unlike anything I’d ever felt, different than the hopelessness that had plagued my poverty-stricken life. While those circumstances had been dire, there had always been the chance that each new day might bring some change…something I hadn’t truly appreciated until I’d run out of dawns to look forward to.

Until now, my constant fight for survival had suppressed the regrets I’d long buried, dismissing them as distractions from my immediate struggle. But now faced with the inevitability of my death, those regrets surged sharply to the surface, overwhelming me with their weight. They were no longer just passing shadows, but the shattered remnants of dreams that would forever remain unfulfilled.

I yanked my hand from his grasp and snapped, anger lacing my words. “I refuse to let you toy with what’s left of my life at your whim.”

Regret etched his expression, a genuine empathy that felt hollow coming from an immortal man who could never truly grasp the concept of death…an irony made more painful knowing that acquiring my soul would only extend his own endless existence.

“I’m not trying to force you to move on out of cruelty. I fear what might happen to your soul if you linger in this transitionary realm for too long.” His vivid blue eyes locked onto mine, and for a moment I lost myself in the depth of his concern. It chipped away at the defenses I’d built around my frozen heart, just enough for his words to seep through.

My old stubbornness would have refused to let go of my frustration so easily, but time and weariness had weakened my resolve. Reluctantly, I allowed him to take my hand again and lead me farther into the room. Curiosity guided my compliance, the secret longing to see the past I’d tried to forget—a past that felt like a distant dream, yet still held wounds that I knew for all my pretending hadn’t fully healed.

Frost led me to the center of the frozen chamber, where he summoned a glistening ball of cerulean light. Fascination allowed me to momentarily forget my apprehension as I watched the magic dancing in his hands, effortlessly mingling with the moisture in the air until snowflakes began to form, swirling in a glistening curtain of white.

He molded the snow into a large, smooth ball and extended it towards me. “Your touch will complete the spell.”

I hesitated, my heart pounding in my chest, before tentatively reaching out and letting my fingertip brush the surface of the snowball. The coldness kissed my skin, and with that touch the snowball began to swirl like the mist within a crystal ball. It rose gracefully into the air, floating over the balcony railing before exploding into a shower of glittering snowflakes, like fireworks against the dawn.

Instead of dazzling the approaching night with glistening color, the sky transformed into a stage, where an image began to take shape like a grand theatrical performance. The memories unfurled with the grace of a well-rehearsed play, the scene set with a soft, nostalgic glow. As if drawn by an unseen director, fragments of the past came alive, each one taking its place in an intricate tapestry of time.

It was a show unlike anything I’d ever seen in a theater, as if my memories had been extracted and projected across the sunrise. Each recollection felt both intimately familiar and strangely distant, as though I were merely an outside observer watching a life that no longer felt like my own.

The curtain rose on a tender, sepia-toned scene before my earliest recollections, starting with my birth into what should have been a fairytale, before my life eventually veered drastically off course. I watched as a young child grew up with every comfort one could imagine, my only childish concerns being how to spend my playtime, finding a way out of my lessons, and causing mischief for my governess and the servants charged with tending to me.

Though I recognized a younger version of myself in this little girl, that time seemed so distant it no longer felt like me, but as though I watched the life of some carefree stranger. I could no longer relate to someone so accustomed to always having enough to eat and enjoying the warmth and security of shelter—luxuries I had once taken for granted, a thought that now felt unsettling.

The entire first part of my timeline drifted by without anything noteworthy to distinguish it. I cast a sideways glance at Frost, curious about his thoughts on my life compared to the countless others he had undoubtedly witnessed throughout his existence. I expected to see the same shame I felt towards my previous apathy mirrored in his expression, but he only looked thoughtful—almost bored, if not for the slight furrow in his brow that hinted at his deep concentration.

Eventually, he sensed my stare and met my gaze. He lifted his eyebrows in a silent question. “I confess I still don’t understand the purpose of viewing such an insignificant life,” I admitted.

His brows rose further in clear surprise. “You don’t deem your own life significant? My job will become much more difficult if even you cannot even see its purpose. A human life is composed of more than just events, each moment bound by threads of meaning whose ripple effect extends beyond how it might initially appear.”

It took me a moment to understand his analogy. “Similar to how each beautiful piece of embroidery has a tangle of messy threads hidden beneath the surface?”

The corner of his mouth lifted slightly, the shadow of a smile. “Exactly. There is a snag somewhere within this intricate tapestry that is holding your soul back. I’m hoping that by studying your life, I can locate the area that needs to be untangled so that I can set your soul free.”

Yet it was those very knotted threads that kept me tethered to life. I had never had a chance to consider what might lie beyond the life I knew, only that the uncertainty shrouding the path leading to this unknown destination was terrifying.

I had no answer beyond the protests I longed to give, but thankfully he didn’t seem to be expecting one. He returned his attention to my unfolding memories. “This snag is likely hidden in a place that, on the surface, seems unremarkable, but which altered your life in unimaginable ways.”

I could only think of one such event, and it was not one masked beneath the guise of the ordinary. But though he had undoubtedly noticed the contrast between the abundance of my early years and the squalor that marked the end of my life, he waited patiently to witness for himself what had happened in order to decipher the significances and connections my untrained eye couldn’t see.

He remained silent, offering no further comment or reaction as we watched the memories unfold against the now velvety night sky until a seemingly insignificant memory appeared across the sky’s backdrop. His entire demeanor shifted and he jolted, leaning forward with a sudden intensity that beckoned my puzzled gaze.

“What is it?” I asked.

He didn’t immediately answer, but by the astonishment widening his eyes something in this particular recollection had struck him deeply. I shifted my attention to the memory in question—a mundane morning from my childhood when I’d become fascinated by the frost patterns decorating my bedroom windowpanes, oblivious then to the fact that the cold which created such beauty for me to admire would one day bring me endless torment when I couldn’t find shelter from the winter…and would most likely bring about my eventual demise.

“I used to be mesmerized by the different patterns etched into the glass,” I explained in hopes of making sense of his reaction. “It was just a childish whimsy that I eventually grew out of.”

He pursed his lips, saying nothing, his thoughts clearly far away. A series of other mundane moments from my early years played across the stage of reminiscence; it wasn’t until much later when the final memories of my childhood were nearing their conclusion that he finally spoke.

“I’m beginning to wonder if there are multiple regrets holding you back, beginning from your earliest memories.”

His words tore my attention away from another memory—this one of an embarrassing tantrum I’d thrown over my governess’ insistence that I study when I wanted to try out my new paint set. I gaped at him, incredulous. “What do you mean? My childhood was the best part of my life.”

His forehead furrowed. “Truly? You seemed to possess everything but genuine happiness.” He tipped his head towards the memory currently on display—a younger version of me, pouting and sullen over some minor disappointment. “I’ve observed many things throughout this showcase, but joy hasn’t been one of them.”

It wasn’t until he pointed it out that I began to see the shadows that marred what I’d once considered an ideal childhood. Holidays spent alone around a pine tree decorated with glistening candles and colored ornaments; a vast feast spread across a table, with every chair empty except for my own; endless afternoons with no company but the servants who maintained a careful distance.

The memories played out one after another. Watching them all unfold at once made me painfully aware of my parents’ scarce presence in my life, as absent in my memories as they’d been in reality. They had provided every luxury imaginable in our manor, yet nothing by way of attention or affection.

A foreign feeling tugged at my heart, something I struggled to identify until I recognized it as an aching loneliness I had never fully acknowledged—an emotion I had known the word for but never fully understood until this moment. Now I couldn’t escape its unsettling reach as it prickled my heart, allowing me to become familiar enough with the emotion that I could recognize a fleeting glimpse of it in Frost’s own expression before it faded.

As each memory played out, my apprehension grew. With every passing minute, we drew closer to the event I dreaded most, the moment that had haunted me ever since it had occurred. I wanted nothing more than to stop the performance to prevent myself from reliving the nightmare that had haunted me ever since its occurrence, or at the very least to shield it from Frost’s view.

Yet the memories continued to unfold beyond my control, inching ever closer to the worst event of my life. My fingers slipped into my pocket to trace the outline of the broken door knocker I’d carried since that day, gripping it for extra strength.

But the moment I feared never came. Instead, we were distracted by its prelude—an event that, at the time, I hadn’t realized would set the stage for the revenge fate would eventually seek. It happened on what seemed like an ordinary day, during what would be my last winter spent in comfort rather than suffering.

During this snapshot of the past, I glided down the street, the very picture of wealth and privilege—wrapped in a tailored fur coat that exuded opulence, a hat with a plume of feathers that sat perfectly atop my meticulously styled hair, and adorned with jewels that glistened in the light cast from the street lamps.

As I approached an intersection, a small group of street urchins huddled by the corner, their ragged clothes and hopeful eyes a stark contrast to my refined appearance. They clambered around me, their faces pinched with cold and hunger, their small hands extended for alms. Their voices barely rose above the din of the bustling streets, but their desperation was unmistakable, heart-wrenching pleas that failed to penetrate my hardened heart .

Instead, I recoiled from their reach, fearful they might soil my elegant clothes with their filthy hands. My gaze was as cold as the frost on the windows that had once fascinated me. I looked down at the children with practiced indifference before I swept past them without a second glance, my deliberate, unhurried steps clicking against the cobblestones in a sound that echoed with finality, leaving the unfortunate children behind in the cold.

Unfortunately this scene was more than a single event—it was a deeply rooted attitude that had played out countless times before, a pattern of cold detachment that had shaped the course of my life, one I now greatly regretted.

They had watched me disappear into the crowd, their hopeful expressions fading into resignation. At the time I’d deemed them a nuisance, but now glimpsing their gaunt expressions was like peering into a mirror—the thin cheeks sunken from lack of food, the haunched shoulders burdened by the weight of hopelessness, the eyes devoid of life and faith in the future. Their world had once seemed so far removed from mine, yet now it was my everyday reality…at least until the strange, dreamlike events that had led me here.

Back then, poverty was a concept beyond the understanding of the fleeting luxury I’d done nothing to earn but felt I wholly deserved. The question haunted me almost as much as the memory itself. Reliving it now, I could feel the same cold indifference that had been my truth in that moment. In my misguided sense of superiority I’d believed then that the less fortunate deserved their fate, just as I believed I deserved my privilege—completely unaware of how fragile and fleeting it truly was until it was too late.

There was a deep part of me that I didn’t want to acknowledge that feared I had deserved to freeze to death in that abandoned alley. If I had understood the poverty those stricken urchins endured, would anything have been different without karma’s manipulation behind the scenes?

Such a dismissive attitude was one I had encountered countless times since living on the streets. Only now, I found myself on the receiving end—until Frost, whether sincere in his motives for doing so or not, had been the first to extend a glimmer of mercy. That gesture had caused a piece of my hardened heart to break away beyond my control to extend toward the first being I’d ever wanted to give any portion of it to.

Anxious about Frost’s reaction to witnessing my coldhearted cruelty, I stole a tentative glance at him. The scene had finally cracked the stoic mask he had worn throughout most of my recollections, presently showcasing lavish balls, parties, and my relentless pursuit of eligible bachelors that now made me uncomfortable to relive. His expression was no longer impassive but instead filled with a horror I would give anything not to have directed at me.

The memories suddenly ceased. It took me a moment to realize that the magic bringing them to life had been abruptly severed. I felt a mix of relief that I wouldn’t be forced to relive the day that had changed my life, and sinking dread at the realization that Frost likely couldn’t bear to see another moment of the life of such a horrible person.

My shoulders tensed as I braced myself for his disgust or even wrath, but only his raw shock crowded the unsettling silence that had descended around us. Eventually, it was punctuated by his sharp gasps as he fought for air, seizing handfuls of shaky breaths as if his immortality had somehow been threatened.

Before I could speak, he turned and walked briskly past me, descending the twisting steps without a single glance back, as if he could no longer bear to look at me…let alone claim my tainted soul.