Imaginary Worlds

The Snow Queen offered both. I first caught sight of her in a snowstorm on a bleak December night. She was beautiful, rigid, untouchable, unfeeling. I could not hurt her, and she would keep the world from hurting me. She called, and the empty parts of my heart cried out in answer. I opened the window, trying to go after her, but Grandmother and Gerda held me back. They cried and begged, tried to tell me to stay in the warmth and light. I hated them for it. They didn't know that I hated the warmth, and longed for the numbing cold. I cried and raged, and when the storm passed, longed ever more to get away.

The next time the Snow Queen called, I was outdoors on a snowy day. I climbed onto her sled before Gerda could stop me. Gerda called after me, desperate and pleading. It tore at what heart I had left, and for a moment, I wondered if going with the Snow Queen just meant trading one form of pain for another. The Snow Queen's kiss made it all go away. All the darkness of the world, all the pain, self-hatred, and regret, every one of my memories, was locked away behind a wall of ice. At long last, I felt nothing at all.

I can't describe...thinking back on it now fills me with horror. The desolation, the emptiness, the utter lack of hope. Her ice palace was hard, sharp, perfect, still, every detail crisp and unchanging. I can't say it was beautiful, because I couldn't see beauty there. I understood the mathematical perfection of the structure, but it gave me no sense of awe. It simply was, and the world would have felt the same if it was not. Facts were the only reality, with no need of emotion to muddy them up.

The Snow Queen understood all this, taught me all this. She placed me on her frozen lake, her Mirror of Reason, where puzzles were my only playthings. I thought I had at last become a man--leaving behind the sentimentality of childhood for pure logic. My head was alive, and my heart was all but dead.

There must have been some spark deep within me--some inner flame locked away beneath the ice, but not stifled--because after a time, I longed to leave the Snow Queen's palac. Logically, I knew there was more to the world, and wanted to see something beyond the cold and snow. The Queen smiled and caressed me, and told me that of course I could have what I wanted--if only I was clever enough to get it. She set me yet another puzzle--a hundred thousand pieces of ice--and told me that if I could make a word of them, she would set me free to see the world.

Fool that I was, I thought I could solve it. I spent all my time at my task, hours upon hours, days upon days, weeks upon months upon years, using every bit of my brainpower, every ounce of my strength. I grew taller, older, thinner. My flesh wasted away as I refused food and rest, putting all my attention on my escape. My brain grew more clouded, as everything I thought I knew faded into the muddle of that never-ending pile of pieces. Yet for all my effort, all my cleverness, all the clarity of thought I believed I had--never did I get any closer to the solution. I should have known that I could not beat her at her own game--I could not escape Reason by Pure Reason.

Eventually, I gave up. I was alone, trapped, and could not escape by my own power. I stopped feeling, stopped thinking, stopped hoping, stopped wishing, nearly stopped breathing...when Gerda arrived.

I didn't know her--I forgot her the moment the Snow Queen took me--but the sight of her woke me from my numbness. She was a woman, like I was a man, and nothing like the Snow Queen who'd been my only company for so long. In that cold, white, palace, Gerda was warm and pink. Her breath made warm clouds in the air. Her eyes sparkled with energy and hope. She was clad in layers of furs and wool, a chaotic combination so unlike the crisp elegance of the Snow Queen's white garments. Something in me wanted to run to her, but my body and mind had forgotten the habits of movement. I could only sit in desolation, knowing that things would never change.

Gerda tried to speak to me, to wake me, to make me move or acknowledge her. I only sat. She tried to bargain for me, and the Snow Queen gave her the same impossible terms that she had once given me. I expected Gerda to sit next to me, to dedicate her hopeless years toward failing to solve this impossible puzzle.

Instead, she started to cry. My unfeeling brain scoffed at that--what good would useless emotion do? Yet, as she cried, she hugged me, and her streams of tears fell upon my face, and they felt...warm.

The ice that had so long encased me began to thaw. I blinked. I moved. Seeing tears from one so alive and made for joy, from one who, I now knew, had spent years seeking me out of nothing but blind, illogical love...

I wept.

Something in my heart, my eyes, my soul, began to shift, to melt, and to at last disappear. I remembered Grandmother's cottage, the games I'd played with Gerda, the roses in the windowbox, the love we'd shared. The world that had been so empty and cold now held beauty and love--all coming from the the woman who'd saved me.

I returned the embrace, returned the love, and stood to follow her out of that place. I didn't need to look down to know that the puzzle had been solved, the pieces thrown together by the flood of our tears. The queen had her meaningless word--Gerda and I had love.

As we traveled home, we suffered hardship and pain--but now I had someone to suffer for, who made it worthwhile. I cared for her above myself, and she did the same for me. When we came home, it was summertime, and the roses were blooming. We wed before the winter's first snow.

Love was the solution to the pain that had plagued me for so long. I still see the darkness, but it doesn't overwhelm me. There is so much beauty to see, and now I can see it. When I forget, Gerda reminds me, and I do the same for her.

Anyone who knows anything about magic could tell you that no peasant's daughter, however magical, could create gold. It's a complicated trick that requires years of practice. I'd learned to do it only a few months before Wendell fired me. But if Wendell knew anything about magic, none of us would have been in this situation. Before you could say, "Alakazam!", the girl had been taken from her home and thrown in the dungeons with mounds of straw that she had to turn to gold by morning if she didn't want to lose her head.

Now, I'd have been happy to let Wendell learn his lesson by letting the girl fail, but with the girl's life on the line, I had to do something. So just after sunset, I came to the castle, cut a path through the magical defenses those idiot boys had set up--my grandmother's blind cat could have done better--and spirited myself into the dungeon where the girl was being held.

I could tell at a glance that the girl had a spark of magic in her--she was a golden-haired beauty--and could also tell that she'd never done more than parlor tricks in her life. Having magic gives you beauty, using magic--well, it makes you look like me. Fifty-seven years as a court magician shows up on your face. It should have given me the respect my wisdom deserves, but people don't respect wisdom these days. The girl took one look at my face and screamed.

To be fair, that may have been partly because I'd shown up without warning. Once I explained how I'd come in and how I planned to help her out of her predicament, she turned friendly. I took a ring of hers as payment--an out-of-work magician needs to eat (I can't make food out of nothing)--and got to work. I was finished before the sun rose.

My good deed done, I left the dungeon, and hoped the girl would be home by the end of the day. But fifty-seven years at court should have taught me that monarchs never do the decent thing. By noon, I'd learned that King Wendell had declared the girl would only keep her head if she spun another room full of straw into gold.

Another night, the same story--straw comes, girl cries, I show up, take my payment, and do the work that should have been mine this whole time. I spent the whole night hopping mad over the king's idiocy.

The story ended the same way this time, too. Girl thanks me, I go home--and the king demands another room full of gold. This time, though, he sweetened the deal. He must have figured having that much magic in the bloodline wouldn't be a bad thing. If she did this deed tonight, he'd never make her spin straw again--he knew enough about magic to know that feats like this only come in threes--and, as a reward, she could marry the king's only son.

Well, I definitely had to show up for that. It would serve the king right if his son were forced to marry a common girl. And, well, you don't serve at court for fifty-seven years without getting a taste for well-wrought political revenge. A curse on the royal line would have been beneath me, but now I had the chance to demand payment. For my third and final performance, I didn't ask for a gold trinket off the girl--I demanded her firstborn child. The heir to the throne, the continuation of the royal line, would be in my power, and I could bring him back to make his claim on the throne whenever it suited me. You have to admit it was clever.

The girl agreed--what else was she supposed to do?--I spun the gold, the prince married her, and a year later--a newborn prince.

I showed up for my payment, the girl cried, the baby cried--and my revenge was looking a lot more complicated than it had at first. I'm a court magician, not a nursemaid. Besides, what I really wanted wasn't the child--it was recognition. Every magician wants to make a name for himself. Wendell had replaced me, erased me and my accomplishments from the court. I wanted him to know just who had truly been the wonder-worker. I wanted acknowledgement that I was a first-rate magician.

So I told the girl she'd be released from her bargain if someone could tell her my name. I figured Wendell would take a look at me, solve the mystery, and recognize my worth. I would have my satisfaction, and everything would be over.

It took them three days to remember my name! And even then, they only knew it because I practically spoon-fed it to an eavesdropping servant girl. I know that court magician names seem complicated to laymen, but by professional standards, Rumpelstiltskin is not a difficult name!

They did remember my story, though, and they weren't too pleased by my political plot, so I had to do some fancy maneuvering to magic myself out of there before I got a blade through my neck. Made it nice and fiery, too--a dramatic exit worthy of a master magician.