Fractured Fairy Tales (4 page)

He was as tall as her and at such a ripe age. Perfect. Just
perfect
. She purred as she caressed a fingertip down his cool cheek and strong jaw. Ayden shivered under her touch and stepped closer toward her. She noticed the gleam of silver in his one eye and almost laughed in glee, but only allowed a smile before leaning in toward him.

Ayden’s heart felt as if it was about to burst as the beautiful creature neared him. A chill still touched the back of his neck. He wished to rip the veil from her face so that he could witness true beauty. He wanted to feel her lips and taste her skin. He wanted her…

“I love you,” he spoke softly as she neared.

“I know,” she cooed. “And I’ve loved you since you were born.”

“What?” He frowned, pulling away from her.

He heard someone calling out to him. A girl’s voice, somewhere in the distance.
Who was that? Why is she calling me?
The madam touched Ayden’s hand, and he immediately forgot about the voice, but it kept on calling.

Ellie was searching for her brother. She banged fists against the door her father had locked after throwing her into a small room smelling of rain. Inside the bellow of darkness, the young girl kept shouting for Ayden as loudly as she could. She knew she had to escape. The room grew colder and colder. Soon, she knew, she would freeze to death, and her brother wouldn’t find her again.

“Ayden!” she banged and screamed. “Ayden!”

No one came. She was trapped. Swallowing her tears and turning to the darkness of her prison, Ellie reached out her hands in search of some form of light, but she only felt cold air all around her. Becoming desperate and fear gripping her heart, she tripped forward and fell against something hard and ice cold. The young girl gripped at the cold item and pressed her forehead against its icy surface, allowing herself to weep.

“Ayden, I’m sorry,” she cried, hot tears rolling down her flushed cheeks. “Please come back to me. I don’t ever want to lose you; you are all I have left.”

Her shoulders shook from her quiet sobs and her tears touched the object she clung to frantically. Upon the touch of her fat tears, a subtle glow erupted from what she held. Ellie jumped back as the light grew brighter and bluer. Soon, the room bathed in its light, and Ellie’s breath was stuck in her throat.

It was a statue of a young boy. He was about Ayden’s age, with beautiful eyes and pale hair falling over his small ears. What frightened Ellie was the fact that it wasn’t a statue or clay carving of a boy; he was real.

She fell back against the locked door as she stared at the frozen boy, handsome features captured forever in a silent scream and wide eyes. His arms were up, as if trying to keep an enemy from harming him. He looked so afraid. Ellie could feel his fear and pain just by looking at him.

“What happened to you?” she asked the boy wrapped in thick ice.

Scanning the ice around the corpse, Ellie spied a reflection of something else behind the boy. The lump of hot fear in her throat thickened when she stepped around him and found another boy, and another and another!

It was a room full of frozen bodies. All of them glowed faint blue as she touched their ice and frost casings. All of them were captured in their last moments of dread before they were killed by the touch of winter. Also, Ellie noticed with shaking hands and more tears blurring her vision, all of the boys looked similar to Ayden.

Beautiful.

Tall.

Blue eyed.

And so young.

Ellie pressed a hand to her lips, gave a small moan, then let a scream erupt from her chest. The statues shivered, as if shaking out of fear, as Ellie kept on screaming and ran back to the door. She crashed into the wood and sent fist after fist against the door.

“Let me out!” she clawed at it, nails cracking and blood painting the surface. “Ayden, stay away from her! Ayden!”

When her hands were too numb to keep on fighting, Ellie clutched them to her chest and turned to the frozen boys. She could have sworn all of their blank eyes turned to look right back at her. She wanted to cry, scream and claw out her own eyes, sinking to the floor with head bowed to her injured hands.

Staring at the red on her hands and aching fingers, Ellie realized she wasn’t crying. No tears erupted from her eyes and no sob came from her burning throat. With the drops of blood that stained her dress, the young girl stood up tall and walked down the row of frosted bodies. She was Ayden’s only hope. Martha didn’t know where they were, and her parents weren’t going to save her, not while that witch still lived. She decided to rescue her brother, even if it killed her.

She reached the end of the room and pressed an ear to it, searching for the sounds of her brother. There were muffled voices on the other side and that made Ellie smile. She knew, deep in her heart, that her brother was there. All she had to do was break down the wall or find a trapdoor or…

Frowning, she felt cool air brush up her ankle. Ellie gazed down and squealed at finding an air vent big enough for her to fit through. That squeal travelled through the vent and out into the grand hall where Ayden stood with his head tilted toward the wall that separated him and his sister.

“What is that?” he asked as the woman he loved unbuttoned his shirt. “I know that sound…”

“Just the wind,” the woman frowned slightly when she, too, heard the cry of the girl that had entered her home with her new toy. When the shirt was open and she spied smooth pale skin beneath, she smiled up into the handsome face of the boy. He smiled back at her. “You are with me now, Ayden. Stay with me forever, and forget about the world outside.”

“Yes,” he leaned into her.

He allowed her to run her hands down his chest, but his smile faltered slightly. His hands were itching to remove the veil. Reaching up slowly, as not to scare her away, he touched the thin lace of her veil that matched the train of her suit, and slowly started to lift it.

Immediately, his hands were slapped away and the woman was staring at him with silver fire glowing from where her eyes had been.

“Don’t,” she commanded him.

“Why not?” he asked, stepping up to her. “Let me see you.”

“In due time, my love,” she brushed a hand down her long silky hair. “Right now, I need you to forget everything and every
one
.”

A crash came from the vent in the wall, distracting Ayden. Madam Nix sighed and clicked her fingers. Frost, as sharp as glass and even colder than her skin, surrounded the vent and secured it to the wall. Then the woman quickly went up to the boy and cupped his face in her hands.

“Forget,” she leaned in.

Ayden didn’t struggle. He didn’t think about why the vent was speaking in a familiar voice, and he didn’t worry about why the love of his life wouldn’t show her face to him. He just stood there and felt her lips brush over his through the veil.

Her kiss was like ice.

The cold seeped through his lips and travelled down to embed in his heart. Once the woman’s touch created tiny flakes of frost around his heart, Ayden forgot. He forgot about his home, he forgot about Martha who had raised him, he forgot about his gloomy room and silent piano, and he forgot about his sister.

In a rush, Ayden wrapped his arms around the slender body of his love and pressed his lips to hers once again. The cold wiped his mind clean, leaving behind only the smell, taste and feel of her. The Snow Queen. The most beautiful creature.

When he pulled away and tried to steal another kiss, the woman pushed against his bare chest and wagged a finger at him. “No more kisses for you, my dear,” was her reply to his pout. “If I were to kiss you again, it would be to the death!”

“I don’t care,” Ayden gripped her tighter. “Please, my queen.”

The vent crashed to the ground with a kick and a curse. Ayden pulled away from the smiling lips of the madam and saw a girl crawl out from the wall. She wore a dress speckled in red, her hands clutched to her heart as she stood, and her eyes glowed ice blue as she stared at him, then his love.

Ellie huffed out a heavy breath to clear it of the frost she had breathed on to melt the vent free, and faced the ice witch. Captured in her brother’s arms, the woman turned to her with a snarl and placed her hands on her hips.

Ayden blinked, confusion fogging his mind. The girl from the wall…she had his eyes and his nose. They even shared the same shade of fair hair, only her face was burning red from rage. Her eyes sent daggers at the beautiful creature beside him.

Why would she hate his love? Why would she, such an ugly little thing, look at her as if she were a monster?

“Ayden,” the girl with yellow hair spoke to him. “Get away from her. She is a witch!”

“Don’t pay her any attention, my pet,” the witch told him. “This little rat will be out of our lives shortly.”

“I won’t let you hurt him!” Ellie pointed a bloodied finger at her. “You kept our parents here for years! I will not allow you to take my brother as well!”

“Brother?” Ayden frowned, staring at the floor.

“Hush, snowflake,” she touched his cheek and stepped in front of him to block his view of Ellie.

“Why did you do this?” the girl asked the madam.

“Because I wanted Ayden,” the woman shrugged, almost bored. “I had to get him here. He is just
perfect
.”

“You are insane,” Ellie walked up to her. “You can’t just kidnap young boys! I saw what you did to them.”

The woman shrugged again and went up to Ayden—who still stared at his feet. She wrapped her arms around his body and smiled at the girl through her veil. “They all failed, but Ayden is the one,” she held her lips near his cheek, but didn’t let them touch his skin. “His heart is as cold as mine.”

“You’re wrong!” Ellie walked right up to her brother, making the woman hiss and jump away, as the girl took her brother’s hands in hers. “Ayden, snap out of it. She is the one who stole our parents and left us orphans for years. They are here, Ayden, right downstairs. We can be a family again, with Martha, in our beautiful home.”

The boy, almost a young man, looked into the eyes of the girl he didn’t know and saw that she wasn’t about to cry, scream or fight. She stood strong, her touch so warm, and eyes filled with determination. She reminded him of his sister…

What was her name?
“Ellie,” he whispered.

The girl smiled softly and gave him such a tight hug that he lost his breath. He didn’t know how to respond. He was tempted to hug her back, but the air grew colder and something stung in his eye.

“Don’t touch him!” a shrill voice sliced at his ears. “You are ruining him!”

Snow entered the room, falling softly from the ceiling and touched ice onto their heads. Ayden turned to see his love had changed. She looked so different. Skin turning blue and eyes bright silver, he started to fear the woman who had captured his heart.

“Ayden, we have to leave,” the girl tugged at his arm.

Ayden watched as his beloved raised her arms and the open windows let in the darkness from outside. An icy wind swirled around the hall, pelting him with ice and smothering the warm glow from the chandeliers. All the while, the Snow Queen stood smiling as the wind moaned and the storm whistled around them mercilessly. The rapping of the windows, the flutter of curtains and the groan from the storm harmonized into a tune; a song that took him back in time to when he would listen to his sister humming each night in her room before crying herself to sleep.

His sister.

The girl right beside him.

Ellie.

“I remember…” he lost focus on the woman and looked at his sister. The wind wiped her hair around her worried face, but all he saw was a beautiful young girl who had matured into a fighter. “Ellie,”

“No!” the madam wailed. “I will not let him go! I made sure to keep your parents here so that his heart would darken deliciously. I knew he wouldn’t accept my invite, but of course he would follow his foolish sibling anywhere. I waited too long for this!” the storm grew angrier, now pelting hail and blades of ice. “He is mine! My ice prince. My heir to the throne!”

“No, I’m not!” Ayden faced her.

The wind was so harsh that it picked up the veil covering the woman’s face and Ayden, with his sister, saw the monster beneath. Skin cracked and bitter blue, the Snow Queen was truly a horrid witch. The beautiful glow from her hair paled and turned to a watery green. No longer a creature of flawless ice; the woman in a wrinkled black suit and gnarled teeth looked more like a monster born of a swamp.

Water dripped from her fingertips and her green hair grew damp as she sent the storm at the siblings clutching at each other. Ayden turned Ellie away from her attack, his back to the storm, and prayed that she would survive—even if he didn’t.

Just the thought of him saving that ugly little girl made the witch scream and pull at her hair.

The estate shook and shouts came from the guests still dancing downstairs. Ellie pulled away from her brother and stared at the storm heading their way; a wave of white and deathly cold.

“No!” Ayden kept her down. “When this is over, get to mother and father, and leave this place. I won’t let you die because of me.”