Dream Of The Ice Queen

Often there is a darkness and unsettling depth beneath the bright, sparkling surface of a fairytale…

- Barbara Featherstone

 

The child in the crib wasn’t hers. And yet, she had felt the awakening of it in her womb, those first moth-like flutterings.

She had felt the gradual swell of her stomach, the milky heaviness of her breasts.

She had felt the agony of those final contractions; that last thrust of her body, then the slipping away of pain as a baby lustily cried.

She hadn’t held him. Not then…

The woman moved from the crib to the nursing chair angled beside, and took up the book. She read aloud, slowly, with expression; a voice to enrapture a child.

“Once upon a time, high up in the mountains, there was a huge castle. In the castle lived a King and a Queen. The King was tall, strong and handsome. His eyes were the tawny gold of a lion, his hair as black as midnight.

“The Queen’s eyes were blue, as soft as the sky. Her hair was as fair as frost on the meadow. It hung down her back like rippling water. The Queen wore beautiful dresses of silk and velvet; purple dresses the colour of a stormy evening, white dresses the gleam of moonlight, and red dresses the sheen of scarlet poppies.

“One day, the King –”

The woman turned, a finger to her lips, as the bedroom door whispered open. “You’ll wake him.”

There was a low chuckle as the man plumped onto the large double bed. “Wake him? You heard what Chrissie said, my sweet. When that baby’s asleep nothing short of an earthquake will wake him. And my sister, as you well know, is not one for exaggeration.”

“And neither is she one for a messy house. You’re creasing the duvet, Finn. Turn it back and mind the sheets.”

He obeyed, folding the duvet lengthways, exposing the pristine whiteness.

“Shoes, Finn.”

A pair of shiny black brogues tumbled to the floor.

“Shush!”