She snapped the syringe into place and lifted the gun up to her shoulder. Now I don’t need games, she thought with a grin. Even after she’d understood the truth-that Gram’s story was merely a pretty way to say her mother had died-she’d continued to play the games. She’d simply begged Gram to tell the story when Dad was away, and she’d invented a new game involving a canvas sail and an unused sled. He’d taken away Cassie’s skis and had forbidden Gram from telling the story.
Once, Dad had caught her on the station roof with skis strapped to her feet, ready to ski beyond the ends of the earth to save her mom. She’d pile old snowmobile parts and broken generators to make the trolls’ castle, and then she’d scale the castle walls and tie up the “trolls” (old clothes stuffed with pillows) with climbing ropes. When she was little, Cassie used to stage practice rescue missions outside of Dad’s Arctic research station. Gram hadn’t told that story since the day she’d left the research station, but Cassie still remembered every word of it. For an instant, Cassie imagined she could hear Gram’s voice, telling the story of the Polar Bear King. White on white in an alcove of ice, he looked like a king on a throne.
She loaded the tranquilizer dart by feel, her eyes never leaving the bear. Placid as a marble statue, the polar bear did not move. “Don’t move,” she whispered at the polar bear.Ĭassie felt behind her and unhooked the rifle. She loved this: just her, the ice, and the bear. Beneath her ice-encrusted face mask, she smiled. Sparkling in the predawn light, they looked like diamond dust.
ONCE UPON A TIME, in a land far to the north, there lived a lovely maiden.
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