Bitter Snow

Bitter Snow: A Modern Fairy Tale

volume one: Bitter Snow

Lauren Sweet

Copyright 2013 Lauren Sweet

Cover art copyright 2013 Jeanne Gransee Barker

Smashwords Edition

Other titles by Lauren Sweet:

Bitter Snow, volume two: Dark Solstice

Bitter Snow, volume three: Twelfth Night

Aladdin’s Samovar

Table of Contents

Title Page

Prologue: The Beginning

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

A Word from the Author

Excerpt from Bitter Snow, volume two: Dark Solstice

The Beginning

All I did was open the door.

People open their doors all the time. They invite people in. Friends. Strangers, even. And most of the time, nothing much happens to them.

But every now and then, somebody opens the door when they’re not supposed to. You hear someone knocking, and you think you’re safe like always, and you open the door to something you didn’t expect. Something dangerous. Something deadly.

After that, nothing can ever be the same.

Chapter One

On the afternoon of my sixteenth birthday, I had no idea my life was about to change forever. It was December 5, St. Nicholas’s Eve, and I was in an outdoor band shell in the town square in twenty-degree weather, playing the flute part in my school orchestra’s annual concert.

St. Nicholas’s Eve, otherwise known as Bellsnichol, is one of the two big winter festivals in Bremerton, where I’m from. January 5, Twelfth Night, is the other. And in Bremerton, small town USA, winter festivals happen outside. Ice sculptures, hockey tournaments, cross-country skiing races, booths all up and down Main Street selling hot food and gallons of coffee and hot chocolate. And outdoor concerts by frosty-fingered musicians. There were giant heat lamps all over the band shell, but it was still pretty cold.

We finished our rendition of God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen, and the orchestra leader put down his baton. Miniature Christmas elves started to do flip-flops in the pit of my stomach.

The announcer stepped up to the microphone. And now, ladies and gentlemen, we have a special treat in store for you.

My hands started sweating inside my fingerless gloves. Time to play my duet—and get myself in a boatload of trouble. The announcer went on, Gillian Breslin and Nikolas Bremer will perform traditional Austrian folk songs on the violin and flute.

The mini-elves in my stomach flip-flopped harder. During our weeks of practice, Niko’s and my plan had seemed like a harmless joke—thumbing our noses at tradition. Now that we were about to do it, it didn’t seem so funny.

You have to understand about Bremerton. The original settlers were all from The-Hills-are-Alive-with-the-Sound-of-Music cowherding Alps in Bavaria and southeastern Austria. They came to America in the eighteen-fifties, and except for electricity, paved roads and satellite TV, Bremerton has barely changed. A lot of the houses look like copies of little medieval Bavarian cottages, with half-timbering, flower boxes in the windows, and the second story sticking out a few feet further than the first story. Some families even still speak German at home. When you walk around Bremerton, you half expect to see Rumplestiltskin ducking around the corner.

Bremerton loves its traditions to the point of obsession. And what Niko and I were about to play wasn’t traditional at all. Or on the program. Today, the unsuspecting folks of German-Austrian Bremerton were going to get a taste of the other half of my genes. I just wished my Irish dad had been able to make it home in time to see it.

I put down my regular flute and picked up my Irish flute, which had been keeping warm under one of the heat lamps. Niko, the instigator of this idiotic plan, met me center stage, violin in his hands. The crowd in the square seemed huge and alien, even though it was probably only a couple of hundred people and I knew almost all of them. Their faces stared up at me like accusing moons.

I searched the crowd for the one face that I knew would make me feel better. Kai, my best friend—the guy I was also secretly in love with. Who might—just might—be starting to feel the same way about me. He was the only person who knew what Niko and I were planning, and I needed to know he was out there, rooting for me.

But I couldn’t find him. Where was he?

I dragged my gaze back to Niko. He gave me a conspiratorial grin. I felt a little better, although I was still pretty sure we were going to get booed off the stage.

Taking a deep breath, I raised the flute to my lips. Niko tucked his violin under his chin and put his bow to the strings. I followed his lead, watching as he counted the beat with tiny movements of his head, until he raised his bow for the downbeat.

We started slow and soft, with Greensleeves—the same tune as the Christmas carol What Child is This. As always happened when I played, the music sneaked into my soul and soothed my nervousness, carrying me away with its magic. The high notes of the carol soared into the crystal air, melody shifting seamlessly between his violin and my flute, intertwining in perfect harmony. Then we got to the last note, Niko winked at me, and we modulated into the next tune. All Irish.

I could see the surprise and puzzlement on the faces in the crowd—and the shock on the face of Mr. Doppelmayr, our conductor. Yup. We were so getting kicked out of orchestra. We swung into Christmas in Killarney, and from there we let the music lead us, further down the road into the foot-tapping, step-dancing Irish tunes we’d been practicing in secret. Now we were totally off the reservation. If I’d been able to hold my breath and play the flute at the same time, I’d have been doing it.

I tried to focus on Niko, not wanting the crowd’s disapproval—or Mr. Doppelmayr’s—to distract me. But an audience has its own powerful energy, and I could feel the people out there, feel the tide shifting. I sensed the smiles before I saw them. Heads nodding. Feet tapping. The magic of the music spread out to embrace the crowd, and they were ours.

Two more upbeat tunes, Niko and me improvising around each other’s riffs, carried along on the music and the audience’s pleasure like hawks riding the air currents. And then, eyes on each other, Niko grinning like a fool, we found the perfect moment to modulate into our second to last tune.

It was an Irish lament, a ballad for all the lost—lost battles, lost lands, lost loves. It held the longing of those separated from the homelands and the people where their true hearts lived. I could feel the tears starting in my eyes, tears for the mother who’d died when I was three, for the father who so often had to leave me. This was the hardest part—not to let the emotion take me over and ruin the performance, but to channel it through my breath and through my instrument, out into the bitter cold and the crowd who watched, silent now. Niko’s violin notes caressed the soaring notes of my flute, supporting them, letting them fly.

We had the crowd in our hands now, but we couldn’t leave them there, in the darkness of breaking hearts. I led Niko into our final tune. The last song was one of hope found and lost and found again, against all odds. A love song. The other music was for the crowd, for Niko and me, but this last song was for one person. Kai. I hoped he got my message.

And then the final notes were drifting away, music and longing lost in the wind. There was a moment of silence, and the whole square erupted in applause.

My soul slammed back into my body, like I’d been dreaming and just woken up. I had been floating on the music, free, and now I had to come back to earth. It was like that when I played my best.

People were whistling and cheering. I felt my face getting red. Niko flashed me a grin and grabbed my hand. Bow, he said.

Right. We took a bunch of bows, alone and together, and then went back to our places for the final few orchestra numbers. I played on autopilot, still high from the music Niko and I had made.

Afterwards, as I was packing up my instruments, I saw Mr. Doppelmayr storming over. Uh-oh. Niko edged up behind me. One good thing about Niko, he’d never bail and leave you hanging.

Mr. Doppelmayr was waving his hands in agitation, shouting before he even came to a complete stop. He was a bulky man, blond hair turning white, and possessed a formidable scowl which was now turned on the two of us.

What did you do to my concert? he bellowed. We’ve been working for weeks—weeks! Planning the music and rehearsing, for Bremerton’s most ancient festival. And then you ruin it all. You play—this! He folded his arms and frowned. Explain yourselves.

Niko and I looked at each other guiltily. We—we wanted to try something different, I said.

Yes, Mr. Doppelmayr said. That is obvious. And you ruined the effect of the program I planned, that all your classmates worked so hard on. You also wasted my time, rehearsing with you all these weeks, when you had no intention of playing the music from the program.

Oh. I’d never thought of that.

We didn’t mean to ruin anything, Niko said. "We’re really sorry. Aren’t