Always You

xxx. Parental Presence

Anna

More and more often I found myself wandering into the library, carrying Eleanor as if the presence I felt in that room wanted her there. Like my mother wanted to see her grandchild, the baby she would never really meet. I knew it was silly, knew it was just buried hope coming from somewhere deep inside me. Still, I let it go on. I found the two of us in that library, snoozing in a chair, nearly every night. Kristoff would often have to drag me, half asleep, back to the comfort of my own bedchamber. He was disturbed by the frequency of my night wandering, though I paid it no mind. I thought my mother truly wanted to communicate with me, though I didn't understand why it was while I was asleep that she chose to talk to me. Who was I, though, to question my own mother? To do so would have made me disrespectful and rude, two things it had been drilled into me never to be. To do so would be to disgrace the crown I was to inherit, and that was completely unacceptable. 

I wondered, too, if my father's spirit was still in the castle. Did Elsa receive night time visits from our mother? What could my mother possibly hope to achieve by keeping me wandering my own home in ther dead of night? These things haunted me. Everyone was quickly noticing that I spent too often in the library, hardly leaving. I was still caring for Eleanor, doing everything a good mother should, but every second of downtime I had was spent in the library, searching the rows of books for hours upon hours without reading a single word. I heard the whispers and saw the worried glances from the staff, knew Elsa and Kristoff were beginning to talk and throw around terms like "postpartum depression", but I knew they would never understand. Who could understand but my mother and I? We had always shared a bond, I should have known it would last beyond the grave. Of course, knowing now how strong a mother's love was, it would have lasted all these years. Why she had chosen now to tell me I wasn't alone was beyond me, but I still refused to question her. She knew what she was doing.

I didn't hear her voice often, but I always felt her presence with me in the large room. One day, though, she finally gave me the start of an explanation. It had been like any other day; Eleanor had just laid down for a nap, and I had begun to trail my fingers along the faded and cracked spines of the old books, their navy and red covers passing beneath my fingertips unread as I stared ahead and waited. The whisper had started out to quiet to hear, but slowly evolved into words that I stopped breathing to hear more clearly.

"Anna, you need to find the book," She whispered, her voice too clear though there was not another person to be seen. I looked around me, thousands of books covering hundreds of shelves. 

"What book?" I whispered urgently, my voice as low as hers though I was alone. I felt an urge to be quiet, to keep my new found mission a secret.

"You'll know it when you find it. The book... it has... the answers," Her voice trailed off, the last words barely intelligible as I frantically scanned the meaningless titles of the books closest to me. 

"How will I know? What answers? Mom!" I cried out, too loud, the weight of her presence and sound of her voice both gone at once. I fell to the floor, the task at hand seeming too big to tackle now or ever, warm tears stinging my eyes as my cheeks heated in defeat. I knew I had to do this, I just had no idea where to start.

Kristoff

I could see it in her eyes, the weight of the nightmares keeping her in the library at night. There were bags under her blue eyes, bones sticking out of her rapidly thinning frame, and a heavy tiredness that hung around her in a cloud of swirling gray storms, dragging her down into the depths of whatever hell she was creating. Elsa and I both saw it, the sadness and fear that Elsa insisted was depression but had me wondering what exactly it was about that library... There had to be something to make her so drawn to it. I knew Anna like the back of my hand and I knew nothing she did was ever random. There was always a reason, usually something cleverly thought out, behinfd the things she did. I just needed to figure this one out.

Meanwhile, Eleanor was growing before my eyes. Her small body was lengthening, her golden hair growing into thin curls, her eyes filling with wonder at everything she could see around her. She was smart already, this much I could tell right away. She would grow into an intuitive and curious little girl, someone to keep you on your toes, and I couldn't wait until I could see how her little mind would work. Of course, she would be as beautiful as she was smart, probably filled with her mother's optimism and energy, that unique way of looking at the world like it was full of possibilities just waiting to be taken. 

I wondered if these traits would be passed on if Anna didn't get herself out of this funk. It was no use talking to her about it, every conversation went the same. Still, refusing to be defeated, I kept trying.

I walked into the library, the smell of outside coming in from the open windows and mingling with the musty smell of old books that was somehow nostalgic and exciting at the same time. It took me a few moments to locate the fiery redhead in the shelves of aged classics, but finally I found her between some Italian books I had never even heard of before. She was sitting on the floor, discarded books littering the floor around her as she emptied the shelf.

"No, no, no, no!" She cried, exasperation thick in her voice as she looked at all of the books around her. The books on the other shelves had all been pulled to the floor, the first three rows of bookshelves completely emptied onto the navy carpet by the castle's princess, a mess no servant dared clean up.

"Anna, honey, come on. Let's go take a bath," I tried to encourage her, reaching for her small body.

"Don't touch me!" She cried, relaxing when I stepped back. "Eleanor's asleep and I'm just looking for a book to read. That's all." She spoke, her voice eerily cool and calm, though she was close to hysteria just moments before.

"Well, there are plenty of books-" She cut me off.

"No, they are not the right books, Kristoff! You wouldn't understand. Just leave, let me have some peace!" She practically screamed, the edge of hysteria back in her weak voice. Not wanting to argue, I left the library, my head in my hands. What could I do for her, when she refused to let me help her even a little bit? How was I supposed to make her feel better when she didn't even want me in the same room as her? What had happened to the beautiful girl I had fallen in love with, why had she been replaced by this cold woman I barely recognized?