The Snow Queen

Another Day, Another Night

There'd be no respite from the cold today as Jack cut wood at the mill just outside of town. He wasn't doing this to get paid, but rather just because it'd look good on his father if he helped. All he did was mull around half-asleep either sawing logs or carrying piles of lumber back and forth. Cutting into oak wasn't an easy task, and it was mostly men who worked the mill. Jack started chopping firewood as a chore when he was ten, and from then on marveled at how the adults could get it in such a perfectly straight line or in a single swing of the axe. He could barely get the damn thing over his head when he was younger, but years of practice gave him decent enough skill along with fairly toned arms.

He was used to laborious chores; it was always up to him to make the two-hour walk up the hill and back when it was time to herd the sheep. At least that job he got some time to himself, here there was no such thing as a moment of privacy. Not even in his own home, where the walls were as thin as paper, did he feel he could get a moment to himself. As he grew older and wanted to explore his changing body, the last thing he needed was to be heard or caught in the moment. He could only get away with such an action at night, so long as he kept his face buried in his pillow and his gasps and grunts at a minimum. Jack had some crushes in life but never acted on them. For some reason, he preferred to pretend he didn't exist around a girl he liked, and these feelings were always short-lived. He found himself struggling to recognize the difference between love and just regular hormones. It was a thin line at his age.

During his work, Jack thought about how exhilarated and alive he'd felt in his dream. Now he was as inert as the deadwood on the slushy ground. People bumped and trotted past each other, speaking to each other but not saying a word to him—he was invisible, though he sometimes liked it that way. Only sometimes. He thought dryly to himself, Maybe one of the logs will fall on me and then I won't have to go to the stupid ball. Despite his mother's pleading, he only planned to sink into the walls and stare at the clock until the night was over. There wasn't anyone in particular he was looking forward to seeing, and he knew that the others felt the same way about him.

The only time anyone did bother to speak to the teenager was whenever someone wanted to vent their frustrations or give him a typical, "When I was your age..." lesson. Jack either only nodded or gave one-word, succinct answers as he tried to do what he could to leave the one-sided conversation. He only liked to listen to the elders when they had stories to tell about their travels outside of the kingdom, stories about different cultures and exotic-looking buildings and places, the strange foods they tried. If his family had the money, Jack would beg to cross the sea to Denmark or The Netherlands, or even go just a few damn miles outside of his hometown. Then he could have interesting conversations with people who found him interesting and not 'off his rocker.'

Two hours in and Jack was already needing to sit to give his arms a break. There was a cat that liked to hang around the mill and hope one of them dropped their food for it, but it was usually shooed off. Jack didn't care for cats, but he had no reason to dislike this one since it didn't pester him. He tried sometimes to call it over and perhaps pet it, but it was too used to avoiding humans for that. He didn't blame it for running off anyway; why it stuck around here he'd never know. Jack sometimes wondered if it had a litter of kittens somewhere and that's why it was so desperate for food. When he began to ponder that, he started sneaking some extra meat from the night before and leaving it at the edge of the grove for it to find. He was always told never to be wasteful, after all.