The ice cutter’s daughter dreams that her world is melting. She knows the theory of thawing from common things: how candle wax weeps or sugar hisses in a skillet. But she’s not prepared for the severity of the sun.
She can’t hide her glee. After all, what young woman doesn’t secretly delight in the destruction of everything she knows?
In the dream, she’s carrying a brick of ice to her father’s sleigh when the groaning starts. The frozen lake cracks into lacework beneath her. Then the trees begin to sweat, puddles silvering over the walking path. In a blink, the ice in the sleigh vanishes.
Soon others come out of their houses, undoing buttons, zippers, and clasps. The shore becomes riddled with clothes as they slip into the lake. The daughter is certain: their bodies are more perfect than anything ever carved from ice.
* * *
The ice cutter’s daughter is convinced this place is real. A summerland where all things are melted and wild. Her father has heard tales of this kingdom, but it’s far off – a lifetime away.
When she refuses to cut ice any longer, her father weeps knowing she will leave for good. At least where I’m going, she says, your tears won’t freeze into pearls.
He doesn’t know what parting gift to offer her. Only one thing occurs to him: his name. Winter herself christened me, he tells her. Don’t forget it.
When the ice cutter’s daughter begins her journey across the cold continent, it’s her father’s name on her lips. She curses with it, prays with it. She says it so often that her tongue feels like a tuning fork, vibrating with its syllables.
She walks for a long time without footprints. Snow and wind are lovers in this country, erasing all evidence of her trek. She gets blisters, runs out of bread, loses her way. After a time, she only whispers her father’s name. She’s so focused on it that she doesn’t notice when she starts to sweat. Soon after, she unbuttons her coat.
The cold of her homeland has dissipated. At last, she’s arrived.
* * *
In this new country, there’s no such thing as ice. The summerfolk scoff at her former trade: ice cutter? She might as well say sunlight carver.
The daughter has yearned so long for this place that, somehow, her desire has gone stale. She wonders if dreams have an expiration date—if hers is now sour.
Little by little, she sheds her skin of winter. She remembers her dream. At the marketplace, she revels in the pinwheel parasols, the bare shoulders, the stink of sweat and salt. She peels her first tangerine, the juice sliding down the length of her vein.
The ice cutter’s daughter learns to love this sun-kissed land. Heat softens her bones, rearranges them, shapes them into another woman. She begins to take lovers, all species of sun-men. There’s still something within her made of ice, and she wants them to melt it. None of them succeed.
At times she misses the frost. She squints at the ocean, imagining it a quilt of ice. She realizes she hasn’t said her father’s name in a long time. She writes him a letter, but when the mailman asks for the address, for directions to her old world, she discovers she no longer knows the way.
* * *
The ice cutter’s daughter is desperate for some souvenir of her father. She goes to the local alchemist to recreate ice. She’s heard of his great collection of colored glass and hopes it’s a cousin to cold things.
It’s not, the alchemist says. He’s surrounded by a dozen silver bottles. She wonders what’s in them – rumor has it that his powers come from names. He fiddles with the labels. I don’t know the magic of ice, he says. Only silver and gold.
The daughter turns to leave, but the alchemist stops her. Wait, he says. He unhooks a small plate of clear glass. Free of charge. She looks through it. In a certain light, it could be ice. It’s just missing that luster, that ancient cold.
I could add bottled silver, he says. It would look more like your ice. He unstoppers it, waits for her word.
She snatches it from him. The price is steep, he warns.
Anything, she says. She pours his silver over the glass. The liquid slips over the surface, smooth as a drum. She tilts it in wonder. She’s not interested in her reflection – only the polished surface, the tiny lake in her palm.
The ice cutter’s daughter studies the mirror, imagining her father’s sleigh running across it.
The price? she says.
Paid in full.
She’s distracted by the mirror, doesn’t yet understand how she’s purchased it. In truth, she’s keen to shatter it. To see the puzzle of ice as it once looked in her dream.
At that moment, she discovers she can’t remember her father’s name. She feels it close, just beyond her grasp, stolen from her tongue. The alchemist’s price, she curses. She turns to him, but he’s already vanished with her father’s name in one of his bottles.
* * *
The ice cutter’s daughter knows now that the world is a mirror. She keeps the looking glass, even though it reminds her of the alchemist’s theft. Sometimes she lets summerfolk see their reflections for a penny a piece. She never gazes at her own.
Instead, she traces her finger over the looking glass. Its smooth sheen takes her there, to the frozen lake. She pictures herself crouched over the snow-crusted surface, waiting for her father to come down the path. It won’t be long now, she thinks. She scrubs her mitten against the ice, making a window. She squints into the guts of the lake. There, below all things, she almost remembers her father’s name.
For a moment, the looking glass turns cold to the touch.
* * *
Ⓒ Nadia Born
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