Closing her eyes, she opened herself to the world of the spirit. She saw her power as a deep lake, dark blue in the middle, shading to turquoise at the shallows. For years the levels had sunk, as the meager trickles of belief were insufficient to fight the tide of her age.
Now, a rushing torrent poured in. Bill's belief, his faith in her existence, made true by simply sitting and talking to her, fed her power like snowmelt feeds a river. Other streams fed the lake as well, and from nearby. Had one or two of Bill's friends known about the legend of the Snow Maid, and had chosen to believe it when their lives were so improbably saved?
It is happening. I will get it all back. Youth. Beauty. Power. He thinks he owes me a debt. When I am recovered, I will owe him a debt beyond paying.
And I will spend my life to prove it to him.
Smiling in anticipation, she dressed in the blue gown and headed for the kitchen. She found Bill already there. He had found some bread and cut it into slices, but was staring around the kitchen with a confused expression on his face.
“Good morning,” she said cheerfully. “Did you sleep well?”
He nodded. “Yes, I did. I was going to make some breakfast,” he continued, “but it looks like my people have resources that you don't. I don't know if I am going to be able to cook using what you have here.”
“Why should you cook?” she asked. “I am the woman. I will cook for you.”
His look turned stubborn. “I have cooked for myself for the last five years, and I am pretty darned good at it, if I say so myself. And I am not used to someone doing for me what I can do for myself. You are not my mother or my wife, so why should I expect you to cook for me?”
Polina smiled, mollified. “Well, you don't know how to do it here anyway, so what if I teach you?”
Together they managed to make a breakfast that was more than edible. Once taught, Bill was able to toast bread on a fork over the coals in the wood-burning stove. Polina made porridge, which they ate drizzled with honey and butter, with cool milk to drink.
Bill pushed his bowl away and sighed. “Hot food is a wonderful thing.” His eyes twinkled mischievously as he looked at Polina. “I have to wonder, though. Why does a being created by the belief of others need to eat? Can't you survive on faith alone?”
Polina smiled. At last, one with a brain! “Ah, but you forget something, young one. Creatures such as we are created and defined by faith. So if those who believe in us picture us as beings who need to eat to survive, then we do.” She sighed. “Faith is pleasing, no doubt. You will never know, Bill, the ecstasy that comes when one of our believers gives themselves over to us completely. It is beyond your imagination. But eating is pleasurable as well, and I enjoy it.
“Now, it is time I put you to work.”
Bill sighed and squared his shoulders. “What first, my lady?”
~~~~~
Ten hours later, Bill was limp, beaten and exhausted. He had never thought about how much damn work went into running even the smallest household in days prior to electricity and powered appliances.
First he had hauled in water to wash the dishes from breakfast. That itself had come as a shock, because when he went outside to the well for the first time with Polina, he was stunned to see that the exterior of the house was that of a ramshackle shack with gray, weathered boards with gaps large enough to stick his arm through.
He turned to her and she smiled at him.
“Belief?” he asked with a wry grin.
“Indeed,” she said, with a matching smile of her own. “They believe that Grandmother Snegurochka lives in a tiny little hut, which at the same time is a large, comfortable house with many rooms. I am impressed, actually,” she said. “Many men have fainted dead away the first time they have seen the outside. They can't seem to reconcile the paradox.”
Bill thought of the TV shows he had used to watch. “Some of the...storytellers among my own people have told tales of a similar sort. A house which is bigger on the inside isn't such a terrible thing.”
After he hauled water for the dishes, he had to do the same for the bathing room, filling a cistern that would be used to draw water for baths. The cistern, he understood, was usually filled by rain and snow-melt from the roof, but the seasons in the World Below matched those in the World Above, so there would not be rain for months, and it was far too cold for snowmelt.
And then it was time for cleaning. Bill, his arms shaking from hauling water, had thought that would be easier. Unfortunately, he was wrong. He and Polina had hauled out every rug in the house, strung them over lines, and proceeded to beat the dust out of them with long sticks until his back ached. After that, they had swept down the floors, whether they be tiles, polished hardwood, or the cold stone flags of the kitchen. Then they had mopped the same. Then came the dusting of the wooden furniture, and then waxing it with sweet-smelling beeswax.
Bill shifted in his comfortable chair and sighed. They had eaten again for the evening meal, and now they were sitting in front of the fire. Polina was knitting something. Some sort of long gray garment, Bill thought. He hoped she found something more colorful to work on soon. She should not be dressed in drab colors.
She smiled as he caught her eye. It might be the light from the fire and the candles, he thought, but she looked younger than she had the previous night. The wrinkles in her cheek were much less deep, and the skin of her throat was tighter.
Maybe she is just less tired, he thought. I don't know what she did to pull me out of that blizzard, but it couldn't have been easy. He shifted restlessly again.
“Fidgety tonight, young one?”
Bill shrugged. “Yes, I am. I'm not used to sitting around, doing nothing.”
I'll find something for you to do, soon enough, Polina thought wickedly. “What do you usually do of an evening?” she asked.
“Go out with friends, watch a ballgame on television, read...”
“Well, I don't have a ‘television’ here, whatever that is,” she said. “And your friends are beyond your reach. But if you want to read a book, get one out of our library.”
“Library? I didn't see one when we cleaned.”
“We didn't have one then. We do now.”
“We do now?” his voice rose disbelievingly, then he sighed. “Right. Power. The same way you healed me.”
“Exactly,” Polina said approvingly. “I can make changes to the World Above, but it takes effort. The World Below is mine, and I can arrange it as I see fit. Within reason.”
“So if, for example, I would like to have copies of all the books in my personal collection here in this library...”
“Done,” she said.
Bill nodded slowly. “If you will excuse me for a second,” he said shakily, then left the room.
A few moments later, a scream came floating down the hallway. Polina cocked her eyebrow as she followed him with her mind, smiling as Bill walked into a room he would have sworn had not existed five minutes before.
“He's adjusting very well,” she said to no one in particular, and bit off a stitch in her work.
~~~~~
Five days later, Bill could no longer ignore the obvious.
Polina was growing younger every day. When he first met her, he would have guessed her age to be over eighty years, maybe more. Now, on the sixth day since he had been rescued, she looked no older than his mother. Perhaps even a year or two younger. Her gray hair was showing streaks of pale blond, and her snow-white skin was firm and tight, no longer sagging loosely at her eyes or throat.
He had dared the subject the previous evening at supper. She had laughed as he spoke, tongue-tied and stuttering, trying to ask the question without giving offense.
“Of course I'm growing younger, silly child. With your faith to sustain me, how can it be otherwise?” At his shell-shocked look, she had explained.
“Until I met and rescued you, it was the faith and belief of others which gave me existence, poor
and weak though it was at the time. But now I have you, wonderful man.” She brushed his cheek with her cold fingers. “You may not believe in Mother Snegurochka, or the Snow Maid herself, who dances in the winter wind and wears clothes made out of snow and jewels of ice. But you do believe in Polina, because you see and talk and eat with her every day.
“And that is a far more mighty thing that what I have had for these many years. The last sacrifice was an old man, who had heard the tales and who had lain down at the stone when my land was invaded by those who bore the hooked cross.” She made a spitting noise at odds with her matronly appearance. “He passed the dark gate only a few years after he had come to the World Below.
“And then for many years I dwindled. I do not know how much longer I would have been able to carry on. But then you came, beautiful man.” One finger softly stroked his cheek, and Bill forced himself to not lean into the frigid caress.
“I now have power to spare. And it is reversing the aging process. Grandmother is gone. In a few more days, Mother will also be no more, not for a long count of years. In her place the Snow Maid, Polina of the Frosts, will sit where I do.”
“Do you lose who you were?” Bill asked. Polina cocked her head in puzzlement. He tried to explain. “Does another personality come when your body changes?”
Polina's eyes widened. “You are really most amazingly perceptive for one so young. No one has ever asked me that. To answer your question, the answer is no. Or at least, not really.
“The Snow Maid is Mother Snegurochka. And Grandmother as well. She will know what I know. She does not forget anything. But she has...facets...of her personality that are more pronounced, the younger she gets. For example, Grandmother was a cranky old lady, though she was fond of you.
“Mother...” she trailed off. “How odd to speak of myself as if I were a person who is going away. Mother is a mid-point. She is less cross than Grandmother, and she shares some of the same...appetite for life...as the Snow Maid. But she is more restrained. Think of her as a well-to-do lady who only unveils herself to her most trusted friends.
“The Snow Maid?” she smiled. “You will learn about her soon enough.” She stood and held out her hand. “Sit with me for a time?”
~~~~~
The time they sat together was the most enjoyable part of the day, Bill thought the next night. Polina sewed or carded wool, or occasionally carved tiny wooden figurines with a wickedly sharp knife. While she did that, he read or talked to her, the flames of the fire merrily melding with the candles, bathing the room in a warm glow. The work they had done on the rugs and the furniture had paid immediate dividends, as years of accumulated dust had been removed. The deep colors of the rugs contrasted beautifully with the rich, dark depth of the maple and oak furnishings.
Polina glowed as well. Rather than the sack-like dresses she had worn when they first met (perhaps, Bill had thought in a moment of snide bad temper, because her body was shaped like a sack as well) her clothing had grown more and more lovely as she had grown younger. This evening she wore a gown in various shades of red, from the palest pink at her shoulders to blood red at the hem. It was belted with a white sash at the waist, and the hems of the sleeves were the deep green of pine trees in deepest winter. The wolf-skin slippers were gone, and in their place were delicate shoes trimmed with the whitest of rabbit fur, which left a length of attractive calf open to his view.
He swallowed and turned away. As his body recovered, so had his sex drive, and he had woken up the previous morning hard and aching. His last relationship had ended several months before their ill-fated expedition, and his body was reminding him that it wanted a woman.
Badly.
He had relieved himself when he took his morning bath, but Polina's slender calves and firming bust were having an effect that he couldn't ignore. She was now a strikingly attractive middle-aged woman, and his thoughts wandered whenever he shared a room with her.
Don't even think about it, Carter. The woman created an entire library out of thin air and stocked it with every book you have ever read. Or wanted to read. She could cut you into giblets if she wanted to.
He turned a page in his book, and chuckled. Dave Barry had never failed to cheer him up.
“What are you laughing at?” Polina asked. Her voice had changed as well as the days went by, becoming higher and clearer, the rasp of the Grandmother left behind.
“A humorist. A man who tells funny stories. His name is Dave Barry, and he points out how ridiculous people are.”
“In what way?” Polina asked, interested.
Bill quickly leafed through the book. Much of the humor was topical, and involved concepts that Polina would not understand, unfamiliar as she was to modern technology. He grinned as he found one of his favorites and read it to her.
The story of the beach crew who had decided to blow up a dead whale with dynamite had her smiling in a few minutes. By the time he came to the end, she had slid off her chair and was rolling around on the ground, clutching her stomach with laughter.
Encouraged, he started to tell her the silly, terrible jokes which he loved.
“What's blue and smells like red paint?”
“What?” she asked, eyes sparkling.
“Blue paint,” he replied, and was rewarded with more laughter.
“What's green and has wheels?”
“What?”
“Grass,” he said. “I lied about the wheels.”
Polina laughed harder, tears rolling down her cheeks.
“What did the farmer say when he lost his plow?”
“What?”
“Where's my plow?”
“Stop it stop it stop it!” she gasped, still giggling, barely able to get the words out. She slowly got control of herself. She stood up, Bill helping her. Then he stood back, looking at her with astonishment.
She was visibly growing younger before his very eyes. As he watched, the last remnants of crow's feet vanished from her eyes and the corners of her mouth. Faint age spots disappeared from her throat. Pale gold hair flowed like a molten river down her back, without even the slightest trace of gray. Her stomach shrank, the last remnants of her belly disappearing as her waist drew inwards over the curved swell of her hips. Her bosom tightened, breasts rising round, high and firm from her chest, with not the faintest hint of a sag. Even through the fabric of her dress, he could see the firm outlines of her nipples pressing into the cloth.
She was amazingly, radiantly, incandescently beautiful, as awe-inspiring and terrible as a blizzard on the plains.
She caught his shocked gaze. Her hand flew to her face and a sudden inward look came over her as she delved deep into the spirit world.
“Oh,” she said. “Oh my! Oh!” Her eyes grew wide and soft, the pupils dilating with desire. She ran her hands down her body, gently wondering, mouth curving in a smile as she felt the loose fit of her dress over her belly, took in the place where the fabric of her bodice strained to contain her newly restored breasts. Her thighs shifted, rubbing against each other, and she made a pleased sound low in her throat as warmth grew in her womanly core.
She looked up again, glorious eyes shifting hues even as he looked, from ice gray to wintry blue to pale green. He flinched back in fear from her hungry gaze and she took a step away from him, eyes closing as she fought for control.
“She's here. I'm not...Bill, I'm not ready. I didn't think she would come so soon.
“My friend, please forgive me. I must leave you tonight. I must...I will see you tomorrow.”
A trifle unsteadily, she walked out of the room.
~~~~~
She felt like howling her triumph to the heavens. She felt like weeping in despair.
She was the Snow Maid again. After decades of forced celibacy and crushing loneliness, she had it all back. Power. Youth. Beauty.
And it would all be dust in her mouth if she didn't have the love of the small, strong, impossibly courageous yo
ung man who had captured her heart with his silent bravery, in the face of challenges that would have driven most men mad.
She could take him, she knew. Overpower his mind with the strength of hers. Use his body to slake her lust and break him to her will.
She shuddered in revulsion. No. He had done every task she set him to with a willing heart. She would not betray him that way. He was fond of her, she knew. He had been courteously polite with Grandmother, and she thought that his relationship with Mother was deepening into real friendship.
If he hadn't made me laugh...
The joy she had taken in his silly, stupid jokes had torn through the barriers in the spirit world. The power that flowed from him to her had become a flood, raging through her, reversing decades of aging in an eyeblink.
Slowly, she took off her gown, taking sensual delight in the feel of the cold air on her skin. Her hands dipped low, stroking the flat planes of her stomach. She caught sight of her image in the mirror and frowned. Grabbing a small pair of scissors off her bedside table, she leaned against the headboard of her bed, spreading her legs and exposing herself to the mirror's view.
Working quickly, she quickly trimmed the golden nest of hair away from her pubis, leaving only a small patch, a grace note to accent the beauty of her vulva. She lay back on the down comforter, luxuriating in the candle-kissed glory of her body, supple skin like velvet over her flesh. So long, she thought. It has been so long. A finger traced the petals of her sex, and they opened like a flower, moist with dew. Her other hand cupped her breast, turgid nipple rising of its own accord.
It wouldn't take much. Just a nudge with your mind. He was thinking of you in the bath this morning while he took his pleasure. You felt it. He wouldn't even know. He would serve you willingly for the rest of his days.
No. I would know. And Bill could not love a person who would do that to him. And I could not live with myself.
Firmly she took her hands off her body, shaking with unfulfilled need. Slowly, how slowly, the tide of desire receded. Crawling into bed, she willed the lights off, and fell into a restless, hungry sleep.
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