The short winter days sped by, and Yule was nearly upon them. A chance remark she made one morning led to a three-day effort to celebrate the holiday properly. Polina raided the pantry to make cookies, cakes, and sweets for their celebration, while Bill spent an entire furious afternoon trying to convince the house to produce the ingredients for a strange drink he called “eggnog”.
During those days Polina thought she sensed a darkening of Bill's mood. He was as sweet and loving to her as he had ever been, but his expression grew somber, even sad at times, as the holiday approached. She asked him several times if anything was wrong, but he simply smiled, or kissed her, or changed the subject.
The day came, and it was as splendid a success as could have been wished. After a last-minute spate of cleaning, they began the afternoon by sampling the treats that Polina had made, and by drinking large mugs of Bill's eggnog and hot cider. Supper was a mighty meal of ham, potatoes with gravy, peas with onions and peppers, and biscuits, all washed down with goblets of wine or bottles of beer, which Bill had managed to wheedle out of the cold-cellar.
Afterward, they retired to the sitting room, armed with plates of cake and cookies to nibble on before bed, which Polina was looking forward to very much indeed.
Bill smiled at her. “This has been a lovely day, sweetheart. Thank you.”
She smiled back at him, wondering again at how dear his face had become to her in just a few months. “It was my pleasure, darling. Tell me,” she continued. “What would this day be like back at your home? In Minnesota?”
Bill smiled in fond remembrance. “Well, I would probably spend the day with my parents. My sister and her husband would drive in from Rapid City, and our day would be a lot like it is here. We would eat and drink and talk and just enjoy each others' company. And in the evening, before we all went to bed, we would sing.” His look turned wistful. “You don't happen to play an instrument, do you?”
“Of course I do!” she exclaimed. “What proper woman does not know how to provide entertainment at a gathering?” She stood and marched out of the room. In a few minutes she returned, carrying a wooden instrument with three strings and a triangular body.
“It is a balalaika,” she said in response to Bill's inquiring look. “Now. You sing. And when I have the tune I will join you.”
Bill began tentatively. He had never been a strong singer and was only able to carry a tune, his sister had once said, if he had a basket. But he had always loved Christmas carols. He started slowly with the songs he remembered best. Some were religious, others not.
Silent Night. Holy Night.
Memories came back to him. Decorating the tree with his family. Sledding down the hill behind the bank with Frank and Edgar and Mary.
Good King Wenceslas looked out, on the Feast of Steven.
How the Grinch Stole Christmas. A Charlie Brown Christmas. A Christmas Story.
There's a white Christmas in my home town; there the streets are snowy shining bright.
Grandma and Grandpa Schuler. Aunt Esther. Nancy, his little sister, and her husband Jim, her high-school sweetheart.
His throat choked with pain.
Santa, make her my bride for Christmas. Santa, it wouldn't cost very much.
Bill's voice broke and he gave a strangled sob. He looked at Polina, such despair in his face that she rocked back in her chair, the balalaika falling from numb fingers. He opened his mouth helplessly, then turned and ran out of the room.
~~~~~
She found him in the library, the tracks of his tears on his face, staring hopelessly into the depths of the fire. She sat beside him and took his hand. When he spoke, his voice was a sad murmur.
“My father used to sing that to my mother every year. It made her horribly embarrassed, but he didn't care. They had married on Christmas Day, you see? And every Christmas he would ask everyone to be quiet and he would sing that song. And by the end of the first verse, she was singing the woman's part to him. And they finished as a duet
“I can't even describe their faces when they sang to each other. It was like they were the only two people in the world. It made you feel like you were an intruder to see a love so pure.
“I miss them so terribly, Polina. I thought I had made my peace with this. I would wake up and I might think of my friends, my sister, my family. And then I would remind myself that if it weren't for you, I would be dead. And I would count my blessings. You, as my lover. This house. Shelter. Safety. Love.
“But it isn't enough. It isn't enough.”
Polina listened to him, her heart breaking. When she spoke, it felt like she was forcing jagged glass out of her throat.
“You must leave.”
He looked up, eyes blazing. “I must not. Don't you think I have thought of it, these last few days? What would happen to you if I left? How long before you began to age again, before the last crumbs of faith in this terrible land were snuffed out, and you ceased to exist? I love you, Polina Snegurochka. I will not abandon you.”
“And what will happen to you, if I keep you here, foolish boy?” she cried. “Do you not think that this happened before? I have seen it too many times to count.
“Usually it is the small ones, the children. They were left at the stone when there were too many mouths to feed, and I took them in. But they wilted and died like flowers cut off from the sun. I will not have you share the same fate.”
“And what makes you think that the same thing won't happen if I leave?” he shouted, driven wild with despair. “That I could live without you? I love you, dammit! How could I live with myself knowing that I had left you to a slow death? Do you think my faith in you could sustain you from half a world away? And what would happen if I changed my mind, and came back to the stone? I wouldn't be a sacrifice then.
He stood and glared furiously into the fire. “I couldn't come back. That would kill me dead on the spot.”
“You can't stay with me. You can't leave without me. And I can't leave at all.” Polina's voice was leaden and tears ran silently down her face.
“You can't leave at all,” breathed Bill. He shook himself and smiled tiredly at his lover. “Well, we've identified the problem, at least. Now we have to work at solving it.” He bent and took her hands in his. “Come to bed with me?”
Even now, after the storm of emotion, her blood heated at his touch, and she felt her pulse quicken in her thighs. “Yes,” she snarled, hating the trap they found themselves in, and pledging herself to defeating it.
In the bedroom he sensed her need, and one who was ordinarily the most gentle of lovers turned violent, his anger matching hers. As soon as they entered the room he swept the door closed with a harsh bang, then bore her down onto the bed, hands hard upon her as he tore the dress from her body.
“Wicked tramp,” he breathed in her ear, his hot breath sending delicious shivers through her. “You're not wearing any underwear. Again. I'll bet you were just waiting for me to stick my cock into you. Weren't you?”
“Oh, by the High One, yes,” she sighed, writhing under his touch. “I'm a horny little strumpet and I need your cock. I need it so bad. Please take me. Take me hard!”
One hand pressing into the small of her back, he undid the flies of his trousers with the other. Damn this place. Why couldn't it figure out zippers? He shoved them down to his knees, briefly considered pulling off his boots, then shook his head. To hell with it.
Polina's ass was arched off the bed, a lovely curve that begged for his touch, the lips of her sex peeking coyly up at him. With a stinging slap, he struck one pale cheek.
“Down on the bed, girl. I'll take you when I am ready, not before.”
God, he was hard. He moved up between her thighs and kicked his boots off. He ran his cock tauntingly up the cleft of her buttocks, smearing her with his juice, laughing mockingly as she clenched her muscles, trying to trap him. He grabbed her shoulders, forcing her head down and to the side, and kissed her harshly,
his teeth nipping at her lips, enjoying her moans of longing.
He was distracted by a rocking motion beneath him, and glanced down to see her legs spread lewdly open, her hips urgently pushing her groin into the bed. One of her hands had snuck down between her legs while he wasn't watching, and he could see the muscles in her arm jerking as she frantically fingered herself.
“Oh, no you don't.” Ignoring her pleas, he pulled her hand away from her slick center and rolled her over onto her back. She glared at him through the curtain of her hair as her thighs sagged open, cold blue lips unfurling for him. Moving to her side, he took both of her wrists in one hand and pinned them over her head and with the other grazed the length of her cleft, coating his finger with her moistness.
Her hips bucked with an almost audible snap, surging upward to meet his hand, desperate for attention in the place she needed it most. Gentle now, he teased her, now approaching, now backing away from her sensitive nub. Her breasts thrust high into the air as well, firm and proud, round globes that demanded his attention. His head dropped down to suckle them, teeth scraping the tender nipples.
“Oh, Bill. Oh, my love. I need it. I need your beautiful thick cock inside me. Please, fuck me. Fuck me with your hot body.”
Her need drove him over the edge. With his trousers still limply hanging around his ankles, he nudged her thighs apart with his knees. He paused for a splintered instant to coat the head of his cock in her slippery fluid, then shoved inside her with one long thrust.
Polina's mouth opened in a breathless scream as he pumped into her, hard and urgent. He let go of her wrists at last, and she clawed his shoulders with her nails, almost deep enough to draw blood, as her legs rose and locked over his, trapping him within her fierce embrace. He cupped her face in his hands and kissed her, mouth, eyes, cheeks, mouth again, trying to crawl within her, to make him one with her.
He felt his climax approach. His seed surged up the length of his cock, his testes drawn up in their sac. With one final stroke, he erupted inside her, spending his essence within her willing sheath as her body shook with her own orgasm beneath him.
~~~~~
They lay together, his warm body against her cold one. His eyes were closed, but she sensed he was not asleep.
I'm going to lose him, she thought bleakly. Whether by the slow decay of time as his spirit crumbles, or by a last parting at the stone. It makes no difference. I will lose him.
But not tonight. The grim notion was oddly comforting. Tonight he is mine.
With that thought uppermost in her mind, she drifted off to sleep.
~~~~~
Bill lay motionless. He did not stir until he felt Polina finally relax into sleep.
“I can't leave at all.”
Her sad voice echoed in his thoughts, and with it, the wild hope that arisen when she said those words earlier, hope that he had ruthlessly beaten down before it could show in his face.
Why can't she leave?
Because of the belief that created her. He was almost sure of it. She had lived with that belief for so long that it was a shackle around her soul, locking her into a cage.
But the blade of belief could cut two ways.
How can I test it?
He gently untangled himself from his lover, and pulled on a robe. Sitting in a chair, he started to think.
~~~~~
Polina woke late, groggy and muzzy-headed from a night too full of food, drink, shouting, and sex. She grunted a greeting to Bill, sitting hollow-eyed in a chair near the bed. Unconcerned with the cold, she made her way naked to the bathroom, barely catching a glimpse of herself in the bedroom mirror.
Poor dear. He looks like he hasn't slept all night.
As she urinated, a niggling thought crossed her mind. There had been something...off... about her reflection. What was it?
Her head snapped upright, and ten seconds later she was in her bedroom, looking in the mirror, horrified.
Rather than the long, straight river of gold which had been hers since the moment she had first come into existence, her hair was fire-red, tumbling about her head in a mass of riotous curls. She looked wildly from the mirror to Bill, her hands shaking as she clawed at her head frantically.
Suddenly, she knew.
“You!” she shouted, hurling herself across the room to catch him by the collar of his robe and shake him furiously. “What have you done? What did you do to me? Make it stop!” she wailed, shaken to the core by the sudden change in her appearance.
“Gladly,” Bill groaned, and sagged as the tense muscles of his face and back relaxed. Instantly, her hair changed back, the crimson hue running out like water from a pitcher, curls disappearing into the field of fallow gold. Polina grabbed a handful and examined it suspiciously, making sure no trace of red sullied her tresses.
Once satisfied, she crossed her arms across her chest and glared at him, but her expression was defeated by his triumphant grin.
“Well?” she asked, the corners of her mouth twitching. “What do you have to say for yourself, young one? What foolishness is this? And how the hell did you do it?”
With a shout of joy he caught her up by the waist and spun in place, laughing as her feet kicked his shins. He put her down and kissed her thoroughly, emerging flushed and gasping.
“I've saved us,” he said.
“What?”
“I've saved us. We can leave this place. Together.”
“Don't be stupid. I can't leave.”
“Why not?” he asked reasonably.
She opened her mouth to answer him, then stopped. Because I've always been here, she had been about to say. The Snow Maid lives in the World Below. That is what the legends told. That is what others believed.
But if the one who was the prime source of her belief chose to believe otherwise...
She gasped, and he nodded, following her thought.
“If I believe that the Snow Maid can leave the World Below and journey and live in the World Above, she can. You can. If you wish.”
Her eyes welled with tears. “And the hair?”
“A test,” he shrugged. “I needed to be sure. And I had to change a part of you that was so fundamental that there could be no doubt that I could make other changes as well. The hair seemed to be the best thing to try.
“God, it was hard,” he said. “I couldn't relax for an instant. As soon as I did it went blond again. I tried other colors, too,” he said, eyes twinkling. “You looked very nice with black hair. Kind of like Morticia Addams.”
Polina's eyes narrowed. She fisted her hands in his hair and used the grip to firmly thump the back of his head against the wall.“I don't give a tinker's damn how cute you thought I was, or who More-tisha Addams is. If you touch my hair with your mind again, I will feed you to the crows.”
Bill nodded. “And the rest?” he asked gently.
She raised her head to the heavens and gave a scream of primal triumph.
“Yes! Yes, I will leave this place. Yes, I will come with you. Yes, I will share my life with yours.”
He dropped to a knee and took her hand in his.
“Snow Maid. Polina of the Frosts. Will you be my wife? Will you marry me?”
She cupped his face in her hands.
“Yes.”
~~~~~
They stood by the stone, each shaking; Bill in memory, Polina in fear.
They had spent weeks planning and re-planning their journey. Their intent was to walk to Belushya Guba, the only settlement of any size on this forsaken spit of land. From there, they would barter for a boat to take them to the mainland. Polina had brought precious metals and jewelry, the treasure of centuries of sacrifices, for that very purpose. Once in Russia proper, they would buy, beg, borrow, or steal any transportation necessary to get them to Archangel'sk or St. Petersburg. Bill was confident that once his name and story was known to the western media, the American government would fall all over itself arranging fo
r transportation back to the States.
In the meantime, however...
He sighed and hoisted his pack higher on his shoulders. Polina bore one nearly as large. At their feet was a sledge, the wooden runners polished, piled high with supplies for the trek. They were each dressed as warmly as they were able, for the feeble summer that this place enjoyed was still weeks away. But for today at least, the April sun was bright on the snow, and he and Polina stepped into the harnesses which they had painstakingly crafted.
“What I wouldn't give for a good set of sled dogs,” he grunted, as he buckled the straps. Polina slanted a nervous smile at him as she did the same on her side.
“Do you really think that your people will accept me?”
“My mother has been pestering me to give her a grandchild for the last three years. She will be so happy that I am alive that I could marry a seal and she wouldn't say a thing,” he said as she laughed.
“I have had a thought, my husband,” she said, voice low and loving.
“Which is?”
“That we have made ourselves effectively immortal, as long as our love holds true. With your faith to sustain me, and my power to keep you young, who knows now much longer we will live.”
Bill laughed. “Now that would be the gods' own joke. That a man who intended suicide ended up living forever.
“But immortality would be cold comfort indeed, if I did not have you by my side.
“Now pull!”
Epilogue
“...So you see that tonight we will be seeing some pretty heavy snow coming in from the northwest. The NWS is calling for four to six inches, but I talked to the Snow Maid before I came to the studio, and she says we will be getting about seven inches here in the city, and almost eight in areas east of town.
“Tomorrow the clouds will break up, though we still might see some flurries until about noon. After that, it is going to get cold, with a high on Saturday of eleven degrees, and a low Saturday night of four below.
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