Anastasia Winterflame grew up on an island of books. A small spit of land twenty miles away from Estonian mainland. With her grandmother's never-ending stories and any book, there was nothing more that she could wish for. That was, except for fairy tales. It was nothing Anya noticed until her thirteenth year when other girls in her class spoke about costuming themselves as a called "Sleeping Beauty". Anya had asked them who she was. The girls laughed and teased her until she went home to her grandmother and demanded to know the importance of this passed out princess.
Her grandmother laughed when she asked. "My dear, there are many well-known tales that people of this age know, but I teach you the good ones. The important ones. Fairy tales are not as impossible as they seem, because those that have the courage to search for one, will certainly find it." Grandmother had told her soothingly as she picked up her teacup and took yet another sip. With a content sigh, she smiled at the towering stacks and piles of book that she had surrounded herself with.
"That still doesn't answer my question, Granma." Anya pouted as she picked up another book and searched for the title. "What happens next time when they talk about something else I don't know?" She for frowned as she slapped the paperback book back onto its pile.
Grandmother chuckled at the young girl. "Then tell them one of my special stories; One of those that you really like."
And that's what Anya did.
The next week the girls asked her if she knew who another woman called "Snow White" was. Anya thought that was a downright stupid name, but instead, she asked them a question back.
Instead of feeling angry as she had the day before, Anya smiled. "Do you know the story of the Great Eiraneidr?" Anya asked them.
"What is that? Your invisible pet?" One snickered.
"No, it is a great white dragon that lives in the Snow Mountains. Once when the winters were whiter, and the forests darker..." Anya began as her grandmother had always done. "There lived a kingdom on the edge if the mountains and once a moon, the Great Eiraneidr would come down from the mountain and snatch up maidens to eat for his dinners. One moonlight, the King's daughter had disguised herself as a serving grip to meet the blacksmith, for they were to run away together that night. It was that very moment that the Princess kissed her lover, that the terrible Eiraneidr took her from her lover's arms and carried the screaming maiden up the side of the Snow Mountain into its lair." Anya smiled at the spellbound slack-jawed faces of the girls and close eavesdroppers and continued with even more dramatized details.
"Uncertain of what to do, the blacksmith called the guard forth and told them what had happened to the princess. When guards had been sent out and the king wakened; he proclaimed that any man who could return the Princess to him safe and sound, would not only have her hand but half his kingdom. Of course, the blacksmith set off at once ahead of the other suitors of the princess and was able to fashion special tools with the help of his magical hammer, a gift from a father he never knew. And so up the side of the windy and frozen side of the mountain until he could see the fire of the Eiraneidr's lair. The blacksmith waited outside the Eiraneidr's cave and wished for his magical hammer to become a sword so magnificent and strong that it would pierce the dragonhide. And when the blacksmith opened his eyes there where his hammer once had been was a glorious blaming sword that was fashioned from the winking night stars. Armed with his beautiful sword, the blacksmith finally entered the cave and tried to decide whether to trick the Eiraneidr or to kill him before he had a chance to lite his fire. As the blacksmith drew closer, blade raised the princess gasped at the appearance of her lover. The princess's gasp woke the Eiraneidr and he rose up with all his fury to descend upon the new intruder as–"
"Anya! What's going on?" Mrs. Blanche stormed up to her as the girls and listeners close by all scurried away to their classes. "What were you telling them? You're late for class."
Anya merely shrugged at Mrs. Blanche's thin horsy face. "Just the Tale of the Great Eiraneidr." she explained, figuring at least the teacher had enough sense to the epic tales that grandmother had taught her.
"'The Great' what? Anya enough of your nonsense it's time for class. Don't let me catch you doing this again." Mrs. Blanche herded her new unruly student back inside the school halls.
When school had ended that day, Ingrid was almost outside on her way to the library, as her usual after-school day went, when the girls and three others stopped her.
"Anya, tell us what happened. Did the dragon eat the blacksmith and the Princess? Did he save her and get married?" The girls had asked her with an urgent need.
"Walk with me then," Anya said as she descended the school's front steps with a broad devilish grin on her child's lips. And so Anya told them the end of the tale and was forever known as Eiraneidr; the Fairytale Girl.
As Anya shouldered open the door she heaved the last box of books onto the deck of the large boat. It was the first month of her nineteenth year and the second year of her college career as a writer, or so she had planned. The box was full of her essential books: Shakespeare, Jane Austen, Has Christian Anderson, the Harry Potter series she had always so dearly loved, Emily Bronte, The Lord of the Rings collection along with a well-thumbed paperback copy of the Hobbit, and a collection of selected new love story novels that she had been favoring lately.
"Anya, do you have everything?" Her grandmother called to her as she descended the steps with a slight frown across her weathered face. Grandmother Winterflame was a rather youthful woman for one in her mid-sixties, with not a single gray hair to show again the short dark brown hair, though her face's deep lines said it well in select places.
"I told you Granma, I'll be fine," Anya said as she shoved the box further across the boat deck, towards the middle to steady out the boat without actually getting on it again.
"Oh, I know." Her grandmother paused to look at her young granddaughter's stretched form as she strained to satisfy her box's placement. "But, I'm worried, Ingrid. You're new nineteen and your witchstone had still not awakened." Grandmother Winterflame sighed as Ingrid extracted herself from the boat's railing to return to her grandmother's side.
"How do we know it even works, Granma? You haven't been able to use yours since I turned ten." Anya frowned as she touched the large dead-looking amber gemstone that had hung around her name since she had become a woman. "What if I don't have powers at all? Like Dad."
"Edgar had powers, Anya. He chose not to use them." Her grandmother sighed as she wove her fingers together in thought as she always did.
"Did Granpa have powers too?" Anya asked as the two women walked back into the house.
"No, your Granpa didn't. But I did, and he said he loved that about me." Grandmother sighed with a sad smile as she stepped into the mudroom of the very large, but very crowded, a house she called home.
As they sat down quietly to drink in the last rays of sunlight, there was a distant rumble in the skies. Anya and her grandmother exchanged a look. A storm would be upon them by night so Ingrid put down her large warm mug of tea down and sighed. "I'll go cover the boat, be right back Granma."
Her grandmother merely sat as she looked upward toward the ceiling, her head cocked to the side as if listening for something. "Anya..." She whispered.
"Granma? Is something wrong?" Anya said as she let the door close and began to walk back toward her grandmother.
"I don't know, I felt–"
Grandmother Winterflame did not have time to finish as a furious shaking overtook the entire house. Both women cried out in surprise as books tumbled from the shelves and down upon them. Anya dove for her grandmother, covering the woman's frail body with her own stronger one, as the house continued to tremble and shake.
"What is this?" Anya cried over the thunderous sound of books falling and pages flapping, the sounds of the house feeling and moaning in a collection with the roaring crashes of waves outside the house.
Grandmother Winterflame screamed something back but Anya didn't know what she had said. She gripped her grandmother harder to her, praying that they would be alright and whatever this was would stop, soon.
As soon as she had finished the thought the entire house stopped and was stiller than a windless night. Grandmother Winterflame gasped under her as Anya realized a strange bright glow flickered like a flame from between the two women. She pulled away from her grandmother and a burst of bright light filled the room, a strange force filled her veins with a glorious energy, making her gasp in pleasure and surprise. Wind rippled through the small wrecked room emanating from the gem around Anya's neck.
"Anya!" Her grandmother cried with delight as she reached out to her and took her hands. "Anya! You've done it! You were strong enough!" She laughed as she took the young woman's face between her bony hands.
"Granma, what did I do?" She whispered with breathless caution.
"You have awakened the witchstone!" She continued to laugh. "I can go back! I'll see him again, and we can save Älvarand!"
Anya took hold of her grandmother's hand and pulled them from her face sternly. "What are you talking about?" Anya asked with raising frustration and fear.
"Älvarand, my child. I'm going to take you back to Älvarand." She said as she turned around the room quickly. Anya watched her grandmother gather warm coats and climb upstairs to gather boots and shove snacks in her pockets in slack-jawed amazement.
"Älvarand? The fairyland in all those stories? It doesn't exist, Granma." Anya insisted as she took the coats from her grandmother's arms and followed her out to the boat. Strangely it was untouched by the raging quake they had both endured inside. The faithful little motorboat bobbing gently in the water without a care in the world.
"It's real, Anya. All those stories I taught you. They're all real. I told you that when you were a child, and I have told you still that they are real, but clearly you haven't been listening lately." Grandmother Winterflame explained as she pulled her granddaughter onto the boat and started it up. "We need to go. There is no time to waste."
"But Granma, why? Why does Älvarand need saving? And why haven't we gone before?" she called to her grandmother over the roaring if the boat's motor engine.
Grandmother Winterflame smiled at her as she drove the boat onwards through the bitter cold of the Scandinavian north. "Because your powers are strong enough to take another through the Wall, and then we'll find Joseph and the Iron Queen herself."
"Who's Joseph? Who is the Iron Queen? Where is the Wall?" Anya asked her rapidly.
"The Wall is a magical force wild the separates us from Älvarand and it's in a park, not a hundred clicks from here." her grandmother explained as the boat thundered inwards through the chilly waters. " The Iron Queen is the ruler of Älvarand, who came to power through force and dark magics and had destroyed and drained the land of all its joy and beauty. And Joseph..." Grandmother Winterflame smiled softly.
