wizard angst

"Do you think her voices were real?"

 

Elsa glanced up from Corona's missive. Her younger sister lay, sprawled, in the loveseat against the wall of the study, hands folded on her chest, staring up at the ceiling.

 

"I'm sorry, who?"

 

"St. Joan." Anna shoved herself up on her elbows. "Do you think she was crazy, or that she was really talking to the Archangels?"

 

Elsa picked up a goosefeather quill between index finger and thumb. She dipped it into the inkwell even though she didn't have anything to write, scraped it against the glass rim, watched the ink bead on the brass of the nib. Spiderwebs of frost spiraled out from under the pads of her fingers. "I--I have no idea."

 

Anna /hmmed/ in the back of her throat and kept staring at Elsa, expectantly.

 

"I hope not. If the Catholic God is the real one, I'm going to Hell." The word hung heavy in the air, /Hell/, and Elsa cleared her throat like that would dispel the weight from the room. She bent her head back over the paper. "Anyway, all those metaphysical questions are beyond me. Right now I just need to figure out the best thing to--"

 

"You're not going to Hell!"

 

Elsa glanced up from the paper. She felt the quill thicken and go slick under her fingertips, knew it had frozen over without having to look down. Anna had jumped off the couch. She was standing, legs spread apart, fists clenched. "That wouldn't be fair! You were born with your powers! You didn't choose to start practicing magic, it's a part of you!"

 

"'Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live,' Exodus, twenty-two, verse eighteen." Elsa murmured. "'For without are dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers, and idolaters, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie.' Revelations, twenty-two, verse fifteen. 'A man also, or woman, that hath a familiar spirit, or that is a wizard, shall surely be put to death--they shall stone them with stones--their blood shall be upon them.' Leviticus, chapter twenty, verse twenty-seven. 'And I will cut off witchcrafts--'"

 

"How are you quoting all of this?" Anna asked, and it came out in a strangled whisper, an almost-yell. She stepped up to the desk, and for an instant Elsa looked at her dark expression and her shaking hands and thought that the princess was going to strike her. But she didn't. Anna reached for Elsa's hands.

 

Elsa dropped the quill, completely encased in ice now, and pulled her hands back. "I'll hurt you--"

 

Anna leaned across the desk and rested her palms across the backs of Elsa's hands, fingertips splayed along Elsa's wrists and forearm. "Ice just comes out of the palms, this is okay." Her hands were feather-light, light like the battered swallow they had found on the grounds as children and had brought inside and tried to nurse back to health. It had rested on their hands and cocked its head at the two of them, a warm weight, and it had sang. Anna's palms were softer than gloves, softer than velvet. Elsa watched the frost coating the letter and the surface of the desk recede.

 

Elsa steadied her breathing. "I can quote the verses because the matter is pertinent to me. I have researched it thoroughly."

 

"God is love, Elsa. He loved us so much, He died for us. He wouldn't send anyone to Hell for something they were born with. That isn't fair."

 

"What's fair to God isn't what's fair to us, Anna. That's in Isaiah. We don't have the frame of reference for it. I almost killed you twice, I--"

 

"You didn't mean it!"

 

"That doesn't matter. I'm an abomination." Anna was staring at her, wide-eyed, mouth gaping, like Elsa had just struck her. "It's okay, Anna, I've made my peace with it. No right or wrong, no rules for me. My soul spirals out of me every time the ice does. I just have to minimize my damage--"

 

Anna cut her off and pulled her into a hug, a tight one, her hands clenched down on Elsa's shoulderblades. "Elsa, you're wrong," Anna whispered. "Jesus did magic too, Elsa. You were born with it. They're a gift. God gave them to you, like he gave Moses the staff and had him take water out of the rock. You're not a witch."

 

Of course Anna would think like that, /Jesus did magic too/. Elsa reached her arms around her sister and hugged her back as best she could, over the desk. She was too good, Anna. Elsa felt the girl's back rise and fall as she breathed. Anna was so slender, and so soft, and so good, too good for this world, and she had already died, once.

 

"I know you don't believe me." Anna pulled back from the hug and put her hands on Elsa's shoulders. "That's okay. I'll prove it to you."

 

"How?"

 

Anna shrugged, and grinned. "I'll think of something."