Tomorrow is another day

Just my luck

"What the...?"

The night was dark and cool; the clouds covered almost the entire sky except for small clearings through which some rays of the moon peeked out; the breeze gently made the leaves of the trees sound and, a monstrosity made of stone, gigantic mushrooms, branches and some kind of lichen, seemed to stare at me with squint eyes.

At first glance, you could say it was a kind of figure in the shape of a chubby and short man or... troll? Without a doubt, a character with a striking excess of nasal hair.

At its feet, a hole, clearly dug by hand, made the troll appear to be some kind of bait to fall into a trap. Maybe for some hazing. But in that case, the logical thing would have been to somehow camouflage the hole.

However, none of that was what caught my attention the most. Beside the hole and illuminated by an elusive beam of light, an incredibly detailed ice sculpture in the shape of a girl left me completely dazed. That figure was, without a doubt, the most beautiful thing I had ever seen in my life.

It was a slim young girl with a pair of braids and an antique dress. Despite how complicated it seemed, it had been sculpted in that ridiculous position that you have when something is falling from your hands and you do everything you can to recover it even knowing that you are not going to achieve it, as if to indicate that she had just lost something at the bottom of that hole.

It was undeniable that whoever had staged that particular scene had done it thoroughly. But, one of two things: or it was some kind of plastic or glass that perfectly imitated ice, or it was really recent work. Otherwise, it made no sense that the sculpture remained intact in the middle of summer. What was it all about? Who would take the pains to build that scene in that lost corner of the forest? And for what? Who did they expect to find it? Was it for some kind of TV show? Was I in front of the set for a movie?

I looked around for signs of human activity: footprints, broken branches, cameras... But I couldn't see or hear anything at all. Not even the nocturnal animals seemed to dare to enter this strange place.

Driven by curiosity, I approached slowly and taking a good look at where I was stepping. It wasn't the wisest thing I had done in my life, but that sculpture called me and I felt the urgent need to know what it was and what it was doing there. I tried not to think too much about the terrible things that could happen to me if this was the work of some sadist and took refuge in the consolation of not having anyone who would really miss me.

I stood barely half a meter from the sculpture and slowly brought my hand up to brush one of its braids. Oh my God! It was real ice! I watched her expression, her look of panic, and the tension on her shoulders, and, for some reason, I felt a tremendous pity, almost pain.

"Kristoff, this is just a sculpture. What are you doing?"

I knew I shouldn't, but I did. With a knot in the pit of my stomach, I turned on the flashlight on my cell phone and peered over the edge of the hole as if I was really going to find something there that she longed for. The answer was immediate. I couldn't believe it. At the bottom of the hole, a terribly rusty metal box seemed to be waiting for someone to rescue it from there.

"Pandora's box, Kristoff. Don't take it."

Obviously ignoring myself, I reached out and picked up the box. If it had been a movie, a thousand evils would have come out of it, or a pile of bones or, perhaps, some kind of treasure. But since it was real life, when I opened the box, all I could find inside was a pile of papers probably purposely aged and completely written in exquisite calligraphy in letter or diary form.

I glanced over at the writing and was surprised at the care of the details they had had: the letter was written in some old type of Norwegian clearly prior to the consolidation of Bokmål. Fortunately, despite not being exactly the same as my language, it was easy to understand.

"Okay, I'll play your game."

I sat at the foot of that mysterious sculpture and, aloud, as if carried away by the chilling magic of the moment, I began to read.

My name is Anna and I am the princess of the Arendelle.