After nearly a month of feasts and blizzards and bandits, it was time for a Christmas tree.
Snow and Rose found a little fir near the cottage and cut it down themselves. Their tree was small, but it made the cottage smell as if the forest had come inside.
On Christmas morning, the family gathered near the fire to exchange their gifts. Rose had knitted a pretty scarf for her mother and a pale blue cap for Snow. Rose’s knitting was much improved since the lumpy-scarf disaster of Snow’s birthday, and the few tangled stitches here and there only added to the charm.
Their mother had made them each a new nightgown and socks. There was a book about pirates for Snow and a brass compass for Rose. In their stockings were pieces of maple candy, wrapped in waxed paper, and fresh boxes of colored pencils. Earl Grey and the kittens got a tin of sardines.
Rose settled in with her back against the bear, as if he were a warm sofa made of fur. The fire burned bright. Snow played them her present: a song she’d been practicing off by herself, that she’d found in her old lesson books. The low, lilting sound of the bow on the strings floated up to the cedar beams of the cottage. The audience of two clapped as if they had two dozen hands.
Their mother brought out a tray of brown eggs and mugs of hot cocoa and thick slices of cinnamon bread for breakfast.
“I wish Papa were here,” Snow said, looking up at the portrait that hung near the fireplace.
“He’s with us,” her mother said. Her eyes hung on the painting she’d made years ago.
Rose tried not to look at the portrait very often. It hurt like a window to a place she couldn’t visit. But she glanced up now, smiling at the way her father’s eyes sparkled like the chain of his watch that shone in his painted pocket. She’d felt so proud when they gave him that watch, with the golden circle at the back engraved From Snow & Rose. Rose shivered and warmed her hands on her mug.
After breakfast and gifts, they dressed warmly to pay a surprise visit to Ivo’s house. When they opened the cottage door, the bear struggled to his feet and attempted to step outside along with them, looking at his three humans hopefully.
“You can’t come,” Snow said. “We can’t chance it.”
When they tried to shut the door, he poked his nose out, blocking it.
Rose shook her head. “You’re a wanted bear.” She hugged him around the neck and locked him safely inside.
Then they set off to Ivo’s house, carrying a basket of gifts.
“I wonder where bandits spend Christmas,” Snow whispered to Rose as they walked with their mother.
Rose whispered back, “Wherever they can ruin it.”
They passed the thicket they had searched with Ivo on the night of the feast. The blackberry brambles were covered in snow. Against the white, hidden deep in the brambles, both sisters saw something red. Something the snow had shown them that they hadn’t seen before.
They padded closer to investigate and called for their mother to wait. Snow crawled in, emerging with the red thing. She held it, dirty and tattered in the sunlight, before silently giving it to her mother.
“Papa’s blanket,” Rose breathed.
Their mother wore the look of someone who has lost something and found something in the same instant. She shook the layer of ice and forest from the blanket, revealing bare places where birds had pulled threads for their nests. The wool came apart in her hands, and she knelt and hugged the girls close to her, so close there was no empty space.
Snow’s voice came in a muffled whisper from somewhere inside: “Mama…please…you…are…squeezing me to death.”
They walked in silence until they came to a familiar plume of smoke drifting out of the earth.
The girls kicked aside a layer of snow to find the door in the ground, and then they knocked. After a few moments, Ivo’s mother opened the door part of the way, peering out from her place on the stairs.
They greeted her with a “Merry Christmas!”
Ivo’s mother did not look merry. She glanced around them nervously. “Come inside,” she said. “And bolt the door.” She turned and led them down the stairs into the main room. A dim fire burned. The big table from the feast stood empty.
“Can I offer you anything, then?” Ivo’s mother asked. There was a coldness in her voice.
They stood close to the fire. Ivo’s father sat still as a stone on the hearth before the walls of winding roots. He didn’t even look up.
Rose and Snow looked at their mother, not sure what they should do. Rose started to unpack the basket. In the silence, their mother said, “We brought a few gifts….”
They unpacked two jars of jam tied with ribbon, and then two little parcels, each with a label that read Ivo in Snow’s and Rose’s handwriting, respectively.
“We brought the jam for you,” Snow said, presenting Ivo’s mother with the blackberry-colored jars. “We made it.”
“And these are for Ivo,” Rose said, holding the two lumpy little packages, each knotted with a bow on the front. She looked around, wondering why he hadn’t heard their voices. “Where is he?”
Ivo’s mother took the gifts and sank into a chair, looking up at them with suspicion. “Why didn’t you answer the door?”
Snow, Rose, and Edith looked back at her, confused.
“When my brother called on you.” Ivo’s father finally spoke, and his voice was harsh. “When the storm broke.”
They sat down in a row on a wooden bench.
“Wh-why…,” Rose stammered.
Her mother put a hand on Snow’s shoulder and finished her question. “Why did he call?”
Ivo’s mother looked at the visitors, her face crumbling. “You don’t know, then?” The story tumbled out: how Ivo had left the night of the feast; how their son, their only child, had never come back.
The sting of the words settled and spread. Snow and Rose sat on the hard bench, silent. “And it was just before the storm set in?” Edith said, her voice hushed.
“If it were kinder weather”—Ivo’s mother looked down at her lap—“then we’d have more reason to hope.”
Edith stood and went to Ivo’s mother, taking her hand.
“We’ve been searching and searching.” Ivo’s mother sniffed. “But it was that King Bear, I know it. Osprey is offering a handsome reward, and he’s got word to every man he knows.”
“We know you’ve had your own go missing,” Ivo’s father said, standing. He went to the long table and returned with a piece of paper. “He’s here.” He handed Edith the paper. “With all the others.”
The list held the names of everyone the woods had taken, everyone who had never come home, scrawled in pencil. So many names that they filled the front and continued on the back: noblemen and bandits, fathers and mothers, sons and daughters.
“Why?” Edith asked, quietly breaking the silence.
Ivo’s father sat back down again. He turned away, speaking into the fire, words so familiar to everyone there. “We just…don’t…know.”
That night, back at the cottage, their mother had two more gifts waiting beneath the tree.
“Your father and I were going to give these to you when you were older,” she said. The words hung in the air as the girls opened the little boxes. Inside were necklaces, perfect in their simplicity, each a single gem suspended on a delicate gold chain.
For Snow, a freshwater pearl.
For Rose, a ruby, like a faceted petal.
“They’re beautiful,” Snow said, and Rose nodded. Even as they thanked their mother for their beautiful gifts, they moved slowly and spoke low and soft. The news about Ivo made everything feel muffled, as though they were moving and speaking underwater.
Snow and Rose put on the necklaces with their new nightgowns and climbed into bed. After their mother kissed them good night, she went down to the hearth and curled up with Earl Grey, watching the sleeping bear and the dimming fire.
Snow spoke into the darkness. “Why does everyone go missing?”
Rose’s voice was small when she replied: “I don’t know.” She paused. “What did you give to Ivo?”
Snow sighed. “That little brass elephant he liked so much. What about you?”
Rose turned over, curling her knees into her chest. “You know how he wore those old socks on his hands?”
The dark was silent.
“Mittens,” Snow said.
Rose could hear tears in her sister’s voice. She felt her own tears roll down her cheeks.
Outside, snow was falling again. The trees shivered like they were restless.
