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“The power of beauty and the power of evil both,” Helena said.

I ought to laugh or roll my eyes because this was absurd. Elves were just children’s stories. Instead, as a shiver ran up my back, I asked, “What do you mean?”

“Elves are attracted to all things beautiful, but they’re cruel creatures. They’ll steal you if you get too close to their realms. They’re greedy and exacting. Everyone knows it.”

“Everyone?”

“Everyone in the countryside. Especially up north.” Helena nodded toward the store. “Lilja knows it too, I’m sure.” She and Alma exchanged a glance that told me they had talked about Lilja between them, about her oddness and the mystery of her past.

“She did seem very frightened this morning when she saw the windows,” I said.

Alma’s frown deepened. “But why would she paint something that frightens her?”

Out in the store, the bell rang as the customer left. A moment later, the sweep of Lilja’s broom broke the silence that had descended between us after the chime.

“I have to get back,” Alma said. “See you later for lusekatter.” She kissed Helena goodbye. Picking up the basket, Helena took the bread to the kitchen.

I walked to the table. Outside, it had started to snow again, flakes whirling through the air. I picked up one of Lilja’s works and ran the tip of my finger along the pink spear of a fireweed. Her art did have an undeniable likeness in style to the frost flowers, but they differed in one way—Lilja’s art had color, it had form. It was a true emulation of nature, and not the achromatic and soulless splendor of the ice on our windows this morning.

Shaking my head, I put down the wood. Everything I learned about her, everything she did, only deepened the mystery of who she was.

In the late afternoon, we stepped outside after closing, and Lilja took my hand.

We found Alma in the store. She was wrapping packages again, to go on the next train to Stockholm, whenever one could make it through the snowdrifts. My uncle was in the workshop, and Alma pulled Helena close for a kiss.

The counter was littered with things, all of them old and most polished to a shine. They drew Lilja to them, and I followed her across the store while Alma and Helena whispered in the corner. My uncle must have just received a shipment of new wares because I recognized none of what was laid out. In an open jewelry box lay a bracelet of polished amber beads. Lilja ran the tip of a finger over one.

“Did your father work with amber?” I asked.

“Often he did.”

“Were they beautiful, the things he made?”

She picked up the bracelet and studied the beads. Each one was a different hue. “Very,” she said. “I had a necklace once, from his hand. A heart. He was cruel, but that necklace was a thing of wonder.”

“Where is it now?”

“It was taken from me a very long time ago.”

“You miss it?”

She nodded. “It was special to me. It was like… like I had lost a part of myself without it.” She put the bracelet back in the box, and I picked up a pair of silver scissors, pretending not to notice her eyes had filled with tears.

Chapter Fifteen

With less than ten days until Christmas, I worked late into the night in the shop, squinting in the low light of the lamp. It was bad for my eyes—Father had always told me so—but it would only be for a few more weeks. Then I would rest and dedicate myself to improving my doll-making skills.

I had sent Helena and Lilja to bed hours ago, and with the wind resting for now, the house was quiet with only the sound of my file against wood. I was making a horse for the shoemaker’s daughter. A dappled filly. I liked the quiet. It was the best time to think, with my hands working and my mind flying off to where it wanted.

Tonight it wanted to not just fly to Lilja, but circle her again and again. The more I learned about her, the deeper the mystery of what it was she was fleeing. Her father? Her foster mother? A lot of cruelty, certainly. That was obvious by how frightened she was. But where was she from? And why had she come to Norstad? Sweden had plenty of other cities. She could have hid better in Stockholm or Gothenburg. And yet she didn’t seem to want to leave.

Then there were thoughts that weren’t so much about Lilja’s past but rather… well, us. She seemed to have a true fondness for me. In fact, she preferred me over others—and that was something rare. Only to Father had I ever been special, but I was his daughter. That was only natural. I loved Alma with all my heart, but she had always been the one people greeted when we walked together, the one shopkeepers turned to, the one people didn’t whisper about.

But Lilja…

Lilja preferred me. She had said it so herself. She felt safe with me—and I felt things I thought I’d never experience when I was with her. Her hand on mine, her arms around my waist. It wasn’t much perhaps, but I had never thought a woman would show even that sort of affection for me. I was the odd one, the quiet girl in school who preferred whittling to hide and seek, but Lilja saw me in a way no one else did.

I didn’t notice it right away, deep in thought as I was, but it seeped into my consciousness slowly, like the drip from an icicle on snow.