Velveteen Presents Jackie Frost vs. Four Conversations and a Funeral.
Title: Velveteen Presents Jackie Frost vs. Four Conversations and a Funeral
Summary: And now for something completely different. Velveteen’s health is failing. Jackie Frost knows why. But can she take the necessary steps to end it?
***
The surface of the mirror was cold enough that Jackie actually felt it, a short, sharp burst of almost painful chill before she emerged into the warm, peppermint-scented snow of the North Pole. It started snowing almost immediately, fat, angry flakes that materialized from nowhere to follow her as she trudged through the drifts toward the village. Shouts of puzzled dismay came from the direction of the skating pond and the Christmas Tree Forest as the elves, who were surprisingly wimpy about a little cold weather, reacted to the snow. Santa’s snow was many things, but it was never cold.
Jackie, for all that she tried to be good, tried to stay on the Nice List, was not one of Santa’s creatures. She was the daughter of Jack Frost and the Snow Queen, and she belonged to the cold. In moments like this one, when everything inside her felt frozen, there was just too much cold to be contained. She walked quickly, trying to make it home before she caused a full-on blizzard.
She almost made it.
*
“Mom?” Jackie stepped cautiously onto the icy floor of the library, relieved to find that it was willing to support her weight. Her mother was a creature of ice and snow; she could walk on the thinnest ribbon of frost and never worry about falling. Her father was a heavier creature, flesh and blood and bone, and Jackie took after him. But Jack Frost could fly. Jackie just had to hope that gravity would be kind.
Sometimes she wondered what would happen when she finally stepped up and took over for one of her parents. Would her bones hollow themselves out, filling with ice and mist? Or would her feet leave the ground, gravity falling away from her forever? Privately, Jackie was in no hurry to find out which way her powers would twist. She liked herself exactly as she was. She’d learned how important that was when she took her tour through the Hall of Mirrors, officially becoming her mother’s heir.
“Mom?” she called again. “I really need to talk to you. I need to go to the Hall. For me. Please, can you come out where I can see you?”
The room was arctic, cold enough to match the landscape outside the windows. As Jackie watched, frost crept across the glass, lacing and interlacing into a delicate feather pattern. The chill in the air gathered until it somehow turned solid, becoming a white-haired, white-skinned woman with a white dress patterned in the same feathery swoops that the frost had drawn across the window.
The Snow Queen frowned at the sight of her daughter’s anxious face. “Jacqueline?” she said, and her voice was the sound of the wind blowing over ageless glaciers. “What’s wrong?”
Jackie took a deep breath. “I need to use the Hall of Mirrors,” she said. “I need to talk to some alternate versions of a friend of mine, before I can talk to the version of the friend of mine who exists in this mirror.”
The Snow Queen’s frown deepened. “We’ve discussed your tendency to use your powers for frivolous reasons...”
“This isn’t frivolous, Mom. I think Vel is going to die if I don’t do something, but I don’t think she’ll listen to me if I don’t have more information. I need to use the Hall of Mirrors to get that information. Please. Help me save my friend.”
“Ah.” The Snow Queen stood in perfect stillness for a moment, considering her daughter--her strange, hot-blooded daughter, whom she loved so much, and understood so little. There was nothing she could have done differently with Jackie. She knew that. But oh, sometimes she regretted the distance between them. “You realize that you risk your life along with hers if you do this.”
Jackie squared her shoulders. “I can’t let her die. Winter can’t let her die.”
“But she is your friend before she is a potential servant of the season.”
“Yes,” Jackie admitted. “I know it wasn’t supposed to be like that. But yes.”
“Then yes, you may use the Hall of Mirrors.” The Snow Queen swept her hand through the air and held it out toward Jackie. A glittering key made of ice rested on her palm. “Be careful, my daughter.”
“I will, Mom.” Jackie took the key. The cold of it bit her skin, but her body was not warm enough to start it melting. “Thank you.”
“Do not thank me,” said the Snow Queen. “I have done you no favors.” Then she was gone, dissolving back into stillness and the cold, and Jackie was alone.
It was almost a relief when the floor collapsed underneath her a few seconds later. At least that was normal.
*
Jackie Frost materialized on the steps of the Hall of Mirrors in a swirl of snowflakes. They stuck to her blue and silver spangled costume as she walked toward the door, becoming indistinguishable from the crystals and sequins that were already there. There was no keyhole. Instead, she pressed the key her mother had given her against the icy surface of the door itself, and it swung smoothly inward, allowing her to make her way into the endless maze of mirrors.
It was harder to navigate this way; harder to look for a version of someone else, rather than a version of herself. Possibilities looked out at her from every mirror she passed, Jackie Frosts and Snow Queens and Frostbites, and even the rare, pink-skinned Jacqueline Claus, adopted daughter of Santa himself. Jackie knew them all already; she had walked in their skins, if only for a few hours, on her first trips through the looking glass. Some of them she feared becoming. Others she mourned never allowing herself to become. And still she walked, until she found just the right mirror, just the right reflection.
The Jackie Frost who looked back at her had longer hair, a softer expression, and carried an ice wand in one hand. Snow Princess, delicate protectress of the North Pole, who had never spent a second on the Naughty List. Not one of Jackie’s favorite potential realities, if she was being completely honest--and the Hall of Mirrors was a place for honesty. She touched the mirror’s frame, only wincing a little as the cold of it bit into her fingertips.
“Show me Roadkill,” she said. The image blurred, Snow Princess disappearing, only to be replaced by a Mad Max remix of the Velveteen she knew, all leather and rabbit fur and safety pins holding the whole ensemble together. Roadkill was crouching in an alley, stroking something that the mirror’s frame didn’t quite allow Jackie to see.
“Here goes nothing,” muttered Jackie, and stepped into the mirror.
*
It had been another shitty night in Seattle. Two of the crows had flown away and not come back, which either meant falcons--possible--or asshole “heroes” trying to clean up the city again. Roadkill’s money was on the heroes. Fuckers never knew when to leave well enough alone. So here she was, in another stupid alley, trying to wake up a tired old dog that had finally staggered off into the dark to die.
“Get up,” she said, running her hand along the dog’s side. He was a big boy, all corded muscle and strong bone. Age was the only thing that could have taken him down, and age didn’t matter anymore, not once she got involved. The dog’s tail twitched once, thumping against the pavement. Roadkill straightened, the undead crow on her shoulder flapping its wings once as it fought to keep its balance.
“Come,” she said, and the dog, awake and undead at last, lumbered to its feet and moved to stand beside her. She allowed herself a smile. One dog was worth two crows. With West Nile tearing up the coast, there would always be more crows. She turned, ready to head back to her lair and get ready for another evening of petty crime and annoying The Super Patriots, Inc.--
--and froze. There was a woman standing behind her, blue-skinned and glowing faintly in the dark alleyway. She had white hair and was wearing a costume that looked like something out an adult production of Disney On Ice.
“Don’t freak out, okay?” asked the blue woman.
Roadkill frowned slowly. “Snow Princess?”
“Not quite. I mean, yes, in this reality, and also no, because I’m not from this reality. I’m here because I need to talk to you. I need your help.”
Roadkill scoffed. “Okay, now I know you’re from the wrong reality. I’m not the kind of girl who goes around helping people. I’m sort of on the opposite side of that equation, if you get my drift. Fuck off.”
“No.” The blue woman who wasn’t the Snow Princess shook her head. “I’m sorry, but no. Of all the versions of Roadkill, you’re the one most likely to talk to me. That means you’re going to talk to me.”
“Are you deaf? I said fuck off.” Roadkill put her hand on the head of her new dog, which was starting to grow, a deep, unpleasant sound. “There’s nothing you could possibly threaten me with that I’m going to give a shit about.”
“In my world, Yelena is alive.”
The words were simple. Their effect on Roadkill was not. She froze, all her bravado dropping away, replaced by a longing as cruel as it was sincere. “What?” she whispered.
“In my world, Yelena is alive,” repeated the blue woman. “She didn’t kill herself. Marketing convinced her that she could still be their little darling, if she’d just lie about who she was and what she wanted out of life. They drove my world’s version of you away, because they knew that the two of you were too much for them to handle when you were together.”
Roadkill’s lips thinned into a hard line. “You’re lying.” The memory of Yelena’s body was always there, fresh and cruel and horrible, if not as horrible as the memory that followed immediately afterward. Yelena, getting up again. Yelena, opening her eyes, finding herself trapped in her own dead flesh, and starting to scream.
“Why would I lie? Your powers changed when you found your best friend lying in a pool of her own blood. In my world, that never happened. That version of you is still Velveteen. She’s still a hero. And she needs your help.”
“I told you, I don’t help,” said Roadkill, numbly.
The blue woman shrugged. “How do you know if you won’t even let me tell you what I need?”
Yelena, staggering toward her, blood still dripping from her fingertips... “What the fuck do you want?” asked Roadkill, banishing the memory to the depths of her mind, where it belonged. Where it would be waiting for her when she least expected it.
“My Velveteen has a boyfriend, an animus like her. Tag. He was...” The blue woman hesitated, looking like she wanted almost anything more than she wanted to finish her sentence. Finally, she said, “Killed. He was killed in a fight recently, and Vel sort of...lost it.”
“She brought him back, didn’t she?” Roadkill shook her head, feeling suddenly tired, suddenly sorry for a version of herself that she would never know or have the chance to become. “She couldn’t leave well enough alone, and she brought him back.”
“She did. But there’s a problem.”
“Zombie boyfriend isn’t enough of a problem? You people don’t fuck around when you complicate things.”
“She doesn’t know she’s animating him.”
Roadkill’s eyes widened. “What? How is that even possible?”
“She’s more powerful than she thinks she is, and she’s in denial about what happened that day. She’s been animating him constantly for more than two months.”
“What? No.” Roadkill shook her head. “She has to stop. She has to. Animating small things, like crows or cats, that’s easy, I can have an army of those going twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. I never sleep without a guard. But humans? That’s hard. The longest I’ve ever managed a human was three days.” Yelena had begged her to stop, toward the end; begged her to let the animation go, and allow the other heroine to die.
Sometimes Roadkill wondered whether Yelena had known that she’d be blamed for murdering her best friend, kicked out of her home and branded a supervillain immediately. Sometimes she wondered if knowing would have changed her decision at all.
She didn’t think so.
“What’s going to happen if she doesn’t stop?”
Roadkill looked at the blue woman without flinching. “She’s going to die,” she said. “And there’s not a damn thing anyone else can do about it. It’s her, or it’s no one.”
“That’s what I was afraid you’d say.” The blue woman who wasn’t the Snow Princess sighed, starting to turn away. “Thank you for your time.”
“Wait!” It was probably a toss-up between them as to who was more surprised by Roadkill’s exclamation. The blue woman turned back to her, curiosity writ large across her face. Roadkill swallowed hard, and asked, “Except for the whole undead boyfriend thing...is your version of me happy? Are things better for her?”
The blue woman hesitated. Then, slowly, she nodded. “She has a home,” she said. “She has friends, good ones, who care a lot about her. She has Yelena to fight by her side. Yeah. She’s happy.”
“Then you do whatever it takes to save her stupid life,” said Roadkill. “Because my life? Is pretty fucked up. So somewhere, somehow, one of me has to be happy.”
The blue woman nodded. “That’s what I’m planning to do,” she said, and stepped into the air, leaving a gentle snow falling in her wake.
Roadkill dropped to her knees, buried her face in her hands, and wept.
*
Jacqueline Claus sat at her dining room table, nursing a mug of cocoa and wishing that she dared to spike it with something stronger than marshmallows. Anything else would have interfered with the morphine, and so she restricted herself to sugar, but oh, she yearned. The sound of snow falling behind her was a welcome distraction.
“You can come out now,” she said, and turned to see a blue-skinned, white-haired woman with her face stepping out of the shadows. Jacqueline blinked, raising an eyebrow. “What parallel are you from?”
“Not this one,” replied the woman. “I need to talk to you.”
“First tell me your code name.” Jacqueline wasn’t sure she had it in her to fight a version of herself who’d grown up to be Frostbite; not today, not when the cold was wrapped so tightly through her bones. She could take a Snow Princess easily, but this girl didn’t look like a Snow Princess. That left...
“Jackie Frost. I figured there was no point in a code name when everyone would know who I was either way.”
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Jackie Frost. I’m Jacqueline Claus.” The understanding of their shared and divergent histories stretched out between them like tinsel draped around a tree. One of them, raised by parents who barely understood the needs of the flesh, but whose love, such as it was, had informed her substance; the other, given to Santa to be raised as his adopted daughter, who loved her just as dearly as her birth parents would have, in a world where they were just a little braver. “What can I do for you?”
Jackie took a deep breath. “My world’s version of Velma is still Velveteen. But I’m afraid that’s starting to change. Her boyfriend died. She’s animating him right now, and she doesn’t realize that she’s doing it. You know...”
“I know Marionette very, very well, and you want to know if there’s any way that the change can be a good thing,” said Jacqueline. She stood stiffly, the muscles in her back complaining with every move she made. “You’ve been through the Hall of Mirrors.”
“Yes.”
“That’s how you know that Marionette is my partner.”
“Yes,” said Jackie again, looking faintly abashed. “I don’t understand how it works between you, but I know that you’re always together...”
“Did you ever wonder how Velveteen’s powers worked? How she was able to give life where there wasn’t any?” Jacqueline shook her head. “She gave them her life. She shared her own energy with the things she animated.”
“But Marionette isn’t alive.” And that was the crux of the matter: in the worlds where she was Marionette, Velma Martinez was already dead.
“I know. So does she, fortunately; it makes things easier on us. As a dead woman, she has no life to share. As an animus, she understands what the energy of life looks like, feels like, and how to call it to herself. She stays standing because she’s animating her own body, and she’s doing it with the life force of the creatures around her.” Jacqueline offered Jackie a wan smile. “Most versions of Marionette are evil. They have to be, to keep doing what they have to do to survive.”
“Yours isn’t,” said Jackie.
“No, I’m not,” said a voice behind her, and she turned to see Velma--almost Velma, not quite Velma--standing behind her, wearing a black and white version of her original Velveteen costume. She looked pale, and tired. “I’m not evil because I don’t have to steal the energy that keeps me alive. Jacqueline gives it to me freely. It’s killing her, even though she tries to pretend that it’s not.”
“So why don’t you stop?” The words were out before Jackie could call them back. She winced.
Fortunately, Marionette didn’t seem to mind. She walked past Jackie to Jacqueline, and said, “I became Marionette when The Super Patriots attacked Portland. They killed the Princess. They killed Action Dude. They killed me. Only I got back up again, and kept fighting. Jacqueline has agreed to keep feeding me energy long enough for us to destroy The Super Patriots for what they did to me. And then I can rest.” The exhaustion in her eyes was unbearable.
“The way you live now...”
“I’m not alive. Don’t be fooled by appearances.” Marionette shook her head. “I heard you say that your world’s version of me was animating her dead boyfriend, and didn’t realize it. You have to make her stop. If she kills herself, the power will snap back on her, and you’ll have another Marionette on your hands. I wouldn’t wish this existence on my worst enemies. I can’t wish it on a girl I never got to be. Make her stop.”
“I’ll try.” Jackie looked to Jacqueline. “What about you?”
“I’m fine.” Jacqueline smiled bravely. “I’m Santa’s daughter. I have a lot in me to give.”
They had nothing left to say to each other, after that. Jackie disappeared in a swirl of snowflakes. Jacqueline turned to Marionette, opening her arms.
“Come on, dear. You need to eat before you go hunting.”
Marionette fell on her like a starving wolf, and the morphine helped...for a while.
*
Jackie Frost materialized on the steps of the Hall of Mirrors in a swirl of snowflakes, fell to her hands and knees, and was messily sick. When she was sure her stomach had nothing left to lose she grabbed a handful of untainted snow, using it to rinse her mouth out as she staggered back to her feet. She felt a little bad about leaving the mess for the elves to clean up, but that was what elves were for, and she had places to be. Even if they were places she’d be happier avoiding.
Two hours, a change of clothes, a magic mirror transport, and a taxi later, she was standing outside Tad’s apartment door, trying to find the strength to knock. She had almost decided to go away and come back later when the issue was resolved for her: the door opened, and a confused-looking Tad blinked at her from inside the living room.
“Jackie?” His eyes widened. “Oh, crap, Jackie, you can’t be here. I still have a secret identity to worry about.” He grabbed her arm, looking quickly up and down the hall to see if anyone had noticed her. Then he hauled her inside.
Normally, Jackie would have slapped any man who dared to grab her like that. Under the circumstances, she allowed it to happen. “I need to talk to you,” she said, as soon as the door was closed behind her.
“Phones work.”
“This isn’t a phone conversation.” She took a deep breath, studying Tad’s face. Vel was her friend, sure, but she was also a project; woo her to the winter, one step, one crusade, one girl’s-night out at a time. Tad was just her friend. They’d known each other for years, and when she introduced him to Velma, she’d been expecting both of them to have a little fun, maybe fuck a little bit of their tension away. She hadn’t been expecting it to get him killed.
Tad blinked, annoyance fading into concern as he looked at her. “Jackie? Is everything okay?”
She laughed unsteadily. “No, everything really isn’t. Tad, do you remember the fight against the robots?”
“The ones that dentist built? Yeah.” He rubbed the back of his neck with one hand. “That fight scared the life out of me.”
Jackie winced. “Bad choice of words. Tad, look. Maybe you better sit down.”
Tad paled. Tad sat. Jackie sat beside him on the couch and began to talk.
Somewhere in the middle of her explanation, he took her hands. Sometime after that, she began to cry. Through it all, Tad looked stunned and maybe, just a little bit, relieved. It was an answer, after all; it explained everything that had happened since he saw that metal foot come down, since the world went away, only to come back in full color when he heard Vel calling out his name. Yes, it all made perfect sense.
That didn’t make it any easier to hear. Before she was done, he was crying, too, and they clung to each other, and they wept.
*
Victoria answered the door. She was Victoria because she was out of uniform, although the only real difference between her street clothes and her superhero attire was in the number and size of the guns that she was carrying. “She’s asleep,” she said, when she saw Jackie and Tad standing on the porch. “Go away.”
“Wasn’t the Victorian Era supposed to be all about the manners and stuff?” asked Jackie, pushing her way past Torrey and into the living room. Tad followed.
“The world has moved on,” said Torrey crossly, closing the door behind them. “She needs her rest.”
“I know.” Jackie took a deep breath. It seemed like she was doing that a lot lately. “Look. You want her to get some rest because you need her to recover from whatever’s been draining her energy if we’re going to get Yelena back, right?”
Torrey froze. “You called her by name,” she said, slowly. Her gaze swung around to Tad. “Why are you here with her, and out of uniform? Aren’t you still maintaining an alter ego?”
“You always said you were smart,” said Tad, with a wan smile.
“Oh, sweet Epona.” Torrey made a complicated gesture that might, in a world where a horse-goddess was the superior deity, have been the equivalent of a Christian girl crossing herself. “I’ll get her for you.” Then she fled the room, vanishing down the hall.
“Here we go,” said Jackie. She looked to Tad. “I’m so sorry.”
“Me, too.”
Victoria returned a few minutes later, a groggy Velma behind her. Vel was wearing her bathrobe, and looked like she’d just been running a marathon, not taking a nap. She rubbed her eyes as she frowned at the pair.
“What’s wrong?” she asked. “Why are you here in the middle of the day?”
“We have to talk to you,” said Jackie gravely.
Velma looked from her to Tag, panic beginning to build in her expression. “What’s wrong?” she repeated. “Did someone die? Oh, God--is Yelena okay?”
This time, it was Tad who said, “Maybe you’d better sit down,” and took her hands, and led her to the couch.
“Velma, Tad didn’t survive the fight against the robots,” said Jackie. She stayed standing. “He died. You brought him back.”
“What? No. I’d know.”
“You do know. You just...aren’t admitting it to yourself, because you don’t want to lose him. But that’s why you’re so tired all the time, honey. Because you’re licking your candy cane at both ends, and it’s wearing down way too fast. If you don’t let him go, it’s going to kill you.”
Velma shook her head. “No. No. You’re wrong. You’re--”
“Vel, we both know there’s something wrong with me.” Tad didn’t let go of her hands. “I’m not one of those guys who starts pledging eternal love after the second date, but that doesn’t mean I’m selfish enough to kill you for a few more days of life. You have to stop animating me. You have to let me go.”
“No!”
“I’ve seen what happens if you don’t,” said Jackie. “It kills you, and then you bring yourself back as a sort of...energy vampire. You steal the life force you don’t have from the people around you. I spoke to the only heroic version of Marionette in the multiverse. She begged me to stop you before it was too late. She’s a version of you who’s already paid this price, Vel, and it’s too high. It’s too high for everyone.”
“Let me go,” said Tad. “Please.”
“But I love you,” whispered Vel. “I can’t do this alone.”
“If you think that the loss of a lover renders you alone, you are a sadder, less observant person than I had ever dreamt,” said Torrey. “You are not alone. You will be lonely, yes, but you will never be alone.”
“I can’t.” Velma shook her head, tightening her grip on Tad’s fingers. “I’ve lost Yelena. I can’t lose anyone else. I just can’t. Don’t ask me to do this.”
“The risks--”
“They’re mine! I’m the one taking them, not you, so don’t ask me to let you go because you think that’s how you protect me! That’s not how you protect me! You protect me by staying with me. You protect me by being here.”
Jackie bit her lip before saying, reluctantly, “I may have another option.” She didn’t want to say this, sweet Claus, she didn’t want to say this, but if Vel wasn’t willing to listen to reason... “Can I use your mirror?”
*
Entering the Crystal Glitter Unicorn Cloud Castle was like walking into an explosion of fairy tale cliches, each one more sparkly and encrusted with gemstones than the last. Singing flowers dropped down from the ceiling to serenade their little procession, which was only slightly less bizarre than the fact that the footman was a kangaroo in a pink and purple tabard. He even had a mushroom cap with a pink ostrich feather in it.
Tad, who had never been to visit the Princess at home before, said in a horrified tone, “I don’t know whether I should laugh or buy her a thousand shots of tequila as a form of apology for the collective subconscious.”
“I go with a combination of the two,” said Jackie. She turned to look at Velma, moving a bit more slowly than usual, due to the elaborate ball gown that had replaced her clothes when she passed through the mirror. At least it was blue. Velma’s gown was burgundy with hints of pink, while Victoria was dressed in rust-red with copper accents. Of the three of them, Victoria looked the most comfortable. “You okay, honey?”
“Let’s just get this over with,” said Vel. She sounded almost like she was drugged. “I just...”
“I know,” said Tad, squeezing her hand.
They kept moving.
The kangaroo led them through the twisting, largely pink palace until they reached a pair of uncharacteristically un-blinged oak doors. Then he turned and hopped away, apparently expecting them to know what to do from here. Jackie looked at the others, shrugged, and touched the nearest door with one faintly glowing hand, sending frost spiraling out across the wood. The doors swung open, revealing a gray stone cathedral with stained glass windows letting in the only light. There was a jarring lack of pink. Even the Princess, who was standing at the head of the room next to a long glass box, was wearing a dark gray gown, not a jewel or neon accent in sight.
“Y’all can come on in now,” she said. “I’m ready for you.”
They walked across the room to the Princess in a ragged formation, Velma still clinging to Tad’s hand. He was crying. None of them commented on it. It seemed inappropriate to even admit that they could see his tears.
The Princess stepped off the dais and walked calmly over to the pair. She reached for their joined hands, and somehow, through the clever movement of her fingers, separated them, even though they would have sworn that wasn’t possible. Taking both of Velma’s hands in her own, she looked the other heroine in the eyes, and asked, “Can you let go?”
“I don’t want to,” whispered Vel.
“That’s not the question.”
Velma sniffled and looked at Tag, who smiled wanly. She looked back to the Princess and nodded. She didn’t say it aloud. She didn’t have the words.
“Good.” The Princess released her, turning to take Tag’s hands in the same fashion. “Now you, my boy...I’m so sorry this happened. We all know there are dangers to this job, and that doesn’t make it any easier.”
“Thank you,” said Tag.
“I have to ask you: are you sure? This doesn’t let you move on. Whatever Heaven you believe in, you’re not going to get there.”
Tag nodded firmly. “I’m sure. I may have known the job was dangerous when I took it, but that doesn’t mean I’m ready to go.”
“Good. Come with me.” The Princess released one of his hands, keeping hold of the other as she turned and led him toward the dais. Tag glanced back at Velma, who was sobbing into Jackie’s shoulder, and allowed himself to be led.
As they moved closer to the glass box, it became more obvious that it was, in fact, a glass coffin. A bowl of apples rested on a pedestal next to it, alongside a spindle. “Pick your poison, sugar,” said the Princess. “I mean that literally. Either one will do you in, and then it’s just a matter of waiting.”
“Can I have a second?” asked Tad.
“Sure, honey. Take all the time you need. Just, once you choose, you gotta be ready to lay down, all right? The coffin has to close. That’s what protects you.”
Tad nodded.
The Princess stepped down from the dais, motioning for Jackie and Victoria to go with her. Together, they left the room, leaving Tad and Velma alone.
“Hey.” Tad hopped down from the dais, feeling a little guilty about the energy he was using as he walked to his girlfriend, taking hold of her wrists. He tried to pull her hands down from her face. “Vel, sweetie, look at me.”
She dropped her hands and raised her face, sniffling. Her eyes were red, and her nose was slightly swollen. He smiled.
“You are not one of nature’s more photogenic weepers,” he said. “Marketing must have hated it when you got upset.”
Vel laughed a little, despite herself. “I think they died a little bit inside every time I skinned my knee and cried where the cameras could catch it.”
“Good.” Tad switched his grip so that they were holding hands again. “I love you, Velma. And even if you didn’t know you were doing it, I want to say...thank you. For keeping me alive. For caring enough not to let me go. But now you have to care enough to stop. Everyone’s counting on you. Yelena needs you. And I need to know that I’m not killing you. So can you do it? Can you let go?”
“I think so,” she whispered. “We were supposed to have so much time. What happened to all our time?”
“We spent some of it. Now we get to put the rest of it in the bank. Come on.” Tad pulled her with him as he walked back to the dais. The glass coffin was waiting, all silent invitation and cold inevitability.
Velma couldn’t look at it. “The Princess says that we can wake you up with true love’s kiss, and you’ll be alive again. Is there anything you need to tell me?”
“Honey, if anyone’s going to wake me up, it’s going to be you.” Tad dropped her hands, put his arms around her waist, and kissed her. After a moment’s stunned hesitation, Velma looped her arms around his shoulders and kissed him back. They held each other for as long as they could, trading frantic kisses and bitter tears, until finally, Tad pulled away.
“I love you,” Velma said.
“I know,” he said, and smiled, holding up the apple he had taken from the bowl. “I’ll see you soon.”
The sound of his teeth tearing through the fruit was like the sound of a robot’s foot crashing down on a city street. He chewed, swallowed, and fell. Velma darted in, barely catching him before his head could hit the floor. Carefully, she maneuvered him into the coffin and closed the lid--
--and fainted, as the band of energy that had been stretched between them for months finally snapped, and she was whole again. It was like a heavy rain falling on a dry lake: even though there was room for all the water, it was too much to bear.
There was no one there to catch her.
*
Velma awoke in the middle of a giant daisy that had been drafted into service as a bed. She was still wearing the ball gown. She sat up, sneezed, and accepted the tissue that was offered to her. “Thank you,” she said, blowing her nose. Then she paused, blinked, and turned to see the Princess sitting next to the flower-bed.
“Morning, sunshine,” she said. “You’ve been asleep for about twelve hours. How are you feeling?”
“...a little bit ashamed of how good I feel,” said Velma. “It’s like I was sick for a long time, and didn’t know it.”
“That’s not too bad a comparison. Come on.” The Princess stood, offering Velma her hands. “Up you get. You need to eat, and then we need to figure out what happens next.”
“What do you mean, what happens next? I kiss Tad. He wakes up. We crush The Super Patriots.”
“Oh, honey.” The Princess looked at her sadly. “You only get one try. If you kiss him and he doesn’t wake up, you can’t try again.”
Velma frowned. “So?”
“So unless you settle things with Aaron, I’m not sure you can call what you feel for the boy true love.” The Princess shook her head. “You have to make things right before you can make them better.”
For a long time, Velma just stared at her. The Princess sighed, and folded her into an embrace, and neither of them said anything at all.
*
Tired all the way down to her frozen bones, Jackie Frost stumbled through the mirror and into the warm snow of the North Pole. She staggered past the pond and the forest, and no snow fell; she would have needed strength to make it snow. As she approached the door to Santa’s Workshop, it opened, and the big man himself stepped out, his red coat like a flame against the never-ending winter wonderland.
“You did well, my dear,” he said, and wrapped her in a hug that smelled like cocoa and candy canes, and held her as she cried.
Summary: And now for something completely different. Velveteen’s health is failing. Jackie Frost knows why. But can she take the necessary steps to end it?
***
The surface of the mirror was cold enough that Jackie actually felt it, a short, sharp burst of almost painful chill before she emerged into the warm, peppermint-scented snow of the North Pole. It started snowing almost immediately, fat, angry flakes that materialized from nowhere to follow her as she trudged through the drifts toward the village. Shouts of puzzled dismay came from the direction of the skating pond and the Christmas Tree Forest as the elves, who were surprisingly wimpy about a little cold weather, reacted to the snow. Santa’s snow was many things, but it was never cold.
Jackie, for all that she tried to be good, tried to stay on the Nice List, was not one of Santa’s creatures. She was the daughter of Jack Frost and the Snow Queen, and she belonged to the cold. In moments like this one, when everything inside her felt frozen, there was just too much cold to be contained. She walked quickly, trying to make it home before she caused a full-on blizzard.
She almost made it.
*
“Mom?” Jackie stepped cautiously onto the icy floor of the library, relieved to find that it was willing to support her weight. Her mother was a creature of ice and snow; she could walk on the thinnest ribbon of frost and never worry about falling. Her father was a heavier creature, flesh and blood and bone, and Jackie took after him. But Jack Frost could fly. Jackie just had to hope that gravity would be kind.
Sometimes she wondered what would happen when she finally stepped up and took over for one of her parents. Would her bones hollow themselves out, filling with ice and mist? Or would her feet leave the ground, gravity falling away from her forever? Privately, Jackie was in no hurry to find out which way her powers would twist. She liked herself exactly as she was. She’d learned how important that was when she took her tour through the Hall of Mirrors, officially becoming her mother’s heir.
“Mom?” she called again. “I really need to talk to you. I need to go to the Hall. For me. Please, can you come out where I can see you?”
The room was arctic, cold enough to match the landscape outside the windows. As Jackie watched, frost crept across the glass, lacing and interlacing into a delicate feather pattern. The chill in the air gathered until it somehow turned solid, becoming a white-haired, white-skinned woman with a white dress patterned in the same feathery swoops that the frost had drawn across the window.
The Snow Queen frowned at the sight of her daughter’s anxious face. “Jacqueline?” she said, and her voice was the sound of the wind blowing over ageless glaciers. “What’s wrong?”
Jackie took a deep breath. “I need to use the Hall of Mirrors,” she said. “I need to talk to some alternate versions of a friend of mine, before I can talk to the version of the friend of mine who exists in this mirror.”
The Snow Queen’s frown deepened. “We’ve discussed your tendency to use your powers for frivolous reasons...”
“This isn’t frivolous, Mom. I think Vel is going to die if I don’t do something, but I don’t think she’ll listen to me if I don’t have more information. I need to use the Hall of Mirrors to get that information. Please. Help me save my friend.”
“Ah.” The Snow Queen stood in perfect stillness for a moment, considering her daughter--her strange, hot-blooded daughter, whom she loved so much, and understood so little. There was nothing she could have done differently with Jackie. She knew that. But oh, sometimes she regretted the distance between them. “You realize that you risk your life along with hers if you do this.”
Jackie squared her shoulders. “I can’t let her die. Winter can’t let her die.”
“But she is your friend before she is a potential servant of the season.”
“Yes,” Jackie admitted. “I know it wasn’t supposed to be like that. But yes.”
“Then yes, you may use the Hall of Mirrors.” The Snow Queen swept her hand through the air and held it out toward Jackie. A glittering key made of ice rested on her palm. “Be careful, my daughter.”
“I will, Mom.” Jackie took the key. The cold of it bit her skin, but her body was not warm enough to start it melting. “Thank you.”
“Do not thank me,” said the Snow Queen. “I have done you no favors.” Then she was gone, dissolving back into stillness and the cold, and Jackie was alone.
It was almost a relief when the floor collapsed underneath her a few seconds later. At least that was normal.
*
Jackie Frost materialized on the steps of the Hall of Mirrors in a swirl of snowflakes. They stuck to her blue and silver spangled costume as she walked toward the door, becoming indistinguishable from the crystals and sequins that were already there. There was no keyhole. Instead, she pressed the key her mother had given her against the icy surface of the door itself, and it swung smoothly inward, allowing her to make her way into the endless maze of mirrors.
It was harder to navigate this way; harder to look for a version of someone else, rather than a version of herself. Possibilities looked out at her from every mirror she passed, Jackie Frosts and Snow Queens and Frostbites, and even the rare, pink-skinned Jacqueline Claus, adopted daughter of Santa himself. Jackie knew them all already; she had walked in their skins, if only for a few hours, on her first trips through the looking glass. Some of them she feared becoming. Others she mourned never allowing herself to become. And still she walked, until she found just the right mirror, just the right reflection.
The Jackie Frost who looked back at her had longer hair, a softer expression, and carried an ice wand in one hand. Snow Princess, delicate protectress of the North Pole, who had never spent a second on the Naughty List. Not one of Jackie’s favorite potential realities, if she was being completely honest--and the Hall of Mirrors was a place for honesty. She touched the mirror’s frame, only wincing a little as the cold of it bit into her fingertips.
“Show me Roadkill,” she said. The image blurred, Snow Princess disappearing, only to be replaced by a Mad Max remix of the Velveteen she knew, all leather and rabbit fur and safety pins holding the whole ensemble together. Roadkill was crouching in an alley, stroking something that the mirror’s frame didn’t quite allow Jackie to see.
“Here goes nothing,” muttered Jackie, and stepped into the mirror.
*
It had been another shitty night in Seattle. Two of the crows had flown away and not come back, which either meant falcons--possible--or asshole “heroes” trying to clean up the city again. Roadkill’s money was on the heroes. Fuckers never knew when to leave well enough alone. So here she was, in another stupid alley, trying to wake up a tired old dog that had finally staggered off into the dark to die.
“Get up,” she said, running her hand along the dog’s side. He was a big boy, all corded muscle and strong bone. Age was the only thing that could have taken him down, and age didn’t matter anymore, not once she got involved. The dog’s tail twitched once, thumping against the pavement. Roadkill straightened, the undead crow on her shoulder flapping its wings once as it fought to keep its balance.
“Come,” she said, and the dog, awake and undead at last, lumbered to its feet and moved to stand beside her. She allowed herself a smile. One dog was worth two crows. With West Nile tearing up the coast, there would always be more crows. She turned, ready to head back to her lair and get ready for another evening of petty crime and annoying The Super Patriots, Inc.--
--and froze. There was a woman standing behind her, blue-skinned and glowing faintly in the dark alleyway. She had white hair and was wearing a costume that looked like something out an adult production of Disney On Ice.
“Don’t freak out, okay?” asked the blue woman.
Roadkill frowned slowly. “Snow Princess?”
“Not quite. I mean, yes, in this reality, and also no, because I’m not from this reality. I’m here because I need to talk to you. I need your help.”
Roadkill scoffed. “Okay, now I know you’re from the wrong reality. I’m not the kind of girl who goes around helping people. I’m sort of on the opposite side of that equation, if you get my drift. Fuck off.”
“No.” The blue woman who wasn’t the Snow Princess shook her head. “I’m sorry, but no. Of all the versions of Roadkill, you’re the one most likely to talk to me. That means you’re going to talk to me.”
“Are you deaf? I said fuck off.” Roadkill put her hand on the head of her new dog, which was starting to grow, a deep, unpleasant sound. “There’s nothing you could possibly threaten me with that I’m going to give a shit about.”
“In my world, Yelena is alive.”
The words were simple. Their effect on Roadkill was not. She froze, all her bravado dropping away, replaced by a longing as cruel as it was sincere. “What?” she whispered.
“In my world, Yelena is alive,” repeated the blue woman. “She didn’t kill herself. Marketing convinced her that she could still be their little darling, if she’d just lie about who she was and what she wanted out of life. They drove my world’s version of you away, because they knew that the two of you were too much for them to handle when you were together.”
Roadkill’s lips thinned into a hard line. “You’re lying.” The memory of Yelena’s body was always there, fresh and cruel and horrible, if not as horrible as the memory that followed immediately afterward. Yelena, getting up again. Yelena, opening her eyes, finding herself trapped in her own dead flesh, and starting to scream.
“Why would I lie? Your powers changed when you found your best friend lying in a pool of her own blood. In my world, that never happened. That version of you is still Velveteen. She’s still a hero. And she needs your help.”
“I told you, I don’t help,” said Roadkill, numbly.
The blue woman shrugged. “How do you know if you won’t even let me tell you what I need?”
Yelena, staggering toward her, blood still dripping from her fingertips... “What the fuck do you want?” asked Roadkill, banishing the memory to the depths of her mind, where it belonged. Where it would be waiting for her when she least expected it.
“My Velveteen has a boyfriend, an animus like her. Tag. He was...” The blue woman hesitated, looking like she wanted almost anything more than she wanted to finish her sentence. Finally, she said, “Killed. He was killed in a fight recently, and Vel sort of...lost it.”
“She brought him back, didn’t she?” Roadkill shook her head, feeling suddenly tired, suddenly sorry for a version of herself that she would never know or have the chance to become. “She couldn’t leave well enough alone, and she brought him back.”
“She did. But there’s a problem.”
“Zombie boyfriend isn’t enough of a problem? You people don’t fuck around when you complicate things.”
“She doesn’t know she’s animating him.”
Roadkill’s eyes widened. “What? How is that even possible?”
“She’s more powerful than she thinks she is, and she’s in denial about what happened that day. She’s been animating him constantly for more than two months.”
“What? No.” Roadkill shook her head. “She has to stop. She has to. Animating small things, like crows or cats, that’s easy, I can have an army of those going twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. I never sleep without a guard. But humans? That’s hard. The longest I’ve ever managed a human was three days.” Yelena had begged her to stop, toward the end; begged her to let the animation go, and allow the other heroine to die.
Sometimes Roadkill wondered whether Yelena had known that she’d be blamed for murdering her best friend, kicked out of her home and branded a supervillain immediately. Sometimes she wondered if knowing would have changed her decision at all.
She didn’t think so.
“What’s going to happen if she doesn’t stop?”
Roadkill looked at the blue woman without flinching. “She’s going to die,” she said. “And there’s not a damn thing anyone else can do about it. It’s her, or it’s no one.”
“That’s what I was afraid you’d say.” The blue woman who wasn’t the Snow Princess sighed, starting to turn away. “Thank you for your time.”
“Wait!” It was probably a toss-up between them as to who was more surprised by Roadkill’s exclamation. The blue woman turned back to her, curiosity writ large across her face. Roadkill swallowed hard, and asked, “Except for the whole undead boyfriend thing...is your version of me happy? Are things better for her?”
The blue woman hesitated. Then, slowly, she nodded. “She has a home,” she said. “She has friends, good ones, who care a lot about her. She has Yelena to fight by her side. Yeah. She’s happy.”
“Then you do whatever it takes to save her stupid life,” said Roadkill. “Because my life? Is pretty fucked up. So somewhere, somehow, one of me has to be happy.”
The blue woman nodded. “That’s what I’m planning to do,” she said, and stepped into the air, leaving a gentle snow falling in her wake.
Roadkill dropped to her knees, buried her face in her hands, and wept.
*
Jacqueline Claus sat at her dining room table, nursing a mug of cocoa and wishing that she dared to spike it with something stronger than marshmallows. Anything else would have interfered with the morphine, and so she restricted herself to sugar, but oh, she yearned. The sound of snow falling behind her was a welcome distraction.
“You can come out now,” she said, and turned to see a blue-skinned, white-haired woman with her face stepping out of the shadows. Jacqueline blinked, raising an eyebrow. “What parallel are you from?”
“Not this one,” replied the woman. “I need to talk to you.”
“First tell me your code name.” Jacqueline wasn’t sure she had it in her to fight a version of herself who’d grown up to be Frostbite; not today, not when the cold was wrapped so tightly through her bones. She could take a Snow Princess easily, but this girl didn’t look like a Snow Princess. That left...
“Jackie Frost. I figured there was no point in a code name when everyone would know who I was either way.”
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Jackie Frost. I’m Jacqueline Claus.” The understanding of their shared and divergent histories stretched out between them like tinsel draped around a tree. One of them, raised by parents who barely understood the needs of the flesh, but whose love, such as it was, had informed her substance; the other, given to Santa to be raised as his adopted daughter, who loved her just as dearly as her birth parents would have, in a world where they were just a little braver. “What can I do for you?”
Jackie took a deep breath. “My world’s version of Velma is still Velveteen. But I’m afraid that’s starting to change. Her boyfriend died. She’s animating him right now, and she doesn’t realize that she’s doing it. You know...”
“I know Marionette very, very well, and you want to know if there’s any way that the change can be a good thing,” said Jacqueline. She stood stiffly, the muscles in her back complaining with every move she made. “You’ve been through the Hall of Mirrors.”
“Yes.”
“That’s how you know that Marionette is my partner.”
“Yes,” said Jackie again, looking faintly abashed. “I don’t understand how it works between you, but I know that you’re always together...”
“Did you ever wonder how Velveteen’s powers worked? How she was able to give life where there wasn’t any?” Jacqueline shook her head. “She gave them her life. She shared her own energy with the things she animated.”
“But Marionette isn’t alive.” And that was the crux of the matter: in the worlds where she was Marionette, Velma Martinez was already dead.
“I know. So does she, fortunately; it makes things easier on us. As a dead woman, she has no life to share. As an animus, she understands what the energy of life looks like, feels like, and how to call it to herself. She stays standing because she’s animating her own body, and she’s doing it with the life force of the creatures around her.” Jacqueline offered Jackie a wan smile. “Most versions of Marionette are evil. They have to be, to keep doing what they have to do to survive.”
“Yours isn’t,” said Jackie.
“No, I’m not,” said a voice behind her, and she turned to see Velma--almost Velma, not quite Velma--standing behind her, wearing a black and white version of her original Velveteen costume. She looked pale, and tired. “I’m not evil because I don’t have to steal the energy that keeps me alive. Jacqueline gives it to me freely. It’s killing her, even though she tries to pretend that it’s not.”
“So why don’t you stop?” The words were out before Jackie could call them back. She winced.
Fortunately, Marionette didn’t seem to mind. She walked past Jackie to Jacqueline, and said, “I became Marionette when The Super Patriots attacked Portland. They killed the Princess. They killed Action Dude. They killed me. Only I got back up again, and kept fighting. Jacqueline has agreed to keep feeding me energy long enough for us to destroy The Super Patriots for what they did to me. And then I can rest.” The exhaustion in her eyes was unbearable.
“The way you live now...”
“I’m not alive. Don’t be fooled by appearances.” Marionette shook her head. “I heard you say that your world’s version of me was animating her dead boyfriend, and didn’t realize it. You have to make her stop. If she kills herself, the power will snap back on her, and you’ll have another Marionette on your hands. I wouldn’t wish this existence on my worst enemies. I can’t wish it on a girl I never got to be. Make her stop.”
“I’ll try.” Jackie looked to Jacqueline. “What about you?”
“I’m fine.” Jacqueline smiled bravely. “I’m Santa’s daughter. I have a lot in me to give.”
They had nothing left to say to each other, after that. Jackie disappeared in a swirl of snowflakes. Jacqueline turned to Marionette, opening her arms.
“Come on, dear. You need to eat before you go hunting.”
Marionette fell on her like a starving wolf, and the morphine helped...for a while.
*
Jackie Frost materialized on the steps of the Hall of Mirrors in a swirl of snowflakes, fell to her hands and knees, and was messily sick. When she was sure her stomach had nothing left to lose she grabbed a handful of untainted snow, using it to rinse her mouth out as she staggered back to her feet. She felt a little bad about leaving the mess for the elves to clean up, but that was what elves were for, and she had places to be. Even if they were places she’d be happier avoiding.
Two hours, a change of clothes, a magic mirror transport, and a taxi later, she was standing outside Tad’s apartment door, trying to find the strength to knock. She had almost decided to go away and come back later when the issue was resolved for her: the door opened, and a confused-looking Tad blinked at her from inside the living room.
“Jackie?” His eyes widened. “Oh, crap, Jackie, you can’t be here. I still have a secret identity to worry about.” He grabbed her arm, looking quickly up and down the hall to see if anyone had noticed her. Then he hauled her inside.
Normally, Jackie would have slapped any man who dared to grab her like that. Under the circumstances, she allowed it to happen. “I need to talk to you,” she said, as soon as the door was closed behind her.
“Phones work.”
“This isn’t a phone conversation.” She took a deep breath, studying Tad’s face. Vel was her friend, sure, but she was also a project; woo her to the winter, one step, one crusade, one girl’s-night out at a time. Tad was just her friend. They’d known each other for years, and when she introduced him to Velma, she’d been expecting both of them to have a little fun, maybe fuck a little bit of their tension away. She hadn’t been expecting it to get him killed.
Tad blinked, annoyance fading into concern as he looked at her. “Jackie? Is everything okay?”
She laughed unsteadily. “No, everything really isn’t. Tad, do you remember the fight against the robots?”
“The ones that dentist built? Yeah.” He rubbed the back of his neck with one hand. “That fight scared the life out of me.”
Jackie winced. “Bad choice of words. Tad, look. Maybe you better sit down.”
Tad paled. Tad sat. Jackie sat beside him on the couch and began to talk.
Somewhere in the middle of her explanation, he took her hands. Sometime after that, she began to cry. Through it all, Tad looked stunned and maybe, just a little bit, relieved. It was an answer, after all; it explained everything that had happened since he saw that metal foot come down, since the world went away, only to come back in full color when he heard Vel calling out his name. Yes, it all made perfect sense.
That didn’t make it any easier to hear. Before she was done, he was crying, too, and they clung to each other, and they wept.
*
Victoria answered the door. She was Victoria because she was out of uniform, although the only real difference between her street clothes and her superhero attire was in the number and size of the guns that she was carrying. “She’s asleep,” she said, when she saw Jackie and Tad standing on the porch. “Go away.”
“Wasn’t the Victorian Era supposed to be all about the manners and stuff?” asked Jackie, pushing her way past Torrey and into the living room. Tad followed.
“The world has moved on,” said Torrey crossly, closing the door behind them. “She needs her rest.”
“I know.” Jackie took a deep breath. It seemed like she was doing that a lot lately. “Look. You want her to get some rest because you need her to recover from whatever’s been draining her energy if we’re going to get Yelena back, right?”
Torrey froze. “You called her by name,” she said, slowly. Her gaze swung around to Tad. “Why are you here with her, and out of uniform? Aren’t you still maintaining an alter ego?”
“You always said you were smart,” said Tad, with a wan smile.
“Oh, sweet Epona.” Torrey made a complicated gesture that might, in a world where a horse-goddess was the superior deity, have been the equivalent of a Christian girl crossing herself. “I’ll get her for you.” Then she fled the room, vanishing down the hall.
“Here we go,” said Jackie. She looked to Tad. “I’m so sorry.”
“Me, too.”
Victoria returned a few minutes later, a groggy Velma behind her. Vel was wearing her bathrobe, and looked like she’d just been running a marathon, not taking a nap. She rubbed her eyes as she frowned at the pair.
“What’s wrong?” she asked. “Why are you here in the middle of the day?”
“We have to talk to you,” said Jackie gravely.
Velma looked from her to Tag, panic beginning to build in her expression. “What’s wrong?” she repeated. “Did someone die? Oh, God--is Yelena okay?”
This time, it was Tad who said, “Maybe you’d better sit down,” and took her hands, and led her to the couch.
“Velma, Tad didn’t survive the fight against the robots,” said Jackie. She stayed standing. “He died. You brought him back.”
“What? No. I’d know.”
“You do know. You just...aren’t admitting it to yourself, because you don’t want to lose him. But that’s why you’re so tired all the time, honey. Because you’re licking your candy cane at both ends, and it’s wearing down way too fast. If you don’t let him go, it’s going to kill you.”
Velma shook her head. “No. No. You’re wrong. You’re--”
“Vel, we both know there’s something wrong with me.” Tad didn’t let go of her hands. “I’m not one of those guys who starts pledging eternal love after the second date, but that doesn’t mean I’m selfish enough to kill you for a few more days of life. You have to stop animating me. You have to let me go.”
“No!”
“I’ve seen what happens if you don’t,” said Jackie. “It kills you, and then you bring yourself back as a sort of...energy vampire. You steal the life force you don’t have from the people around you. I spoke to the only heroic version of Marionette in the multiverse. She begged me to stop you before it was too late. She’s a version of you who’s already paid this price, Vel, and it’s too high. It’s too high for everyone.”
“Let me go,” said Tad. “Please.”
“But I love you,” whispered Vel. “I can’t do this alone.”
“If you think that the loss of a lover renders you alone, you are a sadder, less observant person than I had ever dreamt,” said Torrey. “You are not alone. You will be lonely, yes, but you will never be alone.”
“I can’t.” Velma shook her head, tightening her grip on Tad’s fingers. “I’ve lost Yelena. I can’t lose anyone else. I just can’t. Don’t ask me to do this.”
“The risks--”
“They’re mine! I’m the one taking them, not you, so don’t ask me to let you go because you think that’s how you protect me! That’s not how you protect me! You protect me by staying with me. You protect me by being here.”
Jackie bit her lip before saying, reluctantly, “I may have another option.” She didn’t want to say this, sweet Claus, she didn’t want to say this, but if Vel wasn’t willing to listen to reason... “Can I use your mirror?”
*
Entering the Crystal Glitter Unicorn Cloud Castle was like walking into an explosion of fairy tale cliches, each one more sparkly and encrusted with gemstones than the last. Singing flowers dropped down from the ceiling to serenade their little procession, which was only slightly less bizarre than the fact that the footman was a kangaroo in a pink and purple tabard. He even had a mushroom cap with a pink ostrich feather in it.
Tad, who had never been to visit the Princess at home before, said in a horrified tone, “I don’t know whether I should laugh or buy her a thousand shots of tequila as a form of apology for the collective subconscious.”
“I go with a combination of the two,” said Jackie. She turned to look at Velma, moving a bit more slowly than usual, due to the elaborate ball gown that had replaced her clothes when she passed through the mirror. At least it was blue. Velma’s gown was burgundy with hints of pink, while Victoria was dressed in rust-red with copper accents. Of the three of them, Victoria looked the most comfortable. “You okay, honey?”
“Let’s just get this over with,” said Vel. She sounded almost like she was drugged. “I just...”
“I know,” said Tad, squeezing her hand.
They kept moving.
The kangaroo led them through the twisting, largely pink palace until they reached a pair of uncharacteristically un-blinged oak doors. Then he turned and hopped away, apparently expecting them to know what to do from here. Jackie looked at the others, shrugged, and touched the nearest door with one faintly glowing hand, sending frost spiraling out across the wood. The doors swung open, revealing a gray stone cathedral with stained glass windows letting in the only light. There was a jarring lack of pink. Even the Princess, who was standing at the head of the room next to a long glass box, was wearing a dark gray gown, not a jewel or neon accent in sight.
“Y’all can come on in now,” she said. “I’m ready for you.”
They walked across the room to the Princess in a ragged formation, Velma still clinging to Tad’s hand. He was crying. None of them commented on it. It seemed inappropriate to even admit that they could see his tears.
The Princess stepped off the dais and walked calmly over to the pair. She reached for their joined hands, and somehow, through the clever movement of her fingers, separated them, even though they would have sworn that wasn’t possible. Taking both of Velma’s hands in her own, she looked the other heroine in the eyes, and asked, “Can you let go?”
“I don’t want to,” whispered Vel.
“That’s not the question.”
Velma sniffled and looked at Tag, who smiled wanly. She looked back to the Princess and nodded. She didn’t say it aloud. She didn’t have the words.
“Good.” The Princess released her, turning to take Tag’s hands in the same fashion. “Now you, my boy...I’m so sorry this happened. We all know there are dangers to this job, and that doesn’t make it any easier.”
“Thank you,” said Tag.
“I have to ask you: are you sure? This doesn’t let you move on. Whatever Heaven you believe in, you’re not going to get there.”
Tag nodded firmly. “I’m sure. I may have known the job was dangerous when I took it, but that doesn’t mean I’m ready to go.”
“Good. Come with me.” The Princess released one of his hands, keeping hold of the other as she turned and led him toward the dais. Tag glanced back at Velma, who was sobbing into Jackie’s shoulder, and allowed himself to be led.
As they moved closer to the glass box, it became more obvious that it was, in fact, a glass coffin. A bowl of apples rested on a pedestal next to it, alongside a spindle. “Pick your poison, sugar,” said the Princess. “I mean that literally. Either one will do you in, and then it’s just a matter of waiting.”
“Can I have a second?” asked Tad.
“Sure, honey. Take all the time you need. Just, once you choose, you gotta be ready to lay down, all right? The coffin has to close. That’s what protects you.”
Tad nodded.
The Princess stepped down from the dais, motioning for Jackie and Victoria to go with her. Together, they left the room, leaving Tad and Velma alone.
“Hey.” Tad hopped down from the dais, feeling a little guilty about the energy he was using as he walked to his girlfriend, taking hold of her wrists. He tried to pull her hands down from her face. “Vel, sweetie, look at me.”
She dropped her hands and raised her face, sniffling. Her eyes were red, and her nose was slightly swollen. He smiled.
“You are not one of nature’s more photogenic weepers,” he said. “Marketing must have hated it when you got upset.”
Vel laughed a little, despite herself. “I think they died a little bit inside every time I skinned my knee and cried where the cameras could catch it.”
“Good.” Tad switched his grip so that they were holding hands again. “I love you, Velma. And even if you didn’t know you were doing it, I want to say...thank you. For keeping me alive. For caring enough not to let me go. But now you have to care enough to stop. Everyone’s counting on you. Yelena needs you. And I need to know that I’m not killing you. So can you do it? Can you let go?”
“I think so,” she whispered. “We were supposed to have so much time. What happened to all our time?”
“We spent some of it. Now we get to put the rest of it in the bank. Come on.” Tad pulled her with him as he walked back to the dais. The glass coffin was waiting, all silent invitation and cold inevitability.
Velma couldn’t look at it. “The Princess says that we can wake you up with true love’s kiss, and you’ll be alive again. Is there anything you need to tell me?”
“Honey, if anyone’s going to wake me up, it’s going to be you.” Tad dropped her hands, put his arms around her waist, and kissed her. After a moment’s stunned hesitation, Velma looped her arms around his shoulders and kissed him back. They held each other for as long as they could, trading frantic kisses and bitter tears, until finally, Tad pulled away.
“I love you,” Velma said.
“I know,” he said, and smiled, holding up the apple he had taken from the bowl. “I’ll see you soon.”
The sound of his teeth tearing through the fruit was like the sound of a robot’s foot crashing down on a city street. He chewed, swallowed, and fell. Velma darted in, barely catching him before his head could hit the floor. Carefully, she maneuvered him into the coffin and closed the lid--
--and fainted, as the band of energy that had been stretched between them for months finally snapped, and she was whole again. It was like a heavy rain falling on a dry lake: even though there was room for all the water, it was too much to bear.
There was no one there to catch her.
*
Velma awoke in the middle of a giant daisy that had been drafted into service as a bed. She was still wearing the ball gown. She sat up, sneezed, and accepted the tissue that was offered to her. “Thank you,” she said, blowing her nose. Then she paused, blinked, and turned to see the Princess sitting next to the flower-bed.
“Morning, sunshine,” she said. “You’ve been asleep for about twelve hours. How are you feeling?”
“...a little bit ashamed of how good I feel,” said Velma. “It’s like I was sick for a long time, and didn’t know it.”
“That’s not too bad a comparison. Come on.” The Princess stood, offering Velma her hands. “Up you get. You need to eat, and then we need to figure out what happens next.”
“What do you mean, what happens next? I kiss Tad. He wakes up. We crush The Super Patriots.”
“Oh, honey.” The Princess looked at her sadly. “You only get one try. If you kiss him and he doesn’t wake up, you can’t try again.”
Velma frowned. “So?”
“So unless you settle things with Aaron, I’m not sure you can call what you feel for the boy true love.” The Princess shook her head. “You have to make things right before you can make them better.”
For a long time, Velma just stared at her. The Princess sighed, and folded her into an embrace, and neither of them said anything at all.
*
Tired all the way down to her frozen bones, Jackie Frost stumbled through the mirror and into the warm snow of the North Pole. She staggered past the pond and the forest, and no snow fell; she would have needed strength to make it snow. As she approached the door to Santa’s Workshop, it opened, and the big man himself stepped out, his red coat like a flame against the never-ending winter wonderland.
“You did well, my dear,” he said, and wrapped her in a hug that smelled like cocoa and candy canes, and held her as she cried.