(See the end of the chapter for notes .)

Chapter Text

Decision made, Anna managed all her preparations and arrangements more deftly than Idunn would have thought possible. She packed her boxes without prompting. Anna mentioned once over dinner that she’d figured out both employment and housing concerns. When Adgar worried, Anna even said she’d gotten her car tuned up to prep for the road trip.

Idunn didn’t say much. Even when Anna had packed up her car and was getting ready to head out on her road trip, Idunn found she didn’t have much to say.

She was worried, yes, but worried in the same way she’d be concerned about Mulan or Aurora, or one of her friends’ children.

Anna would probably be fine.

And if she ran into more than a reasonable amount of hardship, well, she’d probably be alright. Struggle built character. Difficult decisions grew determination.

“Is that everything from the house?” Idunn asked.

Anna nodded as she came down the stairs, carrying her stuffed dog. “Yep. I just finished packing the car. I have more room than I thought I did, actually.” She smiled at the stuffed animal. “So I figured I could bring along some road trip company.”

Idunn smiled. “That seems prudent.” She hesitated, then took a step forward as Anna reached the bottom of the stairs. “Have a safe trip,” she said.

They hugged, awkward and brief. Anna bit her lip, then pressed an envelope into Idunn’s hand. “Would you... would you give this to Elsa?”

She’d handed over a plain envelope, thin and simple. Idunn was, briefly, glad that Anna hadn’t asked her to deliver a small novel. For what she planned, the shorter the better.

“I can,” she answered.

They stood in silence for a long moment. Idunn wondered if she’d look at this young woman as her daughter in another life. If maybe she’d welcomed Anna into her home more wholeheartedly, maybe things would have been different.

Or, given what she’d discovered about Anna and Elsa, maybe it would merely have been more painful.

“Adgar is waiting outside for you,” she said. “He’s been checking your tire pressure.”

“Oh, I took care of that yesterday,” Anna said.

“Say thank you anyway.” Idunn wasn’t sure if that counted as motherly advice or not.

Anna blinked, then nodded. “I will.”

They hesitated again before Anna smiled. “Goodbye then.”

“Goodbye, Anna.” Idunn followed her to hold the door open. Anna shut the door behind her.

The house was quiet. As she went up the stairs, Idunn could hear Adgar arguing with Anna one last time. But she’d stood between them, mediating his reactions, since Anna’s first announcement. They both deserved one last chance to stand their ground. Adgar had agreed, but still didn’t like the idea. Anna was still leaving. Whatever their relationship, it was up to them to hash it out this last time.

At the top of the stairs, Idunn found herself drawn to Anna’s room. She opened the door and looked inside.

Anna had never been much of a neat freak, but the room had been cleaned from top to bottom. It felt almost sterile. No dust lined the bookcase, but no books either, save for a handful of placeholders left over from the room’s history as a guest room. The desk had been tidied up into something that more closely resembled a hotel feature than something for a bedroom. Anna had even rearranged the furniture back to how it had looked when she first moved in.

For an eerie moment in the clean room and the quiet house, it was as though Anna had never lived there at all.

Idunn shut the door and crossed the hall to Elsa’s room. If she’d gone downstairs, she knew she would find no pictures of Anna hanging on the walls. They’d just stopped changing them out after she moved in. At the time, it had seemed like the safest choice.

A glance in the girls’ bathroom revealed a clean vanity with only Elsa’s spare thingsleft on it.

Idunn heard Anna’s car start in the driveway. She stopped with a hand on Elsa’s doorknob and listened to the car drive off.

Before Adgar could come back inside, she let herself in to Elsa’s room.

Her first thought, upon going in, was to wonder how long Elsa had been so distant. Her room was tidy and fairly personal, but it felt generic. Now that she knew to look for it, the decor felt like a facade. On the surface, it seemed tidy and well enough, but this wasn’t Elsa.

She would reconnect with her daughter when she got back from college.

Idunn gripped Anna’s letter tighter.

Everything felt strange. Somewhere along the line, her life had gone off-track. She missed her daughter so much.

And they wouldn’t necessarily have to talk about the incest.

Not that it was quite incest.

Idunn didn’t like thinking of the word. She sat on the edge of Elsa’s bed and sighed. This is what she got for telling Elsa to choose her own damned path.

She looked down at the letter in her hand. She didn’t want to give it to Elsa personally. That would be an almost acknowledgement of her relationship with Anna. Idunn intended to talk to Elsa about the matter eventually, but not with the letter freshly delivered.

She didn’t want to just hold onto it either. It would be highly unfortunate if she left it out and Adgar picked it up somewhere.

Idunn opened Elsa’s bedside table and blinked. It was cluttered, or as close to clutter as Elsa was likely to get. Curious, she plucked out a few items and looked at them. A green button with a bit of glue on the back, scraps of a letter written in crayon, and a rock on a keychain that Idunn remembered Elsa carrying around all the time.

Thinking back, Elsa had stopped carrying it at the end of high school. Idunn frowned, trying to draw connections between the junk. A dozen folded notes all showed similar, hastily scrawled messages that read, ‘you can do it!’ and ‘you’re gonna make it through today.’ The handwriting seemed familiar. Idunn found a hair tie with a red lock wound around it and a small braid of what looked like horsehair. Buried at the bottom of the drawer was a picture of Anna and, beneath that, a snowflake locket.

Idunn picked it up by the chain, letting it swing and twist in the air for a few moments. When it stilled, she opened it up.

Age wasn’t kind to her eyes. She held it farther away in order to see a small picture of Elsa and Anna.

It looked so familiar her heart ached.

Idunn closed the locket and returned the items to the drawer just as she’d found them. She went to set the letter inside when her thumb caught the flap.

Anna hadn’t sealed the envelope.

Was that an invitation for Idunn to read?

She hesitated before tugging the paper out. She didn’t have much time before Adgar came looking for her, but it was a short enough letter.

Dear Elsa,

You said if I figured something out, you’d give this a shot with me. This is my plan and this is why I’m leaving, among other reasons. I probably sound like something out of a spy movie, but: Don’t contact me. I’ll contact you.

The only way we work out is if I can come back and not be your sister, so I’m leaving to figure out who that person is. You can’t help me or protect me or guide me this time. I’m on my own and I need to do this. We’re always leaving one another. I know you’ll understand why it’s my turn this time.

Please trust me. I’ve got this. Give it time. I’ll reach out for you when it’s good on my end. If it’s still good on your end, we’ll take it from there, together.

If not, you know I wish you well.

Always yours,

Anna Wintergale

Idunn sighed and closed the bedside drawer before she folded up the letter and slipped it back inside the envelope. She felt empty and younger than she had in ages. Still, her back creaked as she stood up and slipped the envelope inside one of Elsa’s desk drawers, away from the collection of artifacts in the bedside table.

Before she left Elsa’s room, her hand hovered over the doorknob. She’d made her choices. Part of being an adult meant living with them.

And if that meant partially lying to Anna in order to turn a suspicion into a confession, that was her choice.

Idunn was good at living with her own choices. She’d chosen, decades ago, to reject the burgeoning possibility between her and her sister. She’d had a choice between something a little wrong and something easier. It hadn’t seemed worth it then, to brave the hardships for the chance at something different.

“Earlier in our lives, we had chosen something... a little wrong.”

Anna's eyes had widened with shock and complete belief, because people always assume that other people are like them, would make the same choices as they would.

Idunn had mostly outgrown wondering, but when she did, she always wondered what would have happened if she made the choice Anna thought she had.

She loved Adgar, she really did, but regret and accepting responsibility for her actions were not mutually exclusive.

“Good luck, Anna,” she whispered before walking out the door and back to the life she’d chosen.

.

Section V End