genetic make-up

Thump. Thump. Thump.

Elsa pressed her head against her hand. Sat at her desk, her textbook illuminated by the halo of the desk lamp, she'd been staring at the equations for several minutes now without seeing them.

If X equals 17, then y is-

A loud girlish squeal erupted from the corridor, followed by a loud, thump.

Elsa's father and Idun weren't at home. From what Anna told her, it sounded like he'd finally managed to bring Idun round, and the five-day luxury cruise he'd whisked her off on was to make up for things. While they sat in deck chairs soaking up the balmy Mediterranean sun drinking cocktails with bits of fruit floating in them, or whatever it was you were meant to do on a cruise, Gerda was supposedly left in charge.

Supposedly being the very liberal use of the word.

"-And the world champion prepares for the jump. Anna Anderson, competing the 6th annual settee Olympics-"

This was followed by a very loud cheer from Rapunzel.

Elsa didn't have a clue what Anna and their cousin was up to, and she wasn't entirely sure she wanted to find out.

Her head bowed over the paper, she tried to lose herself in the numbers. X is 17. So y is- Eureka! She had it. She snatched up her pen, and-

THUMP.

Elsa spun round in her chair. Her door had flown open and crashed against the wall. Splayed face forward on her floor, hair-a-tangle, Rapunzel was wedged in her doorway.

"Um," said Elsa.

A hand emerged from the sea of hair. Breaking through the waves of blond curls, it reached tentatively for freedom.

"Help," called Anna.

"Soz, Anna," said Rapunzel, sitting up and slinging her hair over her forearm to reveal Anna laid flat on her stomach.

"What happened?" said Elsa.

"We were coming to see you, and I tripped on Punz's hair.- geroff me, will you Punz?"

Rapunzel got up, and offered Anna a hand. "That really hurt when you stood on my hair, you know," she complained.

"That's not my fault. Maybe you could try, I don't know, getting a haircut."

"You know my Mum won't let me-"

Elsa looked longing back at her textbook. The answer was completely gone out of her head now.

"Hey Elsa," said Anna, and Elsa swung back in the chair to face her. "So we were thinking-"

"-it might be really fun if-" Rapunzel interrupted.

"-we give you a makeover!" said Anna.

Elsa looked between the two girls. "You've got to be kidding me," she said, before she turned back round and begun flipping through her book.

"C'mon Elsa. It'll be fun," said Anna.

If the common denominator is 13, then-

"Please?"

"I have homework to do," said Elsa.

"You mean someone forgot to mention that homework is voluntary...?"

Elsa swung round. The grin on Anna's face was positively impish.

"I know I'm ignorant about a lot of things, but I'm not stupid, Anna Anderson," she said.

Rapunzel started cracking up at that. "Oh, man. You're going to need some serious burn cream for that, Anna Anderson."

"Oh, shut up Rapunzel-"

Elsa couldn't help but smile a little, too.

Anna crossed the room and slid up onto her desk. The light from the desk lamp caught in her hair and brought out the red in it.

"Seriously, Elsa. It'll be fun. It's boring just to sit in your room and study all of the time."

But, studying was what Elsa knew how to do. She'd been doing it for years without

realising it. It was easy. Familiar.

She crossed her arms, uncomfortable. Hedging, "I don't know..." Fingers, digging into the soft fabric of her jumper.

...It wasn't that she liked sitting in her room all alone, listening to other people having fun...

"Pleeeeeeease, Elsa."

"Okay... I guess."

Anna's walk-in closet was almost the size of her bedroom. Countless rails of clothes. Air wrapped dresses, many with the tags still on. Drawer after drawer of shoes, all lit by the soft ambient pink light of the chandelier.

Her mirror was full-length, surrounded by bright white light bulbs, the kind you might see at the fairground fun house. In it, Elsa saw herself, flanked by Anna and Rapunzel. Her sister was leant on her shoulder. They were checking out the damage, and it wasn't good.

It might be unusual for a seventeen-old girl, but Elsa wasn't in the habit of looking in the mirror. Her appearance wasn't something she thought about a lot. It was something that was just there.

Now, looking in the mirror, the reflection staring back at her dismayed her. "Oh..." she said. She couldn't help but compare: Rapunzel's glossy golden locks to her own mop of hair, scraped back into a messy ponytail, dull and lacklustre. Anna's cute dress, and her own frumpy ankle-length skirt and jumper. Her hollow eyes.

Her reflection was clutching hold of her sleeve anxiously. It looked pale and unkempt, and not-quite-there. A lump rose in Elsa's throat. For the first time she saw what they must see: a ghost.

"I've changed my mind," she said, voice a rising crescendo, pulling away from Anna.

"Wait, Elsa."

Indecision made her pause.

"It'll all wash off," Anna said.

Elsa blinked. It took her a second to understand Anna was talking about make-up.

It'll all wash off.

If only it were all that easy.

"It's not that-" she said.

"Then what?"

How could she even begin to explain?

You're so beautiful, and I'm me.

I don't belong here.

I want to be on my own.

Anna clasped her hand. "Just try it, Elsa?"

...But, she didn't want to be alone.

A murmur, "Alright..."

Discarded clothes, hurled into a mounting pile on the ground. Anna's massive make-up case looked like a box full of candy. Max Factor "manga" lashes; lipstick, all red; a rainbow spectrum of nail polish. Elsa rolled some kind of pencil in her hand. "What's this?" she asked.

"Eye-liner," Anna said, and Elsa flushed.

Rapunzel brushed out her hair in smooth, long strokes. The muscles in her shoulders that knotted under the familiar touch begun to relax as Rapunzel brought the brush through her hair. It felt really nice.

"Your hair's really good, Elsa. You should take better care of it," Rapunzel said. "It takes me an hour before school to brush mine out and braid it all."

Clothes. Countless clothes. Rapunzel picking up a taffeta coloured crop top from the pile and asking, "Anna, can I borrow this?"

"Sure."

It made Elsa think of when she was small, wearing her mother's silk scarves, clomping about in her oversized high heels. "Mummy, do I look like a grown up?"

Playing pretend. Sharing lipstick. Laughing. Anna: "Tell me my hair looks sexy pulled back."

Rapunzel, pulling a pout: "Your hair looks sexy pushed back."

Maybe, this was the same thing.

Elsa laughed with them, but she didn't catch the reference. Part of her was distant, detached.

"Elsa, hold still now."

She could count every single individual eyelash. Anna was crouched close to apply Elsa's mascara, eyebrows furrowed together. Unconsciously, biting her lip in concentration.

Elsa resisted the urge to pull away from the close contact.

"You gotta keep still, or I'm going to mess it up," her sister warned her.

"R-right, sorry."

"You don't need to look so scared! I'm a pro. I won't get it in your eye, promise," said Anna. The dimples in her cheeks as she grinned.

"S-sorry."

"You don't need to keep apologising, Elsa."

"Sor-" Elsa stopped herself before she could finish. Anna laughed.

"Don't you worry about a thing. I am going to make you look fine."

When their work was finished, she was told to close her eyes.

"Don't you think this is a little much?" she asked, following her sister's guiding hand.

"Shh! Don't spoil my fun," she heard Anna say.

From somewhere behind her, she heard Rapunzel's giggling.

"If you're leading me off the roof, I'm not going to forgive you!" she said.

"You can open them now," said Anna.

Elsa opened her eyes, and the image she saw in the mirror startled her.

"What do you think?" Rapunzel asked, hands clasped together in excitement.

She was wearing a cute blue dress with sequins, and white leggings. Her hair Rapunzel had done up in an elegant braided bun behind her head. With the foundation, the bags beneath her eyes weren't nearly as prominent. Her eyelids were dusted with a touch of purple eye shadow, and she was wearing lipstick.

"You are going to have the boys falling at your feet," Rapunzel said, but Elsa barely heard her.

She knew the face looking back at her.

When was it that her mother had climbed into her reflection?

In the shape of her eyes, she saw her. In the curve of her face. The resemblance must have always been there, but Elsa hadn't seen it until she Anna put on her lipstick, in the same shade of red her mother wore.

She couldn't take it. Barging past Anna and Rapunzel, Elsa ran from her reflection.

"Elsa?"

Elsa laid on her bed, staring without seeing out at the lights of the city. Sadness, she let settle over her like a thick, heavy blanket.

She heard her door click open. "Elsa... can I come in?" It was a pretty funny question to ask, seeing as she'd come in already anyway. Anna padded across the carpeted floor, and Elsa felt the bed sink at the other end as she sat down.

"What's wrong?"

She pushed her face into the pillow. Said, in a muffled voice, "Nothing."

"We didn't do that bad a job, did we?"

A hiccup of laughter. "It's n-not that," she said.

"Cuz honest, I've never done Punz's makeup so badly she cried before."

Elsa lifted her face from the pillow. Anna was sat cross-legged on the bed, smiling sheepishly.

"You did a good job," she managed out. "It looks-" she gave a good sniff, "-really great."

"Ah, Elsa..."

"What?" Elsa said. Anna was staring at her weirdly. Elsa raised her hand and touched the ends of her fingertips to her face. They came away black.

Anna stifled a giggle behind her hand. "You kinda look like a panda."

There was a nasty black smudge smeared all over her white pillow, too.

"Hold on one minute. I'll get my make-up wipes."

Anna grabbed the packet from her room, and she and Elsa sat opposite one another on the bed, Anna cleaning up the mess she'd made of herself. As she worked in silent concentration, Elsa stared at her own knotted fingers in her lap.

Lightly, Anna asked, "So... what was it that upset you?"

"I... I missed my Mum." To Anna's obvious confusion, she explained: "She always wore the same shade of lipstick. And..."

As she looked at Anna, she saw it in her, too: less pronounced than in herself, but parts of their mother were in her as well.

How long did Agdar and Idun intend to lie to Anna for?

"Oh," said Anna, adding awkwardly, "That sucks. Um. Maybe we could use a different colour next time." Hesitation. "If there's a next time-" she amended.

Elsa jumped in: "Yeah. I mean... it was, fun."

Tentative smiles. Anna cleaned away the last of her make-up.

As though she hadn't barged in through her door, Anna suggested, "If you wanted, I could leave you alone, and stop bugging you, if you wanted to think about stuff...?"

"It's okay," said Elsa. She'd spent too much time over the past few weeks, thinking. And the conclusion she'd come to was it led to no conclusion at all. She swallowed down the hard lump in her throat. "I-... I don't want to be alone."

The living room was a real tip. Gerda hadn't been away one day and there were drink cans littering the floor and an empty pizza box. Her clean white sheets had been pulled from the airing cupboard and used as makeshift ski slopes, as part of the annual settee winter Olympics.

Now, she, Anna and Rapunzel pulled them from the sofa to make a den by the big glass windows. Dragged out Anna's mattress from her room. They turned off the lights and snuggled down under the duvets.

Anna slipped her hand into hers. Neither said anything, but their hands spoke, firing neurons between synapses.

I'm with you, they said.

Elsa drifted to sleep, floating amidst the phosphorescence and electric suns of the city skyline.