Dark Solstice

By Lauren Sweet

The Bitter Snow Series: A modern-day story of myth, magic and the power of love, based on Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Snow Queen”
Volume Two: Dark Solstice

Demons have taken over Gilly Breslin’s town—and she’s the only one who knows.

On St. Nicholas’s Eve, the festival of Bellsnichol, Gilly opened her door to an ancient evil. A demon queen, who’s slowly destroying Gilly’s best friend Kai—the only guy she’s ever loved. But it’s not just Kai. Every guy who falls in love with the Snow Queen turns evil—and every guy who sees her falls in love with her. Except one.

Niko Bremer is one of the hereditary guardians of Bremerton—and he has eyes only for Gilly, even though he knows her heart belongs to Kai. Gilly learns that Niko and his grandfather may hold the key to banishing the Snow Queen and her minions. But with the town erupting in violence and the demons’ power increasing as the winter nights grow longer, Gilly and Niko may not be able to stop them before Kai—and Bremerton—are destroyed forever.

This book is a novella - about 100 pages (35,000 words)

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lauren Sweet
• Release date: May 5, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311161062

Lauren Sweet

Lauren Sweet was born and raised in New Jersey, spending her formative years with a book in her hand or under the desk in math class. She tried her hand at writing during her misspent youth, took a twenty-year detour through the business world, and finally escaped to Alaska and earned a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from the University of Alaska Anchorage. Lauren is now a full-time freelance writer and editor living near Portland, OR. Other esoteric skills include astrology, tarot card reading, figure skating, and the ability to do a perfect split.

Book preview

Bitter Snow: A Modern Fairy Tale

volume two: Dark Solstice

Lauren Sweet

Copyright 2013 Lauren Sweet

Cover art copyright 2013 Jeanne Gransee Barker

Smashwords Edition

Other titles by Lauren Sweet:

Bitter Snow, volume one: Bitter Snow

Bitter Snow, volume three: Twelfth Night

Aladdin’s Samovar

Table of Contents

Title/Copyright Page

Prologue: The Next Day

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

A Word from the Author

Excerpt: Bitter Snow, volume three: Twelfth Night

Prologue: The Next Day

The day after the worst birthday of my life, I spent alone, putting my house back together after a party I didn’t remember having.

One that might not have been a party at all.

As I swept up smashed ornaments and put books back on bookshelves, I kept trying not to look at the back wall of the living room, the one behind the stairs leading up to the second floor. Normally, that wall displayed my dad’s wooden recurve bow—the one he’d won at an archery competition when he was about my age—and two wooden racks holding the six crystal, silver-tipped arrows that a glassblower friend of his had made. Three arrows to a rack. Except now one of the display racks held only two arrows.

Either one of my alleged party guests had taken the sixth arrow, or I had shot it at an evil goddess to keep her from killing me.

I just wished I knew which it was.

Chapter One

After Bellsnichol, I spent the weekend in my room pretending to be sick with an unspecified illness, though no one in the Mueller house was fooled. Auntie Berthe brought me soup and grilled cheese sandwiches, but she didn’t insist on feeling my forehead or feeding me Tylenol. Uncle Gus stopped in now and then and tried to make jokes, but his smiles didn’t quite reach his eyes.

Kai didn’t come to see me at all.

That alone was a sign that something was really wrong—that something strange had happened the night of St. Nicholas’s Eve, and that Kai was a part of it. Usually, if I was sick, he’d hang out with me practically the whole time, burning me music CDs and downloading the cheesiest movies he could find, and playing endless games of Canasta and Parcheesi to keep me from going stir-crazy. When I woke up from a nap cranky and bored, I’d suddenly find a little mechanical crab or duck or robot scuttling in from the hallway, spouting lines from old cartoons in a tinny voice, or carrying a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup on a tiny silver tray. And then, if I had a sore throat and laughing made it hurt, Kai would make me fruit smoothie popsicles.

Missing him was a constant ache inside my heart.

Now and then, when Auntie Berthe was bringing me food or taking away the tray, she’d hesitate and open her mouth as if to say something, but in the end she didn’t. And Uncle Gustav had a tiny worry frown between his eyebrows whenever he looked at me. He’d found me passed out on the couch Friday morning, the day after Bellsnichol, with a killer hangover and the top of my dress torn. I knew both of them were afraid something really bad had happened to me.

It had, but not the way they thought.

I felt as though I were living half in the real world, and half in a fairy tale. I didn’t know what was true, and what I’d imagined. I tried to make myself believe that I’d thrown a wild, impromptu party and gotten so wasted I didn’t remember any of it. Because the only other alternative was impossible to believe. And impossible to deal with.

I’d always heard denial is a powerful thing, and now I was learning how true that was. I sat in my room, my heart hurting, playing mournful songs on my Irish flute and avoiding everyone and everything, as if that would make my problems go away. I love Irish music—it’s the happiest and the saddest in the world. The happy songs make you want to dance for joy, and the sad ones are music that lays bare your soul.

It snowed all weekend—soft, fluffy flakes that piled up on the window boxes where I grew flowers in the summer. Auntie Berthe continued to bring me tea and toast and sandwiches, and I fed most of it to the sparrows that came to perch outside my window. Sometimes a big crow came, flapping his night-black wings and perching precariously on the edge of the window box. He scared the other birds away and at first I’d shoo him off, but he kept coming back. I’d look up from my flute and there he’d be, feathers fluffed out against the cold, head cocked so that he could watch me with one bright black eye. For some reason I thought he looked lonely—maybe because I was. So I always ended up giving him something to eat.

On Sunday he arrived with an earring in his beak—a rhinestone one in the shape of a flower. He must have picked it up on the street; crows love sparkly things. But when I opened the window he hopped forward and dropped it on the windowsill like a gift. He hopped back, and gave a soft little caw. Like an idiot, I almost started to cry. I picked up the earring, cradling it in my hand, and gave him some grilled cheese crusts in return. He seemed happy. I wished all my relationships were that easy.

The weekend dragged on. Annabel, my best girlfriend, called and texted about a million times. I never answered. What would I say? I think I had the worst party ever, which I don’t remember, and by the way, I didn’t invite you. Or, I think an evil goddess and her minions trashed my house and hexed my almost-boyfriend, and tried to kill me. Luckily, I shot at her with a glass arrow, which vaporized and broke her spell. She’d think I was having delusions. Hell, I thought I was having delusions.

So every time, I’d just put the phone back down. Finally, I turned it off.

My mind kept going back and forth between what I thought I remembered—which had to have been a nightmare—and the fact that, if what I remembered wasn’t real, then the entire evening was a blank. And if that was the case, judging by the state of my dress, I’d probably done what Kai seemed to think I’d done—made out with some other guy during a drunken blackout. Though I couldn’t imagine why I would’ve done that. I also never thought I’d see the day when that seemed like the best-case scenario.

I knew I couldn’t stay in my room forever. Eventually, I’d have to go to school. At least then maybe I’d find out what really happened.

On Monday morning, I waffled between pretending I was still sick, and going to school and finding out if anyone else remembered being at my house on Bellsnichol night. I debated so long that by the time I decided I couldn’t stand the suspense anymore, Kai was already gone, which was a good thing. We always walked together unless one of us had an early practice—music for me, or hockey for him. I’d rather go by myself than risk having him refuse to walk with me, or worse, try to walk to school with him and pretend it was a normal day. Which it already wasn’t—on a normal day, he would never have left without checking my room and seeing if I was feeling better.

I’d missed breakfast, but I breezed through the kitchen to let Auntie Berthe know that I was going to school after all. This time she did check my forehead for a fever, even though we both knew I hadn’t had one in the first place. Are you sure you’re all right? she asked me, cradling my face in her gentle hands.

I’m okay, I said. Now she had the worried crease in her forehead. I tried to muster up a smile for her, without much success.

She sighed and kissed my cheek. At least have something to eat.

No time, I said. I’ll grab something at the coffee shop on my way past.

Get a muffin, she said. All that sugary pastry isn’t good for you.

I had to smile at that. At least someone was doing their best to make it a normal day. Auntie Berthe, you’re a disgrace to your Bavarian-Austrian heritage, I informed her. No pastry. Sacrilege.

She pinched my cheek and let me go. Brat, she said fondly.

I put on my parka and boots and stepped out into the crisp, frozen air, breathing a sigh of relief. No more need to keep up a front—at least, not until I got to school. It was still snowing lightly, a soft, straight, relentless snowfall. That was unusual—Bremerton usually caught the prevailing winds off the Great Plains, which made our snowstorms all swirly. But not today. Not since Bellsnichol, I realized, and shivered. Somehow, nothing was the same since that night. Not Kai, not me, not the weather. Not even Bremerton—and Bremerton never changed.

I’d hoped that once I got outside I’d feel lighter, freer, but I still felt weighted down, like the gray snowy sky was pressing heavily on me. A crow fluttered down and landed at my feet with a peremptory caw. It looked like the same one that had been coming to my window box—apparently, he thought I was his meal ticket.

I got nothin’, I said, showing him my empty mittened hands. Catch me after I’ve been to the coffee shop, though, and I’ll let you share my muffin. He shook his wings as if in annoyance and took off. Apparently, he’d rather have a pastry.

I walked down Main Street to Winkler’s Austrian Café, which had the best pastries and baked goods anywhere ever, not to mention rich Austrian coffee with whipped cream on top. In Bremerton, Starbucks was only a myth. Pretty much everybody in Bremerton was descended from a group of settlers from the German/Austrian borderlands who’d come to America in the 1800s. Nobody makes coffee like the Austrians. I ducked inside, and the smell of coffee and fresh pastry hit me