Snow Prince -- I End Up in Arca

Chapter I

Snow.  I like snow.  I always have.  Who doesn’t?  It’s beautiful; a pure white, and mysterious.  With a single touch of a warm hand, snow can melt away into countless drops of water.  You can build forts, make snowballs -- you could make a whole world out of snow if you wanted to.

But in my town, snow is forbidden.  Nobody living in the little town of Arca has ever touched snow as far as I know.  The people here -- especially the old people – are afraid of snow.  They start screaming when you blow ice from the freezer at them -- and then get mad when they realize it wasn’t real snow.

It’s actually quiet hilarious to see their faces -- I’ve done this at least ten times in the two days since my family moved to Arca.

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When my dad first told me that we had to move to Arca, I was stricken.  Of course, after some thinking, I saw that it all fit. I mean, the timing was perfect.

After weeks of building up my courage, I had finally asked the boy of my dreams out on a date.  Even more amazingly, he had said yes!  Right then, I should have known that it was too good to be true.  But nooo -- little Miss Clueless had for once felt lucky.

Our date went pretty smooth, and at the end, we even kissed!  On the days after that one kiss, I felt as if I was floating.  I, for once, was lucky – something that had never happened to me even once since I was born.

Then my parents told me that Great-Great-Grandpa Phillip had died and that we had inherited his house.  It was supposed to be a huge mansion located in a nice, laid-back town -- naturally; my parents had jumped at the opportunity to get out of our stuffy apartment in New Jersey.

My twelve-year-old sister, Jolene, who’s three years younger than me, was appalled at the thought of moving to some town in the boondocks of Canada.  I was more than appalled, though.  I was furious.  How could my parents expect me to just leave my life behind for some bigger house?  Especially now when Darren Kesh and I were finally dating!

But then again, I always have been the unluckiest person in all of New Jersey.  Yup, that’s me:  Senna Walsh, the girl who had never even found a penny in her whole life or ever had any luck.

So, after two days of packing and saying goodbye to our friends (Darren was heart-broken when I told him), we had gotten on a plane and flown to Arca, Canada.  Technically, though (as Jolene kept on reminding us), Arca wasn’t really in Canada, but in a tiny speck of land owned by nobody.  From what I read on the internet, Arca was one of those towns that are so tiny that everybody knows everybody.


Chapter II

The moment we drove into Arca, I had a bad feeling.  Although the feeling might have come from the suspicious tacos I had eaten earlier, I was sure that something wasn’t right in Arca.

The houses were all way too colourful for one thing.  There where blue houses, neon-green ones, highlighter-like yellow ones, and, well, you get the point.
To be honest, it was kind of creepy.

The town, as Jolene had told me, was tiny, even for tiny-town standards.  There were exactly 101 houses, one church, and two schools.  The houses were all arranged so that the church was in the middle, and the five biggest houses were positioned so that if connected, they would form the Star of David.  The church was in the middle there as well, which implied that the people here where either very religious or they just liked to build their town in a very peculiar way.

As I had also found out (yay internet) three of the corner houses had been destroyed in a tragic fire that had taken out most of the other houses well.  Only Grandpa Phillip’s house (which was technically our house now) and some other old guy’s house had remained.

It’s truly amazing how much you can find out when you’re bored and have nothing else to do as well as your own laptop you can use whenever you want.
While driving through town, Dad pointed out a few places of interest.  I’m sad to say that they had no mall here, and the only shops I saw appeared to be a thousand years old.  The people here, though, all seemed pretty normal, which was a big relief.

Our house (we reached it in five minutes) was big.  I mean big as in you-could-get-lost-in-there-for-all-I-know big. It was all white except for the roof and the door, which were brown.  It had a ton of windows, most at least as big as me.
Jolene stormed through the front door and I ran after her, not wanting her to do all the discovering.  The light inside was dim, and it took some time for my eyes to adjust.  Staring down from the walls were pictures of long-dead people.  All the pictures were covered with dust.

“Wow.”  Jolene stood on the central staircase, looking into the adjacent rooms. 

“Can you believe this place, Senna?”

“It’s . . . pretty neat.”

“‘Pretty neat’?  This house is awesome!  Let’s go check out our rooms!”  My sister darted up the stairs.

I followed, although not quiet as enthusiastic.

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“So, Senna, Jolene . . . what do you think of Arca?” 

I lifted my eyes from my plate and looked at him.  “Well, gee, dad . . . The town’s creepy, the people are creepy, this house is creepy – I’m so glad we moved from our perfectly nice live in New Jersey.”

My dad, like I had anticipated, got angry.  “Senna!  Don’t talk about our neighbours like that!  Besides, there’s nothing creepy about them!”

“These people are afraid of snow!  I’d definitely call that creepy!  And have you even seen some of the houses in this town?”

Believe me, I wasn’t exaggerating.  Everything about this godforsaken town was creepy and I wanted to go home.  After we had chosen our rooms, my mom made Jolene and me go on a tour through Arca because we were starting to complain – we were back; our complaining had only gotten worse.

“All right, so there are some different houses here, but that’s no reason to say that they’re creepy . . .” Dad reasoned, but I noticed that he wasn’t as angry anymore, meaning that he had probably seen the polka-dotted house too.

“Yes, Senna, how can you not like this town?”  Jolene sneered at me.

Now I lost it.  “Jolene, stop sucking up to dad!”

My mom, who had until now been ignoring our debate, almost dropped her sausage.  “Senna!  How could you!”

“It’s true, mom!  I can’t believe you aren’t seeing it!  She’s pretending to like it here just so you’ll get mad at me!”  It was true. 

Jolene looked at me, tears in her eyes.  “I hate you!”  She screamed, and ran out, almost knocking her plate off the table.

Dad cocked his head, eyes glistening.  “Now, now . . . That wasn’t necessary . . .”

“Ughhh!  Just leave me alone!”  I too stood up and went to my room.

I lay down on my bed and stared at the white ceiling.  I almost started crying, but then stopped.  I didn’t want my parents to think that what they’d said had made me feel bad.  No.  This was definitely not my fault.

As I lay there thinking how this certainly wasn’t my fault, I heard a long, piercing scream outside.  Immediately, I jumped up and ran to the window.  I could only see a small figure on the street . . . a figure that looked more and more like Jolene.
I ran down the stairs, but then stopped.  What if this was just another one of Jolene’s schemes to get me in trouble?  But then again . . . she was smart, but she definitely didn’t have the acting ability needed to produce that scream willingly.

Something was wrong.

I ran outside, and noticed that there was a snowstorm engulfing the town.  Nobody was on the streets, and now I wasn’t so sure anymore if this was a good thing to do.
But then my eyes adjusted, and I almost screamed.

In the middle of the street, cloaked in gray, was a light-haired man.  His clothing was very peculiar, kind of puffy looking, and, most stunning, the guy had eyes just like me – one blue, one brown.  He was just standing there, focusing his intense eyes on me.

And he was holding Jolene.


Chapter III

“Let my sister go, you creep!”  I yelled, frozen to the spot.

The man smiled, cocked his head.  “And who are you?”

“Why should I tell you?  Let my sister go or I’ll call the police!”

He laughed.  “I doubt that they’ll come while the snow is still here.”

Hmm.  So I wasn’t the only one who had noticed the Arcanian’s fear of snow.  But he was right.  The police wouldn’t come in this weather.  So I had to get Jolene back myself. 

I just hoped that the guy didn’t have any weapons.

Taking a deep breath, I lifted my arms in front of my face, and with another breath, I ran at the guy.  With a speed I hadn’t seen before, he side-stepped me at the last moment.

“My, my.  Where are your manners?  Don’t you know it’s not nice to just run at people?”

I turned around and glared at him.  “Don’t you know it’s not nice to kidnap a girl?  And who are you, anyway?”

The man chuckled again.  “I like you.  We would get along well.”  He paused.  “Since I probably won’t be seeing you again, I’ll tell you my name.  I’m Seba.  So.  Now who are you, meddling girl?”

I didn’t want to.  I really didn’t.  But something in his voice forced me.  “I’m Senna.”

Seba’s eyes widened and they flickered from Jolene to me and back.  “So this girl,” He gently shook Jolene, who didn’t do anything, “isn’t Senna Walsh?  You are?”

“Yeah.  Is that why you kidnapped Jolene?  Because you thought she was me?”

His cheeks flushed a little.  “Of course . . . this girl doesn’t even have the right eyes . . .” He whispered, softly laying my sister on the sidewalk.  I could see that she was unconscious.  “So . . . Will you come with me?”

“Heck no!”

The man shrugged.  “It’s always worth a try . . .” He took a step forward, his body flashed – and he was standing behind me, pressing a dagger to my throat.  I froze.
“Now, don’t do anything unless I tell you to.  You don’t want to die, do you?”

“What . . . do you . . . want?” I pressed out.

“Let me answer that with a question of my own.  Do you know about the Snow Prince?”  To my relief he lowered the pressure on my throat.

“Uhh . . .” I was trying to buy myself some time.  Maybe Dad or somebody would notice that I was gone and come look for me.  “Nope, never heard of a Snow Prince.  Although there is lots of snow around here . . .”

Seba sighed.  “Well, then I’ll just have to enrich you, won’t –“

“Senna?” My dad yelled, his head sticking out the door.  “Senna, come in here!  You’ll freeze to death!”  He fully opened the door and came walking towards us.

“Crap.”

Forcing a stifled laugh, I said, “Now what?  Are you just gonna drag me away, right in front of my dad?”

“Not you.”  Seba pocketed the dagger.  Doing the weird flashy-step thing again, he picked up Jolene.  “But I’ll take Jolene.  If you want to see her again – alive – you’ll come back here in exactly twenty-four hours.  You will come with me then, and until then, you will not tell anybody about this.”

Suddenly, even more snow whirled around the two, and they started to fade.  “Tell no one, or –“ He shook Jolene “—actually, let’s not elaborate on that, alright?”

Then my sister and d Seba were gone.