in his direction. They came to a stop and began to unfurl.
“Kristoff’s home!” shouted Bulda, a female troll who was front and center. His adoptive mother held her arms out for a hug. Kristoff stepped closer and she wrapped herself around his legs. The red gems around her neck seemed to have grown since the last time he visited. Several of them glowed, making her mossy-green dress look almost orange.
Dozens of other trolls unfurled from their rocky slumber and cheered. They clambered over one another to see him. “Yay! Kristoff’s home!” they shouted.
The trolls had been his family ever since he was a small child. Life in an orphanage was no place for a free spirit like him. Whenever he could, he’d snuck out and followed the Arendelle ice harvesters up the mountain to see how they worked. On one such trip, he found Sven, and they became inseparable. After that, he didn’t want to go back to the orphanage. Sven and ice were his new life. He was even earning a living! But one summer night, he was working with Sven when they saw a different kind of ice. It was crackling and glowing on the grassy mountainside. He and Sven were curious, so they followed the strange path up the mountain. It led them straight to the Valley of the Living Rock. Bulda spotted him and adopted him and Sven on the spot. Come to think of it, he never had asked her why that ice had appeared in the middle of the summer like that.
“Let me look at you!” Bulda said, beckoning him to stoop down to her level. Kristoff took a knee. “Are you hungry?” she asked. “I just made a stone soup. I’ll fetch you a cup.”
“No,” Kristoff said quickly. He hated stone soup. Impossible to swallow. “I just ate. It’s great to see you all. Have you had any visitors?” He looked around for Anna.
“No one but you!” Bulda said. “Why, are you expecting someone?”
If he told her he was expecting a girl to be there, he’d never hear the end of it. “No, but…where is Grand Pabbie?”
“He’s napping,” said one of Kristoff’s little cousins. “But look! I grew a mushroom!” He showed off the mushroom growing on his mossy back.
“I earned my fire crystal,” said another, holding up a glowing red stone.
“I passed a kidney stone,” said one of his uncles, holding up the rock as proof.
“If you aren’t hungry for my cooking, what brings you home?” Bulda asked.
Nothing got past her.
“I just wanted to see you, that’s all,” Kristoff lied.
Bulda studied him carefully, then looked at the others. “This is about a girl!”
The others cheered in agreement.
“No, no, no! You’ve got this all wrong!” Kristoff said even as his face grew red.
Sven snorted loudly, and several trolls gathered round as he pawed at the dirt and made noises.
“It is about a girl!” Bulda exclaimed, and the others chimed in again.
Kristoff rolled his eyes. “Guys, please! I’ve got bigger problems than finding a girl. The whole kingdom is covered in—”
“Snow?” Bulda said. “We know. But we want to hear about you!”
Kristoff gaped. “How do you know about the snow?”
Bulda ignored his question. “If you like this girl, why didn’t she come home with you? Did your grumpiness scare her off?”
“No,” he argued. “This isn’t about me. I—”
“You tell this girl that she’ll never met a fellow as sensitive and as sweet as my Kristoff!”
Now he felt even worse. “This is not about me and this girl! It’s about Arendelle! I know you can’t see it from inside your cocoon here, but it’s not just the land outside the valley covered in snow. It’s the whole kingdom! And it’s the middle of the summer!” His family stood there, blinking. “If you know how to stop it, tell me!”
One of his little cousins pulled on Bulda’s dress. “I thought Grand Pabbie said we couldn’t tell anyone that she was here.” Bulda made a face. “What? Didn’t he say it was a secret?”
“Anna? She was here? With the prince? When did they leave?” he said hurriedly.
A large rock rolled forward, and Grand Pabbie unfurled from his slumber. He reached out for Kristoff and took his hands.
“Kristoff, you came! And just in time, I fear,” he said, his voice gravelly.
“Where is Anna now? Is she okay? Was she mad at me?” he asked sheepishly and looked at Bulda. “I know I shouldn’t have left her, okay? We’re having a blizzard in the middle of the summer. It’s