She was a little girl the first time in the cool cool March rainfall. She
loved to go out in the mud and melting snow and show her mother where
flowers, crocus and snowdrop and aconite and squill, had come up. The gray
days were not drab to her, they were only color hiding in the fog and she
knew she could find it.

She was a happy child, always in motion, like a flame. She was beautiful,
and the daughter of a queen, and she loved everyone she knew. No one ever
went away unless she wanted them to. But she was bored. She loved things
that were hard, so when she was still little-little she told her mother she
had to learn to be the best at everything, and her mother made sure she had
the best ways to do it.

And the rain would shine like jewels in her hair -- water in the fire --
and the gray all around her made her eyes glow like green embers. She would
flicker in the shadows, fencing imaginary opponents with a stick, and she
was beautiful.

		*	*	*

She was a little girl once, in the warm warm May sunshine. She stuck orange
poppies and blue forget-me-nots and yellow buttercups in her hair and they
were a golden crown. She dreamed she was a princess instead of a servant,
and the nevers and the bumblebees and the cabbage moths called her queen.
The dandelion clocks would grant anything she wished, but she was always
careful not to use them up.

She was a responsible child, and hopeful, like an apple blossom. She
remembered that once she was the daughter of a queen, that once people did
what she said instead of telling her what to do. She remembered that once
people called her beautiful. She hoped they would again, some time.

And the sun shone on her freckles and made them tanner, and the sun lit up
her eyes the color of the leaves on the forget-me-nots in her red-russet
hair and she was beautiful, for a moment, and the nevers and the bumblebees
and the dandelion clocks called her queen.

		*	*	*

She was a little girl once, in the cold cold December snowfall. She would
hide inside forts she built out of snow where no one could follow her. She
would put snow in her hair and cry when it melted. Her favorite time was
when it snowed: everyone stayed inside, even the cats and coyotes. No one
would bother her then.

She was a silent child, and angry, like an icicle. She remembered that once
she loved someone, and they went away. She would go outside her fort and
make the walls thicker when she thought about that. She always wanted to
make them thick enough that the daylight wouldn't glow through, but she
never could. She knew one day she'd figure out how to make the cold dark
aloneness last, and then she'd stop hurting.

And the cold would finally make her toes and the end of her nose and the
tips of her pointed ears ache and burn, and she would surrender and go
inside, and the cold wind would swirl slowflakes into her blue-black hair
and color into her cheeks, and her limey-green eyes would shine, and she
was beautiful.