Free Serendipity by Joanna Wylde Page B

considered the question before. "But this time, the winter queen they picked wasn't a nice queen at all. All the people had gotten together for a special party to honor the new kings and queens. Now, that new winter queen didn't want to take turns ruling, she wanted to rule all the time. So she invited all the other kings and queens to a special party, and served them a special kind of cake that she made herself.
    "What they didn't realize, until it was too late, was that she had put poison into the cake. All of them died that night, except for the king of summer, who didn't eat any of the cake."
    "Mommy's cake is very good," Mali said solemnly. "No one ever dies from eating it.
    Not ever."
    "That's good," Jax replied. "Now, because the winter queen wasn't able to kill the king of summer, she put a spell on him, freezing him deep down inside. You see, she knew that if she froze the summer king, there wouldn't be any more summers until he woke up. Since all the other kings and queens were dead, she declared that from that day on, it would only be winter. All the summer, autumn and spring people had to work for the winter people. It was very hard for them, because it became cold all the time. They were very unhappy, but they didn't know what to do to fix things.
    "A thousand years passed under the rule of the evil queen, and it was winter the whole time. They learned how to grow all their food in greenhouses, and everyone was cold except for the winter people. The poor summer people were the coldest, and the evil queen forced them to work for her in the mines. No one had any idea how to get rid of her, and she used her magic against anyone who tried to stop her.
    "One day, a group of summer people were working down in the mines and they found a magical cave full of ice crystals. Inside of one of those crystals was a frozen man. They realized it was the summer king, still being held prisoner by the queen's spell. They tried to wake him up, but nothing worked. So they took him back to their camp and called a council, inviting all the spring people and the autumn people to help them try to figure out what to do.
    "When the council opened, all the oldest and wisest people tried to wake the sleeping king. They used spells and blankets to warm him, but he stayed frozen. Everyone was very frustrated, and nobody knew what to do. One morning, a young woman who was there with her family woke up very early to find something very strange had happened in the night.
    You see, when she had gone to sleep she and her family had been camping on an ice field, but when she got up there was a little patch of grass around their tent."
    "Where did it come from?" Mali asked, eyes wide.
    "She didn't know," Jax replied. "But right in front of her eyes, it seemed to be getting bigger. She started walking around the camp, and everywhere she went grass started growing. In the grass were little flowers, and she could feel the air getting warmer. It was so exciting that she didn't know what to do. So she kept walking until she got to the biggest tent in the camp, where they had placed the frozen king. She walked right into that tent and right up to the frozen king.
    "Now, he was a very handsome man, and she was a very pretty woman. She took one look at him and fell in love. She decided she had to give him a little kiss, so she walked over to him and kissed him right on his lips. They were very cold against her skin, but the longer she kissed him, the warmer they seemed to get.
    "Then he started kissing her back, right there. He sat up and wrapped his arms around her."
    "This kissing part is getting boring," Able muttered, and Sarai laughed.
    "All right, I'll skip the kissing part," Jax replied, grinning. "They heard a loud noise outside the tent, so they stood up and walked out holding hands. All around them the people were cheering and running around. There were flowers everywhere, and the all the snow was gone in the camp. They could hear birds singing and