Anna & Elsa
Author: Landry Quinn Walker
Date: 0101-01-01 00:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Young Adult - Fiction
Description: To distract Elsa from a gala being planned in her honor, Anna fills her schedule with fun bonding activities. But what starts as a distraction turns into an adventure when they find a secret door leading to passageways within the castle walls—and the door locks behind them, trapping them inside! Then, as they explore the narrow passages and sealed-off rooms, looking for an exit, spooky things start to happen. Echoing laughter, mysterious patches of cold air, odd arrangements of clothes and furniture...what could be causing all these strange events? With Elsa's powers and Anna's ingenuity on th
Publisher: Disney Book Group

Designed by Maureen Mulligan
Cover art by the Disney Storybook Art Team

Copyright © 2014 Disney Enterprises, Inc. All rights reserved. Published by Disney Press, an imprint of Disney Book Group. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher. For information address Disney Press, 1101 Flower Street, Glendale, California 91201.

ISBN 978-1-4847-2527-6

For more Disney Press fun, visit www.disneybooks.com

Contents

1. Prologue
2. Chapter 1
3. Chapter 2
4. Chapter 3
5. Chapter 4
6. Chapter 5
7. Chapter 6
8. Chapter 7
9. Chapter 8
10. Chapter 9
11. Chapter 10
12. Chapter 11
13. Chapter 12
14. Chapter 13
15. Chapter 14
16. Chapter 15
17. Chapter 16
18. Chapter 17
19. Chapter 18
20. Chapter 19
21. Chapter 20
22. Chapter 21
23. Chapter 22
24. Chapter 23
25. Chapter 24
26. Chapter 25

Anna was holding a ghost! She and her sister, Elsa, had been tracking the phantom for hours, following it through the secret passageways hidden inside Arendelle’s castle walls. Then Elsa had created a giant ice slide to catch up to the phantom…and it had worked! Unfortunately, Anna, Elsa, and the captured spirit were now rocketing down the slippery ice slide—with no way to stop.

This was not how Anna had expected to spend her day. Right then she was supposed to be throwing a massive ball in Elsa’s honor. She had been planning it for days, right under Elsa’s nose. Streamers and cake and chocolates and musicians and everything! It had taken all Anna’s efforts to keep her sister distracted, out of the castle, and away from her duties as queen of Arendelle during the setup. And now they were trapped in these hidden hallways and would miss the dance anyway!

Ahead, Anna could see that the passage was coming to a dead end. The sisters and the phantom shot toward the bottom of the slide, and Elsa created a huge snowbank to stop them before they hit the oncoming castle wall. Anna considered the snowbank and the wall just behind it. “It’ll be just like a pillow,” she reminded herself. But that wall looked very solid, and it was coming up fast.

Only one thing was certain: what had started as a simple plan for a surprise dance had become something much crazier.

It was the previous morning, and Anna was trying to think of a plan.

The young princess flipped another page of the gigantic library book she had pulled off the shelf—a book of myths and legends from around the world. It was one of her favorites from when she was little, when her sister, Elsa, had still been hiding from the world. Back then, Anna had worked her way through nearly every book in the library. There hadn’t been much else to do.

Now things were very different. Everything about life in the castle had changed since Elsa had returned home from the North Mountain and learned to control her powers. By Elsa’s royal decree, the gates were always open, sunlight streamed through the unshuttered windows, and villagers and guests came and went freely every day. There were so many new people to meet: blacksmiths and glassblowers and cheesemongers.…There was even a man whose entire job was to repair dolls’ shoes. He was a doll cobbler, and his work was amazing! Everything was great.…

But Anna sometimes found herself thinking about all the things her sister had missed out on while she was locked away: birthday celebrations and playing with friends and everything. All of them had drifted by. Life had been lonely for Anna, but for Elsa, it had been so much more difficult. And Anna knew how much happier her sister was now. But particularly on days like this, when Elsa was especially busy with her duties as queen, Anna couldn’t help wondering if she could make Elsa’s life even better.

So there she was, sitting in the library, pondering what to do. What would be a great way to properly welcome her sister back to a world of open doors?

Anna turned another page of the book. This story was about a gigantic spell-casting octopus monster. What kind of spells a gigantic octopus monster would cast wasn’t clear. It didn’t matter. She always skipped ahead so she could read her favorite section—the tale of a giant boar that could transform into shadow. He guided his princess bravely through the land of giants, keeping her safe from discovery by her enemies. When she was six, Anna had decided the heroic boar should be named Spy Pig.

“Anna!” a happy voice called out from nearby. “I’m so glad to see you! I’ve missed you so much!”

Anna turned, a small smile forming on her lips. “I saw you this morning, Olaf!” she responded to the little snowman as he walked into the library. “At breakfast, remember? Just before Kristoff and Sven left on their ice delivery?”

Olaf climbed into a chair near Anna, the snowflakes from his personal snow cloud tickling her arm. “It feels like a long time ago! I’ve spent all morning looking at books! Did you know that every one of these books is completely different?”

“Yeah!” Anna laughed. “I’ve read most of these already…a lot of them twice, actually.” Anna pointed at the book Olaf had brought in with him. “So…uh…what do you have there?”

Olaf lit up with excitement. “A book about phantoms!” he exclaimed. “Did you know phantoms are everywhere? Especially in castles…like this one! Gerda has been reading it to me! Do you know her?”

Anna nodded with amusement. “Only my whole life! Gerda and Kai have been overseeing the castle household since before I was born.” Anna poked at the book Olaf was holding. “But I think that if there were any ghosts or phantoms or whatever here, I would know. I am the princess, after all. I think all ghosts have to report to me by law or something.”

Olaf was less amused. “You shouldn’t laugh about these things, Anna. It says so right here. See?”

Olaf held up his book. The title was Do Not Laugh at Phantoms!

Olaf continued, “From what Gerda read to me, phantoms are invisible, and they can’t talk to anyone unless that person talks to them first, and even then they have to be reminded of what their mortal life was before they became spirits. Don’t you see? It’s lonely and hard being a ghost. Everything drifts by them, and no one ever talks to them or asks them to play or sing or dance.…They need our help so they can remember how to enjoy themselves. They need—”

“Whoa,” Anna said, interrupting the small snowman. “Olaf, you’re so right. You’re so totally right about everything!”

Olaf looked awestruck. “I knew it! I knew the phantoms are real!”

But Anna was already running out of the library. She would make sure that Elsa never again felt like things were drifting by her, and she knew just how to do it. She had a great plan—the best of plans.

First she would need a pig.

Elsa picked up the next sheet from the huge pile of paperwork on her desk and tried to focus on it.

“Annual report on projected dandelion pollination…reservation committee…subparagraph three…all rights withstanding…”

With a thunk, the newish queen of Arendelle let her head fall onto her desk. She let out a sleepy yawn, even though it was barely midday. Normally she wouldn’t be this tired, paperwork or no paperwork. But she had been up late the night before, working out the details of the surprise banquet for her younger sister, Anna.

Elsa had been planning it with her court counselors for weeks, and now it was just one day away. It was a complicated event, and everything had to go just right…which especially meant that Anna couldn’t know about it. If she found out…

Well, then it wouldn’t be much of a surprise, would it?

Elsa returned her attention to the paper in her hand. But before she could begin to read it, a loud squeal distracted her. It sounded almost like a…

“Pig!” Anna’s voice rose over the squealing. “No, seriously! Pig!”

Elsa looked up and immediately saw why Anna was yelling “pig.” It was because there was a little pink pig running into the room and clambering up onto the desk.

“What the…? Why…?” was all Elsa could stammer before the pig crashed across her desk, scattering everything she had been working on.

Anna leapt across the room, attempting to tackle the frantic animal. “I told you, ‘pig’!” she yelled as the wriggling creature evaded her grasp. “That was because…you know…pig!”

Elsa waved a hand. The temperature instantly dropped. A sparkling shimmer appeared around the suddenly confused animal and formed into an icy fence.

Anna looked impressed by her sister’s quick reflexes. “Aw, who’s a cute little guy?” she said, reaching into the pigpen and scratching the pig’s fuzzy head.

The pig cocked his head and let out a tiny squeal of happiness.

“‘Cute little guy’?” Elsa looked around the wreckage of her office. “That pig just destroyed…” She stopped and shook her head, realizing she wasn’t asking the most important question. “Wait…why is there a pig in the castle?”

Anna lit up at the question. “Okay…call me crazy, but I had this idea! There’s a story in the library…the one about the boar that can transform into shadows? What if we made this cute little guy into that boar?”

Elsa held up her hands to slow Anna down. “I remember the story, but this…this…” She looked at the round pink pig. It looked back at her. “This isn’t a boar. It’s a pig.”

Anna scratched the happy pig’s nose. It oinked at her in a friendly way. “But we could teach him to be a mighty shadow boar!” She grabbed the pig gently by its cheeks and made happy faces at it through the icy pen. “Yes, we could, Spy Pig! Yes, we could!”

“Anna…”

Anna finally seemed to notice Elsa’s skeptical look. “Okay…” Anna continued. “You’re not loving the Spy Pig plan. I can sense that. Still—”

Before Anna could say any more, the pig flexed its legs and leapt over the top of the pigpen, then ran out the door with a joyful squeal.

“Spy Pig! Come back!” Anna yelled, dashing down the hallway after it.

Elsa hesitated for a moment. She could stay there and review the expected revenue of the outlying farms…or she could run after Anna and help train a pig to be a mythical shadow beast.

Then she realized that this distraction might just be exactly what she needed. If she could keep Anna busy, then the castle staff could make the preparations for Anna’s surprise banquet without any possible interruption. It was too good an opportunity to pass up.

And so she didn’t.

The Spy Pig plan had been a huge success.

Anna and Elsa were lying in matching collapsed heaps on a grassy patch of the royal gardens. They were covered in an absurd amount of mud, and Anna was pretty sure even her bruises had bruises. And Spy Pig had long since fled, disappearing back toward the castle and abandoning his very important spy missions.

But it had been great fun and an entire afternoon’s diversion, and that was what mattered. Anna’s plan to share all kinds of new things with Elsa was well on its way. So many fun experiences that everyone should enjoy with someone they loved, all crammed into two days, culminating on the second night in the most fantastic ball Arendelle had ever seen!

And that was where the diversion came in. Anna wanted the ball to be a surprise, and secret dances took a lot of preparation. To that end, Anna had managed to get Elsa outside for an entire afternoon so the castle staff could make plans, prepare the music and guest list, order the banners and special desserts, and then hide everything away. Then, when Elsa returned to the castle, she would be none the wiser.

But Anna couldn’t let Elsa know that she was purposefully being kept from the castle. There was still so much to do!

“Okay,” Anna said, “maybe Spy Pig wasn’t the sneakiest of spies. Maybe…”

Elsa responded with a groan. “‘Maybe’? It was seen by everyone in the entire village! It would have been more spy-like if it had been singing and dancing through the square! Despite our best efforts, I don’t think that pig is destined to be a shadow boar.”

“I think you’re probably right,” Anna said, getting to her feet. “So what do we do now?”

Elsa hesitated. “Now?”

“There’s so much more for us to do!” Anna exclaimed. “So many games and adventures and all sorts of things. Let’s not stop now!” She grabbed her sister’s hands eagerly. “Think about all the things you ever wanted to do! With me! Together! We could learn to duel, jump rope, attend a carnival, eat triple-double-fudge sundaes…”

Elsa looked up at her sister with a serious expression. “I was hiding in my room. I wasn’t dead. I ate many a triple-double-fudge sundae.”

Anna smiled. “But not with me!”

Elsa paused for thought. She looked as if maybe she wanted to argue against Anna’s impeccable logic. But then she sighed, and Anna knew she had her sister convinced.

“Okay…okay,” Elsa said with a small laugh. “It’s a lot to do. So…I guess we better get started.”

The sisters ran around the village for the rest of the evening. By the end they were both exhausted from their adventures, and decided to spend the night in the most comfortable bed in the nicest inn in town—which was great, since a sleepover in a new place was one of the things Anna had argued that they should experience.

In the morning, they picked up right where they had left off. By the time they had lunch and were rocking together on the porch swing outside the inn, Elsa could barely remember everything she and Anna had managed to do. There had been a race on horseback, an archery competition, the sampling of every kind of cheese she had ever heard of (and several she hadn’t), and three puppet shows that Anna performed with reluctant help from Kai and Gerda.

And it had been great. Elsa had really enjoyed trying all kinds of new things with her sister. Unfortunately, she could see that Anna was getting tired, sinking back into the cushions as they rocked. But it was the day of the banquet, and Elsa knew the staff was at that very moment setting up the Great Hall. If Anna went back to the castle and wandered anywhere near there, she was bound to see something that would give away the surprise.

“You can’t quit now!” Elsa said with mock gravity in her voice. “We’ve barely done half of the things you’ve been saying we should do!”

Anna looked surprised. But then she sat up, scrunched up her face, and rubbed her hands together excitedly. “All right, then,” Anna said. “You pick. What’s next?”

Elsa looked at her sister and replied in a solemn voice, “Pillow fight.”

And with that, she jumped up, grabbed a cushion off the swing, and delivered the first blow. Anna recovered quickly, snatching a throw pillow to defend herself with.

With a squeal of laughter, the battle began.

Meanwhile…

Olaf knocked on the castle walls. From what he could tell, there was almost certainly some kind of haunting going on in the castle. First off, people kept whispering about a mysterious-sounding pig that had run through the hallways and was never seen again. That certainly wasn’t the normal sort of thing that one would expect in a nice castle, so it had to be phantom-related. Olaf had also heard people talking about a small pale creature that walked the castle freely, leaving gusts of cold wind in his wake. And no one spoke of this strange being with fear, which told Olaf that it wasn’t just well known—it was friendly, too!

According to Do Not Laugh at Phantoms!, this was absolute proof of a Class-Three Haunting—a happy and welcoming spirit that’s too shy to say hello. Olaf couldn’t wait to meet it!

He knocked on another wall, this one sporting a large mirror, and listened intently for any response. There was no answering sound…but the mirror slowly opened, like a door. Like a secret door. Olaf smiled. This had to be where the phantoms were hiding!

And with that, he stepped into the secret passageway, almost—but not quite—closing the mirrored door behind him.

After the pillow battle, Anna had convinced Elsa to go out to the fjord and use her ice powers to make sculptures on the surface of the water. Each one was an amazing work of art, made all the more beautiful by how quickly it melted in the warm summer ocean. And the sisters spending time together at the fjord was especially perfect, as Anna knew that the masterpiece of all the celebratory desserts she had ordered, a gigantic tiered cake, would be arriving at the castle at any minute. Anna just needed to keep Elsa away for a little while longer, while the cake was delivered and the Great Hall was decorated. Then, at nightfall, she could lead her sister to the dance and surprise her with cake and decorations and music and laughter. It would be the perfect end to this perfect couple of days.

The problem was that Elsa had just received an important document from a court page and was rushing through the village and back toward the castle entrance.

“Elsa! Wait!” Anna called after her sister. Elsa turned just as twelve strong men carrying what must have been the world’s largest cake slowly emerged around the corner of a nearby building.

“Anna,” Elsa responded, “this is important—”

Anna practically defied the laws of gravity, leaping to where her sister was standing and turning her by the shoulders just as a parade of streamer-wielding event planners followed the cake-carrying men into view.

“But we have to hurry and go…” Anna emphasized as she looked past Elsa and tried to signal the cake and streamer people, “somewhere else! A place…where things…” Anna tried desperately to think of something she could say that would keep her sister from turning and seeing the massive cake and the streamers…and also the troupe of musicians, who had decided that it was a great time to step outside and take in the air of Arendelle.

Elsa started to turn. Anna did the only thing she could think of. “Look out!” she yelled, pointing into the sky. “Octopus monster!”

Elsa looked up. “What? How…? Anna…what are you yelling about? There’s no ‘octopus monster’ in the sky.”

The last of the party people had seemed to take the hint and retreated out of sight. Anna breathed a huge sigh of relief.

“Right,” she said as Elsa looked at her as if she were the craziest of crazy people. “Good thing you were here to scare it off. Whoo…”

Elsa shook her head and turned back to the castle.

It was going to be a long afternoon before the ball finally happened, Anna thought.

It was going to be a long afternoon before the banquet finally happened, Elsa thought as she hurried back into the castle, rereading the note that had been delivered by the court page.

She had known she wasn’t paying enough attention to the planning of this event. But Anna had been so eager to spend time with her, and they had been having so much fun, and it was keeping her sister occupied while the event arrangements were all finalized.

Unfortunately, in her absence it seemed that everything that could go wrong had gone wrong.

The bakers had run out of ingredients while taking care of some other high-priority special order, the custom streamers she had ordered had somehow been mistakenly sold for some other event, and the musicians she had booked were no longer available.

She was the queen! What other event could possibly be happening that could get in the way of a surprise dinner for her sister? Not that it mattered right then. What was most important was that she attended to these issues while finding a way to keep her sister occupied. Which would be difficult, as Anna was following her closely every step of the way.

“Anna…” Elsa began gently, taking a hasty route down a side hallway into a more remote wing of the castle to avoid the Great Hall and anyone involved in preparing for the banquet. “Maybe…maybe you should get some rest. You know, you’ve been running all over and I know you’ve not been getting a lot of sleep.”

Anna waved away the comment. “Pssh. I’m fine! I get plenty of—wait. Why do you think I need sleep? Do I look tired?”

Anna turned and looked in a mirror hanging on the wall. “Seriously?” she continued. “I mean…a nap would be great and all, but I don’t think I—Hey! Look!”

Anna gently pushed on the mirror. It was…open? “It’s a secret passage! Inside the castle! Did you know this was here?”

Elsa stepped closer, examining the mirror. It was brilliantly built. Once it closed, you would never know it could open. But who had opened it?

“I heard rumors…” Elsa admitted. “Back when we were really little kids, Gerda used to tell stories, remember? She said the castle was full of twisty hallways and secret rooms all inside the walls. I never believed her, though.”

Anna pushed the door open wider. Inside, it was dark—though not perfectly dark. Just dark enough to be kind of creepy.

“Why didn’t you believe her?” Anna asked, exploring the gloomy passageway with her eyes. The space inside the wall was narrow and cramped but very tall, and it had slim openings way up high that led to the outside world. From these, small amounts of sunlight and air filtered in. Instead of making the passage less creepy, the dim light just highlighted how cramped and uncomfortable-looking it really was.

Elsa shrugged. “Because she also said the hidden parts of the castle were haunted by spooky ghosts. So I figured the whole thing was just a story to…”

Elsa trailed off as she heard a noise from farther up the hallway. Rounding a corner, struggling with an impossibly large cake, were twelve very strong men. The cake…The bakers must have been mistaken. But if Anna saw it now, the surprise of the great banquet would be ruined.

Without thinking, Elsa shoved Anna inside the dusty passage and pulled the mirror almost completely closed behind her.

“Wha?” Anna yelped, startled.

Elsa tried to cover. “Oh! Sorry! I um…I tripped. Over…something…in front of my feet. It…You know how it goes.”

In the dimness, Anna eyed her sister as she moved to the hidden door. “Ohhhh-kay. We’ll both pretend you’re not being really weird for you.”

Just then, there was a loud thump, and the door shut all the way. The girls shared a look of alarm at the sound of a heavy latch clicking into place.

“What happened?” Anna shouted as she pressed against the spot in the stone wall where the door had been. “No one is ever in those hallways! Who could have closed it?”

The door wasn’t opening. That much was clear. But her sister needed an answer, and Elsa couldn’t tell her it was the cake-carrying men who had bumped into the door, pressing it closed.

She had an idea. She knew Anna wouldn’t take it seriously, but it was a fun enough idea that it would distract Anna from asking any more questions about what was happening in the hallway.

So with all the seriousness she could muster, she turned to her little sister and whispered one word.

“Ghosts.”

Olaf was amazed.

The passageways had been dark, and there seemed to be no end to them. It was like there was a second castle built inside the walls of the first castle. He had found old storage rooms full of paintings and crates of books and dozens and dozens of chairs and mirrors.

But no phantoms. Not yet, anyway.

As he explored, he found several more secret doorways and passages, eventually leading him out of the walls and into a sealed area of the castle. He had heard that some older sections of the castle had fallen into disuse and been sealed off, but he never thought he’d be lucky enough to see one!

It was here that Olaf had discovered an old dining room.

The dining room seemed really nice. Dusty paintings of kings from a long time ago hung on the walls. Cloths covered all the furniture. The windows had all been bricked over—though a bit of light was filtering through the small cracks between bricks—and only two of the doors led anywhere. One led back the way Olaf had come: a secret passage so filled with boxes that Olaf had barely managed to squeeze through a space at the bottom—and even that had resulted in his body briefly falling into pieces. The other opened into a shadowy hallway that led farther into the sealed-off section of the castle.

It was so very interesting! But still…no phantoms!

“Hello? Any ghosts in here? Phantoms or spirits?” Olaf called. “It’s okay to come out and be friends now!”

Nothing. But Olaf wasn’t one to give up. Everyone needed someone, especially lonely ghosts who lived inside castle walls. But it was difficult, he imagined. After living for so long, lonely in the dark, it would be hard to come out and make a new friend.

So in an effort to make the spirits comfortable, Olaf decided to make the place more inviting.

First he pulled the dust sheet off the table. Then he arranged the dishes that were sitting on it as if he and the ghosts were going to have a nice, happy dinner together. He even found a bowl of wax fruit and bottles of juice of some kind to add to the table setting. And with that, he sat down to his pretend meal and began pretend eating.

“Mmm,” Olaf said, “this wax fruit is delicious. If only there were some spirits out there that wanted to join me!”

Then he waited.

And waited.

“Oh, wow,” he said, trying again, “and this juice is so refreshing and good.…But it would be so much better with someone to share it with!”

No answer. Olaf shrugged. According to what Gerda had read to him from Do Not Laugh at Phantoms!, it would take some time to make a ghost feel comfortable enough to show itself. In the meantime, maybe there was more stuff in the hidden hallways that would help.

With that, Olaf hopped off the large wooden chair and wandered away from the dining room. There was so much more to explore!

“These hallways go on forever!” Anna exclaimed.

Elsa followed her sister, listening.

“I mean, it’s almost like a new castle was built around an older castle. But that would have had to happen hundreds of years ago!”

“It’s amazing,” Elsa agreed, pushing against a wall with all her might. “Maybe we can explore it all…tomorrow.”

“Well, sure!” Anna said cheerily. “As big as this place seems to be, we could spend all week exploring!”

Elsa grew frustrated. “We don’t have all week! We don’t have all night! I have important things to plan!”

“Hey! You’re not the only one! I have…things, too!”

“Anna…” Elsa started, but then she asked, “Wait, what do you have to plan?”

“Stuff!” Anna said defensively. “Lots of stuff! I mean, I don’t have to be a queen to have important plans to plan, do I?”

“That’s not what I meant!” Elsa said. “I just mean…the things I’m working on—”

“Doesn’t matter! You’re taking tonight off!” Anna responded.

“But,” replied Elsa, “I have to take care of things! I really do!”

“Not tonight!” Anna pointed at her older sister. “Tonight you are relaxing!”

Elsa looked around at the gloomy passage. “How…how is this relaxing?”

Anna shrugged. “Oh, come on. It’s not like we’re trapped in here. You have powers!”

Elsa poked the wall, freezing just a tiny section. “You know that my powers don’t open doors! I’d just break down the wall! And I’d really prefer not to wreck the castle if I don’t have to.”

“Well, yeah…but…” Anna pushed against the wall. Nothing. “I guess that’s a fair point…but what else can we do?”

Elsa looked around. “Listen, if I have to, I can get us out. But let’s save that for a last resort. There was a doorway in; it stands to reason there must be a doorway out. We can take a little time and explore. Okay?”

Anna looked uncertain. “Okay…for a little while, I guess. But I have serious plans for tonight! We…I can’t miss them, so—” Then she stopped short, looking at the dusty floor of the hallway. “Wait. Are these…tiny footprints? They’re hard to see, but…they don’t…they don’t look human.…”

Elsa was about to respond when she heard a sound. It came from far away, and it was soft as a whisper. But still…it was unmistakable.

“Was that…?” Anna asked in a hushed voice. “Was that…laughter?”

Olaf laughed with glee. He had a new idea that he thought was sure to work! In a storage room inside the castle walls, he had found racks and crates of old clothes: dresses and suits and uniforms. According to what he had learned, ghosts usually wandered around draped in sheets. They were sure to be less shy if they had fancy clothes instead! So Olaf had unpacked some outfits and laid them out to show them off.

Nothing happened. The clothes just sat there all nicely arranged. The snowman sighed. He was trying everything he could think of. He had even locked a door after he passed through it, to make sure that the spirits didn’t drift past him. He didn’t want to miss meeting his future friends! But still…nothing.

“Huh,” Olaf said to himself. “Maybe the ghosts prefer the sheets after all.…Ooh! Maybe I had it backwards! Maybe I should dress up as a ghost!” With that, he grabbed a large moth-eaten sheet and covered himself with it, peering out through the holes that the very considerate moths had made. Then the snowman waddled out of the storage room and up a long flight of wooden stairs.

Anna ran through the narrow and gloomy hallways, her sister trailing behind. The passages were haphazardly arranged, some clearly having been leftover space between walls, and others having been purposefully constructed. They turned and widened and narrowed again unpredictably.

“Anna, wait!” Elsa shouted. “You don’t know where you’re going!”

Anna kept running, jumping over the occasional crate and ducking the random low beam, yelling back as best she could. “I heard someone! That means we’re not alone! Which means maybe they know the—OOOF!”

“Oh, no! Anna! Are you okay?”

As Anna rounded a corner, she had run face-first into a large pile of crates and crumpled to the ground.

Anna sat up, looking a bit woozy. “I’m good. I’m okay. Just…whoo…just gonna sit a second.…”

In the dim light, Anna looked up at the crates. They were filled with mildewed old uniforms. Clearly they had been tucked away by the castle staff years earlier and completely forgotten. They were stacked almost to the ceiling of the passageway, and in this small section that meant really, really high.

“Wow…that’s a lot of boxes. Elsa, it’s a dead end. Where are we supposed to go now?”

Elsa paused, peering at the ground next to Anna. “Look…more of those little footprints…”

Anna leaned over and examined the prints. They were faint, but visible. “What could have made them?”

Elsa looked around. “I don’t know…but we should keep moving.”

“Fair enough,” Anna agreed. “How will we get past these boxes? It will take hours to move them all!”

Elsa didn’t respond. Instead, she just waved her hand and a staircase of ice appeared, leading up the tower of crates.

“Or you could just make an ice staircase,” Anna said as she stood up. “That would be a good plan B.”

And with that, Anna carefully headed up the slippery stairs, her sister right behind her.

“Okay…this is creepy,” Anna whispered.

Anna wasn’t wrong, Elsa thought as she surveyed the old dining room.

The sisters had descended the ice staircase and followed more of the strange footprints along a twisty hallway to find that the only way forward was through a crawlspace. By the time they had emerged on the other side, both girls were covered in dust. From there, they had found another secret door, which at first they thought was the way out. Instead, the door led to an abandoned section of the castle—closed off for dozens of years by the look of it—and the old dining room they were in.

It was small by Arendelle’s current standards, and the dusty drapes covering everything gave it a sinister look. Paintings of kings that ruled centuries earlier adorned the walls, and only the slightest cracks in the bricked-over windows allowed any light in. Anna dug through some dirty-looking boxes and found a lantern that still had some oil in it, but the flickering light of the lantern only made the room look spookier. Especially since it allowed the sisters to better see the fully set table, complete with wax food and glasses filled with a sour-looking liquid—a pickling brine of some kind.

“Someone was just here,” Elsa noted, pointing out the slight drops of moisture on the table settings and the freshly polished wax fruit. “Someone just set this table up. But who? And why?”

Anna shook her head. “Maybe the right question is what would do this rather than who. You said you heard that ghosts live in the castle walls.…”

“Those were just stories,” Elsa countered. “Old spooky stories that people tell to children!”

“Yeah,” Anna said as she sniffed the sour liquid in the wine glass. “Except that someone or something poured this vinegar in these glasses and put this wax fruit on the table. Something else is here—inside the castle walls but obviously hiding from us. Why?”

It was Elsa’s turn to shake her head. “I don’t know! But it can’t be a phantom! Ghosts aren’t real!”

“I know, I know. It’s just…” Anna said, considering the possibilities. “Whatever did move all this around, it had to go somewhere.…”

Anna held the lantern up, lighting the door at the other end of the room. Both sisters saw more of the strange footprints leading out the door. Anna pointed. “That’s the only other way out.”

“Great!” Elsa said as she moved to the open doorway. “Then let’s go prove there are no phantoms and get out of these old rooms!”

Anna shivered. Things just kept getting creepier.

With only the light of the lantern to guide them, Anna and Elsa had made their way out of the old dining room. Unfortunately, the sisters couldn’t find any direct access from the sealed section of the castle back into the main section or to the outside world.

On the upside, Anna noticed the flame of the lamp flickering in a specific direction, which indicated air moving through the walls. This led the sisters to another partially open secret door, which led to a different secret passageway. Other than being dustier, it was no different from the first one: super-high ceilings, exposed beams, narrow windows letting in small amounts of light.

The sisters moved as quickly as they could, but Anna was getting increasingly concerned about time. The ball was scheduled to start soon, and if she missed this…if Elsa missed this…

But there was only so much rushing they could do. Sometimes the space was so narrow they had to scoot through it sideways while holding their breath. Other times the ceiling was so low they practically had to crawl. One stretch of crawlspace was rotting, and Elsa had to create a narrow ice bridge for the sisters to get safely across. Another section was blocked by a locked door, which, fortunately, Anna was able to open with a bent hairpin.

The sisters felt like they had been walking for miles, and given how much the passages twisted and turned and doubled back on themselves, they probably had.

And then, suddenly, they found themselves in an old storage room. Along the walls, there were racks and boxes of clothes—mostly old dresses out of fashion for more than a generation, and mostly covered in a thick layer of dust.

Mostly.

“Those clothes…” Elsa’s voice was quiet. “They’ve been arranged, like…”

Anna finished the thought. “Like they were being worn by people and the people just vanished?”

It was true. In the center of the crowded space, a group of ornate outfits lay puddled as if people had been dancing inside them. Near the bottom, shoes could be seen. Unlike the clothes still hanging or folded away, these were relatively dust-free—as if they had been moved very recently.

“But…they must have been like this for years. I mean,” Elsa answered, “for whatever reason, they were stored this way. Or…”

Anna poked at a dress, feeling the cloth. Her hand recoiled instantly. “It’s cold. Almost as cold as ice.”

Elsa grabbed the dress. “It’s like it was sitting out during a winter night! How could it be so cold?”

Anna gestured wildly. “Have you not been listening to anything we’ve been talking about for the last few hours? Ghosts!”

Olaf traveled a long way up the wooden stairs before he reached a small stone landing protruding from the wall. He was up really high now—probably the highest he could get. Ahead of him, a second set of stairs led back down. “Wow,” he said, looking over the edge at the massive drop.

Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. His voice echoed back.

Olaf considered. He was standing in a great place to get the attention of any hidden phantoms. He smiled and took a deep breath.

Anna threw up her hands. “Why did we have to find all this today? Here we are, on an adventure through secret passageways following a phantom, and we don’t have the time to properly enjoy it at all! I mean, look at this!” She crouched down next to one of the uniforms, feeling the cold cloth.

Elsa sat down beside her sister. “Anna…we have all the time we need. These passageways aren’t going anywhere. We can explore them any day.…” Elsa frowned as she looked around. “Ideally with lots of lanterns and ropes and guards and maybe a couple of experts in castle architecture. The point is…” Elsa picked up Anna’s hand. “The point is we have all the time in the world. You know that.”

Anna looked at her sister. “I know…it’s just…I know you’ve got so much to do. Running a kingdom is busy work. And I want you to be so happy, and I want to do so many things with you.…”

“But I am happy. I really am. It’s just…” Elsa mused, “I’m new to all this. And Mom and Dad…they did everything they could, but it was hard for me to prepare to rule with my powers and having to hide.…So I worry that I’m not as good as they were, and I’m trying really hard to catch up…you know?”

“You’re doing fine. You really are. But Mom and Dad had each other. You’re just one person. But with me helping you…I…Hey…”

Anna trailed off, distracted by something she saw from the corner of her eye. She picked up one of the fallen dresses. “I remember this dress. It…it’s…”

Elsa reached out, examining the garment. The dress was a soft green with a blue pattern dyed into the fabric. “This belonged to Mom. She wore it when we were little. Before I…before you were hurt.”

Anna opened a crate, holding the lantern close so she could see inside. It was filled with books…familiar books. “All of this…all of this was Mom’s. It must have all been packed away when…”

Elsa picked up a book and dusted off the cover. “I remember this one. She used to read it to us when we would go to sleep. See? It even has the corner you used to chew on!”

Anna frowned, squinting at the book. “I didn’t chew on any book! I…” She stopped and thought for a minute. “I was young. Books seemed delicious then.”

Anna pushed the box away. “I’m sorry, Elsa. I’m your younger sister, and I’m supposed to be there for you like Mom and Dad would have been if…if they hadn’t…” Anna tried to steady her voice. “And once they were gone, and…and…”

Elsa put an arm around her sister comfortingly. “They’re not gone. They’re right here. They’re with us always, in these books and dresses, and in our memories and in our surroundings. And most importantly, they’ll always be with us as long as we have each other.”

Anna looked up at her sister, and there were tears in her eyes, but she was smiling. “Huh. I guess we found our phantoms, right? I’m always here for you, too, Elsa. I really am.”

Elsa reached out and, with a small smile, wiped away the tear that was trickling down Anna’s cheek. “And I will always be here for you. And…and I promise. We’re going to get out of here and I’m going to take you somewhere and you’ll feel so much better about everything. I promise.”

Anna felt herself smile. “That…that would mean a lot to me. I think that…Wait.…” Anna suddenly stood up, remembering. “You can’t take me anywhere tonight, though! I have to take you somewhere!”

Elsa shook her head. “Well, first things first…we have to get out of here. Agreed?”

Anna looked like she wanted to argue, but instead she nodded. “Agreed. Let’s find a way out…and then—”

Anna was opening her mouth to continue when she was interrupted by a nearby screech. Like nails on a chalkboard. Or a cat left on a frozen lake.

It was horrible. Truly horrible.

And it was nearby.

Olaf continued screeching and moaning and howling as loudly as he could while he walked down the rickety staircase. The book on phantoms had said that spirits howled and moaned because they had forgotten how to communicate. Howls were all they understood.

“AAaaeeeeeeEEEAAAHH!” Olaf screeched. “OOoooohaaaaaAAH!” he howled.

Down below him, Olaf could see a second stone landing. Below that, the stairs continued down into darkness.

Olaf heard a noise. He turned and looked behind him. Hmmm. The staircase sure was wobbling a lot. That was interesting.

Anna ran up the wooden steps with Elsa right behind her. The noise had come from that way; she was sure of it. That meant that whatever had arranged the food in the old dining room and the clothes in the storage room was also that way.

Up and up she ran. The staircase was absurdly tall, held up by wooden scaffolding bolted into the walls at intervals, and had clearly been intended as a temporary solution, perhaps for some long-ago maintenance problem. Anna hadn’t realized how deep they had gone into the castle basements and how high the castle walls must be, for the two sisters just kept climbing and climbing as the stairs went back and forth and up and up between the walls.

“Anna…” Elsa said between panting breaths as they climbed, “maybe…maybe we should just head back down. There has to be a better way out than this!”

Anna was also exhausted, and she gasped as she spoke. “Maybe…maybe there is…but we have to reach the top soon—”

As she said “soon,” her foot hit a rotted plank on the stairs and—crack!—it gave way beneath her.

“Anna!” Elsa cried out. “Hold on!”

Anna was holding on. She had fallen through the stair riser and was wedged into the broken plank at waist level, dangling above a drop that probably stretched all the way back down to the castle basement.

“Why,” she managed to say as she struggled not to fall, “do people always tell you to ‘hold on’ when you’re obviously going to hold on already? Holding on is the obvious choice!”

Elsa grabbed at Anna’s arm, trying to haul her up. “It’s meant to be encouraging!”

Anna’s feet kicked uselessly in the air. “It’s…erg…very encouraging! Could you also use your powers to maybe—”

Elsa shook her head quickly. “The stairs are already unstable! The extra weight could crumble—”

Elsa was cut off by a loud crumbling noise, and they both looked down. The staircase was falling apart from the basement up!

Anna felt herself slipping. “Hurry!”

Elsa pulled with all her might, and suddenly, Anna was free, clambering to her feet on the stairs.

“Run!” Anna yelled.

“Now who’s pointing out the obvious?” Elsa yelled in return as she ran.

They scrambled, the staircase collapsing behind them. For a moment, Anna felt like she was running on free-floating planks that gravity simply hadn’t caught up with. And then, before the sisters could fall, their feet touched stone. It was a small landing jutting out of the castle wall near the very top. It extended for only a handful of feet, and from there, another rickety staircase descended. Or at least, it had. Both staircases appeared to have crumbled at the same time.

In other words, Anna and Elsa were precariously perched on a five-foot-long, three-foot-wide stone ledge. A ledge that was icy cold, despite Elsa’s having avoided using her freezing powers.

And yet the ghost was nowhere to be found.

That was when the laughing began again, echoing off the stone walls that surrounded them.

“Huh,” Olaf said as he surveyed the remains of the staircase behind him.

It had happened fast. First the wobbling started; then everything was collapsing. The next thing Olaf knew, he was falling. Luckily, he landed on something soft—that being his butt—on the second ledge he had seen earlier.

In truth, the experience had tickled. So much so that it had taken him a while to stop laughing after he landed.

Eventually, he got up and made sure all his parts were still attached. It looked like the sheet had helped keep him together. What a great sheet! Adjusting it to make sure his appearance was as ghostly as possible, he looked down. There was still a very long way to the bottom—and no longer any staircase to travel on.

“Huh,” he said again, considering what to do next.

“Anna…” Elsa said, looking down. “Remember how I said there’s no such thing as ghosts?”

Anna nodded. “Yeah. Repeatedly. And yet, here we are. Chasing a phantom through the castle walls.”

“Yes. Well”—Elsa nodded—“look down there.”

Elsa stepped aside so her sister could see where she was pointing. It was far below them on a ledge very similar to the one Elsa and Anna were on. And the shadows were so deep that they made the…thing…appear almost invisible. But there was no mistaking it. No more pretending it didn’t exist—not for Elsa. For at last she had seen what they had been following: a small, sheet-draped specter of some kind.

“I think,” Elsa said, “we just found our—”

BLONG!

“Aah!” cried Elsa, covering her ears.

BLONG!

“So…loud…” stammered Anna, cringing.

BLONG!

“What is that noise?” Elsa heard Anna shout.

BLONG!

“I think…” Elsa began.

BLONG!

“It’s…” Elsa continued.

BLONG!

The sisters looked at each other with dawning comprehension.

BLONG!

“The clock!” they shouted, their ears ringing from the tolling of the massive bells.

“We must be near the clock tower!” Anna yelled.

That’s when Elsa had a horrible realization. “Seven! It’s seven o’clock!”

“Oh, no!” Anna added, seeming to share her sister’s horror.

The sisters looked at each other and yelled in unison.

“THE PARTY!”

There was a short pause after that. Elsa looked at Anna. Anna looked at Elsa.

Again in unison, the sisters said, “Wait! You know?”

Down below, the phantom was waddling along the ledge. Odd that a ghost might waddle, Elsa thought.

“Never mind!” she said, determined. “We’ve been led through these castle walls for too long! It’s time we catch that phantom and get where we’re supposed to be!”

With that, Elsa waved her hand, and a giant ice slide materialized, starting at their feet and plunging into the shadowy darkness toward the distant ghostly figure.

Anna pointed at the steep and oh-so-very-slippery-looking slide her sister had created.

“You can’t be serious.”

But she was. Very. And with a grin, Elsa shoved her sister onto the slide. Then, laughing, she jumped down after her.

Olaf was sad. It wasn’t a feeling he liked very much.

He had been sure there were spirits hiding in the castle walls. Lonely and strange creatures too shy to step out and find a friend. But instead, he had found only empty rooms and dust.

It was time to accept that he was the only one inside the castle walls.

At that moment, Olaf heard a sound that was a mix between laughter and screams of terror. Funny, he thought. It seems to be getting closer. Maybe…maybe…

This was it.

The spirits were finally showing themselves.

Unnoticed by Olaf, ice slicked over the stone floor at his feet. He turned, arms open, ready to greet his newfound ghostly friends, his sheet billowing as a rush of wind hit him.

And that was when the princess and the queen of Arendelle crashed into him and swept him away.

Elsa couldn’t believe it. She and her sister had actually captured a phantom! It was amazing!

Less amazing was the fact that they were all still hurtling into the dark.

Now that they had the phantom, Elsa was projecting a continuation of the slide down the long narrow corridor, trying to get them to ground level before the spirit could wriggle away.

Unfortunately, the corridor wasn’t quite long enough. A dead end loomed out of the darkness just before them.

“Dead end!” Anna called out as she grappled with the spirit. She saw her sister create a huge cushion of snow between them and the fast-approaching wall, and she braced for impact.

Elsa, Anna, and the ghost all crashed into the snowbank—and discovered that the section of wall behind it wasn’t solid at all! The force of the crash popped open the door cleverly hidden behind a painting in the Great Hall. The secret door swung wide, and through the air they sailed, scattering snow over the heads of dozens of guests, through banners and streamers, until the queen of Arendelle; her sister, the princess; and the spirit that had haunted them landed directly in the center of the largest cake the world had probably ever seen.

After a moment, both cake-covered sisters sat up in the massive dessert, took in their surroundings, pointed at each other, and yelled, “Surprise!”

They looked at each other in shock.

“Wait…what?” Anna said.

“I’m sorry, I’m confused,” Elsa responded.

Then the phantom they had captured popped out of the massive cake between them. “I get it!” the spirit yelled, with a happy laugh not normally associated with such ghostly creatures. “It’s a celebration for both of you!”

Anna squinted. Elsa poked at the sheet-covered phantom.

“Is that…” Elsa said.

“I think…” Anna added.

Elsa grabbed the sheet and pulled it off. Anna sighed as the small snowman was revealed underneath. “Yup,” she said. “We’ve been chasing Olaf.”

Shaking her head, Elsa let herself fall backward into the giant cake with a plop.

A trumpet sounded, and confetti floated down from the ceiling. The celebration had officially started.

The amazing dinner dance was in full swing. What could have been an utter catastrophe had been completely pulled together by the castle staff. As soon as they had realized that the queen and princess were planning surprise events for each other at the same time in the same place, they had taken it upon themselves to combine the events into one ultimate gala. The biggest cake in the world was now even bigger. The streamers were doubled. It was like the most fantastic ball—plus the most fantastic banquet.

“Oh. My. Gosh,” Anna said, pulling her sister into a relatively quiet corner. “I seriously cannot believe we were both planning surprises for the same day at the same time! I hope…” Anna wrung her hands, slightly nervous. “I hope you like it? I mean…I know…I dunno…”

Elsa hugged her sister. “Are you kidding me? This is fantastic! It was so sweet of you! You’re always there for me! That’s why I wanted to hold an event for you. And”—Elsa pulled back and looked Anna in the eyes—“I wanted to hold this huge celebration and let you know how much you mean to me. To the kingdom. You saved me. You saved…all of us.”

Anna blushed a bit, and Elsa continued, “And you’re right…what you said in there. I need you at my side, able to help me with whatever comes up. I shouldn’t try to do everything by myself. I’ve just felt like I have so much to make up for.…”

“You don’t,” Anna said, kindly but firmly. “You’re a good queen. A great queen. You care so much for everything and everyone…and everyone knows that! More importantly…Mom and Dad…they would be proud of you.”

Elsa smiled. “And they’d be proud of you, too.”

The sisters hugged again, and afterward, Anna laughed, flicking away a piece of cake that was still in her hair. “And to think I almost believed we were hunting a real phantom in there! I mean, the dinner table, and the dresses, and those little footprints we saw…and it was Olaf the entire time!”

Both sisters laughed as Olaf waddled by. The snowman smiled and waved as he headed for the dance floor. “Aw! Look at you guys! So happy! That makes me happy! So we’re all happy!”

The sisters laughed. “What about your ghost hunt?” Anna asked. “I’m sorry you didn’t find anything, but you ended up leading us to some places with a lot of great memories. So it’s not a total loss.”

“Oh, that’s okay!” Olaf said, waving the concern away. “It would have been nice to find some lonely ghosts and cheer them up and all, but it’s even better that I was able to help you guys. Besides,” Olaf added as he did a little spin on the floor, “I have a new hobby now. Dancing! And this is just the place to show everyone what an amazing dancer a snowman with snowball feet can be!”

Anna and Elsa laughed as Olaf danced away. Then their laughter slowly trailed off. They stared at each other.

Olaf had big round snowballs for feet. He couldn’t have made those footprints.

The mystery of the phantom was still unsolved.

Elsa had tried to be subtle about gathering a small contingent of guards, but word spread like wildfire through the crowd. No one wanted to miss whatever exciting thing was planned next for this very unusual celebration, and now all the guests were gathered around the mirror where Anna and Elsa had entered the secret passages.

“All right,” Queen Elsa commanded in her most royal voice. “Everyone stay back. There is something in these walls, and no one is quite sure what it is. All we know is that it is real. So, everyone, please stay back for your own safety. Olaf, would you please show us how to open the mirror?”

Olaf knocked on the wall next to the mirror, but nothing happened. “Huh,” he said. “That worked before.” He tried again, rapping his stick arms against the stone. Still nothing. “Must be stuck,” he concluded.

The guards came forward with crowbars to force the hidden door open. As they moved into position, Anna leaned in. “Elsa, are you sure we need to do this? I mean, I know I was the one who was all insistent about the walls being haunted and whatnot, but we were in there for hours, and there was nothing—”

Knock. Knock. Knock. A mysterious sound came from behind the mirror.

“I knew it!” Olaf shouted happily. “The phantoms are finally answering!”

Elsa nodded to the guard. “Open it…and be ready.”

With a quick motion, the guards pried the door fully open. The entire gathering watched with breathless anticipation.

Nothing.

“Hmmm,” Elsa said, turning to Anna. “I suppose that bit will remain a mystery after all—”

The queen was interrupted by a loud shriek. A squeal, really. A very familiar squeal. A squeal that sounded just like…

“Spy Pig!” Anna yelled as the animal bounded out of the hidden passageway. “That’s where you’ve been!”

“But how…how did we not see him? At all!” Elsa responded. “We went everywhere inside those passages!”

Anna hugged the pig. “Because he finally learned to blend with the darkness, just like a mighty shadow boar! Yay, Spy Pig!”

And with that, Elsa, Anna, Olaf, and Spy Pig led the way back to the Great Hall, where everyone agreed: it was the greatest ghost- and pig-attended double-surprise dinner dance in history.