White.

Everything about him, save for his clothes, is stark white – his hair, his skin, even the lashes that crescent up from under his heavy lids. Emerynne knows she is staring, and she knows staring is rude, but she can't seem to stop herself. Distantly, like in a separate dream, she registers him grabbing her by her elbows and pulling her up. He watches her momentarily, one hand still clasping her upper arm, as if making sure she is steady on her feet. His waterblue stare is what ultimately makes her avert her eyes.

Emerynne doesn't realize that her breath is cleaving to her lungs until her chest feels calcine, and she lets it all out in a quiet woosh when he releases her to go and pick up his boxes.

"Umm..." She removes her earplugs and shoves them in the pocket of her hoodie. The snow-white boy faces her, cartons cradled in his arms. "Is that the delivery for Esoteric Herbals?" she asks, eyeing the luggage.

He answers with a slight nod.

"Oh... er —well, it's really crowded down here... so, Erika asked me to tell you to take it up the fire exit."

Apparently recalcitrant to speak, the boy simply moves past her and begins ascending the steps. Ridiculously embarrassed, Emerynne plods after him. On the second-story landing, Amelie opens the door to let them in. She instructs the boy to put the boxes by the shelf of waxes, asking, "elfdock flowers and pine needles?"

Evidently, he just isn't much of a talker, because he answers Amelie with a nod, too.

"Is the pine fresh?"

Another nod.

After giving him his pay, Amelie begins tallying a new order, which he listens to attentively, head tilted a bit to the right as he writes down the list in a small, red notebook. His deep engrossment in the task gives Emerynne the perfect chance to observe him – or gawk at him and avoid getting caught and branded a creep.

She has never seen anyone like him before – so incredibly achromatic, like he's crafted from ice and snow and frost instead of flesh and blood and bones. It is absolutely dubious to her how truly pale he is. From her not-very-comprehensive observation of him, Emerynne has managed to salvage minutiae that, while unimportant to most, happen to have garnered quite the significance to her. The whiteness of his hair isn't from having lived a life too long; he's clearly youthful, barely over twenty years of age in her estimation. His mien's pallor isn't from any illness; he looks far from ill, really – tall and lanky, capable of lifting heavy boxes up a flight of stairs without losing his breath. He is a healthy boy, just remarkably argent.

Then it occurs to her. Albinism.

Although she knows about albinism, it's still a rarity to see it in person. Emerynne feels like she did the time Annika took her to the custom tutu seamstress – the silken ribbons, the glittering sequins, and the gauzy tulles had brought the same fascination that this boy does now. Every little thing about him is a novelty.

Emerynne has to quickly quell her immersion in him when he shuts his notebook. As he prepares to leave, she pretends to be preoccupied with the flow of fumes through an involuted glass vaporizer. And she ends up berating herself – how stupid she must appear to him, mesmerized by vapors like a six-year-old. At this point, she realizes that their encounter in the alleyway outside must have sealed her first impression as an awful one.

But she has to ask herself, why is she so bothered about her first impression?

❧

Emerynne's belongings didn't quite fit in the two shelves of the armoire in her room. So, Erika is clearing out another one. Emerynne did insist on helping but there's not much to do, all she is doing currently is standing by and watching her do most of the work while the cogs in her head turn, restlessly devising ways in which she can bring up the delivery boy. He's a frost prince who's let loose a torrential blizzard of questions to pillage her mind day and night. He makes her feel like a little schoolgirl who's trying to find things out about her crush.

It is a new feeling. And it's rather pleasant.

"Aunt Erika..." she starts, keeping her tone light and nonchalant, "who's that boy who'd brought the pine and elfdock yesterday?"

"Oh, Matthias. Matthias Franke."

Emerynne finally has a name for the Frost Prince.

Erika hands Emerynne a stack of shoeboxes. Emerynne sets it among the pile of other baubles and whatnots that have been emptied from the shelf, and asks, "does he go to school here?"

"No... as far as I know, he's a high school dropout. Tragic, really, his life. But he's a sweet kid though, not like those other hooligan type dropouts."

"Tragic?"

"Yes. Poor thing lost his entire family in a traffic accident. And as if that wasn't enough, the injury caused anarthria." Erika shakes her head, commiseration writ in her voice.

"Oh," Emerynne says, unprepared for that information, "that's awful."

"I know..." says Erika solemnly. Then, she brightens and gestures at the two new shelves she has cleared. "Alright then, this is all yours!"

"Thank you," says Emerynne.

Lifting her arm to look at her wristwatch, Erika just goes, "hmm." Suddenly, her eyes widen as she studies the time. "Oh dear, I'm running late again!"

"Running late?" Emerynne follows Erika's flight to the kitchen. "But it's the weekend."

Hastily, Erika pours herself a cup of peppermint tea, explaining, "there's no such thing as weekends in tourist season." A big gulp of the steaming brew has her almost choking, and it is quickly spat out in the kitchen sink with a hissed, "hothothot hot!"

"Woah, okay. Careful there... I'll go get ready." Emerynne makes for her room, however, Erika brings her back with a hard tug on the sleeve of her pajama shirt. Soft but distinct, there's the sound of a seam ripping.

"No, no, nonono!" she almost yells. "Emery, it's not the weekend for me, but it is for you. I can't have you slaving away at my store on a Saturday."

"Slaving?" Emerynne scoffs at her aunt's hyperbolic articulation. "I like working at—"

"Go around town," Erika interrupts, "explore. Make friends. Familiarize yourself with Hallstatt."

And miss out on seeing Matthias? Emerynne is at the beginnings of a complaint, "but—"

Erika cuts her off yet again, "no buts!"

It is evident that nothing Emerynne says now will budge Erika. Deflating, she lets out a soft, "okay."

After Annika and Erika have left for work, Emerynne fixes herself a plate of breakfast, which she eats in front of the window, gazing outside. There are rabbits with their twitchy noses, fowls pecking at the ground for unseen insect-meals, bumblebees buzzing and butterflies flittering over the flowers. More of the wildflowers have risen from their hiemal refuge to pepper the Earth in their vivacious colors. It is as beautiful and mesmerizing as it was on her first day here at Hallstatt.

Drifting, Emerynne thinks about Vienna and its parks; those gardens – no matter how well cared for – stand no chance against Hallstatt's uncultivated beauty. Vienna and its roads, its crowds, its busy busy busy everything is so different from the slow, indolent indulgence of Hallstatt. She thinks about Selena, her best friend from ballet school, and how she deliberately fought to end their friendship. Emerynne didn't want Selena to find out why she left ballet, which she most certainly would've come to know of, given Emerynne's well-known love for ballet and how close the two were. Emerynne's only two friends from secondary school come to mind, too – Josef and Clara. She never got too close to them because she was afraid – afraid of how much they cared, afraid of the questions they asked about the bruises that make-up couldn't cover up well enough.

"You fall and run into things an awful lot for a former ballerina," Josef would joke about her excuses, and she was always so afraid of them finding out the truth. Clara actually called Emerynne the day she and Annika had planned their escape to Hallstatt. Emerynne texted her and lied that she was going to a funeral. She may have called again, nevertheless, Emerynne has no way of knowing because she threw away her old SIM. It is hard not to feel awful about dropping off the radar on Josef and Clara – they'd been nothing but kind and friendly, accepting her in spite of the stony front she put up, understanding about her need to be alone when she acted asocial. It's all for the best, though. Emerynne doesn't like feeling indebted, feeling like she owes them an explanation for why she isn't returning from this 'funeral'.

They're in her past now, with Vienna and Johann Becker. The future feels a little bit brighter, a little bit safer, but the present is undoubtedly pleasant. Emerynne's present is Hallstatt, and her mother, and her aunt, and Amelie Lagerlof, Noemi Unger. And Matthias Franke, too. And this is how she circles back to the Frost Prince.

Does he have any social media? He's got to have at least Facebook. Getting her laptop from her suitcase, Emerynne connects it to the home Wi-Fi that Erika has, then logs into her Facebook account. A few posts from her limited friends, a message from Clara, and three from Josef. She ignores them, sticking to the reason she opened Facebook in the first place – to snoop around Matthias's online life.

Typing his name into the search bar, Emerynne adds 'Hallstatt' after it so she doesn't have to filter through the sheer number of other Matthias Frankes from all over the world. Fortunately, only one result pops up for her search, and she clicks on it. The timeline photo features rolling, green hills and the profile picture is of two boys, attired handsomely in formal, black suits, holding flutes of what is presumably champagne in one hand, and keeping the other hand flung over each other's shoulders. Matthias is immediately identifiable; although he looks a bit younger, he has the same silver-blond hair, the same snow-white skin – unmistakable... and incredibly handsome, somehow.

Emerynne thinks it's because of his well-dressiness until it hits her. It being the wide, carefree grin plastered across his face – a straight line of lovely pearly-whites, exuberance lighting up his fair features. He is so attractive; Emerynne has trouble looking away from him and moving on to the other boy – tagged Markus Franke.

Franke?

How are they related? Almost a head shorter, russet haired and chestnut eyed, having a lightly stubble-dusted, square jaw – it's hard to find a relation.

It's confirmed that Markus is Matthias's brother when Emerynne clicks on his tag to be directed to a Memorial Page. Eulogy after eulogy scrolls up, and from one link to the next, she has found the Memorial Pages of the other family members – a beautiful couple, Laura and Hans Franke, who she makes out to be the two boys' parents. All posts are by people saying how wonderful the Frankes were and how much they are missed, lamenting how unfortunate the loss is and how they deserved more.

Emerynne returns to Matthias's profile and scrolls down to go through his timeline. As opposed to the five-hundred-something followers of Markus Franke's Memorial Page, Frost Prince here has only nineteen friends. His most recent upload is that profile picture of him and Markus, which is nearly five years old – so, not recent per se. The caption reads, 'At Sonja & Amelie's Wedding! Don't worry, it's apple juice.' followed by a couple of wine-glass emojis. It's apparent that he hasn't been online in quite a long time. Emerynne goes further down, noticing that there are very few posts by Matthias himself, while the rest are pictures and quotations and online dares that are either shared on his timeline or he's been tagged in by others – mostly Markus.

There's nothing else about him here that Emerynne doesn't already know, so she deactivates her account and almost shuts the laptop down when something stirs in her memory. In a new tab, she Googles 'anarthria' and opens the first result. It's a medical dictionary definition that goes:

Anarthria

noun | an▪ar▪thria | \an-῾är-thré-ꜳ\

: inability to articulate remembered words as a result of brain lesion

Reverting to the search results, Emerynne clicks on the next link; another medical definition. This one is more elaborate.

Anarthria

Synonym(s): speechlessness

Definition: Anarthria is speechlessness due to a severe loss of neuromuscular control over the speech musculature. The term typically refers to the most severe form of dysarthria.

Language and cognition of the anarthric patient may be intact but their disordered neuromuscular system prevents speech. Anarthric patients have an intact drive or motivation to speak but are unable. Writing remains intact.

A lesion in the outflow pathway from Broca's area leads to anarthria.

Anarthria, anarthria, anarthria... the word keeps playing in Emerynne's mind. She feels a flood of sympathy for Matthias. It's so hard to imagine... to be able to talk, and then to just not. What must it feel like, to hear everyone talking but being unable to speak? What must it feel like, to lose one's family and one's voice, all in the blink of an eye? How does he deal with it? Every day, every time, in every interaction?