Fear has big eyes. It makes it easy for authors to fool you. Never trust appearances on first sight, especially those in books. You see one thing, and just when you think you know what it is, it turns out to be something completely different.

Rusty thought he saw a crowd of running monkeys. Grand perceived a rider on a horse, a rider without a head. Peacock feared it could be vampires in white dresses. And only Bells saw it for what it was.

Pulled by three ivory horses, a sleigh carved from ice swished along the lake, spraying snowdust from under its runners. A tall regal figure held the reins, wrapped in a fur coat and muff and wearing an icy crown. It was a woman of frightening beauty, the beauty that stabs you with cold and holds you hostage to its perfection, symmetrical, flawless, and dead.

The horses reared. The woman shouted something and, noticing the children, steered the sleigh in their direction. The horseshoes clacked against the ice, sending an echo that broke off at the trees.

"Guys?" said Bells. "I think I know who it is."

"Yeah?" asked Peacock. "Who?"

"I read this book to Sofia. I never finished it because it became ridiculous, scientifically speaking. I got disgusted and told her to read it herself."

"What book was it?"

" 'The Snow Queen.' " Bells took a cautious step back, watching the horses close in on them. "It's a fairy tale about this ice woman. She wants to freeze the whole world, you know, power and domination and all that stuff. She is charming, really, except if she kisses you, your heart will turn into ice or some other nonsense like that."

Peacock had gone white. "She is going to kiss us? Is that part of reading this page?"

"I'd like to see her try!" shrieked Rusty. With a cry of war he brandished a stick over his head.

"Where did you find that?" demanded Bells.

"In the snow, that's where. We will just chase her off. That's what you do with naughty dogs, you poke them with a stick!" He stabbed the air a bit too vigorously and knocked himself off his feet.

"She is not a dog, Rusty," objected Grand. "Besides, if you fight her, you might make her want to kiss you, like Bells is saying, and then you will turn black from cold, and after a while— Um, Bells? Does your heart turn to ice right away, or does it take some time?"

"I haven't read that part," said Bells crossly. "And I don't think I want to know."

Rusty pointed an enthusiastic finger. "Whoa! Look at those horses!"

"Rusty, no!" cried Bells, but he had already walked up to the quivering beasts that ogled him like some insane apparition. Their hides were powdered with hoarfrost, and tiny icicles hung from their manes.

"Nice horses, nice little horses..." whispered Rusty, stretching out his hand. The steed in the middle snorted right in his face, and Rusty staggered back, puzzled. "You don't like to be petted?"

The steed gave him a stink eye that clearly signified its protest to such an unbidden proposition.

Rusty scuttled back to his friends.

"Do you have to pet every animal you see?" Bells scolded him.

"But...horses..." Rusty fell silent.

The Snow Queen stepped off the sleigh, her face an inflexible mask. Her eyes fell on Bells, and something glistened in them, a deeply hidden hunger.

"Sweet children," she said melodically, "are you cold? Come, I will warm you up."

"No, thanks," said Peacock quickly. "We're not that cold."

"She's so pretty!" exclaimed Rusty, utterly mesmerized.

Peacock seized his arm. "Don't listen to her, it's a trick. They're always kissing you in fairy tales, and then you end up dead."

"How would you know? Have you read it?" Rusty wrestled out of his hold. "Hey, Snow Queen! Is that true that if you kiss people, their hearts turn to ice?"

The Queen regarded him, amused. "Would you like to find out?" she said sweetly. "Come, boy, let me wrap you in my cloak. You look like you're freezing."

Rusty grinned, the tips of his ears glowing.

It was obvious to Bells that the Queen planned something unpleasant. She gathered a handful of snow. It melted in her hands to a perfectly round shape, and she hurled it with commendable precision. It hit the Queen in the eye.

Another snowball, thrown by Peacock, obliterated her other eye. The Queen staggered back to the sleigh. "Stop!" she commanded. "I'm not going to hurt you. I want to help you!"

Bells scooped more snow. "Help us? I don't believe that for a second." She straightened and froze.

For a moment the Queen's face was livid, then she was smiling, not in a cold sinister way, but in a warm friendly way. "I'm so good at this," she said with pride, cleaning the snow off her face.

Bells blinked. "What?"

"I scared you, didn't I?"

"Scared me?" asked Bells. "Pfft. Not one bit." She dangerously weighed the snowball in her hand, as if about to chuck it.

"Oh yes, I did," said the Queen. She tossed back her head, and the jewels in her crown sparkled. "It's rather magnificent to be the Snow Queen. I can do things to those who don't obey me. If I breathe on you, you will freeze, turn blue, and die." She approached Bells, who hastily retreated. "And if I kiss you, as you already know, your heart will become a lump of ice."

Bells recoiled. The Queen's face was so close to hers, she could see her marble-smooth skin and her dazzlingly white teeth. "Would you like to have a power like mine?"

"What for?" asked Bells, looking at the boys for support. They weren't much help. Mouths open, they gaped at the Queen, charmed by her voice into a momentary daze.

"She's so pretty," blurted Rusty.

"I know..." echoed Peacock.

Grand didn't say anything, but his cheeks turned the color of ruddy sunset.

The Queen seemed to enjoy the attention. She sent them air kisses, picked up the stick Rusty dropped, and breathed on it. It immediately iced over with glittering frosted patterns.

Suddenly a cough shook the sky and a voice rustled over their heads, "Ahem. What exactly are you doing?"

The Snow Queen paled, if that was possible with her already pallid complexion. "Mad Tome."

"Who?" asked Bells.

"Act scared," she hissed at the children. "Go on. Now!"

It took them a moment.

"Oh no!" cried Bells in mock distress. "She's going to get us!"

"We better run!" picked up Peacock.

"I'm so scared!" Rusty waited for Grand to add something.

"Um," said Grand confusedly.

"Run, run," urged the Queen, and together, slipping and sliding, they took off into the woods. The Queen ushered them on. They wove between pines and firs and at last stopped out of breath in a murky shadow of a cedar. A cutting wind blew wisps of flurries.

"Snow Queen, where are you?" bellowed the voice.

The Queen grimaced painfully. "Unfortunately, I need to be going."

"Wait!" cried Bells. "Who is Mad Tome?"

"Shhh!" The Queen pressed a finger to her lips.

"I heard that," boomed the voice.

"Is that...the book talking?" asked Peacock.

The Snow Queen spoke quickly. "You're done with this page, so you can go to the next one. Go, before it gets really mad!"

"I'm beyond mad now," wailed the voice, and large heaps of snow plopped on top of the children's heads, shaken from the boughs overhead. They didn't have time to scream. The ground bulged and careened, then rose as if it were a gigantic turning page, hurtling them to the base of a dirt wall.

They rolled to a stop.

Bells sat up, reeling. "Guys? Are you okay?"

"Sort of," said Peacock, shaking off the snow.

Rusty peered up. "Whoa! What is that?"

It was a wall of soil, rock-hard and littered with ends of roots that stuck out like crooked fingers. It stretched from left to right in an endless line, as if the forest had been cut off by an earth divider.

Bells cautiously touched it. "I think I know what it is. We're underground, and this is dirt. The dirt by the duck pond." She turned to the boys. "That means we can dig ourselves out!"

"Oh no, you can't," said the rustling voice. "You're staying until I decide to let you go. Or not." It cackled.

"Mad Tome?" asked Bells. "Is that your name?"

"Mad Tome? Is there no end to your insults, you despicable badling?!" shouted Mad Tome. "Who told you this? The Snow Queen? Blast her. Blast you all. Sometimes I think retirement might not be such a bad idea. I can nap all I want and not have to deal with any of you anymore." It uttered an outraged growl. "I see freezing hasn't cured you of your insolence. How about you bake in the sun and suffer from thirst? Or, better," it dropped its voice, "get impaled on a lance, the old-fashioned way."

The children exchanged terrified glances. Their faces turned grey, and for a good reason. The forest floor slipped from underneath them, and they tumbled headlong onto the next page, which felt as hot as a fired-up furnace.