Once more there was silence for five minutes, and then the Finn woman whispered to the reindeer. This is what she whispered: “Yes, little Kay is with the Snow Queen, and thinks himself the happiest boy in the world. But that is because a little bit of the magic mirror is still in his eye, and another tiny grain remains in his heart. Until they come out, he can never be the old Kay. As long as they are there, the Snow Queen will have him in her power.”
“But cannot you give Gerda power to overcome the Snow Queen?” whispered the reindeer.
“I cannot give her greater power than she has already. Her own loving heart has won the help of bird and beast and robber-girl, and it is that loving heart that will conquer the Snow Queen. But this you can do. Carry little Gerda to the palace garden. It is only two miles from here. You will see a bush covered with red berries. Leave Gerda there and hurry back to me.”
Off sped the reindeer.
“Oh, my boots and my mittens!” cried Gerda.
But the reindeer would not stop. On he rushed through the snow until he came to the bush with the red berries. There he put Gerda down and kissed her, while tears trickled down his face. Then off he bounded, leaving the little girl standing barefoot on the crisp snow.
Gerda stepped forward. Huge snowflakes were coming to meet her. They did not fall from the sky. No, they were marching along the ground. And what strange shapes they took! Some looked like white hedgehogs, some like polar bears. They were the Snow Queen’s soldiers.
Gerda grew frightened. But she did not run away. She folded her hands and closed her eyes. “Our Father which art in heaven,” she began, but she could get no further. The cold was so great that she could not go on. She opened her eyes, and there, surrounding her, was a legion of bright little angels. They had been formed from her breath, as she prayed, “Our Father which art in heaven.” And the bright little angels shivered into a hundred pieces the snowflake army, and Gerda walked on fearlessly toward the palace of the Snow Queen.
Little Kay sits alone in the great ice hall. He does not know that he is blue with cold, for the Snow Queen has kissed away the icy shiverings and left his heart with no more feeling than a lump of ice.