I made good time travelling to Nimmersdorf. I was young, unlumbered this time by slow-trudging crones. I covered the ground between the cottage and the woods in less than an hour. I was travelling light. On previous journeys I had been loaded down with the tools of what passed as my guardians' trade. This time, I carried only a small bag of provisions: a meagre supply of whatever could be spared. The bag also contained a bread-knife, almost a foot long. It was old and tarnished, but still deceptively sharp, placed there, I supposed, by Genetrixa, as insurance in case her bramble failed to protect me.

The forest, which had loomed stark and black against the distant horizon, what seemed like only moments earlier, was now around me. I walked between leafless trees which cast long dark shadows across the snow. Although the sun was high in the sky - not strong enough to melt the snow, but warm and bright - here, amidst the trees, the light could barely penetrate.

There was a path through the forest, rust red clay, winding like a ribbon discarded on the black earth. I had been told, by Virgina, Genetrixa and Anicula in turn, of the importance of sticking to the path. The forest was old and vast and sprawling, home to bears and wolves, to other things about which my guardians only ever darkly hinted.

But the path was safe.

The path, by my reckoning, would also lead me more than three hours' travel further west than I needed to go.

I cut instead, through dense, deeply shadowed woodland, where the tracks of various animals criss-crossed in the snow and dirt. A spiders web was suspended between the boughs of a tree, jewelled with frost, gleaming in the little light that fell here. Moss, the silver-white of Anicula's hair, clung to trunks, and scarlet berries shone on otherwise bare branches, crimson spatters against the snow.

Fallen leaves and twigs, rigid with rime, cracked under my feet. Occasionally, from the forest around me, I thought I heard answering snaps and rustling. From time to time, I would halt and wait, motionless and silent as possible, straining to hear, but I could never be sure.

I stopped at a clearing and ate from the bag of provisions Virgina had packed for my journey. At the centre of the clearing, was a pond, spikes of reeds protruding from it frozen surface, ice-brittle and withered by the cold. The sun had reached the zenith of its arc and its light reflected off the frozen water, blinding and hypnotic, and painted the glade in its magical golden glow.

A few hours later, after picking my way between trees and around bramble, crossing ground strewn with pebbles, crusted in compacted snow that hadn't melted since it first fell at the start of the season, I emerged from the forest.

Daylight had all but left the sky. The shadow of Nimmersdorf castle poured long and dark before it, as the last crimson traces of sunset ignited the horizon.

I walked along the main street that ran through the small principality, a straight-ish line connecting the castle and the red dirt track that meandered through the forest. Smoke poured from chimneys of the houses on either side. From the doorway of an inn, came the smell of cooking meat, the sounds of laughter, a blast of heat as I passed by.

A few people crossed my path: a huntsman returning triumphant with a brace of plump birds tied together and thrown over his shoulder; a woman fetching kindling; two young children, their genders utterly indeterminate under the mismatch of layers they wore against the cold, leading a goat down the road. They acknowledged my presence with polite, friendly nods and I nodded in return.

I only realised, when Nimmersdorf castle loomed huge and dreamlike in front of me, that I had been looking out for the fair-haired boy who had given me the necklace last summer, and I felt an odd little wrench of disappointment.

The gate to the castle was before me, set into the wall that surrounded it, hung on hinges larger than my head. I raised my hand to knock. This was it: it was time. I was tired and a little uncertain, but unsurprisingly, I was not afraid.

The sound of my fist against the wood of the massive gate was louder than I expected. It sounded like thunder in the gathering gloom.

A narrow hatch opened in the gate. A panel I hadn't noticed slid aside to reveal a gap, just big enough for a person to see through, or fire a crossbow. Through the gap, two eyes looked me up and down and a voice asked me to state my business.

'I seek an audience with the prince. I come on behalf of the Grey Women who live on the other side of the forest. I carry important tidings, of which the prince must be told.' My voice was steady. I knew I sounded older than my years.

The eyes looked doubtful for a moment.

'Oh...' The panel slammed back into place.

I heard muttered words being exchanged on the other side of the gate: 'I dunno... some young girl in a red cloak... says she's got important news for the prince.'

The hatch opened again. 'One moment, miss.'

Slow, quiet moments passed like that, standing outside the castle gate. I don't know how many. A fine, dry, powder-like snow began to fall, settled on the stones of the walls, on my clothes, in my hair, and a wind began to rise, blowing in from the forests. The flakes swirled and undulated in the newly awoken breeze, as the last glowing licks of daylight faded from the sky.

A groaning of ancient timber: slowly, the gate rose.

I squinted to see past the flurry of snow that danced in front of my eyes, to make out anything in the near-dark of the winter evening.

A courtyard; a fountain (no water arcing from its spouts); someone walking towards me.

He seemed to be lit from within. His face looked as though it had been chiselled from some perfect white stone, or formed perhaps from moonlight itself. His hair was fair - not the straw-coloured fairness of the boy who had given me a necklace one summer that now seemed a very long time ago, but the silver of snow plains on cloudless nights - and it framed his impossibly beautiful face like a halo. His eyes were very green and very kind.

He stood in the gateway: the prince of Nimmersdorf. And he smiled.

I felt that smile embrace me, shutting out the cold and the wind, making me forget the distance I had covered that day. For a moment, I couldn't even remember why I was there.

'You are welcome here, child,' he said, in a voice which, though quiet, was oddly resonant. 'Please, follow me.'

He turned on heel and walked away from me.

And not sure I could do anything else, even if I wanted to, I followed him.

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