In the city to the north, on the shores of a lake greater than the seas, in that first age of machines when the streets were lit by gas lamps and time was kept by clockwork, there was a woman of no small means named Myra. She was well known throughout the city as a skilled organist, with fingers that positively danced upon the keys. Churches and theaters alike paid great sums for her talents, and it was in this fashion she was able to live comfortably enough to have her own carriage and private stable.

On an unusually warm day in the middle of Fall, the lady Myra was returning from a recital when she saw a man prone in the gutter. It was not so unusual a sight for men to drink themselves so far into the streets, but by his clothes he was a gentleman, and he did not have the same limp form as those suffering from excess. Perhaps it was the neatness of his clothes, or the paleness of his skin, or the scent in the air around him, which tasted somehow more pure and clean than even the air on the grassy slopes far from the city.

Whatever the cause, the lady Myra had her carriage halted, and the coachman lifted the senseless soul from the gutter into her cab. She could feel the air itself in her cab grow stifling with the feverish heat of the unconscious gentleman.

The moment she was home, she laid the stricken gentleman out on a sofa and placed a cold compress on his head. The sun set and the moon rose above her home until the sun rose again, and all the while the lady Myra sat with the stricken gentleman, dribbling water into his mouth and dampening his burning skin. His terrible fever never broke, but as the first tendrils of dawn crept over the roofs and awnings, the strangest transformation took place. His breathing slowed and became regular, and the fine traces of water across his skin froze into the thinnest layer of frost. His eyes opened, and the lady Myra saw they were the palest of blue, so light they nearly seemed to have no color at all.

The very first thing his eyes saw, on focusing, was the face of the lady Myra, and the concern writ thereupon. He rose immediately to a sitting position, and took her hands in his. She saw that here, too, a layer of frost colored his already pale skin pure white, and what fever had gripped him until his eyes sprang open had so far vanished that his hands felt chilled as rocks in a winter river. “You have my gratitude, madam, though I do not know your name. I am called Jack the Frost, and I nearly think I died in the unforeseen warmth of the afternoon. Simply assure me you are not an angel, so I know whether I still live.”

“I assure you,” said the lady Myra, “that I am no angel. My name is Myra, and I am pleased by your recovery, though somewhat mystified by your demeanor and manor.”

“Ah, ahh!” said Jack the Frost, releasing her from his icy hands, “but how soon the world forgets. I am Jack the Frost, as I have said, and though you mortals have long lost my name from your lips, I am the one who bears the burden of winter, and who holds the ice and snow from the world for half the year round. Believe me if you wish, or don’t, as is your choice. You have only the evidence before your eyes. But know that I am grateful for your aid, and would grant you a boon.”

“Well,” replied the lady Myra, “I don’t doubt the truth of my eyes and hands, and you are welcome if I have given you any aid, but I live well enough that I need little in the way of boons or fortunes.”

“You are modest as well, but know this: I will grant you three favors, with all the power of the ice and wind at my disposal. Simply call my name when you have need of my aid. And now I must take my leave, for the winter cannot delay much more than a day or two.” With those words, Jack the Frost was gone in the glittering of an eye, leaving nothing but a draft of icy air in his place.

The lady Myra eventually put Jack the Frost to the back of her mind and went on about her way, performing at the keys of the many organs throughout the north city. As happens with such fame, a wicked aristocrat learned of her skill and determined to take it for himself. Thus the aristocrat had constructed a great pipe organ, grander and more luxuriant than even the kings and queens of the island nations had in their castles. But the organ held a terrible secret. Deep in its bowels he hid a human heart, and all throughout the organ ran an ingenious series of bellows and pipes, so that playing the organ caused the heart to beat with a mockery of life.

Word of the magnificent pipe organ soon reached the lady Myra, and it was not long before the wicked aristocrat sent her a cordial letter, imploring her to give a recital, that the organ might be blessed with the sound of her playing. Not knowing of his malicious intent, of course Myra agreed, and several days later arrived via stagecoach, prepared to play the deadly organ. She sat before it and played the recital, and the organ made the most beautiful sounds, coaxed from it by her skilled playing. But as she played, its heart beat faster and faster, and with every beat of its heart, a little of her life was stolen away. Myra played for hours and hours, and the more she played, the more exhausted she became, until at last she collapsed over the keys.

The lady Myra was taken away to a hospital, while the wicked aristocrat delighted in his devilish instrument. With her heart captured by the great pipe organ, he was able to play as well as she, and his seductive tunes drew wealth and power ever tighter around him. Meanwhile, the lady Myra languished in the hospital. No doctors or nurses could divine the nature of her ailment. She seemed to have no strength, and could barely move or speak. However, one evening as the hospital stood quiet and solemn, an old gypsy woman was roaming the ward, selling roses to some patients and giving them to others. When she came to the lady Myra’s bedside, she gave her a rose and spoke into her ear:

“Your heart has been stolen away by a wicked man. I can see it in you, poor dear. As long as he has your heart, you shall never take it from him, and I fear another must willingly give his heart to you, so that you have the strength to reclaim your own. But who? Who has a heart as great as what was stolen from you? Go to the dragon of the east ocean. You will find his floating mountain in the center of the waves. He may take pity on you and lend you his heart, but do not expect a bargain.”

The gypsy’s rose gave the lady Myra the strength she needed to rise from her bed and make her way out of the hospital. Still clutching the rose in her hand, with the thorns digging into her palms, she used what petty cash she had about her person to hire a coach, and traveled to the shore of the east ocean. She walked to the end of the furthest pier she could find, and there she stood, swaying, watching as the waves crashed and the wind whipped her face. “Please, Jack the Frost,” she whispered. “Come to my aid. Freeze the ocean, if you are able, and show me the path to the east dragon’s mountain.”

No sooner did the words leave her lips than a cold gust of wind blew her hair about her head, towards the ocean, and Jack the Frost appeared by her side. “I see you are in distress, good Lady Myra. Well you have called for aid and you shall receive it. I shall lead you to the east dragon’s mountain in a trice!” With these words he was swept into the ocean on a gust of wind, and it turned to ice beneath his feet, while one or two petals of the gypsy’s rose danced around his hair. In a snap he crossed the ocean and laid a path of ice for the lady Myra to walk in his wake.

She followed Jack the Frost, until in as many days as there are letters she reached the floating island of the east dragon. She was near to collapsing, and so she squeezed the gypsy’s rose ever tighter, and the pain of the thorns kept her awake, while the blood from her cuts froze on the ice and on her skin. She slipped to the ice beneath the floating mountain and lay on her back, looking at the underside of the granite edifice, so far above her reach. “Please, Jack the Frost,” she whispered, “come to my aid again. Carry me up on your winter winds to the mountain where the east dragon waits.”

No sooner did the words leave her lips than a gust of wind blew her hair about her head, towards the granite castle, and Jack the Frost appeared kneeling at her side. “I see you are in distress yet again, good Lady Myra. But you have called for aid and you shall receive it! To the east dragon’s mountain then, straightaway!” With these words he swept the lady Myra up in his arms, and the screaming winds of winter whirled about them both, and he carried her up to the mountain and took her to the doorstep of the great castle were the dragon resided. Then he was gone in another swirl of wind and rose petals.

The lady Myra made her way to the great door, and rang for the dragon, and shortly the portcullis rose. She found herself facing the east dragon himself. “Welcome to my castle,” spoke the dragon. “I see you have journeyed far, and you may rest here for a day and a night if you so wish, for any mortal making the journey is granted my hospitality.”

“I thank you for your good will, dragon of the east, but no rest will cure me, for a wicked man has stolen away my heart.” She held up her hand, which still gripped tightly the gypsy rose. “I was told you alone might lend me a heart great enough to reclaim what is mine, and thus I have come to beg and bargain for your heart, if you will let me have it.”

“Very well,” said the dragon, “what have you to offer?”

“If you have a pipe organ, I can play more beautifully than any other,” said the lady Myra. “But I cannot play without my heart, and without your aid, I cannot reclaim it.”

“Still, I cannot give up my heart for a promise, young woman. What might you leave for me in it’s place?”

“I have nothing else but a rose given to me by a gypsy lady and a favor owed to me by Jack the Frost,” said lady Myra.

“Then ask Jack the Frost for his favor, if he will, to produce for you a diamond unlike any other, as pure as ice and as perfect as a snowflake.”

The lady Myra once again called for Jack the Frost, and once again he appeared to her. She told him of her last favor and he bowed to her and said, “If that is your wish, then so I shall grant it!” In three winks of an eye Jack the Frost spun around. The snow and the winds of winter swirled about, and then Jack the Frost was gone, leaving in his place a magnificent diamond the size of the lady Myra’s head, with more facets than a hundred snowflakes.

The east dragon was pleased with the diamond. He took the lady Myra to a locked box where he kept his heart (for in this way, no one could slay him) and spoke, “You may reclaim your heart, good lady, but you must not break your promise. Return to me and show me what music you can make when your heart has been restored.”

The lady Myra took the heart of the dragon inside herself, and she immediately was filled with his strength. She leapt from the east dragon’s mountain all the way across the ocean to the city where the aristocrat lived. With one hand, she ripped apart his house until she found him cowering behind his devilish pipe organ. “I have carried this rose twice across the ocean for you, sir, but I see no garden in which a seed might grow. I see nothing but tainted earth.” So speaking, she planted the rose in the wicked aristocrat’s mouth. In an instant it sprouted all throughout his body, until he was covered in thorns and roses as red as blood.

She then turned to the organ and tore it asunder with her other hand, in a screeching of metal and a cracking of wood. She found the unliving heart at its center, and plucked it as the old gypsy woman plucked a rose for her. She carried her heart back to the east dragon’s castle and there she returned his heart to him, and took her own heart inside herself again. She played many songs for many weeks, and the dragon brought her roses, plucked from the wreckage of the wicked aristocrat’s home, placing them in a vase which sat beside her.

When she had played his fill, the dragon carried her back to her home, and she returned to playing concerts in the city on the shore of the great lake. She did not see him for many years, but after each concert she was presented with a rose as red as blood. When her life was near its end, she vanished one night from the bed where she lay. It was said a great dragon carried her off, and if such is the case, then perhaps he gave her a diamond for a heart and so she lived forever after in the castle of the east dragon, floating over the ocean.