The Charm School by Susan Wiggs

Part Three

The Bird of Winter

The winter grew cold—so bitterly cold that the duckling had to swim to and fro in the water to keep it from freezing over. But every night the hole in which he swam kept getting smaller and smaller. Then it froze so hard that the duckling had to paddle continuously to keep the crackling ice from closing in upon him. At last, too tired to move, he was frozen fast in the ice.

—Hans Christian Andersen, The Ugly Duckling (1843)