Four-year-old Cassie clutched her quilt and stared at her grandmother. Tall and straight, Gram looked like a general. She perched stiffly on the edge of Cassie’s bed. She had a mahogany cane in her left hand. Tonight, Dad was away from the station, which meant Cassie would hear the story. Gram never told it when Dad was home. It was the only story she ever told.   “And so, the Polar Bear King kidnapped a human child and brought her to the North Wind, and she was raised with the North Wind as her father and the West, South, and East Winds as her uncles. She grew into a beautiful, but lonely, young woman. One day, while the Winds were gone (as they often were), she met a human man. She befriended him, and it wasn’t long before they fell in love.   “When the Polar Bear King came to claim his bride, she refused him. Her heart, she said, belonged to another. ‘I would not have an unwilling wife,’ he told her. ‘But your father has made a promise to me.’   “Knowing the power of a magic promise, the North Wind’s daughter sought to counter it with her own bargain.
