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sakon76Christmas fic #2. Enjoy!
Jamie sat on his bed, looking at his window. There was frost on it, but it was just a formless mass, not one of Jack's pictoral drawings or artistic fractals.
"Where are you, Jack?" he whispered.
Above him, unknown to the mortal teenager, Death stood on his roof, scythe in hand. She looked in the same direction as Jamie, toward Burgess' Jackson Pond. She, too, frowned.
"Don't make a liar out of me, Frost," she said before turning away in a swirl of black cloak.
Shadowlands
Part 6: Deathly Departure
by K. Stonham
first released 25th December 2014
Abandoning his bed for something more comfortable, Jack spent the bulk of his night on the roof of his parents' home. It wasn't, he mused, that the roof was particularly more comfortable than his corncob mattress. But he'd been sleeping rough for three hundred years. The indoors made him antsy. Even in this warmth of summer, he wanted to be where the wind could reach him.
Hoarfrost, thick and soft and cool, spread beneath him. If he actually slept, he knew, then by morning there would be a thick snow covering the roof and icicles hanging from the eaves.
He wasn't sure if his parents would be proud of that, of their son's unique abilities, or embarrassed, or admonishing. So he kept his wintery power reined in to something that would melt in the early morning sun. And he thought.
He hadn't meant to be so harsh with his sister earlier. But he couldn't stay. Not even for Pippa.
She didn't need him. She loved him, she wanted him here, but she didn't need him.
Jamie, on the other hand... well, all too soon Jamie would probably grow up and forget Jack like his friends were already starting to. And that was going to hurt. But there were other kids out there, hundreds of thousands of them, and they needed Jack Frost too. They needed snowballs and fun times and special magic happy snowflakes to help them laugh in the face of their fears.
And, too, he was part of a team. Tooth needed him to drag her out into the field once in a while. Sandy would be ticked to lose a playmate. North tended to lose himself in the day to day grind of work and wonder, forgetting to actually experience the world. And Bunny... Jack had no illusions that Bunny wouldn't keep his word and storm the shadowlands themselves to drag him back to the living world.
Above Jack, delicate white flakes began to form and drift gently to the ground. Far, far beyond them the moon glowed.
But it wasn't his moon. Even when the Man in the Moon had spent three hundred years silent, unwilling or unable to answer Jack's questions, pleas, and accusations, he'd always felt the gentle, watching presence of his patron. Here in death, there was no such thing. This moon was an empty hunk of rock in the sky the way scientific humans believed. Or it might be just an illusion; Jack didn't know how this place worked, after all.
But either way, no matter that his family was here, this wasn't where he belonged. With a sigh, Jack closed his eyes, accepting that. He then pushed himself off the roof and drifted, light as a snowflake, to the ground. Where he quietly opened the door to the cabin and snuck back inside, going to his bed. No need to upset his parents by letting them wake in the morning to discover his bed empty.
Staff snuggled by his side, he closed his eyes and let himself fall asleep, enjoying the feeling, for one last night, of being in his parents' home.
Not much later, the door opened silently again, a dark figure sneaking in the cabin. It paused, looking around, then headed for Jack's bed. Long, delicate fingers rifled through his hoodie's pocket, and came away with a small object. Then, as silently as it had come, the figure left the cabin, the door closing on the sleeping Frost family.
***
Her breath rough, Phillipa Frost Austen hurried to the pond where her brother had drowned on a long-ago winter's day. She kept glancing over her shoulder, making sure she wasn't being followed as she scurried through moonlight and shadows. Clutched in one fist was the silver earring that Jack had said was his token to enter and leave the lands of the dead.
If he could use it to get in, she could use it to get out. And then....
Her feet skittered down the slope to the pond. Shucking her dark cloak and shoes on the shore, Phillipa tucked the token into a pocket, then waded into the water. She swam through the dark water until she was about where Jack had been, that day. She hovered there, treading water, for a minute. Then, before she could lose her nerve, she filled her lungs and dove down.
The pond was surprisingly deep for its size. Once, they'd thought that was why they'd never been able to retrieve her brother's body. Now she knew better.
Deeper and deeper she swam, the water growing darker and darker. She could feel the pressure on her ears, pushing in. Phillipa gritted her teeth and ignored the burning in her lungs. She went further down. The water became colder, biting into her like winter ice.
Finally, she could see a dim light ahead of her. Moonlight glowed through thick ice. There was a brighter patch which had to be a hole in the ice. But her air was gone. Knife pain bit into Phillipa, twinned with panic. She was so close. She couldn't fail now!
With the last of her consciousness, she fought for the opening, kicking as the darkness narrowed in.
Her fingers caught on the edge of the ice. She managed to pull herself up, face breaking the surface of the water. She sucked in a huge breath of life-giving air. As the black-edged world returned to her, she hauled herself onto the thick ice, coughing, choking, shivering. Her teeth chattered as she managed to stand, arms wrapped around herself, sodden dress heavy on her frame. The ice burned through her stockings, them clinging to its surface as she took a step forward.
She glanced back at the dark hole in the ice. And remembered Jack going through.
Suddenly terrified, she ran for the shore.
Up the slope ahead of her, light shone through the windows of a house.
Cold sinking into her mortal flesh, teeth chattering as the winter wind didn't even pause on its way through her, Phillipa Austen made for warmth, life, and safety.
***
Jane Bennett jumped at the sudden banging on her front door. Setting down her coffee, she paused the television and uncurled from the sofa.
"Mama?" her daughter asked.
"Dunno," Jane replied. "Stay here, Sophie. I'll see who it is."
"Maybe it's an elf," the seven-year-old said, turning back to her book. "Or a unicorn."
"Or a fairy?" Jane asked, smiling.
"Don't be silly, Mama. Fairies use the windows."
Shaking her head, Jane could only be amused. She had thought that her son's vivid imagination was unique, but as Sophie got older, her wild stories were beginning to echo Jamie's. Apparently it was genetic. Jane could only assume that they'd gotten it from their father.
She opened the door to winter.
A dark-haired woman about her own age stood there, shuddering, soaked, ice crystals beginning to form in her hair and on her dress. "P-please," she said. "I f-fell in the p-pond."
Jane gaped. Then she pulled the woman inside, closing the door. "Come with me," she said, leading the woman upstairs. "We've got to get you warm." As they passed her daughter, curious green eyes now peering over the back of the sofa, she added, "Soph, you stay here. Or better yet, get me some towels!"
***
Jack woke in the thin light of early dawn as his mother poked at the banked fire on the hearth. He stretched, then tumbled out of bed. After straightening his sheets he headed out to help his father with the animals. Linen, Flax, Whimsy, Snow... he could name each of the sheep in the paddock, dumb things that they were. And they seemed to recognize him, butting up eagerly into Jack's hand. And then there was old Rocks, his father's mule, whose full name was Dumb As Rocks. But Jack was quicker now than he had been, and dodged Rocks' rear hooves easily before whirling to give the stubborn beast a good whack on its skull with his shepherd's crook. The blow brought Rocks up short, and the beast paused and blinked at him before edging away. Jack grinned, pleased to have finally bested his old adversary.
After the morning chores, breakfast passed quietly enough, Jack making a few locked-state snowflakes for his parents to hang in their windows once he was gone, while his father ate and his mother bustled about, making food for the afternoon's picnic. He was working on his third design when the cabin's door opened.
"Elizabeth?"
He looked up at his mother's voice to see his sister's daughter, the one who had only lived to sixteen, standing in the doorway. She was wringing her hands and her face was drawn. Her brown eyes met Jack's. "Mother's missing," Elizabeth said. She swallowed. "Uncle Jack, can you help me find her?"
***
The woman at the house - her name was Jane - had hustled Phillipa upstairs and into a small, curious room whose purpose was made clear when she twisted a silver dial and water gushed into a long white tub. She'd helped Phillipa, whose fingers were cold-numbed, out of her dress, and then into the hot water, then left her alone, the door just slightly ajar. The blonde little girl appeared shortly afterward with a heaping stack of colorful towels, deposited them on the stool in the corner, then left, her green eyes suspicious on Phillipa all the while.
When Phillipa finally felt warm again through to her core, she stood and reached for the towels. How did Jack stand that cold? How could he love it the way he clearly did, that freezing death that had taken him from her?
Beauty? Of course there was beauty in death. In cold. In winter. But there was no warmth, no love. She needed to make him see that. She needed to break his false ties to this mortal world and bring him home, where he belonged. With his family. With the people who loved him.
And to do that, she needed to find this Jamie Bennett of his.
Rubbing the water from her skin, Phillipa paused at the ghost of a reflection, caught from the corner of her eye. Turning, she she approached what she'd thought was fogged glass. She swiped at it with a towel, and gaped.
A silver mirror reflected her, clearer and purer than any she'd ever seen. Her hands lifted to her face. She looked... thirtyish, she decided. The age she was in the shadowlands. Not the old age she'd died at, which she'd half been expecting, nor the ten she'd been when Jack had fallen through the ice, which had been its own kind of death for her.
Thirty, and comely.
She raised fingers to the mirror, traced her features. Looked into reflected brown eyes. Her eyes. Jack's eyes, as they had been and ought to be.
She saw them harden with resolve.
***
By midday, the search for Pippa had expanded to include most of Burgess' village.
"This is my fault," Jack said. He shook his head. "She and I fought last night, about whether I belonged here or in the living world."
"Jackson." His father's hand landed on his shoulder. "This is not your fault. This is hers. Whatever foolishness Pippa's gotten herself into, she did so of her own volition. Don't argue with me," he cut Jack off, shaking his head. "She lived a long, full life, and whatever decision she makes, she makes it with the experience of a grown woman behind her. She is no child, and is responsible for her own actions. Just as you always have been for yours."
Jack hesitated, biting his lip. Then, accepting his father's wisdom, he nodded his head.
Just as little Chastity Palmer came running up, breathing hard, clutching something dark to her chest. Panting, she held it up.
Jack's father took it, shook it out. His eyes widened. "This is Pippa's cloak. Where was it?"
"On the log," Chastity beat out, "by the side, of Jackson Pond."
Jack's eyes widened, met his father's. "Come on," he said, and grabbed his father's hand, calling mentally for the wind.
"Whoa--Jack!" his father protested, grip tightening as serious wind, not the weak summer breezes, tore down from the sky and pulled them into the air.
"Go!" Jack told the wind, and in moments they were setting down by the side of the pond he'd drowned in once upon a time.
"Lord have mercy, Jackson," his father gasped whitely, slumping to the ground.
Jack winced. "Sorry," he apologized.
But then Thomas Frost surprised his son by laughing. "And that's how you travel all the time? I can see how you like it. Though I think I'll keep my feet on the ground."
Jack shared a grin with his father, then turned his attention back to more serious things. He knelt by the log. There were childish feet trampling the signs, but he'd spent long years learning to read tracks.
And Pippa's led directly to the water.
"Why would she...?" he wondered.
"She hates this pond," his father agreed.
Then Jack's eyes widened. His hand dove into his hoodie pocket.
And came away empty.
He stared at the pond, then turned back to his father. He felt white, ghostly.
"She stole my token," he said. "Pippa's gone back to the living world."
Jamie sat on his bed, looking at his window. There was frost on it, but it was just a formless mass, not one of Jack's pictoral drawings or artistic fractals.
"Where are you, Jack?" he whispered.
Above him, unknown to the mortal teenager, Death stood on his roof, scythe in hand. She looked in the same direction as Jamie, toward Burgess' Jackson Pond. She, too, frowned.
"Don't make a liar out of me, Frost," she said before turning away in a swirl of black cloak.
Shadowlands
Part 6: Deathly Departure
by K. Stonham
first released 25th December 2014
Abandoning his bed for something more comfortable, Jack spent the bulk of his night on the roof of his parents' home. It wasn't, he mused, that the roof was particularly more comfortable than his corncob mattress. But he'd been sleeping rough for three hundred years. The indoors made him antsy. Even in this warmth of summer, he wanted to be where the wind could reach him.
Hoarfrost, thick and soft and cool, spread beneath him. If he actually slept, he knew, then by morning there would be a thick snow covering the roof and icicles hanging from the eaves.
He wasn't sure if his parents would be proud of that, of their son's unique abilities, or embarrassed, or admonishing. So he kept his wintery power reined in to something that would melt in the early morning sun. And he thought.
He hadn't meant to be so harsh with his sister earlier. But he couldn't stay. Not even for Pippa.
She didn't need him. She loved him, she wanted him here, but she didn't need him.
Jamie, on the other hand... well, all too soon Jamie would probably grow up and forget Jack like his friends were already starting to. And that was going to hurt. But there were other kids out there, hundreds of thousands of them, and they needed Jack Frost too. They needed snowballs and fun times and special magic happy snowflakes to help them laugh in the face of their fears.
And, too, he was part of a team. Tooth needed him to drag her out into the field once in a while. Sandy would be ticked to lose a playmate. North tended to lose himself in the day to day grind of work and wonder, forgetting to actually experience the world. And Bunny... Jack had no illusions that Bunny wouldn't keep his word and storm the shadowlands themselves to drag him back to the living world.
Above Jack, delicate white flakes began to form and drift gently to the ground. Far, far beyond them the moon glowed.
But it wasn't his moon. Even when the Man in the Moon had spent three hundred years silent, unwilling or unable to answer Jack's questions, pleas, and accusations, he'd always felt the gentle, watching presence of his patron. Here in death, there was no such thing. This moon was an empty hunk of rock in the sky the way scientific humans believed. Or it might be just an illusion; Jack didn't know how this place worked, after all.
But either way, no matter that his family was here, this wasn't where he belonged. With a sigh, Jack closed his eyes, accepting that. He then pushed himself off the roof and drifted, light as a snowflake, to the ground. Where he quietly opened the door to the cabin and snuck back inside, going to his bed. No need to upset his parents by letting them wake in the morning to discover his bed empty.
Staff snuggled by his side, he closed his eyes and let himself fall asleep, enjoying the feeling, for one last night, of being in his parents' home.
Not much later, the door opened silently again, a dark figure sneaking in the cabin. It paused, looking around, then headed for Jack's bed. Long, delicate fingers rifled through his hoodie's pocket, and came away with a small object. Then, as silently as it had come, the figure left the cabin, the door closing on the sleeping Frost family.
Her breath rough, Phillipa Frost Austen hurried to the pond where her brother had drowned on a long-ago winter's day. She kept glancing over her shoulder, making sure she wasn't being followed as she scurried through moonlight and shadows. Clutched in one fist was the silver earring that Jack had said was his token to enter and leave the lands of the dead.
If he could use it to get in, she could use it to get out. And then....
Her feet skittered down the slope to the pond. Shucking her dark cloak and shoes on the shore, Phillipa tucked the token into a pocket, then waded into the water. She swam through the dark water until she was about where Jack had been, that day. She hovered there, treading water, for a minute. Then, before she could lose her nerve, she filled her lungs and dove down.
The pond was surprisingly deep for its size. Once, they'd thought that was why they'd never been able to retrieve her brother's body. Now she knew better.
Deeper and deeper she swam, the water growing darker and darker. She could feel the pressure on her ears, pushing in. Phillipa gritted her teeth and ignored the burning in her lungs. She went further down. The water became colder, biting into her like winter ice.
Finally, she could see a dim light ahead of her. Moonlight glowed through thick ice. There was a brighter patch which had to be a hole in the ice. But her air was gone. Knife pain bit into Phillipa, twinned with panic. She was so close. She couldn't fail now!
With the last of her consciousness, she fought for the opening, kicking as the darkness narrowed in.
Her fingers caught on the edge of the ice. She managed to pull herself up, face breaking the surface of the water. She sucked in a huge breath of life-giving air. As the black-edged world returned to her, she hauled herself onto the thick ice, coughing, choking, shivering. Her teeth chattered as she managed to stand, arms wrapped around herself, sodden dress heavy on her frame. The ice burned through her stockings, them clinging to its surface as she took a step forward.
She glanced back at the dark hole in the ice. And remembered Jack going through.
Suddenly terrified, she ran for the shore.
Up the slope ahead of her, light shone through the windows of a house.
Cold sinking into her mortal flesh, teeth chattering as the winter wind didn't even pause on its way through her, Phillipa Austen made for warmth, life, and safety.
Jane Bennett jumped at the sudden banging on her front door. Setting down her coffee, she paused the television and uncurled from the sofa.
"Mama?" her daughter asked.
"Dunno," Jane replied. "Stay here, Sophie. I'll see who it is."
"Maybe it's an elf," the seven-year-old said, turning back to her book. "Or a unicorn."
"Or a fairy?" Jane asked, smiling.
"Don't be silly, Mama. Fairies use the windows."
Shaking her head, Jane could only be amused. She had thought that her son's vivid imagination was unique, but as Sophie got older, her wild stories were beginning to echo Jamie's. Apparently it was genetic. Jane could only assume that they'd gotten it from their father.
She opened the door to winter.
A dark-haired woman about her own age stood there, shuddering, soaked, ice crystals beginning to form in her hair and on her dress. "P-please," she said. "I f-fell in the p-pond."
Jane gaped. Then she pulled the woman inside, closing the door. "Come with me," she said, leading the woman upstairs. "We've got to get you warm." As they passed her daughter, curious green eyes now peering over the back of the sofa, she added, "Soph, you stay here. Or better yet, get me some towels!"
Jack woke in the thin light of early dawn as his mother poked at the banked fire on the hearth. He stretched, then tumbled out of bed. After straightening his sheets he headed out to help his father with the animals. Linen, Flax, Whimsy, Snow... he could name each of the sheep in the paddock, dumb things that they were. And they seemed to recognize him, butting up eagerly into Jack's hand. And then there was old Rocks, his father's mule, whose full name was Dumb As Rocks. But Jack was quicker now than he had been, and dodged Rocks' rear hooves easily before whirling to give the stubborn beast a good whack on its skull with his shepherd's crook. The blow brought Rocks up short, and the beast paused and blinked at him before edging away. Jack grinned, pleased to have finally bested his old adversary.
After the morning chores, breakfast passed quietly enough, Jack making a few locked-state snowflakes for his parents to hang in their windows once he was gone, while his father ate and his mother bustled about, making food for the afternoon's picnic. He was working on his third design when the cabin's door opened.
"Elizabeth?"
He looked up at his mother's voice to see his sister's daughter, the one who had only lived to sixteen, standing in the doorway. She was wringing her hands and her face was drawn. Her brown eyes met Jack's. "Mother's missing," Elizabeth said. She swallowed. "Uncle Jack, can you help me find her?"
The woman at the house - her name was Jane - had hustled Phillipa upstairs and into a small, curious room whose purpose was made clear when she twisted a silver dial and water gushed into a long white tub. She'd helped Phillipa, whose fingers were cold-numbed, out of her dress, and then into the hot water, then left her alone, the door just slightly ajar. The blonde little girl appeared shortly afterward with a heaping stack of colorful towels, deposited them on the stool in the corner, then left, her green eyes suspicious on Phillipa all the while.
When Phillipa finally felt warm again through to her core, she stood and reached for the towels. How did Jack stand that cold? How could he love it the way he clearly did, that freezing death that had taken him from her?
Beauty? Of course there was beauty in death. In cold. In winter. But there was no warmth, no love. She needed to make him see that. She needed to break his false ties to this mortal world and bring him home, where he belonged. With his family. With the people who loved him.
And to do that, she needed to find this Jamie Bennett of his.
Rubbing the water from her skin, Phillipa paused at the ghost of a reflection, caught from the corner of her eye. Turning, she she approached what she'd thought was fogged glass. She swiped at it with a towel, and gaped.
A silver mirror reflected her, clearer and purer than any she'd ever seen. Her hands lifted to her face. She looked... thirtyish, she decided. The age she was in the shadowlands. Not the old age she'd died at, which she'd half been expecting, nor the ten she'd been when Jack had fallen through the ice, which had been its own kind of death for her.
Thirty, and comely.
She raised fingers to the mirror, traced her features. Looked into reflected brown eyes. Her eyes. Jack's eyes, as they had been and ought to be.
She saw them harden with resolve.
By midday, the search for Pippa had expanded to include most of Burgess' village.
"This is my fault," Jack said. He shook his head. "She and I fought last night, about whether I belonged here or in the living world."
"Jackson." His father's hand landed on his shoulder. "This is not your fault. This is hers. Whatever foolishness Pippa's gotten herself into, she did so of her own volition. Don't argue with me," he cut Jack off, shaking his head. "She lived a long, full life, and whatever decision she makes, she makes it with the experience of a grown woman behind her. She is no child, and is responsible for her own actions. Just as you always have been for yours."
Jack hesitated, biting his lip. Then, accepting his father's wisdom, he nodded his head.
Just as little Chastity Palmer came running up, breathing hard, clutching something dark to her chest. Panting, she held it up.
Jack's father took it, shook it out. His eyes widened. "This is Pippa's cloak. Where was it?"
"On the log," Chastity beat out, "by the side, of Jackson Pond."
Jack's eyes widened, met his father's. "Come on," he said, and grabbed his father's hand, calling mentally for the wind.
"Whoa--Jack!" his father protested, grip tightening as serious wind, not the weak summer breezes, tore down from the sky and pulled them into the air.
"Go!" Jack told the wind, and in moments they were setting down by the side of the pond he'd drowned in once upon a time.
"Lord have mercy, Jackson," his father gasped whitely, slumping to the ground.
Jack winced. "Sorry," he apologized.
But then Thomas Frost surprised his son by laughing. "And that's how you travel all the time? I can see how you like it. Though I think I'll keep my feet on the ground."
Jack shared a grin with his father, then turned his attention back to more serious things. He knelt by the log. There were childish feet trampling the signs, but he'd spent long years learning to read tracks.
And Pippa's led directly to the water.
"Why would she...?" he wondered.
"She hates this pond," his father agreed.
Then Jack's eyes widened. His hand dove into his hoodie pocket.
And came away empty.
He stared at the pond, then turned back to his father. He felt white, ghostly.
"She stole my token," he said. "Pippa's gone back to the living world."
