It all happened a long time ago, of course. Back before blue sweatshirts were even invented, before I'd had to worry about things like global warming or setting off car alarms. Back when this whole Jack Frost gig was still pretty new.
Her name was Jill, and I know cos it's the name her father screamed through the trees the next morning. I was there when she wandered off the night before – snow don't fall by itself, you know – a little bundle of scarlet with a rabbit-skin cap, clutching a rag doll as hard as she could. I followed her. After all, it's not as if I had anything better to do.
The moon was full in a cloudless sky, and the footprints left by her boots showed up as bluish dimples in silver fields of new snow. I don't know why she went out there – maybe she'd lost something. Either that, or a brother or somebody was teasing her. You never know with kids. She walked quite a ways, actually – ended up maybe a quarter mile from her house before she started shivering too bad, and walked another half that trying to get back. She finally stopped at the edge of a clearing, her home just over the next rise.
I tried to get her moving again so she wouldn't freeze, but she didn't see me, and my hand went right through her. She didn't believe, you see. That didn't make her different from anyone else, mind. Nobody grows up hearing stories about Jack Frost.
Her lips were bluer than forget-me-nots, and I knew it wouldn't be long.
She cried for her mama and papa, tear tracks freezing on her cheeks as her breath hitched in her throat before she quieted, mitten-clad hands moving clumsily over her doll's hair. Why didn't you save me, she asked, and for a moment I thought she was talking to me.
I froze the snow around her body once she'd gone, to halt decay, and stopped the winds from blowing snow to cover her footprints. I figured her parents ought to find her, even if it was like this. It would be so much worse to just never know.
Winter's harsh sometimes; I know that better'n most. Still, it hurt to see something I'd done be the death of one so young.
I didn't stick around for the funeral. Montreal was scheduled for record snowfall, and I'd have hated to disappoint.