December 1732,
20 years later…
The mid autumn evening was setting down with the sun's rays kissing the endless horizon. Winter was coming steadily as the day's had grown colder and the night's just as so. As though on cue, the pines were being swiftly greeted by a rather familiar first frost by which was its twentieth year coming. To deaf ears, the chippering and snickering of a chuckle could be heard through the dense woods who strictly stood outside the small settlement of Burgess. As though the chuckling itself was alive, what followed it were more frost trails which twist and bent across the form of whatever it may touch. To those who had a believer's heart, one could see that this magic was the playful banter of the winter sprite, Jack Frost.
Swimming through the air of the setting sun, Jack found pleasure in his rather unseen trickery throughout the young village. Freezing water pales, frosting a slow cooked pig, and slipping hard working men on their feet; unwavering his conniving pranks. After each citizen was terrorized, each home was coated with ice, and every form of heat was defied, Jack found it to be suitable conditions for him to leave on. Smirking at his work, Jack turned to the skies and just about shot himself off when…his chest twisted a strange feeling of plummeting sorrow. Gripping his shawl, Jack's furrow browed eyes of ice scanned the grounds for the origin of this sudden attack to his tomfoolery.
As though he were searching for a missing puzzle piece, Jack at first was having trouble even spotting anything within the thick pines. It wasn't until he saw the flash of a familiar type of marker did he know exactly what sunk his chest. The Burgess Graveyard. Lowering himself down cautiously, the home of the parted lay stripped underneath the shadows of tall oak trees, who were not the only audience to the peeking sun this evening. A funeral was taking place deep within the center of the small residence, Jack being more magnetized to this particular one than any other before it. As he hovered closer to the heart wrenching scene, he saw the figure of a priest and four others, three of which were children under the ages of twelve standing around a homemade casket. Cocking his eyes, Jack tilt his head, curious of himself as to why this feeling tugged him forward. The prayer that the priest spoke became clearer as Jack could now consider himself attending this funeral of interest.
"A loving wife, mother, daughter and sister, Emma Overland Burgess shall be greatly missed by her beloved husband, Albert and her three darling children, Jack, Emily, and Aubrey."
Despair struck Jack again as the name of the deceased rang clear in his ears, but he was unable to shed a single tear like those of the decease's family for nothing was brought to him, not even a face. Jack hovered inches above the casket, eyeing where he assumed this Emma's face would be sleeping beneath the wooden lid.
"Hey Emma," he began, feeling the urge to say some parting words where they were needed, "Uh…I might've not known you and you might've not known me but I have to say, looking at these kids…this family, it looks like you had a pretty fulfilling life." The snowy haired boy could not help but smile warmly as though he were praising someone who may have looked up to him, a vague feeling he wished one day to be truly made real.
"So I guess…this is a goodbye…" cold tears sprouted over his pallid lids, arriving completely unexpected. His eyes widened as he wiped away the freezing droplets from his face, peering down to his wet fingers. I'm crying? But why? he thought. The wet eyes of Jack grabbed their attention back to the casket which now was being lowered into the it's hole deep in the ground. As the family sobbed, knowing this was their final farewell, Jack couldn't help but be drowned in emotionless tears. They overflowed, forming a heavy droplet which could no longer hold onto his prominent jaw and fell far into the depths of the hole. The subtle sound of its landing was louder than anything else Jack heard, peering intently into the chamber. The heavy drop had dispersed a glowing hue of blue before beautifully fanning outward across the casket's head. The sapphire glow faded out as the frost completed it's gorgeous, intricate transformation, leaving it's mark of the winter boy.
The casket fell out of view, making it's resting place among the dark earth. The sunset, which seemed as though it was waiting for Jack, finally dipped under giving it's duties to the moon who now poured a milky beam down across the cemetery. The light draped over Jack's shoulders, his shadow swallowed by the hole in the ground where he kept his sorrowful stare. This aching his heart housed was something he still had yet to understand, though somehow knew he held right to it. His lip quivered as he uneasily spoke.
"…Emma."