The Rising Sun, the Setting Moon
旭日, 落月
One hundred years had passed since he first emerged from that frozen lake, but he had not aged a single day. The reflection of his pale, youthful face was only a foggy image in the ice; he tried to clear it with a bare hand, but without any warmth in his fingers, it hardly made a difference. If anything, the wave of his hand only made more frost bloom across the surface of the ice, slicing up his blurred reflection in an intricate, spiral pattern. With a sigh, he sat back on the tips of his toes, numb to the biting chill beneath his feet.
A breeze tousled the locks of his white hair, and stirred up the familiar, rustling song of dry leaves and pine needles. Over a hundred years, the trees had grown taller. The level of water in the lake swelled in the wet years and shrank in the dry. Fissures and crevices from long years of trickling water bore through the hide of the rocky overhang bordering the north end of the lake. The burrows of animals were dug out and filled in; birds' nests were thatched together and torn apart.
This was the only place he'd ever known. Beyond the darkness of water, a cracking sheet of ice, and the round, bright moon that gave him his name – Jack Frost – he had no other memories. One hundred years of sunrises and sunsets, of snow and spring rain, of the phases of the moon, but nothing before that.
Jack reached for the wooden staff beside him. It was nearly as long as he was tall, and ended in a notched, jagged crook. As his fingers brushed the staff, frost curled from his fingertips, running along the creases of the wood. He turned the staff gingerly in his hands, inspecting it, but it was the only thing other than him that never changed. It was the first thing he had ever touched. It never left his side.
He rose to his feet, and blue eyes scanned the trees around him. The last of a flurry of red, yellow, and brown leaves clung to bare branches. They blanketed the forest floor, giving the afternoon air above them a warm glow. Snow hung in the billowing clouds above. He smiled. Easy as breathing, he called the wind to him. It swirled around his feet as first his heels, then his toes lifted off the ice. The heavy brown cloth of his cape flapped around his shoulders as the wind shot up around him. He floated up into the air, the long sleeves of his shirt twisting around his arms. Leaves twirled in the wind, chasing his ascent above the trees. As if waiting for this cue, the snow began to fall, the soft flakes dusting his shoulders and dancing along the lengths of his arms.
From way up here he could see across the woods into the distance, and the shimmering waters of the river cutting a path through the trees. Not far away, the glow of lanterns in windows marked the spot of a town just beginning to prepare for nightfall. With a grin, he let the wind carry him closer, the snow chasing behind him.
Jack touched down on the dirt of the main street just before the snow did. What had once been a small cluster of log cabins had grown into rows of two-story brick and clapboard buildings. All around him, horses stomped or champed on bits; dogs barked; wagon wheels creaked; voices murmured or called to one another; children screamed and laughed, chasing the snow flakes; merchants ran about dragging barrels and crates out of reach of the falling snow. He walked down the street with his staff leaning against his shoulder. He tried to weave out of the way, but a man stumbled backwards, and his shoulder went right through Jack's in a bluish haze. Jack leapt up out of the way onto a flag pole posted to the side of a sign, with "BURGESS GENERAL" marked in faded letters. Frost spiraled up the pole and froze stiff the standard of red, white, and blue cloth, with its fifteen stars and stripes.
Below him, three gentlemen stood talking, huddled together under an awning. The eldest man had streaks of gray in his hair and was perusing a newspaper; he turned the paper down to brush off some flakes of snow. Another man stood smoking a pipe, eyeing the paper. The third was a young man who didn't look much different from Jack. He was watching the two older men with his arms crossed.
"I'm telling you, this war was a mistake," said the man with the pipe, shaking his head at the newspaper.
"Now you're starting to sound like one of those Federalist blokes up north," said the young man, eyeing the other with some distaste. "Are you not a countryman?"
"Aye, but being a countryman's got nothing to do with it. What use do we have in war?"
The young man's face tinged with color. "A great many, I'd say, where liberty is concerned. Where is your solidarity? Where is your honor?"
"There's no honor in war," the elder man growled, lowering the newspaper.
The young man laughed. "Spoken by a hypocrite! Did you not fight in the revolution?"
"Don't speak of what you don't understand," the elder man snapped. "You're too young to know. I may be proud of my country, but it was won with the blood of my kin. There is no pride or honor in seizing the life of another man."
"That may be, if those lives were equal."
The elder man's grip tightened on the paper. The man with the pipe glanced back and forth between the two. "You'd be best to back down, lad," he said, pulling the pipe from his mouth. "We're all patriots here. But this war has gone ill for us, and won't fare well. It's too soon, and our militia too few. If it were just the Royal Navy as our enemy, I'd be inclined to agree. But we're pushing in all directions at once."
"If our numbers be too few, then no doubt it is due to such cowards and minstrels as you two," the young man said.
"You plan on volunteering, then?" said the elder man.
"On the morrow, if I could."
"Go on, then," he said, shaking the paper at the young man's nose, "and rid us of the stupidity of youth."
With a huff, the younger man turned and stamped away into the gathering darkness. By now, snow had accumulated in the tracks in the dirt and settled on the gentlemen's coats and hats.
With a sigh, the man with the pipe tossed the last of the burning leaves into the dirt. "He'll grow out of it, one can hope." He rubbed the arms of his coat. "Come on, let's get back. We'll catch our deaths of cold out here, and we'll miss supper asides that."
The older man grunted, tucked the newspaper under his arm, and followed the other man down the street.
The streets were clearing, and Jack found himself alone once more. Jack leaned back against the side of the general store, stretching his legs out towards the frozen flag. "Another war, huh," Jack muttered under his breath. He could still recall the tell-tale marks of war: the scent of gunpowder and iron, the far-off glow of fire and the choking darkness of smoke blotting the sun, the popping of musket fire and the boom of cannons. He knew the wounded soldiers that returned with their mud and blood-stained uniforms were the lucky ones. Jack frowned as he mulled over what this new war could mean to this place that he had called home for so many decades.
With a sigh, he jumped to his feet and up to the roof above him. From up here, he could look down the street and see the glow of lanterns streaming out windows, where families were just sitting down to eat together. Jack hopped from roof to roof, peering past the curtains into windows, frost gathering at the edges of the glass. Later, he watched the mothers tuck their children into bed as the lanterns were extinguished one by one.
Jack sat at the edge of a roof and waited, legs swinging, kicking at the snowflakes with his bare feet. Sure enough, tendrils of golden sand, like strings of light in the darkness, reached out from beyond the forest towards the houses. They slipped through the cracks and crevices of windows to the beds where children lay dreaming. Jack kicked at one of the golden threads and a sandy horse whinnied to life, galloping around before dissolving back into the streams of sand. The mysterious sand was yet another thing no one but Jack seemed to notice, yet it came every night without fail.
Jack hopped to his feet, balancing the staff across his shoulders, as he followed one of the tendrils of light back across the roofs to the edge of town. The sand bypassed the new brick church building, and the old cemetery behind it. Jack leapt over to the church and down into the yard, strolling past stone tombstones and crude wooden crosses. The grounds were covered in a thin layer of snow, obscuring the names and dates. Jack didn't look at them; he didn't need to. He'd seen most of these graves when they were first dug.
His attention caught onto a black cat perched on top of a headstone, making a meal of a small mouse. If its black fur didn't stand out so much against the white snow, it would have been invisible in the darkness. The cat looked up as Jack approached, licking blood from its whiskers, its eyes flashing.
"Hey, kitty," Jack said, leaning against the staff. "Isn't it a bit rude to eat on a grave?"
The cat just stared back, nonplussed.
Jack sighed. "Why's it the only thing that can see me can't talk back?" he muttered. "Wouldn't hurt to hear a 'Happy Birthday' from someone today." He glanced around at the headstones. "Though, maybe this isn't the place to hear it."
The cat lashed its tail in annoyance. It dipped its head to continue eating, but suddenly sat bolt upright, ears perked and eyes wide. It was staring off past Jack's shoulder, and Jack turned to look out of reflex.
A misty figure was gliding along by the graves. Even if Jack squinted, he could barely make out its features. The details faded in and out, as if it couldn't remember how it was supposed to look. It was making its way around the graveyard in no particular hurry, one hand trailing across the headstones.
The cat hissed and bolted, leaving the remnants of its meal behind. Jack froze in place, watching the figure. It turned its head to look in his direction, and without thinking, he leapt high up in the air, riding the wind back to the small lake in the woods.
He touched down just beside the lake, the breeze stirring up the fresh powder of snow on the leaves. For a moment he just tried to catch his breath, staring across the frozen lake, before turning around.
A little ways back from the edge of the lake stood an old log cabin. It had been here as long as he could remember, though the inhabitants were long gone. Over the long years, the wood was slowly rotting away, and the roof had collapsed in places. The door barely clung to its hinges; with a small push, he squeezed into the house.
Little remained of the inside. A rusting iron bed frame sat crooked against one wall, and a stove against another with its door ajar. The legs had cracked on a pair of wooden chairs that sat sideways in the dirt. Moss covered a table leaning on three legs. Glass from an oil lantern was scattered across the floor, nearly hidden in a thick mass of weeds. A pair of deer antlers were still mounted to one of the walls, vines curling around it. A few rings of rusted metal were all that remained of a barrel. Jack stood in the middle of the room and tried to remember what the old inhabitants were like, but it was too long ago. It could have been one of them in the graveyard.
A dim light brightened on the mossy table, and Jack peered up through the hole in the roof. The snow-laden clouds were clearing away, and a full moon was shining down. Brows furrowing, Jack climbed up onto the table and leapt through the hole in the roof, balancing on the edge. He gazed up at the moon, waiting, hoping, but there was nothing but the wind in trees.
Jack's grip tightened on the staff. "Don't you have anything to say to me?" Jack called to the moon.
Jack waited, but still, nothing. He started to pace along the edge of the decaying roof. "Is this it? A hundred years, for what? Why? What is it I'm supposed to be doing? Did I do something wrong in another life or something? Am I being punished? What is it?!"
He stopped, his hands falling to his sides, the staff dangling loosely from his grip. He shook his head and grasped the staff, swinging it against the roof. Ice exploded out of the end, freezing the thatch of the roof in a blast of frosty air. "Answer me!" Jack screamed.
His voice echoed around the trees as he stood panting, glaring up at the moon, shining through a thin veil of clouds. Drained, Jack sunk backwards, sprawling out against the jagged sheet of ice he'd made across the roof. He propped the staff up with his foot and rubbed at his face with both hands. "Who are you even talking to, Jack," he grumbled to himself. "There's no one up there. Probably never has been."
He let his arms fall out to his sides, gazing up at the sky. Clouds were starting to cover the moon, and it was growing darker. Snow started to fall again, sprinkling across his body, catching in his eyelashes. "Why am I still here?" he whispered. "If the answers were here, I would have found them by now... right? Is that what you're trying to tell me?"
He sat up, shaking the snow out of his hair. "There has to be somebody out there. Someone who can tell me who I am, and what I'm supposed to do now. I just... have to go find them."
Leaning on his staff, he stood up, squinting around. He could just barely see the surface of the lake shining in the darkness, and the silhouettes of the trees around him. Breath puffed in and out of his chest in shallow bursts as he realized what he had to do. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes, picturing every detail of the place: the water, the leaves, the snow, the dirt, the creaking roof beneath his feet. Then he jumped.
The wind caught him, tossing him up into the air. He clutched tightly onto the staff with both hands as he soared upwards. Freezing water pricked at his face as he shot into the clouds, and he winced. For a moment he could see nothing but fuzzy shapes of light and dark, but before he could panic, he burst out of the top of the clouds. Up here the stars and the moon shone so bright that Jack had to snap his eyes shut again. The howling of the wind quieted, and he hung there between the clouds and the top of the sky as his eyes adjusted. Torn between exhilaration and panic, he looked out at an endless field of stars and clouds around him.
"Okay, Jack... now what," he muttered. He was still climbing, but much slower. He'd never been up this high before, and his hands trembled. All the clouds looked the same, and he wasn't sure which part he'd come from, or where he should go to. He glanced up at the moon, which looked enormous to him from this height. "Don't suppose you have any ideas."
He strayed a little higher, and a gust of wind slammed into him. "Woah!" Jack was sent tumbling forward, caught up in the current. Clouds and sky, clouds and sea, clouds and dark earth below him, all went spinning wildly around. He wrapped himself around the staff, concentrating all his might on trying to stabilize himself. Things spun a little slower. He was so high up now that he could actually see the earth curving ahead of him, framed with a pale glow. He looked down and felt instantaneous regret when he saw how far away the ground was. "How do I stop this thing?!" he shrieked desperately into the wind.
The wind died. Jack slipped out of the current, and he dropped, picking up speed as he went. He screamed as the world spun around him. He was shooting through layers of clouds again when he finally stopped screaming long enough to reach out for the wind. He was thrown back and forth as he tried to slow himself down and stop the spinning. He had just managed to stop tumbling and face the ground when he tore through the canopy of trees, snapping branches and rustling leaves, crashing to a halt in a thicket of bushes.
"Ughhh," he groaned. He sat up, spitting leaves out of his mouth and shaking dirt out of his clothes. He tried to look around, but it was almost pitch dark; he could just barely make out the outlines of trees around him. For a moment he thought he might have miraculously ended up back where he started, but there was no snow, and he didn't recognize the trees. He turned this way and that but couldn't get any better idea of where he was. He looked for the tallest tree in view and began to climb, leaping from branch to branch, until he breached the canopy at the top.
He was standing atop a large pine in a forest of trees, stretching out around him. In the distance, he could see a pale glow along the horizon. He turned around to see the forest climbing up around hills behind him towards the jagged lines of tall mountains. The moon was setting beside a towering, snow-topped mountain. He was about to turn away when a dark shape leapt across the moon. It was the silhouette of an enormous hare, flying towards the forests surrounding the mountain. Startled, Jack almost let go of the top of the tree, and had to summon a puff of wind to keep himself upright. When he looked again the shadow was gone.
Stunned, Jack just stared towards the mountain, but he didn't see the figure again. Light was creeping across the tops of the trees now, and he turned to see the sun inching above the horizon behind him. Through the mist in the growing light he could just make out rolling hills, glistening lines of rivers, endless patches of fields, and the miniscule shapes of buildings dotted around the landscape.
"Where am I?"