Chapter 3 – The Boy of Two Worlds
Previously
He was about to withdraw his hand, but the fairy grabbed one of his fingers and chittered at him. Jack got his first good look at the fairy and stared intently at the blue and purple color of her eyes.
"I—" Jack began to say, but was cut short as a searing, white-hot pain flashed behind his eyes.
Jack gripped his head between two hands as if he were trying to keep it from splitting open. He breathes raggedly between clenched teeth, while instinctively curling into tight ball.
Concerned chittering echoed somewhere to his left, but it only served to add to the hammering in his skull.
"Quiet," Jack hissed. "I need to… need to…"
Jack was not sure what he needed to do, but there was something… something important. If only he could remember…
As soon as it came, it left, leaving a dull ache in its place.
Jack grimaced and glanced over to where James still slept, undisturbed. The teenager released a sigh of relief and rubbed his head with one hand.
"Migraine," Jack muttered.
Carefully, he untangled himself out from the sheets. The fairy buzzed around his head, her high, soft voice chattering indistinguishably at him.
"I'm fine," Jack whispered back at her. "Just need some aspirin or something."
Quietly, the teenager snuck out of the room and headed downstairs towards the kitchen cupboards. Snapping up a bottle and barely glancing at the label, Jack popped a pill in his mouth and swallowed it dry.
"Would you like anything?" he asked, directing his attention to his guest again. "Hungry? Thirsty?"
She nodded at the last one, and he got a glass from the cupboard. Filling the cup all the way to the rim, Jack set the cup gently on the kitchen table. He watched as the fairy balanced on the edge of the rim, and dipped her beak-like mouth into the water.
Jack sat heavily on one of the kitchen chairs, still messaging his temple.
"For some reason, I always thought the Tooth Fairy was bigger," Jack commented.
The fairy looked up from her drink, looking offended, but them her brow relaxed and she shook her head and twittered in her strange language.
"What?" Jack asked, confused.
She chirped again, pointing at herself and shaking her head. She pointed at the tooth and made a motion with it as if she was giving it to someone.
"You're… not the Tooth Fairy?" Jack guessed.
An affirmative nod.
"You're… her helper?"
Another nod.
She began speaking again, sounding urgent. She gestured at Jack and made a sound as if asking a question.
"Sorry," Jack said. "I'm not getting what you're trying to say."
She tried again, her speech going faster and higher. She began to sound distressed, and Jack frowned, wondering what he had done wrong. Maybe he was not supposed to see her.
Instead of responding, Jack reached across and ran a gentle finger against the side of her head, hoping the gesture would convey his apology for whatever this was. She stilled at his touch, and when he was about to take his hand away, she grabbed a finger with her free hand and nuzzled it with her cheek.
She stared intently at him as if trying to tell him something with her gaze.
"You are beautiful, little fairy," Jack said.
She shivered at the sound of his voice, and Jack realized that her hand was freezing.
"The storm," Jack realized. "Here; just a second."
He ran to where his mom kept the clean kitchen towels and grabbed one.
He placed it on the table and then went back to cabinet where he got the aspirin. Grabbing a hand warmer, Jack turned back to the table where the fairy was already wrapping herself in the towel. He shook the hand warmer until it began to warm under his fingers and placed it next to the fairy.
The fairy gratefully huddled against the warmth.
Jack sat back down, and they stayed like that in silence. Every now and then the fairy would give him little baleful glances, but she did not try to speak to him again. Eventually she shrugged off the towel and trilled something.
Jack had dozed off for a moment and it took him a moment to realize she was pointing at the window.
"You want to go back out there?" Jack asked.
The fairy nodded.
"You can't," Jack blurted out.
The fairy looked at him in surprise, not expecting his outburst.
"The storm," Jack clarified. "It's supposed to go on for days."
The fairy made the motion of giving the tooth to someone and then pointed back at the window. She puffed up her chest and straightened her wings as if to say, I'll be all right.
"You're brave, little fairy," Jack chuckled, running a finger against her cheek again. She seemed to savor the touch. "Are you sure there is nothing I can do to convince you to stay? James would love to meet you."
She shook her head and took to the air. She floated over the window, clearly determined to leave as soon as possible.
Jack sighed. Something told him that if he did not let her out, she would find her own way out somehow. After all, she had found her way inside.
"Safe journey, little fairy," Jack told her.
He put his hand on the window's latch, and she squeaked. Faster than his eyes could follow, she zipped over to his face and somehow managed to give him a small peck on the cheek. Before Jack could realize what the fairy had done, she returned to the window, the tooth held firmly between her two tiny hands.
Jack nodded one last time to the fairy and opened the window.
The fairy charged headfirst into the storm, and Jack soon lost sight of her green body in the swirl of white.
"Lateral incisor in Djibouti, Sector Three. Has someone already taken the one in New York? 23rd Street. Let's go, ladies! A first premolar is waiting in Tver, Sector Five."
Tooth took a deep breath, ready to rattle another list of directions, when a sharp cry cut through the normal buzz of activity in her palace. Waves of distress and excitement rolled off one of her children, and the queen turned in time to see a green blur barrel into her command center.
"Baby Tooth, dear," Tooth called out, opening up her hands.
The little fairy dropped tiredly into her queen's palms and dropped a perfect white tooth.
"Oh," Tooth moaned, not because of the tooth, but because of all the emotions swirling around her little fighter.
Tooth let herself drop to the floor, her wings ceasing their furious beating in a moment of uncharacteristic stillness. Baby Tooth organized her thoughts and sent the events of the past day to her queen.
There was the storm her little fighter had to fly through, but she had made it through. She found the tooth, and oh, wasn't it beautiful? But then there was the boy. The boy with the wrong eyes that held no recognition. And the hands that stroked her gently in such a familiar way, but held too little and too much warmth at the same time.
Her brave one started to shed tears as the confusion and exhaustion became too much.
"Hush now, Baby Tooth," Tooth soothed. "You have done well."
She handed off the tooth to be properly stored away and sent messages to her other Guardians.
She stroked Baby Tooth's head, hope and distress blooming in her chest as she saw the boy's face through her fairy's eyes.
"Come quickly, my friends," Tooth murmured as she watched her messengers take to the sky. "Please hurry."
The other three Guardians found the fairy queen sitting quietly on one of her many platforms throughout her palace. It was a strange, almost disturbing sight. The Tooth Fairy rarely stopped her work.
As they drew near, they could hear her whispering to something in her lap, "How did I not see it before? The answer was always here. If I wasn't so busy, I would have seen it."
"Oi, sheila." Bunny hopped over to the Tooth Fairy. "We're here to help. What's buggin' ya?"
Tooth looked up at her friend with bright and teary eyes. "We found Jack."
Bunny jerked away from her as if he had been burned and sat back slowly on his haunches.
"Then he is here, no?" North asked eagerly. He twisted around, expecting a familiar mop of white hair and bright smile to come out from behind one of the many pillars.
Sandy sensed the Tooth Fairy's deeper hurt and took one of her hands, squeezing it questioningly.
She handed one of the objects in her lap to Bunny. "What do you see?" she asked.
Bunny took the item cautiously and felt the familiar weight of a regular tooth box. He handled it carefully and turned the box so that the painted face of a boy smirked up at him.
The Easter Bunny swallowed back a lump as he recognized the mischievous face; he had not seen this box since nearly a century ago. He inspected the box more carefully, but saw nothing had changed since he saw it last.
"This is the little bugger's box," Bunny muttered. "Tooth, I don't understand what this here has to do with finding Jack."
"What is this then?" Tooth said instead of answering Bunny. She shoved another tooth box towards the rabbit, startling him.
He took it from her and looked down at the face painted on it. His brow creased in confusion, and he heard North give a grunt of surprise as he too noticed the strangeness of the two boxes. He gave them to Sandy, so that he could see as well. The Sandman gave a small start of surprise.
The two boxes shared the same face.
"Jack has two boxes?" North asked, confused. "That is not right."
"No," Tooth gasped. "I mean, yes. They're both his."
She began speaking too fast for any of the other Guardians to decipher.
"Whoa, Toothy." Bunny held up for hands in a placating gesture. "Deep breaths and slow down."
She nodded, holding up a hand. A blur of green shot out from her swarm of little fairies and landed on her hand. It was Baby Tooth. Bunny could not be sure, but he thought that the tiny fairy had been crying recently.
"That box"—she pointed to the first box—"belongs to Jackson Overland. Jack's human life before he became Jack Frost."
They all knew that. Jack himself had told them the whole story maybe two decades after the Battle of Burgess.
Tooth pointed to the second box. "The second box belongs to Jack Bennett, a human teenager currently living in Burgess who also is Jack Frost."
"Tooth…" Bunny began, unsure how to tell her that she might be a little exhausted from a long day. They had suspected the Bennetts were indirectly related to Jack; it was not much of a surprise that one of them might look similar to him.
"Look," Tooth said. She took Bunny and North's hands in her own, and Sandy laid his on top of hers, knowing what she might do.
An image of a brown-haired boy flashed in their minds. They saw it for only a moment, but they had no doubt of whom he was. It was no family resemblance; it was the real deal.
"Jack!" North gasped.
An exclamation point followed by a question mark formed over Sandy's head.
"Baby Tooth saw him last night," Tooth said miserably.
Bunny did not understand his friend's dismal behavior. "Where is he, Tooth?" he asked, hopping to his feet. He was going to strangle the kid after a good solid hug. "What are we all doing just sitting around here for? Let's get him."
Tooth looked up at Bunny with large, sad eyes. Baby Tooth chittered forlornly from where she sat on Tooth's shoulder.
"What's wrong?" Bunny questioned. He needed to go—to make sure Jack was all right.
"He did not recognize Baby Tooth when he saw her," Tooth explained quietly. "Baby Tooth said that he seemed like a normal teenage boy. He doesn't know he's Jack Frost. He doesn't know us."
The Tooth Palace went silent. Even Tooth's armada of fairies was quiet. Outside, the wind groaned as if mourning Tooth's words.
"That's impossible!" Bunny spat in a harsher tone then he meant to.
"Bunny is right," North agreed although his eyes reprimanded the rabbit for his harsh tone. "Jack is Jack. He cannot be someone else."
"I know that," Tooth returned. "But I saw it through Baby Tooth's eyes. That really is Jack, and he really is human."
Sandy patted her leg as if to say, I believe you.
Tooth gripped Sandy's hand and smiled at her friend.
"There was something else," Tooth started. "Baby Tooth also said that Jack reacted strangely to her. He had a headache for a moment. Maybe the memories are still there and Baby Tooth's presence was bringing them out? Our Jack might not be all gone."
Sandy looked at the other two Guardians. Golden sand formed the image of Jack and then swirled into the symbol for a heart that pulsed with an imaginary beat.
North nodded. "You are right, old friends—as always. Jack is still alive." He looked Bunny. "There is still hope, and now we know where to find him."
"So what do we do now?" Bunny asked. "Stick him in a sack and bring him back?"
North opened his mouth, but Bunny shot him a disapproving look.
"Sarcasm, mate," Bunny said before North could declare that a good idea. "Jack hardly appreciated it as Frost. I don't think he'll appreciate it any more as an amnesiac human."
Tooth lifted her head and said timidly, "If it is alright with the rest of you, I would like to speak to Jack before the rest of you. As the Guardian of Memories, maybe I could help him recall something."
The three males shared glances and came at a silent consensus.
"Sounds reasonable," Bunny grunted. "If that doesn't work, there are other ways to jog the bugger's memories."
The Easter Bunny made a show of smacking a fist to his other palm, which Tooth thought looked ridiculous. Tooth giggled, her spirits lifted just a little.
A warm hand landed on her shoulder, and North gave a forced chuckle.
"Hopefully, situation will not call for that, yes?" North said. "We hope for your success, and may Man in Moon go with you."
Again, a huge thank you to all my readers :D
Answers to anonymous reviews:
Guest (1): haha great… now I've started a movement… (-_-)'
Guest (2): And… here's the update :) Thanks for your review!
Devil angel: Thanks for you review! Glad to see you're enjoying the story so far.
~playing-in-the-mud