Chapter 4 – Frozen Boy

"Did you even sleep?!" Zach exclaimed when Ivy entered the car showing bags under her eyes.

"Did you?" she replied, crabbed.

"Couple of hours, at dad's" he answered; unlike his sister, Zach was used to little sleep therefore looked rested and relaxed

"So? What did you find that was so exciting?" Ivy changed topic abruptly

Zach started the car: "You'll love this" he started "Remember the skates? The style is early XVII century: we tested them with C-14 to date them…"

"…and?"

"Not older than a month" he said with a smile

Ivy looked aghast: "What the hell?!"

"Exactly! Remember Dr. Joyce theories about time itself freezing at absolute zero? It must be something similar…" Zach sounded excited

The girl shook her head: "What else?"

"We searched the web for further information: it looks like they first noticed the lake was still frozen in mid-summer in 1713"

Realization hit Ivy: "The same time the skates may date back?"

"Yup!" the boy looked completely ecstatic "With high probability, whatever happened to that boy, or girl, made the lake frost. Or vice-versa, whatever froze the water made him drown."

Made him drown. Ivy shook her head, trying to avoid these thoughts. "What about the body?" she asked instead.

"There were traces of an human body in the mud and near the leather: hair, cloth, but no bones. It was probably retrieved shortly after and buried" he dismissed it.

Ivy shrugged: "What an horrible death…the cold, the darkness…and even if you manage to swim on the surface, the ice blocks your way" she whispered.

Zach looked at her: "A nightmare? Again?!" he realized immediately.

Ivy sighed, on the phone was easy, but face to face not: "Yeah" she admitted "I was drowning and no one was coming except the moon…"

"I knew there was something wrong!" he exclaimed with concern "I felt uneasy and I was about to drop the research and come home when you called…I should have come, shouldn't I?" he said sheepishly.

Ivy smiled: "It wasn't such a big deal" she replied

"Sure?"

"Yeah…"

"Then what about some music!" his smile returned as bright as ever as he turned on the radio, and some pop music started playing.

Ivy couldn't help but smile: this was one of the precious, tiny, moments, when Zach knew exactly what to do to make her feel better. In the past they used to have nightmares in the same moment, so they would cuddle together and comfort each other. Even if they weren't children anymore, they still shared a peculiar empathy.

After a few minutes and a couple of songs, Ivy asked: "Where are we going next?"

"Back to Burgess, to the parish archive" Zach explained "We have a period of years, between 1689 and 1713, an age between 15 and 20, judging by the shoe size, and a cause of death" he glanced at her "It's going to take a while but we're going to find our frozen kid between Burgess' death certificates"

"Is this going to help the investigation?" Ivy asked, doubtful

"Once we have a name, we have a family" he replied "Said family may have something to do with the phenomenon. Otherwise, it's our only clue."

Another moment of silence, then Ivy said: "I wonder why the skates were still on the bottom of the lake, if the body was retrieved"

"Ah! That's a good one! Dad guessed it first: that's because he…I'll stuck with he, ok? He was clever: as soon as he noticed the ice was cracking, he took of the skates to avoid slipping and be able to run away" the boy told her "Unfortunately, it didn't help…"

Ivy stayed silent.

At Burgess' parish, the priest looked a bit hesitant at showing some strangers the old archive, but the archivist was benevolent and he persuaded the churchman to show the twins the old ashy books.

Without discouragement, the two of them split the work, starting to read each death certificate since Burgess' foundation.

The list narrowed slowly, since most of the deceased were children under the age of 16. They started at 10 in the morning and it was almost 5 PM when Zach suddenly stopped and stared at one name.

"Oh…" was the only sound that came out of his mouth.

Ivy raised her head from the papers: "What did you find?"

Zach cleared his throat twice before speaking: "18 years old, died drowning in a frozen pond in February 1712"

"Looks like him!" the girl exclaimed with a smile, that broke soon when she noticed her brother turned pale "What's wrong…?"

"His name…" he whispered "This must be some sort of bad joke"

Ivy stood up and joined him, searching the piece of paper he was holding.

"Oh, you've gotta be kidding me" she murmured, Zach looked at her with a shocked smile.

In his hand there was the death certificate of a boy called Jack.

Jackson Overland Frost.

Jack Frost.

You all have no idea how happy I was today reading your reviews! You really made my day! Each one of you! I wasn't expecting such a great response!
More than that: 5 favs and 15, FIFTEEN followers, I really thank you all, I love you!
Now, time to calm down and answer your questions:

QueenPersephoneofHades: To be accurate, both Ivy and Zachariah are 22 years old, so, yeah! They are far too old to believe in legends, but that's exactly what this story is about! Just be patient and read on! ;)

Anonymous Heavy on the Anon: Ivy and Zach are my original characters, although I have to thank the author tigeranddash to give me the inspiration to write this "gem".

I also want to thank blackkyu, Venetia5, Az The Dragon, victiniphantom and Winter's Soul because my soul felt warmer each word I read from you.

Secondly, there are some specifications I want to give you!

The archive scene was meant to be longer, but I had to cut it off because it was simply boring and unnecessary. I know quite a lot about archive research, since my father's hobby is to build the family tree. But as I said, I live in Italy, I have no idea how things work in America. Here, in small towns (such as Burgess), the town priest made every year a census called "Stato Delle Anime" (literally: Souls Status), writing down every family names, ages and relationships. Also, he wrote down the list of the newborns and deceased, with age, name and sometimes cause of death.
Note: the books are "ashy" because in the past there were no such thing as absorbent paper, the priest used ashes to dry the ink.

Another thing: in my headcanon, Jack wasn't called "Frost" before his death, but this was a necessary thing for the plot, so forgive my poetic license.

Coming next: Frozen Heritage, in which Ivy and Zach search for the members of the Overland family (hint: Jamie appears, "Yaaay?")