For disclaimer on The Guardians of Childhood and Rise of the Guardians, and information on Cover Art, please refer to chapter one.
Testimonials for Chapter Three:
"Are Pitch and Pippa the same person?" - Mary (Guest)
Thank you for the question, Mary! No, Pitch and Pippa are not the same person. Pitch manipulated Cupcake's memory of Pippa so that it would play on her insecurities, so the dynamic of reality was corrupted when Cupcake saw the real Pippa. If you feel that this part was unclear, then I will look into revising the chapter if needed. Please message me at anytime if you have any suggestions.
Thank you to AkiEn, Dixie Darlin, LionsandTrolls, vixen1991, Flaming Kitten, Mary (Guest), and Viola "Snow" Anderson (Guest) for the reviews! Thank you to InspectorZebra, Driikah, iamgoku, Abel Lacie Kiryu, Cursed to Crimson Monotony, secretslockedintheheart, and jmwigington for adding to your list of Favorite Stories! Thank you to InspectorZebra, Driikah, iamgoku, Abel Lacie Kiryu, Cursed to Crimson Monotony, and secretslockedintheheart,for adding to your Story Alert! I genuinely appreciate all of your support.
Warning: This chapter contains imagery involving blood. Please reconsider reading this chapter if you are sensitive to these types of content.
Chapter Four: Trouble on the Rise
"Do you remember the story I told you? About the girl who vanished from her bedroom? Tonight's the anniversary of her disappearance," Jamie murmured. He was dazed, eyes half-lidded with the drowsiness of being only partially awake. Like every night she came to visit, he was unable to move. So he accepted his fate of laying still, and did the only thing he could do. He talked to her.
"Ugh…" she groaned, smoothing down her rich hair with one hand. With the other she dug her fingers into his neck, fisting the collar of his shirt. She didn't do this to choke him; it was all for scare. But Jamie wasn't scared, and that started to bore her. "Telling the same old, boring story, aren't we, Mr. Bennett?"
Breathing steadily, Jamie continued, "She has the same name as you do, remember? Her friends call her Cupcake."
"Liar!" she hissed, her golden eyes flashed with anger.
He didn't acknowledge her reaction at all. Instead, he softly requested, "Cupcake, come home. We miss you."
"Enough!" she yelled. The boy's defiance was aggravating her. Why must he keep telling her these lies?
"Your mother asked me to bring you back…" he whispered sadly.
"I'm sick of listening to you tonight." Her hand clamped down on his mouth, and he struggled to breathe. Jamie unconsciously regained his mobility, thrashing underneath the bedsheets. He clawed at her wrists, trying to get her to release her grip off of him. Black sand swirled around his head. His eyelids became heavy. He tried reasoning with her again, but he failed for another night. He was asleep now.
This was their routine every night.
The shadowed girl sat still on the boy's chest, getting lost in her thoughts as the nightmare circled the mortal's head in the dark, silent room. Her face was void of emotion, until the nightmare caught her attention. Annoyed, she prodded the nightmare, causing it to flail at her touch. She looked down at Jamie's face. He looked pained, but not tormented.
Too busy growling at the discovery, she didn't notice the dark figure approaching her from behind. The man watched her for a while, seeing what she would do next. Much to his dissatisfaction, she accomplished nothing out of the ordinary. She was getting very predictable. What a letdown…
"You're wasting your time with that boy," Pitch sneered. "There are other children who needs a touch a fear."
"I'm not finished yet," she muttered darkly, scraping her nails against the sleeping male's chest. He flinched in his sleep.
"Why do you insist on misusing your perfectly exceptional powers on some sniveling, Guardian-loving brat?" he spat.
"He needs to feel the same pain that I've felt for him!" she growled, digging her nails further into Jamie's skin. "When he shrivels from the suffering of guilt, only then will I leave him alone."
"Very well," Pitch murmured, disinterested. With his hands clasped behind his back, Pitch sauntered around the bed so that he positioned himself right behind the girl. She climbed off of Jamie's chest, and stood on the floor beside the boy's sleeping form. Still, she kept her back towards Pitch.
"But Cupcake?" He seized her in his arms in one graceful swoop. She was facing him now, hands firmly placed against his chest. "My delicious, sweet cake…" His forefinger traced along her jawline. "Might I interest you in something more gratifying?"
She stared at him curiously, as if she was confused by his words. Her eyes trailed from his chest up to his own golden eyes. "What could be more gratifying than fear?"
Pitch smiled deviously at the question, pleased to hear the words.
Jamie woke up to the sound of rain beating down on his window, and a soreness on his chest. The heavy feeling there caused difficulties for him to sit up, but he ignored the pain as he pushed himself into a sitting position. The house was quiet, he observed, so Sophie and his mom must have been out. Despite the downpour, the teenage boy decided he should get out of the house as well, so he got out of bed and headed to the bathroom.
Jamie looked at himself in the mirror, running his finger along the jagged, reddened line on his chest. He had been waking up to unexplained scrapes along his skin. The bleeding scratches ran from his neck, all the way down to the end of his breast bone. It stung whenever he touched the deeper parts of the cuts, but it never seemed to have any lasting damage.
He pulled his hand back and studied his fingernails. The tips of the rough, curved surface didn't seem to match the scratches, so he couldn't have been doing that to himself in his sleep. But he couldn't explain the scratches that would resurface after every time it healed. His dreams kept trying to creep up in this mind, but Jamie was ignoring them. He didn't want to believe what was happening to him every night for a year was real.
The nightmares he had every night were generally the same. He would find himself walking alone in the middle of the night, the main streets of Downtown Burgess were eerily deserted. He walked through the park, past the statue of the town's founder, Thaddeus Burgess. Then he would see the backside of a figure in the distance, standing in the middle of the intersection right outside the bait shop.
The figure was a dark-haired female wearing nothing but a thin, white-satin nightgown. Her arms seemed to have been held close to her chest, and her knees were buckled together, for the dress she wore only reached above her knees, and the delicate straps left her freckled shoulders bare. She was shivering violently against the cold. Her feet looked dry, the skin beginning to crack and bleed.
Jamie took off his jacket, running towards the individual. He held his jacket out, ready to drape it across the poor girl's shoulders. Though when he was within inches in reach of her, the figure steadily turned around to face Jamie. Jamie never got the chance to call to her before she registered his presence, and the next chance he got was after the shock of taking in the girl's gruesome appearance.
"C-Cupcake!" he would finally say once he found his voice, eyes scanning her blood-drenched front. The white dress was completely painted bright red with the vital liquid. Her face was clean, but tears threatened to spoil the unmarked surface. She was breathing hard, hands folded together and clutched to her chest. There was fear evident in her eyes, written all over her features.
"Y-you did this to me…" she wheezed. Her gaze seemed distant; she wasn't quite looking at him.
Jamie broke out of his trance, allowing him to carry through his original intentions. He pulled his slightly oversized coat over her, but she never acknowledged the gesture. Her hands fell to her sides, palms turned upward so Jamie could see the smear of blood all along the inside of her arms. Jamie looked her over, but there were no visible wounds on her arms or torso that he could see. He couldn't figure out where the blood could have come from.
"W-what?" he breathed in confusion. "Cupcake, listen, we've got to get you help. Let's wake up your mom; she'll take you to the hospital."
"It's all your fault!" she yelled, with a few tears starting to break free.
"Cupcake, I tried!" he stressed.
Cupcake choked back a sob, and her glassy eyes remained distant. She made no other attempts to move once her body became more rigid, so Jamie pulled her into a comforting hug. He could feel her whimper vibrating against his chest, and her sobs sounded so much louder with his head so close to hers.
The sobs slowly died down enough for her to mutter low in his ear, "Trying isn't good enough…" Jamie held onto her a little more tightly as he gently closed his eyes, the guilt tearing at his heart. He had no excuse for himself, so he didn't bother giving her one. Deep, calming breaths started to soothe her chest merely for her to whisper sinisterly in his ear, "I'm going to make you suffer…"
Jamie reeled his head back until he could see Cupcake's sharpened teeth and hollowed eyes, and her claw-like hands piercing into his chest. Blood flowed profusely from the wound, and Jamie let out a strangled gasp. He was dying. With all of his blood dripping down her arm, he knew for sure that he was. Jamie tried to breathe, but the tightening in his chest made it impossible. If he wasn't for certain that he was dying before, then it was inevitable now. His world was rapidly fading to black. Then the next thing he knew, he would be in his bed, lying on his back.
The shadowed woman would be sitting on his chest with her glowing, amber eyes staring down at him. Her sharp nails would scratch deeply along his skin, and there would be nothing that he could do about it. He was immobilized as long as she was on him, so he gave in. That angered her greatly. She wanted him to fight her, until he broke down and felt nothing but pure agony and regret. She was the one who caused him to have those gruesome nightmares about Cupcake every night.
Everyone around Jamie started to notice the impact of the unpleasant dreams had on him within the following few months of Cupcake's disappearance. His friends, his mother and sister, even some of his teachers were getting worried about him. Seeing him come to school each morning all disheveled, they were concerned he was going through some sort of survivor guilt. Jamie couldn't understand what the fuss was all about. It was just a lack of sleep! Nothing that an afternoon nap couldn't fix. It wasn't like he was sick all the time, like…
Jamie shook his head to clear away his despondent thoughts. Cupcake had gone through so much worse than he did and no one lifted a finger to help her. Why didn't anybody help her? Why didn't he- But he did, he realized. He tried, at least, and he was going to try again. He was going to set things right.
He dared not to tell anyone about the frightening dreams, or the shadow of the woman. Not even to Jack, who would for sure stress over his first believer senselessly. Jack, of all beings, had to be in the dark about this. But now it's been a year, and Jamie didn't know what else to do. The police had no leads on Cupcake's whereabouts, and Jamie had come up short on finding out who, or what, the shadow woman really was.
Could she really be Cupcake? He had hoped to have gained some insight from talking to the shadow woman, but had learned very little of her origins. A part of Jamie wasn't convinced that the shadow woman was Cupcake. She was too different to be her, and she seemed so detached even when she claimed that she really was his missing friend. But those eyes were so striking… How could it belong to anyone but Cupcake?
Staring back at his own reflection in the bathroom mirror, Jamie let out a defeated sigh before pulling his shirt over his head. It was raining heavily on this Monday morning, but he needed to get out of the house. School was closed for an in-service day for staff members, so he needed a good distraction. Jamie quickly went back to his room to grab his coat and his umbrella before he headed out to the downtown area.
Jamie's mother wasn't pleased at first with his new sleeping routine of taking long naps right after school, and staying up late to catch up on his homework. She came to realize, though, that it was something that her son really needed if he wasn't getting enough sleep at night. The shadowed woman never seemed to visit his dreams during the day, and he hoped that he wouldn't see her if he stayed up late. But she came at some point every night, without fail.
Suppressing a yawn, Jamie came up to the light on the corner right in front of the park. It was strangely quiet down the main street. An occasional car or truck would drive by, and Jamie saw a handful of people walking along the sidewalk before disappearing into one of the shops. Otherwise, the town felt kind of empty.
Through the downpour, Jamie could see the dark outline of a person on the opposite street corner. He waited until the person drew closer to the street corner, stopping at the blue mailbox. A black umbrella was held overhead, shielding the figure from the heavy rain above. The white shirt she wore looked so bright in the gloomy daylight, which helped accentuate her facial features.
It was Cupcake's mother, who looked forevermore heartbroken. Jamie held up his hand and waved to her. She almost seemed startled by the gesture, but she returned the greeting. Her expression, however, remained the same. He hadn't seen or spoken to her in a year. Once, he had gone by the apartment on the day of Cupcake's sixteenth birthday, but no one answered the door.
After the letter in hand was dropped into the box, she turned around and walked slowly back in the direction she had come from. He turned his head to the right, noticing Fickle Fingers of Fate Bookstore just two doors down. His eyebrows furrowed and he frowned in thought, somehow feeling compelled to go into the shop. Acting out on his intuition, Jamie slammed his hand against the pedestrian signal button and crossed the street.
Jamie tried to ignore the Missing Person poster taped to the inside of the window. The page was yellowed due to prolong sun exposure, and the corners of the paper curled slightly. It had been sitting there for as long as that local teenage girl has been missing, a year almost to the day. Her face was immortalized in the image of her school picture, forever on the verge of turning fifteen years old.
He entered the store that quiet, dark morning. It was empty inside, and there was no sound except for the pouring rain outside the shop. Jamie barely even noticed the shopkeeper at the cash register, who barely acknowledged his presence. Surveying the room, the teen noticed the new layout. It used to be one big open room, but now there were two bookcases installed in the very center of the store. He vaguely wondered if the owner had trouble with blind spots, but the thought was overruled by another.
There just had to be something fascinating on those shelves… Why else would those bookcases be there? He walked towards the nearest one slowly, carefully eyeing every little detail it had to offer. Once he was close, Jamie looked up at the second highest shelf, the one that was just barely in his reach. Reaching up, he ran his hand along the spines. He could feel the varying thickness of each book, though it was harder to read some of the fine print from up above.
Jamie pulled his hand away, and moved towards the other shelf. He only managed to take one step to his right when a large thud halted his actions. Looking over his shoulder, he that it was a book that fell from the shelf, impacting on its spine as it hit the carpeted floor below. The book landed open, the bolded words and seventeen-century illustration caught the fifteen-year-old's attention. Jamie picked the book up, reading the passage with interest.
Finding a wooden chair in the corner of the room, Jamie sat himself down and started reading from the front page. Nearly two hours later, Jamie had read a good chuck of the text when the rain finally let up. He hadn't even noticed that he was reading for that long until his cell phone chimed; his mother had texted him, asking him to come home for lunch. Pocketing his phone and shutting the book, Jamie checked the cover for the price sticker, then dug into his other pocket, hoping he carried the right amount of change.
Once the book was paid for and Jamie had stepped out of the store, he wasted no time picking up where he had left off. He was lucky that he didn't cause harm to himself from paying more attention to his book than the pathway in front of him. He surprised himself that he had made it all the way to the lake without getting himself injured.
The sound of impish laughter rushed past him, along with a gust of cold, icy wind. Jamie quickly looked over his shoulder, then the other, trying to follow the sound. A mop of white hair and clear blue eyes suddenly appeared just a mere few inches in front of the fifteen-year-old's face. "Good book?"
"Jack!" Jamie yelped, nearly dropping the book in his hands. While he fumbled to regain his grip around the hardbound book, Jack glanced at the title: Demonology in the 17th & 18th Centuries.
Jack raised an eyebrow. "Should I be concerned?"
"No, not at all!" Jamie panicked. "Promise!"
"Kind of a darker subject than what you usually read," Jack observed. "Why do you want to know that stuff, anyway?"
"Research," Jamie answered quickly. Then hastily, he added, "School project."
"Hmm…" Jack said, accepting the boy's answer. Then the winter spirit launched into a story about something he pulled off earlier that morning at the Pole, something that involved freezing North's elves. Jamie took a few steps up the hill as he pretended to contently listen to the Guardian's scheme. He came to realize that he wasn't even paying attention to his friend anymore.
"Hey, Jack?" Jamie called, curious to learn of the immortal's opinion. "What do you know about succubi?"
Jack gave his first believer a funny look. "A what?"
"You know, a succubus," Jamie clarified. "Plural, succubi... Singular, succubus."
"A succubus?" Jack said curiously. After some thought, he understood. "You mean a female demon?"
"Yeah…" Jamie said, nodding his head slowly in agreement. "Do you think they exist?"
"I don't know…" Jack said thoughtfully. "I don't think I've ever met one." He paused. "Why are you asking, Jamie?"
"Just a hypothetical question," Jamie lied quickly. "Say one came to visit someone in the middle of the night. What do you think he should do?"
"All right," Jack played along. "Has this… succubus… ever tried to seduce him at any point?"
"What?" Jamie blurted. "Jack, no!"
Jack put up his hand defensively, staff in hand, head down and eyes closed. His face carefree as always. "Just thought I'd check!"
The fifteen-year-old thought for a moment before explaining, "Well, it acted seductive, but… not really to him, exactly. Sultry, definitely… It just likes to tease him, saying that she will torture him for something he did in the past."
"So it's not really a succubus, is it? Not if it didn't try mating with him." Jamie shrugged. He did have a point. In his book, he read that succubi were thought to seduce men in order to collect their semen for demonic reproduction. His succubus wasn't trying to do that to him; she was just trying to scare him. "Why do you want to know about all of this, anyway?"
"I think…" Jamie started, swallowing a lump down his throat.
"Jamie…" Jack warned. "What aren't you telling me?"
"Uh…" he stammered. "Well, scientists explain that the phenomena is just a symptom of sleep paralysis. That the succubus is just a hallucination, right?"
"Right…" Jack said slowly, eyeing the boy carefully.
"I think… I've been having sleep paralysis…" Jamie finally admitted.
"What?" Jack blurted in shock.
"For almost a year now," he added, smiling sheepishly.
"Jamie!" Jack said sharply, using his best scolding tone.
"What?" Jamie asked, who was less concerned for his well-being than Jack was.
"Why didn't you tell me earlier?" the Guardian demanded.
"I didn't think it was that important at first," Jamie answered, averting his gaze on Jack as he awkwardly rubbed the back of his neck.
"Not important?" Jack blurted. "Jamie, this is serious! This is probably why you've been having trouble sleeping at night!"
"They're just nightmares. I know they aren't real," Jamie reasoned. "I'd never try to hurt anyone. You know that."
Jack still looked concerned, but at least he stopped freaking out. "But how do the nightmares really make you feel?"
Jamie sighed, dropping his head in defeat. "I don't know…"
Jack nodded as he mulled over an idea. "I think we're gonna need some back up…"
Pitch watched his little dreamer from his throne as she spent time by herself, fascinated with the dark images she conjured with the mound of black sand she had for practice. She had come a long way since her first night of arrival. He still remembered it as if it were yesterday…
"Make yourself at home," he offered, a false sense of warmness in his tone. "After all, it's yours now…" He was aware of the uncertainty beneath the girl's exterior as she took in her surroundings.
"It's cold in here," she murmured indifferently, folding her arms across her chest.
"You'll get used to it," he assured. "Pretty soon, you'll hardly feel anything at all…"
Cupcake walked forward, looking at all the strange furnishings in this… lair, cave, whatever this place was… She came upon an abandoned, iron cage. The shadows inside seemed to shift in abnormal patterns, though there was nothing inside, nor any light shining anywhere that could have casted the shadows. Slowly lifting one finger, she reached for the latch on the door. With only being inches away from the cage, a blackened creature with hollowed eyes jumped up and grasped onto the bars.
"Let-t-t-t me-e-e-e s-s-slee-e-e-p!" the creature hissed, but the language was so garbled, Cupcake wasn't sure if it spoke in any human language she knew of. She probably made up those words in her head, trying to make sense of the demonic being's demand. The sudden emergence of the creature through the cage caused Cupcake to gasp frightfully, taking a stumbling step backwards. It scampered away to its sleeping chamber.
"You must excuse my Fearlings," Pitch apologized, though it was always difficult for her to tell if he was sincere or not. "They're a rambunctious sort."
A few heavy breaths were needed to recollect herself, but she made no acknowledgement to his supposedly comforting words. "Are you afraid?" he asked, reserved.
Her eyes snapped angrily at his. "Why do you think I'm here?"
Pausing, Pitch took a moment to listen to her words. He smiled briefly, but then it flickered off his face. "Very well…" He walked away, hands clasped behind his back.
Cupcake turned to see a large globe made out of some sort of stone, rotating slowly with tiny dots of glowing, golden lights. She could see the general area of where her home should be. It was littered with those illuminating spots, and she was curious to know why. Pitch had come back behind her, holding out a black rose to her. She watched him curiously.
"What is this?" It was a simple question with an obvious answer, but it was asked in order to know why it was given.
"A gift," he told her. "To the most beautiful woman who's ever lived."
She glared, not believing his flattery, but she accepted the rose anyway. Using her forefinger and thumb, she grasped the stem, but withdrew quickly. A thorn had pricked her forefinger. "Ow," she breathed, dropping the rose to the cold, stone-paved ground. She shook her hurt finger around to reduce the pain, then she held it up to her mouth to suck out the blood, but when her gaze met her affected finger, she froze. Black, sandlike specks swirled underneath her ivory skin, spreading faster by the second. She reeled back in disgust, fear.
"W-what did you do?" she said as steadily as she could, but the faint quiver in her voice didn't go unnoticed, only ignored.
Pitch only smiled. Placing his hands on her shoulders, he guided her to a nine-foot, rectangular cheval mirror with gold trimming. Cupcake stared into her reflection, with Pitch standing behind her. She studied every little detail, waiting to see a difference in the image before her. She looked... the same. The same dull hair, stout body, and bloodied nightgown.
Glaring at her reflection, she grabbed onto the mirror, and threw it forcefully to the side with all of her strength. The mirror miraculously did not break into a thousand pieces with all the little shards scattering across the stone floor, just as she expected it to. Instead, it cracked immensely across the surface. The damaged antique distorted Cupcake's appearance, like seeing two halves of her ugly self.
"You said I would be beautiful!" she shouted angrily at Pitch, an unshed tear in her eye glinted in the dim light.
"I planted the seed," he whispered in her ear. "Now it's up to you to make it grow…"
Cupcake stared at herself, taking in his words and understanding what she must do. She closed her eyes, and imagined what true beauty looked like. Tall frame, slim waist, long, wavy locks like silky dark chocolate… Thin nose, delicate face, graceful neck… Floor-length ball gown… The only features that remained the same were her freckles and her eyes. There was no need to change them, so the girl never even thought about it during her transformation.
Slowly, Cupcake's eyes opened, and a sultry smile graced her lips when she saw the woman in the mirror. Her skin was no longer ivory, now an ashen grey, and it diminished the distinction of her freckles; still there, but faintly. Her eyes, while still retaining the natural almond shape, held a glowing honey-yellow color in her irises. She gasped at the sight of herself. She was now her ideal form of beauty.
"I only made you what you are…" he informed. "You control the rest."
She thought over his words. "So if I don't…" she tried, swallowing a lump in her throat. "I'll change back?" Pitch said nothing, giving her his answer with a silent gaze, but she understood it clearly. "No!" she cried, beating on his chest with her fists. Emotionless, Pitch restrained her by grasping onto her thin wrists. She continued to fight him. "You- you promised!"
He let her fight him for a few moments, then he said calmly, "Spread the fear, my sweet Cupcake, and you'll learn how to retain your beauty." Cupcake stopped struggling against him, stray tears falling past her cheeks. "You have the power to appear however you like," he warned her. "But you'll need to focus. Any show of vulnerability, and your powers will weaken on its own."
She looked down at her hand, seeing the swirls of black sand form swirling patterns underneath her skin. "And all I have to do is spread fear?"
"It will take a great effort for you to master this art," Pitch stated, flicking his wrist in the air, forming images in the black sand as if it were nothing. "But I'm sure you'll be able to manage."
"How long did it take you?" she asked curiously.
"Years," he explained. "But I expect you to learn in days."
"Days?" she blurted in shock. It was impossible for her to realize such exceptional powers in such a short amount of time. There was no way.
"You hold a lot of promise," Pitch insisted.
"But I'm only fifteen," Cupcake reasoned, her voice curiously faint and unsure. She doubted she looked very much like a woman when she claimed that.
"You're not fifteen anymore!" he shot back spitefully. "You're immortal now, ageless. Besides, you'll have a mentor…" he assured, flicking his wrist in a circular motion. Black sand swirled in intricate patterns around his long, graceful hand. "I had to craft this on my own."
Cupcake swallowed hard to clear her raw throat. "How do I spread fear?"
Pitch tucked a piece of hair behind her ear, and whispered low into it, "Just think of those who deserve to suffer…" She smiled wickedly. She knew the perfect candidate.
To think that was only a year ago…
His decision to bring her here had been his best yet. She had been doing remarkably well. The girl proved herself worthy. She might be the key to his uprising. Now all he needed was a way to seal the bond. He stood up from his throne, and slowly walked over to her. "Dear, sweet cake…"
She turned towards him with a sensual smile. "Yes, my King?"
Pitch held his hand out to her. "Would you have the honor of becoming my bride?"
"Yes…" she answered alluringly, accepting his gesture with a delicate hand. "Yes, my King. I will be your bride."
"Ah! Jamie Bennett, the last light. It's been a long time, friend, no?" Nicholas St. North greeted, arms stretched out wide for a big bear hug. "How old are you now?"
"Fifteen," Jamie answered, reveling the wondrous workshop. He stepped carefully around the elves running around his feet, and ducked every other second to avoid getting hit by yetis.
"Aw, almost all grown up and he still remembers us!" Toothiana cooed as she fluttered close by.
"Of course he remembers," North exclaimed, patting Jamie on the shoulder firmly. "He's not the last light for nothing."
"He does more than any other ankle-biters are doin' these day, that's for sure," Bunnymund commented nonchalantly, leaning up against a wall as he painted an egg. "Hey, how's that sister of yours doin'?" He asked this casually, but everyone knew how much he cared deeply for the younger Bennett child.
"She's great," Jamie answered with a fond smile. "She'll be eight soon."
"How quickly they grow up," Bunnymund mused to himself, a soft smile creeping on his face as he reminisced a memory.
"But she still believes in you," Jamie supplied, which was news that pleased the Easter Bunny. Sandy suddenly rushed to Jamie's side and excitedly displayed a series of sand images, which Jamie had a hard time keeping up with his message. "U-um, well…" he stuttered a response.
Toothiana flew in close to his face, crowding his personal space. "Have you've been flossing everyday?"
"Guys!" Jack called attention. "We've got bigger problems here. Anyone wonder why I called a meeting here, and why I brought Jamie with me?"
The four other Guardians looked at one another. All gave a negative response nearly all simultaneously.
"No," North said with eyes wide open.
"Uh… no?" Bunnymund muttered, eyes just as wide.
Sandy nodded his head enthusiastically, but then quickly shook his head.
Toothiana glanced at each Guardian worriedly before her violet eyes landed back on Jack. "So, Jack, why did you call us here?"
Jack turned to his mortal friend. "Jamie? You should be the one to explain this…"
Jamie glanced at each Guardian, then took a deep breath before speaking. "For about a year now, I've been waking up in the middle of the night and unable to move my body."
"Sleep paralysis…" muttered Bunnymund in thought.
"That's exactly what Jamie said," Jack mentioned.
"Good thinking, Bunny," North congratulated.
"And it's been occurring for a year?" Toothiana wanted to confirm.
Jamie nodded. "Ever since…" He took a deep breath. "Since a friend of mine disappeared. When I'm actually sleeping, I get these nightmares where she tells me it's my fault that she's gone."
"Could be just stress, mate," Bunnymund suggested. Sandy nodded in agreement.
"But here's the thing," the fifteen-year-old explained. "When I wake up, there's this… shadowed entity of a woman sitting on my chest. And the reason why I know it's not a dream…" Jamie pulled the collar of his tee shirt down, enough to reveal some of the bleeding scratches on his chest. For a moment, everyone in the room grew as quiet as Sandy until one of them broke through the tense silence.
"You don't think it's Pitch, do you?" Toothiana asked worriedly.
"Nah, he's still too weak to pull a stunt like that," Bunnymund opposed, unconcerned about the possibility of Pitch returning. "Not unless he got some outside help, anyway."
"Outside help?" Jamie repeated Bunnymund's words, eyebrows scrunching in confusion.
"Yeah," Bunnymund confirmed. "Say, if he taken a spouse, or somethin' like that."
Sandy made a suggestion, using his Dreamsand to form an image above his head. Toothiana translated, "Or a baby."
"Offsprings," Bunnymund mumbled, more to himself than anyone. "Powerful little buggers…"
Jamie looked puzzled. "But if he changes someone into a Fearling, wouldn't he drain himself completely? How could this make him stronger?"
"Yes, it would drain him, but he can replenish himself quickly," North supplied. Jamie was still confused, and it showed on his face. No spoken words were needed.
"Jamie," Toothiana spoke in her usual soft, light tone. "What North is trying to say is that-"
Bunnymund pounded his fist into the wall. "That he gets stronger by lettin' his sidekick do his dirty work for him!"
Sandy silently scolded Bunnymund for rudely interrupting the female Guardian. The pooka looked at her apologetically. "Sorry, Tooth…"
"It's okay, Bunny…" She knew how he got fired up about Pitch's schemes. Bunnymund suspected Pitch using a Fearling hybrid once before, when his entire race had been wiped out of existence. It was unable to be proven, however, since the dark entity Pitch sent disappeared as quickly as the other pookas did, presumably destroyed along with Bunnymund's kind. Toothiana turned to Jamie, and explained, "If his partner is able to host a child, then he could triple his strength."
Sandy glanced at everyone in the room as he held up two fingers with one hand, and worried tugged on North's pant leg with the other. North nodded at him understandingly, and Sandy stopped pulling. "If he takes both, it will mean trouble for us all," North stated.
"Then what do we do?" Jamie asked.
North paced the room, thinking strenuously for a solution. "We need to be on alert," he suggested.
"Someone should be with Jamie at all times," Jack persisted. "We don't know when it will strike again."
"But who's going to do that?" Toothiana reasoned.
"Tooth's right," Bunnymund agreed. "As much as I love this little ankle biter, we can't stop our day jobs searching for a creature that may never appear to us."
"You don't really need to watch over me," the fifteen-year-old reasoned. "I'll be fine."
"No, Jamie," Jack refused, trying to not sound choked. "We can't risk losing you."
"Why?" the teen mortal asked. "I'm not anyone important."
"Oh, Jamie…" Toothiana lamented. "You don't really think that, do you?"
"Well, why not?" Jamie reasoned. "I'm just your average fifteen-year-old with no superpowers. The only thing special about me is that I get to talk to you guys." Everyone was silent, and the tension in the workshop grew thick.
"Jamie," North called gently. "Come with me."
The teenage mortal did as he was told, and followed North into his work room. The Bennett child looked around North's desk, taking in the ice sculptures that were placed on the work surface. He reached out his hand to touch it, but the slamming of the room's heavy door caught him off guard. He flinched involuntarily, and turned around to see the Guardian of Wonder walking up to him from behind.
"Jamie, my boy," North started, placing a caring hand on his shoulder. "You have something special inside you that the Guardians haven't seen in a child for over hundreds of years."
"But I'm just a regular kid," Jamie expressed. "What makes me so different from anyone else?"
"Jamie, tell me," said the man that Jamie knew by legend as Santa Claus. "Do you remember what that shadow woman of yours told you?" The teenage boy nodded. "And what was that?"
"That she wanted me to regret hurting her," Jamie supplied.
"And do you?"
"Well… no," he answered after some thought. "I want to feel sorry for her, but how can I regret something that I didn't even do?"
"Are you ever afraid?"
Jamie shrugged. "A bit… But I think she's probably just afraid herself. I try talking to her, but she hates that. She doesn't want to be helped; she just wants me to give into the fear."
"This is why you are important to us," North explained. "You don't let fear sway you, yet you can sympathize with others." He placed his brawny hands firmly on the boy's narrow shoulders. "You have strong belief. And you got good head on shoulders. Not a bad three-for-one combo, no?" Jamie accepted with a soft smile.
With a final encouraging pat, the man suggested, "Let Jack take you home now…"
Oh, what a marvelous night for a wedding…
Fearlings trailed behind the bride, fixing every little detail of her gown. Black roses were twisted intricately into her hair, with a matching veil trailing to the floor. It was all for show. There was no need for lavish decorations or extravagant clothing, but she needed to feel beautiful, and anything she wanted she was going to have.
A group of Fearling groomsmen circled around their Nightmare King, impatiently waiting for his speech. "Once I unite with my bride, I regain my strength again. Just like how it was in the Dark Ages. This time, through a partner, your king shall rise again!" The Fearlings hollered in their unearthly voices. It encouraged him to chuckle evilly. "The Guardians won't know what hit them."
Pitch watched his bride glide elegantly to him, a bouquet of black roses in hand, as she passed the broken mirror lying sideways on the stone ground. A group of Fearlings followed her from behind, holding up her shadow-like veil. Pitch smiled at the sight of her.
"New beginnings are about to start very soon…"
End of Chapter Four
Author's Note: I know that I promised you this chapter in February, but life hit pretty hard this year. If you saw the status update prior to the posting of this chapter, then you know that I was about to retire this story. I'm still on the fence about it, but this and the next chapter has been in completion since July, and I've been too afraid to let it go. But today is my birthday, and this is how I'm celebrating. Chapter five will be posted in January, and if all goes well, I'll try my best to complete more chapters during Christmas break.
This is important - The rating may increase with the next chapter's content. This is why it will be important that I get feedback from the readers. I will need to know if the rating is appropriately marked as it is, or if the rating will need to be redefined. I feel that the rating could go up with even this chapter due to the graphic nature Jamie's nightmare. Please review with your critique, as your insight is beneficial to both the story and the writer.
Also, if you missed it, I've expanded this story to two new platforms, on Tumblr (URL name jamiecakeandotherconfections) and deviantART (URL name jakenickleby). Artwork is also made available on these two sites.
10 December 2014