It seems to be the general consensus that Jack's sister's name is Emma, so Emma Overland it is!
~Jack~
An especially snowy morning in December found Jack in the Burgess area. It was still early hours, most kids still in bed and parents only just waking up to find their vehicles hiding under a mountain of snow. Jack laughed at the few he saw actually go outside and curse whatever deity they believed in for making them spend precious minutes scraping away the snow. He drifted on the winds and landed at Jamie's window again, knocking at the glass till the child stirred and rubbed his eyes.
"Jack?" he moaned and glanced over at the red lines on his clock. "It's not even six yet! What are you going here?" He padded to the window and pushed it out so his friend could come inside.
"Turn on your radio."
"Why?" But Jack didn't answer. Jamie twisted the knob on his alarm and through the scratchy static he heard the charismatic DJ voice. A few minutes of it was boring news reports, but then the news of the weather came on.
"... all of Pennsylvania is being covered with snow and it's still coming down in blankets. I have just received the announcement that all public schools across the state are now closed. Please check with private schools within the next hour."
"A snow day, Jack! Awesome!" Jamie cheered. Jack laughed at his enthusiasm as he bounced around the room. He grabbed his door handle and flung it open, running down the hall. "Mom! Sophie! The radio said there's no school!"
"I didn't think there would be," came Mrs. Bennett's voice. Jack walked into the hallway and looked down the stairs to where she was standing, a purple coat with a decoration of snow hanging on her shoulders. "It's really coming down hard. Unfortunately I still have to go into work so I have to find someone to watch you."
"Has dad already left?"
"Yeah, hey you should talk to your Jack Frost friend and get him to get work closed!" Mrs. Bennett joked with a smile.
"Consider it done, Mrs. Bennett!" Jack yelled down to her, despite her not being able to hear him and looked over to Jamie. "Where does your mom work?"
"The Burgess Central Bakery," Jamie mumbled, giving him a very skeptical look. Sophie's bedroom door opened and the little blonde girl toddled out into the hallway.
"Snow, lots of snow!" she said and then pointed at Jack in front of her. "Jack make it snow."
"That's right, little one," he laughed. "And I'm going to make it snow more so your mommy can stay home with you."
"Yay!" she cheered. He disappeared through Jamie's window again and drifted on the currents til he spotted the small white building with black lettering that read "Burgess Central Bakery." He glided down and ran his crook across the front and back door, leaving ice in the hinges. Next, he iced the edges of the windows so they wouldn't open and then jumped onto the roof. He slammed the end of his staff against the chimney and a pile of snow was summoned from the heavens and it shot down into the fire pit below. He watched a car approach and stoutly man emerge from it. He shuffled through the heavy snow, and Jack wondered at first who would dare venture into this even for work. Why didn't he just tell everyone to stay home?
Grunts and yells from below came from the man as he tried to open the employee entrance in the back. When it hadn't opened, he moved around to the front, which also refused to open. Attempting to open each and every window left him disgruntled and then he peered through the kitchen window and saw a pile of snow on the coals. He yelled and stomped his foot before producing a cell phone and holding it to his ear. When he heard him say something about the Bakery being closed today he grinned to himself and jumped into the wind currents again, carrying him to the Bennett house again. Once again entering through Jamie's room, he heard his mom shout from downstairs.
"Jamie! Sophie! I'm not going into work!"
"Yay!" cheered Sophie. Jack ran down the steps and into the kitchen where Mrs. Bennett had been cooking a hot breakfast. Sophie was sitting in a booster seat and tipping sippy cup to her mouth. Jamie was chewing happily on some bacon. He turned to Jack who had just appeared in the room, grinning knowingly.
"Why?" he said with a smile.
"All the doors and windows are frozen shut, I guess," said Mrs. Bennett. "And there's snow in the fireplace. That's going to be annoying to clean up later but I don't have to worry about finding someone to watch you now."
"Looks like you should thank Jack for that," Jamie pointed out.
"I will! Thank you Jack Frost!" Mrs. Bennett said to the area above her head. Jack tried not to laugh, but it escaped him in small amounts. He knew she didn't really believe, but it was more than he usually got from parents.
"Lady, I'm not like an angel or something. I don't live in the sky," he chuckled. "But thanks anyway. You can really thank me by giving me some of that bacon." Jamie took a piece of bacon and held it out for Jack who ran to take it and chewed on it greedily.
"Jack eats funny," Sophie said.
"Hey mom, after breakfast, can I go play outside? Caleb and Claude are probably building some really cool fort at their house or something! And I'll call Monty, and maybe Pippa and Cupcake will be there."
"Okay honey... as long you take your sister with."
"Mooommm!" Jamie protested. "My sister?"
"You like playing with her in the snow," she reminded.
"But not around my friends!" Abby the greyhound snuck up to Jack and tried to snatch the remainder of bacon from his hands.
"Abby, no," he said and popped the last of it in his mouth. "Do you know how long it's been since I've had bacon? Ask Jamie for some." Her pointed ears laid against her head and she whimpered sorrowfully.
"Abby..." Jamie whispered, tossing a small piece over. Abby leapt up and caught it in the air. "They'll make fun of me for having a little sister around!"
"I don't think so... Pippa might enjoy her! Cupcake would too. She likes unicorns and pretty things right?"
"Unicorns!" Sophie yelled excitedly. "Unicorn unicorn unicorn!"
"Bring her with," Jack urged. "You can play with your friends and I'll help keep an eye on Sophie." He sidled to where the little girl sat. He rearranged the bacon and the eggs and the fruit into a smiley face for her and she squealed in excitement. "We'll have fun, won't we kiddo?"
"Play with Jack!" she yelled.
"That's right, sweetie," said Mrs. Bennett, finally sitting down to enjoy breakfast with them. "Playing with Jack Frost. You're going to play in the snow." He huffed. Sometimes it could be incredibly annoying how unaware parents were of him.
~Morgan~
The snow had been just as bad in Harrisburg but unfortunately, unlike Jamie and Sophie's mom, Mr. and Mrs. Kenter had to go into work. All of the Kenter kids were staying at home. Peter, for once in his life, had agreed to go outside and play with Bradley in the snow, and they were currently working on a snow man. Todd and Morgan both stayed inside, each working on projects separately. Todd's however, was homework. Morgan's project was something she was preserving for Christmas. Because Todd was always a kind brother who was more than happy to share things with her, she had asked to use his computer and found that she was struggling to find what she needed.
"Todd?" she begged quietly.
"Yes, Morgan," he said while he completed a page-long equation.
"Are you too busy to help me?" she continued with shyness. He slammed his book shut and hopped off his bed.
"Of course not," he told with kindly. Morgan beamed. "What are you doing?"
"Well, a... a friend of mine..."
"Brianne."
"No. Someone else." Todd looked at her quizzically. "I made another one. A better one, actually."
"Oh! Okay, good for you!"
"Anyway, a friend of mine has um... " she searched for her words carefully. "Some articles about the death of someone, and it's really interested him as to what happened to them, if there's still family around."
"Someone who likes history. I should have figured."
"The boy's sister lived and he wondered if there's descendents still around."
"How did he get the articles?"
"I don't know. Just found them."
"Okay, well, then we need to to go to a website that traces ancestry," Todd explain, and reached over to take the computer from her. He paged through websites on a search engine and brought up a website that specialized in searching family trees and the history of them. "Okay, what do we know?"
"We want to trace the girl's family tree," Morgan said. "She was born in 1703, according to my friend. She was born in Burgess, Pennsylvania. Her name is Emma Overland."
"Okay one second..." A few clicks. "Hey look there's something! Emma Overland... brother Jackson Overland... what's this? 'Jackson Overland died at the age of fifteen while he and his sister were ice skating. He fell through the ice after saving Emma from the same fate and died shortly after, either from the cold or drowning. There are a few accounts that claim Jack Frost, the spirit of winter, is actually Jackson Overland, having been selected after his death to bring fun to children in the winter months.' That's really weird. Now you're really going to be interested in this."
"What does it say about her?"
"Well... she lived to be 73."
"Wow!"
"But she died in Lancaster."
"Why was she in England?!" Morgan shrieked as she pushed her brother over to get a good look.
"No... she... Lancaster, Pennsylvania," he clarified as he winced from her shrieks.
"Oh, why was she there?"
"Her husband was born there, it says," he read. "I assume he lived there."
"In history, often the woman was to leave her family and join her husband in his place of residence," Morgan recalled from her historical knowledge. "So is she buried there?"
"Yes. She had six children. Two sons, four daughters."
"What about them?"
"One of the daughters died of pneumonia at the age of five. One girl had no children."
"So two sons, two daughters left."
"There's a note here says the oldest son was said to have fathered illegitimate children with... six women?!" Todd read, first his eyes expanding and then reclining in his chair with a chuckle.
"Oh boy," Morgan whispered, understanding what that would have meant.
"But it says it was never truly confirmed. They... all had husbands according to this."
"Married women on top of it..." Morgan said to herself. "So he never married."
"Doesn't look like it."
"The other son had three children – all died young from a fever and his wife died in childbirth with the last one. The other two daughters married and had children. One had two, one had four. Do you need me to read anything from these?"
"Just tell me where they lead."
"Well, family trees connect to other family trees, which connect..."
"Okay, where do the direct descendants end?" Two more clicks.
"The last direct descendant of one daughter died in 1964."
"And the other one?" A couple more clicks.
"Alive and well."
"Name?"
"Well there's two. Someone must have decided to move back to Burgess because that's where they live. The direct descendant ends with Jamie and Sophie Bennett."
I was not going to make the Bennetts a direct descendant of Emma, but there are some very good points out there that convinced me this actually was the case. Jack is really drawn to Jamie, and Sophie a little, more than any other the other kids, and Jamie is really quick to believe in Jack. If a snowflake landed on my nose the first thing I thought of would not be "Jack Frost nipping at your nose." And then there is his incredibly strong belief. But I think the thing that really convinced me was the fact they looked EXACTLY alike, Jamie and Jack's sister I mean, and in an animation I don't think that was an accident. Is not realistic to think through 300 years all of them would have stayed in Burgess so I had to move them around a bit (what Morgan said about when a woman marries a man is true. Plus if Emma, as we are calling her, died in Burgess I think he would have come across her grave by now.)
I will try my darndest to type up a new part and upload it tonight but I have to get to bed early so I can get my cat fixed (poor baby Crawford kitty). Otherwise, I hope this fulfills your need for the night. Rosie Posie out.
