Ana pulled the main body of her hair back into its usual high pony tail before stepping in front of the mirror. She'd just finished the final touches on her Halloween costume and was curious to see how it looked.
It had taken her a while to figure out how to pull off the whole tooth fairy thing, but she was rather pleased with the results. She'd covered a pair of tight, dark-blue jeans with shimmering green scales that looked a bit like feathers and paired that with a tight, black tank top that had also been layered with scales. A warm, cobalt blue peacoat and a pair of wings that she'd borrowed from the storage room completed the outfit. It wasn't the most traditional fairy costume, but she thought it looked great!
Once she'd decided the outfit was, indeed, finished, Ana flipped open her makeup kit and was just about to begin experimenting with colors when the phone rang. Her parents were home, though, so she ignored it and started to apply a coat of cobalt eye shadow.
She's barely gotten done with her first eye when her mother knocked on the door and peaked in.
Ana set down her makeup and asked, "What's up mom?"
"Are you busy? Mrs. Overland's on the phone for you."
"Any idea what she wants?"
Mrs. Romoli shook her head. "No, but she sounds upset."
Ana shrugged and grab her room's extension and gave a quick, "Hello?" as her mother headed back downstairs to finish dinner.
"Ana, dear, this is Mrs. Overland. Have you heard from Jack recently?" Her mother hadn't been kidding, the woman on the other end of the line sounded terrified.
"No," Ana replied, suddenly worried, "What's happened?"
"He went out for a walk a few hours ago and never came home. We assumed that he was with one of you kids, but when it started to get dark we started to worry. We've tried his phone half a dozen times, but he won't answer."
Ana could feel her heart starting to speed up. Jack always answered his phone right away. "Have you called the guys yet?"
"No, your home number was the only one Jack gave us."
"Okay, well, I'll call them and see if they know anything."
"Thank you, dear. I'll let you know if we hear from him."
"And I'll do the same," Ana replied, already reaching for her cellphone.
"Great job, Sophie!" Aster said as his baby sister finished coloring in the fairies he'd drawn for her.
The little girl beamed at the praise and hugged her big brother, covering his shirt with pink and purple finger paint. He laughed and hugged her back, mentally congratulating himself for remembering to wear a shirt he didn't care about this time as he asked, "So, what should we paint now?"
"Bunnies! Hop, hop!"
"Okay, bunnies it is!"
"Aster draws. Sophie paints!"
"Right!" Sophie watched, enthralled, as her brother quickly sketched a pair of fluffy looking bunnies with a black Sharpie. As soon as he'd finished the picture, she began to paint the image, completely obscuring Aster's sketch with green and purple finger paint. Aster thought it was a masterpiece.
"You can dance, you can jive, having the timeā¦" Aster rolled his eyes, turning his attention from his little artist, and grabbed his phone from his back pocket. Leave it to Ana to interrupt family time. "How many times do I have to tell you I'm not using this dumb song as your ring tone? How'd you even get a hold of my phone to change it, anyway?"
"Aster, Jack's missing."
Aster's amused grin disappeared in an instant and, when he spoke again, all humor was gone from his voice. "What? What do you mean 'missing'?"
"The Overlands don't know where he is and he's not picking up his cell."
Aster felt a knot of fear beginning to form in his chest. "Did you try Nick and Sandy?"
"Nick's not picking up either, but that probably means that he's working in the workshop. I sent Sandy a text and he doesn't have a clue."
Aster stood up and Sophie looked at him in confusion, unused to being ignored by her big brother. "Right, I'll borrow the car from my dad and we'll go out to Nick's place to see if Jack's there. Text Sandy and tell him we'll pick him up on the way."
"Aster, what if he isn't there?"
Aster's hand tightened around his phone as he thought about what that would mean, but his voice was deadly calm when he replied, "Then we keep looking until we find him."
Jack wasn't with Nick. As Ana had guessed, the jolly teen had been hard at work in the workshop and thus missed his phone ringing. Once the others had explained what was going on, though, he'd immediately grabbed his coat and volunteered to drive around in the sleigh, searching for Jack. Aster vetoed that idea, saying, "We should check in with the Overland first, maybe they've already found him. At the very least they'll be able to tell us where they've looked so far."
This suggestion had led to the four teens crowding around Aster's cellphone, waiting for the Overlands to pick up.
It was immediately clear that Jack was still missing when Mrs. Overland answered with a trembling, "Hello?"
"Hi, Mrs. Overland, it's Aster and the gang. Jack isn't with any of us. Has there been any sign of him?"
Mrs. Overland gave an anguished moan before shakily replying, "No, nothing. Mr. Overland even went into Burgess and checked the Frost's grave. There was a huge bouquet of flowers, but no Jack."
Ana spoke up now. "Why'd he check the Frost's grave?"
"Well, it's the anniversary of the day Jack's parents died and we thought he might have gone there. He doesn't usually go, but we couldn't think of anywhere else to look. "
Aster clenched the phone tighter in his grasp as the other exchanged worried glances. "No one's seen him?"
"No! We've called everyone we could think of, even Jessica Black. Jack doesn't have any friends other than you four as far as we know, so it was a pretty short list."
Aster groaned in frustration. When he got his hands on Jack, he was going to put a tracking collar on him. As the thought crossed his mind, Aster almost dropped his phone. A tracking collar! "Jack's phone! It's got a GPS!"
On the other end of the line Mrs. Overland gave a cry of excitement as the gang's worried looks turned into delighted grins.
"Mrs. Overland, we've gotta go now. We'll call you if this works." Aster snapped the phone shut and looked over at his Russian friend. "Nick, we need to use your computer."
Jack awoke to find himself surrounded by near darkness with the only light coming from the stars high above. Where was he and why was he was so cold? He tried to move his arms, but found them tightly bound. He tried to cry out, but there was something covering his mouth. The fact that he couldn't feel it touching his lips terrified him. How long had he been like this?
Jack couldn't remember. He tried to recall how he'd gotten here, but he was too cold and too tired to think. He could feel his eyes drooping and he wondered what had woken him up, then he felt his phone vibrate in his back pocket. So that's what woke me up.
The phone began to vibrate again and Jack felt some of his terror easing away into the fog that was slowly clouding his mind. His phone, Aster had given him that. He could remember that. He remembered how embarrassed the taller teen had been when he gave Jack the gift and the smiles on the faces of his other friends when he'd opened the present. He remembered Sandy programming all of their numbers into the light blue piece of technology while Ana had assigned each of them a ring tone. He remembered Nick insisting his ringtone be that stupid Chipmunk Christmas song.
For some reason, these images made Jack feel bad for being tired, though he couldn't figure out why. As his phone began to vibrate once more, Jack tried to move, but his body stayed in place no matter how hard he wiggled. The ground beneath him had no friction. Ice. Why was there ice? He let out a tired growl of frustration and stopped trying. Maybe if he just took a little nap, he'd have the energy to move when he woke up.
The GPS locater seemed to have worked, but when the teens began to follow its directions they suddenly weren't so sure. The tracking app on Aster's phone lead them to a snow covered back road, miles from any sort of civilization. When Nick stopped the sleigh, Aster looked out into the night gloom and groaned. "There's no way he's out there. How would Jack have even got here?"
Ana shrugged. "Who knows, but we might as well look. The Overlands have already covered the town and he's gotta be somewhere."
Sandy nodded and jumped out of the car.
"Sandy," Ana called after him, "come back! You need a flashlight!"
The smaller teen turned around and was about to come back to the car when he noticed something. There were strange marks in the snow in front of the jeep that were being lit up by the headlights. It looked like something had been dragged into the forest.
Suddenly wary, Sandy ignored the calls of his friends and began to follow the tracks.
When the others realized what had fascinated him, they quickly grabbed a pair of flashlights from Nick's glove compartment and headed after the diminutive teen.
After a short walk, the trail ended at of a frozen lake. Sandy was standing on the edge of the ice, pointing across the frozen water and Nick shined his flashlight where his friend was pointing. In the center of the ice lay a body, bound and gagged. "Jack!"
Aster dropped his flashlight and ran across the ice, sliding to a stop by Jack's body. He knelt down and rolled the freezing boy over as the others carefully followed him out onto the frozen water.
Jack's skin was even paler than normal and streaks of frozen tears covered his face, but he was awake and, when Aster removed the gag, he was smiling. Delirious blue eyes looked up at the group for a few seconds before sliding shut as Jack fell into unconsciousness in Aster's arms.
