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Here's the next chapter!


Jack walks lightly on the branches of a large tree. He had just spread snow over a small town, and, after watching the children play, he decided to move onto the next town and the next town and the next town until he particularly noticed a child prancing to his house with a paper in his small hands.

Jack, out of curiosity and partly boredom, follows the child and watches as the kid hops along his driveway to a large townhouse. The winter spirit sits in a nearby tree and stares with interest.

Before the child touches the door, his mother opens it with a gentle smile to greet him. He's only half her height but her size doesn't seem to intimidate him.

"Mom, Mom," he shouts in delight. "Guess what?" He waves the paper around in the air.

"What?" she replies.

"I got an A on my math test!"

"Good job!"

"My teacher said that I'm a natural at addition and subtraction." His smile gets bigger. "Aren't you proud of me, Mommy? Can I have a hug?"

The mother chuckles and kneels down to reach her son's height. "Good job, sweety." With her two long arms, she embraces him into a warm, loving hug. Her son hugs her back and squeezes her tighter, his cheek on her shoulder.

Jack, still in the trees, looks at the couple. His free arm wraps around himself as if trying to imagine what a hug felt like. His own arms squeezes tighter and tighter, trying but failing to reach the same passion that the two humans below were feeling. Out of habit, he analyzes every detail about their posture, their stance, and their expressions. But before he could get a closer look at the two, the mother picks her son up and carries him inside.

Jack ends up staring at a large, green door with a longing, wistful expression. Unconsciously, his lips form the words the son had said just moments before, "Can I...I have a ... hug?" he stammers.

Through the window, he can see the father joining the hug and ruffling his son's small head.

Jack's arm squeezes him tighter, trying to make up of both a mother's love and a father's love. He wants to feel as warm as the child does inside.

The winter spirit tilts his head up to the sky and calls out for the wind. "Wind," he whispers because his throat doesn't seem to want to raise his voice. Nonetheless, his faithful friend curls around him. "Take me home."

He feels the familiar embrace of the wind but, against his expectations, it feels nothing like the hugs he had seen earlier. The wind's touches are light with no actual depth.

Within minutes, he's back at his lake in Burgess. He lands gracefully on a tree branch and frost blooms where his toes touch the bark. The wind, sensing his negative emotions, wavers in the air, unsure of what to do.

Jack just waves his hand at her and smiles. "I'm okay wind. You can do your job."

The wind hesitates. She curls around him, reminding him that if she was needed, all he had to do was call her name. After receiving a nod, she flies off to guide clouds and cause breezes around the globe.

Only after he sensed that her presence was gone, his smile disappears from his face as if it was never there. His back slumps against the tree.

All he wanted was a hug. Was that too much to ask for?


Unaware that his emotions are causing it, clouds start to gather and snow begins to fall from the sky. Unlike the usual light and delicate snowflakes that fall when he's care- free and causing mischief, this snow is heavy and has a saddened aura around it.

The snow continues to fall as Jack continues to wallow in his misery. His figure practically screams misery.

His eyes drift close and soon, he knows no more.

...

Then, out of the blue, he hears a CRACK! The next thing he know is that he's falling. The branch he was sitting on was falling next to him because it couldn't hold up Jack and his heavy snow any longer.

He falls headfirst into a snow pile next to the base of the tree with a whoosh. The branch fell next to him, narrowly missing his head by mere inches. Jack groans and gets up, cursing. Wiping the snow off of himself, he picks up his fallen staff and walks away.

After that fall, he's no longer tired, but he's still depressed.

He stands in the snow and looks at the frozen lake. For years he had kept the lake thoroughly frozen in the winters, making sure no child would fall through the ice. For years, he had seen children skate on the ice with their friends. For years, he had seen parents watching their children on the sidelines. He would watch the adults hug their child whenever the kid got too cold or just wanted a hug.

He kicks a rock across the lake, hearing it rattle against the ice. He forms a snowball in his hand and chucks it in the center of the lake. The ball splats on the solid.

Suddenly, an idea sprang into his mind.

With a flick of his staff, he conjured a giant mound block of ice along with a separate block next to it. Conjuring some ice tools, he chips away at the smaller block. He sculpts very expertly, paying attention to every detail. Whens he's done with the smaller block, he puts it behind himself and shifts his focus to the much larger ice block.

He works until the sun has fully set and the moon was way up in the sky. He ignored the bright orb in the sky and focused on his artwork.

The sound of ice banging on ice and chips flying everywhere echoes across the clearing, but no one but Jack is there to hear it.

Finally, he puts down his tools and looks at his sculpture. It was a sculpture of a woman, a mother. She was almost exactly like the mother he saw earlier that day. The clothes were the same, the heights were the same, the position of which she hugged her son was the same. The only difference was the sculpture's face.

Jack didn't know what his mother looked like or if he even had a mother. If he did have a mother once, he would've probably looked like her. So, he used his face as the base and just added an older look with feminine aspects.

He inspects his work and nods with approval. Years of practice had helped make this masterpiece.

The mother's arms were held out as if she were expecting a hug.

"Hey... Mom," Jack says. The word "Mom" felt weird on his tongue but he didn't mind. He slaps a smile on his face, matching hers. "I know that we've never talked to each other before but here we are now."

The sculpture says nothing.

"You wouldn't believe what happened today." He continues to smile as he tells about all the fun he had that day with the children, who unsurprisingly still couldn't see him. He tells her about his new discovery of this new food called "ice cream." He even tells her about the event that he saw when a mother hugged her son because the little boy had gotten an A on his test. Soon, though, he runs out of things to talk about.

"Um... I made you something...Mom." Jack reaches behind his back and retrieves the other sculpture. It's a large snowflake that has a similar shape to an octagon. Intricate designs spread out from the middle to the tips. Frost branches out and covers almost every nook and cranny of the ice, making it glow in the moonlight. And right in the center was a small heart.

"I put a heart in the center because," Jack stumbles over his words, "because I love you, Mom..." He trails off. "I worked hard on this... Are you proud of me?"

The ice says nothing.

Jack looks into the eyes that he had carved. "Are... are you proud of me?" he repeats.

The ends of the ice mouth, that are titled upwards into a loving smile, doesn't reply.

The spirit takes a deep breathe. "Can I have a hug?"

The sculpture continues to smile and Jack takes that as a "yes." He gently places his gift on the ground and steps forward to embrace his "mother." His "mother's" arms do not wrap around him to hug him back. Instead, they just stand there in their same positions.

Jack squeezes tighter. His cheeks presses into a cold shoulder.

There is no heat coming from the ice. Only coldness. In his mind, he imagines that there are arms embracing him, cloth pressing into his cheek, and love radiating from the woman.

But in the end, he receives none of those things and is left hugging an ice, cold statue.


I updated two times in a row! :) aren't u guys proud of me?

Review plz!