Chapter Ten: Finding a Seal

Jack slowly opened the door to the library, the loud creak that sounded made him cringe. The winter spirit walked inside. It was night, meaning that everyone had turned in for the night, and while North never admitted that he got tired, he often was the one snoring loudest of them all.

Jack walked down the many aisles of books He had read a few in his time as a Guardian, mostly the ones with adventure and fantasy, and every once in a while, a Mother Goose tale—in secret of course—when he could.

Jack brushed his hand over the spines of books that he walked past, but eventually came to the shelf he was looking for and pulled out a rather large book with a deep red cover with gold lining. Jack carried it over to a table and set it down as gently as he could. He set his staff to the side, opened the cover, and flipped through the pages until he came across the one he wanted.

He had seen Tooth read this book, so he knew it was the correct one. In fancy lettering at the top of the page was "Memory Seals." To the side of all of the information were various pictures of what the seals looked like. Some were in the simple shape of a circle and depending on the memories it contained determined its color. The more complex ones were in more complicated shapes that Jack didn't know the name of.

Jack skimmed through the text and eventually came across a rather long paragraph and his cerulean eyes darted back and forth reading through it. He eventually came across the information he needed and whispered it to himself out loud.

"'Memory seals are mostly located in the most unexpected of places. They often are hidden well and can take the shape of an item'...oh great."

Jack had thought that finding the seal would be easy. He expected something to just be in plain sight that he could blast with ice and shatter it to pieces and everything would be back to normal. Jack shut the book and slid it back on the shelf, being careful not to leave any frost in his wake. He flew out quickly and as he flew to Burgess, he thought about where the seal might be hidden.

If the seal took the form of something, Jack had no idea what that was. The Guardians had a lot of things, finding that one specific thing would take him a long time, and Jack didn't have that much time.

Jack decided to head to each and every Guardian's place the next morning and ask. Maybe he would find a clue to what the memory seal was taking form of and destroy it.

…

One Week and Three Days Remaining

Jack flew to the Tooth Palace first. Tooth was directing her fairies as usual but gave Jack a smile and put Baby Tooth in charge of them while she talked to Jack. She fluttered over.

"Hi, Jack!" she said. "What brings you here?"

"I just came to—" Jack was cut off when a fairy flew over and chirped something to Toothiana. Tooth gasped.

"What do you mean she dropped the teeth?!" cried Tooth. The little fairy shrugged and Tooth shook her head.

"Sorry, Jack," said Tooth. "But a few of my fairies dropped some Tooth boxes by the lake. I have to go and help clean up."

"I can help," said Jack.

"You'd really do that?" asked Tooth. "You don't have to."

Jack shrugged. "It's fine," he said.

Tooth smiled and she and her fairies led him toward the lake where the mosaic of Tooth and her fairies collecting children's teeth was. And sure enough, tooth boxes and teeth were everywhere.

"Oh my moon, what a mess!" exclaimed Tooth. "What happened?"

Three fairies fluttered forward with guilty expressions. They all began to chirp at once but Tooth stopped them.

"Okay, okay. It's fine, really! We'll just clean this up and put them back," said Tooth. The three fairies wiped their brows and fluttered down to pick up the teeth and place them back in their tooth boxes.

"Sorry about the teeth," said Jack.

Tooth turned to him. "W-what did you say?"

Jack blinked. "Sorry about the teeth?"

"Huh. It just felt like you've said that before.." said Tooth. She shook her head. "Anyway, we should get to picking these up."

Jack nodded and helped the Queen of the Tooth Fairy Armies collect the teeth that laid on the ground and placed them in the correct tooth boxes with a few of the mini fairies' help. Jack found it surprising that Tooth and her fairies could determine which teeth belonged to which child just by looking at them. They all looked the same to Jack.

Once the last tooth was in the last box and the last box was put away, Jack asked, "So, do you have anything out of place in the Tooth Palace?"

Tooth cocked her head. "Um...no. Not that I know of. Everything is just fairies and teeth here!"

Tooth looked over her shoulder and saw that the fairies needed some guidance. "Thanks for helping with the teeth, Jack! But I have to go now."

Jack waved and Tooth gave him a smile and flew to the group of fairies. Jack sighed and made his way to the North Pole next.

…

Jack asked North, Bunny, and Sandy next but the three did not have anything that did not belong to them in their custody. Jack flew back to his tree and sat down in his branch and thought. Maybe the seal hadn't taken the shape of anything and was just hidden and waiting somewhere. Jack groaned. It could be anywhere. Jack guessed that it had to be somewhere either at the Guardians' homes or Burgess, but he wasn't even sure that thought was true.

Baby Tooth promised to keep a lookout when she visited and Jack was grateful for the help. Things haven't been the same and Jack wished that he could just swing his staff and things would go back to normal. But they couldn't.

Jack leaned back and closed his eyes. He was going to find that seal, he just had to think of where it could be first.

…

It was working. They had forgotten him, but they still remembered snippets of him. The shadowy figure stomped its foot in frustration. The memory wipe was supposed to wipe all of their memories and make them forget. They were not supposed to remember a thing. It watched as Jack Frost flew through the sky. It knew that he was trying to stop what he had done, but the winter spirit was running out of time.

Onyx knew that he wouldn't reverse the spell. How did she know?

Because she was going to make sure of it.