Disclaimer: I do not own Rise of the Guardians. Dreamworks and William Joyce does.
Summary: They say he hasn't been right in the head since he fell through the ice. They say that the man who is enshrouded in shadows and lives under his bed isn't real. But Jack knows he's there, always watching, waiting to drag this one mortal who can see him into his realm of nightmares.
Ch. 3 With Devils to Eternity
Jack could hear them talking as he lay in his bed even as they tried their best to keep their voices low. The Overland house was built pretty much like every other log cabin in Burgess, sturdy but small. The fireplace in the main room served to heat the interior as well as cook their meals. There were two small bedrooms off to the side: one for the adults and the other for any children they might have. Jack remembered he used to share the same room with Emma when they were both younger, but ever since he that fateful day on the ice, his sister had taken to sleeping with their mother.
It had been two weeks since then, one week of which had passed in nothing but a blur of heat and fuzzy memories. He was all but convinced that he had conjured the man wreathed in shadows from the depths of his feverish mind for no nightmares had plagued him since that first night of his plunge through the ice. No shadows came creeping from beneath his bed nor was there any black sand scattered on his sheets to greet him upon waking.
Yes, it had all been a figment of his imagination. There was naught to blame for these vivid hallucinations except for the fever that had wracked his body so viciously. The fever that once it had finally broken, had left him tired and weak.
His mother had kept his fingers busy the second week as he was still bed-ridden. She had given him scraps of fabric and patterns to cut out. The village tailor had taken Lydia Overland as his assistant after she had been widowed. It had caused quite a stir amongst the townspeople, however their chatter ceased when it became known that Tailor Saunders' eyesight was failing and his true intentions were to make Jack his apprentice. Lydia had attempted her best to pass her seamstress skills to her son, but Jack was dismal at sewing. He often thought Tailor Saunders an old fool for thinking he could ever take up the trade. His stitches always came out as crisscrossed and uneven with wide gaps in-between. He managed fairly well with a pair of scissors though.
"He's fine," he heard his mother say to the doctor. "I don't know what stories Thomas Grymes has prattled off his lying tongue, but he's perfectly fine. I've quizzed him on the Primer and he can recite the alphabet and catechisms just fine. As for his maths, he's no worse off than he was before the fever took hold of him. 'Adled in the head, indeed'!"
"If no sickness ails him now and he is recovered well enough to walk, he needs to be seen about by others," Doctor Brown said. "It will stop this foolish rumor-mongering then. It would do the boy some good to get a bit of fresh air."
A distinct noise of disapproval was his mother's response.
"Are you planning to keep him cooped up here forever? You can try and shelter your loved ones as much as you want, but accidents happen. That's the way of the world. All you can really do is guide them as best you can so they learn from their mistakes."
Silence lingered after the last statement and Jack knew the doctor had won.
oOo
The frozen snow crunched underneath his boots as he trudged along the road. The air was brisk and cold, but Jack did not feel the sharp bite of winter. His mother had bundled him up in so many layers, his walking gait was similar to that of the inn-keeper's tabby cat one time it had fallen into the ale-barrel.
"I don't want you falling ill in such a manner again," his mother had remarked at his resentful gaze before his departure, sending his sister along with him. They were taking Mr. Williams his new wool coat, wrapped and packaged neatly.
Jack glanced down at Emma who kept pace beside him despite his longer stride. Her two small mitten-covered hands were wrapped about his own right one. She was biting her lower lip as she stared straight ahead never meeting his eyes. She hadn't spoken to him since that night his fever had driven him half-mad. He had probably frightened her. He should apologize…
"Jack lad, what's this?" a loud, booming voice called out suddenly. "Out so soon already? You must have caused your mother no end of grief for her to turn you lose this early!"
Jack lifted his head. Trapper Grymes stood a few feet ahead, his large burly frame blocking the narrow path. Snowflakes drifting down from the overcast sky were quickly melted in the man's scruffy beard.
"No words to greet your fellow wanderer this fine day?" Trapper Grymes bellowed as he marched over. "Tell me, girl," he said turning to Emma. "Has he lost his tongue as well as his wits?"
Jack felt his sister's hands clench tightly about his own, saw her swallow back a deep gulp of air and the brimming of unshed tears well up in her eyes.
"I am not 'adled in the head'," Jack spat out curtly. "Mother would like for you to stop such sayings."
"Well, I'll be bowled over, the boy speaks!" Trapper Grymes exclaimed, clutching his rounded belly and guffawing heartily. "If you can talk, Jack lad, how about sparing a few words of appreciation for your rescuer, eh? You'd be sleeping in a watery coffin right now if I hadn't happened by."
A muffled whimper escaped Emma's lips and Jack had to restrain himself from punching the man right in his bulbous, bright red nose.
"Thank you, kind sir," he forced out through gritted teeth. "I am truly grateful."
"Aye, aye, that's more like it," Trapper Grymes nodded mollified. "You're the man of the house now, Jack lad, remember. You should always think twice before you do anything and not act on rash impulse."
Jack felt his anger abate abruptly. Patronizing as the man was, he was right. He should have known better than to take his sister ice skating when it was too early in winter for the water to completely freeze over. He had fallen prey to the lake's deceptive appearance. What would have happened if he had died? His mother and sister would have been devastated.
"Ah, well, 'My heart shall chear me in my youth, I'll have my frolicks in good truth, what e'er seems lovely in mine eye, myself I cannot it deny.' Right, Jack lad?" Trapper Grymes recited, tousling the boy's hair as he turned to go.
"Wait," Jack said catching the man's sleeve. "My staff."
"Come again?"
"My staff," Jack repeated, an urgency rising within him that was close to panicking. "Where is my staff?"
He had asked his mother the same question before he and his sister had left home. It had become an old habit to simply extend his hand and snatch it up where he always placed it, resting by the doorframe, before stepping foot outside. But it hadn't been there today. Two weeks in bed and there had been no need for him to think of it. There really was no need for him to make any use of it all now that his family had no more goats to shepherd.
But sometimes, when things were tough, on particularly bad days, Jack would look at his staff and see in his memory Joseph Overland's large hands, wrinkled with calluses, carefully carving the crooked end out of the wood… and sometimes… sometimes that would be enough to lift his spirits in the worst of moods.
"That shepherd's staff that's like a third arm of yours? Must still be back at the lake. Oh, steady on," Trapper Grymes said at Jack's crestfallen expression. "It's probably wherever you last laid it. There's naught been a soul that has gone down to the lake since your near-drowning. Father Goodall forbid it. Wait a couple of more weeks for the ice to freeze over and someone will fetch it for you. Patience is a virtue, Jack."
oOo
When they last arrived at the Williams residence, the snow had started to fall much faster. He and Emma were ushered in and told to stand in front of the fireplace. The warmth of the flames melted the crusted snowflakes off their clothes where they dripped in little puddles on the floor.
Mrs. Williams bustled around the place clucking like a mother hen, the packaged coat for her husband put aside. "Oh, Jack, it's so good to see you out and about again! You had us all worried, you little imp. Here," the woman said dropping one hard maple candy each into Jack and Emma's hands. "Suck on these while I boil some apple cider for you two. It will help to have something warm inside on your way home in this weather!"
The door to the side-room opened wide enough for two blonde-haired children to peer around it at their visitors.
"Jack! Jack! Jack and Emma!" they shouted enthusiastically as they barreled over to them.
Pushing the maple candy over to one side of his cheek, Jack smiled lopsidedly at the sight of Emma's two friends. Abigail Williams at nine years old was a year older than Emma, while her brother, Caleb was the same age. The three of them combined sometimes made for a "Terrible Trio" his mother often jokingly remarked, but really they were sweet and fairly obedient children. Jack knew the worst thing they had ever done was steal some pies cooling out of Baker Hopkins' window. Jack knew because he had put them up to it and had a good laugh at their expense when he had stumbled across them later on. They all had developed stomach aches from stuffing their greedy faces and were bawling their eyes out certain that God was punishing them for sins.
"Jack, you're not dead!" Caleb cried flinging his arms around the older boy's waist.
"Of course he's not dead, child!" Mrs. Williams declared exasperated. "He's right there!"
"And you haven't gone willy-nilly, stark-raving mad?" Abigail piped up.
"Abigail!" her mother exclaimed properly scandalized.
"What? That's what Anthony Hawkins said he'd gone and done. Said Jack was born under a full moon and his falling through the ice was how the devil tried to claim his soul back!"
"That's quite enough, young lady!" Mrs. Williams ordered. "Anthony Hawkins spreads the most fantastic yarns—you should be spanked for believing such a ridiculous fib! You children have such wild imaginations, I must say. First Caleb and his monsters, now this!"
"Monsters?" Jack asked looking down at Caleb curiously.
"The ones that live under my bed," the boy said solemnly. "They come out at night in the shadows."
They came creeping from beneath his bed, thick, black tendrils, coiling and slithering like a nest of snakes...
Jack started violently at the memory. No, no, that had been a bad dream brought on by the fever. That hadn't been real.
"You've been having nightmares, Caleb, that's all," Mrs. Williams told her son. "Then you wake up still frightened and every little noise makes you jump, but it's nothing but the wind outside making the house creak."
oOo
"I am the shadows that stalk at night. I am the noises under your bed and the monster that lurks outside your door. I am your worst memories relived and the thing that haunts your dreams."
oOo
"Caleb," Jack said slowly. "Did you ever… see what the monsters looked like?"
… they merged together to solidify into a tall, slim figure of man. A man whose grey-tinged skin and golden glowing eyes were the only features visible amongst the swirling mass of darkness wreathed around him.
Caleb shook his head swiftly. "No, but I know they're there! I can feel them! One night they'll come when I'm not awake and eat me whole!"
"Now that's quite enough!" Mrs. Williams proclaimed in stern tone as she poured the steaming apple cider into the cups laid out on the table. "I will hear no more talk of any nonsense whatsoever in this house today. Landsakes!" she sighed dabbing at her forehead with her handkerchief . "I'll age ten years listening to such idle prattle if I allow you to carry on!"
More maple candy was handed out. Emma and the other younger children had settled themselves on the floor in front of the fire while they sipped their cider and Jack found himself looking out the window to the late afternoon sky and internally wrestling with himself over an impulse that would make his mother lock him in his room for even contemplating such an irrational thought.
Yet he was putting down his cup now and taking one final look at his sister's face which at last had a smile on it as she chattered happily with her friends. He was bidding Mrs. Williams thank you for her hospitality, but he had someplace to go, one last errand to do before he went home. He was requesting she not tell Emma until after he had already gone. Then he was opening the door and setting out, and thinking there was a distinct possibility of him being as willy-nilly, stark-raving mad as Anthony Hawkins claimed he was. Why else would he be returning to the place that had almost stolen the last bit of breath from his lungs and claimed his life?
oOo
The sun was already dipping on the horizon when Jack left. The blue shades of twilight were extending their fingers and erasing all traces of gold in the sky announcing night's arrival. The temperature had dropped but at least it had stopped snowing. He hastened through the bunch of houses that made up the middle of Burgess ignoring greetings that were shouted his way. The lake wasn't too far from the village. There was a small patch of woods that lay before it, but if he hurried, he thought he could make there and back home before nightfall without anyone being the wiser of where he had gone.
The wind had picked up and blew in his face freezing gusts of wind that numbed his cheeks. He had to take ankle-deep steps in the cold, white ground that had risen a couple of more inches due to the snowfall earlier. His legs were soon chilled but he pressed on.
He tried not to dwell too much on what he was doing because he knew it was madness. It was only the sight of the lake coming into view that made his breath catch in his throat and his heartbeat quicken.
The hole where he had fallen through had frozen back over. The surface appeared smooth and as seamless as a mirror reflecting the orange-gold rays of the setting sun. It shimmered so brightly, the entire lake looked as if it had caught fire: a beautiful and deadly portrait.
The sharp sound of the ice cracking split the air and Jack almost fell over backwards. What was he doing? What was he thinking? The ice was still too thin—it was warning him even now to turn back. He nearly did. Then his eyes landed on the slim piece of wood lying in the center of the lake.
oOo
"Merry Christmas, Jack," Joseph Overland said as he presented the finished staff out to his son's outstretched hands.
"Mother, mother, look! I have a staff now!" Jack shouted waving it about wildly. "I'll be a good a shepherd as father!"
"Now, Jack," his father said taking him by the shoulders. "It's not just any ordinary walking staff. It's a weapon. You use it to defend what's important to you, and if needs be yourself also. Keep it close to you always, son."
"I promise, Father."
oOo
His heartbeat had lessened its frantic thumping and the growing lump at the back of his throat slowly dissolved. He was scared, but he tried to figure out a sensible approach to his predicament. Perhaps… perhaps, he wouldn't have to walk all the way out to the middle to get his staff. Perhaps if he found a branch long enough, he could extend his reach and drag it towards him onto thicker ice. Yes, that would work!
Picking up a fallen limb off the ground, slender enough to lift with ease and suitable in size in length, he moved forward slowly until he reached the edge of the bank. The sun had disappeared between the hills, taking its radiance with it. The frozen lake was on fire no longer. The moon hung low in the sky shedding down its pale light disapprovingly.
Jack took a deep breath to calm himself and took one step forward…
Something snagged him by the ankle and yanked him backwards sharply before the bottom of heel could make contact with the ice.
Thick, black tendrils, the same as those from his fevered dreams leaped of the shadows of the trees around him, coiled around his wrists and ankles and bound him place tightly like a fly caught fast in a spider's web.
"Stupid, fool of a child!" a voice rang out in the darkness, piercing and venomous.
The shadows parted and the man from his nightmares emerged from them like a black mist, an expression of great fury darkening his face.
"Is this what you mortals do the minute you are recovered from some terrible ailment?" the man demanded issuing one hand out to the lake. "Return and do exactly what near killed you before? No wonder you do not last long on this earth!"
Jack could only stare wide-eyed and speechless at him. Because he wasn't real, wasn't real.
"Nothing to say, Jack?" the man asked, his golden eyes boring into Jack's own, accusing and condemning. "The last two times we talked, you were forever screaming at me." A cold, cruel smile broke out across his lips. "I think I liked that better…"
"Who—who are you?" Jack choked out.
The man began to circle him, disappearing out of his peripheral vision. Jack saw nothing but the vast expanse of shadows before him, then cool, slim fingers curved about his neck and a chill tingled down his spine as someone whispered silkily in his ear, "You already know."
The villain in the adventure stories his mother told, the evil creature in the fairy tales, and the monster in the fables that served as a warning to all the children: don't be naughty or he'll come get you.
"The Boogey Man," Jack said hoarsely.
The fingers retreated from his neck. The man slid back out of the shadows to stand in front of him. "Yes, I do believe that's one of the names I've collected over a millennia," he spoke rather bored. "I meant the other name I have graciously bequeathed to you."
"Pitch Black."
Pitch assessed him with a calculating gaze, his golden eyes gliding over every part of him. "Only a very few know it. That makes you quite special indeed."
"What do you want with me?" Jack asked, testing the bonds of the shadows that imprisoned him but they held firm.
"Ah, ah, ah," Pitch tsk-ed, waving a finger and tapping the tip of Jack's nose lightly. "That would be telling. Suffice it to say, your existence suits my purpose."
"Are you the one that's been frightening Caleb?" Jack pressed.
"I frighten many children," Pitch shrugged carelessly. "I do not usually make it a hobby to learn their names. They're simply fodder for my fearlings to feast upon."
Around him, the dark tongues of tendrils were flickering out of the shadows as if agreeing.
"So that's it then?" Jack said, glimpsing an answer amongst the chaos. "You scare children and live off their fear? That's what keeps you… alive," he finished for lack of a better word. Though he hardly thought anyone that could appear and disappear out of thin air like smoke was fully alive.
Pitch wide, toothy grin nearly split his face in two. "Perhaps," he said loftily. "Perhaps I do it for fun. Their screams are so delicious."
"I'm not afraid of you," Jack proclaimed boldly, hoping he sounded more confident than he was feeling. True, the fact that mere shadows could shackle him so easily, that this dark man not of this world could control them and invade his mind at any given moment and unleash countless horrors unnerved him greatly, but he realized he felt a lot more calmer with the knowledge that all this could happen. He would not be caught unawares and vulnerable next time. He would be prepared for any assault.
Pitch threw his head back and laughed. The sound washed over Jack in shivering waves of malevolent glee. "Oh, Jack," Pitch cackled maniacally. "I can tell when a person is lying. Even if you weren't, there are always ways to draw out fear."
The humor was wiped off the man's face as swiftly as it had come as he glanced towards the lake.
"No!" Jack shouted frantically, the man's intentions dawning on him a second too late.
The shadows sped across the frozen surface and enveloped his staff into the folds of their darkness where it vanished and reappeared in Pitch's hand in a cloud of black mist.
"Is this what you were endangering your life for tonight?" Pitch demanded brandishing the staff in Jack's face, his golden eyes gleaming in malice. "A piece of wood? Such senseless, reckless idiocy!" His mouth set in a firm line as he trailed light fingertips over the staff as if weighing his options. "I can't have you wandering off into dire peril every time you mislay this. Humans are so pathetically fragile after all: a bump on the head, a wrong fall, choking on a bit of nourishment even, and they die—just like that," he sneered, snapping his fingers.
"Please…" Jack breathed, his voice hitching slightly in his chest. "Please don't break it."
He expected the man to snap it in half at any moment's notice. He could only watch helplessly as the shadows around him rippled in anticipation at their master's decision.
Jack let out a small yelp of surprise as the dark tendrils coiled about him abruptly released their grip and dropped him to his feet in the snow. The staff was shoved roughly against his chest and he staggered backwards, gripping it out of reflex.
An arm snagged around his waist and long fingers curled into his hair and yanked his head back harshly. "Consider this a gift, Jack," Pitch's voice wormed its way into his ear in a flat, cold undertone. "I'll let you keep your precious staff as long as you realize I hold the power to destroy it if I ever see you placing its value above your own life again, understand?"
A pained grunt of agreement was all that Jack could manage. The harsh fingers in his hair loosened their grip slightly and petted the top of his head gently as a human would do a skittish cat. "Oh, my dear boy," Pitch chuckled amused. "You have no idea the sheer amount of pleasure your existence has bestowed upon me." The hand around his waist moved up to brush his cheek affectionately. "With you, I shall accomplish great things."
Jack bit down on his tongue to refrain himself from asking why he was so important to the man. He knew it would only bring more riddles from him, this dark figure who enjoyed playing with people's minds and preying on the slightest bit of uncertainty and doubt, because from those emotions spawned fear.
A hand pressed into the space of his back and shoved him away. Jack stumbled a couple of steps forward before looking behind his shoulder fully expecting the man to have vanished in the beat of a heart as he was prone to do. But Pitch Black was still there watching him with a blank expression, standing in the midst of the shadows that were furling and unfurling like a giant black sail in the wind.
"Hurry home, Jack," Pitch spoke softly, his voice oddly somber. "And don't take any life-endangering detours along the way or your sister will pay the price of your irresponsibility."
Only then did Jack run: through the bushes, between the trees, and over rocks until he found himself on the worn, beaten path trodden heavy by footprints in the snow that led to Burgess.
He knew this would not be the last he saw of Pitch Black. That his nightmare was only just now beginning.
To Be Continued…
A/N: Sorry it took so long for this chapter to come out! I was doing research on early colonial life: the food, the schooling, the trades of work, the common names of people. I just want to be historically accurate as possible. From what I can figure out, the village of Burgess is probably made up of Puritans and the year is roughly 1712. Either way, the children in those times would have been taught out of the New England Primer. Thomas Grymes was reciting a couple of lines students had to memorize that were a conversation between Christ, Youth and the Devil. It's very morbid if you read the whole thing. In fact the title of this chapter is the last line spoken by Death when he finally comes to take the Youth. Here's the whole stanza:
Youth, I am come to fetch thy breath,
And carry thee to th' shades of death,
No pity on thee can I show,
Thou has thy God offended so.
Thy soul and body I'll divide,
Thy body in the grave I'll hide,
And thy dear soul in hell must lie,
With Devils to eternity.
The New England Primer is really fascinating to read. It has the alphabet composed of two-lined rhymes that drives a point home. Basically, it teaches children their consonants and vowels and grammar as well as biblical catechisms, hymns and poetry. Look it up online. I couldn't find an earlier version than 1777, but Wikipedia said there wasn't much change between editions.
Also, it seems that the boys who made fun of Jack's ability to sew are in for a shock in the future. It seems it was required for boys to know how to sew in colonial times. Blacksmiths used a needle to make bellows, shoemakers and saddle makers used a needle to make shoes and saddles; enlisted men in the military had to maintain their uniforms. Ohoho, Jack's ahead of the game, chaps!
If anyone's interested, yes, those two blonde children are the ones we see in Jack's memory with his sister. I know the boy has brown hair when he was smaller, but children's hair do change colors as they age. In Pitch's flashback to the past, we see the backs of a couple holding hands which I am certain is a grown up Emma and her blond-haired husband. They even have kids who run straight through Pitch! Ah, these headcanons hurt my head.
One more thing before I go, I chose Emma as Jack's sister's name because that is what the fandom has decided to call her (at least on tumblr). Pippa is Jamie's friend, the girl in green. If you read the movie novelization, it has her named as such. Also, Dreamworks has answered an email and said Jack's sister had no official name in the script, her voice actor just took on two roles. As for Jack's mother, I chose the name, Lydia, because Puritans often had biblical names and Lydia in the New Testament was a women who made a business off of selling purple-dye and known for offering hospitality to Paul and his followers. It is thought she was either never married or a widow since she did not ask her husband's consent to invite them first. Either way, I named Jack's mother after her because she would have to be strong after her husband died and learn another work-trade to make a living without him.
No you all know why it took so long for this chapter to come out now! Background gathering on information is a killer! XD
I hope you have enjoyed reading this! Please review and share your thoughts. I love hearing what you liked best and it's the only reward a fanfic author gets. Thank you!^^