Shadowlands
Part 3: Deathly Discussions
by K. Stonham
first released 22nd December, 2012
He swam for the surface, staff clenched in one hand, earring in the other. It seemed an incredible distance away. It seemed to take forever. It seemed -
Jack's head broke the surface, and he gasped for air.
Clear blue skies greeted him, the midday sun shining down on the pond.
Kicking into the air, Jack froze the water still on him, shook it off with a familiar crackling. It fell into the pond and melted quickly.
Looking around, he was amazed at all the deep, lush greenery. It was like the Warren -
No.
It was summer here.
And Jack hadn't been welcome in summer in a very long time.
His breath frosted in the air as he fought not to panic and bolt north. This was the shadowlands, it wasn't Earth, there wouldn't be any summer spirits here to take umbrage.
He had Death's token. He was allowed here.
Forcing down the panic, Jack looked down at the green depths below him, examining his reflection on the pond's surface. Still white-haired and blue-eyed. He breathed a sigh of relief, and stuffed Mort's earring into his pocket.
He let the whispering summer breezes (lazy little things, nothing like winter's gusts) push him above the trees. He cast about to get his bearings, and -
His mouth dropped open.
Except for it being in summer rather than winter, he remembered this view.
It was Burgess, as he'd known it in life.
Swallowing, Jack let the breezes take him home.
Burgess was... well, not quite how Jack remembered it. There were more houses. And he flew over some fields that he definitely didn't remember. He hid high up in the trees for a bit, watching. The people he saw looked familiar, some of them. Others he didn't recognize, except... that man looked sort of like his friend Adam. And that woman could have been Mary's older sister, except Mary had never had a sister.
Shaking off the not-quite-deja-vu, Jack finally landed silently on the ground and crept into the village. He stuck to the shadows; no one saw him. But that was his house there, that one, and he could see heat shimmers and a wisp of smoke coming from the chimney. The door was wide open, letting in the summer light and air.
Taking a deep breath, steeling himself, Jack stepped into the doorway.
He couldn't breathe.
That was his mother there, bending over the pot just slightly off the fire. He could smell her bread baking, filling the house with warmth and that indefinable sense he now realized meant home to him.
"You're in early from the fields, Thomas -" she said, straightening and turning. She stopped cold when she saw Jack in the doorway.
Her mouth hung open. She looked, Jack thought, like she'd seen a ghost.
He swallowed against the tightness in his throat. "Hello, Mother," he said, and was surprised his voice didn't crack with the strain.
"...Jack?" she whispered.
He didn't know what to say, so he just nodded.
There wasn't ten feet between them, but somehow she ran it. Her arms closed tight around him. "Jack!"
Slowly, awkwardly, Jack returned the embrace. Then his eyes closed and his hands clenched in the fabric of her dress. He never, ever thought he'd be hugged by his mother again.
"I'm home," he said hoarsely.
She pulled back and looked at him, her brown eyes watering. And her voice was as hoarse as his own when Anne Frost asked, "Jack, what are you doing here?"
He sat down at the table that he hadn't sat at in over three hundred years. And, God, it was exactly the same. There was the scar he'd left on it when he was twelve, playing with his new penny knife. He remembered getting whipped for that. His staff was caught between his feet, leaned against his shoulder. He didn't dare let go of it now. This was too strange, too familiar. Maybe coming here wasn't a good idea -
His mother sat down opposite him, reached across the table, and took his hands in her own. He could only look at the contrast. His skin was so deathly pale against her summer-warmed color. And yet, if Bunnymund was to be believed, Jack was the one who was still alive.
"I'm sorry," he said, and it felt like he was apologizing for everything and nothing. "If I'd been more careful that day. If I'd checked the ice... if I'd thought to lie down and spread out our weight..."
His mother squeezed his hands. "You did the best you could. And I am so very proud of what you did that day, and what you're doing now."
He stared. "You know about that?"
Anne nodded. "We can see through the veil, sometimes. When it's All Saint's Day in the living world, those of us who still have loved ones there can look in mirrors or glass, and see them." Her hands tightened on his again. "Though I would never have wished three hundred years of winter for you."
That confused Jack for a minute, because what was there not to love about winter? He'd been part of winter for so long that his memories of the other seasons were hazy at best. His strongest impressions of spring and summer came from visiting the Warren and the Tooth Palace, and autumn was just that messy passing thing that gave him colored leaves to decorate in beautiful clean frost.
He honestly forgot, most of the time, that other people didn't love his season as well as he did. To his family, though, winter was a time of cold and carefully measuring out stored food, hoping it would last until the first spring crops. It was a time of worrying about hunger and sickness.
Of all the seasons for him to be caught in, Jack realized, his family would view winter as the worst.
Even if nothing else, it had the sin of being the season they lost him.
"Father is out in the fields?" he asked, changing the subject away from things they could not agree on.
His mother nodded. "He'll be coming in soon for dinner. You will stay, won't you?" Her expression was pleading.
Jack smiled. "Of course I will."
Laying his staff atop his old bed, Jack helped his mother prepare the meal, setting the table for three. "Where is Pippa?" he asked.
"At her work," his mother replied. "We'll go visit her after dinner, if you'd like."
Jack blinked. "She's not coming here for dinner?"
"No, she dines with her husband -" His mother caught sigh of Jack's expression and stopped. "Jack, she grew up and married."
"Oh." He took a moment, the knowledge whirling up, settling into new shapes. "I - I'm glad. I just, I only remember her as a ten-year-old."
"Oh, Jack." Anne set the plates down on the table and moved to hug him again. "I'm sorry. This must be so strange to you."
He took a breath, centering himself. "How does this place even work? Mort, I mean Death, said that everyone ends up where they subconsciously think they belong."
"Well, from my point of view, this is the time in my life when I was happiest." His mother smiled at him, and Jack really looked at her for the first time.
His mother looked so young. Part of it, he realized, was not being careworn from worry over harvests and injuries. But part of it was that she looked as she had a year or two before he died. "Pippa wasn't happy as a child," he realized, speaking the thought aloud. "Because I died, and... tell me she didn't blame herself for that."
Anne's mouth thinned and she shook her head. "She was ten, Jack. Of course she did."
"I need to talk with her," Jack decided.
"After dinner," his mother insisted.
He nodded. "Of course," and slipped the third plate from the stack when she turned to pick it up.
"What are you doing with that?" his mother asked, a laugh in her voice.
Jack put the place back atop the cupboard. "Don't waste the food on me," he said.
"But, Jack -"
He took a breath. "I'm not here to stay, Mother. I'm just here to visit for a bit. And that means I can't eat or drink anything, if I want to go back."
His mother slowly set the plates back on the table and reached for his arm. He let her, knowing what she was looking for.
"You still have a pulse," she said quietly, fingers against the underside of his wrist. Her eyes were wet with unshed tears when she looked back up at him. "I'd thought... I thought you'd finally come home to stay with us, Jack."
He shook his head. "I'm sorry. I can't, not yet. I have so many responsibilities in the other world. I can't just lay them down. And there are people there..." Who would miss me, the words dried up in his throat, because five years on, he still wasn't used to that.
Anne brushed at her eyes. "I know. It's so silly of me. What mother wishes their child dead? But when we came here, it was such a shock not to find you. And then when the mirrors let us see you, that first time, we almost didn't recognize you, didn't understand..."
"Heh." Jack fingered at his white hair. "I guess this must look pretty strange, from your point of view. For me, though... this was all I knew, for three hundred years. I didn't even remember I had a human life until pretty recently."
His mother stood still. "That explains certain of your reprehensible behaviors I witnessed."
Jack winced. "I'm sorry?"
She sighed. "Well, it's over and done with. Now, help me dish up."
Thomas Frost arrived just as Anne was setting the second plate on the table. He looked taken aback to find a white-haired stranger in his home. Then, after a moment, his face cleared. "Jackson?" he whispered incredulously.
Jack managed a smile. "Hello, Father," he said, his voice almost as tremulous as it was when he'd greeted his mother.
He was caught up and almost crushed in a bear hug. His father had never seemed that physically imposing, but he'd worked with his hands all his life, felling trees, ploughing and planting fields, building this very house. Relaxing into the hug, returning it, Jack gained sudden insight into why North's imposing strength made him feel safe.
His fingers tightened on his father's shirt. "I've missed you," he whispered.