Chapter 5

(6 years later)

Katherine had finally turned twelve, and once again Pitch stood in the shadows watching his daughter play with the new presents the Guardians had gave her. Pitch wanted nothing more than to come out of the shadows and hug his daughter, but of course he couldn't. Not yet. He had made a promise to Elaine , and he had to keep it.

Pitch despised the Guardians more than ever. They kept Katherine as far from the truth as possible, and even farther from Pitch. They had taught Katherine almost everything they knew, but nothing of Pitch and Elaine. It angered Pitch. Katherine was almost at the age where she should be able to choose whom she wants to live with, but if she doesn't even know who her parents are than how could she ever choose. It was rather annoying, but it would soon come to bite the Guardians right where it hurt.

Pitch could no longer stand the sight of Katherine, it was to much to bear. So shook his head and disappeared back into the shadows. But before he left he stop'd in Katherine's room and left a package on her bed. Pitch always left a birthday gift for Katherine, even though she never knew who they were from it still comforted Pitch to make sure Katherine felt loved.

Katherine always felt loved, especially when she found the shadowy package on her bed. There was always a note on it that said, "I will always love you." Katherine wanted to find out who kept leaving the packages for her on her birthday, but no matter how hard she tried she could never seem to come any closer to finding out.

This year the package contained an enchanting black leather bound journal with a dragon carved into it, and a black calligraphy pen with Katherine's initials inscribed on it with silver. Katherine looked over the detailed dragon, it was her favorite animal besides a phoenix. But the initials in silver stumped her. The initials were K.P. But Katherine didn't know her last name. She only knew her first since she never knew who her parents were.

"Whoever gave this to me must know who I really am." Katherine thought. Know she really had to find out who kept giving her such glorious gifts. But it would have to wait until next year. She would plan to hide in her room and watch for whoever comes in there.

So Katherine pushed the plan to the back of her head and started to write in the journal. She would use the journal as a story book for her day dreams, it was what she had always wanted. It put a tiny smile on Pitch to see his daughter enjoying his gift as much as she did. If she wasn't studying or reading then she was writing in her journal. No one seemed to notice that Katherine had a new journal or pen, they just assumed she found another journal in North's office.

But today Sandy planned to take Katherine out for a night and let her practice her dreams. Katherine had already learned how to create and wield the dream sand, but she rarely got the chance to practice using it. So she quickly put on a long flowing golden dress with a black and silver corset and raced out of her room to meet Sandy. She always had to put on the right type of clothing for certain activity's, it made the magic flow easier to Katherine. Katherine found Sandy and Jack waiting for her in the living room by the fire.

"Jack? What are you doing here?" Katherine asked as she walked over to Jack.

"I'm just here to watch." Jack mused as he looked Katherine up and down. He was stunned by her beauty. She looked and acted rather mature for her age, like she could pass for sixteen.

"Oh okay." Katherine chimed, she kinda liked the idea of having Jack by her side. "You ready Sandy?"

Sandy nodded and with one swift movement he was flying in his little plane out of the workshop. Katherine and Jack exchanged a glance and quickly flew after Sandy. Jack had already taught Katherine how to manipulate and control the wind so that she would be able to fly. It made traveling a lot easier for everyone now that they didn't have to carry Katherine around everywhere.

Katherine and Jack laughed as they flew beside Sandy in his cute plane. Sandy led them to the village Katherine was most familiar with, Burgess. Sandy stopped in mid air right above the town square and created a little soft cloud of dream sand that allowed him to stand on. Katherine gently landed on the golden cloud by Sandy while Jack went and covered the village in snow and ice.

"Tonight you will be giving good dreams to a few individuals, and then you shall meet me back here when you feel ready." Sandy explained threw sign language. Katherine nodded and flew off to the nearest house that had a sleeping child in it.

Katherine already knew the child, it was Jamie Bennett. Jack had introduced Katherine to Jamie and his friends years ago while they were playing outside in the snow. He was a fantastic child who was the first to believe in Jack, and he was very fun to play with as Katherine recalled. So Katherine made an extra special dream for Jamie. She made a dream where there were endless snow days and Jack Frost was there to play with him and his friends every day.

Jamie seemed to enjoy the dream as he laughed in his sleep. Katherine felt accomplished and quickly moved on to the next child. Half of the people that Katherine visited she had never seen before. But now and then she would run into one of Jamie's friends like Cupcake or Pippa. Katherine thoroughly enjoyed watching the children smile and sometimes laugh in there sleep. It was no wonder Sandy loved dreams so much.

But right before Katherine was about to head back to Sandy she came upon something strange. Katherine saw a black sand above the child's head where the dream sand should be. The child was frantic and had silent tears streaming down her eyes. Katherine had only heard of this, it was what Sandy called a nightmare. Sandy never really explained what to do with a nightmare or where they came from, but Katherine had to do something. So she quickly formed a good dream and watched it fight the nightmare. It didn't take long for the dream to take over the nightmare, within a minute it was gone and had been transformed into a good dream.

However this caught Pitch's attention. Very rarely did anyone purify his nightmares, and the only person who could have done that was Sandy. Pitch smirked, finally he had an excuse to attack one of the Guardians he hated most. So Pitch quickly slipped into the shadows and sought out the Sandman. Pitch traveled to the room were his nightmare had just been destroyed, and what he found surprised him. It was not Sandy, but Katherine who had purified his nightmare.

"Katherine?" Pitch breathed. Katherine gasped and spun around to find Pitch standing over her.

"Who are you?" Katherine forced herself to ask. She felt intimidated by the tall figure towering above her, but yet she didn't feel as scared as she probably should be. But before Pitch even had the chance to respond, Jack came flying into the room.

"Katherine, get out of here." Jack ordered as he stood in front of her, blocking her from Pitch.

"Why? Who is he?" Katherine argued.

"Katherine, I said go!" Jack shouted back at Katherine. Katherine suppressed a growl and shot out of the window, looking back at the familiar figure. She recognized his face, but from where?

"She will find out one day you know." Pitch sneered at Jack.

"Not if I can help it." Jack snapped. "Now leave."

Pitch growled at Jack and sent him flying out of the window with a blast of nightmare sand. "When will you Guardians realize that she will find out who she really is one day!" Pitch fumed as he slipped out of another shadow and shot another blast of black sand at him.

"Oh shut up! Like we would allow Katherine to be with such a monster as you." Jack retorted as he dogged the blast of sand by an inch. He quickly shot into the sky and sent an icy blast at Pitch. Katherine watched from Sandy's cloud as ice and black sand went flying everywhere. Sandy forced Katherine to stay there as he went to join the fight.

"You fool. Do you really think you will be able to keep my daughter from me?" Pitch scoffed as he deflected another blow, sending more ice and black sand everywhere. Before Pitch could send another blast at Jack a golden whip wrapped around Pitch's right hand and threw him into the building beside him. Pitch groaned as he hit the building and fell to the street. He growled when he saw Sandy and Jack walking towards him with their fists balled.

Pitch jumped to his feet. It was time for him to leave before things got too out of hand. He quickly looked around and saw Katherine staring down at the scene from Sandy's cloud. He smiled at Katherine, and to his surprise she smiled back. With one quick sneer at Sandy and Jack he quickly slipped into the shadows and returned back to his cave. Jack and Sandy quickly returned to Katherine who was still waiting for them in the cloud like Sandy had told her to.

"Who was that?" Katherine asked as they returned.

"No one you need to concern yourself with." Jack replied putting his hand on Katherine's shoulder.

"But he knew my name." Katherine went on. Katherine knew Jack was hiding something, and she wanted to find out. Sandy and Jack shared a glance, and both nodded to each other.

"We will explain later, but for now lets finish your training." Jack answered and turned Katherine back over to Sandy.

For the rest of that night Sandy kept Katherine close to him and had Jack looking out for any signs of Pitch. Katherine continued to send streams of dream sand out across the sky and into the rooms of sleeping children along with Sandy. It was a lot easier and faster this way to just send streams and let them do there work. When Katherine grew a little bored she experimented and made the streams form into dragons or pheonixs and watched them frolic through the sky and play with the other streams.

Sandy and Jack found it funny to watch Katherine create random animal with the dream sand. Sandy even joined in on the fun and created a flying Pegasus that played and raced with a dragon or two. Even Jack created a tiny wolf made out of snow that raced along with the animals. All three of them laughed and joked around creating new animals to race with.

By the end of the day almost everyone had forgotten about the earlier events. But it was still fresh in Katherine's mind, and she couldn't wait until Jack would explain who the mysterious man was. She thought about it so much that the mysterious man was even in her dreams that night. She relived the entire encounter again and again that night and by the time she woke up it had felt like a year, and she couldn't contain her curiosity any longer.