Matchsticks

(Disclaimed.)

Chapter Three:

"Do we know why Manny chose her?"

"Well..."

Jack paused, mid bite. North looked him right in the eye and lied.

"No."

They were eating soft ginger cookies around his work bench in his private workshop, Millie's feet swung casually, and on occasion, Jack heard her foot clunk against the lower shelf. They could hear the hub-bub below them drifting up through the slats in the floor and the cracks in the interior windows and under the door. Millie rested her chin on the head of her recently-fixed bear, and Jack's not-as-perfect-as-the first plane rested, tilted on one wing, next to the ice models of North's new toys.

The fact that Manny had given no one any reason did not really mean he did not have a plan for her—Jack had been given no reason, after all. He looked at Millie, who seemed just fine with the way things were, and he asked, "Do you think she'll ever be a guardian?"

"No." North looked at her and his eyes squinted with a fond grin. She grinned back, "But lots of spirits are not guardians."

"What is she a spirit of, then?"

North shrugged, "Not quite sure, yet."

Jack, knowing that had had gotten the polite questions out of the way, dove into the heart of the matter, "How did she die?"

"I don't know."

North was a terrible liar, and he was lying through his teeth right now. Jack was stunned. North was lying. It was unfathomable, but it was written all over his jolly face. He did know how Millie had died. No amount of crows feet or wide-eyed wonder could change that. Jack wanted to press the subject, but he could think of a very good reason why North would not talk about her death. She was in the room. She probably understood a handful of English—enough to grasp what they were talking about. She was so young, she might not even realize she was dead! Jack was having a hard time coming to terms with his own death, and he was an almost an adult.

Maybe she was not dead? 'A spirit' and 'dead' were terms that only occasionally overlapped—but, of course, if she had not died, North would have said so.

So he did not press it. He did not ask how long ago it had been, or where, exactly, she had been turned. The question hung there, though, and it made North uncomfortable. That struck Jack as odd, it took a lot to make North uneasy, and that just made him more curious. North, on edge?

Because he asked about Millie's death? Just that? Jack took the last bite of his ginger cookie and reached for a second one. While he chewed over the scene before him and the flavors of sugar, vanilla and ginger in his mouth, he tried to think of a way to take the subject away from Millie. She was the only person in the room still at ease. North was obviously flustered, and that made Jack uneasy himself.

He considered bringing up his first question, have it out in the open before North got curious and asked him what he was doing here in the first place—he considered asking about Slenderman, but part of him did not want the subject changed. The same part of him was afraid the answer would be 'Oh, yes. He's very real. He's very, very evil. I would say kill on sight but—ha ha. Is unkillable.'

So really, it was all of him. All of him wanted to avoid that subject.

Besides, he had struck something, maybe something big, or perhaps very small, but something that North wanted to hide. Finding out was just one big game, right? And that was more fun than some story that was spawned on the internet. Jack hardly knew what the internet was, anyway.

He looked at Millie again; she was adjusting a curl. She saw him watching and she grinned. The curiosity was overwhelming him now. He could not stand not knowing. The gears in his mind turned slowly, and it did not take long for him to figure out what he needed to do. He did love games.

"Do you think I should go see Tooth?"

North may have just nearly choked on the last crumb of cookie. Jack was not sure—he recovered very quickly, and had been around for quite a long time, long enough to hide shock. Millie jumped at bit in her seat, and Jack felt a thrill of discovery. He was hitting on a nerve. Maybe North had already figured out what he was planning to do. Maybe he would warn Tooth. But Jack had hit a nerve, and that was all that mattered.

"W-why?"

"Learn some Danish." He shrugged, years of playing tricks had made him a fantastic actor, though he had to fight hard to keep the smug look off his face. "She's an amazing linguist."

That was not why. He wanted to see Millie's memories.

North wanted to disagree. Oh, he wanted to dissuade him. He wanted too—but kicking the ant hill would just reveal... something. The tiny garnets of truth buried below. Jack was never good at metaphors.

North looked choked. "G-good plan."

He thanked North for the snack, promised he would drop by soon, and took his staff from where it leaned by the door. He risked patting Millie on the head. It was uncomfortably warm. Maybe he was just cold.

The winds took him to the fairer South quickly, so fast that he felt whiplash and the bite of too quick a temperature change. He felt out of place in Toothiana's gold and coral palace and it's perpetual summer weather. It was warm and humid. He felt clammy and washed out. Then the little fairies surrounded him and he felt crowded. The disturbance in order caught Tooth's attention and she turned abruptly, "Jack? Is that you?"

She gracefully fluttered down to him, smiling daintily and landing smoothly before him, "How are you?"

"Good enough." He said, and then he lied. "North said you were the Guardian to come too."

"For what?" she tilted her head and fluttered her feathery lashes.

"Danish lessons." Jack answered.

Not that was not exactly how it happened, but she would probably suspect less if he said it was.

"Oh?" she smiled at first, and then a slow realization came over her, "Ooooooh...!"

"What?"

"W-well I can't really... That is to say, Jack, I don't have time to teach you. I have books on the subject, but those are not the best teachers." She looked like she did not want to ask for fear the answer was no, "This is for... Millie?"

"Yeah."

She relaxed at bit, but strangely enough managed to become more tense, like knowing was a relief, but the knowledge itself was bad. She smiled again and motioned for him to follow her. Deep in the palace, she had a comprehensive library, books from every nation, beautiful illuminated manuscripts. She set him down at a desk and hovered about, tossing books over her shoulder. Not a single on hit anything but the desk before him. Basics of Danish. Danish 101. Danish for Dummies. Then, she presented him with something that made him feel real special. A set of cassette tapes and CD's, relics of Demark's current and past stars, and a combination cd and tape player.

"You sure you want to put these near me? I don't think ice is great for electronics." He prodded a speaker with a long, cold finger.

She laughed genuinely, "I always used to use the memories of children to—" She covered her mouth, "Oh! Oh that's not a good idea!"

"Why not?"

She laughed awkwardly, "Well, you might find Millie's—I mean, no!" She caught herself too late and cringed.

He was practically in a minefield.

"You have her teeth!?" Jack exclaimed, feigning surprise. "Of course you would! You've got everyone's teeth!"

Her face was frozen in a smile.

"Will you give them to me?" he tried to be direct, "So I can see?"

"Jack..." she said though her teeth, her brow pinched. She resigned herself and her frozen smile melted into a reluctant frown. "I'm not going to give you her teeth."

"Why not?"

"Because..." her eyes shifted, "I'm just... not."

Jack tried again, "Why not?"

"Cases like Millie are just cases... We don't talk about."

"Cases?" He tilted his head. That was a strange word for her to use—cases.

She looked beyond him, then upwards, and with a heavy sigh she flew away from him, not with any real purpose. If she were walking, he would say she was dragging her feet. She drifted around like she had a weight on her shoulders she was struggling to balance. She went so slowly and so reluctantly that Jack gave up flying after her, and just walked on foot.

They left her archive of books and went on to her archive of teeth, the tower for Europe, specifically. They stopped at the first floor, not very far into archive at all. She turned to face him, she said the next words with lead on her tongue—it was a carefully planned speech.

"As guardians, we protect children, but sometimes, there are things not even we can stop." She reached to the left and a box popped from the wall, "Charlie underwent three rounds of chemotherapy." She opened the box. Some of the teeth were fine, perfect even, some of the others were marked with decay. The set was incomplete. "He died before he lost his last baby tooth."

She brushed her fingers over a few nearby faces, "Alvin just recovered from Leukemia, but it's left his growth stunted. Samantha suffered severe brain damage because of an aneurysm; she could have been such a smart girl—now she cannot keep the memories we've stored here."

She put Charlie's box back in the wall, flew up and hovered around for a bit before looking down at him. He gave her a pair of subtle puppy-dog eyes. She bit her lip and flew off in another direction, much faster this time. Jack waited for her—she had zipped off too fast to follow. He waited a long time for her to return, a very long time, and eventually, curiosity got the better of him. He raised himself from the ground and followed her. The towers were mazes, each one, with a different layout for every floor—no two were alike in the slightest.

He found her several floors up in a corner that maybe no one liked to talk about. It was dark and dusty. She had a box in her hand and was staring at it, carefully considering her choices. She had gone back several generations, and was hovering there, staring at the face and stroking the lid comfortingly.

She looked at him, and then dropped back down; the lead was gone from her voice, but she was no more relaxed or happy. "Some accidental tooth losses are caused by freak sledding accidents;" she managed a smile, it dropped at once, "tumbles down the stairs, landing wrong when jumping off a swing. Sometimes, Jack, they aren't." she opened this box. The teeth inside looked fair enough, "This poor girl lost three teeth because her grandfather hit her. See how this one's split right down the middle? The Fairy I sent had to remove the other half in her sleep." She held the tooth in the palm of her hand and her eyes misted over, growing a little red at her lower lids. She put the tooth back, "You should have seen how skinny she was. She sold matches in the street to earn money, just before Christmas..." Tooth stroked the box sadly, lost in thought, and then she blinked, looked at him again, and said tersely, "We don't like to talk about stories like this."

She closed it abruptly and flew up, returning it to the wall. Rubbing her eyes daintily, she fluttered down to where Jack was standing, "Go, Jack. I have work to do."

Jack looked up at the wall. Could he find this little corner again? Tooth followed his glance, shifted slightly, blocking his view, as if it could keep him from returning. "How did my sister die?"

"I don't know." Tooth confessed, "She lived well past childhood, but you can see her childhood, if you like."

"But not Millie's?"

"That's right." She smiled, forcibly turned him around, and flew, pushing him through the air, back to the library. "Read the books, listen to the tapes. I will come and check on you when I have a moment and teach you a little bit. But you have to promise me you will not look at Millie's memories. They are private, Jack."

"Oh, yeah." He nodded vigorously, "Sure, promise."

She looked him over with a little pout, and sent a small legion of about ten fairies to supervise him. With a warning glance, her fingers switching from her eyes to his, she flew away.

The first thing he did was look for Millie's teeth.

He search and searched until he found the dark, dusty corner, the exact same spot Tooth had been forlornly hovering. There, plain as day, was Millie's round face on the box. "Found you!"

He reached for it.

Babytooth pecked his hand.

"Ouch!"

It was not lethal, it did not even beak the skin, but it still hurt. Mostly the betrayal. He had thought Babytooth would be a little more in his corner. He cupped his hand and shooed her away, then reached for the box again.

The remaining nine dive-bombed his face and neck, and Babytooth attacked his palm, his wrist, and the back of his hand until he flew away. They pursued him out of Europe's tower, all the way out of the palace, mercilessly pricking him with their little beaks, and mirroring his movements so he could not come back in.

It would not be his last broken promise to Tooth.

He tried Bunnymund next.

He found the bunny in his Warren, wearing a green apron and mixing a large bowl of chocolate that he was very carefully marbling a bright orange flavor into. There was a cooling tray of already prepared strawberry chocolate. The entire kitchen of the Warren was a veritable chocolate shrine, with a large vat of warm, melted chocolate, keeping molten and fresh in a double-boiler big enough to cook him—he knew this because he had hidden inside it once—and two large shelves, one hosted a row of flavoring agents, the one directly below it, colors all meticulously lined up. The cabinets were stuffed with add-ins. Nuts, candies that cracked in your mouth when you sucked on them, thick, sturdy jellies cut into squares, waiting to be dipped in chocolate were nestled in an ice bath, and hand-made marshmallows were just behind them.

Jack took a deep breath and bellowed, "Bunny!"

He had hoped to rattle him and make him mess up. He did not. Bunnymund was in the chocolate zone, and he could not be easily removed. "Hmm?"

Shock tactics were not going to work. Jack crossed his legs in mid-air. He did not dare sit on the hallowed chocolate counter-top. "You know Millie?"

He smiled big, "Course I know Millie! Little ankle-biter comes round here for orange jellies all the time. Can't get enough of the stuff."

"Good." Jack replied, "Because I've got a few questions."

Bunny was possessed by such a complacent and peaceful mood when he was making chocolate. It was downright strange. "What kind of questions?" he said ladling the orange-chocolate mix into a large mold of several tiny little eggs in precise scoops.

"You'll tell it like it is." Jack pestered, "You'll tell me what happened to Millie. How she died?"

"Ah, well..." his fond smile seemed to imply he did not notice what he was saying, maybe Jack would finally get some answers, "That little tyke joined us some time ago... It's going pretty far back..."

"There are not many spirits." Jack said. He drifted closer, laying in the air like a chaise, holding his crook close to him, laced between his crossed ankles, "You probably know how it happened."

"Oh, yeah, I do." He continued to ladle his chocolate.

"Bunny."

"I do, mate."

"So, you'll tell me?"

With a smile, Bunnymund looked at Jack. He took a breath, ready do tell the serious and sad tale. He opened his eyes—his face stretched in shock, he jumped, splashing chocolate all over the counter. "Oh, crikey!"

"Bunny!"

"Look here, I don't want to tell you."

"Why not?"

"I just... don't."

"But you were just about to!"

"Was not! It's not something for me to say! It's not something to share!" Bunnymund replied.

"That's what Tooth said!"

"And she was right!" Bunny affirmed, "We try not to focus on the bad, mate. Children need to believe in us, and we need to believe in ourselves." he thumped a fist against his chest, "We can't dwell on what we can't protect them from."

"Who says I'll dwell?"

"I says you'll dwell."

"Well, I won't."

Bunnymund tried a different approach, "Now look here, have we ever asked you who you were before you were turned, or how you died?"

"My name was Jackson Overland and I died saving my little sister from falling through thin ice." Jack replied. He smiled and crossed his arms triumphantly.

"See that?" Bunny started to lecture, "See how Ididn't ask? Asking is rude, and you shouldn't do it. You shouldn't snoop around like that because you'll find something you really—really don't want to find."

"You say that with such certainty."

"Out!" Bunny ordered, waving the chocolate covered spoon in his face. A drop of chocolate splashed onto his cheek and turned solid there. Jack picked it off and popped it into his mouth.

"Tasty." He remarked. He jumped over Bunnymund and grabbed a tray of chocolate covered jellies. The ceiling was just high enough for Jack to flatten himself against and miss Bunny's fingers. It was difficult to balance the tray and avoid him, but aside from a snag by claws on his hoodie, he managed to remain unscathed.

"Give it back!"

"Tell me how Millie died!"

"Keep it!"

Jack, more miffed now than exited, kept the chocolate out of spite. He did not actually like chocolate, it left a dry, sticky feeling in his mouth that nothing could really wash away, but if Bunny was not going to tell him, Jack certainly was not going to return them. Screw that. He made off with the whole tray, a little angry, and a little bit ashamed of his actions, but mostly, still curious. He had spent a good chuck of time trying to find out about Millie's past—and it was all wasted. The only thing he had found was more reason to be curious, and he did not need or want that.

The last person on his list was Sandy.

He found him conducting dreams in Africa. When he saw Jack he smiled brightly and waved, letting the sands spread on their own while Jack floated over and set his cold toes down on the gritty and warm cloud.

There was no need for formalities with Sandy—that was one of the things Jack liked about him. He could get right down to the nitty-gritty and state his piece.

"Can you tell me how Millie died?"

Sandy smiled sadly, took Jack's hand, and patted it comfortingly. Jack could tell by the understanding and sympathetic look in his eyes that, yes, he would tell Jack exactly what happened, and that no matter what Jack through, he would be there for him. Above his earnest eyes and spiked hair, A symphony of symbols conducted themselves in front of Jack's face—none of which he understood. But still, Sanderson held his hand and patted it like he was revealing some terrible and heavy truth to him, something secret, some rite that was just between the two of them, something that Tooth, Bunny and North would never understand, something that could never be shared with them.

"Uh... Th-thanks, Sandy."

But it did not help. Jack still knew next to nothing about Millie, and now he just wondered why everyone was treating the matter so strangely? He had thought at first that it was simply because they did not want to share it—and certainly, that was fair enough, the fact that there were kids in the world that the Guardians could not protect was upsetting, but now that Sandy was not letting go of his hand, Jack began to wonder if it did not go deeper than that.

Bunny had been about to tell him, but then he had stopped himself when he had realized who he was talking too. If it had been someone else—the Leprechaun, Cupid, even the Groundhog—would he have done the same? If someone other than Jack had asked for Millie's memories, would Tooth have given them up? What if it was not about Millie?

Could it be? What if it was?

Was it him?

Jack forced a smiled and slipped his hand out of Sandy's. Sandy tilted his head and looked confused, like he expected Jack to have a bigger reaction to the tale. Then, there came terror and he reached for him, and as Jack flew away, resignation. His story had not gotten through.

Why? Why did the others not tell him, when Sandy did?

Sure, Jack had not understood, but Sandy had at least tried.

Was it because he was new? Was it really so terrible they did not think the Guardian of Fun could take it?

Did Sandy just appreciate what he had done against Pitch more? That could not be it. Jack refused to believe that Sandy trusted and liked him more than the others. Not because it was not possible—it was very possible—but because he just could not bear the feelings of rejection that came with that suspicion.

Deeply saddened by even the thought, Jack drifted on the wind, and watched the clouds roll by below him. He thought about what Bunnymund had said, about not looking because he would find something he did not want to find. What was it?

What should Jack be so afraid of finding?