Mother Nature's sanctuary was a forest in the heavens, surrounded by clouds and shielded from the harsh rays of the sun by a great dome of magic that filtered it to a harmless level. Jack followed her up through the dense layer of clouds that hid it from view and emerged in a sea of green. She led him silently, never looking back at him and moved quickly, almost too quickly for him to follow. Eventually, they made their way to a golden dais nestled in the center of a pool of still water illuminated by some unknown source of light. She sat and faced him, smiling and beckoning him closer. With a single, slender finger, she touched his forehead and suddenly, he was transported with her into space, overlooking the globe. He yelped in surprise and flailed, thinking he might fall, but stopped as he caught sight of the Earth, a blue marble glowing against the dark outline of space.
"The Earth is a large planet with a complicated weather system that depends largely on the level of exposure it gets from the sun," Mother Nature began, "Right now, part of the world is experiencing Winter while the other is experiencing Summer and still others are experiencing everything in between. You are the spirit entrusted with the powers of Winter."
"I never imagined it would be so BIG," Jacks eyes struggled to take in the immensity of it all. "I'm in charge of Winter? I don't know where to begin."
Mother nature chuckled, a sound like the leaves rustling in Autumn. "You must merely listen to what the planet tells you to do. As the spirit of Winter, you are to guide the natural tendencies of Winter to work in conjunction with the other seasons." She gestured to the globe in front of her and the image changed to mimic the early heating atmosphere of the Cretaceous and said, "In its earliest days, the Earth lacked spirits to control the weather and the temperature rose and fell according the amount of gases still present in the atmosphere as a result of Earth's formation." She gestured again and the atmosphere went through eons of change, cycling through volcanic eruptions and ice ages, all the while explaining, "Without proper control, the climate shifts caused many creatures to die and chaos reigned. It was not until the dawn of man several hundred thousand years ago that I installed the first spirits of nature to regulate things to a more stable temperature that you know today."
"Where were you while all this was happening?" Her face darkened, a shadow stretched over her lovely features. The shadow was quickly blinked away and she tilted her head owlishly to look at him.
"I was elsewhere, not of this world. That is all you need to know."
"So be it, but why me? Why did you pick me now? Are there other spirits like me?"
"As I said, you were loved by Winter. That is up to you to interpret. As for why now, the decision was not up to me, but to the Moon. He requested that he be the one to pick and he chose you, not I." Abruptly, she cut the illusion and they were back in her sanctuary. "Come, it is time to let you take on your role."
They descended through the clouds and Jack could see the vast expanse of the northern hemisphere in the daylight. Mother nature put a hand on his shoulder and said, "Now, close your eyes and listen to the winds and find the natural patterns of winter."
He obeyed and the winds, delighted to find him back in their realm, fed him streams of data that he understood to be weather patterns. Blizzards here and there, snow levels on mountains, hail storms, snow packs, new frosts, were things that had time limits and levels of intensity. While most of the data seemed to be normal, there were other things like blizzards going out of control and snowfall that was too lacking that stood out as anomalies. Other data, like glacial movement at the poles needed less of his attention because they moved slowly and required less maintenance. The winds fed these data streams to him in a torrent of information that was disorganized and unfocused. He snapped his eyes open and groaned. Mother Nature chuckled. "Given time, you will grow used to this and filter it on your own. For now, however, follow your instincts and do as you will. From time to time, I may offer advice or order certain storms to regulate things, but I expect you shall see very little of me."
"Wait! You haven't told me why no one can see me. Are there others like me?" He received no response. Mother Nature had gone, phased out into the atmosphere with a breeze and a gentle laugh. The winds drew his attention back to his new tasks and directed him at once to strange blizzards blowing across plains. Blizzards and storms, he discovered, could behave like children. They had natural instincts, but went overboard and did things they shouldn't, depositing too much snow and threatening to throw local weather systems out of balance.
"Hey, hey tone it down, you," he would tell them, "You're taking it overboard. Any colder and you'll destroy the plants here and kill off the food supply for the wildlife," and the storms would seem apologetic before receding to normal temperatures with his guidance. Other times, Jack would maintain ice pack levels in the mountains to ensure a proper water supply when spring came. All of these things, he knew through his instincts and the advice of the winds. His first winter in the Northern Hemisphere was tough because there was so much to do. Winters were colder across the Americas, Europe, and Asia. Winter inched slowly across the globe, some areas experiencing snow, and others experiencing nothing like Winter at all and were so hot, they were harmful to his body. Asia had been an experience because it was just so vast! His village had maybe a hundred people settled by a river surrounded by dense wilderness. China had thousands of people settled along entire lengths of huge rivers sweeping along yellow topsoil that flowed into channels connected to acres of cultivated rice fields. The winds blew him steadfastly across the world which he observed with new eyes as it zipped by underneath him and soon, he began to miss home and the human interaction he was deprived of. He ran into what he could call other spirits who could see him from time to time, but the few he ever encountered were mute animal spirits who remained by local shrines.
One constant in the ever changing landscapes of Jack's life, however, was the harshness of winter that he had no control over. No matter the continent, he saw hardship brought upon the people by the season he shepherded. He brought with him heavy snows that buried and hardened farmland and sent people huddling into their homes. While considered winter beautiful now, Jack remembered winter from when he was human and the lack of food that always accompanied the winter months. In the days leading up to the first snow, his father would always stock the house with things like salted meat and bury barrels of fruit and grain to be preserved and saved for times of need. It was like barricading oneself against a siege.
Jack's first death came one day in Russia when he was bringing down a routine blizzard gone awry. To take some of the energy out of it, he decided to disperse the snowfall over a few days as opposed to all at once. A nice girl was sitting on a stump alone, singing to herself and staring out into the barren fields. Knowing a storm was about to touch down, he tried to push her closer to a house that lay a mile or two away. He tried various things like blowing snow into her face and screaming at her to go home.
"Listen, there's a storm about to touch down and you need to get out of here," he said, a mere inches away from her face, "I'm trying to slow it down, but I can't alter its course now."
He pleaded and pleaded with her until he gave up and sat next to her, crying softly, apologizing to her with every breath. In a fit of desperation, he threw a handful of snow into her face. The snowball, much to his surprise, made contact. Startled, the girl turned around and said something in Russian that he couldn't understand and looked around, her eyes squinting to see who might have thrown it at her. Giggling, she tentatively threw some snow back in the direction of the last snowball. Surprisingly, the snowball made contact with Jack. Crying out with desperate relief he tried talking to her again.
"Yes! Thank God! You can hear me now? No?" His words seemed to drift by and she got a strange, disoriented look on her face. Crestfallen, he rethought his strategy. Taking his staff in hand, Jack conjured a snowman with icy arms that waved hello to her. Eyes wide with wonder, the girl waved back. Jack conjured sculpture after sculpture of things he knew little girls liked in a trail leading to the house. To his relief, she followed the icy ducks, horses, and flowers all the way home. Exhausted from the effort of making the trail, he passed out in the snow after making sure the girl was back home in the arms of her remorseful father. The storm passed as Jack slept and it seemed all was well.
The next evening, Jack was disturbed to find another girl in the place where he had met the other. This girl, however, was unresponsive to his snowball and stuck her tongue out at the waving snow man. Enraged and afraid for her life, he screamed at her until his throat was sore and could do nothing, but watch as the cold of the night took her breath and froze her bones. As her eyes froze shut, Jack reached out as if to test if she had really died. He was surprised again that his hand met the cold flesh of her cheek instead of passing through it. It seemed he shared an affinity with death that allowed him contact. Horrified and shocked, he numbly picked up the corpse and walked it back to the village, ignoring the wind's tugging at his clothes. He settled her down in front of the house in a bed of new snow and sat, staring at it until the shrill cries of the girl's mother could be heard in the morning light.
He didn't realize someone was staring at him until the winds whispered to him. The girl says she can see an old man with white hair. She thinks you're sad about her stepsister's death.
Jack looked up and found that it was true. The girl he'd saved was squinting at him, not quite seeing all of him, but seeing enough of him to know he was there. He got up and made another snowman pointing towards the nearest village. This time it had no smiling face, but a blank head of snow. Coupled with a strong gust of wind, the message was clear: Go. Now. Within a few hours, the small hut was emptied of its contents and the family left after burying its lost daughter. Sheer guilt slammed into Jack's gut when they were gone and his knees buckled. He felt suddenly tired and heavy, a strange sort of pain weighing down his chest. It was the sort of pain that couldn't be attributed to bodily injury that felt like a heavy, sinking stone that sucked the breath away from a body and brought no tears. He couldn't breath and curled in on himself in the snow. He didn't know how long he stayed like that, but suddenly, he needed to move and get away from the place. Any place was better than that tundra, staring at the hastily made grave.
Jack flew and flew for hours, unsure of where he was going, knowing only that he needed to get away from the cold. He flew in the opposite direction of the snow and straight into the part of the world that was experiencing summer heat. Somewhere in Southern Africa, Jack finally collapsed, lacking the energy to keep himself awake.