6.
Since the children spread Jack's warnings mere moments before the weather actually took a turn for the worse, Jack Frost became a household name, not used in the same capacity as God, but like kissing under the mistletoe or saying "God bless you" when somebody sneezes. `
Jack spent the remainder of Winter in the northern half of the world with Emily, lessening his own burden by utilizing the sprites. As Winter crept farther away from them and the land showed the first signs of thawing, Jack thought he might have to leave soon, but put it off for as long as he could so that he might spend more time with Emily. While the strain of being away from the epicenter of Winter tired him somewhat, his powers had grown since he first emerged from the lake, taking the edge off of the effects. He was slightly more tired, yes, but he could bear it with little discomfort. One day, after the children had gone home for the day, he made his way up to his pond and sat meditatively on the still frozen water and closed his eyes, concentrating hard on the weather patterns in the Southern half of the world. There wasn't much to do since Africa and the Southern half of the New World were usually untouched by his snow, save for the mountains. Still, it couldn't hurt to do regular monitoring.
After a while, his meditation was disturbed by the soft whisper of flesh on smooth ice. Snapping his eyes open, he was surprised to find himself face to face with a woman garbed in a robe of flowers who knelt in front of him, tilting her head to examine him. He fell backwards in surprise, scrambling to his feet in a defensive stance. He could tell right away that she was another spirit because the look in her eyes bespoke infinite age. She moved closer to him, impossibly long, black hair trailing behind her, the corners of her tiny red lips turned up in a gentle smile. Her distant green eyes were framed by long, thick eyebrows.
"I am sorry for the intrusion." She reached out a hand and touched his cheek experimentally. The skin of her palm was soft and warm. "I had only meant to examine what was causing Winter to linger for so long here." She gestured to the frozen pond. "I see that it is because you are here, Winter."
The way she addressed him reminded him of Anyan. He relaxed his posture. "Spring?" he asked tentatively. The woman nodded and replied, "I am called many things, but the one I know well is Magu. That will do."
"Okay, Magu. Nice to meet you. I'm Jack Frost." He held out his hand to her, but was surprised when she scooped it up in both of hers, long nails delicately tracing the lines of his palms. This escalated and her hands made their way to the rest of his body, intent on unraveling his secrets.
"My dear," she hummed in a rich, husky voice, "You are curiosity, even among us spirits." She circled around him slowly, eyes closely inspecting every inch of his body.
"Well, if you're going to tell me that I'm weird because I was human, I heard the same from Anyan." Jack fidgeted under her gaze. She finally stopped circling him and met his eyes.
"Oh no, you are very special. You have a lot of potential as a spirit. You are Winter's child and you have complete access the Winter energy streams. You could be powerful." Her face took on a dubious expression that soon faded to the original passive one that bespoke age. "Fret not, child for you are yet young. In a century or two, maybe."
"What? I don't know, I mean I do have white hair. I'm practically an old man. If you're talking about my height or something, this is as tall as I'm going to get."
Unphased by his banter, Magu continued. "Listen to me when I tell you that you must be patient. Immortality will seem like the longest wait you have ever endured. Many who came before you suffocated in the stagnancy of immortality and went to sleep without ever waking again." The message was again cryptic. "Hmmm anyhow, I came here to see why this pond refuses to thaw. If it is special to you, I can make an exception. I have begun to wake the land under the snow and Spring will commence soon. While our seasons do not usually conflict, I think it best that you move on soon. No doubt, you have felt your powers weakening the longer you stay."
"I know, I know. I'll melt if I try to give Anyan a hug. Thanks for the warning."
"Thank me? Whatever for? Your presence regulates Winter and makes my job easier. It is very advantageous to me that you survive." She cocked her head. "Tell me, where do you live? It cannot be here. There is nothing here, nothing permanent."
"Live? I live, you know, here and there."
Magu furrowed her smooth, pale brow and said, "No, you misunderstand," Her tone was more confused than frustrated as if she thought Jack should have known all of this. "The three of us, Summer, Autumn and I, have places where the weather patterns remain the same and we can find respite from time to time. It is not necessary, but it does allow us to rest. I made my home in a forest in China while Summer made his home in a desert in Africa. Autumn made hers in Ireland somewhere under a tree." Jack arched an eyebrow. Magu shrugged. "She has her quirks. You will see when you meet her. As Winter, you have many options, the two swathes of land at either end of the globe would offer you the most privacy."
Jack thought on it. Since Winter in the South was hardly time consuming, he might try looking around for his own place. He thanked Magu and she smiled at him, her perfectly white teeth flashing at him behind blood red lips. "It is quite fortunate that we met, it is not often I run into the others. I must go now, but I do not doubt that we will see more of each other." It wasn't anything Jack hadn't heard before. The other seasonal spirits marked time by the number of times the saw each other, which wasn't encouraging to him. He didn't want time to move that far ahead of him, didn't know what to think of beings who counted centuries as he would days. Still, he liked the other seasons he'd met so far and wanted to count them among his friends. Magu bade him farewell and melted away silently into the wind. Jack still needed to learn that one.
It was midday when Jack returned to the Bennett house. Emily welcomed him cheerfully, her growing abdomen getting in the way of her customary embrace. The child would come in the Summer, he supposed. Well after he had to leave them. He pouted thinking about missing the birth of his nephew, but he supposed Emily would understand. After all, he'd be back soon enough. He paused in his thoughts and grimaced. So a year was "soon enough" now? He shook his head, clearing it and shaking away the lump he felt forming in his throat. He sat in a windowsill, his leg dangling off of the edge. Feeling drowsy, he could hear the wind calling to him, beckoning him away playfully. Let us away, it said, Winter has moved away from here. We must away. The sprites riding on the backs of the winds sent him much the same impression. "I can't go, not yet", he whispered. Emily's head snapped up from her sewing, watching him curiously. She'd noticed Jack's lethargy and knew full well that he needed to go. The days were getting warmer and the snow was giving way to new greenery. She padded over softly to him and placed a gentle hand on his shoulder.
"Jack," she spoke softly, afraid of startling him. He looked up at her blearily, almost not hearing her. "Jack, if you need to go, even if I don't want you to- and lord knows I don't want you to- you should."
Jack frowned, still feeling foggy. His heart ached at the thought of leaving her so soon. "I don't want to, Em." He could feel the telltale signs of tears pricking at his eyelids.
"Jack," a third voice called. It was Tom. He'd been watching the scene from the door. "Please, we don't want you to hurt yourself. Staying here is taking its toll on your body. I don't-" his voice wavered a bit, "I don't want you to leave, not so soon after you'd come back to us." Emily nodded in agreement and added, "But you can't stay like this. You are responsible for a great many things, things we can't hope to understand. What we do understand is that even so, you are family and you are welcome here until the end of time."
"The end of time," Tom confirmed.
Jack gave up fighting the tears. He gave both a fierce embrace and, on that peaceful day when the spring sunshine had just begun to filter through the new leaves, he left.
As he moved further and further south, towards the swath of cold land he knew lay at the bottom of the world, his body uncurled from its repose and he was alert within seconds of making it into the air. The winds and the sprites inquired as to where he would go, sensing that Jack wouldn't bother to sojourn to the southern Winter this year.
"I'm finding a home for myself, wind," Jack said as he spun in the air, as graceful as if he were born flying and as natural as breathing. The winds were elated and the sprites flew in spirals around him. Suddenly, he got the impression that they wanted him to follow them somewhere. He could see the ice covered land stretching out before him and the sprites made a spiraled path down into a cavern near the exact center of the huge landmass. This place would be perfect because it was still undiscovered by humans. The North would have worked, but it was all ice, too fluid and changing too often for him to establish anything permanent. He touched down, taking in the yawning cavern hidden perfectly by a wall of unscalable ice. Inside, the cavern was huge, carved into the bedrock somehow. It was lit dimly by an ice dome hanging down into the center of the place that was filled with the weak light of blue translucent energy. Knowing what to do, he tied his own energy to the ice in the dome and supplied it with new energy, feeding partially off of the cold energy of the surrounding ice and permafrost. The dome throbbed with renewed vigor and the cavern filled with a wash of light, revealing a large space dominated principally by a globe like the one in Mother Nature's sanctuary. The rest of the cavern was left empty save for a chair low to the ground made out of the same stone the rest of the cavern shaped like a cradle of branches, positioned just so that he had the best view of the globe as it turned before him when he sat.
Jack sat in the chair, or throne as he realized later, and closed his eyes, tuning into the power channels of the cavern. It was alive and malleable to change. He felt something within the energy stream change and when he opened his eyes, the rounded walls of the cavern were changed to resemble something like the interior of Big Root with passageways on one floor and two spiral staircases leading to a second floor of yet more passages. He got up and wandered around the place, marvelling at its smooth walls and the other rooms were likewise lit by domes of light that seemed to draw energy from the large one in the main room. Some were empty and others were outfitted with furniture made from the same stone as before as if it had been grown out of it. At length, he came to a secondary cavern capped with a ceiling of ice that looked something like a wintery forest of evergreens. The sprites had gathered together here and gestured to the trees that were pregnant with snowdrops that dripped off of every branch. Looking closer, he saw that this place was the birthplace of the sprites, who spawned from the snowdrops on the trees, unfolding as they dropped sporadically to the floor.
Jack made his way back to the main cavern dazedly. He could fit an army in these rooms if he needed to. There was one passageway left in the back of the room just behind the throne. He followed it into a modest library full of books preserved in time on stone shelves. Some of the books were in English, but many were not. Jack was vibrating with curious, excited energy that had him bouncing on his heels. He needed to know more about this place, figure out why it existed at all. A sudden thought came to him. Ombric. Yes, Ombric might know something about this place, but Siberia was so far. Another thought. He could try phasing there, traveling by melting into the wind like the other spirits did, but how? Sitting on the throne, he closed his eyes and concentrated hard, imagining himself dissolving away into the wind. Nothing happened. He pictured Siberia and Big Root, willing his body to be there. He sat there for hours and was about to give up when something pulled at his sternum and he found himself sitting in front of the entrance to Big Root. He scrambled to his feet, elated. It was midday and some of the villagers waved at him. Jack returned the greeting and hastily made his way into Big Root, up the great staircase, and into Ombric's study where the old man was chatting away with Mr. Qwerty and Mr. B.
"Oh Jack! You return!" Ombric stood to greet the frazzled spirit standing in the doorway.
"You need to come with me to the southern ice continent right now. You're going to love this." The occupants of the room stared at him, not quite processing what he'd just said.
"Jack, how did you get here from the bottom of the world so quickly?" It was Mr. Qwerty who spoke. Jack explained in a jumble of words, impatient to impart the information so that they could get going now. Excited out of their minds, the three of them heaped on warm clothing to prepare for the arctic chill.
"Can your new ability take all of us?" Ombric looked hesitant, but hopeful.
"I think so. Don't ask me how I know, but I think so." They joined hands and Jack concentrated hard on his sanctuary in the arctic. It didn't take as much time as the first time he tried it, but it definitely took more energy to transport a wizard, a caterpillar, and a bear. He manipulated his energy to wrap around the whole group and he felt the familiar tug on his sternum. Before them, Big Root melted away and was replaced by Jack's sanctuary.
Ombric looked around in awe and waved his staff around. "The magic here is old, very old. It feels like the residual energy in Big Root." He felt around some more. "There are the residual energy signatures of many different spirits," he turned to Jack, "yours being the most recent."
"You're saying all of the Winter Spirits that ever existed found their way here at some point?"
"It is unlikely that all of them made it here, but a great many of them did, yes."
Jack showed them to the library and Mr. Qwerty got to work consuming the volumes, gaining the knowledge instantly as he munched through the tomes using Ombric's duplication spells so that the originals might be spared. The process took quite a lot of time, during which Ombric examined the rest of the Cavern, as Jack had started calling it. He explained that the Cavern had changed when he connected with its magic.
"It seems as if you might be able to change it at will. Want to give it a go?" Ombric gestured to the empty space in the room. They spent a good few hours changing the configuration of the space, testing its limits. The Cavern was capable of everything from furnishing the whole place to changing the layout all together. Jack settled on the layout he'd started with and looked at Ombric, who was watching it all happen with a hand contemplatively buried in his beard. "Someone made this a long time ago. The stone is some sort of physical manifestation of your Winter magic. Magic like mine cannot affect it."
Before they could puzzle more, Mr. B showed up to lead them back into the library. Mr. Qwerty had finished consuming the books. Looking bloated, but cheerful, Mr. Qwerty chirped excitedly at them as they entered. "It is a complete library of information on Winter spirits. It's quite curious, yes. It seems whoever made it to this place left diaries of their tenure as the Steward of Winter and expanded the information as time went on. Quite extraordinary."
"Did they have anything on why this place exists?"
"No, but I suspect the information may be locked away in that volume over there." Mr. Qwerty directed his attention to a book lying unobtrusively on a table in the corner. "I can't touch it. Nobody can."
Jack walked over and placed a hand on the worn leather bound journal. Suddenly, there were whispers in his head and he was transported to another place in another body, with thoughts that were not his own.
The memory was from long ago, when man had first begun to dream. The Winter spirit danced among the houses, painting flowers of frost on all of the windows. Some people who saw him reacted badly to his otherworldly appearance and still others cursed him for bringing the bitter cold. He fled, but met other spirits like him. "Jokul Frosti, you will be my son," said one, "and we will be a family of the immortal and live in splendor." For a time he was happy. After a few centuries, however, darkness grew in his heart and he went mad because of the way people hated him, hated the frost that he'd thought so beautiful. Transplanting the Winter sprites into soldiers of ice, he raised an army and razed the earth. He killed indiscriminately and the world froze for a time until his family rose to stop him. The war was terrible and the world's belief in such old gods wavered and flickered out, plunging the world into darkness. When all his family finally lay dead at his feet, he woke from the haze of hatred in which he slept and wept black tears, bitter and cold. With his strength, he raised the molten rock at the bottom of the world and retreated into an impenetrable fortress of cold, needing to be left alone.
Jack was thrust from the memories and found himself this time in a black expanse facing the frightening, but worn figure of Jokul Frosti, whose life he'd just witnessed. He was an old man with a crooked nose and blank eyes, a sorrowful expression permanently fixed on his worn face. The figure spoke.
"I learned in later years of the existence of the other seasonal spirits, who were not plagued by the troubles that I had. They were loved by the people, while I, bringer of only death, was hated. The darkness that overtook me originated from the hatred shown to me all my life. It was only when my family was dead and gone forever that sorrow beat out the darkness and returned me to cruel sanity. If you hear me now, then you are a Winter spirit from the future. I was not the first, for Winter spirits have existed since the Earth first cooled enough to produce ice. Before Mother Nature installed the other spirits, Winter spirits appeared as a result of the world's hatred of the cold as I was. When one dies, another is quickly replaced, such is the persistence of such hatred. I now leave you with knowledge and this cave where I leave the last of my energy. The stone here will be imbued with my remains when I die. I cannot persist any longer with this yawning sorrow plaguing my mind. Perhaps with knowledge and time, one might break this cruel cycle and be the true Steward of Winter. I was but a false spirit, occupying this role because the world could not function without one to fill it. Winter has always been silent to me, but it is my hope that those who come after will be loved by it." Jokul Frosti crumbled into fine ice particles, at rest at last.
Jack woke on the floor where he'd fallen, head pillowed in Mr. B's furry lap. He was shaking with grief that wasn't his own, face wet with tears he hadn't known he'd shed. He sat up and told his worried friends what he'd seen. His voice shook as he spoke about Jokul Frosti and the Norse gods.
"He went mad because the people of the world hated him and he-" Jack had to pause, choking back a sob "he killed everybody he loved and then couldn't live with himself anymore."
Ombric comforted the shaking spirit and somberly muttered, "I remember that war. Terrible tragedy, all of the Norse gods dead and the people without help for quite some time. The weather was terribly harsh for decades after. I knew, of course, about the cycle he spoke of, Winter spirits wishing end for themselves. I hadn't known about any of Jokul Frosti's reasons for going mad. I doubt anybody did."
"That's because Winter is alone, the solitary season. When the snow covers all, it erases any evidence that the rest existed. There is a great darkness in the world that feeds on hatred. It possessed Jokul Frosti and took his sanity." Jack's voice took on an eerie tone that wasn't his own. He looked up at Ombric, stricken expression spreading across his face, "No, wait I didn't think that. That wasn't me. Why did I say that?"
Ombric grunted and said, "Jokul Frosti said he left you knowledge, yes? Perhaps that is what he meant. All of his knowledge and potentially the knowledge of everyone who came after was left to you and now you have it. The darkness you speak of is something I have fought for many years, but you can rest assured that it is dormant for now." Ombric left it at that and Jack thought it wise not to pry further.
The knowledge was sluggish and slow to come, but it was there, distinguishable from his own memory and terribly foreign to him. It was different from the collective unconscious of Winter he'd already encountered. This was real knowledge and experience that would have taken him years to accumulate. It wasn't anything specific like memories, but more like instructions on using his skills and manipulating magic that would take time to sort. Jack stood and wiped his face, the last dregs of Jokul Frosti's grief fading away from him. He emerged into the main room and instinctually made a new passage in the wall. Turning to Ombric, he said, "Can you make a portal to Big Root from here? I can tie your magic to this passage and you can come and go as you please."
Surprised at Jack's new found knowledge of magic, he complied and made the portal, allowing Jack to take control of the spell and anchor it to the passage, which lit up with energy. Walking through it, they found themselves within Big Root. It was late and Jack urged the three of them to sleep and come back whenever they wanted to. He went back to the Cavern and sat meditatively, monitoring the weather and applying his new skills to manipulate the energy with even greater ease and accuracy. Over the next few months, Jack and Ombric, with the help of Mr. B, outfitted the Cavern to be a suitable living space, complete with kitchens and fully furnished rooms. The Cavern was a defensible space imbued with great magic and it was practical to prepare it for any sort of emergency. The furniture could be grown out of the stone at Jack's command, but things like beds needed to be brought over from Santoff Claussen. They also worked out a system of pipes that lead to each of the rooms and the kitchen, supplied by the liquid water Jack had found under the first layer of ice on the continent. Ombric cast a web of spells that magically heated the water, the same system used in Big Root.
One day, just before Winter in the South was to come to an end, Jack made his way to the Sprites' Grove, as he'd come to call it. The sprites were excited to see him and scrambled to hug his legs as he waded in. He picked one up and experimentally messed with its energy stream. It grew until it was the size of Mr. B. It was the same method used by Jokul Frosti to create his army, but he used it without the intent to harm and his new gollums were far tamer than the soldiers from Jokul Frosti's time. He made a squad of about a hundred and allowed them free reign of the Cavern. While he was away, they could maintain and guard the Cavern. All of a sudden antsy to leave, he bade Ombric farewell and travelled to North America to see his sister. As the Cavern dissolved away and his village appeared, Jack was surprised to find himself standing face to face with a skinny girl with wild red hair blinking at him.
"You're early, Winter," she said, prodding him with her thin fingers, "I only just told the trees and animals to go to sleep. Don't make it snow until they've been tucked in."
Taking it in stride, Jack said, "I take it you're Autumn?"
The girl, who was a bit shorter than Jack, looked up at him with a surprised, toothy grin and said, "Ohh you are a bright one, aren't you? Yes, I am Autumn, but you may call me ash-like the tree, but also like the unused fuel left behind when you burn things."
Jack raised an eyebrow, but decided to go the polite route. He offered his hand and said, "It's good to finally meet you." Ash grabbed his hand and pumped it once before turning it over to examine his palms.
"Ohh Magu was totally right. You're a weird one. Not like us, not like the others, not like anything that has ever existed at all." She looked up at him, "You've been in pain up until now." It wasn't a question. Not waiting for an answer, she let go of his hand and whacked his shoulder companionably. "I have to go bring the rain to a forest down South. Remember what I told you, no snow until everyone's been tucked into their beds." With that, she phased into the wind.
Jack stood there for a while, understandably perplexed at what had just transpired. Magu was also right about Ash being unusual. He shrugged and continued on his way to the Bennett house. He flew in through a window and found Emily and Tom in the kitchen. They were elated at his return and guided him quickly to their room where a tiny baby slept in his cradle. Jack reached out a finger and gently brushed the soft tufts of hair on his head, cooing as the baby grabbed his finger.
"What's his name?" Jack turned to his sister, beaming.
"Ben, after dad." It was a good name.
"Hey, Ben. I'm your uber fun uncle Jack." The baby, who definitely had no idea what Jack was saying, bit Jack's finger with his newly emerging teeth. This was going to be a good Winter.