Emma's eyes darted from the shadowy man before her to the ice below her feet, to the full moon above her and then back to the man in front of her. He was tall and cloaked in black and his eyes seemed to shine a gold color. His face seemed menacing but it also looked like he was trying to appear friendly. She took a quick step backward and with this movement, her hair swung forward, flashing white in her periphery. She gave a little gasp, gathering a bunch of it in her hand and examining it more closely. It was nothing like the brown hair she'd had all her life. "Wha-..." she started. Her voice was small and quiet but even she could hear the difference in it from before. It rang with a new coldness, cutting through the silence of the night. "What's happened to me?" She looked back at the man.
"You fell through the ice, my dear," said the man. "You fell through the ice, but I pulled you free. I saved you."
"You... Who are you?" she asked.
The man smiled but it didn't seem warm or sincere. "My name, little girl, is Pitch. Pitch Black."
Pitch Black, she thought, Why does that name seem so familiar to me? She looked at his dark skin, his eyes that seemed to almost glow in the shadows, and his long black robe and then gasped. "The Boogeyman," she said, stepping back again.
"Ahh, yes," Pitch Black said, frowning and turning away with a shrug, "unfortunately I am known to many by that name and because of it, they all think I'm such a bad man." He looked back at her with that same unsettling smile. "But if I was such a bad man, why then would I have rescued you from drowning?"
She scrunched her eyes up. Her memory of the incident was weak and she willed the images to come forward in her mind. "My brother... My brother was here," she said, looking up at him again. "Jack. Jack was trying to save me! What happened to him, where is he?"
"Oh, young one," he said, "Your brother ran off, leaving you to your cold fate. He could've saved you, you know. But he didn't. I guess he was... too afraid."
Emma felt a strong, uncharacteristic anger in her heart, but she thought hard about her brother. "No," she said, "he did all he could. He wanted to save me. He loves me."
Pitch swept forward and around her, standing now at her right shoulder and looking down at her. "I suppose he might, but if he really loves you, where is he now? Why am I the one standing with you on the ice and not him?"
She didn't answer. Instead she just looked off into the trees. As she looked around, she realized that even with the light of the moon, it was dark, but she could still see perfectly, and even though it was cold, her breath didn't cloud in the air before her and she didn't seem to feel cold. Nothing made sense. She didn't want to think about the possibility that Jack had run away and left her because he was scared. That wasn't like him, he wouldn't do that. She turned to face Pitch again but her foot brushed up against something. She looked down; it was a long branch with a crooked part at the end. She leaned down and picked it up. It somehow felt right in her hands.
Pitch put a hand on her shoulder and said, "It's ok to be angry. You should be, your brother abandoned you and left you to die."
"No!" she said forcefully, swinging the staff without meaning to. Immediately, ice formed on the shoulder of Pitch's cloak. Her eyes widened. "What... did I?" Suddenly, she felt extremely tired and she leaned heavily on the branch she was holding.
Pitch chuckled, looking down at the ice on his shoulder. Her powers were already beginning to show. "You are powerful, child," he said. "You have much potential and if you come with me, I will show you how to do great things. You will have powers beyond imagination over ice and shadows. I want to help you."
"How did I do that?" she said, her breath coming heavily.
"You are special," Pitch said. He put both hands on her shoulders. "You are chosen."
Blackness was beginning to creep into the edges of her vision - not shadows like she apparently had no problem seeing through now, but just blackness. She swayed slightly. "But Jack," she said, more quietly now, "I have to... see... Jack."
She started to fall, her vision going dark, and she had just enough time to hear Pitch say, "Jack doesn't matter anymore." In the seconds before he passed out, she began to wonder if he was right.
The powers must be a lot for her body to handle, Pitch thought to himself as he scooped the girl up into his arms. He looked at the branch still clutched in her hand and gave her a little shake, hoping to dislodge it, but she held fast to it. He shrugged to himself, letting her keep it and then focusing on the fact that she'd just passed out.Being changed at such a young age, it's probably going to take a while he body grows accustomed to all the new magic that it just received. He looked down at her. Now he had someone to work with, someone to train and to help him accomplish his goal: to be believed in by everyone. And someone to keep me company, he thought. Then he made a face. It would not do to get sentimental about this whole thing now. He had to focus on his goal.
But right now, all he had to focus on was getting her to a safe place to rest. He glided through the forest, and eventually came to a place where an empty bed frame sat. He glanced one more time up at the moon, giving it a victorious grin, and then slid down the hole, his shadows following after him.
He arrived in his lair and set the girl down. There wasn't much in the way of comfort so a slab of stone would be her bed for the time being. The shadows that Pitch had been controlling curled themselves around and underneath her. He didn't know how long she would sleep, how long it would take for her body to get used to the new powers. She was very young, and as far as he knew, no one that young had ever been changed before. On top of that, she was having to absorb both the powers the moon had given her and the powers he had given her as well. There were indeed parts of this process that he hadn't thought out all the way. Maybe she'd never wake up. But he doubted that would be the case.
All he could do in terms of her sleeping now was wait, but he could still use the time to his advantage. "She doesn't trust me enough yet," he said quietly, looking at her. "She's still too attached to that brother of her." He reached his hand into the shadows around her. "Well, let's just see if we can change that now, shall we?"
Every day seemed like an eternity to Jack. The Overland house was almost always silent now. It used to be constantly filled up with the sounds of laughter and fun, but Emma's voice would no longer be heard there and with what happened, Jack didn't have the heart to laugh anymore. For three days he merely sat inside, looking into the flames that burned in the fireplace. He only ate when his mother reminded him to. Both of his parents hugged him often, hoping to express that they didn't blame him for what had happened, but Jack's own blame on himself was more than enough to compensate for that, and he could still hear his mother crying in her room each night.
On the fourth evening, the town held a small memorial service for Emma. Normally, this type of service would take place in the cemetery just outside of town, but with no body to bury, there wasn't much point. The town gathered instead around a fire in the square, reading last rites from a book. Some people stepped forward to say how much they would miss the little girl, but Jack and his parents did not. His mother couldn't stop crying and as Mr. Overland held her, she held onto Jack for dear life, as though she might lose him at any second, too.
After the service, everyone headed back to their homes, but Jack headed in a different direction, telling his parents that he'd be home in a few minutes. Mr. and Mrs. Overland were very worried at this though. "You're not going back to the lake, are you, Jack?" Mrs. Overland asked timidly.
Jack just looked at her and then looked away, and she knew she was right. "I'll be back soon," he said.
His mother hugged him tightly. "Jack, please..." She didn't want him to go, but she also knew that he was grieving and maybe this would make him feel better. She held him at arm's length and looked into his eyes, tears in hers. "Don't go out onto the ice," she whispered.
"I won't," he promised, trying to smile, but he couldn't quite get his face to manage the gesture. They looked at each other for a moment more, then Jack turned away and headed for the lake.
It was quiet and the moon was high a bit less than full. The ice sparkled in its light and Jack crouched down by the edge of the ice. He sighed, his breath clouding the air before him. He might've cried, but the air was so cold that he felt like any tears would have frozen the moment he shed them. "Emma..." he said to the emptiness. "Emma, I'm so sorry. I'm so..." But apologies would not bring her back.
He looked out the ice for a few minutes more when he noticed something strange. At first, he though it must be a trick of the light and the weird reflective quality of the ice, but no matter how his eyes adjusted to the darkness, it didn't seem to go away. He stood up again, hoping to get a better view but it was still difficult to see. There was something wrong with the ice where Emma had fallen in and he wanted to see it closer.
Jack looked down and stepped forward, tentatively placing a foot on the ice. He leaned forward, putting his weight on it. Here by the bank it was solid enough to hold him, but would it be out there too? He took another step. Still, he was safe. Another step, and then another, and as he tried to take one more, the ice started to crack. He stepped back quickly, safe on the thicker ice, but as his brain had registered the sound, he immediately thought of his sister. "Emma!" he cried, his brain momentarily projecting the image of her on the ice where she'd fallen in. But the image quickly faded. Jack shook his head, tears leaking out of his now despite the cold. "Emma..." he said again.
He took a few deep breaths, focusing on the anomaly in the ice. Seeming to radiate from exactly the point where she'd fallen in, there were black tendrils stretching out, swirling and reaching into the ice. He had no idea what they might be made of. He'd never seen that happen to lake ice before. They were menacing, seeming to move closer like black creeper-vines, but that was definitely a trick of the light. Somehow though, they made Jack very uncomfortable. The air suddenly felt much colder around him but he was so curious about the black tendrils. Was it because his sister had fallen through? Had that stirred something up in the lake water that had reached up and stained the ice? The longer he looked at them, the more uncomfortable he felt, and with all of his grief and guilt over Emma, he didn't need this feeling on top of it too. He realized that what he was feeling then was fear. There's nothing I can do now, he thought. What am I afraid of now? There's nothing I can do. What's done is done.
Jack stepped back carefully until he was safely on solid ground again. Looking out over the lake, he once again imagined a frightened-looking Emma standing on the ice, her eyes locked onto him, begging him to save her. "I'm sorry," he said one more time, his voice breaking with emotion.
He closed his eyes tight, trying to block out the image, and then turned around, knowing he had to get home quickly or his parents would go crazy with worry. Sure enough, when he reached his house, Mr. Overland was putting on his jacket, ready to go out and look for Jack.
Jack sat down by the fire again, shivering with the cold and with the fear that still sat in his mind, mingling with the uncomfortable feeling of the sight of those black shapes in the ice. His mother wrapped her arms around him and held onto him until he started to feel warm again.