As the sunlight shined in through his window, Jack mentally prepared himself to face another day. If he could, he would've simply stayed in bed all day, every day, for the rest of forever. It would be so much easier than leaving the house and having to face the rest of the village. No one blamed him, but there were always the whispers and pitying glances – and he blamed himself enough for the whole town. But he had responsibilities to his parents and to the town. True, it had only been about a week since the accident, and no one in town would blame Jack for mourning, but during the winter, small towns like Burgess could use all the help they could get hunting and cutting firewood – and when there was none of that work to be done, Jack would keep everyone's children entertained while their parents worked. No one expected Jack to take on these tasks now, but he refused to stop. He hadn't been able to save Emma, but he swore to himself that he wouldn't be so useless again. Besides, if he kept busy, he could almost ignore the looks of pity that everyone gave him.
He got up and dressed, and went to light a fire in the fireplace while his mother prepared breakfast and his father got ready to go hunting with some other men from the town. "Is there anything I can do to help today?" Jack asked his father.
"No, Jack," Mr. Overland said, "we've already got five men in the hunting party, that should be plenty. Why don't you go out and have some fun today?"
Jack shivered involuntarily as the memory of Emma on the ice ran through his head for the umpteenth time. i"We're gonna have a little fun instead,"/i he'd said to her. iWe're gonna have a little fun... a little fun... fun.../i Jack shook his head to clear the memories away and forced a smile for his father. "Ok," he said as Mr. Overland left.
"Jack," his mother said quietly, coming over to him and putting her hand on his shoulder, "you don't have to pretend for us. You know that, right?"
Looking at his mother's understanding face, Jack wanted to break down in tears. He wanted to be a child again without responsibilities, without the expectation to be strong, without the expectation to be a man. He wanted to just sit down and cry while his mother told him everything would be ok. But that wasn't how it worked. But Jack wasn't a child anymore, and though life would continue, things would never be ok again. Crying wouldn't bring Emma back. Nothing would. He rested his hand on his mother's. "I'm ok, mother," he said with another forced smile.
Mrs. Overland wasn't fooled, but she respected that her son would have to deal with the loss of his sister in his own way. "Ok," she said quietly, but she pulled him close and hugged him for several moments before letting him go. "Be careful," she said as he too walked out the door and when it closed, she went to sit by the fire and broke down into silent sobs of her own.
Pitch paced around his lair, occasionally glancing at the girl who was still laying asleep, surrounded by shadows. It was taking longer than he though for her body to absorb and become accustomed to the darkness. Perhaps he had underestimated how much the power of light – light that is so strong in a child's innocent heart – would fight against the power of the shadows, but he knew the darkness would win out. He'd already begun to plant the seeds of doubt in her mind when she'd first awakened. Those doubts were now haunting her sleep too. Most of the time she was calm, but occasionally she would call out her brother's name, her voice full of fear and sometimes the sound of betrayal, and Pitch would smile to himself. Sometimes he would in fact encourage the nightmares, aware that the images Emma was seeing were of her brother, turning and running away as the ice cracked below her. If he wanted his plan to work, then he'd have to completely turn her against her brother.
She cried out again, just then. "J-Jack!" she whimpered. Pitch glided silently over to her. "Jack, don't leave me!" she cried.
Pitch leaned over and whispered into her ear, "He left you, little girl." Emma's face squinched up with fear and sadness. "He ran away."
"Jack..." she muttered again.
"And doesn't that make you angry?" As Pitch spoke, the shadows around the girl writhed violently, worming their way into her dreams and making them even more nightmarish. "Doesn't that just make you want to hurt him back?" A tear slipped from the corner of Emma's eye and Pitch stood back with a satisfied smile.
But deep within him stirred the tiniest twinge of a feeling he hadn't felt in... he couldn't even remember the last time. As he looked down at Emma, he was reminded of another little girl, one that he could never see again. She of course was grown far past childhood now, but Pitch would always remember her as a little girl with laughter in her voice. He'd never dream of hurting her or causing her pain but now here he was with another child, one whom he was mentally tormenting. Was he going too far?
iNo,/i he thought angrily to himself, turning and walking away from Emma. iI am the Nightmare King! This is what I do, this is why I exist!/i He went over to a part of his lair where the ground seemed to disappear altogether, dropping off and leaving nothing but a black abyss below. He stared down into it and thought about the countless children whom he'd given nightmares. That was all he was doing to Emma – giving her nightmares. This was no different than what he'd always done. iBut I didn't /ialwaysi do this. And it /iisi different,/i the thought came unbidden. What he was doing to Emma amounted to far more than nightmares, he knew. And he hadn't always been the Nightmare King. Once, he'd been a hero. And a father.
For a moment, the shadows of the pit below Pitch played tricks on his eyes and he imagined he saw a butterfly...
But he shook his head and growled in frustration. "No. Things are different now. This child," he said, turning back and looking across the room at Emma, "this child is in good hands. Together, we will be more powerful than all of the Guardians combined. Together, we will rule!" He cackled victoriously. After all, everything was going according to his plan. Sure, it was taking the girl a while to wake up, but she would eventually and it would be well worth the wait. He'd rise to power once again, with her at his side – a loyal apprentice, iand daughter/i, he thought.
It was then that with a sharp gasp, Emma woke up, sitting upright and breathing heavily. She rubbed her eyes and looked around. "Where... where am I?"
Pitch glided over to her, seeming to appear right out of the shadows. "Your new home, child," he said, reaching out to take her hand and help her stand. She flinched away from it though. iAh, fear of me and this place, that's not something I want,/i he thought to himself. With a subtle waved of his hand, he caused the shadows around Emma to recede, taking with them the sense of fear she had about being somewhere unknown.
"The Boogeyman," she said, vaguely remembering him standing on the ice with her. Slowly her memories came back to her. "You... s-saved?... me..."
"My name is Pitch Black, but that's right, my dear, I saved you from drowning under the ice."
"Where's Jack?" she asked, her pale eyes darting around Pitch's lair.
"Does it matter?" Pitch asked. "After all, he doesn't care about you, but I-"
"Yes he does!" Emma shouted, her fingers automatically finding the crooked staff which was laying next to her on the stone slab. "He does care!" she said, standing up and holding the staff in front of her. Suddenly, shadows were writhing around Emma again, and they were not of Pitch's creation. The girl was indeed very powerful.
Pitch backed up and he couldn't help but smile. He couldn't have asked for a better apprentice. He quickly rearranged his features though into a look of understanding and pity. "Are you so sure, my dear?" He surreptitiously sent a wave of fear her way, using it this time to infect her memories about Jack. "Could really care about you all that much if he ran off and left you?"
"Of... of course he cares," she said, lowering her staff, but she sounded much more unsure now. "He cares! My brother loves me!" she said a bit more forcefully, as thought trying to make herself believe that it was true. "He... he loves me. He tried..." Her shoulders sagged as the doubts and fear about Jack went round and round in her head. "Where is he?" she asked again.
Pitch forced back a scowl. "I suppose back at your home. But that doesn't matter. I brought you here to keep you safe –"
"I want to see him," she said firmly, looking up at him.
Pitch almost laughed. This innocent little girl had gone through a traumatic ordeal that had almost taken her life, woke up to find herself in a new, dark place, and now here she was, standing up to and making demands of the Boogeyman himself.
"I want to go see him," she repeated, "take me to see him."
Pitch did laugh now. "See him? But he won't be able to—" but then he stopped. This was perfect. What better way to win her over and turn her against her brother than to let her go and try to talk to him? Emma wasn't human anymore, she was a spirit, like him, and therefore she had the same limitations – limitations that would work to Pitch's advantage. He quickly changed his expression and his tone again. "No, you're right, child. You should go see your brother. Maybe I'm wrong," he said. iI'm not wrong/i, he thought though. "Maybe he idoes/i care." Emma nodded, holding onto the staff firmly and with a determined look on her face. "Come with me," Pitch said.
He helped her out of his lair, stopping at the empty bed frame that marked its entrance, and he rested a hand on her shoulder. "Now, my dear, if you head that direction," he pointed, "you will find your way back to your town, and surely you'll be able to find your brother. Maybe he cares after all. But..." he looked down into her pale eyes, "if... if you find that he doesn't, I will be right here. I saved you and I want to help you. If no one else will, you still have me. Now, run along..." And Emma did, heading off to find her brother.
It didn't take Emma very long to get back to Burgess. She'd played in those woods all of her life so far, so she knew them rather well – though she hadn't remembered seeing the bed frame there ever before. The ground was covered with thick snow, and more snow was falling and it hindered her progress slightly, but soon enough, Burgess was back in sight. Just outside of town, she found Jack, playing in the snow with some other children. "Jack!" she called, running toward him.
Jack had helped some of the town's children build up snow forts, and now they were waging a snowball war against each other. At some point, one of them had deemed Jack the "Snow Beast" so now he was running around growling and playfully tackling any child brave enough to leave their fort into snow banks. He had a smile on his face but every so often, that smile slipped. A child would ask him what was wrong, but he'd smile again and say that he was fine, and continue to play.
Inside, Jack was haunted, empty. Sure, he smiled and laughed and played, but every action was forced. He didn't think he could ever truly feel happy or have fun again. In every child around him, he saw his sister. Playing like this was hard for him, but he did it for them. He tried to distract himself from the pain, but he couldn't forget Emma's face, they way she used to laugh when they had snowball fights or he'd do silly tricks. As the children around him shouted his name in play, he always heard her voice instead.
And then, he really did hear her voice. Or at least he thought he did. But that was impossible! Wasn't it?
"Jack!" Emma said, running up to him and standing in front of him, smiling. He had stopped, but he wasn't looking at her. "Jack, it's me!" she said, waiting for him to lean down and hug her like he always used to.
"Jack!" came another voice though, this one much more real-sounding than what Jack had just heard, or thought he heard. It was his neighbor's son, who just then hit Jack with a snowball. This snapped Jack out of his thoughts. It couldn't have been Emma's voice he heard, he told himself, despite how painful it was to admit.
"Arrrrgh, I'm going to get you!" he called to the boy, dashing after him and scooping up snow to make snowballs, throwing them at the boy and the other children who now darted around him.
Emma was confused. "Jack," she said again, following after her brother. Why wouldn't he look at her? "Jack!" She followed him but he was ignoring her. "Jack, it's—" she had to shout to make herself heard above the other children. "Jack! It's me! It's your sister! Emma!"
Jack paused again because again, he thought her heard his sister's voice. His eyes darted around but she was nowhere to be seen. iYou're cracking up, Jack, you're losing it,/i he thought to himself, scrunching his eyes shut and shaking his head. iEmma is gone./i
"Jack!" Emma was getting desperate now. "Jack!" her voice grew quieter and tears welled in her eyes. "Jack, it's me, it's Emma. I'm right here!" But he wasn't paying any attention to her, he just kept playing with the other children. She started to cry. "Jack, please," she whimpered through her tears, but still he didn't look at her at all. iHe doesn't care about you,/i Pitch's words echoed in her head. The last he'd seen her was on cracking ice but here he was, playing with all these other children like nothing had happened.
Jack thought her heard her, again and again. His eyes darted around, feeling like he'd see his sister standing there if he just turned quickly enough. Her voice was like an echo, and it was like she was there with him, standing somewhere just out of sight, but no matter how hard he looked, he couldn't find her. Still, the children wanted him to play, and so he did.
How could he do this to her? How could her brother just be ignoring her like that? Emma's tears grew cold and then quite literally froze on her face. "Jackson Overland, why won't you pay attention to me?!" she screamed, and suddenly the temperature dropped several degrees. The falling snow around them turned to hail, falling hard and fast. Several of the children cried out in pain and began running for their homes.
"Come on, everyone," Jack was saying to them, "back home, quickly now, go get warmed up." He herded them all along in front of him back toward the town. But he turned around and for a second, he seemed to look right at her.
"Jack?" Emma asked, her tone softening. But then he turned again and walked away. Emma screamed, angrier now than she ever remembered feeling. iHe doesn't care about you,i she heard Pitch's words in her mind again. "He doesn't care about me," she echoed them. "He really doesn't care." For a minute, she thought she was going to cry again, but she felt too angry to cry anymore. "Fine! Then I don't care either!" she shouted at his back, and then she turned around and fled through the forest, back to where she knew she'd find the bed frame. It wasn't Jack, but isomeone/i cared about her.
And there he was, waiting for her, just like he said he would be. Pitch could see the change in the girl easily, and he could feel it too, for as she drew closer, the air grew much colder. Her chin was firmly set and her eyes were angry, and she walked with an air of finality that he'd never seen in a child before. He put on his best sympathetic look. "You've returned. That must mean... I'm sorry, my dear."
For a second, he could see that sad, scared little girl in her eyes again, and he thought she might start crying, but she took a deep breath and the look went away. She looked down at the snow under her feet. "You said... you said that I was powerful. That I could do great things," she said quietly, remembering back to what he'd told her when he stood with her on the ice. Then she looked up at him and her eyes were cold and determined. "Teach me."
Pitch held back another laugh of victory and put his hand on her shoulder. "Very well," he said with an evil smile. "You are choosing now to leave that life," he gestured toward Burgess, "your human life behind, and so you will also leave that name behind. From now on, you will be my apprentice, and your name shall be Black Frost."