For the next couple days, Jack followed them and threw a snowball every time they talked about him. Which wasn't often, so it was difficult to establish a pattern. But they had to figure it out eventually… right?
"That's it, I'm going to Tyrone." Highland said in exasperation. He and Elsie were working in the library. Elsie had made him sit next to the window, so the occasional snowball was quite obvious. Highland slammed his book shut. "I don't know what's going on, but I'm sick of it."
"Come on, this is pretty funny." Elsie said, smirking.
"Elsie, this is just annoying at this point. I'm going to figure out why this is happening and how to stop it." He slammed his book shut and stood up, pushing his chair back so hard that it almost fell over, earning him a long and caustic "shush" from their librarian.
"Uhh, Highland? You might not want to leave just yet." Elsie was staring out the window.
Highland rolled his eyes. "What now? I'm finding Tyrone." He turned away.
"Highland, would you just look?!" Elsie grabbed his sleeve and pulled him to the window.
"What the-?!" From the second story library window, they could both see huge letters etched in the snow of the lawn below, as if they had been carved there. They read: COME ON HIGHLAND.
Highland stared at the words, wide-eyed and open-mouthed.
But that wasn't all, the snow had more to say. In smaller script under the first message was more writing, but they couldn't read it from the window. Elsie hurriedly grabbed her things and rushed downstairs and made it outside without Highland noticing she was gone. He was too busy staring at the words in the snow. When he finally realized Elsie was outside, he too gathered his things and followed.
"Who wrote this?" Highland wondered aloud, as soon as he had made it out to the lawn. Upon closer inspection, he saw that the smaller words read: I AM SO SICK OF THIS. SEE ME ALREADY.
Beside the letters was a disrupted patch in the smooth snow, as if someone had taken a blunt sword to it in rage.
"Probably whoever is throwing snowballs at you."
"Or whatever…" Highland crouched down to examine the words more closely. Right on cue, a puff of snow exploded on the back of his head. It hit him hard enough that he face-planted into the snow in front of him. He groaned without getting up, hearing Elsie start to laugh behind him.
Jack turned and soared away. He was so done with those two. His heart froze as he realised that he just couldn't do it… no one was ever going to see him again.
He set down in the tall tree behind his house, or at least the house that used to be his. He watched Emma play through the window. He buried his head in his knees, and the tears that had been held back all day finally fell.
Around him the snow piled up again.