As the dark woman picked through the hexagonal chamber in silence, giggles and thumps began rising from each of the four flower's bedchambers. As she looked to each a ringing sound from a soft, invisible bell fluttered over her shoulder and drew her attention to a velveteen sack materializing from nothing at the room's center. When the dark woman drew towards it and held out her palm, the sack dropped into her hand with a rain of metal trembling. Slowly she pitched the sack up and let it return to her palm with a thud. Opening it, she counted the gold coins within. Upon finishing she scowled and threw the sack through the air towards the sewing closet, where it skidded across the floor until it disappeared into the shadows. Then she turned and paced, looking about in vain for a certain glimmer of life that the chamber did not possess.
"Where is he?" she mumbled to herself, kicking a stray brush across the room. Her raven black curls shivered against her scalp as she gnashed her teeth. "The beast lies that he will be here by midday and then he never arrives."
"Who said I never arrived?" called a melodious voice from high in the air near the window. Slowly, a body began materializing atop the aquamarine wardrobe, and as the dark woman whizzed around to meet him, he took on the form of a boy with white shaggy hair and skin of the palest white. The moon outside reflected through him, so that his crystalline eyes were startling. For a moment their irises shone a soft green, as if muddled by brown pigment. Then the green was gone, replaced by darting ice blues. For a moment the dark woman stared at them. Then with the snap of her fingers, the aquamarine wardrobe the spirit perched atop grew spines of splinters. Its bottom drawer flung open to reveal tongues of brightly colored clothing and rows of sharp wooden teeth. Its crown curled back like blue knobby fingers to grasp at the spirit's blue cloak. Beady red eyes opened in the engraved slits near the iron handles that acted as nostrils. Before the boy could be trapped he escaped with a cry and glued himself to the ceiling overhead, where there clung no ivy or wood paneling but only white bricks. As the sorceress below looked upon him she stomped her foot in irritation. Then, sweeping her robes around her, she threw her arms in the air and trudged towards the kitchen, pulling up the room's sole chair and drawing water from the hand pump at the kitchen's side.
As the sound of chugging water and creaking iron knobs came in waves, Jack looked about the room once more, chancing hovering back down so that his feet were about a yard from the stone cobbled floor. Now, in the darkness, the frescos were shrouded with the black veil of night. Still, soft candlelight glowing from the lanterns lining the room flickered so that the center was partially illuminated. As the tap water was transferred to one of the pots picked up from the floor after the dancing and put on the stone stove, the lanterns dimmed until they twinkled a cool blue, the same color as Jack's eyes. As he looked upon them he chuckled softly, bringing his fingers near enough to touch the flame of one of them. When he glanced behind him, the dark woman had returned her gaze to his form, tapping her long fingernails against the kitchen counter as she looked upon him.
"You are late, Jack Frost," she hissed. In return Jack grinned a crooked smile and hovered closer to the ground, stepping forward as a mouse towards a cheese trap. He countered that he had been there the whole time, and had seen everything. The dark woman did not move, but her eyes narrowed.
"Did any of my four flowers see you?" she snapped, but Jack responded that they had not. "Where is the girl?" the dark woman asked in return. With a gulp, Jack rung his hands and shrugged. When the dark woman asked him to repeat himself, he croaked that he did not know where the girl was. To this, the dark woman hissed, and the lanterns within the chamber darkened until they glowed a deep, angry red.
"She made fun of me!" cried Jack in return, but the woman ignored him and flung the back of her palm across her forehead as she let her head fall back. "My dear Jack!" she then began, turning with her right side carried up through the air by her raised arm. The other she slipped across her heart. Her elbow fell as her hip turned up, so that her lower body stopped her from tipping left completely. As Jack watched the show he let his bare white feet tap to the ground, against soft carpet. The material rustled and burned beneath him, and he hovered again.
"It is not Lady Gothel who profits from this deal, but Jack Frost!" she explained, cupping her hands around the air before her as if she held Jack's face in her palms. "And if Jack Frost cannot procure for me my greatest wish, how shall I gift him his own?"
"I'm going to get her for you!" bellowed Jack in return, setting his feet on hard ground and stomping towards the dark woman with his left hand held out to point. "If you would just give me a little more time, I bet she's coming this way right this minute! I bet she's almost here!"
Suddenly a loud, deep moan resounded through the chamber from the upstairs bedroom, startling Jack and making him trip over his feet. When the moan died down and all was quiet once more, Jack glanced from door to door before meeting eyes with Gothel. As her flat blues stared at him without expression, he held back a giggle. Then, opening his mouth and laughing out loud, he descended in a howl of cackles and collapsed to the ground, rolling about as Gothel rolled her eyes behind him. When Jack managed to regain his composure, he sat up cross-legged and grinned in his crooked way.
"Are they always like this?" he asked. The dark woman snorted and returned to the stone stove, where she took the pot of water away from the boil and emptied it into two odd, chipped teacups. From the cupboard above she took a tub of dried green flora and dug out a handful, distributing half into each cup. When she returned to Jack's side, the flowers had stained the water green and were just beginning to open. Jack watched the little flora as the cup was put in his hands. His held four buds, and one by one each peeked open its little yellow eye and outstretched its inner white petioles to the lantern light above. Jack looked up as well, and bathed his face in the warm orange glow. For a moment his skin remembered warmth, and he stuck out his tongue to catch it on his inside. The dark woman watched him and sighed, taking a sip from her own before setting the steaming cup back against her lap.
"You know, you could drink it if you like," she murmured. Jack shrugged but furrowed his brows, glancing down and running his fingers over the edge of his cup's surface. When he dipped his finger into the liquid, discomfort caused him to draw it away. His finger glowed pink momentarily, and then it returned to blue.
"You have been drinking too much moonlight, Jack," muttered the dark woman. "It has made you cold." Jack nodded in return and grinned again, his eyes flying upwards with a glaze of imagination.
"When I first traveled with the North Wind, I thought I would get frost bite," he explained. "But he had a coat made for me-"
"Of soft down feathers made from snowflakes," interrupted the dark woman in a flat tone, glancing to each of the four bedrooms from her seat. "You have told anyone that would listen."
"Not anyone!" Jack snapped in defense, taking a sip from his tea and gulping it down with defiance. The metallic twinkle returned to the dark woman's glance as she looked upon him. Then she asked him what he remembered.
Jack's body shivered. The moon outside seemed to cling to his back, and as he scampered forward to watch it and the stars surrounding he set his chin to his wrists and sighed.
"I remember everything clear as day," murmured the spirit. When he glanced back, Gothel was picking the teacups from the ground and returning them to the kitchen sink. Gentle laughter rose from one of the bedrooms. Jack and Gothel met eyes. Then, in grotesque fashion the sorceress mimed gagging, throwing her chest forward as she thrust her neck and tongue out and curled her lips back from her teeth. The winter spirit burst into laughter and Gothel chuckled as well. Then the woman sighed and shook her head.
"So many come these days, with stupid little trivia. Soon all of Corona will have stripped my flowers."
"Is that why you sold the fifth?" inquired Jack. But Gothel shook her head with vigor. "No. I was indebted to a friend." Jack did not respond. Instead his eyes flashed. When Gothel noticed it she smirked and pointed out the wide window near the aquamarine dresser.
"My dear Jack," whispered the sorceress, "You, I trust with my world. Yet you deliver not what I ask."
"She is coming," snapped Jack in return. Determination clenched his fists as he met Gothel's eyes. "I just need to find her. She will not rest until she kills the people who beheaded her father."
"I must know her exactly," murmured the dark headed woman in reply. "Every detail, every weakness, every strength, I must have it all."
"I'll tell you everything as long as you keep your promise," Jack shot back, hovering until he was a foot away from the woman's nose. In return Gothel leaned towards him so that he could smell the scent of her skin. Her eyes shone with metal again.
"I am not the one who breaks promises, Jack," she whispered.
Behind Gothel the clock struck two, and with a startled breath Jack made himself invisible. One by one, the chamber's four doors opened, and from each one a fuzzy headed, bedraggled creature stepped as if logs were attached to his heels. Each of his eyes was barely open, glazed as if still in a dream. With them he glanced from side to side, peering through a rose window into a room where once great magic had occurred. Gothel looked upon each with a kind gaze before standing and holding her arms out to gather the world. When the men stepped forward she beckoned for them to hurry. They ran to her and she clapped her hands, so the triangular stones at the center of the floor fell away, revealing the dark stone passage up through the tower's bowels. An orb of light was procured from within, and it guided the four men left of the eight down the passageway until their forms and the light surrounding them was gone. The sound of falling rain resounded through the hexagonal tower head. Then, the bowels of the tower churned and groaned, and the triangular shaped stones from the center of the floor rose back into their places with a grinding whisper.
"They shall remember nothing," worded Gothel without looking at her remaining companion. "Only warmth. Only enough to tell others to bring their secrets as well."
The doors began opening again. This time, each of the four maidens stepped out, eyes hollow and clothing ruffled and asunder. They crossed their arms in front of them and pulled their golden hair back from their eyes. Then with a sigh they asked permission to wash the sheets. Gothel peeked out the window. Down in the valley the four men teetered back and forth, wandering. When they had made their way back through the ivy curtain separating the valley from the outside world, Gothel nodded and snapped her fingers again. As the passageway opened through the floor, the four maidens collected their sheets, clothes, and washing soaps and hurried them down, until they had left the tower and sprinted like children towards the fast flowing river beside, where the red and blue fish swam. Their golden hair glowed an unearthly green in the moonlight, and as they basked in it they sighed with want. Then the sheets fell into the river and the girls scrubbed them down. In the tower above, another sack materialized in the air, with more money within. As Gothel caught it she counted the coins with satisfaction. Then, without care she flung the sack against the sewing closet floor and settled back into her tea, sighing as she took a glance out the window. When one of the maiden's eyes drew back up to the tower and stared, Gothel's own gaze narrowed, and she glanced towards Jack with a strange opacity.
"I want you to go now, Jack," she murmured. "Before my flowers return."
With a nod Jack left her side and flew from the wide window, concealing himself as he went. As he hovered the breath of the north wind came upon him strongly, knocking him to the side so that he had to catch the edge of the cliff walls surrounding the tower. When he had hoisted himself over the canyon ledge and onto the grass near where the forests began again, he looked towards the sky and frowned. When no gusts responded, he snorted. Then a great howl descended upon his ears, and the north wind gushed up from the gorge below and lifted Jack high in the air, above the clouds so that the moon glared at him from its place in the sky. Its light crashing upon him as if dissecting him. With a yelp he flung his hands in front of his eyes and cowered in fright, the north wind still carrying him on. In a gust it blew him above the valley and across Corona Canyon back into the woods. As he fell, he reached out blindly for branches, but before he could hold one the wind rushed him on, scraping his feet against the canopies of the oncoming pines. Soon he was moving so fast and so high that the trees gave way to sea in an instant, and all that flew beneath was a flat shimmering blue whose glossy white waves blurred to lines in their sweeping escape from view. The air grew biting cold and Jack gritted his teeth against it. Before he could protest the sea had given way again, this time to more pines and flurries of snow. He was far north now, and a river cut through the ground below like a deep crack. As Jack watched it the north wind let him go, casting him through the sky until his nose measured yards away from the white down. With a final sigh the wind's cold breath puffed Jack up and let him fall into the snow face first. When the winter spirit got the chance to look up, he gritted his teeth and wobbled to his feet, flinging his arms around him.
"Now what was that for?" the spirit croaked. The wind responded with a groan of displeasure and flung Jack into the snow again, making the chalk white boy grit his teeth against the pressure and squint his eyes so that he could see through the flurries.
"What do you care about what I say?" shouted Jack. In return the wind grew so loud that it whined into the winter spirit's eardrums and made him hot with anger.
"Just you wait!" screeched the spirit with a fling of his arm. "When the time comes, I'll be more powerful than all of you! No one will scoff at Jack! You will all kneel in wonder!" Then he spit as far as he could, wiping his mouth with savage swipes as he trundled forward. When he turned to comprehend where he was, far in the distance a looming shape caught his eye. Without hovering Jack trudged through the snow towards it, breathing faster as a low bent willow tree materialized, along with a long ovular mirror etched into the snow surrounding its roots. Stray logs and little bushes with red berries took form as well, nearly hidden in the snowdrifts that threatened to bury them completely. The weight of the white flakes was too much for the willow tree beside, which creaked in exhaustion as the north wind pulled against its vines. The reflection of its leaves shimmered in the indentation beside, and when Jack came upon it fully, he realized that the indentation was a frozen pond. Though the snow was not falling in gusts now, it had before. Children must have wiped away what had been packed upon the pond that day. Etchings of snowshoes and skates glared under the moon's light at Jack. When his own lopsided reflection glanced back at him from the pond's surface, Jack gulped and tugged around his tunic's collar. Then, he slumped onto a log near the mirror sheet and stared, glaring until his face gave way to a different, younger one, with long brown hair and muddy eyes.