Chapter 1

Jack Frost was perplexed but he couldn't help himself. He peeked around the tree trunk again at the young girl in the yellow jacket who was ice skating gracefully. Her auburn hair sparkled gold as the sun set on her. She started to turn towards him and he ducked behind the tree, feeling flustered and foolish.

Knowing Jamie was going to get out school very soon for the Christmas holidays, Jack leaped up and let the wind catch him, shouting, "To Jamie's house wind. Twiner, let's go." Jack found himself talking to his staff like it was alive, which was ridiculous. But what did he know? But that name flickered something to life in the dead wooden staff. A small blue glow barely visible started to flicker and grow throughout his staff.

After he got back from school for the Christmas holidays, Jamie was in the kitchen taste testing the Christmas cookies that his mom was baking. He glanced at his sister, Sophie who was covered in frosting. She was jumping around chanting bunny around the kitchen table and under it.

"Mom, why did you say that Jack Frost was just an expression?" Jamie asked meaning to for a while after meeting Jack Frost the first time last spring. He looked up Jack Frost on the computer and came up with multiple sources of conflicting information. What interested him the most was the differences of the tales. Old Man Winter cracked him up though. Winter was late that year after the Battle of Burgess as the guardians called it, he only saw Jack a few times, but enough to keep believing in him. He wasn't just an expression. Jamie believed it.

His mom looked up from frosting the snowman cookies to look like Olaf, Frozen was all the rage in her house. "Because it's one I heard from my family for years and other people. My great grandma, Ana Mary, I'm named after her, had dementia slipping into her younger years once in while. After her big brother past, she took my mom's hand and insisted Jack Frost was real. She bopped my mom's nose teasing her gently by telling her don't let Jack nip your nose. Because he was cheeky like that. My mom, your grandma said that her mom in all her childhood stories never mentioned a Jack Frost at all, in fact their house used to be by that lake that's by town that was moved from Transylvania at the turn of the century. So I assumed that Jack Frost nipping at your nose was just an expression honey."

Seeing her son's crestfallen face, Mary Ana put the cookies into the oven, set the timer and turned to Jamie. Mary Ana held out her hand and pulled him and Sophie to her bedroom where she kept the family history albums. She pulled out the one that was on the bottom and started to carefully flip through the pages. Then she gently took out a hand drawn picture of a lady turned away on one side, and a couple on the other.

"I want to show you something. I used to laugh at this picture that my great uncle Jack drew before he died. I always thought it was him and his wife playing dress up but he insisted it was other people. One of them, he insisted was Jack Frost." Jamie spoke excitedly in sync with his mom at the name Jack Frost.

He carefully took the brittle paper and peered at the drawings. A small signature was there which was hard to make out, with the caption, "Katherine and Jack Overland Frost (Ardelean)" and "Katherine" on the other. The lady's picture brought a flush to Jamie's cheeks even if he was puzzled by the beak? In the upper left hand corner. He just started to notice that girls were pretty and it still flustered him at times.

"We, we are related to Jack Frost's family!" Jamie jumped around excitedly. His mother smiled at her
son's imagination. Mary Ana never had it like he did. Her belief when she was a child was small. Mary Ana was always more practical. After staring at the pictures for a while, Jamie suddenly started to pester her with more of the family history. Luckily the cookies did not burn, but it was a very, very
close call. Without Sophie demanding cookies, well it would have been a longer day then it was.

She let Jamie keep the drawings but in a plastic cover since he was so interested in the family history. As she wrestled Sophie into bath time, which Sophie gave a merry chase even to the deck of the backyard. Over the wails of her youngest Mary Ana didn't notice Jamie outside and start to talk to thin air, waving the drawing excitedly. Mary Ana, did notice that Jamie was outside without a coat and covered in snow. There was a dent in the snow that she assumed that Jamie made.

"Jamie! It's time to go! Get in here and get ready to go to the library for Mother Goose day!"

Mary Ana sighed as her child shot by her so fast she swore she felt a breeze. Oh how she loved her kids, but have alone downtime was great as well. The bathroom escapes did not count, since they always did find her.

She was quite upset to discover that Jamie misplaced her family heirlooms. Gave them to Jack Frost indeed! What a tall tale. She hoped that he found them soon. They were precious to her.