Everlasting Snow: Chapter 35

The hours turn into days,

The days into weeks,

And the weeks into months.

You and Jack become virtually inseparable. The only time you spend apart is when Jack leaves to go conjure up winter weather.

“I travel with the weather,” he tells you when you ask why he has to leave and can’t just stay. “Y’know, with the cold and stuff. Wherever it goes, I go, and I do my thing wherever that may be. Feels natural. Sure, the clouds and chilliness would still exist—I mean, it all existed before I did (I did float out of a frozen lake into snowy scenery that I didn’t create, after all)—but I’m a channel of sorts for it and really bring the Winter and all things associated with it on, emphasizing it in a way. It’s a pretty important job. Can’t really call it a job though, since it’s so much fun. I could go places where it’s not winter-like at all and make it snow and such, but I have a feeling that’d cause some serious confusion, fun as that would be. But anyway,” he adds, sticking his tongue out and scrunching up his nose, “I’m not a huge fan of warm places. Makes me feel like I’m gonna melt.”

You grow sad.

Warmer weather isn’t far off, with Spring being just around the corner.

And that means that you won’t be seeing Jack.

Catching your down mood, he puts a reassuring hand on your shoulder and looks up into your eyes.

“Don’t worry, I’ll endure a little warm weather to come back and visit,” he tells you. You relax a little. He smiles mischievously. “Just be sure to keep the thermostat down. Keep it nice and cool in here.”

You tell him you will.

The two of you spend the days reading, taking walks, playing board games, and doing other such things. You give him a grand tour of your entire town. He had never stopped and really taken the time to look at things in his 300-year existence since he was always just so busy icing things over and handing out snow days, so he was pretty thrilled about that. You’ll have a two-person snowball fight on occasion, getting strange looks from rare passersby’s. But you just laugh and continue on. Other times, so you look a little less crazy, the two of you will join in on a snowball fight or other games with the neighborhood kids (even though they can only see you). He takes you back to the lake for a few more sessions of ice skating, him joining you a couple of times, just sitting back and admiring your mad skating skills at other times. He tells you story upon story about the world over the past three centuries, from wars to inventions to small things like the style of things, and other historical events. At least, the ones that he found interesting or were big enough to gain his attention when he wasn’t messing around with people using his unique abilities. If the day is just right and the weather permitting, he’ll fly you somewhere around the globe. You’ve already made a trip or two to Europe.

Jack stays the night sometimes, though not usually. Only by your request. He typically takes to the couch. Just knowing he is there, close by, is enough for you.

And then not to mention all of the hugs and kisses the two of you share.

One night, you have a terrible nightmare.

It’s dark.

You can’t see anything around you. It’s just blackness all around, no dimension, no figures, a complete void.

Nothingness.

Then, you see a small light.

It gets closer to you, taking shape and form.

It’s Jack.

But he appears as the brown-haired vision you had seen once before. He’s still in the old 17th-century clothes, too.

This time, he’s awake. His eyes are a soft brown, the color of his skin more normal and humanlike, filled with life and appearing almost…warm...

Why does he look like this? your dream-self wonders. Was Jack once…a human?

The vision holds out his hand, smiling at you. He begins to change. His cloak shrinks away—transforming into a hood—as his vest and shirt become one and begin to turn the wintery blue of the hoodie that real Jack now wears. His skin becomes paler and takes on the customary bluish tint at points. The brown of his eyes gives way to the brilliant blue that you know, the new color overlapping the old in a tiny wave beginning at his pupils. His hair turns progressively lighter, going from its rich chestnut to light brown, from that to blond, and finally to its usual snow-white with the slight silver at the roots.

You reach out to take his hand as the frost on his hoodie takes form.

Just as your fingers are about to make contact with his, he takes back his hand. Still smiling softly, he turns from you and begins to walk away.

You try to walk after him, but find that your legs are as heavy as lead. You struggle to take each step towards him as he starts to fade back into the darkness.

You manage to get close enough and grab onto his wrist. He turns to face you.

Squinting his eyes slightly, his eyebrows furrowed in question, he finally speaks.

“Who are you?” he asks.

You had awoken to Jack standing, worried, in the doorway of your bedroom. Apparently, you had been shouting his name in your sleep. You fell back into a dreamless slumber as he took his place beside you, holding you.

Tired of his pestering, you eventually tell him about the dream and your suspicions about his past. Or what could possibly be his future. But the past seems more likely to you.

He frowns.

“Not possible. I was nobody before that night, before I was Jack Frost. I have no memory of anything before waking up to the dark of the lake. That moment was the moment the Man in the Moon created me, brought me into being.”

And so the subject is dropped.

Other than that, there have been no signs of Pitch.

Not even the smallest grain of Nightmare sand.

You keep North’s snow globe on you at all times though, just in case.

“C’mon,” Jack says on a particularly crisp and clear night. He looks up towards the roof and back at you, holding out his hand, lips curled into a half-smile.

You take it and he flies the two of you up to a safe spot on your rooftop, where he then lays down, putting his hands behind his head. His staff lies quietly beside him like an old, faithful dog does to its master.

You take a seat beside him, holding your legs up to you and resting your chin on your kneecaps. You look up at the night sky.

The brightly-shining full moon catches your attention.

You’re hypnotized by its mysterious beauty.

Then, a voice. Soft. Soothing. A small whisper. Mystical. All-knowing. A man’s voice.

Not an external sound.

It seems to be communicated from the moon itself right into your head.

(Your name).