Chapter Text
“Jamie! His head, his head!” Sophie screeched.
Jamie moved instinctually, lunging forward into the body to grasp his head before it met the solid ground, but still he was too late. Snow slipped between his fingers, Frosty too soon for that world would meet his untimely end.
Only instead of the crash, and shattering of a perfectly sculpted snowball, the head landed in a soft fresh pile, unharmed.
Each Bennett let out a breath they hadn’t realized they had been holding.
In the next breath the world began to tip off-kilter inching closer and closer to the ground below him. Newton's law of motion stated that each object would move directly proportional to the net force applied to it, and Jamie was going overboard for not heeding his rules.
Sophie shrieked, covering her eyes a second time.
“Whoa there! That’s a long way down.”
Jamie’s head snapped to attention as he was placed back, like a reed bobbing helplessly on the wind he was placed back, Frosty in tow.
He unpeeled away from the snowman, and dusted off his snow suit, as if he never feared for his nose, in an ice-based incident. Instead Jamie Bennett, twelve years old, and one-time reigning champion of saving the world; stood face to face with none other than the spirit of winter himself.
Bona fide trickster, certified ne’er-do-well, Jack Frost.
No fall came of the tumble, and no crash sounded in the Bennetts' fenced-in backyard, so Sophie slowly peeked between two fingers. She shrieked for an entirely different reason.
Her excitement still overwhelmed her at six and a half years old, and her run still had the scrambling quality she hadn’t quite grown out of. But Sophie had never let that stop her before, nor did she that night, when she launched herself into Jackson’s arms.
Catching her easily in one arm, Jack treated her like he did the snowballs he threw. Delicately until a proper unsuspecting target would reveal itself.
“If you were doing this to Frosty, I can see why he toppled over.” Jack mused.
“We weren’t, we’re going for the record!”
Jack nodded at Jamie’s words as if that was all the explanation needed.
It was.
“Record, you say.” Jack put his hand up to his chin, assessing the snowman with a careful eye, its three traditional sections, tested and true. The fourth that lay safely in a snowbank that tested it past the traditional standard. “We’re gonna need a few more snowballs, then.”
An hour was all they got until they were called in by the familiar voice every child knows. A mother’s call, the very same one that had echoed across every child’s history, and caused each of their three heads to raise in unison. Each one had frozen in a different pose, with equally guilty expressions as if caught red handed doing something they should have known better than to try.
Like lifting a kid or two clean off the ground, or building their tower up to the sky, or even hopping down that distance arms full of snow.
All before Grace realized anything was amiss.
Jack skidded thrice on one foot across the flooded patch of light, and stared up at her before he broke out into a grin.
She wouldn’t catch that act, even if she stood one foot away from his face and squinted.
Grace took one look at her two children frozen on one foot, beside the comically tall Frosty and shook her head. “How did you….”
Her laugh was already disbelieving.
“Never mind, I don't want to know!” She ushered them inside with a motion. “It’s homework time! Come inside Sophie.”
Sophie whined and tossed her head back. Mustering up all the turmoil an almost seven-year-old could manage, no small feat.
“C’mon Soph, I promise we’ll finish Frosty tomorrow.” Jamie offered to comfort her.
Mostly unseen and unheard behind the Bennetts, Jack slipped in just as Jamie’s mom spoke around the corner.
“Shut the door honey! Before you let the cold in.”
The three of them looked to each other sharing that secret.
Sophie was the first to cave into her giggles, and covered them with her gloves.
The distinct sounds of chopping vegetables and boiling water wafted into the hallway. Dinner being prepared around the corner filled an already warm household with a little more comfort, and the scent of home.
Door shut, with a tap of the staff. Sophie hopped onto the bench and kicked off her shoes one after the other, Jamie unbuttoned the clasp under her chin to her fuzzy hat, tossing it half tidily into its spot in the foyer.
Sophie stared up at Jack with bright eyes and a brighter smile.
“I’m doing ad-adising.” Crinkling her nose Sophie glanced at Jamie for help, those words spoken as if they tasted funny.
“Sound it out slowly.” He offered, unwrapping her scarf.
“Add-is-si-sing. Adding numbers.” She finished,
“That sounds pretty tough. You must be very smart.” Jack leaned low to whisper, shooting furtive glances towards the kitchen. “Yeah, I’m the toughest.”
Whatever had been said next to Jamie, he hadn’t caught. His mind in a hundred different directions, Jamie hadn’t even looked up to his mother, until the staff lightly tapped his shoulder. A single motion towards Grace with his staff alerted Jamie to the fact his mind had been flying in several directions at once.
“Jamie, I said your friends are waiting for you.” Jamie had his back turned to Jack, so he didn’t see how the guardian's face lit up at the prospect. “Just be back before dark, oh and if you can’t hear me whistle you’ve gone too far.”
Jamie’s back was to Jack Frost, So Jack didn’t see how that face fell.
“Hey, what do you think they want to do?” Jack mused, The light flurry came down all around them until the entirety of Burgess was blanketed by the fresh coat of snow. It filled their footsteps behind them slowly. Even Jack’s, who left barefoot imprints in his wake, though they washed away flake by flake near instantly. No more than a whisper brushed away, as the staff shifted through them. Like one might use a hockey stick or a walking cane. “A manhunt style nnowball fight? A series of snow tunnels designed like a maze? Or the classics?”
Jamie watched the sidewalk, hands tucked into his pockets. Not realizing when he passed Jack on his side, or when the guardian pointed down the road.
“Jamie, the park is…” Jack shook his head then jogged to catch up. On the third step the wind lifted him lazily along the sidewalk, still jogging, but now backwards and suspended so the thin air could do all the heavy lifting. “Jamie? you feeling alright kiddo? remind me my memory is a little shoddy, but who grew up here their entire lives again?”
Jamie startled from the teasing, trying to replay it fruitlessly until it made some sort of sense.
“Sorry what?”
“We missed the park.”
So they had, the gates falling further and further behind their forward march into progress.
Jack pointed to them as if the point of his finger was all the wind ever needed to move something. Like they might blow the old creaking metal open on proxy, just to make Jack laugh. Or to prove a point, that it could be done.
Jamie ducked his head and kept walking endlessly forward.
“Umm,” his eyes darted around as if a good excuse would jump out at him from the blank spaces in the snow banks. “Yeah, I thought it be rude to leave Sophie out?”
Jack laughed.
“Sophie won’t mind! She’s incapable of holding a grudge. I think she learned it from you.” Despite his opposition Jack followed Jamie away from the park. “Besides. I’ll come back tomorrow to help finish the snowman. Y’know, since you promised.”
“And because we cannot add his face without your help.”
“Exactly, or a really tall ladder.”
A grin broke through Jamie’s face with those words alone. The mere mention of Frosty enough to rekindle something buried behind them in the backyard.
“Seriously! It’s higher than our fence!” Reaching up on the tips of his toes, Jamie emphasized his point with a swift motion. “We don’t even have any snow left in our yard!”
“If only we had some way to fix that.” Jack snickered. Jamie was too busy going on about how cool their snowman was and how they had to call Guinness, to notice how his face changed into a dangerous playful expression. “I guess you’ll just have to tell your friends all about it until then!”
Jamie balked but it was too late, Jack already had him by the shoulders, spun around towards the park. Ignoring physics, and how Jamie planted his feet down into the snow with every complaint on his tongue. Still, it did nothing to stop his track.
Instead of creating friction it only made him slide forward, confirming Jamie’s suspicions that Jack had more than a hand in it. As if it had been turned into ice by some terrible spirit at his back.
“Jack no no no no!” But Jamie was powerless to stop it, and Jack was, well, powerful over winter.
Ushered past the park gates Jack’s laughter rose behind him like wood on the wind, but for once it didn’t feel infectious, only twisted in his gut in coiled spirals.
“Jack-I’m serious.”
Jack didn’t stop. A small pile of snow built up in front of Jamie’s boots.
“I’m not!”
Reasoning wouldn’t work so Jamie did the next best thing, crouched low to switch his centre of gravity, and tried to plant himself in the snow. They passed the hedges on his left flank, and when that didn’t work he flailed his arms.
The park had almost come into view.
With a final friendly shove Jamie could fully see the park.
“Jamie?” They both looked up in union. A smile broke across Jack’s face as soon as he saw her. “What are you doing?”
Jamie looked at Pippa in horror as she said those next words, that brought everything to a stand still.
“Who are you talking to?”