by Dawn Sister
“You’ve remembered something?” He asked, taking Jack’s offered hand. It was cold.
“I remember it all, Liam and this is all my fault.” Jack shouted. “These beautiful birds. They need to go back where they should be, or they’ll die.” He made a sweeping gesture with one hand and the swallows, some of which had been grounded due to the now hurricane strength wind, suddenly all disappeared. “And those pretty yellow and red flowers.” Jack told him. “They’re not mine to tend. My cold will kill them.”
Liam nodded, watching in awe as Jack waved his hand again. This time his fingers stilled in front of his face and he regarded them with surprise.
“Would you look at that?” He gasped.
Liam let go of Jack’s other hand with a cry of surprise. Jack’s hand wasn’t just cold it was icy, as if he’d just stepped out of a freezer. His fingers were white, sparkling with frost. As Liam watched, the frost spread across Jack’s hand, up his arm and eventually covered him entirely. The wind caught his hair, blowing it about his face. Touched by frost as he was, Jack sparkled in the low light. He looked other-worldly and beautiful and Liam stared in awe-struck wonder.
“Not just any garden sprite, then.” Father Jacob exclaimed as he struggled down the steps and stood, holding onto Liam to steady himself, regarding Jack with awe. “You’re Winter itself.” He said. “Greetings to you, Jack Frost.” Father Jacob executed an elegant bow despite the raging wind, and Jack, still fascinated by his frost covered fingers acknowledged him with a slight nod of his head.
Liam gasped. “What? How?” But however implausible, thinking of Jack in those terms made perfect sense. This was why he was always so cold. But why had he then become so warm? And was that why everything had gone so arse over tit everywhere in the village?
Jack had admitted it was all his own fault. But was it? Really.
The wind howled about them, growing in strength, and Father Jacob gave a cry as something that looked like a planter, flew at them, narrowly missing them all.
“You need to get inside.” Jack called to them both. “It’s too dangerous now.”
Liam glanced at Father Jacob, who didn’t really need to be told twice. He turned, and stumbled, dodging another flying object, this time a tree branch, and disappeared into his conservatory. He stood for a moment, waiting for Liam, but when another object flew at the open door, he slammed it shut and waited just inside.
Liam didn’t move. The wind made it difficult to stand as it threatened to blow him half across the garden, but he had no intention of abandoning Jack now. With a growing sense of foreboding, Liam began to realise that this may not be Jack’s mistake to rectify.
“Liam, please, you have tae go inside.” Jack pleaded with him.
“I’m not leaving you.” Liam stated, standing his ground and grabbing Jack’s hands in his. “In this together, remember? Once you’ve put all of this right, what will happen to you?” He asked. “Because I don’t think this is your fault at all, I think it’s mine.”
“No.” Jack closed the short gap between them and Liam wrapped his arms around his smaller frame, shivering at the cool sensation he’d grown used to; grown to love. “I decided to stay. I wanted to stay.” Jack called above the noise of the wind.
“But it was me who asked you. Me who didn’t want any of this to end.”
Jack shook his head. “I didnae want this tae end either. We should never have met in the first place, Liam, but when you fell and hurt your head. There was no one else around and I couldn’t leave you. I’d watched you for so long.” He reached up and touched Liam’s cheek. “Such a gentle, kind, lonely soul. You’d do anything for anyone, but there was no one around to help you when you needed it, except me. I had to help you. I had to make a choice. I thought it would be okay, just for one night, but then you asked me back and I wanted to see you again. I wanted so much, but I shouldn’t have. I shouldn’t have come back. Look what chaos I’ve caused after just one day.”
He waved about at the world in general. The sky had gone very dark, the scudding storm clouds had accumulated into one ominous dark shadow that now blotted out the sun. The wind continued to howl. Freezing rain and icy hail pelted their exposed cheeks.
“Go inside, Liam.” Jack shouted. “I need to sort this out, and I can’t if you’re here. You play havoc with my equilibrium, big feller.”
Liam nodded, understanding but not really wanting to.
“I will see you again, won’t I? After you’ve sorted this out?” Liam began to panic, his heart beat faltering at the very real possibility he might never see Jack again.
Jack smiled and for a moment the air around them stilled. The wind was muted as, somehow, a bubble of quiet formed around them. In that moment and that display of magic, Liam allowed himself to hope, but then he saw the deep sadness in Jack’s eyes and his heart fell.
“I’m sorry, Liam.” He whispered in the still, quietness. “I wish, so much, but it’s just not possible.”
Jack’s caressing hand moved along Liam’s jaw, the fingers curling around the back of his neck. Every millimetre of skin Jack touched came alive with sensation. Liam closed his eyes and groaned. He might never feel this again, and the pleasure and the painful knowledge competed with each other.
“I’m sorry too, for even asking you to stay. For saying I didn’t want this to end. It was selfish and reckless.” He opened his eyes, placing his fingers on Jack’s lips to stop his protest. “But even after one night with you, I wanted more. I wanted everything. Don’t feel bad about having to go. I’m sorry I even thought for one minute about wanting you to stay.” Jack nodded, tears forming small ice crystals on his pale skin. Liam gently rubbed them away, the icy cold against his fingertips making him smile, despite the tears he felt in his own eyes.
“I’m sorry I caused so much trouble and so much bloody chaos.” Jack sobbed. “I just wanted to know you, Liam, even if it was for a short time. I don’t regret any of it. Not one moment.”
“Me either. I’m glad I got to know you too. I love you Jack.”
“And I love you, big feller.” Jack whispered the words against Liam’s lips before they kissed.
Cool lips against warm ones. Liam memorized every millisecond, storing it up for a future he could not even begin to imagine without Jack.
“You’ll be fine.” Jack told him, tracing his lips with cool fingertips. “Just promise me you’ll be careful on that track at night, it can get quite icy.”
Liam’s chuckle turned into a half sob, but he forced himself to smile through it. “I promise.”
“Now go.” Jack told him as the noise from the swirling, howling wind grew louder once again, intruding on their last moments. “Please, Liam, before this chaos spreads and does damage I won’t be able to undo.”
Liam brushed frost-sparkled hair from Jack’s forehead, kissed the man’s frost covered cheek and reluctantly pulled away.
The bubble of quiet burst. With a wink, Jack turned and shouted defiance at the howling wind. The wind answered back, whipping at Jack’s frost-white hair and surrounding him with glittering, silver swirls of snow. In that moment, he was every inch a winter sprite and Liam didn’t think he’d ever seen anything quite so beautiful.
The wind threatened to sweep Liam’s legs from under him. He ducked as something flew past his ear. He didn’t wait to see what it was. He broke into a run, freezing hail stinging his face. By the time he’d reached the safety of the conservatory he was exhausted, heart sore and breathing heavily.
He turned as soon as the door was shut, the noise suddenly deadened by the double-glazed conservatory windows. Liam hardly noticed as he pressed against the glass, trying to see through the driving sleet and hail. Jack was nowhere in sight. He was gone.
Liam stepped back, a hand still pressed on the glass as he hung his head.
“Jack.” He sobbed softly. “My Jack.”
The light touch of a hand on his shoulder startled him, and he turned to see the sympathetic gaze
of Father Jacob.
“He had to go, you do understand, don’t you?” The priest told him in a matter-of-fact tone as if he dealt with this sort of thing all the time.
Father Jacob’s eyes were drawn to the view from his conservatory and he let out a soft exclamation of surprise.
“Look.” He whispered.
Liam lifted his head. Wiping his eyes with the back of his hand, he gasped. The angry, swirling wind had calmed. The driving hail had been replaced by softly falling snow, the vicarage lawn now completely covered with a blanket of white.
“A white Christmas. What an enchanting parting gift.” Father Jacob uttered in awe. “Sometimes I am blown away by the beings we encounter in this world. Jack Frost is perhaps one of the more unusual ones, but that just makes him easier to remember.”
Liam regarded him with surprise and disbelief. “You’re not going to condemn him as ungodly, or anything like that? He’s a sprite? A winter spirit. Not bound by God.”
Father Jacob shrugged. “All creatures on this earth, otherworldly or not, are bound together by something unseen. Why not accept that God has a hand in at least some of it, perhaps all of it? Who do you think Jack will answer to for the chaos he caused?”
“Mother Earth?” Liam shrugged, not knowing what else to say and remembering how Jack had used the words as a curse several times.
“And who do you think Mother Earth answers to?” Father Jacob asked. “The buck has to stop somewhere, Liam.”
Liam turned to stare back out at the steadily falling snow. Maybe Father Jacob was right, he wasn’t sure, but it was small consolation for losing the love of his life.
He accepted an extra coat from Father Jacob for his trek back up to his cottage alone in the snow. He’d refused an offer to stay overnight at the vicarage.
He wanted to get back, be where Jack had been, and where they had spent the most time together. Where his scent: the smell of cold air and frost covered leaves, might still linger. The winter was going to be long and lonely without him there, but Liam meant to spend time alone committing every minute they had spent together to memory. He was determined not to forget a single moment.
****
Frosty Epilogue
Christmas eve and Christmas Day passed in a blur. Liam attended church as usual. He then spent the rest of the day alone, as he always did, except he felt more alone than he had ever felt in all the years since he’d moved to Kirk Alton.
Without Jack, nothing was going to be the same again, and it wasn’t as if the man was going to be easy to forget when there were reminders of his handiwork everywhere Liam looked.
The snow fell steadily, every day, for the next two weeks, with some of the heaviest snowstorms within living memory. No one had seen anything like it for decades. Global warming had never been further from people’s minds as the snow grew deeper and deeper, and the entire country froze solid until the middle of February.
Life went on and Liam went back to work, his job consisting mostly of clearing the snow from people’s paths and drives so they could safely leave their homes or making sure that those who couldn’t leave were warm enough and had plenty food. When the snow eventually began to melt, he was tasked with clearing up the mess left behind by the subsequent flooding and freezing. He also lent his hand to a spot of plumbing, when he was called on to fix burst pipes in the church and the vicarage.
He’d never been busier, and he should have been pleased about that, but he was simply going through the motions. As winter carried on, Liam became more and more unhappy, and desperately lonely. While the frost and the snow and the icicles hanging down from the eaves of every house in the village were there to remind him, he knew Jack was doing his job and was still around, in spirit at least.
Soon came the day that Liam was dreading most: the eve of the first day of spring. The last day of Jack’s presence, after which, he would be no longer needed. Whatever spirit oversaw spring would be taking over.
What would happen to the beautiful winter spirit now? There had been no sightings of the white fox since the day Jack had gone but at least as long as winter lasted, there had been some glimmer of hope.
The first day of spring dawned and with it, the acceptance that Liam was never going to see Jack again and he didn’t think he could bear it.
“I’m here if you need to talk, Liam.” Father Jacob told him as he handed him a mug of hot chocolate.
They were standing together in the vicarage conservatory looking out at the bright spring sunshine that seemed to almost be mocking him, rubbing salt in the wound.
“I know and thank you.” Liam managed a weak smile as he accepted the mug. He knew Father Jacob was worried about him and he knew that the priest had recruited the entire village to help keep him busy throughout the winter. There was no way he would have been so busy otherwise. “I could talk to you, but you already know what’s going on, and there’s nothing either of us can do. I just have to get over him, that’s all.”
“Yes.” Father Jacob nodded, placing a hand on his shoulder. “I’m so sorry, Liam. He seemed like a lovely young man.”
“He was, is…” Liam’s breath hitched with a sob. “He was beautiful.”
Liam’s feet felt like lead as he trudged up the track that evening, his coat thrown over his shoulder, as it was too warm for anything thicker than a jumper. The day had been glorious, warming the ground and the air and reminding everyone that there were warmer days to come. All Liam could think about was frost, and cold and ice. God he would miss the ice so much.
He reached his garden gate and pushed it open, drawing his hand back with a gasp when the cold metal stung his skin. He looked down at his fingers to see they were covered in frost.
“What the hell?” His breath steamed in clouds in front of his face.
His eyes were drawn to something sparkling on his garden path: frosty paw prints. Liam’s breathing quickened, his breath billowing in great frosty clouds in front of his face. Something, or someone was playing havoc with the temperature in his garden. There was surely only one being on this earth who could do something like that.
Not even daring to hope, Liam ran along the path and around the corner where he could see someone standing on his back porch, leaning against the low wall with one leg bent, so that their bare foot was pressed against the cool bricks.
“Jack!” Liam called, his voice almost failing him, his breathing laboured as he ran to the porch.
He stopped at the porch steps and looked up. Jack stood there, a broad, foxy grin brightening the world around him.
“Hello there, big feller.”
“Jack, oh my god.” Liam leaned on one of the porch pillars for support as he caught his breath. “How? I thought you said….”
“I know.” Jack stopped him, his expression pained. “I know what I said, and I’m sorry, but I really did think I wouldn’t be allowed to return.”
“But you’re here.” Liam couldn’t quite believe what he was seeing. “Are you real?”
“Aye, big feller, I’m real enough.” Jack chuckled.
“But how?” Liam asked him again.
Jack shrugged. “Would you believe I get time off for good behaviour?”
Liam snorted. “Really?” If he was finding Jack’s presence hard to believe, the fact that the sprite might be rewarded for good behaviour after all the chaos he’d caused was even less likely.
“Okay then, maybe that is a little difficult to believe.” Jack smirked as he pushed himself away from the wall. Liam climbed the steps to get a little closer. “How about the fact that tantrums do sometimes work?” Jack smiled a little sheepishly.
