"I'm a witch? What does that mean?"
"That you are special. That you are Nunnehi as he was. But you are more human."
"So my dad was human…and the reason he can't be human again was because he was cremated?"
My dad's best friend and partner looked so sad. I put my arm on his sleeve.
"Amelia…" Crow set down the package he was holding and faced me. I could see him clearly in the lamp light. The cold wind felt good on my cheeks. I unbuttoned my coat and pulled it off so I could hold it in my hand and let my body breath with the soothing air. "He's not cremated."
Okay…that wasn't something I thought he'd say. "What do you mean he's not cremated?"
"Please don't tell Sarah I told you this, but his body disappeared in the morgue. It's a well kept secret. The bullet was still lodged in his heart and they were going to remove it during the autopsy. Use it in their case against his mother." He made an odd face. "It disappeared."
I dropped my coat on top of the bags. "Wait…you're telling me my dad's body disappeared…before the autopsy. How did I not know this? And who is in that urn on the mantel?"
"Sand from Tybee Island is in the urn. And you didn't know about the body because we kept it a secret. Paid a few people off. Brought the urn to the wake and no one ever asked any questions. Enough people saw your dad's body in the street and at the morgue."
I wasn't sure what I was feeling at that moment, other than a full body flush of emotion. I grabbed his upper arm. "Crow…what happened to it? His body."
"Your father needed it. He still has it. We weren't kidding when we said he's still alive. Now don't get upset, Amelia. Your mother knows this. I know this. She just didn't think you'd understand."
"She's right. I don't understand. So why don't you explain it to me?"
"Here?"
"Here is good. Now." I saw something small flutter around the black of his stetson but kept my gaze fixed on his wizened face.
Crow licked his lips. "We've never lied, Amelia. Your father is Jack Frost. But even a living personification of a concept or idea has to have a living body. Especially when they're half human, like your uncle was. And like your father. He died as a human and woke as Jack Frost. No one stole the body from the morgue. Jack got up and pretty much walked out of there. Just…no one saw him because he'd already started the transformation."
I let go of his arm and crossed my arms over my chest. I tapped my foot. "Mom said he came to her and showed her the bullet hole in his chest."
"Yes. If he were to become human, the bullet would really kill him. Because it's in his heart."
"So why not just take it out while he's Jack Frost?"
Crow opened his mouth, then closed it. He tilted his head to the side. "You'd have to ask him that."
"I can't see him."
"No," Crow said as he pointed at me. "You don't want to see him. And your mother doesn't want you to see him either, which is why she hasn't pushed you about him in the past twelve years."
"Now you lost me again."
"You know enough about the stories of Nature, and Santa, to understand how dangerous these incarnations are. Your father refused to become Jack Frost, but events moved to make it happen regardless. Your mother's just afraid that if you have contact with your father, Nature will become more aware of you. That she'll set events in motion to take you from her, just like your father. She confided those fears with your dad a long time ago."
I started to see pathways as he talked. Sentences that now connected with other sentences spoken at different times through my life. Ideas and concepts that wove like ice fractals as they created the perfect symmetry of truth. "Mom told dad to stay away from me, didn't she? That's why the messages stopped, the presents, the knowing he was there."
Crow's expression told me what I needed to know. I didn't care if he agreed with her or disagreed. She had no right. This was my life! This was my dad! "So Nature takes my dad from me…and now I learn my mother did it as well."
"Amy, you have to realize why. Her fears, the loss she'd already gone through. You are her last connection to Jack. Her only link now."
"And what about me, Crow? Huh? What about my feelings and my needs." My voice rose just a bit and I had to look away. I thought the excited voices to my right were onlookers commenting on our argument.
That is, until I took another look at the gathering groups of people and saw them looking up at what was coming down.
Snow.
It was light at first, and I recognized it as the little wisps of white fluff I'd seen against Crow's stetson. I'd never seen snow. Not in real life. And as the people around us grew more excited, so did I. People were emptying out of stores in the dimming light to watch the snow reflected in the street lamps.
"Is this you?" Crow said.
I shook my head. "No. I can't really create forms I'm not familiar with." I turned to him and saw the wonder in his expression, and a little bit of dread. "What's wrong?"
"I'm not sure yet. We should finish and get to the cabin." He held his hand out to me.
I hesitated to take it. What was it he feared? What was wrong with snow? "Crow…"
"Please, Amelia."
I took his hand and grabbed my things after he reminded me to put my coat back on. I did look a little odd as the only one without a coat as the snow started falling thicker and faster.
It stuck to the ground, the trees, the lamp posts, the benches—everything it touched. Locals and tourists alike were bubbling with excitement, as well as making a run on the grocery for milk and bread. We were lucky enough to beat the rush and when I saw Crow's SUV covered in snow I squealed with delight. Everyone was happy.
Except Crow.
•••
The cabin was left to mom in dad's will. Mom assumed dad had worried about his life as a cop and made his living will just after they started dating. The cabin was set far back from the road into the woods. Most cabins I'd seen when staying with friends were on what I called cabin farms, stacked so close together I could see in the living room of the one next door.
But not ours. Dad called it Eanáir, which in some old language meant January.
I felt most home in this place.
Mom kept pictures of her and dad on the mantel. Images of a life she shared before I was born.
The cabin was three stories, with a game room and large flatscreen down stairs for movies. There was a hot tub on the deck and a bench swing. The main floor had a fourteen foot ceiling of windows looking out at the Appalachians. A real wood burning fireplace warmed the room in front of a sofa and two reading chairs. There was a good size kitchen with counter and the master bedroom and bath behind it. The top floor was little more than a loft and bathroom. That's where my bedroom was. It had its own screened in deck which mom used to fret over when I was little, terrified I'd somehow osmose through the screen and wood and fall to my death.
I'd painted ice castles on the walls of my bedroom. Mom cut snowflakes out of tissue paper or cardboard and sprinkled them with white glitter and hung them from the ceiling like snow. Many of them still hung there. The glitter had long ago faded and the white was little more than a rainy day gray. Cobwebs covered the paper fractals.
I threw my luggage on the bed and raced down to help Crow get the groceries and supplies out of the back of the SUV. The snow had covered the ground in a thick blanket—I couldn't even see grass or gravel or anything. It covered the cabin's roof as well as the trees.
"It's beautiful," I said as I stood on the driveway's edge and looked out over the sparkling hills.
Crow had been listening to the news on the way there. I walked inside and he had the flatscreen in the living room on and turned to WSB for more information about this freak storm. I set the last bags on the counter and started putting them away as Crow locked the SUV, the door and started a fire.
They were calling it SUDDEN STORM on the news. They even had a nifty blue and white logo with snowflakes along the bottom of the scr
een. We'd already decided on soup and sandwiches for dinner so I started on the soup as Crow fixed a couple of what he called his mighty man sandwiches.
"…reported five inches already in some parts of north Georgia."
We sat on the couch with our food on the coffee table. Well, Crow sat on the couch. I sat on floor between the two and ate while I watched the station's coverage.
"The National Weather Service didn't see it coming," Crow said as he finished up his soup. He still had his hat on. "Didn't flag. They insist the weather conditions for a storm this intense didn't exist up to ten minutes before it started."
"What does that mean?" I took a big swig of my Coke. The can grew hairy frost around my fingers as I held it and I nearly dropped it on the floor. The cold burned my skin. Cold never burned me. Ever.
Crow was on his feet in seconds and across the room to his holster. He removed his Colt and held it up. "It means this storm's not natural. And…" he looked at me. "We're not alone."
I jumped to my feet as the ice on my Coke can melted onto the coffee table in a puddle. Wind started up, whipping the snow outside into a frenzy. The frozen flakes made 'ticking' noises against the glass like sleet. I could actually feel the pressure of the storm outside. It moved against my skin like tiny fingers poking and probing. I inched away from the couch to the fire. When I stood in its warmth the poking stopped and the wind calmed, but didn't go away.
"Amelia?"
"Something's looking at me. It's testing me. Pushing me. I—I felt it touch me." Ew!
Crow said a few nasty words my mom would have smacked him for. "Nature."
Nature? Seriously?
Not knowing what it was creating the storm scared me. But putting a name to it, a name I detested. Well, I was still scared, but I wasn't afraid.
I was mad.
The wind tossed more than just snow at the windows and I hoped they wouldn't break. I reached out with the old familiar power. Frost wove around the glass on the inside and outside to create a protective barrier against the onslaught. I thought it was odd that my ice and Nature's ice were so…different.
Abruptly the storm ceased. Just…silence.
Crow and I looked at each other from across the room. I shrugged. He shrugged back. Neither one of us knew what was happening.
Until something blasted out of the fireplace and knocked me into the air and over the couch. Luckily I made a pile of snow to cushion my fall. Now that I knew what it was like, had seen and touched its consistency, I could recreate it.
Crow crawled over to me on his elbows and knees. The inside of the house was quickly become its own Winter Wonderland as snow and ice shot out of the fireplace like a snow machine. His hat was gone and his forehead bled along his temple. We reached out to one another and huddled behind the couch until the snow stopped.
"There. That's much better."
That was a woman's voice. I pulled up from Crow and looked over the back of the couch. A woman in a dark green skirt suit stood in front of the fireplace. Her hair was bright red, her skin a soft mocha and her eyes emerald green. Her shoes were the same color as her dress. She brushed her hands together and zeroed in on me. "Come out now. I've made you feel at home."
What? I crouched down with Crow but realized too late he was unconscious. I didn't know if that was from the blow to the head with the blood or something else.
"Don't worry about the old Crow. He'll survive. Trust me," the woman said and her voice dripped with sarcasm. "He's a lot older then you know and he's lived through a lot worse."
I was shaking but not from the from the drop in temperature. I straightened my shoulders and faced the most destructive incarnation in the world.
Nature.
"Well don't just dawdle there behind the couch. Come and let me see you."
"No."
"No? Dear…do you not know who I am? Well, of course you do. Being Jack's daughter, you would have to know. But the real thing here is—how come I didn't know about you? What is it about the Frost family and their hiding children from me?"
"Maybe it's because you destroy them?" My voice shook at first, but I was gaining a bit of confidence. I wasn't cold. In fact I wasn't feeling anything but rage. How dare this…cow…break into my dad and mom's house and wreck it like this!
"Your uncle was not my doing. He chose to be mortal."
"And was conveniently mugged and killed after he made that decision. Which of course left you my father."
"Yes…and a troublesome ass he's been since he took the office."
I narrowed my eyes at her. "He didn't take the office. It was forced on him."
"Now," she said as she pointed a long black nail at me. "You cannot blame me because his mother's a nut job."
"I blame you for everything."
"Yes…" She moved through the snow littered living room without making a sound, much less an impression, on the snow. "I'm sure your mother's filled your head with all sorts of nonsense about me. I bet you think I'm here to take you away somewhere, don't you?"
"Aren't you?"
"Why would I do that? No, no. I'm here to make you an offer."
I looked down at Crow, wishing he'd wake up and help me get this bitch out of my house. "I don't want any offer from you."
"Really?" She crossed her arms over her chest and smiled. "Not even for the chance to see your father?"
•••
Yeah…I wanted to hear what she had to say. But I also threw down the condition that we talk away from the cabin and she put it back the way it was.
She agreed a little too eagerly and once I knew Crow was going to be okay, I followed her into the woods to a clearing I played in with my mom and Crow. The world rested under a blanket of sparkling white snow. The clouds moved away as we walked to the center of the clearing and the moon rose high and full.
Nature turned and faced me with that moon above her. I gave her kudos for the effect but a less than nice score on her execution. What…did she think I was still a kid? "Do you know what you are?"
"I'm Amelia Frost. Daughter of Jackson and Sarah Frost. And I'm a witch."
Her face wasn't hidden by shadows so I saw her eyebrows arch in surprise. "So you know you're gifted."
"I know I'm a witch because Crow told me I was."
"But you don't know what that means?"
"No." I put my hands on my hips. "What did you want and why are you using my dad as leverage?"
She held up her hand. "Patience and I will tell you. Incarnations such as myself, and others like Death and War, are all positions filled by humans after their death. We live our human lives and when an incarnation is killed, either through their own stupidity or sometimes no fault of their own, they have to be replaced. Originally the position held by your father was inhabited by one of the dead."
"No, it was my uncle."
"Before him. But because Winter screwed around with your crazy grandmother and had twins, that order was interrupted. Your brother was bestowed the honor—in fact he asked for it. Your father moved on to live a normal life. Until your uncle, that damn hybrid, fell in love and decided he didn't want to be Jack Frost anymore. So," she said as she lowered her hand. "He was killed and your father became Jack."
I held up my own hand. "Correction. My father was forced to become Jack Frost when my crazy grandmother put a bullet in his heart."
Nature shrugged. "Same thing."
"No. It's not. He's in that position because if he were to become human, the bullet would kill him instantly."
"Seems the old Crow has told you more than I thought."
"You mentioned hybrid."
She nodded. "Half human and half incarnation. Like your father and uncle, and like you. The seed was already in his blood even with his power sealed. Winter did that, thinking he could protect him from me."
"How did you find out about me?"
"A dwarf told me. I didn't believe him at first so I tested you and you instinctively used your power to protect the cabin. This
is your element."
"Element?"
"You're a Winter Witch. An elemental. I've been without a Winter Witch for a century. Now that you're awakening and coming into your full potential, it's time for you to join me."
"Join you?"
"Yes. In our world. Your job will be to make sure the incarnations like your father stick to the rules." She smiled.
I sensed we were being watched—or I was. It was subtle at first, like that feeling I used to get when someone was staring at me in school across the room. As Nature droned on about human and hybrid, I scanned the tree-line and saw sets of red eyes. And I heard the soft, low growl of wolves.
I refocused on her. "And if I say no?"
"Then you'll never see your father again."
Something about her threat didn't sound right. It didn't have that ring of truth that my mom's threats used to have while growing up. She just didn't…scare me. "You just said I can't see my father because I don't believe."
"That's not an answer."
The growl of the wolves created a low vibration, like background noise. Nature looked to her left and right and then back to me. "You think they scare me?"
Wait…what? I tried not to look as shocked as I felt. She…thought I had summoned the wolves? I thought she had, that they were some kind of weird henchmen. I tracked the wood line again and acknowledged they were there.
So, who summoned them?
Was it…me?
But apparently I wasn't as good at hiding my emotions as I thought. Nature picked up that I hadn't summoned the wolves either. She turned to her right, then her left with her arms down at her sides, her hands balled into fists. "Where are you? This has nothing to do with you! I ordered you to stay away!"
I arched a brow at her, thinking that Nature had a serious problem happening here, talking to nothing?
Until I felt a chill breeze to my left. The trees didn't move, nor did the powdery snow on the ground. I thought I saw footsteps in the snow, visible under the moonlight. They didn't sink down into the powder like mine did, but made impressions like Nature's had.
New Frost: Winter Witches (The Uncollected Anthology Book 2) Page 2
