24Chapter 2
Charlie blinked awake, head throbbing. She groaned and reached up to rub it. There was a bump where her head had hit- wait, hit? Oh yeah. She was on the lake, teaching Toby how to ice-skate, then he fell backwards and the ice started cracking. She had told him the story of Burgess's hero, then pulled him out of the way and… she frowned. After that, it got fuzzy, except for a flash of blue and a giant pain in the back of her head.
Charlie looked around warily. She was in her bedroom. "How did I get here?" she murmured to herself, then her eyes widened, "Toby!" Immediately there was a chorus of pattering feet and the seven year old was in her room, green eyes glistening with tears.
"You're awake!" he cried, running over and burying his head in her lap. "'Course I am, Tobe! You can't get rid of me that easily!" she teased, stroking his brown hair. He was the spitting image of his older sister.
"I don't wanna go ice-skating ever again." The boy suddenly said.
Charlie looked down at the weeping boy. "Toby, look at me." She spoke gently yet slightly commanding. Slowly, he turned his face up to her. "Accidents happen, okay? I believe that everything happens for a reason. Sometimes we don't know what it is, but there is always a reason. Like this time, it proved that we need to drop something heavy on the lake to test it. Now, I have a favor to ask. Well, two. The first one, don't worry too much about me. I'm tougher that I look, and have my ways of worming out of sticky situations." At this, Toby frowned.
"But worms don't live in sticky places, they live in dirt." Toby said. Charlie laughed. "Yeah, I suppose they do. Let me rephrase that. I can get myself out of trouble pretty much always, you just leave it to me. Now," she bent down to his eye-level, "The second favor is to always see the good in situations, no matter how dark it is. Can you do those two things for me?"
"Yeah. But I'm always gonna worry 'bout you." Toby smiled. She ruffled his hair.
"Well, I would rather have that than you not caring at all! Now, I know for a fact that you can't pick me up or drag me, so how in the world did I end up here?"
"Well… you flew backwards, hit a tree, and passed out. So when you wouldn't wake up, I ran into the neighborhood and got your friend Elizabeth. She carried you here and set you on your bed, set up the icepack and stuff, then she had to leave to go to work. She left about 20 minutes ago." Toby explained. Charlie nodded and stood up.
"Well kiddo, I think it's time for lunch!" They went downstairs and Charlie looked around. "Oh yeah, I need to run to the grocery store. I'll do that later. Let's just order pizza!" Toby brightened at that. Pizza was his favorite. So, the older girl called Little Caesar's Pizza and ordered a medium pepperoni pizza.
"Hey Tobe, I'm gonna run down to the library and grab a hold, okay? Try not to burn the house down. If the pizza guy comes, give him this." She set down ten dollars on the table, gave him a quick kiss on the head, grabbed her jacket, and walked out the door.
She didn't have a car. But the library was just two blocks away, so it was okay. As she walked down the sidewalk, a frown crossed her face. There was something that she didn't quite remember…what was it? Charlie sighed in exasperation. As she turned the corner, there were kids having a snowball fight. She smiled slightly at the sight, but turned and kept walking. Beautiful frost patterns adorned the windows of houses, and it was snowing lightly. It all gave her a headache. She felt as though she were so close to remembering, but couldn't grasp it.
Charlie turned the last corner and entered into the library. "Hello, Charlie. How are you guys doing?" the librarian, a kind old woman named Mrs. Keith, asked from the desk.
"We're doing great, thanks Mrs. Keith." The pair smiled warmly at each other. Charlie turned away to the holds section and found her book, Sherlock Holmes. She was about to leave, but then another book caught her eye. It was white, and had a pale blue snowflake on the top and bottom of the spine. In the middle, it had two words printed in it in golden cursive; Jack Frost. She stared at it for a second, before taking it off the bookshelf carefully. It also said Jack Frost with golden cursive on the cover, but there were frost patterns decorating the four corner of it. It had a golden clasp in the middle to keep it from opening and getting the pages crumpled, but could be easily undone.
Charlie took it and her other book to the front desk and checked out. "Bye Mrs. Keith! Merry early Christmas!" she called.
Charlie walked into her warm house, setting the books on the floor. The money was still on the counter, so the pizza guy still hadn't come.
"I'm home!" she called.
"Ok! I'm up in my room!" Toby yelled back. She flopped down on the couch with the 'Jack Frost' book and undid the clasp. On the first page was the author's note. "This book is a collection of descriptions of Jack Frost, the mythological spirit of winter, bringer of snow. It is by several authors listed in the back. Please know that any or all of these could be real." She scanned the rest of the author's note, finding mostly copyright things and such, so she turned the page. It was on a man with frozen white hair, bright blue eyes, and pale skin. He was seen in the movie "The Santa Claus". There was Old Man Winter, Jokul Frosti, and a ton of other descriptions.
However, when she skipped through the most ridiculous descriptions, she found one that caught her eye. It had a delicately painted picture of a boy about eighteen, with snow-white hair and shockingly blue sapphire eyes. He carried a shepherds crook and was barefoot. He wore a brown shawl, shirt, and brown leggings. He had a mischievous grin that would make any school teacher immediately say, "Oh no you don't!" and plop him in the front of the classroom.
For his personality description, it said, "Jack Frost is like my brother. He's brave, kind, and can always make someone laugh. Although he can be annoying at times, it's all good nature, and he's impossible to not like. He loves to play with children, and would protect all of them with his life." Charlie flipped to the very end of the book where the list of authors was. The one that wrote the previous Jack Frost myth was Emma Overland, who had died about three hundred years ago.
Charlie jumped as the doorbell suddenly rang. She composed herself quickly, setting down the book and opening the door. "Sorry about the delay, Ms. Jones, we had a small amount of chefs today, seeming as the flu has been going around." He apologized. "It's fine, thanks for getting to us at all!" She smiled at him and handed him the money. She took the pizza and shut the door.
"Toby, pizza's here!" she yelled up to him.
"Coming!" he ran downstairs, and Charlie opened the steaming box. They each took a slice out and bit into it. Toby closed and eyes and hummed, "Mmm…"
"You got that right, kiddo." She grinned, taking another bite.
It was 3:34 PM when one of Toby's friends came around, Jamie Bennett. There was a knock on the door, and Charlie went over to answer it. "Hey Jamie! What can I do for you?" she smiled.
"Can Toby play?"
"Yeah sure, I'll go get him." As she turned around to go get Toby.
Jamie suddenly asked, "Hey, is that a book about Jack Frost?" he pointed to the book that she got earlier that day.
"Yeah, I found it at the library. Pretty neat, huh?" Charlie grinned.
"Yeah. Hey, guess what?" the boy beamed.
"What?"
"I met Jack Frost! I was his first believer and I'm his best friend!"
Even though she barely believed in that stuff anymore, she knew you had to be careful with kids. They knew when you were faking it. "Seriously? You'll have to introduce me sometime!" She was careful not to let her eyes betray her. After all, "eyes were the windows to the soul".
Jamie brightened, "Okay! Next time he comes around I'll tell you!" Son of a biscuit and a cup of tea, Charlie thought to herself. What have I gotten myself into?
She smiled at him, then called Toby down. "Jamie's here!"
He came running down.
"Hi!"
"Hi!" Both boys greeted. "So what are you two going to do?" The teen asked.
"Build snow forts and have a snowball fight!" Jamie replied.
"Sounds fun. I might join a bit later. First I need to straighten up the house for Gran." She grinned at them. "Well, go get your winter stuff on, Tobe."
Five minutes later, Tobey was bundled up and ready to go. "You two have fun! I'll come and get you in two hours or so to have hot chocolate." Both of the boys cheered. Everyone thought that Charlie's hot chocolate was the best.
As they walked out the door, Charlie shut it and gazed at the house. Not much to be done. She adjusted the pillows, cleared off the counters, and swept the floor. Good as new. Her eyes flicked to the little desk in the corner. Well, not exactly the desk, but the drawer in the desk.
"Not going to open it. Not going to open it. Not going to open it…" she muttered repeatedly to herself as she opened it, inwardly groaning. Why did I open it? There were pictures of her mother and father, and the memories came flooding back, first of her father, then of her mother.
They were camping in the woods, and Jeff Jones had gone looking for more fire wood when a storm started up. Unfortunately, it didn't start as a small pitter-patter; it just came down all at once. Thunder and lightning came with it; the whole packaged deal. The sky was clouded, allowing no light into the forest. He stumbled blindly around, dropping the firewood and yelling for his family. He was farther away than he expected, and just kept getting farther. With no light, it was impossible to see any familiar land markers. Suddenly, lightning struck only two feet away from the man. The shock that went through the ground covered him in third-degree burns, and he fell to the ground, dead. The lightning had started a forest fire, and it raged through. Marianne Jones and little six year old Charlie had woken up and ran through the forest to their car. They had stayed there for a while, waiting for Jeff, but he never came. Ever since, both have been terrified of storms.
Now, Charlie was eight years old, and Marianne had taken them on a small boat ride. It was all peaceful, but they had missed the sign that said that there were sharks in the water. Every now and then, Charlie thought she saw a silver flash in the water or a fin cut the surface, but they would disappear quickly, so she just left it to the fact that there were mermaids in the water, like any child would. That is, until the fins started circling the boat and her mother screamed. Charlie had done a research paper on sharks, and she knew those curved dorsal fins anywhere. So, she held her mother's hand and called for help. They both did. Fortunately, they're cries where heard, and a rescue boat came along. It was a big plastic one, not easy to chew through. The Jones' boat was small and made of wood. Marianne tossed Charlie up first, and was about to get up herself when a shark grabbed hold of her leg and dragged her down, everybody screaming the entire time.
Charlie blinked. Stupid inner self. Why did you open the freaking drawer? She quickly wiped away the tears and stood up. "I think I've earned myself the right to a snowball fight," she said to herself, getting on her winter clothes and heading outside. This was going to be the best snowball fight ever.
Hello! It took me a while to do this chapter, I was going to have Jack be at her house taking care of her or something, but that was pretty awkward, so I decided that she can't remember because she hit her head on a tree. LOGIC TIME!
Toby couldn't see Jack because he was too scared for his sister. Charlie can't remember Jack at the moment, but little things remind her of him. It's like when you have that word on the tip of your tongue but just can't get it out. Emma Overland is Jack's sister. I was going to make her be Pippa, but wiki says Pippa is Jamie's friend. Emma imagines Jack Frost like her brother, but she saw other descriptions of him, so she changed his hair color and color, so it looks exactly like Jack. Charlie loves little kids, so she lets her walls down when they're around. Her grandma has work most of the day and gets home around dinner time.
So, this chapter is 4 pages long and about 2K words without the A/N, so I just want to let you guys know that some will be shorter and some will be longer. I'll try to make each about 1K or over though.
Thanks Creativespirit28!
One more thing. This is being beta's by xxxxFrostbitexxxx, so a special thanks to her!