by Amy Wilson
If everything else weren’t quite so overwhelming I’d be dying of embarrassment just from all this swooning around in front of him. Not that he looks overly bothered by it. In fact I wonder, as I look up and see the way his copper eyes shine, if he’s even enjoying it all.
‘No, thanks,’ I say, my voice stiff. ‘I’ll manage.’
‘Owl . . .’
I look up at him. All I can see in his face is concern, kindness even.
‘I’m not going to hurt you. We’re not all monsters.’
But that’s exactly what I think Jack is. And maybe so am I. Maybe the whole world is full of monsters and Alberic is one of them, no matter how kind he might be acting.
‘I need to go.’
I turn my back on him and make to stride away, but I don’t get very far. My knees are trembling, my head suddenly starts to throb and for a second I think I’m going to throw up. I pull away when I feel his arm around my waist but I don’t have the energy to do it properly, and actually there’s something quite comforting about the way he smells, reminds me of bonfires and roasting chestnuts.
‘Where are we going?’ he asks in a mild tone.
‘Cumberland Road,’ I mutter.
And there you have it. Dragged back home by the weirdest, most unknowable boy in school, after an evening spent freezing puddles and being petrified by my supernatural father.
Not a lot of room for normal any more, I’d say.
I wake all in a hurry, thrashing my arms around and jumping up, pulling myself out of a frozen sea as a massive old iron boat comes right at me, darkened hull creaking beneath sheets of ice. The mast is a mass of icicles that could fall at any moment and on the deck are legions of strange, shadowy creatures, all of them watching me with glowing eyes.
‘Owl?’
Out of the darkness, my mother’s eyes, round and bright. She comes towards me and puts her hands on my arms, pushing me back to sit on the edge of my bed as the familiar shapes of the room come into focus.
‘What was that?’ she asks.
‘Uh. Dreaming.’
‘Did you try the incantation again?’
‘No.’
‘Where were you, Owl?’ Her voice is soft with relief, or worry, I can’t tell which. I try to keep my mind on the here and now but memories of last night keep crashing over me, one after the other. Frozen puddles. The bridge beneath the moon. Jack Frost, striding towards me over a sea of ice. The tree. Alberic.
‘Owl?’
‘What time is it?’
‘Six.’
I groan and fall back on to the bed. ‘Need more sleep . . .’
‘I’ll wake you in an hour. And Owl?’
‘Mmm?’
‘We’re going to talk, tonight. I’ll even buy the pizza and the ice cream.’
‘Mm. ’Kay’
She lets out a small huff of impatience and leaves me to it.
It’s warm in the flat this morning. I feel like I could lie here forever and let all the busy buzzing thoughts float around just outside of the part of my brain that cares.
And later there’ll be pizza and ice cream. A proper family evening. I mean, without my father, of course. Can’t imagine him sitting there with cheese all down his chin.
Mallory!
I roll over, grab my phone and look at it.
Oh, no. Three missed calls and two texts, all from Mallory last night.
Hey, can we talk? Know it’s late, been a rubbish evening . . .
Where are you?
I said I’d text her and I completely forgot.
So sorry,
I text, my tongue stuck between my teeth as I consider the lie I’m about to tell her. I can’t exactly describe all that happened in a text, can I?
Was revising, fell asleep. See you in a bit? Sorry it was awful Mall, big hug xxxx
I press ‘send’, a niggle in my belly from lying to my best friend. I’ll tell her everything, I decide. As soon as I’ve made up for not being around last night. I’ll get her to believe me, somehow.
The second I see Mallory, standing on the corner of the lane, leaning against the wall with her arms folded, I know it’s not going to be the day I tell her about my father.
To be honest, it’s kind of a relief. I walk up to her knowing that I don’t have to even try to explain everything that happened last night: how Jack looked, the power that came from him, how I ran away straight into Alberic. I still don’t know how I feel about it all. Jack’s not the father I dreamed of, that’s for sure. He wasn’t even like the man I pictured when Mum told her stories. She always said he was wild, I just didn’t know what that really looked like until last night.
So, I’m just going to lie through my teeth.
Normal is back on the table.
‘Hey, Mall,’ I say.
‘Hey, Owl.’ She sounds really distant and weary.
‘Sorry about last night.’
‘’S’all right,’ she says with a glance at me as we start walking. ‘You look terrible, you must be coming down with something.’
‘Yeah, probably,’ I snuffle. ‘But, anyway, do you want to talk about it?’
She doesn’t speak for what seems like a really long time, and I’m starting to feel a bit awkward, wondering if I should ask again or change the subject, when she finally opens up.
‘It was just so weird,’ she says. ‘The house was really quiet, and Mum was doing all the usual things – you know, making dinner, asking about school, moaning about work – but it all just felt wrong. Then Dad phoned me just after dinner, and she left the room because she knew it was him. And he was all forced-jolly about Uncle Simon’s spare room smelling of socks, and how he hoped I was going to do my homework . . . and I felt a bit like screaming then, because what does that really matter right now? Anyway, then Mum came in and she didn’t ask about him but she was acting all awkward, like she didn’t know what to say, so I told her about the socks thing and she made this comment about Uncle Simon always being a bit juvenile, as though that’s what Dad is being like . . .’ She trails off, shaking her head. ‘And I just felt so angry with them both for messing things up and then not even talking about the right things, y’know? Like it’s all business as usual and nobody’s got any feelings about anything!’
‘It sounds really awkward . . .’
‘Yeah. It was.’ She huffs and tucks her chin into her scarf. ‘It’s so cold today!’
‘Freezing,’ I say, though to be honest it hadn’t really occurred to me. Maybe it’s a Daughter-of-Jack-Frost thing? I pull my hat on anyway and hunch my shoulders a bit, scuffing my feet along the frozen pavement. After a moment Mallory threads her arm through mine and it feels good. Like she’s helping, even if she doesn’t know it.
I will tell her. Just not yet.
The day seems to be going quite well, despite everything that’s happened, and I’m just starting to relax about it all and tell myself that I have it under control, and then science happens. I’m so busy congratulating myself on my ‘normality’ that I’m not really concentrating on the experiment and, when I see the contents of everybody else’s test tubes have gone a misty brown colour, I panic. My fingers instantly turn from white to pale blue, little fractal patterns of frost breaking out over the bench where I’m working. I look desperately to my left, where Gavin and Mark are playing with the Bunsen burner. They haven’t noticed anything, but still the frost is spreading, inch by inch, eating up the dark wood in a great, pale, sparkling tide, getting closer to them every second. My eyes scanning the room, sure that at any moment someone’s going to notice.
Of course, someone does.
Alberic meets my panicked stare with a frown and his eyes widen when he sees what’s going on. I shrug in desperation as the bench begins to creak beneath the frost. Everyone else is concentrating on their experiments and Mrs Launder is busily writing ‘Points for discussion’ up on the board in her spidery handwriting.
‘What do I do?’ I mouth at Alberic, my heart thumping
in my ears as I clench my hands into fists and try to think of fire, or deserts, or hot coffee, anything that might stop this from becoming a major disaster.
Suddenly all the windows on the other side of the room bang open, a fierce wind howling through the class. Papers fly, test tubes fall and smash on to the benches. Mrs Launder hurries over, her scarf flapping in the wind, and starts ordering people to help her shut the windows. Gavin and Mark race to make the most of the chaos, their feet crunch on broken glass, and suddenly my corner of the room is empty. Alberic strides over, his hair standing up even more wildly than usual, cheeks ruddy with exertion.
‘Thank you,’ I breathe, keeping half an eye on the rest of the class as he peers down at the bench. ‘I don’t know what happened . . . I just . . .’
‘Don’t worry about it,’ he says.
‘What do I do with it?’
‘It’s not thick ice,’ he replies. ‘Just a bit of frost. Look . . .’ He drags his forearm over the bench and leaves a swathe of damp wood behind.
‘I don’t think it’d do that if I tried.’
‘Perhaps not,’ he concedes, his eyes gleaming as he looks at me. ‘You’d probably just make a gang of mini snowmen . . .’
‘Hey!’ I can’t help but smile at the image.
‘Well, anyway,’ he continues, brushing at the frost with his hands. ‘All sorted now.’ He looks up as Mrs Launder starts to hand out dustpans and brushes. She gives us a sharp look, instantly ordering us to help in the clean-up, and we trail over, crisis averted. I look at Alberic out of the corner of my eye as Mrs Launder shoves a broom in my direction and he winks at me, a playful look on his face as the leaves skitter around my feet.
‘Hey,’ I whisper. ‘Stop it . . .’
‘What?’ he asks, eyes full of innocence.
‘You should work a bit harder on the whole control thing,’ he says at lunchtime. Somehow we’ve ended up in the queue together, though I was trying to have a break from him and everything else, just for five minutes. He frowns down at the jacket potato I’ve absent-mindedly paired with mashed potato.
‘I know,’ I say. ‘But can’t we just forget about it for now, please?’
‘I’m not trying to have a go at you,’ he says.
‘I don’t know what to do about it all,’ I hiss, shuffling along the line, grabbing some juice and thrusting money at the cashier. ‘I mean, it’s not like you’ve shared much about what you know . . .’
‘You really think you’re ready to hear it?’ he asks, drawing me to one side.
‘Do I have any choice? I can’t keep on doing this!’
‘OK,’ he says, his jaw clenching. ‘I’ll help. Maybe if you know more you’ll be able to stop making these mistakes.’
‘Mistakes?’
He sighs. ‘You’re not in control of the power you have, and it’s not like Jack’s going to help you. So. Meet me by the tree. Seven o’clock.’ He gives me a funny, crooked little smile. ‘We’ll figure it out.’
‘OK,’ I manage, trying to smile in return. I feel flushed and sick and I’m not at all sure that I’m making the right decisions. Wouldn’t it be better just to pretend that nothing’s happening? Would it go away, if I just ignored him and left it? Do I really want all this? Is there any choice? My spine tingles as I work myself up and I know then. I have to face it. ‘I’ll be there.’
‘What was all that about?’ Mallory asks when I sit down. My hands are shaking so much I nearly drop the tray, and she has to rescue it for me. ‘Owl, what’s going on? Was Alberic hassling you? Why do you have all this potato?’
‘He’s just intense,’ I say, putting my head in my hands, trying to calm down before I start freezing everything in sight. ‘And I don’t know about the potato . . . I’m a bit all over the place today.’
‘I noticed,’ she says. ‘You’re sure it’s not down to him?’
‘No, it’s just . . . the things we talked about before. You know.’
‘That magic stuff? You don’t really believe all that, do you?’
The scorn in her voice feels a bit like a slap.
‘Just forget about it,’ I hiss, blinking back tears. ‘You don’t need to be worrying about me anyway, you’ve got enough of your own stuff going on!’
‘Thanks for reminding me,’ she says, sticking her chin out and reaching for her bag, shaking her head. ‘Maybe you’re right. Maybe we’ve both got too much going on. I’m not going to force it out of you – if you don’t want to tell me anything that’s fine.’
I stare at her as she stands in a hurry, chair flying back, cutlery clattering on the tray as she shoves it away. It feels like the whole room has quietened, like everyone’s watching. Conor is agog across the table, his eyes bright with the drama. I grip the sides of my chair hard with my hands and will myself not to start freezing things around me.
‘Mallory, wait—’
‘I’m going,’ she says, flushed and bright-eyed. ‘I just can’t do this right now.’ She walks off, weaving her way through the throng, quickly joined by Conor. I should go after her. I should make it right, tell her everything, but I can’t. I’m too confused; I’d just make it worse, and if we got into another argument I don’t know what might happen. I need to find out what Alberic’s got to say, and then maybe I’ll know what the heck’s going on and how I can possibly explain it all.
It’s a really crappy, lonely walk home. I did linger at the gate for a while but there was no sign of Mallory and after a few minutes I got fed up. I mean, what is she even really cross about? That it’s hard for me to tell her my father’s Jack Frost and I’m some kind of supernatural frost girl? Well, excuse me, Mallory Freidman, I’m not sure you’d be handling it so well, either. I stomp all the way back to the flat, angry with everything, surrounded by the evidence of my father’s power over the world and desperately trying to ignore the creeping feeling that someone or something is following me, watching me all the way. Every leaf that falls makes me jump; every shadow seems to be teeming with activity.
It’s only my imagination.
Isn’t it?
The wolves bayed from the topmost mountain ledge and she knew how they felt. This world was heartbreaking in its beauty and its treachery. From every ledge hung lethal spears of ice; in every footstep was uncertainty. He looked from the wolves to her and raised his hands to her face.
‘You have been the brightest dream,’ he said, his silver eyes looking straight into hers.
‘Am I only a dream?’
‘There is no other possibility; no mortal I know of may tread here. You are not of the fay. You are a dream.’
She raised her own hands and touched his face, from his brow down to his chin, and he was colder, colder than he had been in the morning when they began. She saw that he was withdrawing from her, that for him, truly, she would never be more than a memory.
‘What do we do now?’ she asked.
‘Now?’ He smiled, a wicked glint in his eye. ‘Now we run!’ He took her hand and pulled her along with him, and her feet were clumsy through the feathered snow and over the ice but his footsteps carried them back, back towards the woodland where they found each other. Vines hung from brittle, age-darkened branches and curling roots sought to trip them, but he did not slow his pace and finally they reached the clearing in the centre, where sky met sky and only snow rested between.
‘Ah,’ he said, looking up. ‘Here she is, my wisdom . . .’
High overhead soared the great owl he had spoken of, her soft voice calling out, echoing through the woodland.
‘Time.’
‘Winter comes,’ he said, his eyes brightening. ‘It is time for me to leave.’
The owl stared at the girl with fierce, golden eyes and in them she saw her own future; that this place would stay with her always, even if she was never here again. So she did not fight when he gave her one last look and turned to leave, though she felt colder and more alone than she had ever thought possible. She would have given anything, in that m
oment, to stay with him. But she drew herself in and watched in silence as he walked away. The owl flew down in a great scattering of snow to land on his shoulder, and when she opened her eyes the dream was over.
A new reality was begun; one that would stay with her forever.
‘Owl McBride, do not walk out of that door.’
‘I need to, Mum!’
‘I bought pizza. And ice cream. And now you’re off out into the dark, in all this cold . . .’
‘The cold doesn’t bother me.’ Not since I went out to find Jack. ‘You should know that.’
‘Very well,’ she says, reaching around me and closing the door. ‘But it bothers me. Call it maternal instinct, if you will. Now where are you going? And where were you last night?’
‘I was with Mallory. Her mum and dad are having a trial separation and she’s really upset. I just wanted to help.’
‘Oh, poor Mallory,’ Mum says, her face softening. ‘And poor Lily and Edward. Is there anything I can do?’
‘No,’ I say, heat rushing to my cheeks. ‘I don’t think so. I just want to be there for her, you know.’
Mum disappears back into the kitchen and comes back a second later holding a shopping bag.
‘The ice cream,’ she says, handing it to me. ‘We’ll still need to have our talk, Owl, but it can wait until tomorrow.’ She leans in and kisses me on the cheek. ‘You’re a good friend.’
‘Thanks, Mum,’ I whisper, past a sudden lump in my throat. I open the door and rush out of there while I can still breathe.
All this lying is choking me.
‘You brought ice cream,’ Alberic says, when I drop the bag down by the roots of the ancient tree. He’s sitting up against the trunk, looking like he’s been here for hours and could comfortably stay for hours longer. He reaches over and takes the tub. ‘But there are no spoons . . .’
For goodness sake.
‘Mum thinks I’m visiting Mallory,’ I say, sitting down, glad he was here waiting for me. I’m still getting that unsettling feeling of being spied on; when I look around, inevitably there’s nothing there, but it’s beginning to wear. ‘So, no spoons.’