“I’m not sure what he wants of me, Katherine,” Jack said, starting to pace. Katherine understood why he wasn’t sure. Ombric, like all good wizards, would seldom answer an important question directly. Instead, he would usually tell you just enough so that you could, after thinking through the situation, find the answer for yourself.
“All he said,” Jack added with a knowing grin, aging himself from twelve to sixteen, “was ‘Remember.’ ”
“Remember?”
“Remember.”
Katherine shook her head with exasperation. “The world is in chaos and we ask for guidance, and all Father Time will allow us is one word?”
“Yep,” said Jack. “Though it does have three syllables.”
Mr. Qwerty snickered at that.
Katherine pursed her lips and tried to stay calm, but she glowed with irritation. She sometimes grew impatient with the “figure it out yourself” logic of wizards.
“Can’t I for once get a straight answer to a simple question?” she fumed. “A simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’ or ‘here’s what you do’ would save so much time!”
Jack watched her, bemused. He had always admired her temper. And her ability to control it, or at least channel it into constructive action. Her fury could be prodigious at times, but she used it well and to great effect, like Zeus hurling thunderbolts. He honestly could not remember her ever completely losing her temper.
That said, memory had become a most curious element of his life since becoming Jack Frost. He found that he could erase the memory of entire sections of his life if he chose. And he often did.
Katherine, however, disliked this ability of his, and she made no secret of it. For she now knew his life better than he did. Which felt wrong to her. How will he ever be a real person, a whole person, if he simply erases the bad? she often wondered.
She turned her fierce gaze to Jack. “So what exactly am I supposed to ‘remember’ for you?” She said this less as a question than an accusation, and her irritation began to transform her back into Mother Goose. As she grew older, taller, Jack had to fight the urge to run and hide like a child. And as she grew older, taller, he actually began to grow younger.
“I don’t know,” he said as he became one year younger.
“I see,” she said curtly. He became one year younger still.
After an uncomfortable silence he made a suggestion he knew would irritate her even further.
“Katherine . . .” He shrank another year. “I trust you”—another year vanished—“to know best.” He’d reached bottom. He could be shamed into growing no younger, and she could appear no older. He was back to twelve and she was twenty-five. There was a limit to how young he could transform. And he had reached it. He sat on the floor in front of the fireplace, his legs crossed, his back slumped. His head hung low.
“I can’t wait to forget this,” he remarked.
Katherine sighed. Though they were inches apart, the distance between them felt vast. She wished she could forget this, too, but she knew that was not the nature of things, at least for her.
For all the dash and glamour that being Jack Frost implied, Katherine knew the price he paid for his eternal youth. He had defeated Pitch more decisively than all the other Guardians combined. And he had done so with a selflessness and courage that had surprised even the Man in the Moon.
Now, yet again, the balance of the Earth’s happiness or misery rested on his slender shoulders. It was in truth a terrible burden. One that no other Guardian had ever carried. And they sometimes forgot this, as adults often do. They forget how strong, how brave a child must be to live in the world of grown-ups. But Jack could never forget, for he was forever young. This is what set him apart from the other Guardians. It set him apart from every other being in the world.
Katherine sank to her knees in front of Jack. Mr. Qwerty fluttered and hovered above her as she smoothed the dark velvet skirt that she wore in winter. She looked to Jack. His gaze seemed far away, as if looking at a night sky devoid of stars.
He is making his mind blank, she realized, and ready for what he will hear.
So she shifted her gaze to Mr. Qwerty and nodded. The book came to rest in her lap. It was still open to the same page: the beginning of Jack’s story. Katherine traced her fingers lightly over the paper as if feeling the words written upon them. The whole of Jack’s life played out in her thoughts while the pages of Mr. Qwerty turned, grazing her fingertips as if blown by an unhurried wind. Back and forth, like cards in a shuffling deck, the pages fluttered, going forward and backward in Jack’s history. So many adventures. So much joy and exhilaration and sometimes so much loneliness and sorrow. Jack’s life was literally in her hands.
Which story does he need to hear? To remember? What happened in his past that can help him, help us all, to steady these dark days? Katherine focused every avenue of her mind on this single question. The pages riffled past her fingertips faster, and faster still, until a turbulent breeze began to roil about the room. Twiner began to rattle and shake against the wall.
And then the atmosphere intensified.
A noticeable charge filled the air.
It was the other Guardians. They had felt Katherine’s concentration. And as they had so many times before, their minds joined. North, Toothiana, Bunnymund, Sandy, then the Man in the Moon himself. Even Mother Nature became a part of this effort.
From each of their headquarters on the Moon and across the Earth, their minds searched and probed Jack’s history until the pages of Mr. Qwerty became a blur too fast to measure and the wind in the room grew to almost a gale. The fire in the hearth flickered and dimmed as it struggled to stay lit. Twiner was pulled into the maelstrom, caught in the whipping winds, but Jack seemed fully nonplussed—he extended one arm and snatched the staff down with a single effortless grab.
Then Katherine began to transform once more. Her features blended and smoothed. Years dissolved. The wind slowed. She again became the Katherine of her time with Nightlight. The pages eased their shuffling and stopped at last.
The mystery would unfold now. And each of them would be privy to its discovery.
But there was one more who would hear. One who was not meant to.
Deep under the Earth, the impossible occurred. In his prison Pitch, King of Nightmares, was listening to every utterance and syllable of the one story that could help him destroy the Guardians forever. And this eavesdropping was known only to Pitch—or was it?
Her girlish voice steady and clear, Katherine began to read from the history of Jack Frost:
THE STORY OF THE KISS
During the War of Dreams, before the Battle of Bright Night, Pitch had imprisoned Katherine on Nightmare Rock, the ancient stone that had once been his prison and was permeated to its core with all of Pitch’s rage and hate. The rage had surrounded Katherine and created a shield that would keep anyone from ever waking her. He cast her into an endless sleep of nightmares with the hope that he would darken her soul, turn her to evil. Then he would make her his Darkling Daughter, his Princess of Nightmares.
But Nightlight and the Sandman found the cave where Pitch had entombed Katherine. They stole away the wretched rock and with Sandy’s Dreamsand, levitated it to the North Pole. There, they and the other Guardians would try to break the Nightmare spell and free Katherine. But the rock was dense with countless Nightmare Men. As Sandy and Nightlight floated over the pole, the Nightmares began to charge from the stone and attack. All had seemed lost.
Then Nightlight remembered the power of the good night kiss. He remembered that the Man in the Moon’s parents would kiss the baby MiM good night every night. He remembered that this kiss would take away all the hurt of the day. Nightlight then thought his most un-Nightlight-like thought. He knew a kiss was a powerful thing, a thing of hope, and he knew that he was a creature of unending hope, so his kiss must have great power. And he also knew something no Nightlight had ever known: that he loved. He loved his Katherine more than anything in all the uni
verse. And though he did not even know how to give a kiss, he closed his eyes and lunged face-forward toward Katherine. The Nightmare shield gave way like vapor. And for an eternal instant Nightlight’s lips touched Katherine’s, and all Pitch’s dark spells withered away. Her eyes opened and Nightlight took her hand and together they flew to safety.
Nightmare Rock fell and landed harmlessly just beside the North Pole. The whole of the great city cheered and celebrated Katherine’s rescue, and Nightlight was proclaimed a hero. The Sandman was made a Guardian.
And there was no sign of Pitch.
That night, after much merrymaking and ballyhoo, Nightlight and Katherine fell asleep in the topmost room of the pole. For Nightlight, it was a miraculous sleep, for he had never before slept. No Nightlight ever had. Nightlight was exactly what he was called: a light against the night. But now he was changed. The kiss had changed him forever. And though he had protected dreams for his entire life, he had never had one.
That night, he dreamt.
But Pitch did not. He had, in fact, tricked them all. He knew that North’s magnificent tower was also a ship, a craft that could journey to the Moon.
The “North Pole,” as it was called, was the tallest structure in the city. Its outward appearance was that of a curious sort of tower, but at its base were a number of engines that enabled the pole to rocket outside the Earth’s atmosphere. North had intended his new craft to act as a sort of “space shuttle” to the Moon and back. The hope being that constant travel to the Moon would be not only jolly and inspiring, but also forge a closer bond with the Man in the Moon.
Ever since his grounding on Earth, Pitch had never been powerful enough to leave it. This craft, this North Pole, was exactly what Pitch needed to complete his plan to destroy Nightlight. With the Guardians helplessly stranded on Earth, Pitch could extinguish Nightlight, conquer the Moon, and use it as his base to once again terrorize the galaxies. So he had hidden himself inside Nightmare Rock. He had successfully anticipated that the Guardians would bring the rock to the North Pole in an effort to save Katherine. He let them think they had defeated the Nightmare Men and rescued her. The next step in his plan was to kidnap Nightlight and fly the pole to the Moon. But luckily for Pitch, Nightlight was already asleep in the pole, as was Katherine.
The actual North Pole
Once the city had grown quiet, Pitch crept from the rock. Dragging it into the pole, he then found the control room and piloted the craft across the sea of space toward the Moon. As Pitch neared MiM’s home, he used Nightmare Rock once more. Passing over the Moon’s Dark Side, he launched the stone like a meteor and rode it as it fell. It crashed in the deepest crater on the darkest part of the Moon’s Shadowlands, and with it, Pitch began to build his new Nightmare Army.
Nightlight and Katherine knew nothing of all this intrigue. They slept. And when the pole landed, they awoke, they were greeted by MiM himself, and there was much excitement and concern. MiM knew that something extraordinary had happened to Nightlight and Katherine. He also knew that Pitch would be—must be—planning a terrible revenge.
Katherine stopped her reading and glanced at Jack. He still sat cross-legged, staring into the fire. He held his staff in one hand, balancing its base on the floor. The diamond dagger tucked into his waistband glinted. Katherine’s eyes narrowed. Jack had carried a diamond dagger in the old days, but this one was different. It was darker and seemed . . . strange.
She waited to see if Jack wanted her to read on. The next section of the story she had penned herself. It was from the sketchbook diary she’d kept in those long-ago days. But she’d always been uncomfortable reading her own prose aloud, so she was hesitant to continue. Especially now that it was about Jack, and he was the one who was listening. Finally, he nodded to her.
“Your voice always soothes me, Katherine,” he said as if reading her mind, which was quite likely.
She thought how much he had changed since she’d written the entry she was about to read. He spoke with such elegance and confidence now, with only an occasional trace of the simple syntax of his Nightlight years.
She slipped back into the cadences of a born storyteller and began to read. If only she had known about the danger that was making its stealthy way across the grounds of the Isle of Ganderly. Jack seemed to be listening intently as she began. What she hadn’t noticed was that he had moved his free hand down to the hilt of his diamond dagger and was gripping it with all his might.
Moon Days
From the Journal of Katherine While on the Moon
Nightlight had slept. I didn’t understand the full wonder of this until after I awakened. I was doubly dumbfounded to find that we had traveled to the Moon in North’s marvelous North Pole contraption. But who had guided the craft on this surprise journey was a mystery that compounded the oddness of suddenly discovering myself on the Moon for the first time.
“How long has Nightlight slept?” was the question that roused me from the deepest, most peaceful rest I’d ever known. I recognized the voice. I’d heard it several times before when we Guardians had managed with various devices to communicate with the Man in the Moon. But I’d never heard it so clearly or seemingly so close. That clarity is what jarred me awake to the astonishing sight of the Great Man Himself looking down at me. Trying not to be intimidated (hundreds of Moonbots, Moonmice, and a goodly number of glowworms and Lunar Moths peered down at me as well), I answered the question with the sum total of what I knew to be certain:
“I have no idea,” I said.
This brought forth a blur of commotions, inquiries, exclamations, and whispered goings-on from which I gleaned this list of facts:
1. Nightlights are created from starlight, the laughs of ten thousand children, and a lock of hair from both a king and a queen of the Lunanoff family.
2. There have been only seven other Nightlights in all of history.
3. Nightlights transform into stars when the prince or princess they were created to protect grow up or no longer need protection from bad dreams.
4. Our Nightlight is the last Nightlight.
5. No Nightlight has ever slept. They cannot. They are always awake to fight nightmares.
6. A Nightlight must never kiss or be kissed by a mortal.
7. No one knows what will happen if that happens.
8. Except that I know I was kissed by Nightlight.
9. And soon after, Nightlight slept.
10. And now everyone is worried.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The Pause that Thickens (the Plot, that Is)
EVERY GUARDIAN, EACH IN their separate realm, was hearing every word Katherine read. The Man in the Moon was remembering the events, for he had seen them firsthand. North, Bunnymund, Toothiana, and Sandy were hearing this story in such detail for the first time.
Pitch, however, knew a very different side of this story. From inside his prison, he listened intently to every detail Katherine read. He had been there for the creation of this last of the Nightlights. He had been the closest friend and protector of the Lunanoff royal family. He had been godfather to the baby prince. But he had made a mistake. He did not know the power of the kiss. And that had led to his ruin. So now he listened. He listened like he’d never listened to anything before. He was certain that this time he would hear the one twist in the tale that would tell him what he needed most to know.
From the Journal of Katherine While on the Moon
Our time on the Moon has been a mad mix of amazements, beauty, and commotion. The Moon itself is serene past description. Its gray-white surface is soft and rimmed with stones worn smooth from centuries of spiraling through space.
Since coming into orbit with our Earth, the native Moon creatures have groomed the outer terrain into sculpted mountains and valleys of whimsical and graceful shapes. The same has been done to the ancient craters that are scattered near and far. Alas, even the strongest telescope on Earth isn’t yet powerful enough to bring these cheerful details into focus, but as I
have traveled with Nightlight to every harbor of this enchanting place, I’ve seen up close the marvels that dot its every view and crevice. As quiet as the surface is, its interior has the hurdy-gurdy dazzlement of a world’s fair—a series of hollowed-out chambers and halls connected by dozens of tunnels. These chambers function as lodgings, dormitories, suites, studies, laboratories, libraries, banquet halls, ballrooms, storage places, engine rooms, and repairing bays, and every inch is in a constant state of hubbub. There are even huge pools for sublunar swimming and underground lakes large enough to sail upon.
Nightlight borrowed a small Moon schooner and sailed us across one such lake. I can say with certainty that whatever enchantments there may be throughout the universe, there are few as stirring and beautiful as sailing between the spiraling stalagmites of a subterranean lunar lake illuminated by glowing shafts of starlight. The source of our breeze was of equal enchantment. The whistling rocks were large and numerous, and did, in fact, whistle. Their tunes brought a gentle wind that filled our sail.
Nightlight steered this small but elegant yacht with quiet assurance. I had no notion that he could captain a ship, but his expertise was no surprise. In truth, he seemed to be good at every task presented him. I wondered, not for the first time, how many talents he must possess.
But he was changing, in swift but subtle ways. His suit, which had always glistened with what seemed an inner light, was dimming. The many moonstones that had adorned it for all the time I had known him were falling steadily away. I was not sure if he ignored their loss or simply did not notice, but I know they must be important. The Man in the Moon had given me a special pouch to keep the stones in. I gathered every gem that fell.
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