And yet . . .
As the sword’s tip pierced the weathered paper of Pitch’s daughter’s portrait, then sliced through Pitch’s hand, and then bore down farther, entering the flesh over the Nightmare King’s heart, a strobe of light flashed. A hand grasped the sword and stopped it cold.
It was Nightlight!
He stared at North, holding the blade so hard, his own hand bled. “You must not stain your soul or end the one chance Pitch has to save his own from darkness.”
With that, he moved the sword away from Pitch’s chest. As he did, we saw a small trickle of black blood ooze from the paper of Emily Jane’s cameo. It was Pitch’s blood, and it was mixing with Nightlight’s. The two began to spread across the paper, but in a miraculous way. The blood made the image of Emily Jane bright again.
Emily Jane, Pitch’s daughter
Barely able to move his head, Pitch strained and strained until he could see the cameo pressed against his heart . . . see the face of his beloved daughter return.
Nightlight backed away, and we all watched as the dark matter began to twine over Pitch’s chest and face. We watched as our enemy wept silently, tears as clear as crystals. No one had thought the Nightmare King was capable of tears, but Nightlight knew otherwise. He reverently dabbed them into his wounded hand and clutched them tightly. Within a moment, a new diamond dagger had materialized. Nightlight tucked it into his shirt before any of us could glimpse it.
Nightlight turned and reached for MiM’s hand and mine, then addressed us all with urgency.
“I must go now. I must go see if the rest of my Moondream will play out.” He pressed my hand more tightly. “I have a journey to take, and I don’t know when we will see each other again.” He spoke quickly and surely, but his voice cracked as he continued. “But know this: You will see me again. You must trust that and believe it.” His eyes implored us.
“I do,” I said. The others nodded.
The waves of molten matter finished winding around Pitch. He was completely overwhelmed and entombed, like an Egyptian king in a sarcophogus from which he could not escape. What was left was a cooling, lumpy sphere that resembled a small black moon. With one graceful leap, Nightlight was atop the sphere. He looked at us. Each of us. He was so changed. He seemed almost like a human boy now. Then he looked up at the Nightlight constellation and nodded, as if to show he was ready. The many waves of light spiraled and circled above us and began to braid together like a giant rope, then dove toward the black sphere, hitting it with such force that it rocketed away into space. It was streaking toward
Earth like a comet, with Nightlight straddling atop, seeming to guide it.
Katherine paused her reading. What caused her to pause was the memory of that last moment with Nightlight. She would not see him again for more than a hundred years.
“Shall I continue?” she asked Jack.
Jack was now crouched close by the fire. Yet Katherine noticed that a pattern of frost radiated out from where he sat. The room had grown so chilly that she could see her breath, and she recognized yet another change in her friend—whenever he was deep in concentration or felt danger, he often brought a chill to the air.
In one hand he held Twiner, the staff leaning close to his right ear. His other hand rested on his knee, with his thumb and forefinger extended upward as if pointing. A thin stream of smoke from the fire looped and spiraled to the tip of his finger while another rope of smoke came out of this thumb and twirled up to his left ear. The smoke proceeded out of his right ear and into Twiner.
Katherine had forgotten that Jack could talk to firewood. That through their smoke, he could listen to the wood’s history and stories. Sometimes he received messages from forests in this way. All trees remained connected, even after being cut or even burned. Their ash and smoke were absorbed by their still-living brethren.
Now she felt a flash of irritation. Had Jack even been listening to what she’d been reading?
“I am listening to you, Katherine,” he said, reading her mind.
“I’m sure,” she replied tartly. “I hope the firewood has equally interesting stories to tell.”
“Not quite,” he said, “but still rather compelling.”
“Did you remember what you needed?” she asked.
“It helped a great deal,” he replied. “But . . . now I need to do the telling. There are things you don’t know, that aren’t in Mr. Qwerty’s pages. We must hurry, though. There isn’t much time.”
His tone told her that he had heard something important from the firewood.
“Are we in danger?” she asked. “The Raconturks are on guard. They are very—”
“We are fine,” he interrupted. “For now.”
Jack so seldom lied to her. But Katherine felt certain that danger must be close at hand. He was choosing to take a calculated risk and continue to tell her what he needed to. So the telling must be very important.
Indeed it was. Jack needed to tell her about those years he was gone. He needed to fill in the missing pages of his journey. He needed to tell her how he had taken the name Jack Frost . . . and why.
And so he began the story of Jack Frost.
THE TESTIMONY OF
JACKSON OVERLAND FROST
AS TRANSCRIBED BY THE BOOK KNOWN AS MR. QWERTY
TO KATHERINE OF GANDERLY, DECEMBER 27, 1933
The power of a Nightlight is formidable, especially just before he is released from his oath, the oath to protect a royal child of the Golden Age. Once I had fulfilled that oath to MiM, I should have become a star and joined my fellow Nightlights as a hopeful but distant constellation. In that moment of transforming, the power inside me would have become strong enough to burn the last bit of goodness that lived inside Pitch’s black heart.
Pitch knew this.
He intended to capture me and focus that power through the ray of the relic weapon. He planned to aim the ray at his own heart and rid himself of his last weakness. I would likely have been destroyed, along with everyone on the Moon, and quite likely on Earth as well.
But I had already found you, Katherine. And with our kiss, I had taken a new oath. Not in words, but in my heart.
This had never happened to a Nightlight. A Nightlight cannot have two oaths. And so I began to change, to become not a star, but something new.
Unwittingly, I had thwarted Pitch’s plan.
No other Nightlight has ever had the life I’ve had. The others have stayed with their child till that child was grown up. There is a moment when a child passes over to that different place—the place of grown-ups. From the time children are very small, they want to do what grown-ups do, the million small amazements that grown-ups seem masters of: to know how things work; how to get to places and somehow know the way back; how to read and write; how to button buttons and tie shoes; knowing when food is ready; and being able to reach the top shelf. They want to do this all.
Finally, facts and knowledge outweigh the daydreams and fancies, and it is the Nightlight’s job to protect the wonder as his child wanders into this land of grown-ups.
But I did not stay with my prince. By saving him from Pitch at the last battle of the Golden Age, I was forced to leave him. I could only hope that he had made his way with his sense of wonder still intact. So it was an enormous relief when we were finally face-to-face after our journey back to the Moon. I knew for certain that my prince had grown up grand. Grand in spirit and wisdom. And so I should have joined my brother Nightlights.
I knew our kiss had changed that fate.
I was no longer a true Nightlight. What was I to become?
To have no clue about one’s fate is a strange and fearful feeling. I had no place in any story I could see: I could not be of the Golden Age, and yet I could not be human. Inside, I knew I was both, and neither. But then my Moondream showed me another path.
My Moondream was long and epic. In the first part I flew up to the stars of my brother Nightlights and told them of our kiss. They told me I mus
t follow my Moondream and shine not as a star, but as a boy on Earth. And they swore to help me. And so they did. The battle played out as I’d dreamed it. As did my guiding Pitch’s dark meteor to Santoff Claussen. There, my old friends—Petter, Sascha, Tall William, William the Almost Youngest, William the Absolute Youngest, the owls, the squirrels, the Spirit of the Forest, even the mechanical djinni—were at the ready to help if necessary.
Also waiting to help was one more—one who was not from Santoff Claussen. Emily Jane, Pitch’s daughter, Mother Nature herself, drew upon her great store of atmospheric energy and fury to help fashion her father’s prison under Big Root. She had already tricked her father into believing that she had caused the Earth-covering storm to cut off communication from the Moon to the Guardians in these desperate days before the Battle of Bright Night, but all the while she was secretly helping them plan their rescue mission.
Emily Jane could sense that her father’s blood now coursed through my veins, sense that she and I were now bound together, almost like a brother and sister. It was in this strange way that I finally had a family. That I belonged, by blood, to others.
The Guardians had left instructions with the villagers before the Battle of Bright Night: Should they not return from the Moon, Emily Jane would be in charge of keeping Santoff Claussen safe.
With the ground near Big Root still aglow from the impact of Pitch’s meteor, Emily Jane gathered every citizen and creature together. She laid out all her needs and plans, her resolution bringing a quiet determination to all.
“For many years Santoff Claussen has been designed to keep Pitch out,” she explained. “Now we must work to keep him in. It must be remembered that the man you call Pitch was once a great hero. He tried to halt the spread of darkness, but the darkness was too strong, and despite his desperate fight, it overtook him. Now it will be our job to keep that darkness contained. Santoff Claussen will become a prison, for Pitch and for the dark that lives inside him. Only a place of great courage and light can fight this darkness. That place is here, and its warriors are you.”
The response was unequivocal. To the last man, woman, child, squirrel, and leaf, Santoff Claussen would do whatever needed doing to keep Pitch contained.
But I knew Emily Jane was secretly hoping for more. She was hoping that, somehow, her father would find redemption. That he would win his battle over the darkness that had curdled his once-noble heart.
She wanted her father back. She wanted the one loving thing that was left of her childhood to return. Only through a miracle could this happen. But even before I was part human, I knew that believing in miracles was the beating heart inside every mortal. It’s what keeps them going no matter how dreadful the odds.
As I left for the last part of my Moondream, the skies around us rumbled. Weather is often at the mercy of Emily Jane’s moods. Though her voice was calm, the skies said otherwise as she told me, “My heart fears for you. You spared my father’s life, and for that, I am forever in your debt,” she added. “You and my father are linked now. How that will evolve, I do not know. Will your goodness affect him? Or will his darkness shadow you?”
The sky cracked with a splinter of lightning, followed by a roll of thunder.
“I will help you however I can. But now you must leave,” she said more urgently. “Finish your dream. Disappear if you can. Don’t let yourself be found.”
Then she placed one hand on the secret pocket where I kept the dagger forged from her father’s tears.
“He fears this most. Use it. You’ll know how . . . and when.”
The look on her face was desperate. The strange storm, which came from no cloud anyone could see, grew deafening. I opened my cape and let the wind fill it like a sail. Lifting into the sky, I nodded farewell, then left Santoff Claussen in a gale. Rain fell from the cloudless sky. And I realized that the raindrops were from Emily Jane. They were the tears she would not shed.
I knew where I needed to go. The last part of my Moondream had shown me. It was a real place. A farm. Where a boy named Jack lived.
Somehow, I knew the way, and for a while I simply walked in the direction that seemed right. Sometimes I traveled by road, but just as often I walked through open country, sleeping in fields or woods. For the first time in my life, I did entirely as I pleased. But I did not feel lonely in the least. For I had my self, my new self, filling my thoughts and feelings. Every moment seemed miraculous: Sunlight, on anything and at any time, was an endless marvel. The golden wash of light that brightens treetops at day’s end when the world becomes a twilight of velvet shadows and fading radiance—this became my favorite time of day.
And when night came, I was happy still, for I could feel the light of the stars. I could see my fellow Nightlights and knew they wished me well. They had, after all, given me my Moondream and, with it, my new life. And I could feel MiM watching over me. As yet, I could not talk directly to him or any of the other Guardians; my ability to send thoughts, or read theirs, seemed to be gone. My old powers were at their weakest; I knew not when they might return.
I could feel the other Guardians, too, but only vaguely. They were like the warmth of a story told around a long-ago campfire. I hoped that my weakened powers would at least make it impossible for Pitch to know my whereabouts and for his soldiers to track me.
These days and nights were my school, my playground, my always-unfolding map of who I was becoming. Sometimes I ran with wolves till they became my friends. I traveled with bears and chipmunks, deer and elk, eagles, owls, bats, and moles. If it crawled, flew, dug, or ran, I learned its ways and language. Wild I became, but it was a noble wildness. I never killed unless to eat. I never harmed unless to help. I only fought to make peace. And every night I dreamed new dreams. Such a wonderful, terrifying, joyful world was Dreamland. Oh, I loved to dream.
And all the while I traveled closer toward the boy named Jack.
Then one night I was woken from a dream by a dull pain in my hand, the hand that I’d wounded saving Pitch. A cold wind blew suddenly through the woods where I was camped, and for the first time since my journey began, I felt unease. The wind was surely a warning from Emily Jane. The pain in my hand could only be a sign that Pitch was reaching out in some way. I stayed still and quiet. The Moon was waxing, providing just enough light to give some clarity to the tangle that surrounded me. I heard a curious sound coming nearer and nearer. It was a heavy, constant flattening of fallen leaves and snapping of small sticks, as if something large was moving across the forest floor.
The pain in my hand grew sharper. I knew I was in danger, but from what, I couldn’t guess. It was then that I heard a voice!
“It is the Lermontoff Serpent.”
I spun around. A man apparently made of sticks stood no more than an arm’s length away from me.
“North sent me,” the stick man explained. “He made me for you. He wasn’t sure if you were still alive, but if you were, he thought I could be useful. My name is Twiner.”
“Twiner? How Northian,” I remarked. “Is he well?”
The sounds of the serpent sidled closer.
“North is . . . North,” said Twiner blandly. “If I may say so, I think you best make use of me before you’re swallowed.” No sooner did Twiner finish that sentence than he transformed into a wooden staff with a crooked end that very much reminded me of the staff I had in my Nightlight days, but less ornate. He was, in appearance, just a simple stick.
I heard the crackles and crash of a tree trunk, and I turned to the edge of the small clearing where I camped. There coiled a most imposing creature. Its triangular head alone was larger than I was, its eyes glittered venomously, its long forked tongue flicked with menace.
This was a serpent that was not to be trifled with.
It lunged for me.
I grabbed Twiner.
The fight that followed was full of surprise and interest. Twiner was no simple stick. And I discovered I was no simple human. Together we made a formidable team.
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It’s interesting how much focus one can achieve when a fifty-foot serpent is trying to devour you. I discovered that my Nightlight powers were not gone but had, how shall I describe it, evolved? Yes, evolved. Sudden moments of invisibility? That was new and convenient. Extraordinary speed? Very handy when a fanged mouth the size of a bathtub is bearing down on you. A wooden staff that could change form from one instant to the next (sword, club, spear, bow)? Most useful and rather fun.
The serpent struck. I dodged. Its long tail cracked like a whip. I vanished. It bit. I blocked it with Twiner in whatever form my instincts thought best.
After a few hectic minutes of battle the serpent was tired, battered, and frustrated while Twiner and I were just finding our stride. The serpent decided to retreat and slithered noisily away. I jammed the slim end of Twiner into the ground so that he stood upright.
“Why was the creature called the Lermontoff Serpent?” I asked.
Twiner became a twig man once again and began to explain.
“He was once an impressive human. An ally, in fact, of Ombric Shalazar. He was the protector of the Valley of Lost Dreams. Pitch, however, turned him into a serpent, and now he hunts the source of Earth’s most hopeful dreams.”
I gave this some thought.
“You mean he eats people?”
“Yes,” Twiner replied. “He eats people who have consistently good dreams.”
“Did Pitch send him to eat me?”
“Likely, yes.” Twiner sat down. So did I. “You have been dreaming rather loudly. You were easy to find,” he added.
The adrenaline of battle was fading. I felt extremely tired. My hand no longer ached.
“You should rest,” said Twiner. “I’ll keep watch.”
And so I did sleep. And dreamed. And all was well. Twiner was on watch.
With Twiner as my companion, my travels became even more rich.
North had shown his usual skill in designing this being made of sticks. Since Twiner was made from the cuttings of Warrior’s Willow, he had the valiant heart and protective soul of that most remarkable of trees. Through him, I learned the language of trees and leaves, of wind and rain and all the natural world. These elements became my comrades and vowed to help me fight whatever assassins Pitch might send against me.
Guardians Chapter Book #5 Page 8