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Chapter Text

 Water.

Sharp as daggers, slicing into his skin. The bitter coldness of it filling his lungs.

The weight of his body sinking swiftly like a stone into the dark, frigid depths.

The reflection of the sun shining mockingly through the ice above him growing dimmer every second.

The growing pressure around his head as the lake held him in its icy clutches and ruthlessly squeezed.

"Give in," the water whispered as it wove itself around him tightly. "Give in and stay with us forever."

The cobwebs that swept across his mind, blocking out every reason and memory of why he should keep fighting, keep striving to hang onto the fragile thread of life when the water was so very inviting.

"Don't leave," the water pleaded, caressing his numb limbs. "Stay, stay, it's so very peaceful down here. Why would you want to go back up?"

There had been a glimpse of face that had flashed before his eyes. Brown hair, someone, something, and brown, the color brown mattered, but he was so tired.

And the water had become so deliciously warm...

He shut his eyes and gave himself over to the lake's welcoming embrace.

"Jack! Jack?!"

Someone was screaming, high-pitched and hysterical, and his ears were ringing. His chest heaved a violent spasm that sent him rocking forward choking on the liquid trapped in his lungs. Strong hands gripped him by the shoulders and turned him over where he proceeded to empty the contents of his stomach. It seemed to help dispel the remaining water he had unwittingly swallowed.

He crouched there, doubled over on the cold, frozen ground, coughing and gasping for air, and was barely aware of the small figure that had attached itself to one of his arms and was crying terribly.

"Jack, Jack, I'm sorry!" the figure shrilled, pressing her face into his shoulder as her small body wracked with sobs.

It was a girl. A girl with brown hair. Brown… oh, yes, he knew her, didn't he?

His head was buzzing and he couldn't think clearly, couldn't feel anything but the bitter cold of winter wind seeping into his wet clothes, into his skin, and into his very bones as it blew its icy breath down the back of his neck.

"Jack," the girl at his side said again, tugging on the soaked sleeve of his shirt. "Jack, please say something!"

Jack… that was his name, wasn't it? Everything was slowly coming back to him now.

"Enough, Emma, leave him be," came another voice, deeper and more gruff. "The poor lad's probably brain-dead now. Spent too much time under-water ."

"No, he's not!" the girl shrieked angrily before bursting into tears again.

Under water… the lake, oh, they had gone skating… but the ice had been too thin…

"Ay, he'll be useless as a lump on a log no doubt," the gruff voice rumbled on. "Just like ole Mrs. Putnam's grown son, the one that got born with his birthing cord around his neck. Not good for nothing except sitting in a rocker and drooling."

"STOP IT!" the girl screamed, letting go of her hold on him to rush over and begin beating at the man with her tiny fists. "Take it back, take it back, take it back!"

"Ease off there," the man said, swatting her away gently with his muscled arm. "Taking it back won't change anything. You children shouldn't have been playing on the lake so early in winter. It's all your fault, really, this happened. Just count yourself lucky I was out checking my traps today. Poor git," Jack felt the man's gaze fall on him. "Would'a been kinder to let him drown, I suppose."

The most horrific, heart-wrenching wail fell out of the girl's mouth as she collapsed on the white ground, on the snow, and buried her face in her hands.

Something stirred with Jack at the sight, because the girl was young and small, and other people shouldn't pick on her, no one but him… because, because… because she was Emma, and he didn't allow anyone to bully her… brown-haired, Emma, Emma… his sister. Oh.

He opened his mouth to say something, tell her he was alright, he was fine, he was, wasn't he? He had just imagined that the lake had talked to him. But all that came out was a symphony of gigantic sneezes followed by a severe case of the shivers.

"Damn foolish children," he heard the man curse as something heavy and warm was draped over him, before he was swung up over the man's broad shoulder like a sack of potatoes. "Don't tear my furs on anything you understand, Emma? I aim to sell these at the trade-post."

From his view-point, Jack could see his sister bundled in a fox hide, white enough to match the snow, trailing listlessly behind them. Her eyes were downcast and her cheeks shone with the silvery traces of frozen tears.

"Ah, I don't know how your poor mother's going to take this," the man said as they continued to walk. "With your father already dead and all, and now an idle mouth to feed for the rest of her days…"

They crested the slope of a hill and Jack could see the lake below where they had come from: the large, jagged hole in the middle of it resembled a monster's mouth gaping hungrily after him. Even from this distance, the loud crack of the ice splitting and breaking fired off like rifle in his ears.

He would have said that it was the lake, voicing its anger and displeasure to the forest that it had been deprived of its victim, except… he wasn't crazy…was he?

Jack wished he was back in the lake, back in the frigid water, because everything was burning.

He drew in several shallow breaths and the air was suffocatingly warm, thick enough to swallow. His head was hot so much though he often imagined he was no more than some small fire sprite dancing in the crackling flames of the fireplace.

There were always shapes hovering over his bed: a woman pressing something damp and blessedly cool to his forehead, a young girl on her knees on the floor holding his limp hand. Silhouettes of people he did not recognize and hushed murmurs he could never quite make out: "near drowned…", "…fever", "…adled in the head." Vile, disgusting-tasting liquid that was forced down his throat, but made the violent tremors go away.

He lost track of time. The sun would stream in through the widow and he would watch the dust gleam in the golden rays. He would shut his eyes and open them to the pale light of the moon spilling onto his pillow and whisper into the night to anyone who might be listening that he hadn't gone mad.

Then the shadows came to prove him wrong.

They came creeping from beneath his bed, thick, black tendrils, coiling and slithering like a nest of snakes, up, up, up his bedpost, curling around the edge of the footboard and Jack could only watch in numb, muted fear as they merged together to solidify into a tall, slim figure of man. A man whose grey-tinged skin and golden glowing eyes were the only features visible amongst the swirling mass of darkness wreathed around him.

Unbidden, one of his temporarily lost memories rushed back to Jack full-force.

"Boo!" he shouted leaping out from behind the old oak tree in their backyard, making sure to flail the folds of the black robe around widely enough to make it look like he was gliding on air.

His sister screamed in fright at the dark figure in front of her and dropped the laundry basket she was carrying, scattering the freshly-scrubbed clothes into the dirt.

He had chased her all the way back to the house where his mother had wrung him by the ear and shook him roughly. "Jackson Overland!" she had yelled. "You do not go about scaring your sister in any way! Especially in Father Goodall's church robe! What on earth did you do to it?" she demanded pointing to the hood he had attached with his meager sewing skills.

The boys in the village had made fun of him for having learned a "woman's chore". He had really been on his way to frighten the living daylights out of them. His sister had just been an unexpected bonus.

His mother had made him take every stitch that he had sewn out, then made him re-do the laundry he had soiled. She, herself, had taken the robe back to the village minister and apologized. Jack had been sentenced to a month of chopping firewood for the man, while Father Goodall had sat outside and recited verses of scripture about sinners and hellfire.

Jack had decided dressing up as Death to scare someone wasn't worth the repercussions and never did it again.

The frantic beating of his heart drumming loudly in his ears snapped him back to the present and made him realize why his mind had decided to remember that all of sudden.

This man in front of him now, this man surrounded by shadows, was he Death coming at last to claim the soul that had escaped his clutches a few days earlier? Was Jack supposed to have died in the lake?

"Oh, my fearlings, I'm afraid this one isn't quite asleep yet," the dark man spoke causing Jack to jump. He hadn't seemed to be addressing him, however, but rather the writhing mass of shadows around him. "A pity, it's so much quicker to taste the fear through a nightmare. Ah well, there other ways."

The man spread his arms out wide and the shadows exploded in a flurry of motion. Jack watched half petrified/half fascinated as the shadows separated back into tendrils and wreaked havoc about the room. They sunk into the floorboards and made them creak noisily. They rattled the windowpane and let the wind in through a crack which caused a ghastly, howling sound. They skittered across the rafters of his roof, spraying straw and timber shards down. They knocked against his headboard with a loud thumping and scratched on the wooden wall of his room something terrible. They kicked up such a ruckus, Jack was amazed no one had come in to check on him.

The dark man was frowning now as one of the tendrils slithered back to him and wrapped itself around him almost apologetically. "Is the child deaf?" the man asked, stroking the shadow as one would do a pet. "He should be screaming bloody murder by now."

"Have you come to kill me, then?" Jack asked hoarsely.

The man appeared startled by his outburst for a few seconds. For one moment, golden eyes bored directly into brown, seeking some unknown answer with a desperate longing before the man broke his gaze and snapped his fingers. The rest of the shadows raced back over to him, encircling him in their dark mass.

"We shall waste no more time here," the man said scornfully. "There are other children in the village to make a meal off of. Ones who are not daft in their heads. Our fear can do nothing if it does not breach the mind."

The words struck a chord of anger deep within Jack. He was tired of people saying he had lost his mind. He had had enough!

"I'm not crazy!" he shouted sitting upright and flinging the covers halfway off him. "I fell through the ice and I got sick, but I'm not crazy!"

In the blink of eye, the man wreathed in shadows was standing next to his bedside, staring down at him and just as quickly, all of Jack's anger and what little courage he had gathered fled from him.

"I will only ask this once," the man said bending over so that his face was scant inches away from Jack's. "Can you hear me, child?"

From this close space, the man's features were defined: a thin, sallow face, high cheekbones, an elongated nose and narrow jaw-line.

Paralyzed in place with fear, Jack could only nod numbly.

His mother liked to tell him and his sister stories. Stories about mythical fairies helping people, and brave warriors off on adventures, and fables that always had a lesson to be taught. There had been one about a wolf and a girl in a red hood…

The man's lips stretched into a sinister smile at his response, showing off two rows of needle-sharp teeth that gleamed as the faintest traces of moonlight reflected off of them.

"Can you see me?"

"What big teeth you have," that's how he was supposed to answer, wasn't he? But the words died in his throat and Jack could only find the strength to nod his head again.

"Do you know who I am?"

The man's voice was filled with unbridled, unholy glee. The shadows around him were flickering and pulsing excitedly like dark tongues of flame.

"You're Death," Jack whispered, the name falling off his lips like the signal for his own execution.

The man's smile faltered briefly as he paused. The shadows stopped their jubilant, twisting dance to weave to and fro in an uncertain fashion.

"Death," the man said, rolling the word on his tongue as if sampling the flavor.

"Yes. You came for me because I almost drowned in the lake. I think I did for awhile. That's why I can see you," Jack said.

Farmer Pratchett had been struck by lightning the year before. Ever since then, he had claimed he could see angels everywhere.

But this man in front of him now… he was no angel.

"If I am Death," the man spoke slowly. "Are you not afraid of me?"

Jack was pleased to discover he wasn't. That the pure, numb terror he had felt when the man first appeared in his room had all but abated. Now that he knew who he was, there was nothing left except for the awkward unease of first meeting a stranger.

He shook his head. An action which seemed to displease the man. Death's lips curved down into a scowl.

Footsteps pattered lightly on the wooden floorboards leading to just outside his room.

The man's eyes darted to the door as it began opening a crack. "I believe you are mistaken, child," he said crisply, the smile back on his mouth as he turned to look at him again. "I'm not here for you, but there are other occupants of this house, am I correct?"

Anxiety sparked in his chest and dropped to the pit of Jack's stomach. "What do you mean?" he demanded frantically.

"Jack?" a small girl's voice rang out in the silence as his sister poked her head around the door. She often checked on him Jack recalled through his hazy, feverish memories. She checked on him many times in the night as if to comfort herself that he was still breathing. "Jack, are you awake?"

"Jaaaack," Death crooned softly. "Such a fine, young name for a fine, young man. So healthy, so alive. So different from his sister."

The man flung out his arm and one of the shadows shot forward and began curling itself around his sister's head like a crown of darkness.

"Leave her alone!" Jack yelled furiously, falling out of bed in haste to reach her.

"Jack?" Emma said nervously, pushing the door open wider. Jack watched as another shadow-tendril slithered by his line of vision and wrapped itself around the girl's ankles.

"Get off her!" he cried, trying to get to his feet, but his whole body felt so weak. "I'm the one who drowned not her! I'm the one who should die, not her!"

Emma was staring wide-eyed at him now, her mouth forming a wordless little 'o' of shock.

The shadows coiled around her abruptly expanded in size. Death gave a lilting laugh and drew in a deep breath of air, as if drinking in some intoxicating scent.

"'m sorry, 'msorry, sorry, sorry, sorry," Emma began to chant, bright tears welling up in her eyes as she backed away from him.

The shadows draped around her knitted together to form a dark shroud, the kind Jack had seen old Mrs. Smyth wear daily to mourn her dead husband. "I shall be buried in it," she had remarked once.

With a howl of rage and burst of energy he didn't know he possessed, Jack leaped up and sprang at her, trying to tear off the shadows that were attached to her head. His hands passed right through them though. He ended up pulling harshly on his sister's hair.

Emma started to scream.

The scorching heat was back inside his head, he was a dying flame that walked free of the fireplace, the room was spinning, someone was shrieking, and the damn shadows wouldn't go away!

They taunted him mercilessly, batting at his face, flitting about the floor knowing he couldn't catch them and Death's amused, rumbling laughter rang throughout the room.

"Shut up! Shut up!" Jack cried falling to his knees as the last shreds of strength deserted him. "If you're going to kill me, kill me! Stop torturing us!"

"Oh, but Jack," Death said with pretend-surprise. "That's what I do. It's my job."

There was someone else in his room now. Someone who cupped his face in her soft, gentle hands and wiped the cool sweat from his brow with the hem of her nightgown. Someone who said, "Emma, go get Doctor Brown," and who helped him back into bed and tucked him under the covers.

The room tilted up and down like a see-saw as the shadows played merrily on it. And all the while Death stood and watched him with greedy golden eyes.

The vile liquid was once again forced down Jack's throat and he struggled against it, because he had to save Emma, had to warn her, had to warn his mother, about these shadows, but he was sinking, sinking like before on the lake into dark, murky depths.

"Shhh, Jack, don't fight it, go to sleep," Death crooned coming over and ghosting curved nails over his face. "Come visit me in my realm. We have lots to talk about."

The last thing Jack saw was the moon outside, bathing the man in its pale light. He stretched one hand out towards it, silently begging for something he knew not what, but of course the moon did not answer. Why would it? Besides, he wasn't crazy… was he?

Chapter Text

Jackson Overland, Age 10 years…

The sun was blazing overhead and there was not even the slightest wind to stir the golden stalks of wheat in the field. Jack trudged on, wiping the perspiration off his face with his sleeve.

Stupid, old nanny goat, he thought, tearing a stalk in half viciously and chewing on the end.

It was bad enough he was stuck way out here watching his family's goat-herd on a day as hot as this while the other village children were playing in the lake. But today, the peddler had arrived in Burgess sporting off his collection of odds and ends from all across the country side. Jack had been saving a jar of honey for him, remembering from his visit last year that the man had a sweet tooth. It wasn't much, but he was sure it would gain him something in a trade, no matter how small. Then it would be his chance to brag about to everyone, like the butcher's son who was forever boasting on his silver pocket-knife.

His plans had been foiled from the moment he had woken up this morning. Instead, his father had sent him to mind the goats in his place.

"Your mother could have the baby any time now. I want to be with her," Joseph Overland had said before he had sent his son along the way with a packed lunch in a burlap pouch. "And keep a watchful eye on Prudence. She's near for her kidding time also."

Prudence was the meanest, ugliest, most stubborn goat in their herd. One of Jack's earliest memories was of her chasing him around the yard and head-butting him face-first into the water-trough. She was a bully and she bit. Even the goat-herd's head buck got bossed around and kicked by her.

Jack didn't want anything to do with her. He only hoped she would hold off giving birth until the next day at least. So of course, she was gone when he opened the goat pen and let the herd out to graze on the hillside.

The pen wasn't broken and there were no tunnels dug in the ground. No doubt, she had simply climbed over, swollen belly and all. Goats were remarkable that way. What wasn't remarkable was that Jack had to leave the rest of the herd behind and go off to look for her. Predators usually weren't too keen on attacking a herd full of healthy goats with nasty, cloven feet and wicked, curved horns, but one defenseless and alone having just given birth would be all too easy a meal.

Which was why Jack had been wandering across the hillside and valley for hours in the hot summer heat with no sign of luck. He was tired and too thirsty to sit down and eat his lunch. He was just thinking about giving up and turning back when he the faintest bleat reached his ears.

He followed the sound as best as he could with it echoing all over the rocks on the hills, but finally he stumbled across what he was looking for: a brown-and-white nanny goat on flopped on her side nursing two new-born kids, their white coats still shining wetly.

"Twins!" Jack exclaimed, smiling for the first time that day. "Well, I suppose that was worth all the trouble you gave me. Alright, come on, let's go home."

He took one step forward… and Prudence, knobby-kneed, cross-eyed Prudence was on all fours in an instant and charging towards him, horns lowered.

Jack ended up cornered in a crevice between two rocks for an hour tossing bits of his lunch to her as a peace offering which she turned her nose up at. She would lie back down to nurse her kids, then when he would try and escape without her noticing, she would chase him back into the same spot and bleat angrily, shaking her horns in goat-ish frustration when she couldn't reach him.

He probably would have been there all day if his father hadn't come looking for him.

"Left your staff at home again, Jack," Joseph Overland said as he hooked the curved end around Prudence's neck and yanked her away from his son's hiding place. "How will you ever learn to be a good shepherd if you keep forgetting your staff?"

"I don't want to carry that around! I look stupid!" Jack protested, emerging from the crevice. His father had tied all four of Prudence's legs together with rope so she was no longer an obstacle.

He used to admire his father and his work. He used to want to be just like him when he grew up. The boys in the village had made fun of him the first time he had been seen carrying around the shepherd's staff his father had carved for him one Christmas.

"Mary had a little lamb, little lamb, little lamb! Mary had a little lamb whose fleece was white as snow!" They would chant laughing as they ran around him in a circle. "Little Miss Muffet sat on her tuffet eating her curds and whey! Hey, where's your bonnet and petticoats, Jackie?"

Jack wasn't sure what he was going to do when he got older, but he would not be a goat-herder for the rest of his life.

"You look far more stupid being cornered by this old numbskull," Joseph declared giving Prudence a sound whack between her eyes that made her cease her mad struggling and lay stunned. "If you spent as much time dedicated learning your duty as you do to daydreaming and plain tom-foolery, you wouldn't worry about what others might think of you." Throwing the nanny goat across his broad shoulders, he stood up. "Now, carry those two kids and let's head home."

Jack gathered up the two new-born kids in his arms irritably. There was no more rope, so he had to carry them like that. They weighed a good few pounds each between them, and it would take an hour at least to get back to the village. Jack's legs were already aching from walking so much this morning. The kids were heavy dead-weights in his arms. It didn't take long for his muscles to give out.

"Just let me sleep here tonight," Jack moaned, stretching out on the ground and pressing his cheek into the dry soil. "I'll be fine."

"And what if the wolves decide you would make a tasty supper?" he heard his father chuckle above his head.

"Leave ole Prudence here," Jack said. "She'll be a sacrifice like in the Bible. They'll eat her and leave a poor skin and bones boy alone."

"Perhaps a rest would be good for a short while," Joseph remarked.

Jack lifted his face off the ground a little. His father was sitting on a tree stump, sweat dripping from his forehead, probably from the heat.

"Did Mother have the baby yet?" Jack asked.

"Nay," Joseph sighed. "She was worrying about you. Said you had been out too long and to go look for you. You're lucky she didn't realize you had left your staff or she'd be doubly as worried and I'd have tanned your hide. Your mother doesn't need that kind of stress right now. It's not good for the baby either."

Jack squirmed a bit feeling guilty for the first time that day. "Do you think the baby will be a boy or a girl?" he asked his father hoping to change the subject.

"No one but the Good Lord knows," Joseph said, a soft smile settling over his weary features. "As long as it's healthy, I'll be happy. What are you wishing for? A brother or a sister?"

"I don't care," Jack said rolling over and letting the new-born kids wobble on unsteady legs over his stomach. One of them licked his chin with its raspy tongue and he giggled at how it tickled. "As long as I have someone to play with."

Joseph frowned. "Are you not getting on well with the other children, Jack?"

"They say our family is strange," Jack admitted staring up into the cloudless blue sky. "Because you and Mother were not born in this village. Because we don't know all their traditions."

"People are mistrustful of outsiders, that's all," Joseph said. "They'll change their views soon enough." He ran a hand over his face. "Ah, do you have any water on you, son?"

"No," Jack said feeling the dryness of his own mouth.

"I'm near parched," Joseph said standing up and adjusting old Prudence on his shoulders, flexing his left arm as he did so. "We're nearly there. We'll take a drink from the well."

"Don't wanna," Jack whined, turning his face back into the dirt.

"Jack, get up," his father said in a warning tone.

"Leave me to diiiiiiiie," Jack groaned not looking forward to walking another step in the harsh, blazing weather while carrying two heavy weights.

"Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. Ephesians 6:1," Joseph Overland recited.

"And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Ephesians 6:4," Jack recited with equal ferocity, not budging an inch.

Joseph burst out in deep, roaring laughter. "Oh, Jack, no wonder the village thinks our family strange if you call them out like this any chance you get! Never do it in front of Father Goodall though. The man would lose what little hair he has left on his head in a fit of righteous indignation!"

Jack felt the corners of his mouth turn up at the mental image. He started when he felt the weight of the two new-born kids vanish off him. He looked up in time to see his father, stuff them down the front of his shirt, until only their heads remained peeking out of collar of his neck.

"Alright, you disobedient, rebellious child. I'll box your ears when we get home. Move," Joseph ordered pointing one finger out in the distance.

Jack scrambled up happily, the threat of a whipping not bothering him at all. His father might change his mind or be too distracted with his mother to remember later. All that mattered right now was that he had no burdens too carry and was gloriously free.

They had to stop and rustle up the rest of the goats out grazing back into the pen before they returned home first. "I am in desperate need of a dog," Joseph remarked before handing the shepherd's staff to Jack. "Here, young pup, go nip at their heels."

Jack streaked through the tall grass whooping and hollering in delight, waving the staff in front of him like a mad man, scaring the very dickens out of the goats no doubt by the way they fled from him with frightened, startled bleating until he had rounded them all up securely into their pen. Once the task was finished, he did several cartwheels and back-flips to celebrate his accomplishment. With a victorious shout, he raised his staff high above his head to the sky imagining it was his sword and he, the king, had just defeated all his enemies.

"I've raised a young heathen, devil take my soul," his father commented at his antics.

They took her Prudence and her kids with them. New-born goats were too fragile to leave in the pen and a nanny goat's milk would be a welcome addition to their family's meals. The sun was setting when they at last cleared the last bit of rocky hillside and came to the valley where Burgess was nestled snugly in.

"Look, Da, you can see our house from here!" Jack exclaimed excitedly pointing. "Hey, there's a carriage in front of it! It's Doctor Brown's! Mother must be having the baby, hurry!"

He made it half way down the valley slope before he realized his father wasn't following. Rushing back up, he nearly smacked right into him, slouched on his knees at the top of the hill.

"Da, what's wrong?" he asked, kneeling down in front of him.

His had noticed his father slowing down his pace a third of the way home, but he had thought nothing of it. He was carrying several heavy weights after all. But his father's pale, pinched face and labored breathing alarmed him

"The goats…" his father gritted out through his teeth looking like he was in pain. "Take the goats…"

Jack obeyed wordlessly, unlike earlier, easing Prudence off his father's shoulders and pulling the two new-born kids out of the man's shirt that was soaked with sweat.

"Da…" he said again in a small voice.

"Too much, too much," Joseph Overland was wheezing more to himself than his son. "Too long… in this heat…" He reached his right arm up that had begun shaking violently and clawed futilely at his shirt. Fabric ripped and buttons popped as he clutched his chest looking as if he wanted to reach in and tear out his own heart.

"Da? Da!" Jack shouted, yanking frantically his father's arm. His father who was unresponsive to his cries and whose head lolled side to side at his forceful shakes.

Somewhere, underneath all the blind panic, Jack thought he understood what was happening. He had seen old Mr. Johnson just collapse while walking through the street. "Heart gave out" was what the grown-ups talked amongst themselves. But Mr. Johnson had been nearing his mid-sixties. His father was young and healthy compared to him. So it couldn't be the same thing!

"Da, what about the baby?" his own screams rang in his ears sounding frightened and lost. "What about Mother? You wanted to be with her! What about me?! Da, Da!"

His vision blurred, he could only make out the dim outline of the man in front of him, the man to whom all his life had seemed like a giant to him, tall and strong. It had started to rain but the sky was still clear, the new-born kids were bleating to be nursed, and in the house below the wails of a baby drifted up the hillside to join their cries.

And a hand stretched out and brushed the raindrops of his cheek. "Jack…" his name was spoken into the air and he was choking in relief as he buried his head into his father's chest.

Slim, bony fingers slipped down to grip the space between his neck and shoulder painfully. "Is that what happened, Jack?" the voice whispered, soft as cobwebs and dark as shadows.

And he wasn't ten years old, he wasn't really here on this hill, this man in front of him was not his father.

He jerked away from the foreign touch, this imposter's hold, and the image of Joseph Overland's face rippled, wavered, and guttered out, until Death's golden-eyes gaze was staring back at him, his lips stretched back into a needle-like, hooked grin.

"Such tragedy for one so young," Death said, clucking his tongue on the roof of his mouth pityingly. "Tell me, do you blame yourself?"

Jack lunged at him with a strangled screech, the painful wound time had attempted to heal ripped raw and open now.

He passed right through him, through black shadows of mist, and the scenery around him was dissolving like rain pouring down on a painting. He was falling through endless darkness and there was no up or down and Death's taunting voice echoed all around him.

"So many 'what if's' you must have, Jack. 'What if I had taken my staff with me that day'? 'What if we had stopped to take a proper drink in such hot weather'?" Long, slender arms spiraled out of the darkness to wrap themselves around him in a clamp-like grip. Cool lips pressed into the skin under Jack's jaw as Death spoke the cruel truth. "'What if I hadn't been such a needy, whiny, spoiled little boy who made my father carry so many burdens that his heart gave out before he could ever see his wife again or lay eyes on the new baby?'"

"S-stop," Jack stuttered shutting his eyes to halt the tears from leaking out.

"Tell me, Jack, do you think he cursed you in his final moments?" Death asked, dragging spindly fingers through the boy's hair in short, rough strokes. "Do you think he still roams the grounds of home unseen, un-heard, doomed forever to watch his family go on with their lives and yet never be a part of it? What would he say to you for being the cause of his demise if you could meet him now, I wonder?"

An eerie, unearthly moan reverberated in the empty void around them. Jack snapped his eyes open to see a form materialize out of the swirling mass shadows, the form of man looking as if he had crawled his way out of the dirt. Rotting flesh hung in tattered shreds off his decaying body. Two gaping black holes were where his eyes should have been gazed unseeingly straight at him. "Jaaa-aaa-aa," the figure tried to say his name but choked on the bile of worms and maggots that fell from his mouth.

"Stop it!" Jack exclaimed in utter horror, wriggling in vain to break free from Death's embrace. "Stop it!"

"Stop what, Jack?" Death murmured curving his mouth into a smile against the boy's throat. "Don't you want to say hello to your father? Or are you afraid of what he might have to say to you?"

"That's not my father!" Jack cried, clinging to the slim line of sanity he had left. "You just want me to believe it is! You're not—you're not…"

"Is that what happened, Jack?" the memory of Death's deception drifted back to him.

"You're not Death!" Jack shouted into the darkness with fierce conviction and the shadows abruptly withdrew a vast distance.

The arms holding him captive squeezed harder as a hand caught the boy's chin in a bruising grip and forced his head up to look backwards into narrowed, golden eyes.

"What makes you say that?" the man asked sharply.

"You would've been there," Jack said as the pieces slowly fell into place. "You would've known what had happened, if it had been you that came for him. So what… what are you?"

"Ah, not so stupid after all then."

He was released without warning with a smooth push away that sent him spinning into blackness where he floated in the void waiting for an answer.

"I am the shadows that stalk at night," the man said holding out his arms wide and the darkness rushed to him and draped itself around him like a blanket. "I am the noises under your bed and the monster that lurks outside your door. I am your worst memories relived and the thing that haunts your dreams. I am Pitch Black!"

And the darkness rose up and crashed over him like a tidal wave.

Someone was calling his name. Bright light was seeping into the darkness behind his eyelids. Jack cracked his eyes open enough for the blurry form of his mother to slide into focus.

"Wake up, Jack. You were having a nightmare," she whispered as she dabbed a damp cloth across his forehead.

Jack blinked unsure of where he was. "Where are the goats?" he asked feeling the blistering heat of the summer day burn steadily in his skin.

"Goats? Oh, Jack, honey, we sold the herd years ago," his mother sighed, a worry-line creasing the bridge of her nose.

Jack shook his head. "Was bringing back Prudence… and her kids," he tried to explain.

"You're confused, that's all," his mother said soothingly. "You have a fever."

"Fell through the ice…"

"That's right," what sounded like a quickly-stifled sob escaped his mother's lips.

He was making her upset and didn't know why. It took too much effort to think of a reason. Restless, Jack turned his head into his pillow and his cheek prickled uncomfortably. He lifted a hand to brush the sensation away and tiny, black grains of sand fell from between his fingertips and spilled onto the covers. His entire bed was coated with the course substance and he sat up and tried to sweep it off onto the floor because he couldn't go to sleep like this, but his mother caught his hands in her own.

"What are you doing, Jack?" she asked.

"There's sand in my bed," he mumbled. "Black sand, gotta get it off…"

"Jack, honey, there's nothing on your bed," his mother said, running a tender hand across the top of his head. "Here, lie back down."

He allowed her to push him back down gently and lay there stiffly amongst the sea of black sand only he could see. It was scratchy and the sensation irritated his skin, but he dared not mention it lest he cause her any more distress.

"I'm sorry," he mumbled because there was something he needed to apologize for, something buried under the layers of fog swamping his mind.

"Shhh, it's all right," his mother said softly. "You're simply tired, that's all. You'll be better when the fever breaks."

"No… left my staff… I'm sorry," Jack said closing his eyes.

It was raining in his room. Small droplets of water splashed onto his burning forehead and Jack wondered if to die twice by drowning was possible.

Chapter Text

Jack could hear them talking as he lay in his bed even as they tried their best to keep their voices low.  The Overland house was built pretty much like every other log cabin in Burgess, sturdy but small. The fireplace in the main room served to heat the interior as well as cook their meals. There were two small bedrooms off to the side: one for the adults and the other for any children they might have. Jack remembered he used to share the same room with Emma when they were both younger, but ever since he that fateful day on the ice, his sister had taken to sleeping with their mother.

It had been two weeks since then, one week of which had passed in nothing but a blur of heat and fuzzy memories. He was all but convinced that he had conjured the man wreathed in shadows from the depths of his feverish mind for no nightmares had plagued him since that first night of his plunge through the ice. No shadows came creeping from beneath his bed nor was there any black sand scattered on his sheets to greet him upon waking.

Yes, it had all been a figment of his imagination. There was naught to blame for these vivid hallucinations except for the fever that had wracked his body so viciously. The fever that once it had finally broken, had left him tired and weak.

His mother had kept his fingers busy the second week as he was still bed-ridden. She had given him scraps of fabric and patterns to cut out. The village tailor had taken Lydia Overland as his assistant after she had been widowed. It had caused quite a stir amongst the townspeople, however their chatter ceased when it became known that Tailor Saunders’ eyesight was failing and his true intentions were to make Jack his apprentice. Lydia had attempted her best to pass her seamstress skills to her son, but Jack was dismal at sewing. He often thought Tailor Saunders an old fool for thinking he could ever take up the trade. His stitches always came out as crisscrossed and uneven with wide gaps in-between. He managed fairly well with a pair of scissors though.

“He’s fine,” he heard his mother say to the doctor. “I don’t know what stories Thomas Grymes has prattled off his lying tongue, but he’s perfectly fine. I’ve quizzed him on the Primer and he can recite the alphabet and catechisms just fine. As for his maths, he’s no worse off than he was before the fever took hold of him. ‘Adled in the head, indeed’!”

“If no sickness ails him now and he is recovered well enough to walk, he needs to be seen about by others,” Doctor Brown said. “It will stop this foolish rumor-mongering then. It would do the boy some good to get a bit of fresh air.”

A distinct noise of disapproval was his mother’s response.

“Are you planning to keep him cooped up here forever? You can try and shelter your loved ones as much as you want, but accidents happen. That’s the way of the world. All you can really do is guide them as best you can so they learn from their mistakes.”

Silence lingered after the last statement and Jack knew the doctor had won.

oOo

The frozen snow crunched underneath his boots as he trudged along the road. The air was brisk and cold, but Jack did not feel the sharp bite of winter. His mother had bundled him up in so many layers, his walking gait was similar to that of the inn-keeper’s tabby cat one time it had fallen into the ale-barrel.

“I don’t want you falling ill in such a manner again,” his mother had remarked at his resentful gaze before his departure, sending his sister along with him. They were taking Mr. William’s his new wool coat, wrapped and packaged neatly.

Jack glanced down at Emma who kept pace beside him despite his longer stride. Her two small mitten-covered hands were wrapped about his own right one. She was biting her lower lip as she stared straight ahead never meeting his eyes. She hadn’t spoken to him since that night his fever had driven him half-mad. He had probably frightened her. He should apologize…

“Jack lad, what’s this?” a loud, booming voice called out suddenly. “Out so soon already? You must have caused your mother no end of grief for her to turn you lose this early!”

Jack lifted his head. Trapper Grymes stood a few feet ahead, his large burly frame blocking the narrow path. Snowflakes drifting down from the overcast sky were quickly melted in the man’s scruffy beard.

“No words to greet your fellow wanderer this fine day?” Trapper Grymes bellowed as he marched over. “Tell me, girl,” he said turning to Emma. “Has he lost his tongue as well as his wits?”

Jack felt his sister’s hands clench tightly about his own, saw her swallow back a deep gulp of air and the brimming of unshed tears well up in her eyes.

“I am not ‘adled in the head’,” Jack spat out curtly. “Mother would like for you to stop such sayings.”

“Well, I’ll be bowled over, the boy speaks!” Trapper Grymes exclaimed, clutching his rounded belly and guffawing heartily. “If you can talk, Jack lad, how about sparing a few words of appreciation for your rescuer, eh? You’d be sleeping in a watery coffin right now if I hadn’t happened by.”

A muffled whimper escaped Emma’s lips and Jack had to restrain himself from punching the man right in his bulbous, bright red nose.

“Thank you, kind sir,” he forced out through gritted teeth. “I am truly grateful.”

“Aye, aye, that’s more like it,” Trapper Grymes nodded mollified. “You’re the man of the house now, Jack lad, remember. You should always think twice before you do anything and not act on rash impulse.”

Jack felt his anger abate abruptly. Patronizing as the man was, he was right. He should have known better than to take his sister ice skating when it was too early in winter for the water to completely freeze over. He had fallen prey to the lake’s deceptive appearance. What would have happened if he had died? His mother and sister would have been devastated.

“Ah, well, ‘My heart shall chear me in my youth, I'll have my frolicks in good truth, what e'er seems lovely in mine eye, myself I cannot it deny.’ Right, Jack lad?” Trapper Grymes recited, tousling the boy’s hair as he turned to go.

“Wait,” Jack said catching the man’s sleeve. “My staff.”

“Come again?”

“My staff,” Jack repeated, an urgency rising within him that was close to panicking. “Where is my staff?”

He had asked his mother the same question before he and his sister had left home. It had become an old habit to simply extend his hand and snatch it up where he always placed it, resting by the doorframe, before stepping foot outside. But it hadn’t been there today. Two weeks in bed and there had been no need for him to think of it. There really was no need for him to make any use of it all now that his family had no more goats to shepherd.

But sometimes, when things were tough, on particularly bad days, Jack would look at his staff and see in his memory Joseph Overland’s large hands, wrinkled with calluses, carefully carving the crooked end out of the wood… and sometimes… sometimes that would be enough to lift his spirits in the worst of moods.

“That shepherd’s staff that’s like a third arm of yours? Must still be back at the lake. Oh, steady on,” Trapper Grymes said at Jack’s crestfallen expression. “It’s probably wherever you last laid it. There’s naught been a soul that has gone down to the lake since your near-drowning. Father Goodall forbid it. Wait a couple of more weeks for the ice to freeze over and someone will fetch it for you. Patience is a virtue, Jack.”

oOo

When they last arrived at the Williams residence, the snow had started to fall much faster. He and Emma were ushered in and told to stand in front of the fireplace. The warmth of the flames melted the crusted snowflakes off their clothes where they dripped in little puddles on the floor.

Mrs. Williams bustled around the place clucking like a mother hen, the packaged coat for her husband put aside. “Oh, Jack, it’s so good to see you out and about again! You had us all worried, you little imp. Here,” the woman said dropping one hard maple candy each into Jack and Emma’s hands. “Suck on these while I boil some apple cider for you two. It will help to have something warm inside on your way home in this weather!”

The door to the side-room opened wide enough for two blonde-haired children to peer around it at their visitors.

“Jack! Jack! Jack and Emma!” they shouted enthusiastically as they barreled over to them.

Pushing the maple candy over to one side of his cheek, Jack smiled lopsidedly at the sight of Emma’s two friends. Abigail Williams at nine years old was a year older than Emma, while her brother, Caleb was the same age. The three of them combined sometimes made for a “Terrible Trio” his mother often jokingly remarked, but really they were sweet and fairly obedient children. Jack knew the worst thing they had ever done was steal some pies cooling out of Baker Hopkins’ window. Jack knew because he had put them up to it and had a good laugh at their expense when he had stumbled across them later on. They all had developed stomach aches from stuffing their greedy faces and were bawling their eyes out certain that God was punishing them for sins.

“Jack, you’re not dead!” Caleb cried flinging his arms around the older boy’s waist.

“Of course he’s not dead, child!” Mrs. Williams declared exasperated. “He’s right there!”

“And you haven’t gone willy-nilly, stark-raving mad?” Abigail piped up.

“Abigail!” her mother exclaimed properly scandalized.

“What? That’s what Anthony Hawkins said he’d gone and done. Said Jack was born under a full moon and his falling through the ice was how the devil tried to claim his soul back!”

“That’s quite enough, young lady!” Mrs. Williams ordered. “Anthony Hawkins spreads the most fantastic yarns—you should be spanked for believing such a ridiculous fib! You children have such wild imaginations, I must say. First Caleb and his monsters, now this!”

“Monsters?” Jack asked looking down at Caleb curiously.

“The ones that live under my bed,” the boy said solemnly. “They come out at night in the shadows.”

They came creeping from beneath his bed, thick, black tendrils, coiling and slithering like a nest of snakes...

Jack started violently at the memory. No, no, that had been a bad dream brought on by the fever. That hadn’t been real.

“You’ve been having nightmares, Caleb, that’s all,” Mrs. Williams told her son. “Then you wake up still frightened and every little noise makes you jump, but it’s nothing but the wind outside making the house creak.”

oOo

"I am the shadows that stalk at night. I am the noises under your bed and the monster that lurks outside your door. I am your worst memories relived and the thing that haunts your dreams.”

oOo

“Caleb,” Jack said slowly. “Did you ever… see what the monsters looked like?”

 … they merged together to solidify into a tall, slim figure of man. A man whose grey-tinged skin and golden glowing eyes were the only features visible amongst the swirling mass of darkness wreathed around him.

Caleb shook his head swiftly. “No, but I know they’re there! I can feel them! One night they’ll come when I’m not awake and eat me whole!”

“Now that’s quite enough!” Mrs. Williams proclaimed in stern tone as she poured the steaming apple cider into the cups laid out on the table. “I will hear no more talk of any nonsense whatsoever in this house today. Landsakes!” she sighed dabbing at her forehead with her handkerchief . “I’ll age ten years listening to such idle prattle if I allow you to carry on!”

More maple candy was handed out. Emma and the other younger children had settled themselves on the floor in front of the fire while they sipped their cider and Jack found himself looking out the window to the late afternoon sky and internally wrestling with himself over an impulse that would make his mother lock him in his room for even contemplating such an irrational thought.

Yet he was putting down his cup now and taking one final look at his sister’s face which at last had a smile on it as she chattered happily with her friends. He was bidding Mrs. Williams thank you for her hospitality, but he had someplace to go, one last errand to do before he went home. He was requesting she not tell Emma until after he had already gone. Then he was opening the door and setting out, and thinking there was a distinct possibility of him being as willy-nilly, stark-raving mad as Anthony Hawkins claimed he was. Why else would he be returning to the place that had almost stolen the last bit of breath from his lungs and claimed his life?

oOo

The sun was already dipping on the horizon when Jack left. The blue shades of twilight were extending their fingers and erasing all traces of gold in the sky announcing night’s arrival. The temperature had dropped but at least it had stopped snowing. He hastened through the bunch of houses that made up the middle of Burgess ignoring greetings that were shouted his way. The lake wasn’t too far from the village. There was a small patch of woods that lay before it, but if he hurried, he thought he could make there and back home before nightfall without anyone being the wiser of where he had gone.

The wind had picked up and blew in his face freezing gusts of wind that numbed his cheeks. He had to take ankle-deep steps in the cold, white ground that had risen a couple of more inches due to the snowfall earlier. His legs were soon chilled but he pressed on.

He tried not to dwell too much on what he was doing because he knew it was madness. It was only the sight of the lake coming into view that made his breath catch in his throat and his heartbeat quicken.

The hole where he had fallen through had frozen back over. The surface appeared smooth and as seamless as a mirror reflecting the orange-gold rays of the setting sun. It shimmered so brightly, the entire lake looked as if it had caught fire: a beautiful and deadly portrait.

The sharp sound of the ice cracking split the air and Jack almost fell over backwards. What was he doing? What was he thinking? The ice was still too thin—it was warning him even now to turn back. He nearly did. Then his eyes landed on the slim piece of wood lying in the center of the lake.

oOo

“Merry Christmas, Jack,” Joseph Overland said as he presented the finished staff out to his son’s outstretched hands.

“Mam, look! I have a staff now!” Jack shouted waving it about wildly. “I’ll be a good a shepherd as father!”

“Now, Jack,” his father said taking him by the shoulders. “It’s not just any ordinary walking staff. It’s a weapon. You use it to defend what’s important to you, and if needs be yourself also. Keep it close to you always, son.”

“I promise, Da.”

oOo

His heartbeat had lessened its frantic thumping and the growing lump at the back of his throat slowly dissolved. He was scared, but he tried to figure out a sensible approach to his predicament. Perhaps… perhaps, he wouldn’t have to walk all the way out to the middle to get his staff. Perhaps if he found a branch long enough, he could extend his reach and drag it towards him onto thicker ice. Yes, that would work!

Picking up a fallen limb off the ground, slender enough to lift with ease and suitable in size in length, he moved forward slowly until he reached the edge of the bank. The sun had disappeared between the hills, taking its radiance with it. The frozen lake was on fire no longer. The moon hung low in the sky shedding down its pale light disapprovingly.

Jack took a deep breath to calm himself and took one step forward…

Something snagged him by the ankle and yanked him backwards sharply before the bottom of heel could make contact with the ice.

Thick, black tendrils, the same as those from his fevered dreams leaped of the shadows of the trees around him, coiled around his wrists and ankles and bound him place tightly like a fly caught fast in a spider’s web.

“Stupid, fool of a child!”  a voice rang out in the darkness, pierce and venomous.

The shadows parted and the man from his nightmares emerged from them like a black mist, an expression of great fury darkening his face.

“Is this what you mortals do the minute you are recovered from some terrible ailment?” the man demanded issuing one hand out to the lake. “Return and do exactly what near killed you before? No wonder you do not last long on this earth!”

Jack could only stare wide-eyed and speechless at him. Because he wasn’t real, wasn’t real.

“Nothing to say, Jack?” the man asked, his golden eyes boring into Jack’s own, accusing and condemning. “The last two times we talked, you were forever screaming at me.” A cold, cruel smile broke out across his lips. “I think I liked that better…”

“Who—who are you?” Jack choked out.

The man began to circle him, disappearing out of his peripheral vision. Jack saw nothing but the vast expanse of shadows before him, then cool, slim fingers curved about his neck and a chill tingled down his spine as someone whispered silkily in his ear, “You already know.”

The villain in the adventure stories his mother told, the evil creature in the fairy tales, and the monster in the fables that served as a warning to all the children: don’t be naughty or he’ll come get you.

“The Boogey Man,” Jack said hoarsely.

The fingers retreated from his neck. The man slid back out of the shadows to stand in front of him. “Yes, I do believe that’s one of the names I’ve collected over a millennia,” he spoke rather bored. “I meant the other name I have graciously bequeathed to you.”

“Pitch Black.”

Pitch assessed him with a calculating gaze, his golden eyes gliding over every part of him. “Only a very few know it. That makes you quite special indeed.”

“What do you want with me?” Jack asked, testing the bonds of the shadows that imprisoned him but they held firm.

“Ah, ah, ah,” Pitch tsk-ed, waving a finger and tapping the tip of Jack’s nose lightly. “That would be telling. Suffice it to say, your existence suits my purpose.”

“Are you the one that’s been frightening Caleb?” Jack pressed.

“I frighten many children,” Pitch shrugged carelessly. “I do not usually make it a hobby to learn their names. They’re simply fodder for my fearlings to feast upon.”

Around him, the dark tongues of tendrils were flickering out of the shadows as if agreeing.

“So that’s it then?” Jack said, glimpsing an answer amongst the chaos. “You scare children and live off their fear? That’s what keeps you… alive,” he finished for lack of a better word. Though he hardly thought anyone that could appear and disappear out of thin air like smoke was fully alive.

Pitch wide, toothy grin nearly split his face in two. “Perhaps,” he said loftily. “Perhaps I do it for fun. Their screams are so delicious.”

“I’m not afraid of you,” Jack proclaimed boldly, hoping he sounded more confident than he was feeling. True, the fact that mere shadows could shackle him so easily, that this dark man not of this world could control them and invade his mind at any given moment and unleash countless horrors unnerved him greatly, but he realized he felt a lot more calmer with the knowledge that all this could happen. He would not be caught unawares and vulnerable next time. He would be prepared for any assault.

Pitch threw his head back and laughed. The sound washed over Jack in shivering waves of malevolent glee. “Oh, Jack,” Pitch cackled maniacally. “I can tell when a person is lying. Even if you weren’t, there are always ways to draw out fear.”

The humor was wiped off the man’s face as swiftly as it had come as he glanced towards the lake.

“No!” Jack shouted frantically, the man’s intentions dawning on him a second too late.

The shadows sped across the frozen surface and enveloped his staff into the folds of their darkness where it vanished and reappeared in Pitch’s hand in a cloud of black mist.

“Is this what you were endangering your life for tonight?” Pitch demanded brandishing the staff in Jack’s face, his golden eyes gleaming in malice. “A piece of wood? Such senseless, reckless idiocy!” His mouth set in a firm line as he trailed light fingertips over the staff as if weighing his options. “I can’t have you wandering off into dire peril every time you mislay this. Humans are so pathetically fragile after all: a bump on the head, a wrong fall, choking on a bit of nourishment even, and they die—just like that,” he sneered, snapping his fingers.

“Please…” Jack breathed, his voice hitching slightly in his chest. “Please don’t break it.”

He expected the man to snap it in half at any moment’s notice. He could only watch helplessly as the shadows around him rippled in anticipation at their master’s decision.

Jack let out a small yelp of surprise as the dark tendrils coiled about him abruptly released their grip and dropped him to his feet in the snow.  The staff was shoved roughly against his chest and he staggered backwards, gripping it out of reflex.

An arm snagged around his waist and long fingers curled into his hair and yanked his head back harshly. “Consider this a gift, Jack,” Pitch’s voice wormed its way into his ear in a flat, cold undertone. “I’ll let you keep your precious staff as long as you realize I hold the power to destroy it if I ever see you placing its value above your own life again, understand?”

A pained grunt of agreement was all that Jack could manage. The harsh fingers in his hair loosened their grip slightly and petted the top of his head gently as a human would do a skittish cat. “Oh, my dear boy,” Pitch chuckled amused. “You have no idea the sheer amount of pleasure your existence has bestowed upon me.” The hand around his waist moved up to brush his cheek affectionately. “With you, I shall accomplish great things.”

Jack bit down on his tongue to refrain himself from asking why he was so important to the man. He knew it would only bring more riddles from him, this dark figure who enjoyed playing with people’s minds and preying on the slightest bit of uncertainty and doubt, because from those emotions spawned fear.

A hand pressed into the space of his back and shoved him away. Jack stumbled a couple of steps forward before looking behind his shoulder fully expecting the man to have vanished in the beat of a heart as he was prone to do. But Pitch Black was still there watching him with a blank expression, standing in the midst of the shadows that were furling and unfurling like a giant black sail in the wind.

“Hurry home, Jack,” Pitch spoke softly, his voice oddly somber. “And don’t take any life-endangering detours along the way or your sister will pay the price of your irresponsibility.”

Only then did Jack run: through the bushes, between the trees, and over rocks until he found himself on the worn, beaten path trodden heavy by footprints in the snow that led to Burgess.

He knew this would not be the last he saw of Pitch Black. That his nightmare was only just now beginning.

To Be Continued…

Chapter Text

Jack ran and all around him the shadows seem to loom everywhere. They were the dark shapes lurking behind the trees and the clouds that covered the moon, and blotted out the stars in the sky. They were his relentless pursuers that nipped at his heels, slapped in his face and tugged at his clothes as he raced down the snow-covered path. He didn't stop running, not even when he reached the village square of Burgess and the weak light of candles shining through the windows chased away any dark corners where shadows might linger. He tripped once and crashed into someone leaving the tavern, but he pushed them away with not even an apology as he turned and continued on his mad race. He felt no relief until he had flung wide the door to his house and latched himself inside. Only then was he able to breathe easy and feel safe.

"Jack!" came a cry then his mother was upon him, petting his face and combing the bits of snow and frost out of his hair as she fussed worriedly. "Jack, where have you been? When Emma came home without you I near died of fright! I—"

Jack shifted his weight nervously as his mother stopped short and stared at the staff in her son's hands.

"Oh, Jack," Lydia breathed out in dismay, cupping one hand over her mouth. "Jack, tell me you didn't go down to the lake to get that."

"I…" was all Jack could say, his fingers gripping the staff tightly lest his mother try and tear it away from him.

But Lydia Overland did no such thing, only backed away from him shaking her head in disbelief. "You went back to the lake…" her voice cracked on the last word as she turned away quickly but not before the wetness in her eyes was caught by the gleam of the fire.

"Mother," Jack said softly, trying to explain. "I had to. Father—"

"Your father is dead," Lydia stated bluntly, cutting him off. "All I have left of him is you and your sister. I nearly lost you two weeks ago, and now you have gone back there all for the sake of some staff."

She stood there with her back to him staring at the fireplace where the flames crackled and danced, making the shadows leap about on the walls. Jack shivered at the sight. He could not escape them even in his own home.

"Is Thomas Grymes right?" his mother asked quietly, more to herself than her son. "Have you gone mad?"

"Mother, mother, I haven't," Jack said hurrying over to lay a hand on her shoulder.

Lydia pulled away from his touch. "Then what am I to do? What am I to think?" she asked, turning to face him with an expression of tightly-reigned anger. "I bid you to go out and deliver Mr. William's coat and come straight home. You left your sister and went off who knows where. I thought perhaps you were simply exploring on the hills; that you were tired of staying indoors for so long. The thought of you returning to that lake never even—" she broke off for a moment visibly distressed, before continuing, her tone cool and firm. "It doesn't matter where you went, Jack. You disobeyed me."

"Yes, ma'am," Jack said lowering his head shame.

"Then you know what I must do," Lydia said, taking the broom into her hands.

"Yes, ma'am," Jack said, resting his staff in the corner and bracing his hands against the table without a word of protest, readying himself for the first blow of a thrashing that never came.

There was a dull clatter as the broom was dropped to the floor. Jack turned in time to see his mother collapse into the rocking chair that rested by the fireplace. Burying her face into her hands, Lydia Overland wept. The sound of her broken sobs echoed around the cabin accusingly.

Guilt blossomed in Jack's chest. He had given his mother cause for grief again. He moved forward to comfort her, the wooden floorboards creaking with his approach.

"I wish… your father was here," breathed the hushed confession that fell from his mother's lips.

Jack stopped in place abruptly. Lydia's sobs died down quickly. She seemed to have forgotten his presence entirely as she stared into the fireplace, her red-rimmed eyes matching the colors of the flames. All was quiet except for the dull pounding of his heartbeat resonating in his ears.

No further words were spoken. Jack went to his room at her silent dismissal. Emma wasn't there, of course. She was probably sleeping in their mother's bed again. He probably had made her worry too tonight. He wanted to talk to her. He realized she hadn't said one word to him all day—not one word to him at all really since that feverish night weeks ago. He wanted to apologize for his behavior, wanted to tell her he didn't blame her for nearly drowning. But he was too tired, too haunted by his encounter with the Boogeyman still… and he did not want to go out of his room and face his mother again.

He thought it might be difficult to fall asleep now that he knew Pitch Black could be skulking in the nearest shadow, yet he found himself drifting swiftly into slumber the minute his head touched his pillow. His last thought before he lost consciousness was that he hoped he would be spared from nightmares in the night.

His mother had forgiven him for his disobedience the next morning if the raisins in his porridge were a sign to go by. He even had a side dish of butter to go with it. Lydia's gentle hands combed through his hair, trying to flatten down the most unruly parts. Jack caught a glimpse of a wistful smile on his mother's face before she gave up her futile effort, and he wondered if perhaps breakfast was her way of apologizing for herself last night also.

"I need you to go fetch some meat from the butcher for supper later," Lydia told him. "Our supply has run out."

Forget savoring every mouthful, the delightful breakfast had just turned sour in Jack's mouth, but he held back the complaint that was on the tip of his tongue. His mother knew he and the butcher's son didn't along. He knew she wouldn't have sent him instead if she were able to go herself.

"The governor's wife wants her gown before the fortnight," Lydia explained. "If I devote enough hours, I should be able to finish it in time."

Rebekah Hamilton, the governor's wife was a pleasant-mannered woman if a bit vain, always throwing glamorous and lavish parties as often as she could. No one had ever seen her wear the same dress twice. She ordered the material from England and as soon as the new shipment arrived, she sent it off to Lydia to design and fashion. She paid well however. If this gown was finished in time the Overland family would have enough money to be sure that their meat and food supplies lasted throughout the winter.

"Jack," Lydia said, biting the corner of her mouth, an anxious habit he remembered his father teasing her about. "Jack, please don't go anywhere else except the butcher's."

"I won't," he promised and this time he vowed to keep it. It was his own fault for plunging straight into danger yesterday that had drawn out Pitch Black. He had no desire for a repeat performance today.

The door to the cabin opened, letting in a wintry breeze as Emma trudged inside bundled in her coat and boots. Her face was bright pink from the cold and she was carrying the basket of eggs she had gathered from the three hens the family possessed. Their family never ate the eggs themselves. They traded them amongst the other villagers for other things: a candle, a bar of lye soap, and vegetables from people's gardens. Most folks owned their own chickens and didn't even need the extra eggs, but they still helped out those who were less fortunate. That was how the village of Burgess worked.

Jack tried to catch Emma's eye, but his sister refused to meet his gaze, fidgeting listlessly on one foot to the other much like a nervous chick herself as she gulped down two of their mother's cornmeal biscuits.

"It's still early yet," Lydia commented glancing at the morning sky through the window. "Mayhap if you go now, young Anthony Hawkins will still be out chopping wood."

Jack beamed a grateful smile and excused himself from the table. Donning his cloak about his shoulders in an instant, he reached for his staff where he had left it the night before and felt a swooping sensation in his stomach as his fingers closed around the wood. He was happy to feel the familiar weight of it in his hand again.

"Be quick, Jack," his mother said. She had cleared the dishes from the table and was busy spreading out patterns and fabric over the surface. "You can help me when you get back. Four hands are better than two."

Jack grimaced, not fooled at all by her merry tone. "You're going to make me pose as the pin-up model again, aren't you?" he asked.

Lydia giggled in a very school girl-ish and un-motherly manner. "Well, it can't be helped that you and Mrs. Hamilton share the same figure. You're both thin as a beanpole with narrow hips, all skin and bones."

"Aye, Goodwife Hodges says she'll never bear children with hips as small as that," Jack remarked, leaning slightly on his staff.

"Off with you now," his mother shooed him as she pulled out her sewing box. "And don't go repeating such scandalous gossip unless you want Father Goodall to get wind of it. He'll tan your hide with a willow switch."

Jack wrinkled his nose at the thought and turned to go. For single second, his eyes finally managed to meet those of his sister's. Emma's startled gaze clashed with his before she bolted for the door, throwing it open and dashing off into the snow outside still carrying the basket of eggs in her hands.

Jack wasn't sure if she was angry, upset or frightened of him or all three and not knowing made it worse.

They sky was clear and blue and the sun was shining brightly. The village of Burgess lay nestled at the foot of a forest and the path to the butcher's was wreathed with trees on either side. It was a perfect recipe for shadows.

Jack hurried as quickly as he could, trying to squash the panic slowly starting to rise within him. He half-expected Pitch Black to pop out anywhere at any moment, and this time he couldn't dismiss him as a half-forgotten imagining of a feverish dream. Last night had been very real. He had been wide awake. He had held a conversation with him—he had talked to the Boogeyman. Just thinking about it was enough to make him question his own sanity. So Jack tried not to, tried to dwell on other things like Christmas coming up at the end of the month and what gifts he should make for his mother and sister, anything, any thought except for that of a tall grey-skinned man with golden eyes and who held power over shadows and your deepest fears.

He reached the butcher's in record time with no fateful encounter to mention, however, there his luck ran dry: for it wasn't the butcher who sat in the stall outside his shop. It was his son, Anthony Hawkins.

Thinking back, Jack never could pinpoint the exact reason why he and Anthony Hawkins never got along. It just always had been that way from his earliest memory. Perhaps it had not been one thing in particular. Perhaps Anthony Hawkins was just a born bully, for all his childhood and adolescent years, tormenting the other village children had been his specialty. From name-calling, to fist-fights, to setting frogs lose in the church, Anthony Hawkins was quite usually the culprit. Of course, being the butcher's son did have its advantages and more often than not, did anyone ever rarely catch him in the act of such things. So when suspicion did fall upon him, Anthony Hawkins was quite comfortable in pointing the blame onto someone else. That someone was usually Jack. The fact that people were all too willing to believe the son of one of the most wealthy citizens in Burgess over a fatherless boy whose future was to become the town tailor made Jack angry to no end, but that's the way things worked. Sometimes he wondered if that was why he pulled so many pranks and tried his hardest to make the other children laugh. If he was already labeled as the town's miscreant trickster, he might as well live up to the name.

Anthony wasn't alone. His two partners in crime since boyhood, Henry Pratchett and Nathaniel Jones were there as well, as if they had nothing better to do than to loiter idly beside the butcher's stall like two loutish body guards. Never mind that Henry was the tavern-keeper's son and Nathaniel was apprenticed to the black smith and they both had daily chores to tend to. News of his wandering about the village yesterday must have spread fast. It wouldn't be too difficult to guess he'd make an appearance at the butcher's sooner or later. It was a necessity for everyone.

Jack sighed and put on a false smile. Well, better get this over with then.

"Mornin', Anthony," he greeted in what he hoped sounded like a congenial tone. "Where's your father?"

"In bed. Sick," Anthony answered. Cocking his head of unruly red curls to one side, he stretched back his lips to reveal a smug, gap-toothed grin. "I wouldn't go in to see him, it might be catching. Don't want to fall ill again so soon, aye, Jack? This time your wits might be taken for good."

Jack's smile never wavered. "I never lost them in the first place. I got took by fever, that's all."

"Oh, I don't think that's all," Anthony said in a very braggartly manner. "Oi, Nathaniel, what would you do if you were caught in a fire and nearly burned to death, yet you survived?"

"I think I'd be extra cautious around anything that makes a fire for the rest of my life," Nathaniel replied in a curt and well-versed tone, as if it was a line he had rehearsed many a time.

"Mmm, you certainly wouldn't go dashing off into a blazing forest fire, now would you?" Anthony said drilling his gaze into Jack's to drive home the point. "I mean it would be an utterly, foolish thing to do, now wouldn't it, going back to something that near killed you in the first place?"

Jack's hand clenched about his staff involuntarily: an action that didn't go by unnoticed.

"It's no use denying it. It's right there in your hand," Anthony gestured to it. "Henry saw you coming back from the lake's path last night. You crashed right into him and took off without a word."

"Had a wild-eyed, haunted expression on him," Henry supplied helpfully. "Looked quite mad to me."

"Are you selling meat or just tall tales?" Jack demanded, trying to change the subject, and wishing he had been more careful going home the night before.

"Did you really go back to the lake just for that staff? Does it mean that much to you?" Anthony asked. His tone sounded so genuinely curious, it fooled Jack for a moment. Then the mask slipped and the wily fox-grin had snapped back onto the boy's face once more. "What'd you trade to get it back? Can't have been your soul. You gave that up last time so you wouldn't drown."

"You honestly believe your own story you made-up to frighten little kids?" Jack laughed, trying to make light of the situation. Inside he was seething. He resisted the urge to bring his staff across the boy's face with a sound smack.

"Go on, Jack, tell us," Anthony urged him on. Both his hands were placed on the carving table now as he leaned forward with obvious excitement, looking like someone who was straining to hear the secret that their friend was about to share. "Father Goodall isn't here. What does the devil look like?"

He should have kept quiet. Shouldn't have let them get to him. But Anthony's taunts, Henry and Nathaniel's snickering and nudging each other between the ribs, and most of all, Anthony Hawkin's smug gap-toothed grin made him recklessly mad.

"Grey skin," Jack flung out. "Golden eyes that pierce right through you." They had stopped laughing now. "Teeth as sharp and wide as a bear-trap. Long, spindly fingers like spider legs," Jack said, resting his staff in the crook of his arm as he wiggled his own for demonstration. "He catches you in his web of shadows and if you anger him, he makes you relive every bad experience you've ever had: all your worst memories, all the nightmares you've woken up screaming from."

They were hanging onto his every word transfixed, eyes wide, and mouths ajar. Nathaniel had even begun stomping his feet into the ground as if he had grown cold standing in one place, but the way he was clutching both his arms betrayed his anxiety. Henry's breathing had started to quicken by the amount of warm puffs of air that appeared near his face. A perverse thrill of glee shot through Jack to see them as such.

"You're right, he did try to steal my soul," Jack continued with his tale, the words tumbling from his mouth faster than he could think them up. "But he couldn't touch it. He only can take the wicked ones," he leveled a knowing stare at each of them. Their faces had drained of all color. "The ones who like tormenting those younger and weaker than themselves. The ones who hoist the blame onto the innocent. The ones whose committed such vile acts that it gnaws at their conscience. The ones who carry deep, dark secrets within them… those are the souls he spirits away." He threw his arms up high above his head for a final dramatic flair, raising his staff in both hands. "The last thing you'll ever see is a giant, black wall of shadows swooping down for you like a broken dam tearing through the mountainside!" he shouted, bringing the staff back down and slamming the end into the cold, hard ground beneath his feet, sending pockets of snow into the air.

He couldn't have timed it better. A mighty gale of wind swept up at his last words, blowing through the forest and making the trees bend and groan at its forceful touch. With their branches creaking in protest as they shook off their snow-covered burdens to the ground, it sounded as if the entire forest was slowly coming alive—like a giant yawning into wakefulness.

It was a soft, almost-musical ching-ing sound playing in their ears though that each boy looking around for the cause. Jack spotted them first: thin, delicate, crystalline icicles swaying slightly as they hung down the length of the butcher stall's roof, glittering iridescently in the sunlight. The sudden blast of cold air must have splintered their thin structure. The cracking of ice splitting the air was the warning they gave as the icicles snapped and plummeted towards the ground in a rain of translucent, shimmering shards.

They embedded themselves right at the feet of Henry and Nathaniel, and while the icicles wouldn't have hurt them even if they had fallen on them—a hard conk on the head that was sure to sprout a lump at the most—the two boys jumped so high it was a wonder they didn't tear their breeches and took off running, screaming in a manner Jack had only heard his mother do when she had seen a mouse scurry across her floorboards.

Jack doubled over laughing at the sight, leaning heavily on his staff to keep his balance. Finally catching his breath, he looked at the last boy left.

A silent staring contest was held between them for some time.

"What meat would you be wanting then?" Anthony Hawkins was the first to give in.

Snowflakes started to rain down in a gentle flurry. Jack took them as a sign of victory.

"Lamb," Jack grinned lopsidedly.

It had been a good day. Lydia had made a nice, juicy mutton stew that the Overlands had enjoyed before she had forced Jack to stand on a stool so she could drape the material of the governor's wife's dress over him to pin the folds down and take appropriate measurements.

Jack had stood there sulking with arms outstretched like a scarecrow, while his mother teased him endlessly ("aren't you looking more beautiful than the Queen of England herself"). But the best part had been Emma looking on as she giggled and clapped her hands, practicing her curtsey in front of him and saying "would you like some more cider, Your Majesty?"

When Jack staggered to his room late that evening, his mother having finally releasing him from the confinements of the gown, Emma was asleep on her side of the bed they shared. Jack smiled, glad that whatever had been bothering her early that morning had vanished. Putting on his nightshirt, he tucked himself in beside her and listened to her soft, steady breathing until his eyelids grew heavy.

Then right before he was about to drift off, a speck of gold flashed in the darkness of the room. Jack bolted upright peering sharply into the inky blackness, certain he had caught of glimpse of Pitch Black's eyes in the shadows.

Another flash of gold appeared, then another, then another, until he realized it wasn't the reflection of someone's eyes at all, but what looked like thousands of shimmering particles of golden dust, streaming straight through the closed window from outside, and drifting through the air towards the children's bed.

Jack looked on mesmerized by the beauty of it, wondering what it could be—certainly not moonbeams—before he noticed it spiraling down close to Emma's head. He shot his hand out without thinking, trying to brush the golden dust away unsure of its intentions. The dust swirled about before condensing into the shape of an odd sort of fish. At least he assumed it was a fish; he recognized fins and a tail, but the rest of its body was rather strange. The gleaming dust-fish leaped around him in circles doing back flips the likes of which he had never seen except for one ensnared on a fisherman's hook. Jack sat back puzzled. This glowing dust seemed harmless enough, although he still had no clue what it was.

He didn't try to stop it this time as it floated above Emma's head weaving and spinning until it finally crafted itself into two small figures: a boy and girl playing hopscotch. A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth as he recognized the sight.

"Oh, how sweet," whispered an all-too familiar silky voice in his ear.

Jack bit back a strangled yelp as he nearly tumbled out of bed in surprise. Clutching the covers and willing his heartbeat to slow down to normal, he scowled at his unwelcome visitor in the night.

"What are you doing here?" he demanded.

"Really, I thought we had discussed all this last time, Jack," Pitch Black leveled a mocking, disappointed glance his way. "I patrol the night. It is the best time to utilize my… skills."

"Yeah? I don't see anyone in this room frightened by you," Jack said. He may have been startled earlier by the Boogeyman's sudden appearance, but he felt heartened to see that he was more annoyed in general at him than scared.

"Oh, believe me, if I wanting you shrieking in terror, you would be by now," Pitch chuckled darkly, sending shivers up Jack's spine. "I came to satisfy my curiosity and you have not disappointed me."

"What—" Jack began before looking back at the golden dust. "That. You can see it too?"

"I have always been able to see it, for far and too long," Pitch snarled, curling his lip up in disdain.

"What… what is it?" Jack asked.

Emma slept on undisturbed, a happy smile settling on her face as the two figures above her head continued their game of hop-scotch.

"Dreamsand," Pitch shared. "Courtesy of the Sandman, bringing children peace and reprieve in their sleep after all the harshness and horrors they have to endure while awake."

"The Sandman?" Jack echoed, dimly remembering his mother telling stories about him when he was younger. "He's real?"

"As real as I am," Pitch declared. "I was beginning to wonder if I was the only one you could see. You were ill for quite some time, so let my fearlings feed elsewhere, and you fell asleep too early last night and missed his arrival. But now I know," needle-pointed teeth flashed wickedly. "You can see us."

Somehow Jack got the impression Pitch wasn't just talking about himself and the Sandman. "How many… like you… are there?" he breathed out warily. Golden sand that brought dreams was one thing, but if there were other beings like Pitch, worse than Pitch… Jack shuddered to imagine what they could do.

"Now, Jack, you were doing so well. We were holding a civil conversation. Don't add flavor to the mix so abruptly. You'll make them… hungry," Pitch chided, his tongue flicking out briefly over grey lips.

The darkness in the room seemed to be expanding. The air felt thicker, heavier. The shadows in the far corners began to stir restlessly as they stretched several black tendrils outward in search of their prey.

"Enough," Pitch said smoothly. With a snap of his fingers, the tendrils hastily retreated back into the shadows although the tense, heavy pressure in the air did not lift. "Such petulant children," Pitch laughed throatily, his voice dripping with amusement as he gripped Jack's shoulder with his slender fingers and squeezed. "You can't have this one. Not tonight at least. Not when he's been such a good boy lately."

Jack pushed away the man's hand, wincing at the bruise he felt forming. "What are you talking about? You—you didn't just come here to find out if I could see the dreamsand, did you?" he asked.

"You're a clever lad, Jack. I'm sure you'll figure it out," Pitch said, a smile splitting his face: a truly pleased, triumphant smile.

If the Boogeyman was happy about something, that couldn't be a good thing, Jack decided. What though? What had he done to cause such malevolent glee within him? There was nothing he had done all day that could be the reason. Nothing, except for…

"You liked that I told them about you," Jack stated slowly, trying to comprehend the significance of coming to this conclusion.

"It is always a pleasure to hear someone sing praises about me," Pitch crooned rather smugly. "I do think you over-exaggerated a bit much particularly my features, however, overall it was spot on appraisal of my abilities." His was jutting his chin up high, his chest was puffed out and both his arms were crossed behind his back. With the way his feather-like hair crested to a point, the Boogeyman resembled every inch of a proud rooster crowing about his own ego. It was a ridiculous image, but one he could not un-see.

Something began tickling at the base of Jack's throat. He could feel it trying to work its way upwards and force itself out. Balling his hand into a fist, he pressed it to his mouth and tried his best to fight it back, but it was no use. A strangled snort escaped from his nose involuntarily, and laughter erupted from his lips. He shut them tight immediately to muffle the sound lest he wake Emma, but he could not stop his body from shaking with silent laughter.

"Do, pray tell, Jack, what exactly you find so extraordinarily funny," Pitch sneered, his voice giving off a dangerous edge.

Jack swallowed down the laughter that threatened to bubble over again. He didn't think the Boogeyman would take kindly to him explaining how unintimidating he had looked just then. "Nothing," he said quickly, scrambling for an excuse when Pitch narrowed his eyes in suspicion. "Nothing, it's just… are you going to do this every night now? Pop in for a… chat?"

Apparently, Pitch took offense to his light-hearted tone. One second Jack was sitting upright in bed, the next he found himself shoved backwards, his head pinned tightly to his pillow and a grey-skinned hand around his neck applying gentle pressure in warning.

"You seem to be under the mistaken impression that my visitation here is amiable," Pitch stated coolly. "Allow me to make myself clear, these are my orders: you will continue to tell the villagers about me, whether true or made-up, I do not care, but you will," the hand around Jack's neck pressed down harder, "spread the glad tidings of my existence for all to hear. And if you happen to come across any other spirit such as myself, you are not to speak to them. Pretend you don't see them. Ignore them entirely. And I will know if you disobey me. Did you understand all that, Jack?"

Trapped in the Boogeyman's firm hold, like a mouse between cat's paws, Jack felt very small and helpless. He tried to turn his face away to escape those golden eyes burning with such intense malice, but the hand around his neck slid up the length of his throat to capture his chin in crushing grip.

"I need an answer, Jack," Pitch said, dangerous and cruel.

Looking up at the dark, menacing figure hovering over his bed, pinning him down so effortlessly, hearing the faint rustling of the shadows in the corners beyond his field of vision, a surge of anger shot through Jack at being so weak. "What happens if I say 'no'?" he asked, trying to find some footing of control over his predicament.

He expected anger. He expected getting beaten and tossed to the shadows even. That was fine by Jack. He'd rather take any punishment than become the Boogeyman's puppet.

The grin that broke out across Pitch's face—a condescending and terrifying grin—was unexpected.

"Oh, Jack," Pitch sighed, shaking his head. "So troublesome, so rebellious. We'll have to work on that."

Then without warning, Pitch stretched out his free hand and inserted one slim, grey finger into the golden sand that was still swirling above the sleeping Emma's head.

The radiance of the sand began to fade until every last speck of gold had transformed into black as the dream collapsed inwards and a new scene played out. The boy and girl silhouettes had reformed in this new black sand, but they were no longer playing hopscotch. They were reaching out towards each other, yet neither one was taking any steps, and Jack realized in horror what he was watching a split second before the boy figure dissolved into nothing.

A wail fell from Emma's mouth as she began to thrash about on the bed, ensnared by the throes of her nightmare.

"Stop it! What are you doing? Stop it now!" Jack shouted, struggling to break free from his captor's hold.

"I can't," Pitch said simply, grabbing the flailing boy's wrists in both hands. "But you can. Wake her up. Show her you're alright." He pressed his face close to Jack's. "But first you need to agree to my terms."

Broken whimpers filled the air as tears streamed down Emma's cheeks from her closed eyes. The little girl figure above her head was hunched over holding her head as she rocked back and forth in despair.

Jack swallowed hard. "If I do everything you said will you leave her alone?"

"But of course, Jack," Pitch said looking almost offended at the boy's distrust. "There are plenty of other children in this village to frighten. I only ask two simple tasks of you. Keep them and your sister will remain untouched. So, do we have a deal?"

Jack didn't think twice. "Deal," he said sharply.

His wrists were released immediately. Pitch was smiling triumphantly. "That's my boy," he cooed, smacking Jack's cheek lightly in mock-gesture of affection before melting backwards into the darkness. "Remember, Jack," his voice called out, "my fearlings are everywhere. They are always watching. You can't escape them."

Then he was gone and Jack was shaking his sister and calling her name. Emma awoke gasping and shivering violently as if she had been left too long in the snow.

"J-Jack!" she cried throwing her small arms around him and curling up into his warmth. "Y-you were d-dead. Y-you drow-owned…"

"Shhh," Jack murmured, petting her hair soothingly. "Hey, I'm right here. It's alright. It was just a bad dream."

"Don't die," Emma pleaded, her words muffled from her face buried in the front of his nightshirt. Her tiny hand dropped down to clutch his tightly. "Please don't die."

"I'm not going anywhere, Emma, I promise," Jack swore.

He held her close, whispering nonsense rhymes in her ear to calm her, until she drifted back into an uneasy slumber. Once he was sure she was asleep, he scooped up a handful of the black sand leftover from Emma's nightmare and let it sift through his fingers.

"I promise," he whispered into the night.

He would beat Pitch at his own game. He didn't know how just yet, but he knew he was not going to let the Nightmare King have his way.

Chapter Text

Tailor Saunders was a thin, bow-legged, crotchety old man with a balding head of stringy, grey hair who was forever squinting until he stumbled across his spectacles that he had lost for the tenth time that day; upon which putting them on, magnified his beady eyes to the size of marbles and also allowed him to properly see the pitiful handiwork of Jack's that he had been working on for the past hour.

"Dagnabit, boy!" Tailor Saunders barked out rapping the measuring rod sharply over Jack's knuckles. "Eight years you've been my apprentice and your craftsmanship is still no better than a common table-monkey! Hold it out and tell me what you've done wrong!"

Rubbing the top of his hand and biting back a scowl, Jack picked up the waist-coat and held it out in front of him. One of the sleeves hung forlornly a good several inches longer than the other side. Also, Jack realized the buttons he had sewn on were glaring at him in an accusing, zig-zag manner instead of a neat row.

Jack opened his mouth to recite his mistakes, but Tailor Saunders cut him with a frustrated harrumph. "You lack focus and determination, that's your problem. Your head is always off in the clouds. You'll never be master tailor if you cannot devote yourself to the trade. This is your way of life, boy, understand? Abuse it, neglect it, and you'll find yourself without a roof over your head and living off another's welfare. Is that what you want?"

The words made perfect sense, but that did not stop Jack from resenting them. Too angry to speak, he shook his head.

"The Lord hates idle workers," Tailor Saunders sighed heavily. "My boy, there are so many opportunities you are letting pass by. Are you aware if you hone your skills, we could travel down to Williamsburg and I would introduce you to the city's inner circle of tailors?"

Jack looked up in surprise. Well, that lecture certainly hadn't gone the way he had expected.

"A good tailor never sticks to just one location," Tailor Saunders said. "He journeys abroad and learns from others. He meets people and forms a chain of acquaintances that will aid him later in life. Wouldn't you like that, boy? To travel and see new things?"

Jack could hardly believe what he was hearing. Burgess was all he knew, all he ever had known, and all he was probably ever going to know. It had never really bothered him. The village was nice enough even if it did have a few rough patches like Anthony Hawkins. He had been born here. He had assumed he was going to grow up and die here as well. If he had known he might be able to see the world with this dreadful, boring task of being a tailor, well, maybe he might have put in more of an effort years ago.

Tailor Saunders nodded at Jack's wide-eyed, stunned look. "You've got the itching foot, the restless urge to wander. That's the reason you have trouble paying attention to anything for too long. Got it from your mother and father."

Sidestepping the gibe about his parents, Jack questioned hesitantly, "If I visit Williamsburg for a time or settle down somewhere else, what would Burgess do for a lack of tailor?"

The measuring rod came down again—this time on Jack's head. "They still got me, boy!" Tailor Saunders wheezed indignantly. "I still have a decade or so left in these old bones! I'll take on another apprentice, one not so thick-headed and stubborn as you. And they also have your mother, a wonderfully skilled seamstress, for however long until she remarries."

And just like that the world came crashing down upon Jack's shoulders.

"What?" he said feeling something in his chest constrict.

"Your mother is too fine a woman to waste away being a widow forever," Tailor Saunders declared. "She's given eight years of her life to mourn your father's passing. I admire her devotion, however she still has an abundance of youth left remaining unto her still. I see no reason for her not to grasp at happiness when the opportunity presents itself."

Jack swallowed hard. "I don't… I don't understand." He didn't quite follow what Tailor Saunders was trying to say, but the feeling of dread had settled thick in his stomach like a stone.

"Thomas Grymes visited me the other day," Tailor Saunders explained. "Seems he came to seek my advice on how long it was proper to wait before seeking out a widow woman's hand in marriage."

There was a dull sort of pounding echoing in his ears. Jack realized it was the sound of his own heart that had begun to beat rapidly. Unconsciously, he gripped the ruined waist-coat in his hands tightly enough that the back of his knuckled turned white.

Tailor Saunders continued speaking, either not noticing or ignoring his apprentice's distress. "I told him eight years was more than an adequate mourning period. He comes with a good offer. He's a skillful trapper and has accumulated quite a bit of wealth over the years. He'll see to it your mother and sister are well-provided for. You and your family will never have to worry about surviving another harsh winter or anything ever again."

The chair Jack was sitting in scooted back with force as he jumped up and slammed both hands angrily down onto the table. "My family is doing just fine on our own!" he shouted. "Tell Trapper Grymes to put an ad in the newspaper if he's that desperate for a wife!"

Tailor Saunders smacked the end of his cane on the floor sharply. "Don't take that disrespectful tone with me, you idle tablemonkey!" he yelled with a temper to rival Jack's. "Who are you to deny your mother a bit of comfort and happiness or do you expect her to die old and alone? What an ungrateful son!"

"She won't die alone! She has me and my sister!" The anger was churning inside Jack madly now, making his hands shake with the ferocity of it. "We'll take care of her! I am not ungrateful!"

"Ungrateful!" Tailor Saunders barked out. Smack, went his cane on the floor again. "Who do you think paid for the all doctor visits and the medicine while you were lying in bed completely useless these past weeks? You think your mother had the money for such extravagant expenses? Your mother, who had to pass off so many work projects onto me because she had to look after you. You who don't give a second thought about the future. Your sister is going to grow up and want to get married someday. What kind of dowry can she possibly offer her husband? And you, boy, your sewing skills are atrocious at best. Do you honestly believe the people of Burgess would support a tailor like that? Think before chewing your gums so arrogantly, boy!"

Jack simmered where he stood, hands balled into fists at his side as he trembled in a helpless rage, hating the cruel truth that was flung at him.

"Thomas Grymes is a good man," Tailor Saunders insisted, leveling a piercing gaze over the top of his spectacles. "So a man wants a reprieve of loneliness and a faithful companion to end out the remainder of his days. It's normal to wish for. Who is to say your mother doesn't feel the same way? Don't be so selfish, boy. Bah, go!" the old man motioned towards the door. "I've had all I can take of your hot-headedness today. Go cool off in the snow and put that mind of yours to work. Try to remember that the world doesn't revolve around you!"

The promise of snow falling later on hung heavy in the grey, overcast sky. A chilled wind whipped through his hair and tugged at his clothes. A bit further away in the field, the sound of children's laughter reached his ears. Turning his head, Jack looked to see Emma, Abigail and Caleb building a snowman, their cheeks flushed pink from the cold. His sister caught him watching and waved at him to join them, but Jack smiled faintly and shook his head. He wasn't in a playful mood at the moment.

Images kept flashing through his mind: Thomas Grymes moving into the Overland house, the house that his father had built with his own two hands. Thomas Grymes sitting at the head of their table in his father's chair. Thomas Grymes… with his mother…

Jack gritted his teeth and clenched his hand around his staff as anger swelled up within him anew.

The dark spaces between the trees at the edge of the snow-covered field seemed to thicken and blend together.

"Jaaaaaaaaaaaaaack," the wind whispered as it wound through the swaying branches.

Jack gave no indication that he had heard, nor any outward sign of panic or fear. He had no time to be the victim of such cheap tricks.

A shadow more pale than the others detached itself from the rest of the darkness and slid forward smoothly. "Are you ignoring me, Jack?" came the question with a sharp edge of warning.

"Wouldn't dream of it," Jack muttered, silently praising himself on not jumping at the spirit's abrupt arrival this time. On the other hand, it did disturb him at how familiar he was getting to be with the Boogeyman's presence.

Without warning, his staff was jerked to one side and he was pulled roughly off balance and toppled headfirst into a snowdrift. Gasping at the sudden bite of cold to his skin, Jack scrambled upright, clumps of snow falling off his shoulders and head in his haste. "What did you do that for?" he sputtered indignantly, trying to pinpoint which exact shadow was the culprit.

Narrowed golden eyes flashed briefly on the shadowed side of a tree's trunk. "You haven't kept your word…" the faintest hiss of words was uttered. Jack supposed their intention was to be threatening, but they came across as slightly sulky-sounding, like a child who hadn't gotten his way.

"It hasn't even been one full day yet!" Jack cried. "And I had work to attend to! I can't just cast everything aside to go bidding to your whim!"

A dry chuckled echoed throughout the branches of the trees. "Can't you?"

"Don't you have anyone else you can go and haunt?" Jack snapped.

A shadow wound itself about his wrist and squeezed ruthlessly. "Be careful, Jack. Your scent is not nearly as invigorating as last night. I do not find your uncouth human manners as amusing as before."

"Are you saying I'm the one who's being rude?" Jack said, finding it quite incredulous at being told this by his very own nightly stalker and blackmailer.

"I have dragged others into madness for far less insolence. You are ungrateful to my good graces."

Ungrateful.

The word pricked him like an irritable bee sting, igniting the anger within him to rise to the surface again.

"The world doesn't revolve around you!" Jack shouted, feeling vindictive satisfaction at being able to toss those words at someone else for a change.

The air around him noticeably thickened. It felt difficult to breathe, like the time his family's chimney had stopped up and the soot had nearly suffocated them. The hairs on Jack's arm tingled like they always did when lightning struck right before a storm broke out. An invisible cord of panic tightened around his chest. Perhaps it had not been the best idea to lash out his personal frustrations at an immortal spirit who easily took offense.

Just what Pitch's retaliation would have been, Jack never found out. He was interrupted by three unlikely saviors, if you even could call them that.

"Talking to yourself is the first sign of madness they always say," Anthony Hawkins' voice rang out behind him.

Inwardly groaning, Jack turned around to see the butcher's son in tow with Nathaniel and Henry. Well, it was mid-afternoon. He supposed they were all free a couple of hours until their evening chores.

"What do you want?" Jack said, not bothering to hide his exasperation.

"Four yards of satin. Navy blue," Anthony declared, folding his arms over his chest curtly. "The price of silence for our not telling the entire town you really are loony in the head."

"What?"

"I know the governor's wife is having your mother make her new dress. I even know what color the fabric is. My mother's been chatting with Mrs. Hamilton's maid, you see," Anthony explained. "And Father is taking us to visit our relatives in Philadelphia. They're city folks, much better off in their way of living and I don't want to look like a poor country bumpkin while I'm there. I'm thinking nothing looks more fashionable than a nice blue satin cape."

Jack was quiet for a moment, trying to make sense of this bizarre request. "You know I can't sew worth a damn," he said. "You'll just be wasting your money."

"Yes, you were a half-wit before you broke through the ice and now you're a full nitwit," Anthony proclaimed with a hint of annoyance that he wasn't being understood. "I'm not paying you, Overland. And you're not going to sew anything. All you're going to do is give me four yards of that satin fabric before I leave. I'll give it to a more talented tailor in Philadelphia. Maybe I won't even have a cape made. Maybe I'll just sell the material."

"You want me to steal for you?" Jack couldn't keep the shock out of his voice.

He couldn't believe what Anthony was asking. It didn't matter that there would be a full abundance of that navy blue satin fabric left over after the governor's wife's dress was done. It wasn't his family's to keep. Every yard had already been estimated for the length and size of the dress. All that would be added to the finished cost were the hours it took Lydia to sew it. Every remaining yard of fabric would be carefully counted by the governor's servants to make sure none had been pilfered away. If four yards were to turn up missing, his mother would be the first one to be blamed.

"You're good at making up stories," Anthony grinned at him. "I'm sure you'll think of some excuse."

"I'm not going to do it," Jack refused flatly.

"So you're alright with everyone thinking you're crazy then?"

"It's not the first time in history that someone was delirious with fever for a short while. Go on and tell them," Jack dared. "They'll laugh it off as nothing more than a pack of schoolboy-ish name-calling."

"You know, it's not so much as us telling folks we think you're crazy," Anthony drawled out. "It's more the question of 'are you sane and yet still talking to things unseen'?"

"What—"

"I wonder what Father Goodall will say if we mention that Jack told us all about his conversation with the devil?" Anthony wondered off hand to Nathaniel.

"Oh! Do you think he'll get in trouble?" Nathaniel asked with false-worry in his tone.

"Possibly, but it's for the good of the community as well his," Anthony played along. "His soul is in jeopardy! This might be our only chance to save our friend from the Evil One's clutches!"

"Hey, hey," Henry butted in with a hopeful, excited gleam in his eyes. "Do you think this will be big enough to warrant a witch trial?"

Jack's breath hitched in his chest. He was aware that his right hand had begun shaking and he tightened the grip on his staff so it wouldn't be so noticeable.

"There hasn't been a witch trial in twenty years," he said, wincing as he heard his voice croak in half.

It was something the children overheard the adults talking about in hushed voices now and then. How more than two decades ago, there had been a mass panic of witchcraft throughout the colonies and accusations flying rampant. All it took was one odd little thing, one unusual circumstance out of the ordinary, one unfortunate event that if mistaken the wrong way that with the right number of people voicing their concerns, could be blown up to be something evil that must be destroyed. So many people had been hanged…

But all that was in the past. The courts had declared the trials unlawful and banned them. They had even given the families of the victims compensation for the injustice and loss they had suffered. In fact, the adults in Burgess often commented the whole witchcraft scare had been nothing more than people misunderstanding those who were mentally ill or physically sick with an unknown disease. In fact, some of the rougher, more rowdy crowd in the tavern often joked they wished the trials were still legal so they could blame someone they disliked for practicing witchcraft.

No one actually believed in witchcraft anymore. Anthony was bluffing, trying to blackmail him into stealing. Jack had nothing to fear.

Anthony curled his lips upward to reveal the gap between his two front teeth—it was his tell-tale sign of victory.

Jack could his own heartbeat pounding rapidly in his ears…

"Jack! Let's go home, Jack!" Emma was beside him suddenly, tugging at his arm. "It's supper time. Mama will be worried."

Henry and Nathaniel broke out into ugly peals of laughter. Anthony only smiled more broadly. "Yes, Jack, run home to Mama now and think about your answer. I leave next Friday."

"I don't need until then," Jack swallowed hard. His throat was dry. "The answer is no."

Anthony's smirk had transformed into a scowl.

"Let's go, Emma," Jack said, grabbing his sister's hand and leading her away. A few feet further he could see Abigail and Caleb waiting for them so they could walk home together.

Jack heard footsteps crunching in the snow behind them as the three boys followed.

Nathaniel's low, husky voice began belting out a well-known nursery rhyme in a taunting manner: "Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a pail of water…"

The high, reedy vocalisms of Henry soon joined in: "Jack fell down and broke his crown and Jill came tumbling after!"

Emma's face looked crest-fallen. She hated that nursery rhyme. It wasn't the first time they both had heard it sung to make fun of them either.

"Ignore them," Jack whispered to her. Over his shoulder he called out, "The church will never accept you into their choir! You sound horrible! You need to work on your lung exercises!"

"You should be careful with the company you keep, Jack," Anthony's voice warned. "The craziness might be catching. You wouldn't it to affect the people you care about."

Jack would have kept on walking, except that Anthony wasn't talking to him anymore.

"Be careful, Emma, or you'll be your brother's next sacrifice to the devil!"

Emma stopped in her tracks. Jack looked down to see her face as pale as the color of snow.

"Have you seen him do it yet, Emma?" Anthony asked. "Talking to the darkness like something was there?"

Emma's hand was trembling. Jack knew she was remembering that first feverish night with him pulling at her hair and screaming at the shadows.

Anthony's rage at Jack's refusal was obvious when he stabbed the final blade in. "The devil spared his soul when he fell through the ice, but his body still died. Now he's a living, walking corpse: a plague set loose on earth to curse anyone who comes across his path!"

Jack's own anger that Anthony would spout such terrible lies was halted when Emma ripped away her hold on his hand. Any brief flash of fear he might have had that his sister believed them was put to rest when she flung herself at the older boy yowling like an upset kitten.

"LIAR, LIAR! YOU'RE A LIAR!" she shrieked, stretching her short arms as far up the front of Anthony's shirt as she could like she wanted to reach up and claw his eyes out.

Anthony seemed just as startled as Jack was. Snatching her by the wrists, he pushed her away where she fell sideways into the snow.

A painful cry split the air and Jack rushed over to her. Helping her sit upright, he noticed the large rock that had been partially uncovered from the snow by her fall. Emma's eyes were glistening with tears and she was holding one hand over her mouth. Cupping her jaw, Jack pulled her hand gently away. All it took was one glance of her bleeding gums and the empty space where one of her front teeth had been to cause him to snap.

He fell on the three boys with an angry roar, swinging his staff wildly about not particularly aiming anywhere, just blindly lashing out. He managed to score a few solid hits if their wounded grunts were anything to go by, then his legs were knocked out underneath him and his staff was kicked out of his hands. He found himself sprawled out flat on his back in the snow with Henry sitting on his chest. The boy raised his fist and Jack braced himself for the punch that never came. Caleb came crashing into Henry's back shouting a steady stream of swear words that would have made his mother wash his mouth out with soap if she had heard him.

Henry rolled off him, taking the heavy weight off his chest and Jack scrambled in the snow for his staff as saw Nathaniel bearing down on him. Feeling his fingers brush against the wood, he curled his hand around it. Jack's arm as well as his staff whipped around to smack Nathaniel soundly between the eyes. Looking quite dazed, the boy toppled over backwards cross-eyed.

Panting for breath, he looked around until he caught sight of Anthony. The boy was just standing there, hands in pockets, head cocked to one side, eyebrows furrowed, and staring at him with a half curious and half calculating gaze.

"Caleb!" Jack called out. He hoped the kid was alright. He was ten years younger the rest of the older boys.

Caleb trotted over to his side a few seconds later sporting a magnificent beauty of a black eye. The boy was absolutely beaming despite this, satisfaction oozing out of the huge grin he wore.

"Good job," Jack said. He could see Henry in the distance doubled over, clutching his stomach. The kid must have packed a few good wallops. "Go take Emma and your sister home."

Caleb didn't argue. Walking over to where Abigail kneeled beside Emma, he pulled both girls to their feet and threw his arms over their shoulders protectively. They left the snow-covered field in the same way, though poor Caleb's gait was bit lop-sided since his sister was a good foot taller than him. Jack watched them from the corner of his eyes until they were out of sight.

"Don't you ever lay a hand on my sister again!" Jack said, leveling the crook of his staff at Anthony in warning. "Whatever filthy lies you come up with you say them to my face and not behind my back! You want to tell the whole town I'm crazy and have conversations with the devil, you go ahead! I'll tell everyone you're only saying that now because you asked me to steal fabric from the governor's wife and I refused! Let's see which side believes who!"

Anthony was silent. Jack could practically hear the gears in his head turning as the boy weighed his options. Rebekah Hamilton was sure to take the Overlands' side. She was a long time admirer of his mother's designs and he was no stranger to her either. When he was younger, he often had gone with his mother to trips to the governor's house to pick up and drop off materials. He remembered stuffing his face with macaroons and drinking honeyed-tea until he fell asleep. The governor's wife held no love for the butcher also, probably because his work consisted of slaughtering animals. Jack had once seen Mrs. Hamilton weep openly over a bird she had found in her garden with a broken wing. Yes, if he was in favor with the people in high positions, Anthony would hold his tongue in cheek… wouldn't he?

"An-tho-dyyyy," Nathaniel whined, staggering into appearance on the boy's right. "I thung by dose is broggin." The boy's nose was indeed swollen and purple-black in color, courtesy of Jack's staff.

Henry shuffled over, one hand pressed to his side. Jack hoped Caleb had managed to crack a few ribs.

"I don't have to say anything to anyone, Overland," Anthony finally declared. "Because you'll slip up one day. Someone will catch you talking to nothing and you won't be able to stop even though you know you should. Everything has a price and trading your soul for whatever you did is going to cost you an eternity of damnation."

Jack realized the boy was serious, wasn't merely spouting words when he touched his forehead, stomach, and left and right shoulders with his forefinger and thumb: the sign of the Holy Cross to ward off evil.

His sister had already been tucked into their mother's bed by the time he got back home, though she was still awake by the sound of her crying.

Jack watched his mother wrap her shawl around her shoulders and put on her boots before she headed for the door. "Where are you going?" he asked. It was late. The sun had almost set.

"To get pain medicine for your sister from Doctor Brown," Lydia said, tucking her hair back into her knitted wool cap. "And also to give those three boys' mothers a piece of my mind. Picking on children smaller than them! When Caleb dropped off Emma, his right eye was swollen shut. Next time you boys decide to fight, you leave the younger ones out of it."

Jack opened his mouth. What he was going to say, he didn't know. Perhaps, "I'll fetch the medicine from Doctor Brown, don't go" or "don't bother talking to their families please because they might convince you I've made a pact with a devil". Yet what came out instead was, "Mother, are you going to marry Thomas Grymes?"

Lydia Overland's hand froze on the door latch. "What on earth on you talking about, Jack?" she asked, forcing a laugh.

"Tailor Saunders says that Thomas Grymes is going to ask you to be his wife," the word spilled out of Jack's mouth and as much as he wanted to shut up, he couldn't. "He said he helped out a lot around the house when I was ill. He said I was ungrateful and wrong to come between the happiness of two people. Mother… do you want to marry Thomas Grymes?"

"Jack," his mother closed her eyes briefly before opening them again in an irritated manner. "I don't have time for this right now. Go see to your sister. There's soup in the pot over the fire if you're hungry. I'll be back in an hour."

The door opened to the cold and his mother latched it behind her… but not before Jack caught the faintest whisper that fell from her lips, "Though… it was rather nice to not have to worry about so many things by myself…"

Jack stood alone in the log-cabin, a thousand emotions bottled up tight inside him, and the only thing he could do to distract himself from examining them too closely was to check on his sister.

Emma was sobbing quietly into her pillow, the blanket twisted around her and clenched between two tiny fists.

"Does it hurt?" he asked, brushing her cheek softly.

"My t-tooth…" Emma gulped back tears. "I l-lost it… in the s-sno-o-ow . Now the T-tooth Fairy wo-on't c-come…"

Jack placed a hand on her forehead. It felt a bit warmer than usual. "I'll go find it for you, Emma," he whispered.

His sister's crying had stopped. "R-really?" she asked, her voice sounding tired.

"Go to sleep now," Jack smiled, petting the top of her head. "The Sandman will bring you good dreams."

Emma nodded, letting her eyelids droop shut. Jack stayed with her until her breathing was slow and even, then let himself out into the night.

Jack stepped onto the snow-covered field where he had fought earlier. The moon shone down brightly from the clear-night sky, illuminating the whiteness of the snow. The rock which had knocked out Emma's tooth stood out visibly in the pale light, but Jack did go over to search near it.

"Pitch… Pitch Black…" he cried out hoarsely.

The shadows crept out from the edges of the woods, over the vast, empty field, up the side of hill to where Jack stood and solidified into the tall, imposing figure of the Nightmare King.

"To seek me out yourself… this is a rare treat," Pitch said, the dark chuckle that followed sounding like the rumbling purr of cat.

"Do you… do you only need to frighten children?" Jack asked, struggling to find the right words. "I mean… can you scare adults too?"

The intensity of which Pitch's narrow golden-eyed gaze bored down upon him made Jack's skin crawl.

"What are you asking, Jack?"

"You said you dragged others into madness before… can you really do that? Strike so much fear into someone… that they… they lose their mind?"

The laughter started low in Pitch's throat then exploded into a full-fledged maniacal cackle as the spirit's form nearly bent over backwards unnaturally.

A thin black tendril separated from the body of shadows and wound itself around Jack's legs and up his chest where it flicked out its tongue almost lovingly against the boy's cheek.

"Oh, Jack," Pitch crowed in delight. "You are a selfish soul, aren't you?"

Jack wished he could deny it, but he couldn't. He didn't liked things being taken from him, he never had. He didn't have much in this world, but the little that he did have, he cherished sincerely. He had learned years ago material possessions paled in comparison a living, breathing person. Those things could be easily broken, easily replaced, but to have someone's existence near to his heart cut short, torn away, never to return—those wounds cut deep.

He wasn't asking for much. He just wanted to live out the rest of his life with his mother and sister at his side and not worry about any interloper coming to whisk them away or shove him out of the picture. He wanted to walk throughout Burgess without someone trying to turn his family against him. He just wanted some semblance of control to make the tide turn in his favor for once and Pitch was right there in front of him with the solution to all his problems.

"I'll do what you want," Jack said, trying hard not to think too much about what he was agreeing to. He might feel ashamed, might feel revulsion at how easily such a plan had taken shape in his mind. Right now he was angry, angry and frustrated at being helpless all at the same time and he focused on those feelings instead. "I'll tell people about you. I'll spread such stories about the Boogey Man that the world has never heard of before. I know that's why you're so happy to have found me. I'm a contagion, a disease."

Anthony's words echoed in his mind: a plague set loose on earth to curse anyone who comes across his path.

Jack finally looked up. Pitch's face was filled with something akin to adoration as he stared down at him.

"You can't scare the children though," Jack laid down his own terms firmly. "They're innocent." It wasn't their fault they lived in such a world where they were corrupted by harsh reality. "Just the adults, the ones who deserve to have some fear struck in them."

"The ones you deem to deserve it, Jack?" Pitch murmured, a smile hovering lightly over his lips. "Just the children in this town then… I can spare them."

Jack nodded and didn't argue. Once he could have fooled himself into believing he cared about the world as a whole, but not anymore. He tried to have a positive attitude in general but it was only a façade. Growing up left you cynical about a lot of things, and there was only room in his heart for so many.

"You said once before that the world doesn't revolve around you, Jack," Pitch stated, laying a hand on his shoulder. It was oddly warm to the touch. "That's where you're wrong," Slender fingers reached under his chin to tilt his head upwards and Jack found himself ensnared and held fast by the man's golden eyes. They seemed to shine brighter and more fiercely than the moon in the sky itself. "That's when you simply make it so that it does."

Chapter Text

An odd sort of calm had settled over Jack ever since he had agreed to work alongside the Nightmare King. For the first time in a very long time he felt he was actually useful to someone, that his existence actually had some meaning. He felt a faint stirring of hope that he might be in control of his own future.

Pitch hadn't left him. He was still there hovering a few feet away watching Jack as he knelt on the frozen ground, brushing away the snow as he searched for Emma's tooth. It was a futile task. It was too dark even with the pale moonlight spilling down. He doubted he'd even find it in broad daylight.

"You can see spirits because you fell through the ice," Pitch spoke at last in a curious tone. "What were you doing on the lake?"

"I thought it was thick enough to skate on," Jack mumbled embarrassed. "I fell in trying to save Emma."

"You did save her though."

"Aye…" something warm kindled in Jack's chest. "I did."

"You've always looked out for your sister and the other children, haven't you?" Pitch hummed.

Jack didn't mistake those words for praise. He recognized by now the signs of when the Boogey Man was withholding from telling him something. The spirit wore an all too amused expression on his face.

Jack shrugged and pretended he hadn't noticed. "I don't get along well with others my own age—never have."

There wasn't an abundance of children in Burgess anyway. It was a small village and children's age groups varied greatly in it. Aside from him, Anthony, Henry, and Nathaniel, the only ones also in their late teens were Winifred the miller's daughter and Clara from one of the many Pratchett families. The rest of the children were around his sister's age and younger. There had been a few children near to entering adolescence but they had been taken by sickness over the years.

Jack stood up from his crouch and dusted the snow from his knees. "No use," he sighed. "Probably won't be able to find it until spring when all the snow melts."

"Oh no, no, no, no," Pitch shook his head in a very concerned manner. "We musn't let your sister down now. A child's belief is such a beautiful, fragile thing. It must not be allowed to be broken."

Jack imagined returning back home empty-handed and seeing his sister's disappointed face when she awoke. "But how am I supposed to find it in all this snow?"

Pitch curved his mouth into a crooked grin. "Would you like to see an extraordinary sight?"

The Nightmare King didn't wait for an answer. All Jack saw was the spirit raising his arm and a wall of shadows came rushing towards him. It happened in the blink of an eye. One second Jack was standing on the hillside, then darkness crashed over him and swallowed him whole. He could see nothing, hear nothing. It was like being trapped inside an empty void. Before he even had time to panic or cry out, the darkness released him and he found himself inside the woods at the edge of the field looking back on the spot he had stood a mere moment ago.

"Wha—wha…" Jack sputtered in shock not sure what had happened.

"Calm," Pitch said from beside him. "Twas nothing but shadowplay. Nothing to be so alarmed about."

"You tell me before you do something like that again!" Jack hissed his heart still pounding.

"It is how I travel. Quite convenient, isn't it?"

"Convenient for you," Jack muttered under his breath. "What are we doing here anywhere?"

"I already told you, Jack," Pitch replied. "You're going to see an extraordinary sight tonight. All we have to do is wait."

"For how long?" Jack asked, shivering slightly as he felt the coldness of the snow seep into the soles of his shoes. He hadn't thought he'd be out here too long so he had only bothered to put on his cloak, but that was not going to be enough protection from the winter wind and icy temperature.

"Yes, yes, you mortals and your weak shells of flesh," Pitch sighed. With a snap of his fingers the shadows around him sprang to life once more.

Jack instinctively flinched backwards but he was enveloped by them before he could protest. The shadows wrapped around him like a blanket and covered him from the neck down to his feet, warmth spreading throughout his limbs.

"Better?" Pitch said smirking at the boy's bewildered expression.

They waited.

Pitch did not speak something which was surprising because Jack had his own opinion that the spirit loved the sound of his own voice and never shut up.

Once or twice Jack almost asked what it was they were waiting to see but never did. He didn't think Pitch would answer him anyway. The spirit's eyes were fixated on the rock where Emma had lost her tooth. Occasionally he would glance up and scan the night sky before returning his gaze to rock again.

Nestled in his warm cocoon of shadows, Jack began to feel drowsy. His eyelids drooping low, he stared at Pitch's crouching form and searching golden eyes and thought he resembled a wolf on the hunt for his prey.

A wolf…

oOo

10 years earlier…

Jack trudged through the underbrush, twice nearly tripping as the tail end of his wool coat kept getting snagged by brambles and uprooted tree roots. Actually, it was his father's old coat with the end of the sleeves rolled up three times over and the sash wrapped around his skinny frame twice and tied in a double knot, but even that did not help the fabric from constantly threatening to slip off his shoulders. On top of that, it was heavy and extremely itchy, and Jack kept scratching at the sweat perspiring underneath the yarn scarf around his neck.

Finally, he stomped both feet into place and let out a yowl of exasperation as his fingers angrily inched towards the toggle buttons keeping the front of the coat closed.

He received a gentle rap on the head in warning from his father's staff at his attempt.

"It's hot!" Jack protested.

"It's autumn, lad. There's a chill in the air. You catch a cold and I'll never hear the end of it from your mam," Joseph Overland said. "Now keep your tongue in cheek. We're trying to catch the beast, not frighten it away."

Jack sighed but let his hands drop to his side as he followed his father through the dense woods. He stared at the dead leaves and earth beneath his feet and wondered what subtle signs his father could see that he couldn't. Tracking, is what his father said they were doing, and if not for the snare net and the hunting knives strapped the belt around his father's waist, Jack would said they were going on quite the challenging hike up the hillside.

Some creature had been attacking Burgess's livestock for the past few weeks. In just the last few days, it had stolen one old sheep from old man Forrester, two rabbits from the Johnsons; it had demolished the entirety of the Pratchett's henhouse—the chickens themselves were fine, but the beast, whatever it was, had feasted on eggs and baby chicks with ravenous delight. The final straw came this morning, when Joseph Overland discovered one of their newborn kids had been carried off in the night. The pen hadn't been broken into by human hands and the mother goat herself was badly wounded with deep gash marks on her chest, so she had obviously tried to defend her offspring but to no avail.

"The villagers are all saying its wild dogs," Jack spoke up while playing a game with himself by stepping carefully into the deep footsteps his father's boots left behind.

"It's wishful thinking," Joseph said. "It's a wolf. A young one by the looks of it, and who knows no fear of humans yet so that makes it doubly dangerous."

"And where there's one, there's two," Jack hummed, repeating his mother's mantra every time she spotted a mouse scurry back to its hiding place.

"If we're lucky, it's an adolescent straying away from its pack for some easy kills. But aye, there might be more of them up in these woods expanding their territory."

Jack froze, one knee still raised in the air, and glanced about cautiously as a small bubble of fear began to rise in the pits of his stomach. What if they were being encircled even now by a pack of hungry wolves? He had to keep absolutely quiet!

Joseph glanced over his shoulder and belted out a mighty peal of laughter at the sight of his son doing quite the good impression of a tightrope walker with both arms spread out wide, one leg up, and focusing very hard not to lose his balance.

His father's laughter broke the spell and Jack toppled over with a yelp. His scarf and coat sash caught fast in some skeletal limbs of a thicket and he thrashed about in a mighty panic certain wolves would be descending upon him in any given moment to devour him whole.

Strong, calloused hands reached out and pulled him free from his wooden entanglement.

"Whatever happened to my brave boy who declared just this morning he was going to bring back a magnificent fur coat for his dear mother to wear?" Joseph chuckled setting him down on firm ground. "Did the fairies snatch him away behind my back?"

"Anthony Hawkins said there ain't no such things as fairies, just imps, messengers of the Devil," Jack said, swallowing back the dryness in his mouth.

"Aye, well, Anthony Hawkin's mam spends too much time with her ear pressed to every word falling out of Father Goodall's lips than she does attending to her own family," Joseph said, his brows furrowing into a slight frown. "Now don't go repeating that nonsense to your mam. You know she enjoys sharing her stories before bedtime. Don't discourage her."

Jack nodded, his throat a bit too tight to speak. A breeze drifted through the woods and he shivered at the slight chill. The sun had dipped lower in the sky overhead and the shadows were growing longer, the forest more dark. The fun had all but bled out on this adventure he had foolishly thought they were on.

"What's going to happen once we catch the wolf?" he asked, never once doubting his father's ability to do so.

Joseph Overland said nothing, though his lips had pursed into a thin line.

"Are we going to kill it?" Jack asked.

When he had told his mother he was bringing her back a fur coat, it had never crossed his mind exactly how that would be possible, but now he was faced with the grisly realization that to obtain a skein of fur, something must die.

His father never answered him, only gave him a strip of jerky to chew on, and tousled his hair fondly before they continued to move on, following the near-invisible tracks to their destination. It led them to a small hollow where a hole had had been burrowed out beneath a fallen tree trunk and a giant boulder.

"A den," Joseph said quietly.

They settled down behind a broad oak tree that was upwind of the wolf's den to keep watch. Jack probably should have felt more frightened, but Joseph's alert gaze but relaxed posture was calming. Jack cuddled into the warmth of his father's side while they waited in silence, idly tracing the bumps and grooves etched into the wood of the staff that rested on the ground by their feet.

Jack wanted a staff for himself, had tried numerous times to carve one but they had all come out thin, weak and misshapen. His mother said if he wrote a letter, maybe St. Nicholas would bring him one for Christmas. Jack had told her nothing that man made would ever be as great as his father's and the stitches on Joseph's vest had nearly burst their seams at his chest swelling in pride.

Twilight crept upon them and the woods around them took on a purple-ish hue. Jack shifted his legs restlessly, wondering what they were waiting for. It would be dark soon. They were going to miss supper and Mam was going to be angry at them for coming back so late.

A hand gripped his shoulder and Jack turned to stare at his father who held a finger to his lips before pointing to the den. Squinting against the dim light, Jack struggled to see what Joseph wanted to show him. Gradually, as his sight adjusted, he saw the faint outline of a brown, furry muzzle poke out of the hole.

Jack clutched his father's arm tightly. "Is it the wolf?" he whispered.

Joseph shook his head, eyes shining in amusement as a secretive half-smile lingered across his face. At the den's opening, the brown muzzle was snuffling at the air as a low whine echoed about the small hollow.

"What?" Jack demanded in a hushed voice. "What is it? Tell me!"

Joseph opened his mouth to speak…

oOo

"Jack," a hand was shaking his shoulder roughly. "Jack."

"What?" Jack started awake.

"Look, our patience has been rewarded," Pitch said breathless with excitement.

Still disoriented, Jack cast his eyes about wildly before they finally landed on something small flitting through the air; something that glimmered bluish-green under the moonlight. Without any hesitation, the emerald speck plunged straight into the snow near the base of the rock. It popped up half a second later with such a loud squeal of delight for one so tiny that it echoed down the hillside

"Is that… is that the tooth fairy?" Jack breathed in awe.

"A tooth fairy," Pitch corrected. "One of many and none of them the original. Well, I had my doubts she'd actually come herself. She hasn't deemed children worthy to grace with her feathers for a long, long time."

Jack watched the emerald speck, no bigger than a hummingbird, do several successions of loop-de-loops in the air chittering loudly like a magpie who had just found another shiny object for its treasure stash. He rubbed at his eyes, still not quite believing what he was seeing. He had heard the old folktale growing up about the tooth fairy, all the children had, but it was different actually seeing the fairytale come to life.

The smile that started to unfold upon his lips stopped as a cold dread trickled down his spine.

"Why did you want to show me this?" he asked Pitch, or tried to anyway.

Before he had even finished his question, Pitch had vanished from his side in a sharp snap of shadows.

Across the field, a tiny, shrill shriek of alarm rolled down the hill, bouncing off Jack's ears almost accusingly. Jack looked up to see a flash of emerald flitting frantically back and forth between the bars of a cage built out of writhing, black snakes.

Fearlings, the name brushed across the front of Jack's mind without bidding.

An all-too familiar cackle split the air as Pitch strolled around the cage, admiring his handiwork. Jack grit his teeth, but gathered up his staff in hand and walked over, curiosity getting the better of him.

"Isn't it marvelous, Jack?" Pitch crowed as he drew near.

For a confused second, Jack thought he was talking about the tiny creature he had trapped inside. A tooth fairy, one of many, tiny and fragile as a hummingbird, although it resembled more of an emerald fuzzball from one of his mother's discarded yarn fabrics with its feathers fluffed up in outrage.

"I can create such wondrous things with my fearlings, can't I, my darlings?" Pitch cooed, dragging a long, grey, spindly finger across the black bars of the cage.

The bars trembled under his touch, fading into a dark, smoky substance briefly before solidifying back again. One inky, black tendril detached itself from the cage to nip at the spirit's fingers almost affectionately.

Jack felt his mouth twist into a disturbed grimace that he couldn't quite wipe it off.

Pitch gave no mind to his expression and thrust one hand straight through the bars of the cage, tugging at something clutched fast in the tiny fairy's hands. "I'll take that, if you please."

The fairy held on tight, pulling back and spewing out a racket of angry chittering, some which were fierce enough Jack was certain they were curses aimed at their captor.

Pitch's countenance darkened as the fairy refused to relinquish their grip and the shadows abruptly lengthened several feet on the bottom of his black robe. "Give it here, you overgrown bumblebee," he hissed, his needle-pointed teeth flashing in the moonlight. "You're nothing but a copy, a sham, completely worthless— "

Pitch broke off his rant with a livid shout of pain as the fairy darted forward and stabbed its tiny beak into the spirit's grey hand. The smooth bars of the shadow-cage erupted into a wriggling, ball of thorny vines and Pitch's once bright, golden eyes had dimmed to a dangerous, stormy silver.

Jack flinched, feeling the tension around him thicken and knew something terrible was about to happen. "Let me try," he spoke up. "I'll get it."

Pitch's head swiveled sharply towards him and the spirit blinked twice as if he had forgotten Jack was even there at all. "You?" he let out a short bark of incredulous laughter, but nevertheless, bowed mockingly and stepped back.

The shadow-cage had reverted back to its original form at least, so Jack took that as a good sign. Turning his attention to the fairy inside, he spoke to it, trying to his voice as low and soothing as possible.

"Hey there, little one," he said and the fairy lifted violet-colored eyes to meet his own brown ones. "My name is Jack. What's yours?"

The fairy said nothing, gazing at him with a weary, yet guarded expression, its small hands wrapped protectively around something pearly and white: Emma's tooth.

"They don't have names," Pitch scoffed. "She doesn't deem them necessary enough to warrant names."

The only reaction the fairy gave was to curl itself tighter around the tooth it was holding, though Jack noted the lone golden feather atop its crest was pressed flat against its small head.

"Well then, I'll give you a name," Jack said. "Baby Tooth, because you're a tiny version of the Tooth Fairy! How's that?"

"Pathetic," Pitch droned behind him.

"I wasn't asking you," Jack shot back. From his peripheral vision, he saw Pitch arch a fine-pointed eyebrow at his boldness. "Do you like it?"

The fairy's small, crystalline wings fluttered twice before it raised its head and nodded, emitting a soft series of chirps that sounded pleased.

"Great," Jack smiled before slowly extending his hand, palm out towards the bars of the cage. "So, that's my sister's Emma's tooth and I promised I would find it and give it back to her tonight. May I have it, please?"

Baby Tooth shook its small head and released several scolding chitters at the suggestion.

"Are we done with the niceties now, Jack?" Pitch's voice rumbled impatiently.

"One more minute," Jack said. "Please, Baby Tooth, let me have that. I don't want you to get hurt. Besides, what's one missing tooth? You must have an entire kingdom built out of them by now." Jack paused as a thought just occurred to him. "What do you do with all those teeth you collect, anyway?"

The way the fairy shrunk in on itself and Pitch's mad laughter rang delightedly around them, Jack knew he must have accidentally honed into something only the spirits had knowledge of. Powerful, forbidden knowledge.

Suddenly, Jack didn't want either of the spirits to have the tooth.

"Give it to me," he said, his tone rising in urgency. "It belongs to my sister. She has to be the one to give up. Those are the rules. It isn't yours yet."

Jack wasn't sure fairytale logic would apply here, but apparently he must have struck a nerve. Baby Tooth gaped at him, violet eyes wide in shock. Pitch's laughter had ceased abruptly and the writhing shadows around them and stilled.

Hoping he had read the situation correctly, Jack waited breathlessly, until with one final, sad, almost betrayed chirp, Baby Tooth pushed the tooth into the palm of his awaiting hand.

Jack's fingers curled around it instinctively knowing Pitch would try to take it from him. His worry was affirmed when he turned around and came face to face with the spirit who was positively oozing with smug satisfaction. The shadows were weaving lazily to and fro around them in a hypnotic, rhythmic dance and Pitch's golden eyes bore down upon him in a triumphant, heated gaze.

"Good job, Jack lad, now hand it over," Pitch crooned offering his own hand out.

Jack brought his closed fist to his chest and took a step back.

Pitch laughed at the sight. "Don't begin to have delusions of gallantry now," he said. "You're not some heroic figure with a noble compass and we both know it. Now give it here. It is of no use to you."

"But it is to you?"

Pitch refused to shed any light on the matter, the smile slowly slipping off his face…

"We struck a pact, Jack," Pitch spat out darkly. "There are consequences if you go back on your word."

The unspoken threat hung harsh and heavy in the air and the memory of Emma weeping inconsolably over the nightmare of him drowning flashed through his mind.

He should just hand the tooth over without question, but something inside him pushed to know more.

"Shouldn't I know what you're going to do with this if I'm supposed to spin legends of terror about the Boogey Man?" Jack asked in what he hoped was a casual tone.

"You're an imaginative boy, Jack, not a naïve one," Pitch said, seeing through his act in an instant. "So when I tell you that not even you can possibly comprehend the potential locked within that small, insignificant tooth… you'd do well enough to listen to me."

A shiver traveled down Jack's spine that had nothing to do with the wind or the cold. Opening his fist slightly, he stared at the pearly white of his sister's tooth in wonder and bit of trepidation.

"Jack."

He looked up. Pitch had his hand outreached once more, waiting.

"Just hand it over and you can go back home."

The cold of the night was seeping beneath his skin, into his bones. Home and a warm bed sounded like a reward for suffering through Pitch's company for so long. Was there really any reason to keep protesting anyway? In all the stories he had heard about the tooth fairy, they never had elaborated on what was done with the teeth, so why should he start bothering to wonder about it right now?

Not seeing any other option, Jack slowly offered his hand out, uncurled his fingers, and let the tooth fall into Pitch's upturned palm. Jack watched as the spirit tucked the tooth away within the folds of his shadow-robe and felt his heart clench almost guiltily, although he did not know why.

Above them, the pale light of the moon dimmed as it hid its face behind the grey storm clouds that were drifting throughout the sky.

Pitch released a deep sigh of satisfaction and the shadows that had been stretched out tightly around him seemed to fold inward and relax.

It all happened so quickly.

An emerald speck darted through the bars of the cage that had turned into black mist momentarily. A small hum of beating wings and a shrill warrior-like cry split the air as the tiny, tooth fairy dived towards Pitch like a speeding arrow seeking its target.

Pitch pivoted to one side with a strangled curse—

Something thin and golden unraveled from with the dark recesses of his shadow-robes and fell into the snow at Jack's feet with a metallic plop.

It was only for a few seconds, but the image would hold fast in his mind for a long time to come. A golden locket lay face upwards, the clasp broken so the picture inside visible: a miniscule but detailed oil painting of a young girl, probably no older than his sister, with long black hair and green eyes who was smiling from ear to ear…

Pitch threw himself down in the snow and gathered it up gently in his hands, moaning like a wounded animal as he cradled it to his chest, rocking back and forth without thought.

Spread out behind him like the trails off a mourning garb, his tendrils of darkness, the fearlings, stood still and rapt, for once not mimicking their master's emotions.

"No, no, no, no, no…" Pitch mumbled, each word rising with a higher sense of urgency than the last. The spirit finally brought up his head and Jack caught sight of his eyes: wild, unfocused, golden in color that matched the locket, and oddly moist…

Jack watched as tiny flecks of silver began to spot throughout the irises until they clouded up all the gold and Pitch's moaning turned into low, rumblings of rage.

Pitch whirled on the tiny fairy where it had fallen once its initial attack had failed. It was trying quite valiantly to get airborne again, but one of its crystalline wings was bent backwards at an awkward angle.

"You…" Pitch snarled and around him the shadows expanded dangerously. "You would dare…"

He would destroy it. Jack sensed that instinctively. And this time he knew there would be no reasoning with him.

And yet even now, as tiny and helpless as it was, the fairy showed no fear—only lifted its beak proudly upwards in defiance and closed its violet eyes, bracing for the inevitable as a wall of shadows crashed down upon it.

Jack acted without thinking.

Gripping his staff with both hands, he swung it out in a wide arc, a cry ripping free from his throat.

"Stop!"

oOo

10 years earlier…

"Stop."

His father's voice, stern and commanding, froze his feet into place even though he desperately wanted to run.

In front of him, not ten paces away stood a lone, gray wolf.

There was silence in the woods. He could hear nothing except the short, uneven breaths escaping from his mouth in panicked bursts. The beating of his heart pounding in his ears was deafening.

He hadn't meant to move so far away from his father. He had just wanted a closer look at the wolf pups that had emerged from their underground den.

They had tumbled over each other in roly poly brown balls of fur, making tiny yapping noises and looking so similar to Farmer Thatcher's puppies that he begged his dad for every spring. He had grown too excited and moved without thinking.

Then the wolf had appeared, padding through the underbrush silent and without warning. Now boy and wolf stood face to face, practically eye to eye, and Jack trembled in awe at how enormous wolves could be and wondered if this was how he would die.

"Don't move, Jack. Stay still," his father's voice came from behind him in a hushed tone.

Jack did as bid, even as a strangled whimper bubbled over from his mouth. Why wasn't his father attacking the wolf? Why didn't he protect him?

Frightened brown eyes stared into the narrowed, golden gaze of the wolf and Jack felt like he as being measured and judged.

Then at last, after what seemed like an eternity, the wolf broke their gaze, let out an exasperated huff, and trotted in a wide arc around the boy over to where the wolf pups were playing. Lowering its head, the wolf picked one of the pups up by the furry scruff of its neck, then with the pup dangling from its jaws, it looked at the two humans who stood across the clearing.

Then turning its back, it disappeared into the woods as silently as it had appeared with a broad swing of its bushy tail.

Jack felt his knees buckle and his father's hands grabbing him before he fell and holding him close to his chest. A bit light-headed, he listened to the comforting sound of his father's heartbeat and noticed it was pounding as frantically as his own was.

Joseph Overland didn't scold him for his recklessness. He simply placed a hand on his son's back and guided them towards their tracks leading the way out.

"The other pups…" Jack said, straining his neck to see.

The remaining two tousled each other playfully, ignorant of the fact that they had just been abandoned.

"They'll be fine," his father said. "A parent always returns for their children."

oOo

"Stop!"

A storm of blueish-white blasted from the end of his staff as Jack swung it, renting the very air with a bone-chilling coldness as it sliced forward and collided with the wave of shadows in a ferocious gale that popped and cracked, exploding into a shower work display of black and blue frozen fragments that rained upon the snowy ground like pieces of falling stars from the night sky.

Pitch's astonished gaze clashed with his own, and Jack lowered his staff in disbelief at what had just happened, his fingers feeling numb…

He glanced down and felt his heart leap into his throat when he saw that his fingertips had turned blue from the ice spreading along the wood of his staff like a creeping ivy vine of frost.

Jack threw his staff away from him like it was a snake that would bite him. It landed in the snow, the odd, blue-tinged frost fading as quickly as it had formed. He folded his arms around himself as something inside him battered to break free, some energy, some power that had just now woken up. He could see it in his mind's eye: a white light, pale and flickering, like a candle in the darkness.

"So it is true," Pitch murmured, his golden eyes measuring and judging just like the wolf's had been. "How unfortunate…" his voice sounded almost pitying. "For you."

"W-What's… happening to m-me?" Jack asked through gritted teeth as he struggled to keep the pressure doubling up within him down, and the white light rising up and overtaking him.

"My dear boy," Pitch said, his face sorrowful, his tone mocking. "As I have been also, you too, have been cursed."

To Be Continued…

Chapter Text

When Jack woke up, it was without warning and lack of the usual sluggishness that clung stubbornly to his body. One moment he was asleep and the next, fully conscious and alert, upright in bed, any dreams he might have had in the night not just faded but erased entirely.

The first thing he was achingly aware of was the coldness.

It spread along his limbs and torso in a brutal, chilling way, like one who had been out in the snow for too long. Jack lifted his hands up on instinct, examining them in the pale, grey light of the early morning, not sure what he would find. Little pinpricks from mishaps with sewing needles dotted all over his fingers and his nails were a bit scuffed with flecks of dirt clinging to them (his mother would scold him if she saw), but they looked normal.

Jack exhaled slowly in relief…

And a white puff of air burst from his lips, cool and crisp as a breeze on a wintry day.

Jack stared at it wide eyed, even as it evaporated and then turned his head to stare at the fireplace in his room, which was still kindling, albeit low, but nonetheless, still doing an adequate job at putting heat out.

It was him. He was cold, not the room.

Something in the deep recesses of his mind whispered for him to touch his windowpane so Jack did watching trance-like as frost appeared around the edges of his fingertips, then slowly spread out across the glass in a shimmering blanket of ice crystals, the pink flesh of his fingers looking as if he had dipped them in his mother's blue cloth dye.

Jack jerked his hand away and scrambled away from the window, off the bed.

The floorboards under him transformed into magnificent ice carpets the moment his feet touched their surface.

Jack flung himself down in front of the fire, throwing more wood onto the dying flames in a frenzy, urging it to burn faster, stronger, burn the unnatural right out of his body.

As the flames rose, so did Jack's fear. He could feel the warm blaze of the fire, knew it should feel hotter than it did; knew he should be sweating by now, but there was nothing. The fire's heat felt like the kiss of the sun on a pleasant summer's day on his skin. His body was cold enough to emit frost at anything he touched—he should be freezing. But he felt normal and there was no explanation for how this monstrous irregularity had awoken inside him.

You can see spirits because you fell through the ice, Pitch's words floated back to him.

Pitch. Last night! What had happened last night?

Jack struggled to recall, but there was a wide gap in his memory between now and then. The last thing he remembered was the frost crawling up the length of his staff. He had thrown it down and then… then what?

My dear boy, as I have been also, you too, have been cursed.

oOo

"C-Cursed?" Jack stuttered.

"Mmmm, you can thank the Man in the Moon for that," Pitch hummed as he bent and picked up a fragment from the clash between his and the boy's powers. He held it up to night sky as if beckoning the moon to see its handiwork, noting with interest a small splinter of his shadows was trapped with the ice. "How curious…"

"I d-don't und-ders-stand," Jack got out through chattering teeth. There was a different type of coldness other than the chill of night running beneath his skin, coursing through his veins, strumming to explode if he wasn't careful.

"Oh, it's quite simple, Jack," Pitch said tossing the fragment up and down in the air with a flick of his wrist. "Think of it as one of those bedtime stories all you children love to hear. Once upon a time, there lived a Man in the Moon who fancied himself guardian of the people on this world. So he granted powers that be to any particular individuals that caught his attention. Those with a noble heart and good intentions; those that put others in peril above themselves; those who possess a strong devotion to friendship and spreading happiness," Pitch grimaced at the last word before smirking. "I'm not sure why he thought you would fit that role. Your loyalty is limited to a few."

Even though his fear and panic was overwhelming, Jack couldn't help but be incredulous. "And he chose y-you?"

The look on Pitch's face was somewhere between appalled and indignant. "My curse was granted another way," he hissed. "But our fates are still the same. Do you know what the catch is being a Guardian? To be granted these miraculous abilities? After all, you were placed on this earth to protect people, to guide them when they're lost, to be their steadfast light and hope in times of darkness. You can't just disappear on them now, can you?"

Pitch sounded almost giddy. Dread knotted in a lump at the back of Jack's throat. He thought he might know the price of the moon's power, but he feared to speak it out loud lest it come true.

All those tales his mother loved to tell, about the ancient myths…

The Arthurian Knights and the Holy Grail.

Nicholas Flamel and his alchemy.

Enoch in the Bible, of which Father Goodall praised as a figure one should aspire to, one who walked straight up to Heaven with the Almighty Himself.

Ino, Psyche, Dionysus, even Hercules, and many more of the ancient Greeks whom the gods favored and granted…

"No," Jack whispered.

Pitch nodded in satisfaction at the horror on the boy's face. "Sometimes I wonder what they all felt, watching those they loved grow old and die, go to somewhere that they themselves can never follow. Then again, they can't have been too distraught the way they carry on with their duties so faithfully. In being a Guardian, you eventually lose your past self as well. Another unforeseen consequence."

"Oh," Pitch laughed, glancing up at the moon then back at the shivering boy standing in the snow, looking wraith-like in the silvery light bathing down on him. "Forgive me if I've overstepped my boundaries, but since it has been several weeks from your Choosing and he obviously hasn't informed you of the repercussions should you be lax on the job, allow me." A malevolent grin spread across thin, grey lips. "Not only will you have to watch those around you fade from time and out of your life completely, you yourself will never die, whether or not your youth remains or you age up—that depends on your heart. And on top of that, Jack," Pitch crooned. "If enough people stop believing in you, turn away from that wondrous center you were Chosen for, little by little, you'll fade away too. Only it won't be the sweet embrace of Death that comes for you. You'll just be erased, like you never existed entirely."

Despair was a sharp ache, stinging and deep and twisting inside Jack, constricting his lungs so it was difficult to breathe. He felt like he was suffocating and all the while, the frigid coldness beneath his skin burned accusingly. He imagined there was ice in his veins, every beat of his heart allowing the shards to travel further within him until he would slowly freeze over and become an ice statue, a translucent and hollow monument for all to see.

The shadows around Pitch stretched forward hungrily.

Long, spindly fingertips and the smooth palm of a grey hand slapped his cheek lightly, snapping Jack out of his morose daydream for the moment.

"None of that, Jack," Pitch's voice rumbled in warning. "You still have to carry out your part of our bargain."

Jack heaved a giant breath back into his chest. The coldness seemed to dissipate somewhat. "Did you know?"

"Know?" Pitch echoed. "Did I suspect you might have been Chosen when I found you could see me? No. I thought you were a mortal that had caught a glimpse of the Elysium Fields and whose eyes had now been opened to the other realm. It happens occasionally."

Jack recalled Farmer Pratchett who was struck by lightning and to this day, still claimed he could see angels. He wondered now if it was true.

"No, I had no idea really that you had been marked for this cruel fate until you created this," Pitch said, curling his free hand over the black ice fragment covetously. "This is a thing of beauty, Jack, terrible and wonderful all at once. Why," he chuckled. "They'll believe in both of us—anyone who sees this." A dark gleam shone in his golden eyes. "The things we can build together—"

"I'm not working with you."

The words fell off Jack's lips faster than his mind could react to stop them.

Pitch only smiled amused. "Jack, you really don't have any choice in the matter now, do you?"

"That pact was for me to spread tales so people could fear you—you," Jack emphasized with a low, growing anger that was beginning to blot out the despair. "If we use that," he pointed at the shadow shard. "People will fear me too and that's not what I want."

"Really, so tell me, Jack," Pitch said, his voice ringing with petty arrogance. "What is your center? The trait you were Chosen for to be a symbol of light and hope. Do you know? Because unless you do, and unless you act on it swiftly, you will start to fade. That's what comes in the contract, the small print at the very bottom. Then again, maybe it will be easier for you this way. You'll fade first before anyone you love, and that way you won't have to watch helplessly as they grow old and cross over. And the best part is, you won't have to worry about them grieving wretchedly for you—they'll have forgotten you were even part of their lives."

"Shut up!" Jack shouted, wishing he hadn't cast his staff aside. He wanted to swing the crooked end down and smash Pitch's face in for the horrible lies he was spouting.

Everything he had said so far—it had all been a trick to rouse fear in him. To make him do what Pitch wanted. This was all for Pitch's gain.

But Pitch hadn't even known about the creation of shadow shards before tonight.

Jack ran a hand through his hair, a myriad of emotions: anger, fear, denial, all churned inside him with such intensity he felt ill. He closed his eyes briefly, trying to find temporary escape from the present—there it was again, that white light from before, pale and vulnerable, yet flickering stubbornly in the same way a freshly kindled fire's flame would.

Was this too a part of his curse? It felt so familiar…

A hand gripped his chin roughly. "Don't shut me out, Jack."

Jack's eyes shot open.

Pitch stared down at him in the oddest mixture of shock and confusion.

What must he look like? What did he see?

Jack had a fast and loose tongue. His father used to reprimand him for always speaking before thinking.

"Did it happen with you?" he asked, remembering the golden locket and smiling portrait of the young girl. "Did you forget who you were… your family?"

A low, guttural snarl of fury was the only warning he received before he was slammed backwards into the snow with enough force to knock the breath out of him, then hauled upright from the front of his shirt by a pair of massive shadow claws, and left to dangle a good few inches off the frozen ground.

His head was reeling, the world spun dizzily, and the collar of his shirt was digging uncomfortably into the skin of his neck, making it more difficult for him to draw air back into his bruised chest.

"I don't need your pity! Do you think yourself all so noble and above me now that I've given you some insight regarding what has happened to you ever since your broke through the ice on that lake? You think you can find your center without me?" Pitch demanded, shaking the boy for emphasis. "You couldn't even protect the children in this village from their darkest fears and nightmares without crawling to me first! Even then, you had to carve out an angle for yourself… selfish, ungrateful brat!"

Jack was dropped unceremoniously in the snow… his staff only a foot away.

He fumbled for it in the snow, not quite sure what he was going to do with it—he just wanted the security he felt when it was in his grasp. However, he was still short of breath and bit dazed. His motion was sloppy.

A long, overbearing sigh sounded over his head and he felt the material on the back of his wool cloak bunch up as a hand clenched it tightly and hauled him to his feet.

"Stop this nonsense, Jack, it's tiresome," Pitch drawled. "I can see this was all too much for one small mortal boy to handle in one night. I should have broken the glad tidings more gently." Needle-pointed teeth curved into a wicked grin. "Why don't you sleep on the offer instead of rejecting it outright? Take some time to think on it. Pitch Black and Jack… Frost. Has a nice ring to it, don't you agree?"

Jack saw the slim, grey hand reaching out towards his face, knew it was futile, but continued to kick and struggle, determined to make things as punishing as possible for Pitch in the long run.

"Impudent boy," Pitch said almost affectionately, the tip of his forefinger coming to rest on the crown of Jack's head.

It wasn't so much as falling asleep as it was slipping into unconsciousness. First, his limbs became heavy and numb before going limp completely. He would have fallen down where he stood except for Pitch's firm grip on him. Next was his mind slowing down—all the chaos and fright bouncing around in his head settling into a quiet calm. Then it was difficult to think or care in general that he was totally at Pitch's mercy.

He could see the fearlings from the corners of his eyes darting out to nip at his skin, their whisperings for him to sleep mingling with the low crooning reverberating from Pitch's throat. For a moment, what little vestiges of consciousness Jack had left made him think the spirit was purring.

No, he was humming something. A song… no, a lullaby. Was he even aware he was doing it?

The tune was so familiar and if he only had enough time, Jack could probably recall what it was, but his vision was darkening and reality was dissolving into oblivion.

His eyelids drooping, Jack's gaze lowered with them and spotted the tiny tooth fairy curled up in shivering ball in snow. It was going to freeze. It was so helpless… like him.

The lullaby's humming stopped as Pitch followed the boy's gaze. "Ah, never fear, Jack. I'll give it a special place as my guest for awhile, that's all."

"Not the shadow cage…" Jack slurred. "Not again. Too dark…"

The last thing he saw before falling into the beckoning blackness was the startled face of the Nightmare King shaken for some reason by his words.

oOo

That night Jack dreamed though he remembered nothing in the morning.

He was floating in the sky, not flying, but riding a cloud. An honest to goodness fluffy, white cloud! He rolled over on his back, enjoying the cushiony softness, and gazed at the twinkling stars above, trying to spot the constellations his father had pointed out to him so long ago.

A shimmering glow from the edge of his vision drew his attention away and he turned his head to see a spectral boy standing on the opposite end of the cloud staring back. He glistened brilliantly in the moonlight and his hands he held a staff with a glowing white stone at the end. He raised one arm in silent greeting and Jack tentatively returned the gesture not sure what to make of the newcomer.

"Hello?" Jack called out. "Who are you? Do you want to come closer?"

The spectral boy shook his head as his soft laughter split the air. Billowing curtains of mist rose up from the cloud to cloak the figure away from Jack's prying eyes. A lullaby drifted from behind the veil of mist, one he had heard many times before. It was a gentle melody, wistful and full of hope at the same time.

It was important, but Jack had forgotten the words and he yearned to know them once more.

"Can you tell me what I need to remember?" Jack asked.

"Shhhhhhhhhhhh," came the quiet chastise of the spectral boy. His silhouette, illuminated by the moonbeams shining down, could be seen holding a finger to his lips.

Then Jack's end of the cloud was sinking down to earth and he cried out in dismay, reaching back to the shimmering figure above. The mist had disbanded, the moon had drifted behind a rolling blanket of clouds further up, and the spectral boy looked more like a ghost now: pale and gaunt, a wisp of fog in the dim light, like he might be

blown away

by even

the slightest breeze.

To Be Continued…

Chapter Text

Jack sat in front of the fireplace, watching the flames flicker this way and that, crackling as they greedily devoured the kindling he had piled high upon the hearth. Slim, slivers of smoke curled into the air unleashing the faint scent of pine. It should have been relaxing. There were many times before that Jack could recall sitting there, he and his sister wrapped in a blanket with hot mugs of cocoa listening to his mother share another one of her fantastical tales before bedtime.

But though the fire blazed cheerily, the warmth it put out was only an echo of what it should have felt like, and Jack vaguely wondered if he touched one of the dancing tongues of fire if it even had enough heat to burn him.

He hadn't realized his hand was already out, hovering a few inches above the orange-red flame, when he heard the barest of whispers.

"Whassitdoin?"

Jack blinked out of his stupor, noticed what a precarious position his hand was in and yanked it backwards, looking wildly about for the source of the words he was certain had been spoken.

"Damp ash!"

"Wet wick!"

"Green wood!"

The words flew at him in a tirade of hushed burbling just as a log on the fire split irately in half with a particularly loud pop, sending up a shower of fizzling sparks which he scrambled away from out of pure habit before Jack realized in utter bewilderment that the firewood had just insulted him.

He sat there, squatting on the back of his heels, gaping at the blazing hearth which had gone silent—thin spirals of smoke streamed innocently upwards in lazy loops as if it hadn't just been talking mere seconds before.

Jack didn't even have the pleasure of denying that nothing had happened, not after all he had been through last night. If he was quite honest with himself, this was probably the least craziest of all the side effects from falling through that thrice-accursed ice.

The door to the bedroom swung open then and his sister tumbled inside, hair messily askew and cheeks flushed rosy pink from excitement.

"Jack! Jack, the tooth fairy came after all!" Emma shrieked, clambering onto his back and wrapping two tiny arms around his neck in a hug. "Thank you for finding my tooth!"

Her tooth… yes, that's why he had gone out last night; that's what had led to Pitch Black and his new found powers. But he had given the tooth to Pitch…

Emma unfolded one of her arms from around his neck and held out her cupped hand so he could see what lay in her palm: a tiny emerald feather, shining iridescently in the fire's glow.

"I found this under my pillow this morning! Isn't it pretty?" Emma said.

There was only one way his sister could have received that feather. Glancing about, he caught a flash of the tip of one crystalline wing disappearing behind his water basin on his washstand. The little tooth fairy—it was here in his room. Was it the same one from last night? But Pitch had implied he was going to keep it confined, and Jack was under no delusions that Pitch had a spontaneous moment of compassion the night before. So why…

"Jack, Emma, come help with breakfast!" their mother cried from the beyond the door.

The little fairy was not budging from its hiding spot, and Jack didn't have too long to ponder on its presence.

"Brrrr, Jack you're cold," Emma said sliding down from his back and rubbing her arms where her skin had touched Jack's neck.

Jack balled his hands into fists swiftly, not taking any chances that they should come into contact with anything else. "Tell Mother I'll be out as soon as I'm dressed," he said forcing a smile.

He waited until the door was shut again before letting his fingers brush lightly across the surface of the wooden floorboards. A faint trail of frost trailed after them.

Jack clenched his hands again, trying to squash the panic rising within him. He had to stop this irregularity so life could go on as normal. If these new abilities truly belonged to him, then he would have to regain control somehow.

A frown wrinkled Jack's brow as doubts and worry began to prey upon him. As he sat there, wondering what to do, wondering what dire consequences lied in store for him if he didn't succeed, a memory, musty and dim, drifted up to the forefront of his mind.

"You think too much. Difficult answers require a great deal of thought or none at all."

The voice which the words belonged rang familiar, but Jack couldn't remember who had spoken them or the situation involved.

The advice, however, seemed to make perfect sense; its logic simple but sound. So Jack followed it.

He imagined his fingers making contact and not freezing things, then put that idea into motion.

The next time he touched the floorboards, there was no frost of any kind, and the skin of his fingertips remained a healthy pink.

Jack felt victorious as he pulled his day clothes and boots on without icing them over. Perhaps if he focused enough, this new power would vanish on its own accord.

He spared one last glance at his washstand and water basin and thought perhaps if he should coax the little fairy out, but his mother was calling again so Jack left it alone for the time being. It was probably frightened anyway and Jack was restless to get back to his ordinary routine he used to find boring. But after the events of last night and this morning, ordinary was something to be envied now.

oOo

Emma wasn't much help at breakfast. She kept getting distracted by her new treasure—the tiny emerald feather—stroking its downy softness, twirling it in the light streaming from the window, tucking it behind her ear and pretending she was a grand lady as she sipped her mug of warm milk.

Lydia allowed her these small fancies and did not chastise her for neglecting her chores like she normally would have. Jack supposed the fact that Emma had her tooth knocked out and was in great pain the night before had something to do with it. She was supposed to have gathered the eggs from the henhouse to be sold for later, but her basket lay untouched near the door. She also was supposed to help prepare their morning meal of the day, but instead she was playing with the ingredients spread out on the table. Black grains of pepper fell between her fingers as she scooped it up then released it back into its container. Her two tiny legs swung back and forth from the chair she was sitting on, never touching the floor. Under her breath, she began to sing a familiar nursery rhyme.

"Pease porridge hot, pease porridge cold,

Pease porridge in the pot, nine days old;

Some like it hot, some like it cold,

Some like it in the pot, nine days old."

"Well, it would help if the peas actually got put in the pot first," Jack couldn't help but grin wryly.

His mother arched an eyebrow at him, and Jack cleared his throat and began mixing the ingredients in himself. Soon a pot of peas hung simmering over the fire with Jack occasionally stirring them. He had been a bit tentative at first, eyeing the flames, not forgetting what had happened earlier, but thankfully, this fireplace had been blessedly silent.

"Make sure you keep an eye on the pot, Jack," Lydia said. "Don't let it boil over like last time."

He watched as his mother spread out a variety of fabrics on the other end of the table: Yards of navy blue satin, a roll of white ribbon lace, shimmering pearl buttons, and fancy velvet bows one shade of blue lighter.

Jack had seen the navy blue satin before as he had the misfortune of being the pin-up model, but he hadn't realized how extravagant the governor's wife's gown was intended to be.

"If she weren't already married, I'd say she's actively trying to catch a husband," Jack said.

"Hush, now," Lydia chided. "The poor dear grew up in England where the upper class dress in this fashion every day. She's been here over ten years and she's still not used to our lifestyle. Wearing these types of clothing must make her feel less homesick."

Jack glanced at Emma—usually she'd be hovering over the fabric, staring at it longingly, never even daring to touch something so fine. Today, however, his sister was completely enraptured with her "magic fairy feather" and kept asking their mother how long it would be until they could go outside and play. She wanted to show the feather to her friends.

Their mother told her after chores were done. Fortunately, it was winter and chores were relatively light. After breakfast, Lydia and Jack worked on the gown for a few hours. Since the material had already been pinned and measured, now all that needed was the pieces fitted and sewn together. Between mother and son, they managed to get the bare outline roughly finished, even if Lydia had to pause and recheck some of Jack's lesser skills. Jack supposed if they had continued working all day, they could have attached the lace-ribbon fringed and some bows to the sleeves at least, but his mother understood that the human mind could only handle so much intense focus on one project for only so long before concentration began to wane.

After a light lunch of corn muffins and more peas porridge—they had cooked enough to last the whole day—Lydia finally gave them reprieve to leave so long as they did their daily tasks that should have been done at daybreak.

So Emma at last gathered up the eggs in her basket and Jack chopped some firewood to restock their supply for the night. His sister was already waiting at the door, shawl, mittens, and knitted cap thrown on hastily, stamping her wool covered boots impatiently.

Jack had gone into the bedroom to slip the little fairy in hiding half a corn muffin. He heard a frantic fluttering of wings and an agitated chittering as his hand drew near the water basin, so he didn't linger long. It was when he reached for his staff and noticed it was gone that he finally realized the price Pitch had decided upon for not locking the tiny fairy away in one of his shadow cages.

Jack did not feel the stomach-lurching fear as he had before when he realized the staff was still back at the lake. Now its absence was just a mild annoyance, a minor inconvenience imposed on him by the Nightmare King. Pitch had threatened to destroy it true, but he couldn't now, not even if he wanted to. Not when the staff had helped create those shadow shards that Pitch had big schemes for. He'd get his staff back one way or the other, Jack was sure. It was what Pitch was doing with it in the meantime that troubled him.

oOo

Snow had fallen during the night, so now there was an extra layer upon the thick white blanket that covered the village of Burgess. The trees had been frosted over like icing on a cake, their branches hanging heavy with the added weight. Chimneys and rooftops peeked out from under their new white caps. Jack and Emma added their own footprints to the many that milled throughout the town, calling out their greetings as they made their daily round with the eggs. In the end, after they had gathered a handful of traded items in their basket, they made their way back to the open field they visited the day before. A handful of children were already there playing, flinging snowballs and building snowmen. The field was alit with a flurry of puffy explosions of the fresh, powdery snow. The sky was clear and the sun's rays were nearly blinding as they reflected over the white-covered field, but it was a nice change from the murky, overcast weather that had been plaguing the village lately.

Abigail and Caleb were the first to notice them and rushed over excitedly. Jack smiled as Emma pulled out her fairy feather and Abigail made the appropriate ooh-ing and awww-ing sounds. Caleb, meanwhile, crossed his arms over his chest and beamed proudly up at Jack, displaying the purple circle ringed around his left eye.

"Quite the shiner, you got there," Jack said. "Did you get into trouble?"

"Da wanted to thrash me for fighting, but he tempered down when I told him what happened. Mam says I did right defending Emma and she says Anthony Hawkins is a weasel in boy's clothing that needs a good few whacks across his pelt," Caleb said.

Both he and Jack shared a bout of snickering, reveling in boyish delight, before the other children caught sight of the new arrivals.

"It's JaaaaaaAAAAACK!" screamed the smallest of the group, Thaddeus, whom was referred to as most by Thaddy or Todd.

"Jack?" yelped one of the oldest, Ezra, who halted mid-jump in his game of leap frog, causing his friend, Gideon to crash into his back and send both boys tumbling head over heels into mound of deep snow.

"Jack!" exclaimed Silas, popping up from the ground where he had been making a snow angel, clumps of white covering him from head to toe as he rose.

"Jack!" shrieked the twins, Constance and Verity, abandoning their snowman to sprint across the snowy field to his side.

Soon, Jack was surrounded by a small gaggle of animated children who were pawing at his cloak as if to make certain he truly stood there in front of them, each shouting over each other to be heard, fairly bursting with questions such as "you're not dead?!" and "did you really drown?" and "they said you lost your wits! Do you remember us?"

But before Jack become truly overwhelmed, it was Ezra who stopped the tirade of endless demands.

"Quiet!" the boy roared and the rest of the children fell silent. Ezra, along with Gideon, was one of their ringleaders and as such, they listened to him without quarrel.

"Now then," Ezra said, stepping over to Jack and peering suspiciously up and down at him. "Are you really Jack?" Being only eleven, he was a full head shorter, so he wasn't quite as intimidating as he tried to make himself appear. Jack decided to humor him though.

"Well, when I woke up, that's what Emma and my mother were calling me, so I thought it best to go along with them. Dad always told me never to argue with the ladies," Jack said, winking at the twins.

Constance and Verity, two years older than his sister, giggled behind their hands.

"Next question, the most important," Ezra said. "Do you," he paused dramatically, before lowering his voice so everyone had to lean in to hear, "Remember the last game we played here, the best game in all history of games in existence?"

"Hmmmm," Jack tapped a finger to his chin pretending to have trouble recalling while the rest of the children waited breathlessly. When it looked like little Todd might break down and cry at the thought of his favorite person not remembering, Jack finally relented.

"Knights and Horses!" he bellowed suddenly with a wild grin.

The children bounced in place, clapping and laughing at Jack's ruse.

"It's called Jousting War Steeds!" Ezra objected, but he was grinning too.

"Whatever it's called, I remember I was winning," Jack couldn't resist bragging.

"Oh!" Ezra gave an affronted squeak as he sputtered. "You were not!"

Gideon came up behind his friend with challenging glint in his eyes. "I say let's put that claim to the test."

"Same teams as before!" Ezra shrieked, not allowing any room for protest. Not that anyone would have. It was the children's favorite game after all.

"To the hiding spot!" little Todd cried, racing ahead of everyone as they dashed towards the woods that aligned the edge of the snow-covered field.

The hiding spot was a gnarled, withered dead tree, hollowed out in the center by the time and the weather, serving no purpose until the children discovered they could store their most precious possessions inside, away from the disapproving eyes of their parents. There was a small array of items within, some the children had made themselves, others which they had snuck out of their houses. Not stealing, they would deny, simply borrowing things that would never be missed.

The children gathered up the necessary equipment for their game then made their way further into the forest to a narrow glen, nerves quivering with anticipation. They hadn't played this game ever since the day Jack had fell through the ice, half out of consideration and half out of lack of motivation.

The game had been invented by Jack one winter day when the snow was too grey and slushy to build proper forts and have snowball fights. The children had been bored and restless with far too much time on their hands and practically nothing to do. As most adults know, this formula often spells headaches and disaster for when children are bored they become incredibly imaginative at becoming un-bored no matter what risks are involved.

The game of Knights and Horses was no exception. The idea had sprung into Jack's head probably because the night before his mother had retold one of his favorite stories to him and his sister, the story about King Arthur and his Knights. The jousting was the part that stood out the most to him. It sounded awfully dangerous and thrilling at the same time. He didn't have a lance and he didn't have a horse, but that didn't mean he couldn't pretend.

Of course, when he first suggested the game to the others they weren't completely won over. Not until Gideon demanded an example of how it was played. So Jacked had hitched Caleb up onto his shoulders and handed him his staff, while Ezra had leaped onto Gideon's back armed with a sturdy branch. Then, unleashing their battle cries, the two human ladders ran at each other full force with as much heed to their safety as a goose gives to a cow charging at it.

The end result was Caleb gaining a nasty gash on his forehead from enemy's branch and Ezra knocked clean off Gideon's back onto the slushy ground, dislocating his shoulder on impact. Of course, their parents had banned them from playing such a "violent game with no rhyme or reason" after they had limped home with their injuries. And being children, of course, they had gotten around directly disobeying this law by creating their own loophole.

If it was a game it must have rules, and if they wanted to keep the brutality down to a bare minimum so their parents wouldn't suspect what they were up to, they had to take safety precautions. Jack had pointed out that in the stories, knights wore helmets and breastplates to protect themselves from the brunt of the lance. While they were a bit lacking in actual armor—no one was willing to ask Nathaniel for help on this—they found good enough substitutes for the real thing as children often do.

Silas, as a wood-cutter's apprentice, brought two misshapen but sturdy wooden bowls he himself had carved out to provide as helmets. Constance and Verity had fashioned two brooms out of bramble sticks and tied together with twine to act as their lances. (There was considerably less damage dealt now.) Ezra, being the miller's son, brought two empty grain sacks that would cushion the blows if they stuffed them under their clothes. Abigail and Emma each had brought an old woven basket to serve as shields.

Gideon had added the point system and rules to the game. If you struck someone's shoulder, it was one point. Two points if you struck the ribs. Three points if you struck a direct hit to the chest. No aiming for the head—they were aware the bramble brooms were capable of scratching one's eyes out. You never targeted the knight's "horse". It was dishonorable and you would instantly lose—not that any of the children were devious enough to do this.

Their jousting gear donned and ready, the children split into two groups: Jack, Emma, Abigail, Silas, and Todd in one; Ezra, Gideon, Caleb, Constance and Verity on the other. To be honest, Jack couldn't recall the score from the last time they had played; only that he had been surprised when Caleb had asked to switch to Ezra's team. Later the boy had told him he wanted to see if he could win against Jack—that he felt there was no challenge when he was on Jack's team, because Jack "always had good fortune on his side". A bit touched, Jack swore not to go easy on him and he intended to keep his word.

So now the two groups of children stood within the small glen concealed in the forest, which they had nick-named the Courtyard, because it was where the valiant knights of Burgess fought and fell in battle.

"For Glory and Honor!" Silas proclaimed, perched on top of Jack's shoulders as he readied his weapon at his opponent.

"For Guts and Blood!" Caleb crowed from his seat on Ezra's back as he did the same.

"Caleb!" came Abigail's admonished gasp. Emma, Constance and Verity all cheered appreciatively.

"HUZZAH!"

"HUZZAH!"

Unleashing their war cry, the knights and horses clashed in the most spectacular display of bramble-broom jousting the world had ever seen. Pretending to fight was much more fun than actual fighting itself, and if you asked Jack, it required a great deal more thinking. Real fighting was all adrenalin and raw instinct. Play fighting was inventive, brimming with mystery, never knowing until the last moments what the outcome would be.

So as the Knights of Burgess battled, they were very often interrupted by other calamities disrupting their quest, as what usually happens in all adventures. Once, they had to unite under one banner to defeat Gideon when he jumped out of a tree and transformed into fire-breathing dragon. Unluckily for him, the twin princesses Constance and Verity quickly apprehended him by tying their aprons together to create an enchanted dragon snare. Then they took great delight in screaming, "Off with his head!"

Little Todd was supposed to be keeping track of the points scored by each team to help him better learn his numbers, but half way through, he grew bored and ran in circles around the knights singing, "Ring a-round the rosies, pocket full of posies!" and would not relent until everyone had fallen down into the snow pretending to be dead of plague. Thankfully, they were all revived by Emma and the touch of her magic fairy feather she brushed on the tip of their noses, and the battle resumed again.

So enthralled with their grand adventures, so utterly fearless in fighting off imaginary foes, so captivated in their own fantasy world they themselves had built, the children gave little attention to their actual surroundings or the possibility they were being watched.

oOo

It was December and night came early. The children only had a short time playing make-believe before the sun's radiance began fading and the violet hues of twilight began filtering through the woods. Resorting to pick up the game again as soon as possible, the children placed their jousting gear back inside the hollow tree and waved their goodbyes before departing their separate ways.

Emma made it halfway back before she began straggling behind as tiredness sat in. Jack gave her a piggyback ride the rest of the way even though his muscles screamed at him for doing so. Their mother clucked at them when they walked through the door with sheepish grins, frosted over with snow and flushed from the cold. She shooed them to sit by the fire, made them strip down to their undergarments, then wrapped them each in blankets, giving them bowls of leftover peas porridge from that morning. Jack didn't complain. The porridge was still just as tasty and warmed his insides. He did a better job of finishing his portion than Emma. His sister only managed a few mouthfuls before she started nodding off, drowsy from the fire's heat. Lydia sighed, prying the bowl away from her hands before scooping her up, blanket and all, and headed towards the children's bedroom.

"Your nightshirt is on the chair there, Jack. I'll call you once I get her changed," Lydia said.

"You're sending me to bed this early too?" Jack protested feeling slightly offended.

It might have been dark, but it was not even six o'clock yet. He was older than Emma. He didn't remember going to bed this early since before she was born.

"You children have been doing some strenuous activity that has drained all the energy out you," Lydia said somewhere beyond the door. "I won't ask what. Every child keeps their secrets. But I won't have either of you falling ill because you dallied too long in the snow, you especially Jack."

"I feel perfectly fine!" Jack exclaimed before his body betrayed him and he sneezed four times in a row. He cupped a hand over his nose to muffle the sound and hoped his mother hadn't heard.

"Doctor Brown's medicine is on the top shelf in the cupboard," Lydia said, displeasure ringing clear as a bell in her tone.

Jack pulled a gruesome face, his stomach turning at the thought, but he went and took the bottle down anyway. Then as he was pouring himself a spoonful of the vile concoction, he paused as it occurred to him that he hadn't felt unnaturally cold all day. Nor had any frost spilled forth unexpectedly from his fingertips. He glanced at the fire but there was only the steady crackling of the flames—no insults of any kind were hurled at him. It was almost as if this morning were a dream…

But it had been real. As real as the shadows that Pitch Black prowled in. Pitch, who had not showed himself not even once today. Not the even the faintest whisper or abnormal movement came from the shadows that danced on the walls and lurked in the corners of the log cabin. It wasn't like Pitch to stay away this long, especially when he had been so interested in the creation of the shadow shard the night before. What was he up too?

"You better have taken that medicine, young man," his mother's voice called reprimanding, scattering his thoughts.

Jack took a deep breath then gulped down the bitter liquid, shoveling the rest of his porridge behind it quickly to dampen the awful taste. Then pulling his nightshirt on, he swiped a corn muffin from the table before heading to his room.

Lydia had already gotten Emma settled into bed, even though now his sister was fighting against sleeping for some reason.

"Not yet," Emma whined as she sat on her knees on the bed and stared up at the night sky outside the window. "It's too dark. I can't see them!"

Though the sky had been clear in the daytime, the clouds had rolled in to once again cover the moon's soft glow, concealing the stars as well. There was only blackness enveloping the earth and Jack felt an ominous shudder drift down his spine.

It's only clouds, he told himself, breaking the corn muffin in two, stuffing one half into his mouth and placing the other half tucked away behind the water basin for the little fairy. He thought he might have heard an appreciative chirp, but it was drowned out by Emma's howling.

"No, I need to make a wish!" His sister cried, cranky from exhaustion. "I need there to be stars!"

Instead of growing irritable at her daughter's fussing, Lydia only smiled in a secretive, knowing manner that mothers often do. "If its stars you want, I can make them appear. Wait a moment."

She went out of the room for a moment and Jack heard her rummaging through drawers and pulling things aside. When she came back she was holding a round tin lantern. Behind its translucent cow horn pane in the front, the pale glow of a beeswax candle cut a path through the inky darkness. The lantern's tinplate had been pierced by tiny holes dotted all over, and the flickering light from within made soft white-yellow speckles twirl and dance along the ceiling in a variety of patterns.

"Stars," Emma gasped, her eyes wide with wonder.

Jack stared, half-forgotten memories uncurling in his mind.

Their mother placed the lantern on the nightstand, turning it so the cow horn pane was facing the wall. "Do you remember, Jack? You were always so scared of the dark when you were little. Your father made this for you so you could fall asleep. It was your nightlight."

Nightlight.

The word shone with such bright conviction he staggered under its weight. He sat down on the edge of the bed feeling a bit wobbly and wondered what this relentless drumming in his head all of a sudden meant.

Emma nibbled on her bottom lip as she stared at the glimmering lights splattered across the ceiling, her eyes darting outside her window to the darkened sky above.

"Go on, make your make your wish," Lydia said. "The ones outside are still there, you just can't see them. They'll hear you, I promise."

Emma nodded. Then opening her mouth, a familiar lullaby tumbled out.

"Star light, star bright,

First star I see tonight,

I wish I may, I wish I might,

Have this wish I wish tonight."

Then closing her eyes, she made a wish, not daring to utter it out loud lest it not come true. When she opened them again, she looked very content.

Lydia gave her a hug, helped her under the heavy blankets, pulling them up to her chin, before kissing her on the forehead. Jack tucked himself in, the words to the lullaby resounding in his ears with a sense of wrongness that he did not know how to explain. His mother swept his messy bangs out of his eyes before kissing him on the forehead as well.

"Good night, my darlings," Lydia said, closing the door behind her gently.

Emma had already fallen asleep as soon as her head had touched her pillow. Jack remained awake thinking hard, hands resting behind his head, as he stared up at those flickering stars the lantern had illuminated on their ceiling.

"Starlight, star bright," Jack murmured to himself with a wrinkled brow. "Not right, not right…"

Finally, feeling as if he might go mad if he did not solve this puzzle, he turned back the covers, swung his feet over the side of the bed and knelt down in front of the nightstand so his face was level with the lantern.

Not lantern.

"Nightlight," Jack whispered mesmerized, as he reached out and touched one finger to it, glazing the tinplate over with frost. The candle within still burned brightly, melting the frost into tiny beads of water. A numb kind of haze had wrapped around Jack's head. Coming forth from it, he heard a quiet voice reciting the true lyrics and he found himself chanting in unison.

"Nightlight, bright light,

Sweet dreams I bestow,

Sleep tight, all night,

Forever I will glow."

He felt his heart skip a beat happily as he heard the words spoken out loud and a great calmness wash over him. A detached part of him realized he was more than likely not going to remember this in the morning, but he did not care. He felt like he had completed something special, some task that was meant to protect.

Jack fell asleep halfway to the floor—his head nestled in his arms that lay folded on top of the nightstand. Frost sprawled out from under his bare feet in elegant, swirling designs and his breath escaped in crisp, white puffs of air, but Jack felt no biting chill of the cold, not even in his slumber.

He did not notice the golden eyes in the darkness that had watched the entire bedtime ritual, listened as the forgotten lullaby was spoken out loud, and even now watched him as he slept, caught fast in the throes of a dream.

Golden eyes which were both brooding and calculating in their gaze.

If Pitch had been able to stay and observe Jack's dream, perhaps the events of later would have played out differently. But the fact was he could not. The nightlight prohibited him. So begrudgingly, he took his leave, disappearing back into the shadows with a great deal to think upon.

oOo

Jack was walking down a grand hallway, reminiscent of the castles in stories; the walls and columns glowed with a cool, white light. There was a kind of ethereal fog lingering about and Jack waded through it, seeing no more than a hands length in front of him, his muffled footsteps the only sound that fell upon his ears.

Then the fog seemed to part and Jack saw another figure standing at the other end of the hall: it was a boy like him, with brown tousled hair, scrawny legged, thin and willowy, and an untold joke hovering at the corner of his mouth.

"Who are you?" the boy asked.

"Who are you?" Jack echoed, stopping in place.

"I'm Jack," the boy said as though it were obvious.

"I'm Jack," Jack corrected with a huff.

"We're both Jack!" the boy laughed, clapping his hands together in delight.

"We can't both be Jack," Jack protested.

The other Jack cocked his head to one side as if considering this, "Why not?"

Jack really did not have a reason. He was simply offended there was someone else walking around with the name that should belong solely to him. So he squared his shoulders and said the most powerful argument a child can give without having any facts behind it.

"Because."

The other Jack's eyes widened as he stared. His features morphed into one concerned. "Why are you crying?" he asked.

"I'm not"—that's what Jack was going to say. Only as he opened his mouth to do so, he felt the thin trail of tears tracing down his cheeks. Jack lifted one hand to catch a teardrop as it dripped off his chin. It fell into his palm, hardened and pearl-shaped, cool to the touch like a small piece of hail.

He rolled it between his fingers dumbfounded and noticed movement out of his peripheral vision. Turning his head, he noted for the first time that rows of giant windows lined the grand hallway, their sheets of glass misted over by the fog. It was his reflection that had caught Jack's eye.

Or was it? There was a boy trapped in the windowpane, a boy cloaked in silver armor decorated in countless dark gemstones that glistened like beads of water; a boy with snowy white hair and pale blue eyes that seemed to hold a lifetime of secrets; blue eyes overflowing with tears as clear as diamonds. His countenance looked both astoundedly elated and so utterly wretched as he returned the stare, that Jack was seized by an incessant urge to discover why.

Jack reached out his hand—the one that held his frozen teardrop between his fingertips—and pressed his palm flat against the glass, the spectral boy mirroring him on the other side. Frost spread out over the window in tiny, intricate, blueish-white patterns, slowly obscuring the spectral boy from sight.

"Wait!" Jack cried. "What's wrong? Why are you so sad?"

The spectral boy was mouthing words he could not make out. Jack pressed his face closely to the chilled pane to hear him better. The boy on the other side did the same as though if he wished hard enough he could pass right through the thin sheet of glass dividing them.

The boy's mouth quivered with a heavy emotion. His lips turned up in the barest whisper of a rueful smile. He blinked slowly, once—twice—then finally…

"I dreamed for too long," he breathed a weary sigh, pulling his hand away just as the frost covered the window completely.

There came an abrupt burst of a brilliant white light from beyond the other side and the thin sheet of glass shattered into a thousand pieces of glittering crystals.

Shattered like the ice on the lake when he fell through.

Jack was falling again through bitter coldness, out of time, out of space, and the stars around him reached out to engulf him in their silvery luminance.

To Be Coninued…

Chapter Text

Sunday dawned with the skies bright and clear allowing its namesake to shine down upon Burgess. The snow still kept its hold over the small village for though the sun's rays reached long, they lacked the warmth to wake the sleeping earth below. The Overland family had to trek across the frozen ground to get to church. The walk itself was fun with Jack and Emma pretending they were on some extraordinary adventure while their mother trailed behind them amused at their actions. Arriving at church was fine too—they called their hellos and how-do-you-dos and sat in their usual pew alongside the Williams family. The sermon itself, Jack was not ashamed to say, he quite blocked out.

It was a habit he had never quite broken since he was very little and first started attending church. He supposed Father Goodall was to blame for it. From the way his mother spoke of God's kindness and love, and the memories of his father reading from the Bible, Jack knew they were stories in there worth telling, worth knowing. Except every time Father Goodall took the pulpit and with jowls flapping wide, fire and brimstone were all he spewed out. It dampened one's spirit after hearing the same message so many times, and honestly, Jack usually spent the next hour or so inventing some fantasy inside his head to escape. If Joseph Overland were alive, there would have been questions later that evening in regards to the sermon to make sure his son had paid attention. But he wasn't alive and that was that.

The best part of church-going in Jack's opinion was the meeting and greeting afterwards where the townspeople found out what their friends and neighbors had been up to this past week. In short, church was the second most buzzing place in the village to hear the latest gossip besides the tavern.

Jack received many a heart hand shake and shoulder clap from the men-folk giving their glad tidings that he had recovered from his ailment. He also was showered with a great deal of hair-ruffling and cheek-pinching from the women he claimed it gladdened their hearts the Lord had granted him his health due to their prayers.

Finally wriggling free from their clutches, Jack made his way to the fence that ringed around the spans of the church and leaned against it.

"Whew!" he exhaled, wiping his brow. "See? I tried to warn you, not the best day. Hey," he said poking at the left side of his cloak. "You still alive?"

He felt a slight stirring in the hidden pocket he had sewn on the inside and then the tickle of little feet as they crawled over his chest. Moments later, the little tooth fairy poked her head out from under the collar of his cloak and chattered her response. It bordered on annoyed.

The morning after his mother had set the nightlight out, Jack had awoken in an aching, miserable cold heap on the floor. He had opened his eyes to the little tooth fairy scant inches away from his face staring cautiously at him. Not daring to even straighten up into a sitting position, Jack remained still and had slowly lifted one finger to touch the bright yellow plumage on its head. The instant his fingertip had made contact, a small explosion of frost flurries had scattered out, causing the tooth fairy to unleash a shrill and startled squeak and stab him in the finger with its tiny beak.

It had been the start of a beautiful friendship.

He didn't know what exactly the full job details were that the tooth fairies had back home, but he soon discovered the little fairy had a knack for picking out pleasing colors and patterns and often helped him with his sewing projects from Tailor Saunders whenever he was in his room alone. He had wanted to introduce her to Emma, but the tiny tooth fairy was extraordinarily shy and always hid if she saw anyone else but him. He thought perhaps she might at least enjoy watching a game of Knights and Horses and planned to take her with him next time. However, the last few days had been oddly warm, warm enough that the skies poured down freezing rain instead of snow and thus, everyone in Burgess had been cooped up inside their houses. Then finally, yesterday night, the weather returned to its usual climate of cold and snow, creating a fresh white blanket upon which today's clear skies dazzled over.

Baby Tooth, pent up with cabin fever, squeaked loudly until Jack had agreed to take her with him, even though he had to remain still for two hours in a rigid-back, wooden pew while she dozed inside his cape.

"How did you sleep through all that screaming anyway?" he wondered out loud. "You gotta teach me that trick, preferably with my eyes open so I don't get into trouble."

"I'm glad to see you're well and about, Jack."

Jack spun around, stuffing Baby Tooth back down into the secret pocket ignoring her indignant trill of protest.

It was Winnifred the miller's daughter, the auburn shade of her hair highlighted by the indigo-colored gown she wore that peaked out from beneath her grey, wool cloak. By her one raised eyebrow and skeptical expression, Jack was certain she had spoken with sarcasm as she had no doubt overheard him seemingly have a conversation with himself. Still, she made no further comment on the matter, getting straight to the point as she always did.

"I saw you. In the woods. Playing that horrid game again," she leveled cool gaze at him. "The ones our parents forbade."

Jack winced. The miller's family had been the one that raised the most ruckus over the children playing Knights and Horses, since it had been their son, Ezra, who had been the one left with the most grievous injury. However, you wouldn't know it if you had seen the boy a week later, shoulder relocated and climbing trees like nothing had happened.

Still, Jack hoped Winnifred hadn't told anyone of their secret pastime. She was a quiet, practical sort of girl and he wasn't sure what she had been doing so far out in the woods that she had discovered the Courtyard. Even Anthony Hawkins hadn't had the luck of finding it and he knew Jack's little band were hiding something.

"And how, pray tell, did you happen upon our secret kingdom, milady?" Jack smiled. "Did you lose your way?"

"I was looking for my brother. It was getting late and he had been gone for hours. With grandfather ailing now, Mother starts to fret over little things like that." There was a slight tremor in Winnifred's voice at the last part; the barest pinch of a worry-wrinkled between her brows.

Jack looked over to where the wagons were hitched. He saw her father, Asher, talking to Mr. Williams as he readied the horses, but neither the miller's wife Julia, nor the old miller James were there. For them to miss church that day, it must be serious.

"If he's ill, Doctor Brown—" Jack began.

"It's the weakening of the mind that comes with old age," Winnifred cut him off sharply. "There's no medicine for that."

He heard the dull anger buried deep in her words, saw the sadness reflected in the blue of her irises. Jack wanted to console her, because sorrow was an emotion no one should suffer alone, but as always, he was a bit inept in his manner of handling it.

"Sooo… you found us but you didn't say hello or ask to join in?" Jack said, changing the subject completing and berating himself for sounding like a fool who lacked empathy.

At the very least, it made Winnifred forget her family's troubles temporarily as she turned a wearied, scornful gaze his direction.

"I didn't find you. If you're talking about that small glen in the forest, I've known about it forever. Ezra and I used to play there when we were younger. I suppose it's his to share with his friends now. Although…" Winnifred pursed her lips as she pressed carefully. "Jack, don't you think you're a little old for such childish frivolities?"

Jack felt the words cut into him as cold and unforgiving as the winter wind. It wasn't the first time he had heard such words before. Even before Emma was born, his own father had been worried that his son hadn't gotten along with children his own age, how often he was alone. As he had grown older, the whisperings and rebukes had only grown stronger. Why did a boy of his age still play pretend and daydream? Why was he not more responsible on his goals, more focused on his future?

It was nothing that had not been said to him before, but never from Winnifred. They had never really been friends though they were the same age, but she had always been polite and listened to him even when he had been recounting some made-up story he half-believed himself. When had that changed?

"What are you saying?" Jack asked wondering why this time those same words hurt as they had not before.

Winnifred's expression softened as she heard his defensive tone. "What I mean is why are you dragging your feet in the present like it will last forever? Sometimes I feel even the younger ones will grow up and mature before you. I don't want you to be left behind."

Jack was uncertain if she was judging him or pitying him. Perhaps a mixture of both. He didn't have time to dwell on it. Ezra popped up between them suddenly, hands on his hips as he squinted crossly at Jack.

"Are you being sweet on my sister, Jack?" he demanded, sticking his tongue out, crossing his eyes and shuddering with enough conviction that he appeared to be having a violent convulsion.

Winnifred swiped him upside his head and his eyes crossed back to normal.

"Because if so, you're outta luck. She's got a beau down in Hawthorne. They write each other awful, sappy lovelorn letters with so much pining drivel, you could wring maple syrup out of them!" A truly devilish smirk played across the boy's lips as he pretended to swoon dramatically. " 'Forsooth the stars done shine down upon me this night with the same light captured in your eyes that I last looked upon thee!' "

Laughing as his sister made a grab for him, Ezra leaped over the other side of the fence and continued to recite line after shameless line. " 'Every day apart from thee, I wither like a flower without sun or air!' 'Nay until I see the familiar swirl of thine writ of hand once more, I shall not rest!' 'I fear that an agreement cannot be reached—such dark thoughts prey upon my mind and I clutch yon letter to my bosom and weep—!' "

At this point, Ezra doubled over choking on air not long after the word 'bosom' had flown out of his mouth, and even Jack couldn't stop the muffled laughter he tried hard to repress because he could tell by Winnifred's flushed face that she was quite embarrassed.

She took the mocking in stride very valiantly though. "I wouldn't expect either of you to understand," she said raising her chin up with dignity. "You're just a boy," she said to her brother before looking at Jack. "And you—you on the cusp of manhood, have the heart of a child. You're like those immortal gods in the legends Magister Phillips used to drone about. They dabble amongst us mere humans because they're bored and they're tired of things never changing. They'll never appreciate deeper, complex emotions past their own curiosity and amusement—and neither will you."

Winnifred gathered the folds of her dress up, the ends of her auburn hair whipping to one side as she turned on her heel and marched off.

"Don't pay her any mind, Jack!" Ezra said, bouncing on the fence's bottom railing with two feet. "You wouldn't want to be her beau anyway. She's all hard-work and bossy. We used to have fun playing together—she'd invent the best games, but then she got older and went all serious. She changed." The boy climbed up two more beams of the fence's railing so he could stand upright on the fencepost. Wobbling a little, he swung his arms out to balance himself. "But you won't ever change, will you, Jack? One day, I'll own the mill and we all can live there: me, you, Gideon and Emma, everyone!" Throwing his head back, he whooped excitedly to the sky, "We'll be the Knights of Burgess! And we'll build this town into a real kingdom!"

"Ezra! Ezra Bennett! Get down from there, boy! Let's not keep your mother waiting another minute!"

Ezra heaved a great sigh, shoulders slumping, before he jumped down and dashed through the snow to hop onto the back of his Bennett's wagon. Winnifred pulled him to sit up front between her and Asher. The boy's shock of ink-black hair contrasted greatly against his sister and father's auburn coloring. He called out his goodbyes, waving madly as he did so, lurching forward a little as the wagon rolled away.

Jack waved back, but the spell of happiness Ezra had cast was swiftly snuffed out as he turned and was greeted with the sight of Thomas Grymes conversing his with his mother.

They stood close together, lingering near the doorway of the church. Thomas Grymes had removed his felt hat and was twisting the brim between both his hands in an almost nervous fashion. Lydia nodded as he talked, tucking her hand that clutched a miniature version of the King James' Bible into the fur muff she wore on the other. They were too far away for their words to carry but the sound of his mother's soft laughter over whatever Grymes had said made something dark and angry knot tightly within Jack's chest.

"Quite a lovely picture, aren't they?"

Anthony Hawkins stood off to one side, that smug gap-toothed grin plastered on his freckled face as he leered at him. Jack resisted the urge to add more gaps to his smile. He turned away, intending to ignore him, but of course, Anthony had no intentions of letting him leave so easily.

"Forget your witching rod, Jack? Or did the devil come back to reclaim it?"

Jack spun back around, a hiss escaping his lips because how dare he start this again right here, right now. Had he not learned his lesson before? Jack did not care if it was one day in the stocks for fighting in the churchyard on the Lord's Day. He refused to be intimidated by the likes of a bully-ing ruffian as Anthony Hawkins.

Jack took a menacing step forward.

"I saw the ice."

Jack stopped in place, the hairs on the back of his neck prickling. "What?"

Anthony's expression twisted into something hostile as he spoke, watching Jack's reaction carefully. "The ice that came out of your staff when you swung it around that night on the field."

For one heart-pounding moment, Jack thought he had somehow overseen the entire shadow-shard spectacle, but then Anthony continued.

"You were whipping it about and kicking up snow everywhere, I thought I was imagining it, but then you hit Nathaniel in the face with it and the ice and frost exploded from the curved end."

Jack recalled Anthony standing there in the aftermath of the brawl, hands in pockets, just staring at him oddly. How he had made the sign of the Holy Cross before he left. A cold dread pooled into his stomach. He had seen the unnaturalness…

"What do you want?" Jack asked thickly, feeling like his throat was closing. It was difficult to breathe all of a sudden. He tried to calm himself.

It was all right. All Anthony had was his testimony, same as before, even though it was true this time. Jack didn't have his staff so it couldn't be used as evidence against him if he was forced to demonstrate with it if the stakes grew high enough. Still, he had never wriggled out of one of Anthony Hawkins' frame-ups without blame not once in all his life. Anthony was clever as he was cruel. He enjoyed scheming and was patient enough to wait for the perfect opportunity to present itself before he called wolf on Jack. In most cases, Jack was almost always caught red-handed even if he was not at fault.

Anthony came closer, eyes narrowing full of meanness, and leaned in until his face was inches away, his breath hot against Jack's ear.

"I want you out of this village, you walking abomination of evil."

Footsteps crunched in the snow as several women-folk shuffled past, and Anthony swung a heavy arm around Jack's shoulders and let out a loud chuckle as if they were sharing some boyish joke.

Across the churchyard, Lydia spotted them and waved, a smile lighting upon her face as she took in the sight of what appeared to be two boys making up after a fight. She knew that her son and the Hawkins boy did not get along, but perhaps she had some false notion that they were trying to follow the Eighth Commandment and keep the Sabbath Day holy by not squabbling with each other.

Jack forced himself to wave back, aware that his hand was shaking and Anthony knew it. He felt the other boy lean his weight against his side and steer him around until he was facing the back of the church. A figure stood there in the shadows of the back entrance clothed in black and for a wild moment, Jack thought it was Pitch until he spotted the potbelly bulging against the garb and the white collar poking out the top.

Father Goodall.

His round, pink face scrunched up into a ball of wrinkles as he squinted across the glaring brightness of the snow towards them. His face was shining with the sweat he accumulated after one of his bellowing sermons, but he didn't wear his usual satisfied expression of someone who believed they had just saved multiple souls from hellfire by striking the fear of God in them. He dabbed at his balding forehead with a handkerchief in quick, anxious movements as he stared in their direction. White, bushy eyebrows furrowed low as a deep-set frown settled into place between the loose skin of his jowls.

"Revelation 20:10," Anthony murmured, sadistic glee oozing from his tongue, as he squeezed his arm tighter around his shoulders, hard enough to bruise. "You're going to burn, Jack."

Jack shoved him away and staggered backwards, breaths coming in short and shallow. His eyes darted between Anthony and Father Goodwill trying to make sense of what was what. Had Anthony told him what he had seen? Did Father Goodall believe him? Or was Anthony trying to goad him until his unnaturalness burst forth from pure defensive fear leaving no room for doubt in anyone's mind.

Father Goodall was one of only a few people who hadn't welcomed Jack back. It was strange for a man of God not to be proclaiming what a wondrous miracle this boy brought back from Death's doorstop was. Unless Father Goodall did not believe Jack was a miracle and more like a plague…

Anthony's gap-toothed smiled curved widely like he had already won.

Jack forced himself to turn and walk away. Walk slowly and calmly away like he had nothing to hide, nothing to lose, past his mother inquiring where he was going, outside the churchyard, down the snowy streets of the village and outside its boundaries; weaving through the forest off hidden rabbit-trails and through thickets and hollows, and beyond rocks and steep humps of the land as it slowly formed into the mountains that ringed around Burgess.

Then and only then, when he was sure that he was alone and no one was following him did Jack begin to run.

oOo

Panic overtook his mind and fear coursed through his legs. Jack ran blindly through the woods, crashing through the underbrush, swatting tree limbs out of his face, and tripping over tree roots. He paid little heed to the thorns and bramble that ripped at his clothes, hair and skin. He just ran—a wild, frantic instinct within him screaming for him to get as far away from the village, from Anthony Hawkins' sinister lies and Father Goodall's distrusting, baleful eyes.

He ran until his felt like his legs were on fire, his chest ached from breathing so hard; he ran until he burst into a the open of a small clearing, and then vision blurring, let himself fall fast upon a boulder intending to lay there until both his surroundings and mind had stopped spinning.

A soft, hesitant chirrup came from his cloak and then Jack felt the press of tiny hands against his cheek as the little fairy patted him consolingly.

"I'm alright," he mumbled still not moving. "Gimme… minute…"

He clutched the smooth surface of the rock beneath him, sighing in relief as he felt the coldness seep back into his body. It was winter… why was it so hot? He could make frost now, couldn't he? Wasn't that the reason he had been running? Yet here he lay, sprawled on this slab of rock and the parts of it that his skin was touching had not iced over at all. That was a good thing, right? Then why did he feel like he was burning up inside, like he might melt into a puddle of slush if he lay still long enough?

Baby Tooth trilled worriedly as she tugged at a strand of his hair, urging him to get up.

Jack panted, fighting the pull of sleep on the edges of his mind. He felt as empty and weightless as a wisp of water vapor, like he might disappear entirely if he allowed his consciousness to drift away. Maybe though… if he shut his eyes for a few seconds…

"Taking a nap when you should be out fulfilling your end of the bargain? You are still quite the child, Jack."

The devil himself would appear.

Jack groaned, scrunching his eyes tightly. "Go 'way. Don't wanna talk… not today."

"And here I thought you would be so pleased to have your staff back."

Jack cracked open one eye and peered beadily up at the dark figure who loomed before him, a familiar wooden staff with a curved end held by grey, spindly fingers. He made a half-heartedly grab for it and Pitch dragged it back just out of reach—of course he did—with an amused chortle deep in his throat. Jack tumbled off the boulder and onto the deliciously cold ground below. A contented sigh breezed past his lips as he burrowed further into the snow, feeling the chilly sting of it drive away some the maddening hotness that was making him dizzy.

"Having some problems with the new powers, are we?" Pitch tsk-ed above his head. "Let me guess: have you been shoving them back down hoping they would go away on their own?" There came a light rap of the staff against his head in reprimand. "How typical."

Jack lifted his head from the snow to glare at the spirit. "And where have you been?" he demanded. "Thought you were planning to hound me 'bout making more of those stupid shards, me joining you to create your shadow empire, blah, blah, blah…"

Pitch flashed his needle-pointed teeth into a wide grin. "Did you miss me, Jack?"

Jack flung a handful of snow up at him in response. Pitch disappeared in a swirling column of shadows and reappeared off to his right cackling as he did so.

"What do you want?" Jack asked, rubbing his eyes tiredly. There was no way Pitch was just going to hand over his staff without wanting something in return, and Jack wasn't going to let him take the little tooth fairy back. Speaking of which…

Baby Tooth popped out from under his cape where she had hidden as soon as Pitch had made his entrance, her momentary fear washed away by the outrage she felt at the Boogie Man upsetting the boy who had been so kind to her the past few days. She strode angrily over the top of the snow, her body light enough not to sink through, and shook her tiny fist up at the spirit, a tirade of ear-splitting chitters and shrieks falling from her beak.

Pitch bit the corner of his mouth and stared down at her like he was half-considering to stomp her beneath his foot. "Give back both the staff and tooth, is it? That's a bold request from a punitive fuzz-ball that has nothing to barter. At least the boy is interesting enough, if he ever stops wallowing in his foolish denial that things will revert to normalcy." Gold eyes shifted to where Jack lay half-buried in the snow, the boy's face folded in a kind of petulant pout. Pitch bent over slightly to croon softly above his head. "You have so much potential, Jack. Don't allow fear to squander your gifts."

Jack rolled over onto his side and laughed loudly at the hypocrisy of it all: the Nightmare King advising him not to fall prey to fear. That's right, Pitch had nothing to gain if Jack refused to hone his new skills. Pitch only had returned because he wanted something from him. Everyone wanted something from him. Tailor Saunders wanted him to be a better apprentice so he could take over his job when he passed. Thomas Grymes was only good to him to win the favor of his mother. Father Goodall wanted to save his soul from damnation because he was a reckless, wild, wicked boy, and Anthony Hawkins wanted him to burn.

Just like that, the maddening heat was back, wrapping him up in a suffocating cocoon so thick he could barely breathe. Jack felt the back of his neck dampen with the snow that had melted and a shiver trailed down his spine. It wasn't a cold chill though, more like the ones he remembered from his fever-haze after he had fallen through the ice: bone-achy and coursing through his entire body in waves after waves of sweltering heat so intense he saw spots behind his eyes.

"Stop fighting yourself, Jack, you're only making it worse," Pitch's voice drummed through his head, past the walls of nauseating heat. He felt the smooth touch of fingers trace across his forehead and leaned into their coolness with a small moan. He heard a dark chuckle, but was too exhausted to feel any shame over how weak he must look.

A piercing, enraged squeak sounded near his ear then the fingers on his forehead jerked away violently as Pitch unleashed a warning growl. Baby Tooth had spiked the spirit's wrath once again. Jack squinted through the waves of scorching heat and saw Pitch, his face hardened and eyes sharp gold flints, swing down his own staff at the little tooth fairy. She couldn't fly away, not with that bent wing. An image of her tiny, broken body crumpled at the base of a tree burst into Jack's mind.

Strength he didn't know he possessed drove him into action. With one hand, he reached out, cupping his palm over Baby Tooth and pulling her back to the safety of his chest. Then with the other, he caught the crooked end of his staff as it came down, held on tightly and did not let go even as he was dragged upright out of the snow as Pitch tried to wrestle it from his grip.

"Give it back, it's mine," Jack snarled, staggering until he found his footing.

Pitch's eyes glittered dangerously as his lips stretched into a feral smirk. "Then take it from me, boy."

A memory of the spirit vanishing within the shadows caused Jack to act on pure instinct. He clenched down on the wood, took a deep breath, and pushed. All his bottled up emotions came surging out, fierce and hungry, zig-zagging like white-blue streaks of lightning, following Pitch even as he receded back into the darkness. A livid shout came from the spirit as he stumbled back out of the shadows, shaking his head as if to clear his scrambled mind. He still clutched the end of Jack's staff in his hand.

The staff which was the last present his father had made for him.

Remember your Knowing, someone seemed to whisper right into his ear.

The air around Jack swirled frigid and unforgiving, like the wind in a snowstorm. Frost licked a path upon his skin, coated thick and heavy over his tongue. Silvery-white threads of light flickered in the spaces between his fingertips, even as the heads of small, jagged ice crystals formed along the length of the staff where he held it. The wood crackled with energy, pulsating under his fingers as if it had a heartbeat of its own and glowing a brilliant blue, threatening to dispel in a spectacular display of ice and light.

Abruptly, Pitch let go, tucking his hands behind his back as he gazed at the boy with an almost proud expression. "Feeling better, are we?"

Jack blinked and the power thrumming beneath his fingertips faded away just as the frost and blue light did. He flexed the muscles in his arms and legs to test them. The sickly heat had gone from his limbs; had relinquished its burning claws from his mind. The coldness remained, a familiar and soothing relief now, he discovered with wonder.

Jack stared at Pitch in disbelief and proffered out his staff. "Did you take this from me to teach me a lesson?" he asked because there was no way Pitch had just decided to help him. Sure, the spirit wanted his assistance, but he enjoyed seeing him suffer, that much Jack knew.

"I took it to examine it. It's not every day one encounters a staff capable of such power." There was an odd note in Pitch's tone, an unreadable mask that had dropped over his face.

Jack squashed down any concerns he might have. His father would not have given him anything unsafe. If his staff had powers now, then it was the Man in the Moon who had granted them. "Oh, aye, and what did you find?"

Pitch shrugged carelessly. "That it is a perfectly, ordinary shepherd's staff carved by human hands."

Jack stuck his chin out as he smiled. "The best hands. What did you think it was hiding," he scoffed. "Gold?"

"Mmmm," Pitch hummed, eyelids hooded, his irises nothing but gold slits. "Perhaps… a diamond?"

If there was any malice in Pitch's voice, Jack chose to ignore it. He was quite done being tormented for the day by humans and spirits both.

"You know," he said pretending to think for a moment. "If I decide to help you build this shadow fortress of solitude where you can brood to your dark heart's content of how to take over the world or whatever, I'll need to learn how to properly use my powers so they won't just be exploding whenever you feel like goading me into it."

"Sarcasm suits you well," Pitch said. "Any particular reason why you've had this sudden change of heart, Jack?"

"Well, I thought you could also help me find this center thing I'm supposed to have that the Moon chose me for," Jack said, swinging his staff idly around in one hand.

"No, that's not why," Pitch drawled lazily. "Because you still don't believe all that, not fully." He took a step forward and there was a puff of black smoke and then the spirit was standing uncomfortably close to Jack, peering deep into his eyes and seeing right through him as he always did.

"You want to know how to summon the ice and cold for your own defense against the villagers you first made a pact with me to protect," Pitch chuckled low and spitefully, nostrils flaring wide in excitement as the most tantalizing scent on earth filled them. "They've never understood you and you fear what they'll do to you if they discover what you can do now, what you've become. He continued on, watching the boy begin to tremble in place before him, brown eyes widening in despair as the words ringing with truth dripped like poison into his heart, into the very essence of his soul. "Not only that, you fear of being cast out, forgotten, abandoned, left all alone in this cruel world." He reached out and gripped the boy firmly by the shoulders. "Well, you have nothing to fear there, Jack. You'll never be alone, not so long as you have me, as long we have each other."

Jack's mind had gone slack with terror somewhere as Pitch had thrust the ugly facts of reality into his face. Even now, as he felt a slim hand curl supportively behind his head and pull him close to his chest in a gentle mockery of an embrace, Jack wanted to push him away, tell him that all of what said was a lie, except that it wasn't and, and... Pitch had a heartbeat.

It was sounding in his ears in a solid rhythm like the beat of a drum, steady and strong.

How could a spirit have a heartbeat? If Pitch was cut, did he bleed red or spill inky-black shadows?

The world did not make sense anymore.

Pitch had a heartbeat.

Like him, like his staff, like his…

Jack choked on a sob.

Spindly fingers ran through tufts of his frozen hair, brushing away the snow that clung stubbornly to it. Numbly, Jack stared down at the spiraling tendrils of darkness ringed around their feet and recalled the locket with the picture of the young girl, wondering how long Pitch had been alone before he had encountered him.

To Be Continued…

Chapter Text

The snow was cold and the wind blew colder still, nipping at every inch of Jack’s exposed skin: his hands, his ears, his nose, the lower half of his legs where his breeches did not quite meet his stockings because of his sudden growth spurt earlier that year. The clouds hung heavy and grey overhead casting a spell of melancholy over whatever inhabitant happened to brave the brittle chill of this winter day.

The coldness of nature Jack could deal with. After several years spent trudging through the snow and learning to live under winter’s harsh conditions, the cold was, if not welcomed, accepted, with a certain familiarity to it. Not that Jack felt the slightest bit of discomfort from the cold these days, though he still donned his cloak, woolen socks and scarf, as well as boots so he would be a cause for wild rumor mongering in the village. The townsfolk were still side-eyeing him for surviving his fall through the ice. He refused to be the fodder for the fire that Anthony desperately craved to set ablaze.

He also refused to be the lure that Pitch wanted to cast into the already spooked villagers.

Pitch, naturally, was more than un-amused at his determination. For the short time that Jack had known the spirit so far, he hadn’t been the most pleasant company, but Jack has slowly grown accustomed to his sharp rebuffs, brooding mannerisms, fiendish scheming, as well as reveling in another’s own misery and fear. Most occasions when he and Jack butted heads it was usually met with condescension and exasperation on Pitch’s end, with him bemoaning how a mere mortal could not possibly see the greater picture. The two of them had very different opinions on what ‘cultivating his powers’ meant—Jack merely wanted to learn defensive moves; Pitch insisted he should take more aggressive actions—and more often than not, the ‘lessons’ were cut short with both of them in foul moods.

There had only been two times Jack had seen Pitch genuinely angry—the type of dark rage rolling off of him that felt both dangerous and suffocating: the time Baby Tooth had torn the locket from the recesses of his shadow robes and the time Jack had inquired about the girl in the painting.

However, Jack was beginning to think after each and every lesson so far had ended in failure and disagreement that he might have worn away the thin sliver of patience that the Nightmare King possessed, especially today. It had been one week since that Sunday that Anthony Hawkins had confronted him and his powers still fluctuated wildly. Jack found it was far easier to focus and smother that flickering white light within him than it was to kindle its cold flames into a freezing galestorm to be summoned at a moment’s notice.

“Not only are you always late,” Pitch hissed between needle-pointed teeth. “But you are incompetent as well. Tell me, do all mortals trudge through their mundane lives cowering over the gifts granted to them, too afraid to break free and rise above the rest of their pathetic brethren still wallowing in the mud they spawned from?”

Aye, his patience definitely had disappeared if he was throwing the word ‘mortal’ around.

“I thought you claimed the two of us were cursed,” Jack grinned, feeling rewarded when Pitch shot him a seething glare.

“The only thing I am cursed with presently is a fledging Guardian who knows absolutely nothing and refuses to follow sound advice from his mentor—merely a lanky brat headstrong and rebellious who thinks their methods are better,” Pitch growled low in his throat, displeasure laced clearly throughout his tone.

Jack felt his grin twist into a scowl. He didn’t like that word ‘Guardian’; didn’t like to think on what it meant or entailed. The ice powers he could accept more perhaps because of all the fairy tales his mother told about humans blessed by magical beings or their wishes granted because of a good deed or some other nonsense. That’s what it was all supposed to be—tooth fairies, dreamsand, the Boogie Man, the Man in the Moon who bestowed unnatural abilities to humans he deemed worthy. Nice nonsense for bedtime stories not for actual real life.

Jack was supposed to become Burgess’ resident tailor, take care of his mother and sister, grow old and before he died, take on an apprentice to learn his skill. It was a rather boring outline for his life, but Jack had accepted his fate long ago. He didn’t mind really. He had faith that his sister, Caleb, Ezra and the rest of the younger children would grow up into good adults with a slightly bigger imagination than their parents and the older generation. If he secretly thought Ezra’s idea for all of them to live in the mill together and form a Knights of Burgess squad was genius and great fun, he kept that to himself. (And if he secretly wished on a star every night that Anthony Hawkins and his family would move to Philadelphia for good he kept that to himself too).

The point was he did he think his sudden acquisition of ice powers was wickedly amazing. They were also inconvenient and troubling since he couldn’t control them. In the back of his mind, there forever remained a great concern that he might accidentally hurt someone if he was forced to use them even in self defense. He dared not let his thoughts wander too far on what his suddenly possessing these ice powers meant for his future and own mortality because the various end conclusions positively terrified him.

All these volatile emotions swirled around inside him, restless and prickly, like a nest of agitated pit vipers coiling to lash out a fatal strike. So whenever Jack sensed that white light inside him flaring up, he mentally cupped his hands around it and blew it out. No frost or ice emitted from his fingers or staff, he breathed a sigh of relief, and Pitch grew more enraged.

Then, when at last, Jack thought the Nightmare King’s temper had all but finally snapped, a calm veil dropped down over Pitch’s face as the spirit adopted more relaxed posture.

“I know what hinders you,” he said in a deep, crooning sort of tone one would use to lure out a scared kitten from a dark corner. “I can smell it, Jack.” He moved closer in a gliding motion over the snow. His usual piercing eyes had lost their silver storminess and a soft gold was slowly seeping back in. “I can almost taste it. The fear coursing through your veins matches the melody to your heart.” Pitch inhaled deeply. “I can smell the fear, it blooms so thick.”

“Of course I’m afraid!” Jack cried out, heat rushing to his cheeks as he brought his staff up to chest defensively because Pitch was leaning in far too close. He cast his gaze elsewhere because he felt he would drown if he stared too long in those ancient, golden eyes. “You act like I’m some weapon you make good use of for your own advantage! All I want is learn how to tame this… this thing inside me to ensure it doesn’t spiral out of control and hurt people!”

Pitch drew back and cast him a knowing look and Jack felt the heat rise all the way up to his ears because both he and the spirit knew the last part he spoke was a falsehood. But Pitch did not pick apart the claim like he could have if he so chose, and merely shrugged, his lips curled into a wry smirk.

“Very well,” he said. “If you do not wish to train your power at the moment, we can focus on your staff. It’s not too far off from a long stave. We can work on rudimentary hand and foot techniques. Your stance—is wide open!”

The next thing Jack knew he was staring at the grey skies above, flat on his back in the snow, all the breath having been knocked out of his lungs by his wicked under sweep of his feet courtesy of Pitch.

He gaped soundlessly as Pitch loomed into his line of vision. “Up, boy,” he barked in a commanding voice, all traces of amusement having vanished from his features. “Your enemies would have finished you off by now.”

“W-what enemies?” Jack croaked as he clambered to his feet still a bit dazed.

Pitch said nothing this time, his face solemn as the shadows swirled up in an inky vapor to form into an oversized black scythe in his hands. His dark figure radiated with a kind of calmness that preceded a storm. Without word or warning, he swung out his scythe in a vicious, vertical strike which had Jack thrusting his staff up to parry the blow out of pure reflex.

The force of the clash sent him lurching backwards from the recoil. He stared at his staff in wonderment seeing as the wood was still in one piece. He was certain it should have been cleaved in two from the scythe’s shadow-blade.

He opened his mouth to say something—a cutting remark, a plea to stop, a repeat of his question from before, he did not know—but Pitch swung the scythe again, his expression cold and merciless and rained down blow after blow that sent Jack stumbling one foot back after the other until he was very nearly bent over on his feels, arms trembling with the strain of the weight from holding his staff out level keeping the glittering edge of the scythe from slicing him in half.

It started with a tingling in his fingertips, the kind of feeling one gets after been outside in the cold for a bitter period of time and then comes indoors and warms then by the fire. A numb sort of burning flickered through his fingers, into the palm of his hands and then pressed down further into the grooves and crevices of the staff’s wood. It was like before, Jack realized, when Pitch had goaded him until his ire rose such that the frost came spiraling out in vengeful tendrils of ice crystals.

He’s trying to do it again, Jack thought in alarm. The very action he was trying to prevent from occurring was the one Pitch was so desperately seeking to draw out.

No, I won’t be used like this! Jack thought fiercely and then in a both very brave and foolish motion, cast his staff aside and stood firm and unyielding in the snow, daring Pitch to bring down the final strike.

He felt the scythe’s tip touch his forehead, deceptively feather-soft and light yet cold and chilling all at once. Pitch was staring at him with a mask of barely restrained fury, though when he spoke, his voice was eerily calm and level.

“I could do it, you know. I don’t have to kill you. I could turn you into my Fearling Prince. I’ve done so before to others. They no longer refused me then.”

Jack was silent for a moment, hearing his heartbeat race madly in his ears, measuring the weight of the spirit’s words, before cracking a forced, tight-lipped grin at the spirit.

“It hurts, doesn’t it?” he said quietly, in a voice not like his own.

“What does?” Pitch demanded, his gaunt face looking very unsettled.

“Being lost,” Jack said and now he sounded more like himself. “And… losing people.”

Something akin to sorrow flashed briefly over Pitch’s face. Jack felt the tip of the scythe pull away from his forehead and watched as one grey hand reached out in a tender gesture to almost stroke his cheek before Pitch jerked violently, a ghastly screech escaping from the bellows of his throat.

Jack stumbled sideways as he felt the sharp rake of curved fingernails cut into the side of his face, his ears exploding with Pitch’s anguished scream mingled with a hopeless rage.

“Get out of my sight! Let the past remain buried in the accursed dreamsand! Do not summon wraiths to haunt me! My journey on this earth is already a waking nightmare! Begone from me, you ill-fated sprite!”

Then a swirl of shadows, Pitch was gone, with only the echoes of his despairing screams lingering over the all-too still hillside.

oOo

Jack’s trek back to Burgess was subdued and silent, his thoughts as jumbled and heavy as the snowflakes that had started to fall. Pitch’s face, twisted and furious and unbearably sad remained steady in his mind. Questions with no foreseeable answer kept creeping up in his mind: why Pitch was so determined to keep this mortal boy by his side—was he that forsaken for company or did he truly want to utilize and harness Jack’s power for his own gain. What had happened to make him into this mournful and wretched creature who roamed within the shadows? What had happened to the girl in the portrait? Jack let out a scoffing laugh at the last thought. He knew by now whoever she was, she would remain trapped forever inside the locket just as Pitch had locked the memory of her deep within his shadow heart.

“Do not summon wraiths to haunt me!”

Pitch’s pitiful wails resounded in his ears as he stumbled out of the woods and onto the snow-covered banks of a small creek.

Oh, Jack thought as he became acutely aware of his surroundings, absent-mindedly lifting one hand to shield his smarting cheek from the cold breeze.

For Pitch was right of course. The past should remain buried. What happiness one had once gleamed before in life did not last. It paled and faded like this creek-bed in winter.

He meant to move along. He had done so before many time—passed this way through without another thought. Burgess was a small village after all. But now with the vestiges of Pitch’s anguished screams, he saw what his mind usually avoided in looking at: a memory, half-forgotten and hidden, like a shiny pebble overgrown with moss.

The snow at his feet melted away and green grass grew all over the sloping banks. The silent, frozen water began to flow once more into a burbling, laughing creek, and bright, golden sunbeams burst over his shoulders in a warm embrace of summer.

oOo

Jackson Overland, Age 6 years…

The sunlight shone down upon the clear body of water below, capturing the reflection of the person peering down into its depths: wide brown eyes too big for the boy’s round face, his cheeks still pillowed with baby fat, and the tip of his tongue sticking out from one corner of his mouth in concentration as he leaned closer…

Splash!

Jack shoved both his hands into the water but the frog was too quick for him, leaping away into the deeper part of the creek with a hoarse croak that seemed to mock the boy’s efforts.

“Da! He got away again!” Jack threw back his head in a howl, smacking the surface of the water with his chubby fists in frustration.

“Aye, and with all that racket you’re making, you’ll never be able to sneak up on him. Now pipe down, you’re scaring the fish,” Joseph Overland remarked from where he lay on his side on the upper part of the bank. A thin branch with a string attached to the end acted as his fishing rod that he clutched in one hand. A few feet away, his stockings as well as his son’s lay draped over a thin branch of a willow tree so as not to dirty them.

Jack squatted on his knees and planted both his feet deep into the wet creek bed, liking the squishy feeling of mud between his toes. A couple of worms came wriggling out of the damp earth and he plucked them up and tucked them in his pockets to give to his father for more bait. Or maybe he could use them to lure out the frog, hmmm.

“Mind your clothes, Jack,” Joseph said. “Your mam can’t know where we went today.”

“Mama doesn’t want you to go fishing?” Jack asked confused, because his mother certainly loved to cook a hearty fish dinner whenever the occasion arose.

“Not on Sundays,” Joseph grinned wryly, lazily flicking the line of his fishing rod back and forth.

“Aye,” Jack nodded. “Father Goodall says it’s a sin to indulge in selfish pleasures of the flesh particularly on Sundays.” A worried look fell over his face suddenly. “Are we going to Hell for this, Da?”

A deep frown burrowed its way upon Joseph’s forehead as he muttered something inaudible under his breath. “I believe the actual Commandment in the Bible is to ‘Remember the Sabbath Day and keep it Holy’. It’s supposed to be a day of rest for us, son. Tell me, is fishing hard work?”

Jack scrunched up his face as he thought. “Well, you hardly ever catch anything no matter how hard you try, so I reckon not,” he said honestly.

Across the creek bed, his father threw the straw hat off his head in a slip of temper before exploding into a roar of laughter. The fishing rod was lost when it rolled down the side of the bank into the water as the man clutched at his ribs from lack of breath. Finally regaining use of his lungs, Joseph wiped tears of mirth from his eyes and stared up at the cloudless, blue sky.

“Ah, thank you, O Lord,” he smiled. “For blessing me with such a son as this, for never was there a boy with a more steadfast nor truer tongue.” He stood to his feet and rolled the leggings of his breeches up to his knees before wading barefoot into the water. “Come, I’ll show you a real way to catch fish.”

Jack watched fascinated as his father stood ankle-deep in the creek, legs spread apart and hunched over with hands outstretched and ready as he stared intently at the burbling water, waiting for just the right moment…

A few minutes slid by. Jack didn’t utter a word or ask why his father was posed like him earlier trying to grab a frog. He felt breathless with excitement as the spell of silence hung heavy in the air only to be shattered by his father diving almost face-first into the water and emerging with a triumphant shout, both hands wrapped firmly around a huge, frantically flapping trout.

“You did it, Da, you did it!” Jack whooped jumping up in and down in place. A few splotches of mud flew up from the squishy ground and splattered on his breeches but he didn’t care. He was already splashing his way through the water and tugging at his father’s arm. “Me next! Teach me!” He tugged so hard, his father lost his grip on the fish and it slipped through his fingers and fell back into the creek with a splash. With several quick flicks of its tail, it was out of sight downstream.

Jack felt shame lodge in his throat and swallowed hard. He dared not look up to see the disappointment in his father’s face. He heard Joseph let out a gusty sigh. “Ah, patience is a virtue, remember that next time, son.”

“Next time?” Jack echoed, his face brightening back up.

“Aye, it’s getting late,” Joseph said squinting at the sun, “and we need to be getting home before your mother grows suspicious. I told her were taking a walk, having a men’s day out.”

“But I wanna catch a fish,” he pouted, digging his heels in the mud.

Joseph cuffed him lightly around his ear. “None of that, m’lad. We’ll be back again before summer’s over. Come along now.”

They had gathered up their stockings from the willow’s branches and made themselves as presentable as possible to look like they had not been lounging on the creek bed for half the day, though Jack had one splotch of dirt on his breeches that refused to come out.

They had made for home in a well enough mood with Jack quietly sulking until his father laughed and tousled his hair.

“You have a grand name, Jack. Did you know it also belonged to a ship’s captain a long time ago?”

Jack stared up at his father unsure. “Is that who you named me after?”

“Ah, well, Jack was your mam’s grandda’s name and she wanted to keep it going in the family. But there are many Jacks in the world, son, and this one by far is the most renown.”

“What did he do?” Jack asked, breaking out of his sulk. He never could resist a good story.

“What didn’t he do, that’s the ticker,” Joseph chuckled. “This Captain Jack sailed around the entire world forty three times in his life!”

“Anthony Hawkins says the world is flat.”

Jack yelped as his father caught his nose between his forefinger and thumb and squeezed lightly. “Ask your mother to tell you about Galileo tonight. It’s round. As an acorn.” Eyes watering, Jack rubbed the tip where it still smarted after it was released and nodded.

“He traversed across treacherous waters, battled sea dragons and harpies and hurricanes, and traded spices and knowledge of different cultures to ever four corners of the world—”

“You said it was round!” Jack cried confused.

Joseph cursed quietly before pulling an apple out of his pocket and tossing it to his son more so he would have no more interruptions than for him to eat and continued on.

“He discovered lost civilizations including Atlantis—you remember your mam’s stories about it?”

Jaws fastened around the apple and juice dripping down his chin as he happily munched on it, Jack nodded.

“He happened across it out of sheer luck one day for the place where it lays is shielded by a great magic: only the pure of heart, those whose intentions are just and good may enter. He crossed the its boundaries without notice and stumbled upon its ancient beauty and splendor, marveling at the vast wisdom and history written down on golden scrolls. He wept that he could not take anything back to share with the people of the world outside. He wished to remain there in that sacred, peaceful place untouched by war or greed, but he knew he must leave. He had made a promise you see.”

“What promise?” Jack whispered spellbound in awe of the tale.

“That he would one day return to the women he loved.”

Jack pulled a face at the last part not at all pleased with it. “And they get married and live happily ever after. It always ends that way.”

Strong hands caught him fast around the middle and swung him across broad shoulders and Jack gasped at how high he was, at how much closer the blue sky was. He felt for sure if he leaped up, he might float away into the air.

“That’s how the stories end, yes,” Joseph explained, keeping a firm grip on his legs as if sensing his son’s thoughts. “Because they have to end somewhere. But the characters in those stories go on and have many more adventures. Why I wager Captain Jack and his Lady are still sailing about the world discovering more wonders, unveiling more mysteries, and in general kicking up a mighty good ruckus that make decent, ordinary people fairly foam at the mouth out of sheer jealousy.”

“Because they are so famous?”

“Because they are happy.”

oOo

Jack wandered aimlessly over the many side paths that weaved around the village like an intricate maze, ducking off the trail into the foliage if he heard someone approaching. He did not wish to meet another person, plaster a false smile on his face and commence with niceties. Even on the worst of days, he usually he could muster up a genteel façade, but today he had no strength nor will to even attempt. Why should he smile and make pointless conversation with people who did not understand. How could he even take consolation in solitude to marvel at nature’s wonder when his father was not there to share the moment with him? How strange it was, Jack realized, that parts of life that should make a person happy were what made them most sad.

When his feet finally stopped of their own accord, it was not the threshold of the Overland’s cabin they stood in front of, but the crooked, picket fence than ran about the span of Burgess’ graveyard.

Jack hesitated. He had not visited his father’s grave for so long. Lydia only went on her wedding anniversary and she never made her children come, only if they so desired to. She always told them she much preferred to remember Joseph alive and that she felt closer to him in the cabin he built for all of them than she did staring down at the cold, cruel earth. Jack almost turned away, but grief both old and new swelled up in his throat and he near choked on it.

He passed through the gate and trudged somberly through the snow and was only half-way past a row of tombstones when he realized in a sudden shock that he had no recollection of where his father was buried. It wasn’t surprising, considering he could count on one hand the number of times he had braved enough courage to venture here alone since that awful day. The times he had accompanied his mother, he had simply stared at the back of her long skirts with guilt plaguing his mind until they reached the gravesite.

Jack stood there forlornly, tiny trembles that had nothing to do with the cold breaking out across his slim frame, and debated whether to scream or cry.

It was a moment later when he realized he was not the only living soul to visit the graveyard that day.

A head of messy ink-black hair took up the space between two rows of tombstones, fluttering in the wind that Jack almost mistook it for a raven’s feathers.

“Ezra?” he called out as he approached.

Ezra jolted at his name, looking like he had woken up from a dream, or possibly a nightmare. There was a glazed, haunted look in his eyes, similar to the one on Pitch’s demeanor earlier.

“Ezra?” Jack said again, softer and a bit cautious.

What if Pitch had decided to forgo their pact and take out his temper against the children of Burgess in an act of malicious vengeance that was partially his fault? He might have angered the spirit too far too much this time.

However as Jack drew closer, he knew at once Pitch was not the culprit.

Ezra stood in the patch of ground that was the Bennett family’s own personal burial mound. There were a long line of tombstones varying in size and stature: some carved out of sandstone and slate with long, elaborate epitaphs and some plain and wooden, so old and decrepit from the weather and rot, the words were now illegible.

There were three that were visibly new. The first was made up of a fine polished rock that gleamed so smoothly Jack was sure it was a different material than sandstone. The other two were wooden and narrow, fresher cut than their ancestors’ headers and barely more than grave-markers, but all three shared something in common. All three grave-headers read the same name: James.

 “Grandda is getting worse,” Ezra said after a long pause. “Mam doesn’t like me out so late, but I couldn’t stay there. He’s speaking out of his head all the time now.” His blue eyes held a stricken, frightful look. “He forgets who I am. He calls me James.”

Jack looked back at the tombstones and noted the finer rock one’s date went back further than the wooden ones. Much further. His own father would have been not even a grown man yet when the owner had died.

“James was my uncle. He died afor’d he was full grown. There was an accident in the woods and no one talks about it,” Ezra bit his lip as if he had said too much then cleared his throat and continued. “Mam says Grandda’s just old and confused. That I should just go along with his fancy and humor him. I try, I do,” Ezra said looking up at Jack in a pleading way. “He talks to me about past events, gets frustrated and yells when I tell him I wasn’t there, that I’m not him.”

The boy’s expression darkened suddenly. His balled his hands into tightly-clenched fists. “I hate him,” he spat. “I wish he’d hurry up and die already.”

Jack said nothing because there are some times in life when there is nothing you can say. The wind blew harshly through the frozen graveyard in its own rebuke.

Ezra suddenly burst into tears and dropped to his knees, rubbing his eyes with the back of his palms. Jack bent down beside him and placed one hand on his back in comfort.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it!” Ezra was babbling hysterically now looking horrified at his violent outburst. “I just want him to get better. Every day he just loses himself more and I can’t do anything!”

Jack didn’t know which was worse. Losing someone you loved so swiftly that you were left with a gaping void in your life that took years for the sinkhole to finally fill back up, or watching someone you loved wither slowly and die and stand by completely helpless.

The wind picked up pace again, its bite more chilling than before. Now Jack did shiver from the cold though he knew he should not be bothered by it. The shadows were slowly creeping out as the evening turned to night. Gently, Jack gripped Ezra by his shoulders and helped him to his feet.

“We should let the dead rest in peace,” he whispered.

It occurred to him as they left the cemetery, he never had the chance to visit his father’s grave. He supposed that was for the best. He would only have been lost in sorrow like Ezra was. Joseph Overland did not lie buried in the ground, but lived on his heart, arising when needed from the wellspring of memories overflowing in Jack’s mind

“You have a grand name, Ezra,” he said tousling the boy’s hair as they walked along. “Did you know it also belonged to a ship’s captain a long time ago?”

“Really?” Ezra said perking up a bit.

Jack nodded. “But this ship captain did not sail the seas, oh no, he charted his course over an ocean of stars!” Jack pointed to the skies thankful to the clouds that had cleared away.

“You’re making that up!” Ezra huffed in a pout.

“Well, do you know what’s up there?” Jack asked, a smile floating about his lips.

Ezra shrugged. “Stars and the moon. And heaven, I guess. That’s what Father Goodall says.”

“There’s entire worlds up there!” Jack exclaimed. “And this Captain Ezra was an adventurer. Why he sailed to the moon and back over a hundred times, chasing comets and making star-maps and fighting off pirates!”

“Stars have pirates?” Ezra sounded genuinely curious; the only lingering traces of his sorrow from before were his red-rimmed eyes.

“The worst kind of pirates,” Jack said, his father’s story taking on a version all of his own as stories passed on often do. “These pirates were forged out of shadow and despair and all the bad thoughts that people wish out loud would happen.” An image had formed in Jack’s mind of the fearlings that prowled around Pitch. “They devour all hope, everything good and bright and thrive on fear and hate.”

Jack felt Ezra tuck himself closer to his side as the boy eyed the evening shadows in trepidation and he hurried on. The tale was never meant to cause fear but to bring joy and give a wonder to hold fast in one’s heart in dark moments.

“But this Captain Ezra was noble and brave and he vanquished each and every last shadow pirate, locking them all away in his Star Fortress where they could do no more harm, and he was regaled a hero by all. Why they even offered to make him king!”

“King of the stars!” Ezra’s eyes were as wide as saucers now. He seemed utterly thrilled that his namesake was of such an honorable reputation to warrant a crowning.

“But he didn’t accept,” Jack said, chuckling at Ezra’s expression of incredulity. “He said that was far too much power and responsibility for him and that he was much happier chasing shooting stars and making wishes come true.”

“But, but… king!” Ezra still couldn’t believe someone would turn down that role.

Jack smirked and said in a hushed tone, “Well, he would have had to get married you see…”

“Eeeeeewwwww!” Ezra howled looking absolutely disgusted and a tiny part outraged. “Why do they always have to get married in the end? It’s so boring!”

“Exactly,” Jack laughed. “Captain Ezra enjoyed his freedom and that’s how he spent the rest of his days, doing what he loved best.”

Ezra nodded swiftly in a serious fashion as he squared his shoulders. “That’s what I’m gonna do too!”

“Live happily ever after?” Jack asked glad the boy was back to his usual self.

“I’m gonna run away and be a ship captain!” Ezra whooped in glee as he broke out into mad canter down the trail.

Oh dear, Jack thought as he realized his story might have had an unforeseen consequence in telling it.

Then he spent a good half hour chasing after Ezra off and on the beaten path and convincing him to wait a few years before he threw his lot in with the sea. There may have been some ambush snowball fights on both ends and some off-key jaunty singing of seedy tavern songs their mothers frowned upon. It was well past dark before either of them made it home, but both boys’ hearts were lighter, such is the power of beautiful stories and good company.

oOo

Jack never once looked back as he spun his fanciful tale. Never saw Pitch glide out from the shadows to stare after him with an appalled disbelief dawning on his face. Never saw the Nightmare King turn his golden gaze to the pale moon above and whisper wretchedly, “Oh, old friend… what have you done?”

To Be Continued…

Remember me when I am gone away,

Gone far away into the silent land;

When you can no more hold me by the hand,

Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay.

Remember me when no more day by day

You tell me of our future that you plann'd:

Only remember me; you understand

It will be late to counsel then or pray.

Yet if you should forget me for a while

And afterwards remember, do not grieve:

For if the darkness and corruption leave

A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,

Better by far you should forget and smile

Than that you should remember and be sad.

-Christina Rosetti

Chapter Text

The governor’s house was a quaint but sturdy two-story building with a coat white enough to match the snow outside. You had to climb three stone steps to get to the front porch and Jack always marveled at such a broad space made just for sitting and doing nothing. It was Betsy, the head housemaid, who greeted the Overlands at the door to the governor’s house, but it was Rebekha Hamilton, the governor’s wife, who all but flung her servant aside and threw her arms around Jack’s mother in a warm embrace.

“Oh, my dear, Lydia, I have been so looking forward to your visit! I have such things to share with you!” Rebekha gushed, her slender frame trembling in excitement. Her eyes drifted to Jack who was helping Emma take off her cloak before handing his own and hers over to Betsy. “Good gracious, is that the young Jack who used to sit on my lap and stuff his face with macaroons? You’ve grown so big!”

Jack felt heat blossom in his cheeks and all could do was nod his head at her in greeting and smile sheepishly.

Mrs. Hamilton reached out and cupped his face between her hands before kissing his forehead tenderly. “It gladdened my heart when I heard you did not drown in the lake after all. You must take more caution when going out adventuring. Your mother would be very sad if anything ill befell you and so would I.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Jack said feeling the heat rise to his ears now.

He watched as Mrs. Hamilton greet Emma and note what a fine young lady she was turning out to be as she tapped his sister’s nose saying that she was, “cute as a button.” Emma beamed brightly and Jack smiled. Mrs. Hamilton had always felt more like a doting aunt than the governor’s wife or his mother’s employer.

“I suppose you’ll be thrilled to hear that Matilda has finally had her kittens,” Mrs. Hamilton said.

Emma clapped, hopping up and down excitedly. “May I see them? May I?”

“Of course, you may. Betsy, show these two young dears to the kitchen and serve them some tea,” Mrs. Hamilton said as she took Lydia by the hand and drew her towards the stairs. “Lydia and I shall take ours in my room.”

“Do you not want to see what I’ve tailored?” Lydia asked bemused, tucking the bundled parcel under her arm as she followed Rebehka up the staircase.

“Oh, the dress, yes, we shall discuss that too since I doubt I may fit it much longer,” Mrs. Hamilton tittered. “There is much to talk about. I have a fierce joy that cannot be contained!”

Jack heard a creak and looked to see the kitchen door swing shut, his sister having already followed Betsy inside. He started after them, passing the parlor room as he did only to stop in his tracks as he heard someone’s throat clear.

“Jackson Overland, as I live and breathe,” a girl’s voice declared and Jack turned his head to see Clara Pratchett, the silversmith’s daughter, reclining on a pale yellow cushioned settee by the fireplace. The glow from the fire made the blonde ringlets poking out from under her white linen cap shine a bronze-orange.

“Come sit with me, Jack,” Clara said in voice that was more a command than an invitation as she patted the empty spot beside her.

Jack hesitated, eyes glancing back at the closed kitchen door and wondered if he could still make a run for it.

“There’s a delicious plate of macaroons here,” Clara coaxed him, motioning to a side table that held a tray of tea and heaping pile of his favorite dessert upon it. “It shall be impossible for me to eat all of it by myself.”

Mouth watering and his mind screaming no at him, Jack found himself begrudgingly stepping into the parlor and towards his own demise. It was no use trying to avoid her. If his mother found out he had ignored the girl, or any lady on purpose, he would never hear the end of it.

Green eyes glittered in triumph as he drew closer and twin dimples appeared on her cheeks as Clara’s lips curved into a smile.

Jack sat down stiff-backed, trying to maintain the correct posture and fought back the urge to fidget idly. His good manners were slightly unpolished as he didn’t much put them to good use aside from church. Still, he knew he must at least attempt to try otherwise they would simply be sitting in an awkward silence which would be quite rude.

“So, uh, how is your family faring?” Jack cringed inwardly at how bland he sounded but he honestly could not think of anything else to ask.

Clara’s laugh sounded like the pealing of bells. “Oh, you are abysmal at small talk, Jack. You haven’t even given me the chance to inquire after your health first, it being the greater concern. You did fall through the ice and all.”

Now Jack did fidget, tugging at a stray thread that had come loose on his buckskin vest and feeling very foolish and self-conscious.

“Suppose I’m tired of being reminded of my own recklessness,” Jack mumbled without thinking and then reminded himself that complaining to company was impolite as well. He began bouncing his right knee in agitation acutely aware this was also a form of fidgeting but he was too nervous to stop.

“It must be awfully tedious for the same subject to be brought up again and again,” Clara nodded in sympathy. “Constance and Verity tell me you fell in saving Emma. ‘Twas a noble act on your end. Pity that people only focus on the folly not the good that came out of it.”

Constance and Verity were her second cousins if Jack remembered correctly, or third. There were far too many Pratchett families in Burgess to keep track of. The main trait that they all shared in common was that they devoured gossip like Sunday supper and more often than not, knew people’s own secrets before they figured it out themselves. You had to watch your tongue around a Pratchett, his mother always told him.

“Aye,” was the only response Jack could think of.

“There’s been all kinds of ridiculous rumors floating around,” Clara continued to press.

Half of which, Jack was certain, the Pratchetts had spread themselves.

“People will believe anything if they’ve a mind to.”

“Well, you seem to have kept your wits about you as far as I can see. You’re smart enough not fall to boyish taunts even at their most cruelest, I am sure.”

Jack shot her a sharp look. Was she referring to Anthony? What did she know? How much if any had he whispered in her ear?

Clara was pointedly not looking at him now as she poured herself a cup of steaming hot tea and dropped three sugar cubes in, humming lightly as she stirred it with a tiny spoon.

“I do wonder what has Mrs. Hamilton so flighty that she forgets that I’m here entirely as soon as your mother walks in,” Clara said changing the subject abruptly. “Not so much as an introduction either. What could be so important in a talk between two women that all other matters are considered trivial?”

“I take it you have a good wager why,” Jack said curious as well and a bit relieved that the conversation had veered away from himself.

Clara cocked her head to one side and appraised him with a crafty look. “Did you not hear the words she spoke? How she did not even care for her newest acquisition for her wardrobe? There’s only one thing she’s ever wanted more than the latest fashion.” She leaned forward so her face was a hairsbreadth away from Jack’s and the scent of lavender oil assaulted his senses.

“She’s going to have a baby,” Clara whispered in a conspiratorial manner before drawing back and sipping her tea.

“Are you sure?” Jack asked.

There had been many attempts before in past years, Jack remembered. There had been good visits with Mrs. Hamilton holding him by his tiny hands and spinning them both dizzily around the room as she sang. Then there had been the bad visits as well, with Mrs. Hamilton hugging him tightly and weeping into his hair as his mother comforted her as best as she could. Something always went wrong in the end.  

Clara nodded matter-of-factly. “I was called here to take a look at her necklace and see if the clasp can be fixed. It’s a family heirloom, rather important. She has not even acknowledged my presence or told me to come back later and she wants to speak with your mother of a fierce joy that cannot be contained. What else can it possibly be?”

“Well, that’s good news then,” Jack said and hoped this time that everything would be well.

“You musn’t speak of this to anyone,” Clara said, sharpening her gaze at him. “Tis bad luck. That’s why she lost all the ones before. She broke the glad tidings too early. The trick is to keep it a secret for three months. That will keep the Devil at bay.”

“That sounds like an Old Wives’ Tale,” Jack tossed a grin her way. “Don’t let Father Goodall catch you talking like that.”

“Father Goodall can go choke on his Communion ale,” Clara huffed. “He’s as honest as a man of God as Judas was.”

Jack who had pilfered a macaroon and was biting down near choked on it. His astonished gaze met her own knowing one and she smothered her own laughter behind another sip of tea.

The conversation relaxed after that and Jack thought that maybe small talk wasn’t as difficult as he first thought. Clara seemed to enjoy the sound of her own voice and was doing most of the chatting. He gladly let her babble on about the latest gossip, how Mrs. Jones’ apple pie recipe was in no way equal to her mother’s, did you know Josiah Wilkerson sells used tea leaves and markets them as fresh, and blah, blah, blah. He gave occasional grunts and nods now and then to assure her he was indeed fascinated by all this knowledge. In the meantime, the pile of macaroons was notably decreasing in size. He even stuffed a few in his pockets to take back to Baby Tooth. He supposed he must have dropped his guard because he once again found himself caught fast by a topic he couldn’t avoid.

“Is Thomas Grymes going to accompany your mother to the Yule Fest?”

“What?” Jack could only stare blankly at her.

Clara twirled a finger in one of her blonde ringlets as a naïve mask settled over her face. “It’s only that… word is that he’s courting her.”

“Well, he’s not!” Jack exclaimed, slamming the palm of his hand on the arm of the settee. “Mother’s not remarrying—not now, not ever!”

His voice had deepened and grown louder in his violent outburst, but Clara did not so much as flinch, although her innocent façade had melted away.

“Then I suppose your dear mother will no doubt refuse the brooch Thomas Grymes ordered us to craft for him,” she said, her green eyes narrowing shrewdly.

“What brooch?” Jack demanded.

“He came to my family not too long ago—why, I do believe it was during your illness or right thereafter—and requested an engagement brooch. It was not too difficult to imagine who it was for: he ordered the inner symbol to be shaped like a spool of thread and a needle sticking out,” Clara explained.

Jack said nothing, only sat there feeling the sickly twist of a quiet rage settling in the bottom of his stomach.

“Oh, Jack,” Clara sighed beside him and he felt the soft touch of her hand on his shoulder as she inclined her head towards his ear. Her breath came warm against his cheek, smelling faintly of peppermint from the tea. “I cannot tell you if this is just one man’s imaginative fancy or what your mother’s choice may be. I can only tell you that in the trade language of silversmiths, to have so specific a request on an engagement brooch means a great deal of thought has gone into it.”

Firelight gleamed on something silver and shiny partially hidden under the folds of her long white collar. Jack caught a glimpse of the shape of a small bird. Clara brought up her free hand to finger the object almost without thinking before she smoothed the fabric back down and pulled away.

Jack stood suddenly and began walking swiftly towards the parlor’s open doorway. He gave not so much as “I bid you well” as he left or any explanation on where he was going. He knew this was considered to be very rude, but he felt if he stayed one second longer he would give in to the temptation of smashing things into the fireplace and then the fireplace possibly roaring back its displeasure at him with him pretending he hadn’t heard it or worse, screaming back insults in return, thus finally putting an end to anyone’s doubts that he was indeed adled in the head.

He felt Clara’s eyes boring holes into his back with every step but she made no attempt to call him back or any noise that she was offended by his discourteous behavior.

“I heard from Father this morning that Thomas Grymes is back from his hunting trip. He should still be at the Hollybush for the day before he heads home,” came her final words of parting like she was remarking upon the weather outside.

Jack snatched up his cloak from the coat closet and stomped out the door, slamming it harshly behind him.

Good riddance to good manners, he thought, his heart stinging as cold and unforgiving as the snow as it fell.

oOo

There were no particular train of thoughts in Jack’s head as he made his way down the frosty road that led towards Burgess, just a quiet simmering fury like that of a bee buzzing angrily around the inside of his head. He did not know what he intended to do or say if he encountered Thomas Grymes at the Hollybush, but he found himself traveling in that direction with the determined stride of a hunting dog fast on the scent of his prey.

The entrance of the Hollybush smelled of wood smoke from the fireplace and freshly baked bread from the kitchen in the back. The clanking of mugs and the scraping of utensils on wooden platters as the building’s tenants enjoyed their midday meal filled the open dining area. The place was more of a tavern than an inn, hosting meals for weary travelers passing through, although there were two small spare bedrooms available to rent out for the night if need be. Most of the townsfolk took their supper at their own homes, although the lone bachelors and widowers as well as tradesmen were regular customers. The menu did not change often: small meat pies, a slab of cheese and bread and an apple. Although during the harshest of wintertime, the tavern-keeper’s wife, Hannah Pratchett, was known to make a hearty roast beef stew in a large cauldron.

Apparently, the small snowstorm outside was not strong enough to boast her concern today for the cauldron was absent from the roaring fire as Jack swung the door wide open letting in a whirlwind of flurries behind him.

“Jack, lad! Shut the door! You want to freeze us all?” roared out Samuel Rawlins in a gruff bark.

It took more force than necessary to close the door since the wind had started to kick up in a howling gust seeming bound and determined to follow him inside and in the end, Samuel had to get from his warm table by the fire to help Jack slam it shut.

“Just when a body starts to thaw out,” he muttered non-too pleased as he sat back down and glared at the table’s other occupant. “Thanks for the help, you old codger.”

Gregor Campbell, who looked as snug as a bug wrapped tight in his cloak and wool cap, only waggled white bushy brows as he downed a swig from his tankard of hot ale. “With old age comes lack of responsibilities. Now I get to enjoy bossing you rambunctious youths about.” He winked cheekily at Jack. “Don’t become like young Sam here, Jack. Twenty-two and still not married and he keeps getting more cantankerous every day. It’s all that time he spends out in the wild hunting and trapping. Lost all sense of good manners. Now he’s more beast than man and no woman will look at him for fear he’ll suddenly transform into a bear.”

“I’ll settle down when I’m good and ready,” Samuel said as he brooded over his own tankard of ale. “Perhaps I’ll raise stakes and pull out of this town. Thomas Grymes owns all the prime real estate for hunting. He won’t even allow you to hunt on his property, not even if you promise to split the profits with him. Greedy, pretentious swine.”

Jack, whose opinion of Samuel Rawlins shot up significantly for that comment, asked in what he hoped was a casual manner, “Where is Thomas Grymes? I heard he was here.”

Gregor Campbell was nodding his head. “Thomas Grymes may be a man of the wild like yourself, Sam, but even he knows how to polish himself up and play the courting game, though it took him this long to do so. Did your mam ask you to fetch him for her, Jack?”

“What?” Jack sputtered as the realization that the entire village of Burgess must know by now that Grymes was after his mother’s hand.

It was one thing for everyone to think Grymes was courting Lydia. It was another thing altogether for them to think Lydia returned his affections.

Because she didn’t.

He was going to set Thomas Grymes straight on that point. Once this conversation was over, Thomas Grymes would never darken the Overlands’ doorstep again.

“Where is he?” Jack bit out in foul temper.

Old Gregor waved his hand towards the long bar counter that separated the dining area from the rest of the tavern and the kitchen in the back. Thomas Grymes rested in of the benches placed in front of it with the upper half of his body sprawled across the wooden surface. A rush reed dipped in tallow fat sat smoldering in a holder placed near his head shone light on his face. Dark circles ringed his eyes and wrinkle-lines deepened his brow into a frown as the back of his shoulders twitched fitfully in an uneasy sleep.

“Came in with some furs to trade,” Samuel said still with a bitter tone. “Asked for old man Hugo, was told he had to wait, ordered one mug of ale, and then passed out afterwards. Who knows what concoctions of brewery he guzzled before he came here.” His brown eyes slid over to Jack. “A man that drinks that heavily is not suitable husband material. Your mother should know of this bad habit before she enters any agreement.”

“No,” Gregor Campbell shook his head stoutly. “Thomas Grymes is no drunkard. Greedy, pretentious, and perhaps a tad too boastful for his own good he may be, but he doesn’t drink. That ale was just to warm him up from the cold. He didn’t even finish it. Stays away from the hard stuff at festivities too. Last time I saw him drink so heartily he was a lad younger than Jack here. Then one day he upped and stopped out of the blue.” He snorted. “Maybe all of Father Goodall’s preaching got to him.”

Jack started towards Thomas Grymes fully intent on rousing him despite how tired the man looked. He only had made it two steps when two familiar heads of hair poked out from over the other side of the counter. He watched intrigued as Ezra and Gideon began lightly poking the man’s cheek, stifling their laughter and sharing twin impish grins, each of their touches becoming harder as they attempted to wake him. Gideon elbowed Ezra in the arm obviously daring him to be bolder, and Ezra took a deep breath and leaned forward until he was almost nose to nose with Grymes and blew a loud raspberry right into his face.

Thomas Grymes jolted out of his sleep and blinked groggily until his vision came into focus. Ezra’s face was only a hairsbreadth away and he was crossing his eyes and sticking his tongue out sideways in a ridiculous expression trying to provoke some reaction from the man.

It worked astonishingly well.

Thomas Grymes screamed. It was no startled yell or confused shout. It was a full-bodied scream brimming with such fear and dread and Ezra stumbled backwards in alarm. Thomas Grymes stood to his feet so fast, he knocked the bench over and tripped twice in his haste to flee. He finally managed to gain his balance, forgetting his hat and cloak behind him. He dashed past Jack in a mad rush for the door, a wild-eyed, haunted expression engraved on his face—then he was gone.

“Drunk as a skunk,” Samuel Rawlins stated slamming his tankard down. “I don’t care what airs he puts on before other people. The man is a drunkard and it seems he’s deranged as well. Tell your mam to steer clear from blaggards like him, Jack.”

Jack walked over to the counter to see if Ezra was alright. The boy just looked shaken but was soon smirking at his friend. “Haha! I win! You owe me a meat pie now!”

“We’ll split it,” Gideon smiled not seeming to mind losing whatever wager they had made between them. He looked up. “Heyla, Jack.”

“What are you two doing here?” Jack asked. The fact that he hadn’t been able to speak to Grymes should have angered him but seeing the normally overly-confident man so unsettled gave him more pleasure than it should have.

“I wanna talk to Cap’n Hugo!” Ezra crowed leaping up and down in excitement. “Henry’s great-uncle that returned from sea, savvy? I wanna know all about sea-faring!”

“You’ve inhaled too much flour,” Gideon said looking bemused. “What’s all this nonsense about being a ship captain now? Just the other day you said you were going to have the governor knight you after doing some heroic deed.”

“I’m going to be a grand admiral of the sea!” Ezra swore fiercely. “It’s my destiny!”

“Is it now, boyo?” came a rich, hearty chuckle and they all looked up to see a stout, elderly man walk out from the kitchen. He had a slight limp in his gait and leaned heavily on his cane for support. He had wiry, salt-and-pepper hair and a grey bushy beard. His round nose was perpetually red from his time spent cooking as well as sampling the ale, but his green eyes were clear and twinkling with mirth as he made his way around the counter and stopped before the three youths. “Ah, there’s no hesitation if the sea beckons you with her call, sure as she did me.”

“Mr. Pratchett, I mean, Captain Hugo, sir!” Ezra said drawing himself up straight and saluting with the wrong arm. “I want to know how one goes about being bonded onto a sea vessel! I told my da but he said I was only merry-making and would grow tired of this passing fancy soon. It’s not true! I aim to follow your footsteps so please tell me how to become the greatest sea voyager there ever was!”

Old man Hugo laughed so hard tears leaked out of his eyes and he had to sit down on a stool near the fire. “Bless me,” he chuckled. “I weren’t the greatest there ever was, boyo. I weren’t even a captain. Only made First Mate—didn’t want all the responsibility that comes with command.” He nudged the tip of Ezra’s foot with his cane. “And the surname is Black, not Pratchett, difficult to remember in this tiny town where half that clan has their hands in its origins. Now go on and ask me what you want to know.”

For the following half hour, Ezra pestered the old man relentlessly with questions, some boyish (“have you ever see mermaids or a giant squid?”) and some not (“how do I form a bond contract without a parent’s consent?”; “are there really places in the world that have buildings as big as mountains?”). Hugo Black looked happy enough to answer him showing no signs of impatience. It was rare for children of a small, backwoods village like Burgess to be interested in anything besides farming or trade between towns. Old man Hugo appeared to be enjoying his trip down memory lane of his time at sea.

Gideon stuck around although he appeared decidedly less intrigued about the whole topic than Ezra. Often times he cast speculative glances at his friend as if just now coming to the realization that Ezra might be serious.

Jack stayed as well not only because he was curious but also because if he left, he might be tempted to hunt down Thomas Grymes still and honestly, he was quite weary of thinking about that man. If he waited long enough, he could head home a short spell before his mother and sister and start supper early. Then Lydia would not be so vexed that he had left both Mrs. Hamilton and Clara in bad graces and without a proper goodbye.

He might have lingered at the tavern longer than he expected when Hugo Black taught everyone one of his old sea shanties. Jack was delighted to discover one could belt out a song and have no other instrument besides the sound of your own voice and still feel the beat of the rhythm pulsing through you.

“Tis easy, boyos!” Hugo Black had laughed at their skeptical faces when he had suggested singing. “I ring out a verse and you chant me back the chorus. And none of those soft angelic hymns you recite in church, oh no! All you do after me lines is shout ‘Oh, what a terrible man! Oh, what a terrible man!’ Have you got that?”

All three of them nodded their heads vigorously and old man Hugo slapped his good knee in anticipation. “Right then! We’re gonna tear the rafters down from this place with our voices!” Then he roared out the first verse.  “Oh the Captain, he was crude, he was vulgar, loud and rude!”

“Oh, what a terrible man! Oh, what a terrible man!” Jack, Gideon, and Ezra yelled in their loudest voices. Then they all stared at each other, nervous giggling bubbling up in the backs of their throats. It certainly was not any song their mothers would request.

“Keep it up, boyos, keep it up!” Hugo Black said, singing the next line. “The first mate made me climb tha’ mast, cursed me when I didn’t climb it fast!”

“Oh, what a terrible man! Oh, what a terrible man!”

“The cook, he made me eat green beans and other nasty greeny things!”

“Oh, what a terrible man! Oh, what a terrible man!”

“The bosun drank rum from entire barrels, he was not a man of good morals!”

“Oh, what a terrible man! Oh, what a terrible man!”

“My bunkmate, he socked me in th’ nose, lost his temper I suppose!”

“Oh, what a terrible man! Oh, what a terrible man!”

At this point, the mood in the tavern had grown so uplifting that even Gregor Campbell and grouchy Samuel Rawlins couldn’t resist joining in.

“Young Jack here is a tailor, but he coulda been a sailor!” Gregor hooted, tapping his mug on the table for sound effects.

“Oh, what a terrible man! Oh, what a terrible man!” the three boys sung back with Jack grinning from ear to ear.

“This here Campbell might’ve been a grocer, but a first class sea man, no, sir!” Samuel shouted dodging sideways as the older man swung his fist in a mock-punch at him.

“Oh, what a terrible man! Oh, what a terrible man!”

The tavern’s occupants all collapsed with laughter, their heads spinning in giddy delight, and Hugo Black leaned back on his stool looking content and dabbed at the corners of his eyes with the hem of a cloth napkin. “Ah, thank you all. That brought me back to the good old days. I didn’t realize I missed them so.”

A cold burst of air shot through the room as the Hollybush’s door opened abruptly and two lithe forms covered in a layer of snow tromped in. Jack’s good mood dropped as he recognized both Henry and Anthony. It made sense for them to be there. Henry’s father owned the tavern and Anthony was his friend, or rather, he was a useful acquaintance that Anthony referred to as his friend. There was really no escaping anyone in Burgess—there was no place to hide in a tiny village where everybody knew everybody’s business.

“Your father’s looking for you, Gideon,” Anthony said, taking off his cloak and giving it a good shake before hanging it up on one of the wall’s hooks to dry. “He’s says you ditched your apprentice lessons and he’s raving mad. Best run home before he smashes anymore pottery.”

Gideon’s face paled at those words as he gathered up his coat and raced out into the cold.

Henry’s eyes darted around those who remained. “Were you all just singing here moments ago?”

“Cap’n Black taught us a sea shanty!” Ezra nodded, finishing off Gideon’s half of his uneaten meat pie that he had won.

Henry’s eyes narrowed at his great-uncle. “Mother told you those vulgar songs are forbidden if you intend to stay here. She doesn’t want the wrath of God upon her.”

“If that woman doesn’t want to offend the Almighty’s ears so greatly, she should hold that clucking tongue of hers in cheek and stop all her idle gossiping,” Hugo Black brooded sullenly, his face darkening for the first time since Jack had seen him. The man obviously did not get along with his family. He climbed unsteadily onto his feet and began shuffling back towards the kitchen. “It was fun visiting with you boyos while the harpy had her day off, but don’t come back for awhile,” he called over his shoulder. “I think I’ve garnered sometime in the brig now. I won’t be getting any shore leaves anytime soon.”

“Senile old man,” Henry spat under his breath at him. He turned to Anthony. “Mother says he’s a tiresome burden and that we should just foist him off to the asylum, but Father worries about what everyone will think and how it’s our familial and moral duty to care for him.”

Jack stood to leave, a quiet burning anger churning inside him, that someone could have such a congenial relative like Hugo Black and not feel blessed to have him, when others had so achingly little. Anthony watched him pass by with focused hazel eyes, but said nothing in taunt. Gregor and Samuel were still at their table talking in low voices but glancing at them occasionally. Anthony Hawkins could be courteous when he needed to be for appearance’s sake. Even now, he tipped his head in an earnest nod of acknowledgement at him, although his eyes were shining with guile.

Shining as brightly as the small silver pin on his vest pocket obscured by the red scarf he still had wrapped around his neck. Jack paused mid-step and peered closer to make out the barest tip of a wing before Anthony had crossed his arms over his chest completely hiding the pin. “Is your vision ailing you, Jack?” he asked in a false, concerned voice. “Sometimes after a grievous fall or accident, I hear it is quite common to lose one’s sight. Perhaps Doctor Brown should pay you another visit.”

Jack gazed at him, pieces of a puzzle falling into place, and a reckless kind of energy thrumming through his veins.

“Nice brooch,” he remarked in an off-handed manner. “Is Clara making them by quantity or request only?”

Anthony had grown quite still. “When have you been speaking to Clara Pratchett?” he inquired, a dangerous edge to his voice.

“Just this morning,” Jack smiled at him innocently. “Had a lovely conversation with her over tea at the governor’s house.”

He opened the door and the snowflakes rushed to greet him in a billowy dance of white flurries, their icy touch feeling more like warm kisses over his cheeks and hands. He closed his eyes and for a brief moment, reveled in this rare, triumphant feeling.

Then Anthony Hawkins called out behind him:

“See you at Yuletide, Jack. I heard there’s going to be quite the bonfire there.”

oOo

He made it home before his mother and sister and threw together some leftover cuts of meat and some vegetables to make into a roast stew over the fireplace (which gave no advice or insults today, thank goodness). Lydia was displeased at him leaving like that, but her not having to cook put her in a pleasant disposition. That and whatever Rebekha Hamilton had shared with her seemed to weigh heavily on her mind. She sent her children off to bed and stayed in her rocking chair to needlepoint—something she always did when in deep thought.

Jack looked in all the usual hiding places for Baby Tooth but could not find her. Perhaps her wing had healed and she had flown off to wherever her kingdom resided. It made him sad to think that, but he reminded himself that she had never been his to keep. Nevertheless, he left a small pile of macaroons he had saved for her behind the water pitcher just in case she came back.

When Jack fell asleep at last, he dreamed that it was summer and he and Emma were playing tag in the forest. He was chasing after his sister who ran giggling in front of him, weaving in between thick tree trunks and hiding behind the foliage. He lost sight of her and called her name, and his voice echoed off the labyrinth of twisting corridors and winding staircases the forest had suddenly become. He was lost and confused and wanted to get out, but the labyrinth was never ending and everything was so very, very dark. Jack tripped on the stone steps and he was upside down, or perhaps the world was right-side up.

The voices called out to him, piercing through the haunting darkness, each one vibrating with their own unique cadence.

Jack, crooned the shadows, murky and mysterious.

Jack, whispered the wind, carefree and wild.

Jack, twinkled the stars, bright and joyous.

Jack! A voice cried out, feather-soft and full of urgency, Jack, wake up!

Jack, the moon murmured, melancholy and remorseful, a pale ghostly blanket of light draping around his shoulders, alarmingly heavy and dragging him down, down, down, down…

Jack, burbled the water, icy and welcoming.

Jack awoke with a strangled gasp like he was drowning. He flailed frantically, still feeling trapped in the water’s crushing embrace before he realized his arms were merely twisted in his blankets. Freeing them at last, he sat up and hunched over in bed breathing heavily as he waited for his panic to fade. He swallowed back several dry coughs, trying his best not to wake Emma who slept peacefully beside him.

“Having trouble sleeping?”

Jack brought up his head sharply, his lip curled back in a silent snarl as Pitch glided out of a dark corner of the room to loom over his bed.

“Giving me nightmares won’t change my mind on how I choose to use my power as I see fit!” Jack snapped at him, feeling more offended than afraid now.

Did Pitch honestly believe that he could bully and intimidate his way into obtaining what he wanted? Anthony Hawkins had done that every day for the past decade and still had nothing to show for it. The only result that came from people trying to manipulate Jack was for him to grow more resilient and defiant.

“Oh, bad dreams are not my forte,” Pitch corrected him. “Quite the mistaken assumption. Nightmares are purposefully created: a twisted, dark, mirror image of a pleasant setting and unfiltered desires. Bad dreams…” he paused for a moment, carefully selecting his words. “They derive from suppressed emotions and discarded memories. I suppose it’s your mortals’ way of cleansing your mind of things you’d wished you’d forgotten.”

Moonlight shone on the Nightmare King’s inky hair as he peered down at him, his face a blank slate, watching as Jack digested this new knowledge. He reminded Jack of a vulture debating whether or not supper was served.

“So, I’m the one who conjured all that up?” Jack huffed, still trying to squash down the horrible, unsettling feeling that lingered from the dream. Though, he wasn’t particularly surprised to discover that he probably was a bit more traumatized by the incident at the lake than he was letting on. Near death experiences would do that to you, he supposed.

“Did you see something that did not make sense?” Pitch asked in a hushed tone, just the barest tinge of unsympathetic silver gleaming through the gold of his eyes.

Jack, wake up! The voice had cried.

It was Emma, Jack tried to brush off. His early memories from being pulled from the lake were fuzzy but he did remember his sister crying over him.

The voice in his dreams hadn’t sounded like a child’s though. And he was sure it had called his name in while he was still under the frigid water, but that couldn’t be possible.

“Are you here to gloat?” Jack frowned at Pitch. “Or is this you skulking about in the shadows because I refuse to do things your way?”

“I have thought on my actions for some time now,” Pitch said, clasping his arms behind his back. “I have decided it was entirely unfair on my part to push you down path that your morals do not encompass. Also, we did invoke a pact upon which you have yet not seen any reimbursement on your end. I took it upon myself to rectify that most recently.”

It took a moment for Jack to realize that Pitch was apologizing albeit in his own egotistical manner about the training sessions. The last line bemused him though.

Pitch spoke first, seeing the confusion on the boy’s face. “You revolt at the very thought of inflicting your power on others as a weapon, yet you beseech me to do the same with my own talent all for the sake of petty jealousy. ‘Drag others into madness’? Weren’t those the exact words you used?”

Shame gripped Jack by the throat as he remembered the anger and hurt that had led him out of the house to the field that night to strike a bargain with this devil. Then with a jolt, he recalled how Thomas Grymes had screamed upon awakening in the tavern, the wild-eyed, haunted look in his eyes, and him dashing out without explanation, forgetting his hat and cloak in his haste.

“Was that you?” Jack asked and was alarmed at how horribly satisfied he felt about that.

Pitch bared his needle-like teeth into grotesque grin. Jack’s excitement was not lost on him. “Adults are usually more difficult to incite fear. They’re quite stubborn, always trying to explain their terrors away, finding some rational reason behind them. It’s always nice to have sorrow lurking in the deep recesses of their mind. Why it almost makes it too easy…”

“What in tarnation does Thomas Grymes have sorrow for?” Jack scoffed. His own voice sounded so foreign to his ears, so wrong, so full of spite. Yet he found that he could not summon one shred of sympathy for the man who threatened to take his entire world away from him.

“Something secret,” Pitch crooned. “Some darkly guarded regret that has been festering in the crevices of his mind for many, many seasons. The regret fades into guilt and guilt churns into fear and such fear can drive one into madness, just as you so desired.”

Jack wondered if Pitch could see this hidden fear that Thomas Grymes had buried deep within him or if he could only sense it, and decided he didn’t care. So long as the man stopped intruding in places where he didn’t belong. If not, the fearlings deserved a good feast.

Jack felt Pitch’s hungry gaze fall upon him and wondered if he had uttered the last thought out loud. Again, he found he did not care. He was seized by a sudden wild and reckless abandon. Anthony Hawkins and his tightly veiled threats loomed large in his mind.

“I’ll be on the mountainside tomorrow afternoon after my tailoring and chores are done,” Jack said.  “Perhaps we can start the lessons afresh?”

A low rumbling unfurled from the depths of Pitch’s throat, more liken to the purr of a cat than a growl. The Nightmare King gave a one-armed bow—and as mocking though it was it sent a shiver of pleasure up Jack’s spine. He watched as Pitch retreated back into the shadows until only the gold of his eyes told he was there. Three words were whispered from the darkness, “As you wish…” Then in a blink, the golden irises had vanished and Pitch was truly gone.

Jack lay back down, pointedly refusing to look at his emotions, and fell asleep the instant his head hit his pillow.

Jack dreamed again and this time he was aware that he was dreaming. A vast expanse of dark blue encompassed him dotted throughout with a thousand glittering stars. Before him, a spectral boy floated with his back turned so his face was not visible. His head of silvery-fine hair that looked as if it were spun out of moonbeam strands was tilted upwards as he gaze at the moon looming large before them. It gleamed cool and white, radiating with an aura of serenity and the spectral boy let out a low hum and lifted both arms upwards to it as if he were trying to soak in some of its light. It looked like some pale imitation of a flower drinking in the brightness of the sun.

“I’ve seen you before,” Jack said though he honestly could not recall any memory of him. The boy’s presence felt so startlingly familiar though he felt as if he should know him.

“It wasn’t supposed to be like this,” the spectral boy spoke in a hollow voice that was barely above a whisper.

The silver head turned his direction and blue eyes that shone with eons of knowledge for one who looked so young took on a haunted expression. “Dreams can be just as dangerous as nightmares, you know. They show us our innermost desires, make us want things we didn’t know we even wanted, and then we wake up to find we just imagined it all.” A shadow passed over the spectral boy’s face as he folded his arms and seemed to shrink inward. “Sometimes dreams can slip out if you’re not careful…”

The boy started to fade like wisp of smoke caught in a breeze, like the early morning fog when the sunrise warms the earth, like a ghost wandering out of your line of sight behind a tombstone.

“Who are you?” Jack cried because it was important, there was something missing, something he should remember but couldn’t.

“Don’t search for me,” the boy pleaded his voice heavy with sorrow. “I am nothing but a dream that wanted to be real. So for now… wake up, Jack.”

A loud crash pierced the depths of his dream and Jack was dragged back into the waking world, his lips curled into a silent echo of a word and his nightlight toppled upon the floor, its cow horn pane of glass cracked in half.

To Be Continued…

Chapter Text

In the beginning, he wanted to protect the world.

Jack was flying.

Flying so high that he shot up past the fluffy clouds and the bright blue of the sky until he reached the blackness that spanned beyond: a never-ending space filled with forgotten wishes, cast-aside dreams and a multitude of ever-vigilant stars.

He floated there for a moment, reveling in the utter peace and solitude this vast darkness offered. Then he looked down upon a blueish-green globe spinning slowly beneath him.

“It’s round,” Joseph Overland’s voice echoed in his head. “As an acorn…”

The globe began to spin backwards at an agonizingly small pace, then faster and faster it twirled on its axis until it was nothing but a blue-and-green blur. The stars around him pulsed rapidly with brilliant white radiance and spun him into a cocoon of light.

Jack closed his eyes and slept.

He did not dream. Not at first.

The cocoon of light was velvety soft and warm. No bad thoughts or ill intentions could pierce its veil and so he slumbered on undisturbed and not without company either.

The wishing stars would often visit and whisper their secrets of those who had spoken their deepest desires to them that night.

Some were serious and sad:

“Star light, star bright, please let Papa return home safe and sound from battle.”

Some were extraordinarily silly:

“Star light, star bright, I want to grow big, beautiful butterfly wings!”

“Star light, star bright, I wish to grow six inches overnight so I’ll be taller than my brother in the morning!”

A smile crept onto his sleeping face as he listened.

“Are all wishes able to be granted?” he murmured drowsily through the silvery strands of moonlight that made up his cocoon.

“The honorable wishes, if possible, we weave them into reality and let them fall to earth,” the wishing stars hummed at an excitingly high frequency. “The ones not possible, we share their stories to the Sandman and he spins them a fantastic dream and sends it to the person in their sleep!”

A slight crease crept onto the boy’s brow. “Well, that’s not entirely fair, is it?”

“What isn’t? What isn’t?” the wishing stars tittered in unison.

“Because once they’ve woken up from their dream where their wish was true, they find out that it wasn’t real at all. Won’t they be sad?”

“Most don’t remember!”

“Not at all!”

“They enjoy their dreams though!”

“Dreams help guide them in their quest to make their wish come true for real!”

“I suppose,” the boy said. “If it’s the best you can do… am I dreaming?”

“Why? Why do you ask? Did you wish for this?” the wishing stars voices tumbled over each other wily-nily.

“I… don’t remember,” Jack said, reaching out one hand and pressing it against the cocoon of light. It felt cool and smooth beneath his palm, like a roll of silk. “What is this for? Why can’t I get out?”

“Why? Why do you ask? Why would you want out?”

Had the wishing stars sounded anxious just then or were they merely growing agitated at him pestering them with all these questions.

“Well, you’re all out there,” Jack replied simply. “And I’m in here. Alone. That’s not fair either, is it?”

“Not alone! Not alone! Not alone! Notnotnotnotnotnotnotnotnot!”

The high pitched mantra crashed over him, alarming fierce and devoutly protective. The walls of his cocoon pushed inward slightly as if the wishing stars were crowding against it on the outside. Jack pressed his forehead against the smooth interior, feeling a surge of gratitude and warmth. The wishing stars did not enjoy being cut off from him any more than he did from them.

“Did I wish for this?” he mumbled to himself. “Is this my dream?”

But no, it couldn’t be.

The cocoon of light offered sanctuary and protection, but a cage however warm and soft, was still a cage nonetheless.

He wouldn’t wish for a cage. What he would wish for was…

oOo

“Fly? You want to fly? Wouldn’t that be a sight to behold? A featherless boy flapping his scrawny arms and bobbing up and down in the sky like a drunken sparrow over this village’s cornfields and sheep pastures. You would be begging your precious townsfolk to shoot you down,” Pitch laughed cruelly.

Jack scowled, feeling his ears burn, wishing he had never spoken out loud his secret daydream he often had since he was little. When you were a young boy with naught much to fill your long days except keeping watch over a flock of goats, what else was there to do but lie on your back and gaze up at the sky and imagine you were far away from there, perhaps even flying with the birds among the clouds?

He had only revealed this childish fantasy in the heat of the moment. The training sessions he had allowed back into practice had consisted mostly of him and Pitch sparring. According to the spirit, his footwork was “good”, his stances “passable”, and his parrying with the staff “defensible enough to split a few mortal farmers’ heads open” which Jack had not taken kindly to so Pitch had sneered at him and changed the wording, “drive your pathetic tormenters away”.

Jack, muscles aching and bruised, overtired and frustrated at himself, Pitch, and the whole world at the time, shouted something along the lines of if he had been Chosen to be a Guardian, then he’d rather have the ability to fly than these confounded ice powers.

“Why don’t you then?” Pitch asked him suddenly, all snide and disdain void from his tone. He stared at Jack with unblinking golden eyes that glittered almost hungrily. “Grip your staff, raise it high and just… fly.”

“Don’t make fun,” Jack huffed, resting his staff across his shoulders. “I was only saying, if I have to be a Guardian, then I should get to decide what my own power should be.”

“Guardians do not have powers,” Pitch spat at him, looking irritated that he had not taken the bait and done as he had suggested. But Jack was not going to make a fool of himself and trip flat on his face for the spirit’s own amusement.

“Guardians have centers, the special core that makes up their very existence. Whatever unnatural abilities they then possess are nothing but side effects that they may use as they see fit to match whatever their center entails.”

Jack eyed Pitch’s scythe his interest piqued. “You know a lot of fighting skills. Were you a soldier before? Or maybe a general, because you sure do enjoy being in charge and bossing me around.”

He grinned, hoping Pitch would see it was only light-hearted conversation and that he wasn’t seriously trying to pry into his past. He didn’t want the Nightmare King to snap like he had done over the locket.

Pitch was did not grow angry nor did he clamp up on the subject as he often did. Instead, he lifted his head to the sky above. The day was late and the horizon was a checkerboard of grey clouds with streaks of copper and gold from the setting sun filtering through. He stared upwards for the longest time, his face the calmest that Jack had ever seen on him, then brought his attention back to the boy in front of him, the usual gold of his irises outweighed by the silver hue now.

“I have seen countless wars and numerous battles far more that your mortal mind can comprehend. I have engaged in the vast majority of them, even led them. I was not Chosen, not as you were. But war is a crucial part of my very essence—that I won’t deny.”

A gusty breeze weaved its path through the trees, rustling their branches and setting off a symphony of ominous creaking from their bark. The forest sounded in Jack’s mind very much like an old man suffering from arthritis from the groaning that arose and a sudden thought struck him in that moment.

“How old are you?” he asked Pitch warily.

The gold shone in the Nightmare King’s eyes anew as he answered with delicious glee.

“‘Like the generation of leaves, the lives of mortal men. Now the wind scatters the old leaves across the earth, now the living timber bursts with the new buds and spring comes round again. And so with men: as one generation comes to life, another dies away.’’

“That’s from the Illiad,” Jack said feeling his stomach tighten at the dawning realization.

“For an amateur tailor, you are quite educated in the old stories,” Pitch hummed in what resembled approval.

“Not me,” Jack mumbled. “Mother has the learned background. She just likes telling me and my sister grand adventures and fairy tales. She can recite lines from books by memory.”

“Still, amongst the pasture of grazing cattle… there runs a fox,” Pitch proclaimed with a derisive chuckle at the back of his throat.

A strange heat filled Jack’s cheeks and he shot back without thinking. “So you’re pretty ancient then, aye?”

Pitch’s eyelids drooped low and heavy as a blank slate mask settled over his features. Lips curled back to expose needlelike teeth as the shadows at his feet stretched long across the snowy ground. Jack felt his heart begin to race as he wondered if he had once again spiked the spirit’s wrath.

“Then take your staff and strike a true blow against this Ancient One, young whelp.”

In a poof of shadows he was gone from in front of him to reappear on the crest of the hill that overlooked the small glade that had become their usual meet up for the daily training sessions. Pitch reached out with one arm and summoned his shadow-scythe from thin air.

Then a massive storm-cloud of writhing, twisting shadows was plunging down the hillside towards him with Pitch riding on top of the black wave looking every inch the fearsome Nightmare King he was.

oOo

“What should I do if I come face to face with a bear?”

Joseph Overland did not brush off his son’s childish fears. After all, he had come face to face with a wolf before just last fall. He presented a valid point.

“You must make yourself appear bigger than he is,” Joseph said. “That is what your staff is for. It has a variety of uses. Raise it up over your head and belch out the most fearsome war-cry you can muster. Stand your ground.”

“Will it frighten it away?”

“Most likely not. But it will make him stop his mad charge.”

oOo

Pitch resembled a bear in that moment: face all flashing golden eyes and bared teeth, and swathed in shadows as thick as an inky fur coat; his scythe swinging down towards him in all its magnificent dark glory—not a drop of sunlight reflected upon the crusty black blade.

A rush of both alarm and elation shot up Jack’s spine at the sight. He raised up his staff—a shout tore free from his throat though he did not recall what the words were in the heat of the moment. He had concentrated so many times before on trying to summon his power at will, that now it rose up as pure instinct. Jack felt the wood beneath his fingertips tremble as an age-old energy surged forth, whether or not it was from him or his staff he did not know for they were one.

A brilliant explosion of light flared outwards like a dam bursting wide open.

Not ice. Not frost. Not even snow flurries.

White light.

Reality rippled away as they both were engulfed in the endless embrace of it.

Blinding and mind-numbing as a fog in a dense forest.

Harsh and unforgiving as the snow in a blizzard.

Silent and ghostly as the moonlight upon a frozen lake…

Jack choked as a heavy pressure seized him by the throat. Abruptly the white light faded away and his hands were clawing futilely at Pitch’s spindly grey fingers wrapped tightly around his neck.

The Nightmare King’s face was twisted in fury, his mouth curved into a savage snarl as he drew Jack nearer and screamed at him.

“I will not be toyed with! What game are you playing at, old friend? TELL ME!”

Jack could only stare, eyes wide and gasping feebly for breath as his legs dangled a few inches above the ground, trying to understand why Pitch was so angry but it was really difficult to think with his windpipe being slowly crushed…

With a roar of rage, Pitch flung him backwards into a snowdrift. Luckily there had been a fresh snowfall the night before so it was still soft when he hit, otherwise Jack was fairly certain his head would have been cracked open. He struggled on all fours to get up, but the snow was several inches deep and he kept falling back over. His ears were ringing and his voice only croaked like a frog’s whenever he tried to speak.

Jack glanced up and saw Pitch standing still as thick black tendrils stretched out from the swirls of his garb and crawled unnaturally across the snow towards him. It may have been the near asphyxiation and spots before his eyes, but Jack swore the tendrils had terrible, leering faces.

Fearlings.

He scrambled back several paces, knee-deep in the snowdrift, hands empty because he had lost his staff in the skirmish yet again.

He was completely helpless once more.

And though he hated himself for doing it, Jack cast a long, pleading look at Pitch feeling his eyes burn. He blinked hard several times refusing to let the water in them spill over.

Pitch stared at him a few seconds longer, the fearlings inching ever closer, before he finally snapped his fingers and they vanished without a trace. He glided effortlessly through the snow until he was directly in front of him and reached out a hand towards his face.

Jack jerked his head sideways out of reflex, mortified to hear a distressed sound emitting from his bruised throat.

But Pitch only grasped him firmly by the chin and turned his head this way and that as if he were an unusual object to be studied. The hand shifted lower and then a thumb stroked briefly over the madly-fluttering pulse-point in his neck before Pitch released him.

Golden narrowed eyes swept over him from head to toe as the spirit appraised him before clucking his tongue in contempt.

“You really are just a foolish boy aren’t you?” Pitch whispered more to himself than to Jack.

Jack’s voice finally returned to him. “You t-tried to k-kill me,” he said. Even to his own ears, his voice sounded hoarse and sullen. Full of disbelief, like a child that had been punished unjustly. He cringed inwardly.

“If I had wanted to kill you, brat, I could think up many more creative endings than strangulation,” Pitch sneered at him. He turned his back to the boy. “That’s enough lessons for today, I think.”

Now that his fear was receding, a tiny part indignation sparked within Jack’s chest. It made him bold enough to call out. He didn’t ask what had made Pitch lose all reason or if more attempts of the fearlings devouring him would arise if he displeased the spirit again.

“What were you so afraid of just now then, aye?”

Jack braced himself for another attack, another instance of Pitch becoming unhinged. He wouldn’t beg this time, he told himself furiously, not even silently. He would take anything Pitch threw at him. He wouldn’t cower before those fearlings ever again.

For whatever matter Pitch had been angry before, he had reined that volatile temper in check. He only paused in his departure to lift his head up to view the stars glimmering faintly through the veil of clouds still lingering accompanied by the moon a pale waning orb hanging low in the now twilight sky.

“Go home, boy. The night has many eyes.”

oOo

The forest was strangely silent as Jack trudged home. The only sounds were from his feet crunching in the snow and the rattling of the tree branches above his head as the wind whistled hollowly through them. Jack rubbed at his sore throat wondering how he was going to explain the bruises that were sure to form there to his mother. His chest stung a little in what resembled betrayal and he had to bite down a brittle laugh. Just because he and Pitch had been getting along well the past couple of days did not mean he should have forgotten what a master manipulator the spirit was and how swiftly his chaotic moods shifted at the most unassuming remark or action.

Pitch wasn’t going to explain or apologize nor did Jack expect him to. Pitch was like a wild dog that stayed close because you gave him attention and food, yet he could still bite your fingers off if you played too rough.

Still the sick, prickly sensation festered within his chest at the realization at how easily he had allowed Pitch into his life, his daily routine, into even the inner circle of people he considered the most important to him and wondered why it hurt so deeply now that Pitch seemed disappointed in him.

Not disappointed… offended? Repulsed? Apprehensive?

There had been fear mixed alongside of the anger fixed fast upon the Nightmare King’s face when he had seized him by the throat. Jack did not understand why.

His musings were interrupted by the sound of muffled sobbing. It was coming just beyond the bend in the thicket ahead. Jack hurried his pace, his shoe scuffing on a rock hidden by the snow. The crying had stopped by the time he had rounded the bramble.

Gideon squatted on his heels underneath a tall elm tree, a lantern and a bundle of tied sticks on the ground beside him. The boy’s eyes were red and puffy in the dim lighting as well as a distinct contusion on his left cheek that had not been there the last time Jack saw him.

Gideon lifted his arm and swiped the sleeve of his tunic fast across his face before rising to his feet. “Heyla, Jack,” he rasped out.

“Heyla,” Jack said in response as he drew closer. “What are you doing out so late?”

“Gathering firewood,” Gideon said nudging the bundle of sticks with his shoe.

Jack nodded as he stared hard at mark on the boy’s cheek. It looked freshly made. The skin was raised red and in the shape of a large handprint.

“I was reaching for a pottery jar on the top shelf. It fell down and got me in t’face,” Gideon said, a defensive challenge laced thickly in his tone as his eyes bore into Jack’s own.

Gideon was apprenticed to his father, the village’s pottery maker. Ambrose Hoffe was a strong-built man with a steady hand and possessed patience enough only for the ceramics he molded. It was a well-known fact amongst the people of Burgess that the man desired “punctuality and payment” upon services rendered. In fact, these words were carved upon the wooden sign that hung above his shop outside his door.

Gideon himself took after his father in height and form, tall and broad for a boy of twelve that often people mistook him for older. He was a dutiful enough son that he did not purposefully neglect his apprentice lessons when playing with the other children. It was just he sometimes got caught up in the fantasy of their own little world so much, that he forgot the time. It’s something that happens to everyone: a slip of the mind. However, a memory lapse especially due to playing childish games was not an acceptable excuse for Ambrose Hoffe it seemed.

“I could speak to your father,” Jack said, choosing his words delicately. “Tell him it was my fault for distracting you.”

He had often been on the receiving end of the blame for leading the villager’s children astray from their chores with his “tom-foolery” and “idle day-dreaming”. It would be nothing new for Ambrose to focus his ire out on him instead.

“No,” Gideon refused shortly. “Father’s right. I should remember my lessons. I’m to be the village’s next potter-master. I can’t be off playing games with you lot all the time.”

Jack bit his lip but nodded. Even though he was apprenticed to Tailor Saunders, the man never demanded he arrive on time and more often than not, sent him home early and looked well-relieved to be rid of him. There had been whispers amongst the towns-folk that the old man had given up on Jack altogether and had Lydia set in his will to take over his trade when he died, woman or no. Everyone agreed, Jack included, that she had better skills with a needle and thread.

Jack thought back on simpler days when he was just a shepherd boy tending his family’s flock and remembered fondly of the early mornings and late evenings spent at his father’s side. Joseph Overland had been a stickler for a strict schedule and set rules accordingly if Jack ever toed out of line. Who was he to judge Ambrose Hoffe on how he disciplined his son?

Though Jack never remembered any punishment so badly that he had needed to venture off into the woods to have a good cry afterwards.

“Well, company’s always best when travelling through the forest at night,” he said forcing a smile as he nodded to their surroundings. “Let’s go home together.”

The path twisted and turned as they walked upon it, partially hidden by the recent snowfall yet still visible as it was used daily by the villagers. Brown leaves crusty with ice lay thick underfoot crunching noisily as they treaded along. Gideon held the lantern aloft for them to see better but the moon shone so brightly it was more a comfort than necessity for them to use.

Gideon remained oddly silent, not his usual talkative self that Jack was so familiar seeing when he was joined fast at the hip with Ezra.

Jack lipped his chapped lips. “How ‘bout a story?” he suggested trying to lighten the boy’s somber mood.

“Is it about my name being a great ship’s captain once long ago?”

Jack stumbled a little in surprise. “What?”

Gideon paused his pace and swung around wide to face him, his mouth turned downwards in a frown.

“Ezra already told me that story. I know it was you he learned it from.” There was a quiet resentment burning in his hazel eyes. “I know it’s because of you that now he wants to go off to sea and leave m—all of us behind.”

“It was just a story,” Jack said feeling very small even though he was a full head taller than the younger boy. “I told it to cheer him up. It’s just a passing fancy of his. It’ll blow over soon.”

“Once Ezra gets a notion, no matter how ridiculous, into his head, he’s bound to see it through ‘til the end. That’s how he dislocated his shoulder from playing Jousting Warsteeds, the game you thought up.”

“I thought you liked our games,” Jack said, feeling the sick, prickly stab in his chest again for the second time that evening.

“That’s all they are, Jack, games,” Gideon’s voice had risen now, gruff and heavy with a fierce protectiveness. “They’re quite fun in the moment and then they’re over and the world still goes on. We can’t forget our real roles here. My duty is to be a master potter, yours is to be a tailor, and one day Ezra will be head miller! Everyone has their designated place. That’s how it always is and always will be.”

Jack thought about the light in Ezra’s eyes when he talked of becoming a grand admiral of the sea, at the happiness in his sister’s voice as she pretended to be a fine lady or magical princess, of the fond smile on his mother’s lips as she recited another bedtime story to them of faraway places brimming with adventure and mysteries to be discovered. How often had he wondered with all of Lydia’s vast knowledge of the world and its writings that she could have done anything, gone anywhere, yet she had chosen to be their mother and never regretted a single day of it.

“It doesn’t have to be,” Jack said. “Nothing is set in stone. We can all chose what we want to become.”

“Grow up, Jack!” Gideon shouted at him, throwing his bundle of kindling on the frozen ground in frustration. “We play those games because we know they can’t come true in real life and so they make us happy for a short while. But we can’t go on playing them forever. It isn’t possible.”

There was an unrecognizable emotion plastered across Gideon’s face, a kind of tightening about the jaw and a hardness in the eyes that Jack had only ever seen on the grown-ups in the village: a kind of bitter acceptance about the future that lay ahead and the determined weariness to face it day after day until their time was done.

It was an expression he never wanted to see on his sister’s face or any of the other children in Burgess, yet he knew it was inevitable. That one day, all of them would reach that point in their lives where they made a decision to cross the threshold from youth into adulthood.

Perhaps Jack had missed that path when it had been thrust upon him the day his father had died.

Maybe he had purposefully gone down the wrong road.

For he had never stopped dreaming or imagining all his so-called “fairy-tale fantasies”. What could be so wrong with a little pretending in such a cruel, bleak world?

Gideon picked up his kindling from the ground and slung the strap over his shoulder, a cool edge slipping into his voice. “I can manage the rest of the way back by myself, thank you. Good-bye, Jack.”

Jack made no effort to stop him or follow, watching the warm light of the lantern bob and weave through the darkness until it faded from sight and then he was alone, bathed in the pale milky light from the moonbeams filtering down through the trees.

It was winter and it was night and the cold should not bother him anymore, but Jack was frozen to the core, feeling nothing more like a detached slab of ice floating on the lake.

oOo

Lydia was asleep in her rocking chair by the fire when he reached home. Jack gently removed her spectacles and tucked away the letters she had been reading back into the box, recognizing his father’s handwriting as he did so. He grabbed a quilt from her room and wrapped it around her shoulders to keep her warm until she arose later that night to put herself to bed.

Emma was already sleeping when he entered their room and readied himself for bed. He glanced briefly at the unlit nightlight on his nightstand, the broken pane having been swept up by his mother and wondered if without its glow and recitation, what manner of dreams he would have.

oOo

The children of earth were full of such wonder and hope even in the darkest times. It sparked his curiosity. He wanted to learn more. He could no long wait for the wishing stars to report nightly. He found that by concentrating hard enough on one particular spot, he could eavesdrop on people’s dreams. So he began to dream more often, and he watched and he listened.

When he first came across the boy it was purely coincidental: making rounds and listening to wishes. Children in Burgess all had fairly simple requests, most desiring earthly possessions or affection from a loved one. The boy’s request was quite odd.

“Star light, star bright, please let me be full grown when I awake. I need to grow up faster.”

He was very confused of course. Why would any child want to be an adult so quickly? He asked the wishing stars but they were puzzled too. They could not grant the wish however they did send the boy a very nice dream about him being grown up and wearing a very fine cape and buckle-hat—and eating several plates of macaroons which were his favorite treat.

He asked the moon the question as well. As always, he received no audible reply back but gained an overwhelming sense of sadness from the pale light that shone through his cocoon.

Night after night the boy would repeat this wish and night after night the wishing stars would send him more fanciful dreams of being grown and doing all manner of jobs that adults had a tendency for doing. The boy seemed so disappointed when he woke up every morning to find it was not real. Perhaps the boy wanted to gain the knowledge the Tall Ones appeared to possess but did not share with children. Children were curious little things.

As was he.

He wasn’t supposed to—he didn’t remember who had instructed him this or why—he simply knew he wasn’t supposed to but he did it anyway. One night, he found a way to trespass into the child’s own dreamscape to find out for himself the reason behind the boy’s bizarre wish.

The dreamscape depicted beautiful scenery: a green riverbank and babbling brook, the bright yellow orb in the blue sky that shone a thousand times more brilliant than the moon. The boy sat on the edge of the bank dipping his bare feet into the water and humming a song under his breath. He wasn’t dreaming of being a Tall One this night.

The boy lifted his head at his presence, brown eyes widening. Then he lifted a hand in greeting. “Heyla! Who are you?”

He opened his mouth but only a small gasp escaped. He wasn’t used to talking—not this way at least.

The boy frowned slightly. “Do you have a name?”

He thought for a moment. He had a name once he was sure. But he could not recall it just now. Still he should have a name he supposed. For what other way would prove he belonged than for a child to call him by?

“What’s yours?” he asked, his voice barely above a whisper.

“I’m Jack,” the boy proclaimed getting up on scrawny legs and bending in half with a flourished bow.

Jack, he thought. That was nice name. He liked it. A lot.

“I’m… Jack?” he said almost in a question.

Jack looked surprised then burst out laughing. “We’re both Jack! It’s a grand name, ain’t it?”

“Why do you wish to be a Tall One, Jack?” he asked the boy remembering why he had come.

“How do you know that? Tall One? Oh, you mean the grown-ups?” Jack said before sighing deeply. “I just don’t get on well… with others my own age. I think my parents are worried. They want me to fit in. I just think if I’m older I can help them out more… no, no, that’s a lie.” The boy shrunk inwardly looking embarrassed at his own deception. “I don’t really want to be a Tall One. Most of them are bossy and boring. But maybe if I’m a Tall One me and Da can talk about all sorts of things! He keeps telling me ‘when you’re older’.” The boy rolled his eyes in exasperation.

“So… your wish is for your Da?” he asked still trying to understand.

“Da is m’best friend!” Jack crowed puffing out his chest proudly. “I don’t know why he and Mam keep fussing about me making friends my own age or going to school. If I’m already a Tall One they don’t need to worry no more about silly stuff like that!”

“Won’t you miss out on playing games?”

Jack sobered fairly quickly at his words. “Well, I don’t see Da playing leapfrog everyday, that’s for sure. I mean he gets in trouble for fishing on Sunday if he’s caught!” He scrunched up his face as he thought hard about it. “Isn’t everything supposed to be easier when you’re a Tall One?”

“I wouldn’t know.”

“Oh, aye, you’re the same age as me,” Jack nodded looking at him, eyes growing slightly hazy from the spell the dreamscape cast over him. “Why I haven’t ever seen you around here before?”

“I can come visit you again,” he offered generously.

“Really?” Jack perked up excited. “You seem nicer than Anthony Hawkins and his louts.”

The dreamscape shifted beneath their feet although only he noticed. It was going to dissolve soon. He had found out what he had come here for—his curiosity had been sated. He should leave. But Jack intrigued him.

“I’ll come visit you soon,” he insisted. “But you can’t become a Tall One before I do.”

“Oh?”

“Tall Ones are not as wise as you think. There is a lot of talking the loud and doing of the nothing with them,” he explained, somehow knowing these things without remembering how or why. He just knew it to be true.

Jack had grinned at him, brown eyes sparkling with the promise of future mischief. “I think you’re going to be a lot of fun, Jack.”

There had been many more meetings with Jack and more playing in the dreamscape. But such tales are for another time.

What’s important is at the very end of it all:

The cocoon of light was crumbling around him. Those walls which had seemed impenetrable before were now shattering like tiny pieces of eggshells. He turned and the moon filled his vision, bathing him in pale, silvery light that felt different from the warmth of the cocoon. He hung there in the void, body taut and defenseless, waiting for something, he knew not what, to happen.

He felt the invisible strings binding him snap as the scales of judgment tipped.

He was falling, plummeting to earth with all the speed of a shooting star that he was not.

He had wanted to protect the world in the beginning.

But his dreams had become too selfish.

And in the end, it was too late.

To Be Continued...