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“Jack please!” Emma’s voice carries through the small house, “Please, please, please!” The Overland siblings had gotten ice skates for Christmas which was about 4 days ago and had yet to test them out yet.
The ice hadn’t been thick enough but Emma was very persistent, “hmm, I dunno Em.” Her older brother said, his voice laced with feigned disappointment, “Are you suuure it’s cold enough?”
The ten year old was about to respond that ‘Yes! Yes it is indeed cold enough!’ until she noticed her brother struggling to keep the grin off of his stupid face.
“You jerk!” She pushes his waist, the nearest spot to her arms.
“You’re tricking me!”
“Am not Em.”
She furrowed her brows, “are too! We’re going.”
“Oh?” He grinned down at her, “You say that as if you’re so sure.”
“I’m absolutely sure! Come on Jackie! It's cold enough and we won’t even go where everyone else does! We could go to our pond!”
Jack falters at that. Their pond. It’s where the two frequently play, far from the hustle and bustle of the village.
“Okay. I’ve been convinced” He concedes much to Emma’s delight. But let’s be honest? He can’t deny his little sister anything! The kid is stubborn to a fault, even if she insists Jack is the most childish one despite the 7 year age difference.
And so that’s how Jack finds himself dawning his cloak and turning to his mother, Emma tugging at his arm.
“Be careful” Their mother says, looking fondly at her children, Emma’s eagerness and Jack. Her little boy turned 17 just last month. How much he’s grown.
With a chuckle Jack responds, “We will!”
. ₊ ܁ . ❄︎ . ܁ ₊ .
Emma doesn’t know when it all started to go horribly wrong. One moment her and Jack were playing, Jack was doing tricks and she was trying, and failing, to copy.
Then she heard it.
The crack.
It’s a sound that would follow her till her death, a sound that would one day keep her awake at night.
“Jack…I’m scared.”
That was all she could muster, she couldn’t seem to take her eyes off of the cracks forming beneath her feet.
“Ah, I know. I know.” Her brother said rising slowly from the crouched position he had been in. He attempted a step at her but ice cracked under his weight and he paused holding his hands up to placate her, “But. You’re going to be alright.”
He had a smile on his face, "You're not gonna fall in” He let out a shaky breathe, looking down then to the side as he rubbed his hands together, thinking.
“Uh, we’re gonna have a little fun instead!” He said with a feigned smile. One she saw through
Fun? How could they have fun!
“No-ho! We’re not!” She said angrily, how could he think she’d fall for that? This wasn’t a nightmare where he would pretend to get snatched up by a monster under her bed only to re-appear cackling as she squealed, only to apologize and wrap her up in his arms.
Tell her about how she shouldn’t be scared of the boogeyman because hello? He has boogey in the name?!
That was fun with Jack. this? Cracks forming under them on ice! This wasn’t fun!
“Would I trick you?”
“Yes! You always play tricks!” She had responded.
He had laughed, “Well! Al-alright well….”
Then his face got more serious. Serious Jack was one she was familiar with but not usually to her. Typically to their mother or their father before he’d walked out. She doesn’t remember ever seeing him as his usual happy self around their father.
“Well, not-not. Not this time.”
He had looked at her with such reassuring eyes as he held a hand up, “I promise, I promise you're gonna be..”
He trailed off and then picked back up, “You're gonna be fine.”
“You have to believe in me.”
She let out a shaky sound but managed to keep her eyes on him as his face lit up with an idea.
“You wanna play a game!? We’re gonna play hopscotch! Like we play everyday!”
Hopscotch? How on earth were they going to play hopscotch on ice with skates on? Her eyes fitted to Jack's skates which he had ditched the second he saw the cracks. She wanted to copy but was too scared and Jack told her to sit still.
“It’s as easy as-” She smiled a little as he took a few light steps and faked falling, that got her a laugh. He was always so silly.
On three he landed on the safe ice.
She watched him crouch down to pick up the shepherd's staff he’d always steal from their uncle to use for a game he’d come up with.
“Alright. Now it’s your turn.”
Her turn! How was she meant to copy him? She could never copy him perfectly at anything he did!
She tried moving when he counted to one but her skates slipped and more ice cracked as she let out a terrified gasp. Jack unfettered kept talking, “That’s it, that’s it.”
“Two.”
More ice cracked.
“Three!”
She felt the crook around her, hadn’t even noticed Jack inching it closer and suddenly she was flung with a weight she hadn’t registered, she landed face down on the safe ice and looked up laughing slightly from adrenaline. In her relief she hadn’t noticed that Jack swapped their places.
She never would know if he noticed either. He stood up with a big grin. Was it genuine? Or was he trying to reassure her? His next move. His confident step forward told her perhaps he hadn’t noticed. That his body just did it on instinct to save her and his mind hadn’t caught up with him yet.
Jack plunged through the ice and all she could do was cry out, “JACK!”
She doesn’t remember how long she sat there screaming his name, not him. Not her big brother. He was always doing silly things that adults said were dangerous but he was Jack! He was- he was invincible, he had once fallen out of a tree and broke his ankle. By the next month he was back up in that tree!
Nothing scared him! Nothing stopped him! He was her hero!
But no matter how much she begged he didn’t come back up.
Eventually she threw her skates off and ran, she ran as fast as she could. She ran until the cold bit her face and she was hyperventilating and her legs hurt and her heart she could feel pounding in her head. She ran until she reached their doorsteps and then she screamed. Screamed for her mother.
Her mother took one look at her, her teary eyed face, her panic and she’d known.
She had held her and then took off towards where Jack was. Where Jack would stay.
They never did find his body.
His funeral was the worst day of her entire life.
Her seventeenth birthday was even worse. She hadn't ever wanted to be older than him.