Jack Frost

[Santinka]

 

[Santinka]

Jack Frost
By Shallarinath

“David, please don’t go! You don’t have to do this!” my mother had screamed at me.
“I can’t stay here anymore ma! I may have grown up here, but it’s not my home anymore! I need to go far away! I‘m sick of people and their filthy cities, I just need to get away from it all!”
“Won’t you come back?!” she had pleaded.
“No.”
That was the last thing I ever said to my mother. Four months later I moved to Canada and bought a plot of wilderness that was some fifty miles away from any civilization with the last of my savings. All I had to do was claim the land and it would be mine, not that I actually wanted to, but nevertheless I would make the long trek there.
Along the way I was pulled over by a patrol car and the burly ranger asked for my I.D.
“Hmm. What’s a twenty-three year old former American doing this far out?”
“Enjoying the scenery I guess,” I replied. The ranger didn’t seem very convinced.
“Well you just stay out of trouble now, all right?”
Five miles later the road ended. It would be a thirty-five mile hike through the snow and cold from where I had stopped the car. By my calculations it would take me about twelve hours to reach my destination. I looked at the clock on the dashboard to see that it was already six thirty-two in the evening. With a sigh I nestled amongst my quilts in the back seat and listened as the wind howled outside. I would wait until tomorrow to find my home. Hopefully if I got up early I could make it there by the afternoon.
As it turned out I awoke around five a.m. I bundled up warmly for my journey, packed food and a tent, and watched the sunrise before setting off.
Around eleven I ate lunch, which consisted mostly of trail mix, jerky, and a few cups of water from a thermos. While I sat on a fallen pine tree, nibbling away at my food, I took a look at my surroundings. The boreal forest around me seemed almost surreal, as nothing else either moved nor made the faintest sound within the deep snowdrifts. Instead of sitting there until I had finished eating I began to hike again, munching handfuls of trail mix every so often. I knew from procuring a master’s degree in psychology that if I had lingered upon that log for an extended period of time it probably wouldn’t be long until I went completely insane.
At two in the afternoon I was having some trouble with my map and compass. As it turned out I had drifted of course and was hopelessly lost.
As I hiked off in a random direction I mused on my own problems, which is quite a dangerous thing for a psychologist to do, for it could, perhaps, be considered a form of self treatment.
Why was I even out here? What was I looking for? I thought to myself. I suddenly, for no reason at all, remembered the old saying “Home is where the heart is.” Yes, that is what I am looking for, a heart so that I can have a home, and a true home! Not some dirty little hovel in a disease ridden city. God how I hated cities. I knew that being a psychiatrist meant dealing with people, but everyone I ever got from a big city was completely nuts!
“Ha ha, nuts!” I chuckled as I munched on a handful of cashews and almonds.
Though they really were nuts. I’ve had fifteen guns pointed in my face in the past year, and they were all from my own patients! Even worse, these people didn’t have legitimate mental problems! They were all just drug abusers who should have been in rehab, not a psychiatrist’s office! The only reason they were there was probably because they had acted like idiots for the court and pleaded insanity.
“This is why I hate cities, and the people in them! I have no money, no home, and I‘m probably going to die out here. I should just lie down and freeze!”
So that is exactly what I did. I just laid down in the snow, closed my eyes, and started waiting to die. After a while, when I was sure I was either dead or insane, I heard footsteps coming through the snow toward me. A shadow fell over my face and I opened my eyes. There, standing over me was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen. She had hair as black as the midnight sky and skin as white as the snow around us, but her most remarkable feature by far were her icy blue eyes. They seemed to bore holes straight into my very soul! Also she was rather scantily clad, wearing nothing more than a simple light blue tunic and a pair of breeches that were similarly colored. If we hadn’t been in the middle of nowhere I would have sworn that she had just come from a Renaissance fair.
“So are you an angel? Or another dead person?” I inquired.
Apparently my question was very humorous to her, for she burst out laughing! The sound of it though, the very sound of her laughter was like thousands of tiny bells all ringing in unison! While she was still laughing she hauled me to my feet with incredible ease. As she did a clump of snow from my winter coat hit me in the face. After a little sputtering and snorting I had expelled the snow from my nostrils, though my face was now terribly cold.
“Well that seems to settle it then doesn’t it?” I said aloud.
The girl shot me a quizzical look as if to ask me what I was talking about.
“It’s quite simple, you see,” I explained, “ that I am not dead, but indeed I am very insane. For, you see, my face is very cold right now, and what use do the dead have for feeling cold? Or anything else for that matter! So here I am, insane in the middle of nowhere with you, a mere figment of my imagination!”
This seemed to spark a new bout of laughter from the girl, whom I just noticed was significantly taller than I was, at least by half a head! Her height made a mockery of my noble stature of five foot eleven!
“Then again, maybe I’m not crazy? Certainly I wouldn’t imagine someone who makes me feel so short! Wait, if I’m not dead or crazy then how can you be surviving out here in those clothes? They’re about as insulating as a wet towel in this weather!” I exclaimed rather perplexedly.
The girl just continued to laugh at me, then suddenly ran into the surrounding forest, her laughter echoing behind her.
“Wait! Don’t leave me here by myself, I’ll go mad!” I said, beginning to chase after her.
I followed her, just barely able to keep her in sight as I dodged trees that seemed almost to spring out of the ground in front of me! Suddenly I slipped on a patch of ice, losing sight of the girl, and fell hard upon my buttocks. As I lay there groaning I discovered that I had not slipped upon a lone patch of ice, but had stumbled into a vast field of it! The surface was completely smooth and level, like an ice skating rink with trees!
Lo and behold, as soon as I thought the words ‘ice skate’ the girl reappeared, gliding across the ice on pristine skates that looked as if they were made of glass! She glided over to me and tossed me a pair of similar skates, which I deftly caught.
I looked at the skates in my hands and then to the girl.
“I swear this is insanity! How can you not be freezing? Where did you get these ice skates? And where in the name of God did this ice rink come from? I don’t even know your name!”
Instead of offering an explanation for all of these bizarre happenings the girl just motioned for me to put on my skates.
“Fine, I’ll skate with you, but I’m going to expect some answers in return. All right?”
I put on the skates, and to my surprise they were a perfect fit! Now came the hard part. I hadn’t skated ever since I had broken my leg seven years ago. This was, without a doubt, going to get ugly.
I ended up killing my pessimism quicker than I had anticipated, and if anything I could skate better than ever! However, I soon found my backpack and my many insulating layers to be an intolerable hindrance. The girl watched patiently as I discarded my clothing until all I wore was a beanie, a gray sweater, and a pair of black sweat pants. Before I went back out on the ice I examined myself in a little mirror I kept in my pocket. All of my long blond hair was tucked away within my beanie. I also had a short beard growing on my face, and I think it made me look rather dashing. I returned back out onto the ice and glided over to the girl, who was still waiting patiently.
“What now?” I asked.
She bolted past me in a sudden burst of speed, whispering in my ear as she passed.
“Keep up!”
I raced along after her and before long I glided up along side, keeping pace with her every move. We swerved in and out between trees on the nearly endless rink. After about twenty minutes we stopped.
“You may call me Jacklyn.” she whispered, her voice seemed even more musical than her laugh!
“All right then Jackie, let’s dance!” I said, seizing her hand in mine. I felt an electric jolt run through me when our hands met as a cocktail of chemicals raced down my spine.
At first Jacklyn was startled by my straightforward action, but then she relaxed as we fell into a rhythmic motion of jumping and spinning. We raced across the ice, every moment each of us adding a new step to the dance as we moved with each other in perfect harmony, as one being instead of two individuals.
As the hours passed the skies grew dark, eventually I collapsed down by my discarded belongings, completely exhausted. I looked over to Jacklyn, who hadn’t even broken a sweat.
“I’m not exactly sure how all of this came about,” I said with a sigh of contentment, “but I could do it for the rest of my life!”
“I shall give you something even better than that,” Jacklyn whispered.
“Hmm? And what might that be?” I asked suspiciously as I took off my skates and put my boots back on.
“I will give you what you came here looking for, if you can only guess my true name,” she replied.
“I have no idea!” I said incredulously.
“I’ll give you a hint,” she said.
Jacklyn leaned in close to where I lay in the snow me and kissed me upon the cheek. Then she sprang up and ran out of the forest! I promptly followed behind her, but when I broke the forest’s edge she had disappeared.
As I stood there shocked and alone my hand traveled absentmindedly to where I had been kissed. I examined my hand for any sign of lipstick or anything like that, but instead I found little crystals of ice melting on my fingers, like frost…Frost!
“Jack Frost—your name is JACK FROST!” I screamed.
Laughter like bells sounded from all around me and I felt a sudden weight in my right hand. I held it up to find a small, mahogany wood heart. I looked in front of me to see the very land that I had purchased. I had my heart, and now my home. My vision blurred as my eyes filled with tears.
“Thank you.” I whispered into the cold night air.  

[Santinka]

About the Author

Shallarinath is seventeen years old, with a passion for writing and all things musical. From short stories and novels to the occasional poem or play, he has a wide range of skill, although he most commonly writes short stories. His writing music consists of famous Broadway musicals and the movie soundtracks for Lord of the Rings, and his favorite anime movie is Princess Mononoke. He loves super heroes and his cat Merlin, as well as home-made burritos and Laser Quest. His favorite smells are rain, pine, and wild strawberries.