Frost

Roads Less Traveled

A woman popped out from around the corner; the three of them froze. Mari looked into the same eyes she saw in the mirror every morning, and Jack had a brief insight into what Alice must have felt as she tumbled down the rabbit hole into uncertainty.

“I’m – do – ” Mari clamped her mouth shut and closed her eyes for a moment before trying again. “Do you live here?”

“No,” the petite woman said as she looked between Jack and Mari with undisguised interest. “I pop over a few times a week to make sure everything is still working well. The worst thing to happen to a house is for no one to live in it.”

“So you don’t own the house?” she asked.

“No.” The woman smiled. “My granddaughter does.”

Mari shifted her hand and clamped her fingers around Jack’s with bruising strength. “Your gran – what…who are you?”

“Amelia,” she said gently. “Amelia Turner.”

Mari leaned her elbows on the kitchen island and studied the woman at the stove. Amelia. Her paternal grandmother. Jack stood ramrod straight next to her, most likely trying to wrap his mind around the latest development in the strange story Mari Turner’s life had morphed into.

Amelia turned away from the tea kettle and pushed the sleeves of her sweater to her elbows. She looked to be in her fifties, her hair cut short to frame her delicately boned face. Mari knew she’d inherited most of her looks from her own mother, but even a blind man would see she’d gotten her eyes through her father’s line.

“You have questions,” she said. “You’re more than welcome to ask. I know who you are, Mari,” she added with a wink. “And I know who you are, Jack Frost.”

Jack paled considerably.

“It’s been years since I’ve seen you, though.” Amelia added loose leaf tea to a bright red teapot. “Not since we lived in Union.”

“Did you used to live here?” Mari asked.

“When your father was still a child, yes. We – my husband and I – moved into a smaller house further up the mountain after Eric came home from college and began seeing Hannah.” She reached over and lightly tapped Jack under the chin; he closed his mouth with a snap. “Don’t look so surprised.”

“How – how do you know me?” His voice came out an octave higher than Mari was used to, and she glanced at him.

“Parents in Maine tell their children the same bedtime stories parents in New York do,” Amelia said. “I’ve also seen you, too.”

His expression became stricken.

“We tell our children we mothers are magic.” She took three mugs from the cupboard and then pulled a tea strainer from a drawer. “What they don’t know is that some of us actually are. My father was a Piper.”

He gripped the edge of the island with white knuckles and locked his knees.

“A different Piper, of course,” she continued conversationally, shutting off the burner before the kettle could scream. “They’re somewhat territorial, and we used to live in Maine.”

“How did you know?” Jack asked.

“Some families do. Others don’t.” Amelia poured hot water into the teapot, put the lid on it, and set the kettle on a back burner. “Our family has always known, and, with the right kind of company, we’re not adverse to talking about it. Julia Holden refused to speak about something we might have had in common. Shall we sit at the table?”