Frost

Mine or Yours?

It continued to snow into midmorning, and Hannah knew the pigs wouldn’t freeze if they were let into their split-rail pen to get a little exercise. The barn door would be open enough for them to get back in, too. A little time in the weak November sun would do them some good.

She leaned against the fence that divided her property from the surrounding woods when she finished her chores, looking for any sign of her daughter through the trees.

There was only Mari’s initial set of footprints. Nothing more, nothing less.

“Where did you wander off to, girl?” Hannah whispered to the wind.

“Piper’s children have a tendency to wander and not come back.”

Hannah stiffened. She hadn’t heard that voice in a very, very long time. “My daughter’s not a Piper’s child.”

Jack sat balanced on the top rail, legs swinging back and forth like a child. “She looks like one.”

She gave him a slow once-over. Jack hadn’t changed much in the years since she’d seem him last, though she supposed, after further thought, he wouldn’t, really. He wasn’t meant to.

“Well, she’s not.” Hannah crossed her arms over her chest. “And what have you been doing? You don’t normally stalk humans, Jack. Father Winter run out of things for you to do?”

He slid gracefully from the fence to land lightly on the snow. He didn’t sink – unlike Hannah, who was up to her ankles in fresh powder – and he walked leisurely in front of her, hands at the small of his back like a gentleman of old. “There’s always something for me to do this time of year, you know this. And stalk is such an ugly word, Hannah. I merely….assist.”

Her eyes narrowed. “She never made it to my mother’s, did she?”

Jack smirked knowingly over his shoulder. “She ran into the winter herald and he convinced her to take a detour.”

Hannah’s heart plummeted into her stomach. “So you’ve got her?”

He spun elegantly on his heel, posture still relaxed. “In a manner of speaking, yes.”

“Give her back,” she growled, wincing at the impetuousness of her tone.

His eyes narrowed. “Now, now, Hannah. Wouldn’t want to forget what happens when something is demanded of me.”

He’s a fickle creature, Jack Frost is. Hannah forced herself to relax. “I’ve been nothing but kind to you since I first met you, years ago. You know this.”

“Don’t you forget it.” There was a finality to his tone that frightened her.

“What do you want with her, Jack?” she asked, leaning back against the fence to keep him in front of her. He had this habit of trying to get out of sight, even when he could have done so with magic.

“I don’t know yet,” he said. “Maybe I want her opinion on my latest icicles. Or maybe where to put my new sculpture.” He smiled nastily. “Perhaps in the hall, next to the one that looks remarkably like – ”

“Don’t!” Hannah shuddered. There weren’t enough years in the human lifetime to erase the memory Jack taunted her with.

Jack – ever the sadistic little pixie he could be – leaned in close to her ear, nipping at the lobe with his sharp teeth. “Don’t what, Hannah?”

She shivered, swallowing hard around the sudden lump in her throat. “Don’t bring Megan into this.”

He ghosted his lips over her cheek as he stepped away, shoulders still relaxed. “Was that so difficult? You’ll do well to remember that particular pain in the future.” He strolled calmly in a small circle, looking at the little house, the barn, and the various animals brave enough to be out in the winter cold. “Does she have any prospects?”

Hannah jerked. “Marriage prospects?”

There was a minute movement to Jack’s shoulders; she would have called it a shrug if he’d been human. “Any. I’m not particularly picky at this point.”

Considering her daughter would rather slice off her own arm than find a man and settle down, Hannah went with the safe route of, “She’s already been to college.”

He eyed her scornfully. “Regular happy homemaker then, isn’t she?”

“She has different interests.”

“So no potential husbands waiting at the door.”

“Shut up, Jack.”

She couldn’t stand there and go round for round with him. Not without getting a migraine, and there was already the telltale pulsing behind her eyeballs. “If there was anybody in this world who could get away with telling you to stuff it, it would be me and mine.” Hannah paused, mulling carefully over her next words. “And unless I’m much mistaken, you’ve started to fall for a human.”

Points of color appeared on Jack’s high, defined cheekbones. “Shut your mouth.” His tone alone promised retribution of a sort.

She ignored it. “Manners, Jack. And that’s why you took Mari. You’ve been watching her. You like her.” There was a fine line between pushing enough to make it hurt and regretting the words in the first place.

“She intrigues me.”

Not what she was expecting. “Every potential Piper’s child intrigues you.”

The corner of his mouth twitched upward. “She stays with me until I’m done with her.”

Hannah squared her shoulders and puffed her chest out, revving herself up to light into him. Before she could move he was in her face, almost nose to nose with her and positively growling.

“You’ll what, Hannah? You will what?” His tone was deceptively soft and even, almost effectively masking the malice underneath. “You forget too easily who and what I am, what I can do and what I can take. Your daughter will do for now, though you might want to start sleeping with the pigs in the cottage, as we wouldn’t want to chance the farm going under from a sudden cold snap.”

She flinched; he continued, the pair of them oblivious to the arctic-like wind creating a barrier around them, compliments of Jack’s barely controlled temper. “Do not forget, Hannah, you are human. I am something else entirely.” He stepped back, disappearing in a whirl of ice and snow with a crack of displaced air.

Hannah staggered to the side and landed in a heap in the snow, whacking the back of her head off the bottom rail hard enough to see black spots. Damn you, Jack Frost.