Frost

21. December

That Wednesday Summer couldn't focus on anything. She had barely slept a wink last night, still rattled and shellshocked about what she had learned.

Jack was Jack Frost. It still hadn't quite sunken in. A part of her brain just didn't want to acknowledge it as being real, so she sort of tried to pretend that it wasn't.

But everywhere around her, the proof lied.

As Summer walked through Whitefish's public park, admiring the frost-covered, snowy ground, trees and bushes, she now couldn't think of anything else but of who made it. Who put it there. Did he really do it? If so, how was it possible? The entire logic of her world didn't make sense anymore. Nothing did.

However, as much as she wanted to know how all of this could be true, her biggest wonder—which perhaps seemed a bit egotistical—was why he had 'chosen' her, as he had put it. What was her involvement in this? Why did he bring her into all of it? Did it have something to do with her parents death? How his snow had been a factor in it? If that was so, she was only left with more questions, but it all came back to the same one; Why her? There were so many who had lost people to the winter cold. So why her?

And now of course, when you thought of the devil—or in this case, winter spirit—he appeared.

"Summer," She heard his voice before she saw him. He stepped out from behind a thick oak tree, holding his cane.

"Were you just lurking behind that tree?" Summer bluntly asked and stopped up when he walked up to her.

"Yes, no, maybe so. Doesn't matter," He replied and stopped in front of her. "Have you thought about what I told you to think about?"

"You mean every word you ever spoke to me?" She said and pursed her lips tightly. "Sure; 'I'd like an iced caramel macchiato with extra ice. I'd go with the red one. It screams merry Christmas, or at least it's going to make someone scream it. Let me warm you—'"

"That one," He said and pointed his finger at her as she spoke the last part, "Ignore the other two. Focus on that one."

"How you wanted to warm me?" She asked, exasperatedly. "Jack, in case you haven't noticed, you're the spirit of winter; Warming things gets a little tricky for you, I can imagine."

"You have no idea," He sighed, shaking his head tiredly, but then snapped back and focused on her. "But listen. Remember I said I chose you?"

"Yeah, and I also remember wanting an explanation for that and not getting one."

"And I still can't," He said. "But what I can do is... maybe show you."

Summer frowned. "What?"

"Watch," Jack said and now turned away from her, turning his attention to some kids making a snowman instead, about seven yards away from them. She watched as he begun walking up to them, swinging his cane.

"Jack," She hissed after him. What the hell was he going to do? She wouldn't know how to explain it to the police if they came and asked why a strange man with a cane was playing with kids he didn't know.

'Well, this is Jack Frost and he was just trying to have some fun with them in the snow.'

Tipping on her feet, Summer anxiously watched as he walked up to them easily, none of them even seeing him. He walked in a circle around them, admiring their efforts on the snowman with a little grin playing on his lips. The youngest kid was trying to lift the middle body part of the snowman onto the bottom, but seemed to have a struggle lifting the piece. Then again, maybe that was because the middle was bigger than the bottom.