Imagining Frost

(11) Ice Patch

 Sorry it took me so long to upload this, it's still just me writing (Kat) and I have to finish my 2012 Watty Awards Entry. Enjoy! :DD This was actually really hard to write even though I love this story, I hope it's better than I think it is. D:::: I'm also going to stop with the Britishness because it's quite difficult to do without Daisy. x)

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I awoke to gentle caress of my grandmother's pet cat, Mystic, who lazily dragged his tail across the top of my lip and across my cheek.

I opened my eyes and drifted them over a familiar living room with colorful trinkets and small paintings, my mind in a fog. Light streamed in from the windows, significantly less than the time I had arrived. I lay horizontally on a couch. A soft wool blanket was pulled up to my chin and tucked neatly around my body, delightfully warming me. My head was propped slightly up by one of my grandmother's soft hand-made blue pillows.

Mystic twitched on my chest and rolled, his butt conveniently landing my face. I tried to sit up and scare the cat off when I realized his claws were deep within my shirt, and a painful throb at the side of my head was present.

"Push Mystic off, dear. I'm trying to train him to stop doing that."

I sucked in a breath and jerked my head towards my grandmother's voice. She was situated in her reading chair with her glasses on and "The Book of Wethrinaer" on top of her lap. Grandma whistled loudly. She hadn't looked up from the page she was on, even after Mystic leaped off my chest with a yowl and knocked down a tissue box.

"Drink some Tea, love-bug. It will make you feel better. You hit your head pretty hard."

On the coffee table next to me was a steaming cup of blueberry tea and a fresh buttery biscuit. My grandmother's biscuits, like everything else she made, were mouth watering. My stomach gurgled, but not with hunger.

I recalled the strange memory I had that my grandma's features had morphed into a younger woman, with stark white hair and glowing eyes. I could vividly picture the way the glass door was webbed with ice, locking the door, and how my Grandma's hand was open to its surface as if she had created it.

Gypsy.

Sickly acid crawled up my throat and I dry heaved. I had to of been dreaming. It had to have all been a horrible, twisted dream. "Please tell me that was all a dream," I said. "The ice on the glass door, your hair. Your...your everything."

She casually turned the page of the book. "You were not dreaming."

"I--I wasn't?"

"No. I'm a Gypsy, Heather. I have been for a while, now."

I swallowed down a cry in my throat. "Oh."

Grandma pursed her lips at the page she was reading and frowned. "I don't think now is a good time to think about this because your health is not exactly at its peak. You have a lump on your forehead the size of a walnut from your fall."

"I don't understand," I said, my voice rising as I touched the raised area on my forehead. Millions of questions crowded my skull. "Are the stories in the book true, then? You were changed? Why didn't you tell me this sooner? Was I already suppose to know? Is mom a Gypsy? Why does the Frost, want me? Who is Frost? Why do I remember him all of the sudden? I could have sworn I-- oh no, am I going to grow wings or a horn, aren't I--?"

"Heather, enough!" Grandma shut the book closed, her grey eyes dangerously unblinking and lingering with a bitter white. At the sight of my fear, she let a slow breath out and  placed the book at the table to her side, taking off her glasses. "A year before your mother was born, thirty-eight years this may, I was turned....willingly. I shouldn't be telling you any of this because I am a horrible role model in this particular conversation." She rubbed a hand over her eyes--"I suppose I can tell you a little. It's for the best."