Page 20 of Jack Frost
I collapse into bed that night, exhausted but satisfied. I have clean clothes, internet, a working TV, and a decently arranged living space. Tomorrow, I'll start my new job. It won't involve the outdoors and cinematography right away, but there will be tasks I know how to do—contacting guests, running errands, making plans, and whatever else needs doing. Eventually, after the holidays, I'll be able to get deeper into the workings of the organization, to do more science-related stuff. Part of my job description involves capturing footage of the Southern Appalachians and Blue Ridge Mountains for use in workshops and community portals. And I'll be a member of the teams that monitor the trails, remove invasive species, and identify threats to the spaces the conservancy protects.
It's the ideal role for me, at least for now. Eventually I hope to move on to something bigger, something more vital—a position where I can effect greater change. The Blue Ridge area is important, but there's a big world out there, with so many regions in serious peril.
What if I never get the chance to make a real difference?
What if my trip to Antarctica, my bit of egg-hatching footage, is the largest contribution I'll ever make to science?
There's a sour, creeping suspicion in my mind that I've already peaked, that I've attained an important goal too early in life, and it's the most I'm capable of achieving.
Now that I'm here in Asheville, I'll probably stay. I'll get comfortable with my job, grow complacent, maybe even become dissatisfied with the low pay at the non-profit. What if I sell out one day and join some mega-company's marketing department, lured by the promise of paid vacation days and an upper-middle-class lifestyle?
What if I stop caring?
Jack's beautiful, despairing eyes appear in my mind. Maybe he hasn't stopped caring, but he has begun to believe that nothing he does is worthwhile. He is close to giving up, like his mentor Kheima did.
I'm not exactly sure what it is that he does. Change weather patterns? Help put out fires? Salvage melting icebergs? Stop volcanoes from erupting? Probably all of that and more. The toll that would take on a single person is immense. The stress of it all must be unbearable.
And now I feel bad for brushing him off this morning.
My legs thrash in the sheets as I flip from one side to the other, trying to banish Jack from my brain. My thoughts won't stop circling around, from his plight to my own fears to the global crisis and then back again.
Somehow I must get to sleep, because I have to get up for work at six-thirty and I can't just live on coffee and willpower.
I need to purge this guilt and anxiety from my body. Maybe I should go for a run. Before the Antarctica trip, I used to run all the time. I even worked out at a gym for months leading up to our departure, so I'd be strong enough to carry my massive pack and other equipment across the icy landscape from our camp to the penguins' nesting area.
I press my phone to light it up. 12:30 a.m. Probably not the best time to go for a run. But I can't exercise in the building at night, not with these creaky floors, or my neighbors will really begin to hate me.
The area around here seems safe enough from what I've seen. There's a little park with a playground nearby, several businesses, no bars or nightclubs in the immediate vicinity. I should be fine, especially if I bring along my pepper spray and my whistle.
Quickly I dress in a tight sports top and leggings. My gray sweatshirt goes over it all, with my key, phone, and pepper spray in the big front pocket. The whistle goes around my neck.
When I step out the front doors of the apartment building, my mood lightens instantly. The bite of the December air would be a painful shock to anyone else, but to me it's invigorating. A few tiny stars glitter like snowflakes against the black sky. In Antarctica, where light pollution does not exist, the stars were a crystalline spray across the heavens. I had never seen so many of them. Sometimes it looked as if the entire brilliant Milky Way was near enough to touch.
Here, the stars are rare treasures, faded or blotted out entirely by the perpetual glow of streetlights, stoplights, windows, and cell towers.
I quicken my pace to a jog, my breath ghosting in the cold air. Despite Asheville's location in the mountains of North Carolina, there's no snow. Karyl said they've had some flurries, but nothing stuck. I'm not one of those people who salivates over white Christmases. Sure, they make things pretty, but I grew up in a trailer in rural Alabama, so I'm used to having beige Christmases. Besides, Christmas was always more of a disappointment than anything else. Every year I hoped it would be different, and every year I ended up sobbing quietly in a bathroom or closet, hiding from my mother's sharp nails or the harsh voices of her latest boyfriends. She always had a carousel of men revolving in and out of our lives—most of them bearded rednecks with "Don't Tread on Me" stickers plastered onto the back windshields of their rusty pickups. Now and then, just to shake things up, she'd snag a businessman, some owner of two or three janky motels or diners, with frayed business cards poking out of his pocket. About ten years ago, when I was fourteen, there was a self-proclaimed indie rock star who insisted on wearing leather vests without a shirt and then complained loudly about his chafed nipples. He had tattoos everywhere, most of them blurry and poorly done. Once, when my mother was passed out drunk, he tried to get me to sit on his lap. I told my mother the next day, and she smashed the records he'd given her over his head and kicked his ass out. It's the one time I can remember being proud of her.
That was her one rule. Her boyfriends could yell at me, boss me around, throw cutting phrases and nasty names my way, but they weren't allowed to lay a hand on me. For a long time I was grateful to her for that—until I realized it was the bare minimum of what a mother should do for her daughter. I just didn't know any better.
I'm different now. A different person, one thatIcreated, with my own hard work, my sweat and tears and toil.
She can't take the credit for who I've become.
My sneakers scuff the pavement as I run faster. I started working before I was legally old enough, and I saved every penny I could. I skipped parties and lunch dates; I wore thrifted clothes until they were peppered with holes. With clunky vintage cameras from the pawn shop and stacks of magazines from the library, I taught myself how to take good photos. I studied, applied for scholarships, scraped along through college, took every opportunity that came my way. Sometimes I look back and wonder how I managed it. It's exhausting, just thinking about what it took to get here. But it's also deeply encouraging to remember how far I've climbed on my own.
I've been running straight down the street for a while now, but it tees into another street, so I take a left. A little way down the new street lies a shabby strip mall, its parking lot littered with wrappers and crumpled cans, its single streetlight buzzing and flickering. There's a hair care place, a laundromat, and a dingy restaurant that advertises tacos, teriyaki, sushi, and subs—very confusing. The place on the end is a card game shop, the kind where people might go to play Dungeons & Dragons or Magic the Gathering.
Something blue and wispy darts across the window of the game store.
My heart jerks, and I slow my pace, glancing back over my shoulder. It had to be my imagination, right?
There it is again. A wispy, glowing, azure shape, dancing along the shop windows.
Jack said that I have True Sight now, that I'd be able to see other supernatural creatures—wisps, wraiths, whatever. Maybe this is one of them.
I walk toward the creature, step after tentative step, like a child sneaking up on a squirrel. That's when I see the second ice wraith, flitting down from the eaves of the building to trace lacy white frills along the window of the hair-care place.
The wraiths are about the size of a child's doll—maybe the length of my forearm from fingertip to elbow. They are vaguely human-shaped, but with an incorporeal translucency to their bodies. Frosty air swirls around them in shifting ribbons. There's a soft joy in the way they move, floating and twirling in the air, drawing delicate frost-pictures on the glass.
