Page 37 of Jack Frost
Off to my right, another flicker of movement catches my eye. The fire is bellying outward, eating toward a cluster of homes, and only a few firefighters are holding that part of the line. They don't notice a slim figure with frosty wings darting above them like an icy moth. But I can see him.
Jack Frost.
I wish I had binoculars—I need to get closer. I want to see what he's doing.
There's a ridge a little further to the right that juts out closer to the fire. I can climb over there and get a better view without being in too much danger.
Before I can make a move, the swelling bulge of the fire sucks inward suddenly, blown backward by an icy blast of wind from Jack.
I want to cheer and scream. I want tohelp. But I can't.
An ice wraith zooms directly in front of me, and I yelp, clutching my chest. "Oh my god. You scared me."
The wraith circles me, whispering mournfully. Another joins it, and another, and then three more. They flit past my back, swirl over my shoulders, and trail their icicle fingertips along my arms and across my cheeks.
It's oddly flattering that they are drawn to me like this. They clearly sensed my presence here and wanted to greet me, to be near me.
"You should help Jack," I tell them.
They sigh and whisper, ignoring my directive.
"Fine. I'm going to get a better view. You can stay or go, or whatever."
I struggle through the scrubby bushes and trees, down into a cleft and then up again. The shale and roots scratch my bare feet as I climb. Once I reach the higher ridge, I'm nearer to the inferno. Nearer to Jack.
He's whirling above the wildfire, icy rain spraying from his hands. Now and then he lands in front of the wall of flame and slams both hands forward, generating blasts of frigid wind that force back the blaze. I don't know what the firemen think of this invisible aid, if they even notice it. If they do suspect supernatural assistance, they probably keep their thoughts to themselves, or speak of it only in whispers to each other. No one wants to end up in a mental health facility for claiming that an invisible ice creature helps them fight fires.
Jack soars further away, hovering over the conflagration. And then he dives straight down into it.
A scream sticks in my throat.
What is he doing?
This man who hates hot water—he just plunged right into a towering thicket of flame.
An explosion of ice and snow shoots outward from the point where he vanished. A dark quenched spot spreads wider and wider, walls of ice driving ever outward. It's not just cutting off a toe—it's a severe wound to the body of the giant. Now there's only a ribbon of flame between the space Jack cleared and the threatened neighborhoods. Another helicopter passes along that strip of flame, quenching it with a deluge.
"Yes!" I hiss triumphantly, and the ice wraiths, who followed me up to the cliff, let out a twittering burst of song.
But then I look to my left again, and I raise my eyes to the mountains. The sheer scope of this inferno is baffling, incalculable. The firefighters will never be able to put it all out, not unless they get a full day or two of hard rain.
Jack keeps working, darting from one spot to another, shearing off the limbs of the fire with his walls of ice and blades of wind. He's like a dancer, soaring and diving and circling. But his dance is terrifying for me, because as much as I want him to protect the firefighters and the towns, I also want him to be safe, and whole. What if he gets scorched and charred again? What if he fades away into a wraith? The very thought sears my soul like a brand.
I sit on the lip of the ridge between the prickly bushes, my soft pants riddled with mulchy bits from the forest floor, my eyes stinging with smoke and my lungs aching almost as much as my heart. My knees hurt because every time Jack vanishes into the fire, I dig my fingernails into my kneecaps, tortured with unbearable desperation until he reappears.
And then he whirls into a particularly savage knot of flame, and he doesn't come out again.
Gnawing my lip, I lean forward, eyes fixed on the spot where I last saw him. "Where is he?" I say to the wraiths. "Can you see him?"
They echo my anguished tone, flitting around me.
"Go out there anddosomething!" I scream at them, and they recoil, blown backward by the force of my anger. Their whimpers waken a tremor of guilt in my heart, even as they dart away, toward the fires.
"They can't help," says Jack's voice from behind me.
I spring up and dart toward him—but then I pause. He's blackened with smoke, bracing himself against a tree as if he can barely stand. Where his sleeves have burned away, I can see bubbled skin and glistening red wounds. Just like last time.
"You're killing yourself." My voice is choked with tears.
