Part of the purpose of this journey is to spread knowledge. I cannot in all good faith talk of myself as spreading knowledge to the public if I do not begin with what I myself know of as true.
The first snow brings Jack to us, and the first blossom of spring makes him leave. He brings his friends, the cold children with black eyes and quiet hearts. During the long winter, people draw together and hope the cold children look somewhere else for their playmates.
In my town, lots were drawn. I remember my mother crying and holding my sister tight. The townspeople pulling my sister from her grasp. The tether that tied my mother to the pole in the center of town. My sister and I could not sleep that night. We huddled under the heavy quilt in each other's arms while cruel laughter echoed through the street.
Sometimes I think about that tether. There was a hunting knife in my parent's bedroom, sharp enough to cut that braided leather strip. If I had been brave enough, I could have saved my mother. I was already sneaking through the house, despite my sister's fervent whispers, when I saw the face at the window.
Whether it was Jack Frost or one of his followers, I could not say. But I saw the dark eyes and sharp white teeth in the window. And I watched as it traced my name in frost on the pane.
I rushed back to the protection of the quilt and I let the laughing children take my mother.
That was my town. In other towns, like Sam's and Charlie's, they take their chances and choose not to leave tribute. There, as many as five or as few as none may be taken in a year. All according to the whims of Jack Frost.
We have not yet left my town. I know the boy tethered to the post tonight. But I won't venture from my bed because I know that if I do, Jack Frost could do much worse than write my name on the windowpane. I listen to the laughter of children in the night. I listen and I pray for the sun to rise.
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