After my conversation with Papa, the storm died down and the snow and ice that covered the paths and roads began to melt. The cold weather began to pass, and the real Autumn weather began to take hold, but it was a little late for that. All the leaves had already left the trees and lay in heaped piles on the ground, a brown squelchy mess, the beautiful colours of Autumn never even showed up. Despite that, the sun came out from his hiding place, lighting up the sky and basking us all in a warm glow that we were more than willing to accept. The sunlight came as a welcome relief to the snow and ice that had lashed down on us for so long.

Although the Winter weather had passed by and the sun had come out, it was still cold. Not scarf and glove cold, but cold nonetheless. The wind was bitter cold, but not frosty and certainly not as brutal as it had been in previous weeks. Things looked as though they were beginning to return to normal, but that didn't stop my suspicions regarding the creation of the storm. There was something off about it, particularly how it died down when I mentioned Jack Frost to Papa. Whilst my initial suspicions had been Jack, something changed when the storm died down almost immediately after my conversation. Maybe I was just being overdramatic, maybe I wanted to punish him for what he said to me, I don't know, what I did know was that something wasn't right, and no one was willing to accept it.

Instead, I pushed that entire concept out of my head. With the weather having returned to some kind of normalcy, I finally felt as though I had left the North Pole behind, at least for the time being. The snow had passed, the clouds had moved on and the streets were no longer covered in deep snow and deadly ice. Everything was normal. Well, almost everything.

Despite scoring a high grade on the Maths test, Mrs Reynolds was still determined to make every single one of my Maths lessons a living nightmare. She asked me every possible question she could, made me solve some of the hardest questions I had ever seen and even made me take several other tests to ensure I hadn't cheated and that I did know the theory behind the questions. She even managed a sneaky jab at the witch idea by writing word problems using the phrases witch and snowstorm. Honestly, I thought she would have let it go, but it only appeared to be getting worse, much to my annoyance.

"Is it just me, or is she getting worse?" Niska said as we shuffled out of the room one morning. Occasionally, she had tried to make a comment here and there and distract Mrs Reynolds from me, but it never worked for very long. She always directed her attention back to me.

"That woman wouldn't leave me only if I won a medal at the Mathematical Olympiad," I said, rolling my eyes.

"The what?"

"I saw it in a film, don't judge me."

"You watched a film on Maths? Maths?"

"It had Asa Butterfield in it, of course I watched it. Trust me, I didn't watch it for the Maths. I'd never watch a film for the Maths, ever."

"Are you talking about X+Y?" Joel said, sliding into the conversation. Half the time, he appeared out of nowhere, not that you could ever tell where he was, he was that quiet. He could be behind you for several minutes before he finally spoke. Something that was a little unnerving at the best of times.

"So that's what it was called. I just knew it as the film with Asa Butterfield," I said.

"Me mam thought I should apply to the IMO team, but I didn't. Reckon those kids must have super powers or somethn'," he said, shrugging his shoulders.

"Maybe you should apply, Kenz, use your witchy powers and destroy the competition. Though I doubt that would help your case. At least not in the long run."

"Ha-ha, you're hysterical. I wouldn't even make it past the entrance exam. You have to be crazy smart to get in, and I hate to break it to you, but I lack any sort of intellectual ability. My plan for the future is to rely on my art skills and nothing else," I said as we entered the art room and took our usual seats.

There was something strange about students in a school setting. Everyone had a seat, despite a lack of seating plan. We'd enter a room and go straight to the seat we had been sat in for weeks. No one dared sit in anyone else's seat. We made out our own seating plan and no one dared to break it, not even the teachers would risk mixing everyone up. It was strange to me because I never thought students had the organisation skills that showed through the seating arrangements. Niska said it was just how they operated, the system worked for them and no one was going to knock it. They were like bees in the way they could organise a classroom simply by sitting down.

"That's good to here, Kenzie, I would hate to see you waste your potential," Mr Collins said, looking up from his computer after I had finished speaking.

"Now you've said that I might go into something else. Maybe use my witchy powers and become Prime Minister. There's a plan I get my teeth into. I reckon I'd be great at leading the country," I said.

"Minor problem with that, you're not a witch," Mr Collins pointed out.

"Try telling Mrs Reynolds that," I muttered.

With the conversation having ended, I took a piece of scrap paper from the desk and began to doodle with a tiny pencil I had found discarded on the desk. Mr Collins usually took a good few minutes to move away from the chaos of the previous lesson before he hunkered down and started to teach us something. He hated most of the younger years and often needed a few minutes to himself, so he didn't start ranting to us about them. Honestly, it was a great way to pass the time and gave me more of an insight into how annoying the younger years was. My only experience with those younger than me was Nick and he wasn't exactly the best example. Kid was a sugar rush half the time.

On the small sliver of paper, I started to doodle little patterns and images that didn't make any sense, just fun little drawings that didn't fit together. I even drew a little image of Mrs Reynolds in her Grinch outfit. That outfit was going to be the highlight of my school career, especially after all the grief she had given me. Seeing her in something other than a pencil skirt, a blouse and a cardigan would be a miracle, seeing her in Grinch outfit would be hysterical. Not that my drawing did it much justice. The paper wasn't big enough to do a proper full-scale image, something I was going to try and do in the near future.

If drawing a stupid image of Maths teacher was going to get me through the rest of the school year, then so be it. Every student should enjoy the mockery of one of their most dislike teachers and if picturing them in a Grinch outfit was going to do it then I wasn't going to judge.

"Okay, listen up! Today, I'm going to let you create whatever you want with whatever materials you want, but there is one rule! It must be something real. No Dragons, or Iron Thrones of whatever it is you kids are obsessed with these days, it must be real. I'm going to spend my time looking into spoilers for a TV show my Year Nines are obsessed with. That'll teach 'em for not doing their work in lesson time," Mr Collins said, smiling. The look on his face was a little concerning, but it was an easy enough task.

"Spoilers, sir? Really? That's just evil," Niska said.

"I know, but it's the only way they'll stop talking about it. If there was another way around it, trust me I would do it. Not all of us can silence a room with a look like Mrs Reynolds, we have to find our own ways of class control."

"Right. If you try it with us, I will probably hurt you, just by the way."

"Noted. Now, get on with the work, these spoilers aren't going to find themselves." Turning back to his computer, all we got from him for the next half an hour was an obsessive typing sound as he tried to find out how to spoil a TV show for a bunch of annoying children.

A low hum of noise started in the room as people began to debate what they were going to draw given that the briefing was as vague as it was. Most people went for something simple, something in the room given that they were all real objects, but that seemed like the easy option. I never went for the easy option. Without having any idea what I was going to draw, I snatched up a piece of paper and twirled my pencil around my fingers as I tried to come up with a plan. My mind, however, happened to be elsewhere. All I had going through my head was the snowstorm and who had created it.

Despite something telling me that it may not have been Jack Frost, as ludicrous as that sounded, my main focus was with Jack. What I knew of his powers was very little, but his ability to conjure storms and legendary. According to the History books, Jack had been the reason for the Ice Ages all that long ago, and he hadn't been able to live up to that legend since. He'd tried, of course he had. Most of the cold spells experienced over the years come directly from him, but since Papa had defeated him all those years ago, he hadn't done anything. Cold spots were down the weather, nothing more, nothing less. The Snowstorm we had just experience was beyond anything nature could bring, it was like the Arctic, only no snow creatures.

Papa always said that his fight with Jack had been one of the most trying aspect of his life, not even the pressure around the Christmas period affected him as much as Jack had. Normally, the storms were nothing, just the occasional ice threat that kept him entertained. Papa said Jack had a Television where he could watch people slip over on the ice he had created, I suppose it was his way of having fun despite how cynical it sounds. After a while, watching people slip over just didn't appeal to him any more and he reached out to try something a little more exciting.

His plan, according to Papa, was to cause chaos across the world, have a little fun for a few days. As far as I knew his intention was not a bad one, at least I didn't think it was, he was just trying to keep himself entertained seeing as he spent so much on his own. Not even his little minions could keep him occupied for too long. The plan was to freeze the northern hemisphere, not completely like in that film, but just enough to cause a little big of chaos, more chaos than usual. Papa heard. Annoyed that Jack would do something that would put so many lives at risk for his own gain or entertainment.

That was when the fight started. It was supposed to be a discussion, a simple, peaceful discussion to iron out any difficulties they faced, and there were enough of those to fill a lorry. The discussion quickly escalated and before anyone knew it they were hurling Magic power balls at each other, trying to knock the other one down. Papa was stronger than Jack, at least that's how the story goes, it didn't take too long to defeat him. From there, he was imprisoned, and his Magic removed so he could no longer pose a threat to anyone. That was the last anyone heard of Jack. Imprisoned, stripped of all he was and that was that. Until now.

"What is that?" Joel said, pulling me out of my thoughts and peering over my shoulder at the drawing on the page. I had been so caught up in my thoughts that I hadn't even noticed my pencil moving and the drawing appearing on my page.

"It's a doll, my brother went through a phase of obsession with the third Santa Claus movie so Granny made him his own Jack Frost doll. It was the first think I thought of," I said, making up the story as I spoke.

"Pretty apt considering the weather over the past few days, looks more like a person then a doll, though. Not sure if that can be considered a real object," Mr Collins said as he paraded the room and tried to get the gist of what everyone else had drawn.

"Okay, so it's based off a doll, just slightly more realistic. What can I say, I got a little side-tracked. The weather distracted me a little too much," I said.

"Right, well, next time stick to the brief. I'm not going to tell you start again, I like your drawing a little too much to do that. Reminds me of your Halloween costume, only on a male."

"The doll is how I got the idea for the costume, my brother left it in his room when we last stayed with Granny and Grandpa. I was looking for something else when I found it."

"You get your ideas from some strange place, Kenzie, you really do," Mr Collins said, shaking his head as he walked away.

My entire existence in the real world had been based on a lie, but it had been a lie I had time to come up with. Truth is, I didn't know why I ended up drawing a carbon copy of Jack Frost whilst my mind wondered, but I needed an excuse. Nick never owned a Jack Frost doll, though I reckon he would have one made if Papa would allow it. He loved all the stories Papa told and said he wanted to confront Jack one day, have his own battle against him. I don't doubt that if he was given a doll, he would have practised casting spells at it given the opportunity. All I needed was a lie, and that one worked perfectly.

As I looked down at the drawing in front of me, Jack's eyes glared back, the ice-cold emptiness that looked back at me was haunting, almost unbearable. It was an empty stair of nothingness, like staring across a frozen lake, the murky depths swimming just beneath the ice. For a while, it didn't look like a drawing. The emptiness of his eyes was almost too haunting to be part of a drawing, as though the real Jack Frost was staring back at me from the page. All I wanted to do was throw it away, but I knew I couldn't. Not only would that look really weird to everyone else in the room, but it wasn't worth it. It was a drawing and as far as I knew, drawings couldn't hurt.

"I've watched the Santa Claus films pretty much every year since they came out and, no offence, but that doesn't look like the Jack Frost from the film, he's too dark," Niska said, examining the drawing on the desk in front of me.

"The doll didn't look like him either, like I said, it's the doll, the film and my imagination all rolled into one, though he's pretty freaky. See how long you can look into his eyes before getting creeped out," I said.

"Drawings can't creepy you out, Kenz."

"You ever watch Coraline? That film is comprised of drawings, and they are terrifyin'. Trust me, drawings can be just as scary as films, even more so in some cases," Joel said.

"I can't argue with that, Coraline is a creepy film, I had nightmares first time I watched it."

"Who didn't?"

"Katarina. She watched it at least five times in one day and it didn't bother her in the slightest."

"Yeah, well, your sister's just weird."

I had only had the pleasure of meeting Katarina once, and even from that one meeting I knew she was a little bit of an odd ball. She answered the door to me one morning when Grandpa and I went to collect Niska before school. When I saw her, she had jam smeared across her face, her jet black hair was clipped back, creating a weird mess at the back of her head. Her clothing was the weird thing about her. She was wearing black and yellow striped tights, bright pink trainers, a blue and red plaid skirt and a bright green shirt. I admired her courage, really, I did, but it was rather a sight first thing in the morning. Her enthusiasm for opening the door almost knocked me over, I don't think I've ever seen someone so enthusiastic.

It was only a brief encounter, but it was weird nonetheless. The stories I had heard from Niska told me just as much, but I was more than certain that a longer meeting of her would have confirmed the idea. I though Nick was an energetic teenager, but from the sound of it, Katarina could have topped him, even if she was younger than him. Though I have to admit, it was pleasant to know that Nick wasn't the only one who was a strange and unruly child. For so long I thought it was just my brother, turns out it was a lot of small children. Maybe it was small child disease. I dunno, but it was funny.

When the bell finally went, I was glad to leave my drawing in the room and leave its ice-cold glare. Having it gaze up at me from the paper like it did was something that was never really going to leave me, it was rather eerie how realistic his glare was. It was as though he wasn't a drawing on paper on longer, but a real person looking up at me from the white of the paper. Handing it over to Mr Collins was a relief, he was the one who had to deal with the glare watching his every movement, not me.

"You staying behind to do some homework?" Niska asked Joel and I as we left the art room.

"I was goin' to, but mam wanted me home in case a delivery arrives whilst she's a work. Her shifts are all over the place because of the cold weather," Joel said, checking his phone before sliding it back into his pocket.

"Well, that's me out too. I can't do my Maths homework without my mental calculator. Knowing me the work will set itself on fire the moment I try to answer a question," I said, laughing slightly.

"If you want, you can come round and work on it. I'll be bored out of my mind on my own, sometimes I wish I had an annoyin' sibling to keep my occupied.

"I'm in. Niska?"

"Sure, why not. Saves having to deal with Katarina for too long, I can never concentrate on my work when she's around."

"Cool. We should go, if I'm late by even a minute, Mam would kill me. Her shift starts in half an hour."

Collecting the books we needed from our lockers, the three of us set off in the general direction of Joel's house. I had only ever seen it from the outside and the entrance way when he eventually emerged from his bedroom looking dishevelled and as though he would rather be anywhere else but fully conscious. I have to admit, I looked forward to seeing it from the inside. It was strange how often they had been to my house and yet I hadn't stepped foot in theirs, it was going to be a fun and rather strange experience.

The walk back from school was like every walk we had had to school, just the three of us joking around, making fun of things that had happened throughout the day and the chaos we had some how managed to create. We never set out to cause trouble, it just so happened that trouble was everywhere we were. School was much more exciting when you had to try and talk your way out of trouble whenever the opportunity presented itself. I was getting rather good at lying, seeing as my entire life at school had been based on one big, extended lie. Come Christmas I would have been able to tell anyone anything and they would more than likely believe me.

"Welcome to my humble abode," Joel said, swinging his front door open and gesturing us inside.

"You make it sound fancier then it is, Joel. You're just in time, if I don't leave now I'll be late," a red-headed woman said the moment we walked through the door.

"Bye, Mam, see ya later," Joel said.

"Have fun doin' whatever it is you're here to do. I'll be back in about six hours. There's money on the kitchen counter for you to order yourself something for tea." And with that, she was gone. I had met Joel's mum without actually meeting Joel's mum, not that that makes much sense.

"Right, let's get started. The sooner we get this done, the sooner we can watch TV and after today, I really wanna watch Tv."

"Look at you, trying to avoid homework," Niska said jokingly.

"Who are you and what have you done with Joel?" I asked, raising an eyebrow and supressing a laugh.

"Shut it."

~~~

A/N - And we are back! This update is on time now that Wattpad has sorted out the issues it had last week! I hope the updates for the next few weeks will fall on time seeing as we have 9 or so chapters left before the end (scary stuff).

So, what do you guys think of the chapter? We have Kenzie debating her theory, her drawing and a little back story to Jack Frost and some fun moments between Niska, Joel and Kenzie. What do you think is going on? Could have dad have caused the storm? What about the story behind Jack?

Comment below your thoughts!

Dedication - This chapter is dedicated to AuthorishNicole who is a writer and Booktuber! Check out her works and follow her Twitter  @PiermanNicole where you can find links to her YouTube channel!

First Published - January 18th, 2018