Page 22 of Seasonal Fears

“If I believe you’re telling me everything you know, I won’t call him,” says Harry, with the solemnity of a promise.

Jack takes a deep breath. “Keep driving,” she says. “I’ll tell you what I can.”

Harry hits the gas a little harder.

“Three hundred years ago, a man named William Monroe was crowned Winter King,” says Jack. “You have to understand two things first off: it wasn’t an accident, and he didn’t have a choice. Once the candidates for a coronation are identified, they either take the throne or they die. Depending on the time of year when the coronation is called, half of them are already dead.”

“Okay, stop,” says Harry. “You said you’d explain. There’s a lot of assumption in that sentence, and I need you to back up and try again.”

Jack inhales. “Melanie’s dead,” she says.

Harry doesn’t hit the brakes this time. It’s not easy, but he keeps driving. “Hence her insisting she doesn’t have a heartbeat,” he guesses. “Is that what you’re saying?”

“Yes,” says Jack. “Her heart stopped at the exact moment that William Monroe’s did, as did the hearts of roughly two dozen others across the North American continent. He died immediately after his plane took out a woman named Diana Cartwright on the runaway in Ohio. Diana had been crowned alongside him, named the Summer Queen, meant to maintain the balance of the seasons between the two of them.”

Harry scoffs. “This has nothing to do with us.”

“This has everything to do with you,” says Jack sourly. “You and Melanie are candidates for the crown.”

“Meaning what, exactly?”

“Meaning you have between now and the hare moon to find and claim the crowns, or Melanie dies again, this time for good, and you get to shuffle along without her until the long night moon, and then you die too. There’s nothing in this world that can save either one of you without your crowns.”

Harry is momentarily speechless. Then, to his immense relief and vague surprise, he starts laughing.

“Oh, man, the two of you must have worked on this all week! It’s a prank, right, Mel? You swapped out the pulse oximeter and hired this kid off of some pranking blog or something. My Valentine’s Day present is my girlfriend trying to make a joke. Good one, hon. If you’d been a little bit less ridiculous, you might have sold me on it.”

But Melanie isn’t laughing. Melanie is watching him with large, liquid eyes, looking for all the world like his laughter is some sort of personal offense. He stops laughing.

“You think I’d lie to you about my heart?” she asks, voice barely above a whisper.

“What—No, of course not! I know how seriously you have to take your heart, I do, I just … You have to have a heartbeat, you can’t be dead. Dead girls don’t get dressed up for the Valentine’s Day dance. They don’t drink punch or kiss their boyfriends before curfew. They don’t do anything. You’ve been trying to get me used to the idea that you’re going to die and leave me soon, and I know that, I know that, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to be okay with it! It doesn’t mean I’m ever going to be okay with it! You can’t be dead, and that means none of this can be happening, because I won’t let it. This is all a big joke, and it’s not as funny as you think it is.”

He can see the lights of his house up ahead of them, bright and familiar and welcoming as they’ve always been. Brighter than they ought to be, maybe, because the front door is open, flooding the front yard with light, and that doesn’t make any sense; his family turns the heater on as soon as the first real signs of autumn start to show, and they don’t turn it off again until summer arrives. His mom always says they can’t heat the entire outdoors, and then his dad laughs and says there’s no reason why not, since they can certainly afford it, and they go round and round like that any time someone opens a window rather than turning down the thermostat.

The reason for the open door becomes clear a moment later: Dr. Cosgrove is standing on the front porch, apparently arguing with Harry’s father, from the way both men are gesturing. Dr. Cosgrove’s car blocks the bottom of the driveway. They’re still too far away to see details, but Harry doesn’t need to get any closer to see that his father is agitated; he can read it in the lines of the man’s body, tight and somehow offended, even at this distance.

Harry hits the brakes. Softer this time, not wanting to throw anyone through the window, and maybe it’s that and maybe it’s learning from experience, but Jack stays in the backseat. “Whoa,” she says. “He got here fast.”

“We don’t live that far apart,” says Harry, lips gone inexplicably numb. “I used to ride my bike between our houses, before I was old enough to drive. Mel, what’s your dad doing here?”

“I don’t know. I expected him to be mad when I didn’t pick up, but I didn’t think he’d come to Harry’s house.” Her phone buzzes again. This time she knows it can’t be her father, because he’s right in front of her and doesn’t have his phone, so she picks it up and swipes her thumb across the screen. Her eyes go wide. The question of whether she’s wearing foundation is answered as her cheeks get just a shade paler—not enough for a true pallor, enough to confirm to Harry that the blood has just drained out of her face. “Oh,” she says, voice soft.

“What?” asks Harry.

“Today when we both collapsed on the field? Christine filmed the whole thing, and she posted it on Instagram, and someone saw it and got her footage on the local news. It’s all over. Everyone’s seen it now.” She drops the phone into her lap, staring blankly out through the windshield. “My dad’s seen it. He knows I snuck out.”

“He knows you died,” says Jack. Her voice is low, urgent, on the verge of panicking. “We have to go.”

Melanie twists to look at her, blinking. “But that’s my dad,” she says, like she’s afraid Jack has somehow managed to miss that essential fact of the situation. “He’s probably freaked out and worried about me. That’s why he’s being all weird.”

“I’m not the first Jack Frost who’s tried to come for you,” says Jack hurriedly. “I’m the tenth, actually.”

Melanie blinks again. “What?”

“Jack Frost?” asks Harry, much more interested in that bit of nonsense than the rest of what’s going on. “What do you mean, Jack Frost?”

“Oh my gods above, below, and slightly off to the side, if I find out why your Corn Jenny isn’t here yet and it’s anything short of getting jammed into a movie-theater popcorn maker, I’m going to stuff her in there my own damn self,” moans Jack. “We don’t have time for this. We need to get away from here. Can you just get over yourself and drive already?”