Free New Frost: Winter Witches by Phaedra Weldon Page B

hand and I was so mad… The principal suspended me for two days, even though there was no physical proof. The thing melted in the heat. Tommy and Bob both said it was a snowball so they got in-school suspension for lying.  
    But my mom knew they weren't lying. She cried in the car that day on the way home. I thought it was because she was mad at me. Then later that night she came into my room and told me to never make snowballs again. Because if I did, Nature would take me away from her the way she took dad away.  
    At that time, I didn't know what that meant. I thought Nature was the name of someone my crazy grandma knew.  
    What I didn't tell mom was that snowball wasn't the first one.  
    I'd made one in the back yard weeks earlier while playing with Pepper, my dog. In fact I made a lot of them. It'd been hot and she was panting so I made snowballs for her to fetch and lick.  
    Before Tommy it was Cheryl No Nose. That wasn't her real name. She was born with a birth defect that didn't make a nose and her parents couldn't afford the surgery, so instead of a real nose she had this bump with holes. I never made fun of her. In fact I always went out of my way to be nice. Heck, I even went as far as freezing a puddle beside a popular girl that was making fun of No Nose. See we never called her that to her face. But this girl did. So when this name-caller turned to run she fell and busted her coccyx.  
    I got that word right on a test later that year.  
    No Nose thought it was funny…so I felt good that I made her smile. Then a month or so later a few girls started making fun of me 'cause Keith Pullman liked me. He was the tallest of all the other boys, and he liked anime, just like I did. We started meeting for recess outside and talked about TV shows and movies. I just didn't know that No Nose liked him too.  
    So one day her and her new friends jumped me in the bathroom. They were going to hold me down and cut my hair. Back then my hair was just blond. Mom called it honey wheat. There were three of them and one of me. And I was scared. Really scared. They had scissors and pocket knives. And the only thing I'd ever done was admit to a crush on a boy.  
    When the girl on the right came at me I yelled. Loud. And with that yell came this weird feeling in my chest, like a burp. All the faucets turned on full. The water ran so hard the sink drains couldn't take the water down fast enough so it spilled over onto the floor. As it hit the tile it turned to ice. Thick, fractal filled patterns of millions of snowflakes as they raced along with the water and froze everyone's shoes to the floor.  
    Except mine.  
    I grabbed my things and ran out of that bathroom, not even caring what happened next.  
    Nothing did. The girls got into trouble for flooding the bathroom. There were wild stories going around about me and freezing water. But really…who believed anything like that? The girls kept away from me and Keith and I dated for a year after that.  
    Yeah…I had something. Power. Abilities I couldn't explain. And something my mom never wanted me to use. I never told her about the incident in the bathroom, but I figured she knew because Crow knew.  
    He always knew.  
    And he agreed with mom, that I shouldn't use these powers. For the same reason my mom feared.  
    "Nature will find you, and take you from your mother. Losing you like she lost your father will destroy her, Amelia."  
    But I was nineteen now. And this what ever it was…was getting stronger.  

    •••

    The town of Dahlonega was as picturesque as a postcard. Hailed as the site of the first major U.S. Gold Rush and the middle of Georgia Wine Country, the town was home to a booming tourist trade. Travelers from other states as well as nearby Atlanta came to Dahlonega to see the foothills of the Appalachian mountains. I loved the square with its quaint shops all decorated for Christmas. Sparkling white and color lights twinkled in window seals, framing