I’m in my room, my stomach still churning, eyes stinging. I had to get away from Mum because it can’t be true. It can’t be. It’s ridiculous. Impossible. Plain bonkers. I’m shouting the words inside my head to drown out the other thoughts, but they filter through anyway. Because she told me, didn’t she, over the years, in all those moon-eyed stories of a winter wonderland, wild and beautiful. And I always knew deep down that my father was not going to be your usual sort of person, Mum being who she is. And then there are the things that have happened since the first frost fell two days ago.

It shouldn’t be a big surprise.

My father is an icon of winter, a spirit who spreads frost across the world.

No need to overreact, Owl.

‘You knew it was going to be something freaky,’ I tell myself, catching sight of my face in the mirror. There’s a full moon tonight and my reflection is a warped glimpse of a new me, someone I suddenly barely know. Pale skin, pale hair, golden eyes – it’s me, it just all looks so different right now. The edges seem to blur and I could almost imagine the girl in the mirror is some sort of fairy-tale creature, proportions all slightly irregular, skin glowing with a strange silver sheen.

What am I?

Something pulls at me deep inside, a fear I never knew about before. What if Mum is right and Jack Frost – the figure she made so familiar with all her tales – is my father, what would that really mean? Tears gather in my eyes and when I blink they fall into my lap, where they gleam in the moonlight.

Three tiny drops of ice.

‘Owl, let me in.’

‘No!’ I brush the tears away, relieved when they melt at the touch of my hand.

‘Please, let’s talk about it . . .’

Mum opens the door and lingers there, one hand on the knob.

‘I thought you were ready,’ she says softly. ‘I thought the stories I told you when you were little might have helped . . . that you would somehow understand. Isn’t it better to know?’

‘No,’ I say, and I mean to be brave and turn away from her, and not show her my new, uncertain self, but my voice wobbles and I find myself looking at her while more tears fall and I don’t mean to let them. I brush them away as soon as I can, but she sees. She sees everything.

‘Oh, Owl!’

‘I don’t know what to do! What is this? Why am I so different?’

‘It’s all right, my love,’ she breathes, rushing over to sit beside me on the old bedspread she made with my baby clothes. She puts her arms around me. ‘You are wonderful. You have always been my wonderful, special girl.’ She pulls away and looks at me, her eyes bright. ‘If it is more evident now, then it is not a bad thing, Owl,’ she says fiercely. ‘You are becoming what you were always meant to be. I have often wondered . . . and now winter has come, and you’re at the age where your body is changing—’

‘But not like this! Look!’ I howl, as the tears of ice keep on falling.

‘They’re beautiful . . .’

‘Oh, Mum!’ I swipe them away angrily, clench my jaw to stop more coming. ‘You always say that sort of thing but . . . they’re not, they’re not supposed to be doing that! What am I going to do? How am I going to go to school? What will I tell people?’

‘You’re upset,’ she says, ‘but that won’t last forever. And truthfully I don’t know what’s going to happen, Owl, and I understand – I understand that to be different is difficult, but you will be all right. Have I not always embraced the part of you that is only you?’

‘What do you know about being different?’ I demand, pulling away. ‘I mean, really. When did you last cry tears of ice, or half freeze your best friend with a touch? How do you know what it feels like?’

‘Owl!’

‘You can’t make this better.’

‘I’m not convinced it should be better,’ she says, looking out into the night sky, her dark eyes glittering. ‘But if you think there’s someone who can help you more, perhaps you should seek them out. I suppose you could . . .’

‘You mean him?’

‘I could never find him again,’ she says, her voice hushed. ‘But you’re different, as you say. You’re part of that world I told you stories about, Owl. Come, I’ll show you where it all began . . .’

It’s an enormous book, covered in black leather, tucked into the bottom corner of the vast bookshelf that dwarfs the rest of the little sitting room. I recognize it immediately as the one Mum read from when I was a kid. The gold writing on the cover says: Fablef and Earth-fpiritf: How to Meet Them and How to Find Your Way to Your Own fpirit felf.

‘This . . .’ she says, leafing through the dry, yellowed pages, pulling me on to the settee and switching on the overhead lamp. She peers at me over the top of the book, her eyes twinkling. I think she’s enjoying this. It’s almost like she’s been just waiting for it to happen. I scowl at her. ‘Well,’ she says, turning back to the book. ‘This is what took me to him. I was reading through it, thinking of all these places, of what it would be like if they were real . . . I was searching for something, adventure, I suppose. When I read out the incantation –’ she shakes her head, a funny little smile on her mouth – ‘well, I didn’t think it would work.’

‘But it did?’

‘Oh, it did,’ she says. ‘All the stories I told you, Owl; some of them were my own. That place I found myself, it was real! I woke in the morning, and I didn’t know how real it was – until I discovered I was carrying you.’

They were her own stories.

Not fables at all.

‘And you think I should try this?’ I ask.

She bites her lip. ‘Honestly, I don’t think you’re ready. I think you need to find yourself, before you can seek answers from others. But . . .’ She waves off my protest. ‘But it’s up to you. How can I tell you what to do or what not to do, in this situation? There has never been another like you, Owl. You, more than most, need to find your own way.’

‘Oh, just give me the book,’ I say, taking it and hefting it back to my room.

‘Be careful, my love,’ she calls after me. ‘Please, be careful.’

‘I will!’ I shout, dropping the book on the bed. I’m shaking, almost numb with exhaustion. I close the curtains and climb into bed, pulling the covers up and heaving the book on to my lap.

I want to talk to Mallory. I look at the clock. Eleven. It’s still the same evening. The same day. Just a few hours since I saw her, even less since everything changed. She’d know what to say. I fumble for my phone. No texts, no missed calls. And she had her family evening. I put the phone on the bookcase next to the bed. It can wait. Honestly, what would I even say right now?

‘Incantationf,’ I mutter, opening the book and turning to the index at the back. It must be truly ancient – every single s is written as an f. Some of my favourite stories aren’t there, I realize as I flick through the pages. Of course. Because Mum made them up. They were her experiences of when she went to that other place, and met him.

My father.

‘Let’s do this then,’ I say, shaking my head as I find a poem that looks a bit like some sort of spell. ‘Ridiculouf book . . .’