51 - Beware, the Snowman Page 7

  “You—you’re really my father?” I stammered.

  Conrad didn’t have a chance to answer. Rolonda and Eli came running up to us. “Are you okay?” they cried.

  Conrad pointed to Rolonda and Eli. “They saved your lives!” he told Aunt Greta and me. “They told me that you planned to climb to the ice cave. As soon as I heard that, I worked my magic. I sent the snowmen up to rescue you.”

  “Wow!” Eli exclaimed, seeing the monster frozen in the ice. “Look at that!”

  “That was the evil snowman,” Conrad explained to them. “He’ll never threaten the village again.”

  Rolonda and Eli stepped closer to view the frozen monster close up.

  I turned to my father. “I don’t understand,” I said. “Why did you stay behind in the village when Mom and Aunt Greta left? Why do you live up here near the ice cave?”

  He scratched his beard and sighed. “It’s kind of a long story. When you were little, your mother and I were practicing powerful magic. Our magic got out of control. We accidentally created this monster.”

  He motioned to the monster and shook his head. “We froze the monster inside the body of a snowman,” he explained. “Your mother—she wanted to leave. She was so frightened and upset. She wanted to move as far away from the village as she could. She wanted to forget it ever happened.”

  “And why did you stay?” I demanded.

  “I stayed because I thought I owed it to the people of the village,” he explained. “I owed it to them to keep the snowman in his cave. To keep him from harming people.”

  He uttered another sad sigh. “And so I stayed up here, close to the monster we created. But… but… leaving you, Jaclyn, was the hardest thing I ever had to do!”

  He wrapped his arm around my shoulders. Again, his beard scratched my face.

  “I always dreamed that someday I could leave the mountain and go find you,” he said softly. “And now the monster is dead. The horror is finally over. And Greta has brought you back. Perhaps…”

  His voice broke. He smiled at Aunt Greta and then at me. He took a breath and tried again. “Perhaps… we can try to be a family again.”

  He kept his arm around me as we turned to go down the mountain.

  “Hey—!” I cried out as I saw the snowmen move to block our path.

  In all the excitement of finding my father, I’d completely forgotten about all the snowmen!

  Now they circled us. Surrounded us.

  Staring at us with their glowing coal eyes. Staring at us so coldly.

  “Wh-what are they going to do?” I stammered.

  Before my father could answer, one of the snowmen came thumping out of the group. He rumbled up to us, arms twitching, eyes flashing.

  I grabbed Dad’s arm. The snowmen had us totally surrounded.

  Nowhere to move. No chance to run away.

  The snowman stopped inches from my father—and opened his mouth to speak.

  “Can we go back down now?” the snowman asked. “It’s really cold up here!”

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