Jackaby Stories

12. Sight

A/N:  Request from   I've sort of run with your idea, but I still hope you enjoy!  I'm so so so so so sorry I haven't updated for a while, I've been busy with school stuff and depression, and that's not really an excuse, but I am back now.  Geronimo!

Abigail's POV:

Jackaby grinned triumphantly at the bottle in his hands, his already unruly hair messed up more from the previous fight and his face red from running.  

"Oh, thank goodness, finally!"  He slid the small bottle into a myriad pocket of his coat, noise clinking from inside as it knocked against other things.  He offered his hand out to me and I took it shyly, not quite used to the feeling.  I had liked him almost since I met him, and who would've thought that a music hex would have made him notice?  I shook myself out of remembering as Jackaby pulled me through the streets of New Fiddleham.  I still had no idea where anything was in that mismatched town.  Jackaby stopped bolt dead. 

At once, the people around us froze, and I could see the still form of a copper penny in the air, stuck.  A boy's hand was stretched out to catch it, his cap in the process of sliding off his head of reddish brown hair, but it was stuck.  Time was frozen.  Jackaby blinked, looking around.  For some reason, we had remained movable.  Pulling his hand out of mine, Jackaby tapped the shoulder of an elderly lady standing next to him.  She stared blankly ahead.  I ducked under the arm of a vegetable salesman.  

"Jackaby?"  I asked timidly.  "What's going on?"  He frowned slightly and brushed his hair out of his eyes.  

"I don't quite know yet.  But I have a guess.  Maybe three...  This has happened before.  Never this big, not nearly this big.  We don't have enough time to see if anyone's still moving, other than us," he replied slowly. 

"Why are we still moving?"

"Me.  That's why we're still moving.  I sort of... I kind of have an immunity to spells.  Sort of.  Things that can't hurt you, like dancing jinxes-"  he shuddered slightly at this, "-and time freezes.  You were holding my hand, so it transferred over to you as well."  I nodded, but I was rather confused.  There's not really a time with Jackaby when I'm not, honestly.  

Something dark flashed past in the corner of my eye, and I turned.  Jackaby had wandered farther into the crowd of frozen people, so I headed cautiously towards the figure.  How had they not been frozen?  The closer I got, the colder the air around me became.  The figure turned around.... 

Black eyes with irises like frost looked back at me, tiny second and minute and hour hands ticking from pupils like clocks.  The- the thing reached out and a vice like hand gripped my wrist.  My leather notebook was jarred out of my pocket, but it never hit the ground. 

A/N:  Duh duh duhhhh!!  There will be a second part, and I'm super sorry again for not updating sooner, I'll try to be more consistent.  Good morning, afternoon, or night!