Chapter One

Jordyn threw the shovel into the side of her driveway and flung the scarf around her neck again to see the white world around her. At seventeen she was the only one able to actually shovel the driveway, to get the carriage out of the stable. She sighed and placed her hands on her hips, this was usually the time that they all switched from sleighs back to wheels, and they had done so almost two weeks ago, and then the freak snow fell again.

She breathed out, her breath forming in little clouds before her. At least a foot had snowed in the past hour. She sighed and went to go get her shovel out of the place that she had stuck it, to go at the snow again. Her bright red hair kept falling in her face as she bent over. Her mother and younger sister, whom was reaching the age of ten, were still inside and keeping warm.

“Can I help you with that?”

Jordyn looked up quickly to see a handsome smiling face of eight-teen-year Edward Nero looking at her, a shovel in hand.

“Oh,” Jordyn said looking a little surprised, and smiled, “thank you.”

“Your welcome,” he said flashing a smile at her and beginning to work, “so, how have you been?” he asked.

“Just the same,” she replied, “what about you?”

“Not bad, Taner got a cold two days ago.”

“Is she okay?”

“Yeah, just in bed.”

“Shouldn’t you be over there to take care of her? And the others?” Jordyn asked.

“They’ll be fine while we dig you out, and besides I’m distracted,” he said glancing at Jordyn; he had a habit of flirting with her shamelessly.

“Distracted? What are you six? Its just snow,” Jordyn said clueless.

Edward sighed and shook his head, “I do like snow.”

Jordyn grinned, “I don’t like shoveling snow.”

“No that is its one downfalls,” Edward said agreeing with her.

It was just over an hour before they had finished shoveling out the carriage.

“Well, thank you,” Jordyn said sweeping her hair out of her face, “would you like to come in for tea?”

“I would love too, but I should get back to Taner and the twins and Barther, he should be awake by now,” Edward replied.

“How old is Barther now?”

“Eight months.”

“It’s been that long?” Jordyn sighed.

Edward grimaced, “yeah its been eight months since she died.”

“How are you doing? She was your mother after all,” Jordyn said.

Edward smiled, “yes I know that much, and we’re fine, now I really should get back…” Edward paused and contemplated her for a moment, breathing heavily, “would you like to come over for a little while? I’m sure that Taner would like to see you.”

“Well,” Jordyn hesitated running her fingers through her snow-filled hair, she glanced back at the house, “Alright, I’ll just tell mum and Arianna.”

“Okay,” Edward said, “here, I’ll take your shovel.”

“Thanks.”

They walked up to the front of the house, Jordyn let herself in and Arianna almost bowled her over.

“Jordyn!! There’s so much snow!” she cried jumping on her.

“Yes I know, and I had to move most of it,” Jordyn said smiling, but it was then that Arianna noticed the tall handsome Edward behind her.

She blushed red, “hi Edward,” she said shyly and smiling. Edward grinned back.

“Hi, Arian, how are you?”

“I’m good,” the girl replied beaming.

“Look Arian, I’m going over to Edwards for a little bit, Taner’s not feeling that well, are you okay with mum?” Jordyn asked.

“Um okay,” Arianna answered.

“Alright, I’ll be back soon, thanks kid.”

Jordyn flashed a grin and Edward smiled at the ten year old who looked only slightly disappointed.

Jordyn smiled at her and with a little wave closed the door again, dug her hands into her pockets and walked with Edward towards his home, across the street and down a couple of houses.

“You realise that she has a major crush on you, right,” Jordyn said.

Edward beamed, “yes, but she’s ten, I have my eyes set on someone older than her.”

“Oh?”

Edward just shook his head and did not answer her. They reached his house and he led the way in.

The noise was the first thing that hit Jordyn. Faiz and Rhys twin boys at the age 6, were running about screaming on the top of their lungs about some device that they had created, that was going to remove people from the gene pool and they had wanted to test it out. Edward had to yell at them to cool it and never to try the machine out on anyone.

“Sorry,” Edward said smiling sheepishly, “it’s kinda hard to control those two when Taner’s sick and I have to work.”

“That’s alright, really, I understand, Arian was that age not too long ago,” Jordyn replied with a grin.

“EDWARD!!”

He winced as the voice screeched through the house; he motioned for Jordyn to follow him. She followed him through the house, and into a small room with fifteen-year-old Taner, lying sprawling bed with a red nose and pushing the cradle with her foot, which had a screaming Barther.

“What is it?” Edward asked going and picking up his youngest brother.

“I can’t believe you!” Taner cried, “you left me all alone, with those… those… mutants, and a crying baby, while I’m on my deathbed just to go shovel snow with a girl!!” she flopped back on the bed.

“Taner,” Edward said with a laugh, “don’t be so dramatic.”

“I can be as dramatic as I WANT!” she cried only lifted her head.

Edward sighed, as there was a crash from the living room. He turned to Jordyn.

“I’m sorry, if I had known that they were so out of control-”

Jordyn laughed, “you knew, here give me Barther, go take care of the mutants.”

Edward smiled gratefully, handed over the baby and left the room. Jordyn went to go sit on Taner’s bed.

“So how are feeling?”

“Deathly,” Taner replied muffled.

“I see.”

“Yes, I could die at any moment.”

“Taner, you have a cold.”

“So?”

Jordyn sighed and shook her head, “Taner, it’s time to get up.”

“I’m on my deathbed.”

“Take some antihistamine,” Jordyn said dully.

“You know that they haven’t perfected that stuff yet, it could kill you with one dose!!”

“Anything can kill you if you don’t swallow it right.”

“See! I shall die!”

“Taner.”

“Alright, alright, I’m up, I’m getting up.”

Taner slowly but surly got up out of bed and sat looking disheveled and sleepy.

“If I die-”

“I’ll take the blame, I know, I know,” Jordyn said with a smile jiggling Barther on her knee.

“So what do you want me to do now that I’m up?”

“Start with your mutants.”

“Blah!” replied Taner but she hauled herself up, quickly brushed her short reddish brown hair and walked out of the room with Jordyn and Barther not far behind.

They reached the living room where Edward barely had things in control. Faiz and Rhys were making up another machine, out of cardboard and an old lampshade and Edward was only just keeping them from getting that far.

“OI!! Mutants!!” Taner yelled, and too both Edward and Jordyn’s surprise the twins stopped moving and snapped to attention as though Taner was their commanding officer.

“Both of you are being ordered to go outside, do not kill anyone, or remove things from the gene pool, there is new snow, build a snowball fort and have a fight with someone. Do you understand mutants?!” Taner yelled like a drill sergeant.

“Yes Ma’am!” the twins shouted happily and shot off to get winter clothes on and go outside.

Taner flopped on the couch and Edward and Jordyn stared at her.

“When did you be able to control them like that?” Edward asked.

“They started misbehaving today, I called them mutants, they thought that it was great, and so I told them that mutants would take orders from their older sister, and I gave them orders I knew they would like, so they obey.”

“Clearly,” Edward mumbled.

Jordyn smiled, left the room to get some antihistamine for Taner and returned a moment later with it and a glass of water.

“Thanks sis,” Taner said drinking all the water in one go with the cold relief not too far behind.

“Sis?” Edward asked blushing slightly.

“Yeah, well, she’s a good friend, and like sister, so meh,” Taner replied sinking into the couch.

Edward and Jordyn just exchanged glances. Taner leaned over and turned on the radio, the crackly noise filtered through and the reporter was talking about the freak snowfall outside. The room was silent as they listened to the report.

“What is this all about anyways?” Taner asked, “Global Warming?”

“The earth is heating up,” Jordyn replied.

“So we’ll all drown?”

“No, that’s not what it means,” Jordyn said sitting down next to Edward, “it means that the entire climate and weather is going to go out of whack, one day it will be twenty degrees with sun, the next day violent tornadoes and thunderstorms, then it will be minus forty and six feet of snow the next day and then back to sunny and warm.”

Taner stared at her, “is that really what’s going to happen?”

“Yup, if they can’t find a way to stop it,” Jordyn replied.

“Wow, scary.”

“Just a little bit.”

The room was quiet again and they listened to the rest of the weather report. Then a song began to play. There was a sudden bang outside and all three stood up to run outside and see what the twins had gotten into this time.

They were half way through making their snow hill but had stopped, the bang had come from one of their pellet guns, which was lying about two feet away from them and they seemed to be struggling to hold something writhing in their hands.

“Hold still!” Faiz cried.

“You spoke we heard you!!” cried Rhys pulling at the tail of the creature.

Taner ran up to them and she could see what was moving. A smoothly white ferret with terrified black eyes was squirming in their grasp.

“Speak again!” Faiz exclaimed.

“Let it go!” Taner cried and wrestled the poor horrified ferret from the twins and set him on the ground again where he shot into the undergrowth of the hedge near by and sat there huddling terrified.

“Why did you let it go!” yelled Rhys.

“Yeah! It spoke, we wanted it to spoke again,” Faiz put in.

“Don’t be ridiculous, ferrets can’t speak, well at least they can’t speak English,” Taner said placing her hands on her hips.

“Well perhaps you should tell that ferret that it can’t speak English,” Rhys suggested sulkily.

Taner glared at him, “No guns and leave the snow ferrets alone.”

“How could we? He had a friend with him.”

The twins sniggered at their own joke.

“We got him too, but he was fast even injured.”

“What? You shot one of them? You know that snow ferrets are needed when it’s snows!” Taner cried.

The twins giggled maliciously, “we didn’t shot the snow ferret.”

“But- you just said-”

“He had a leaf mink with him.”

“Leaf minks? But the brown minks only come out in fall,” Taner said slowly.

“Yeah, so we figured, shot the leaf mink and capture the snow ferret,” Rhys said smiling.

“The mink has done it’s work, the ferret hasn’t,” Faiz said.

“Don’t you ever shoot animals again for fun!” Taner said dangerously, then looked to the hedge, she could still see the snow ferret huddled there, and looking carefully she could see a dark brown mass beside it, no doubt the wounded leaf mink.

“I hope he’s alright,” she whispered.

“He’ll be fine, though he bled a little, he ran pretty darn fast.”

Taner sighed and turned her fierce gaze on the boys.

“Never again will I catch you hurting an animal whether they speak or not,” Taner said dangerously.

“You just said animals don’t speak,” Faiz interrupted.

“Alright whether you think they speak or not, do you understand?”

“Yes Ma’am,” the twins said humbled.

Taner turned and sneezed, “I gotta get away from this family.”

Puck huddled under the hedge and watched the girls and the older boy walk back inside. He sighed and shivered, then turned to check his legs, arms and tail to make sure that everything was still in place. He then turned to Ronen, the Leaf Mink whom was staring horribly at him.

“Sorry,” Puck said weakly, Ronen swatted him across the shoulder and turned to lick the wound in his back leg. Puck moved around to check out the shot wound. The little brat was a good shot the pellet was stuck inside his right hind leg.

“Why did you have to speak!?” Ronen hissed after a moment.

“I thought we had found them,” Puck whispered back.

“We have found them, that doesn’t mean you draw attention to ourselves by talking aloud,” Ronen answered.

“Sorry,” Puck said again.

“Stop saying that.”

“Sorry.”