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Cold, Dead, and Forgettable
Snowmen, hot chocolate with marshmallows, and being stabbed with an icicle are the best parts of winter. Except for that last one. If this were my story, I would swap out the icicle with something pleasant like sledding down hills, exchanging presents, or wearing silly sweaters (as long as they’ve been cut to fit a pair of glittery fairy wings). My name is Fern, and unfortunately, my plans for the winter are . . . forgettable.
I
should be the main character, but alas, this particular tale belongs to a student who is part human and part
other named Rosemary Thorpe.
The last time I saw her, pumpkins, bats, and cauldrons decorated the common room. She was surrounded by elves, a vampire, a banshee, a nymph, a ghost, and other demifae classmates, opening gifts for her Halloween birthday. Oh, and my younger sister was there. She’s part fairy. We’ll get back to that later.
I hope Rosemary likes me, as I’m delightful! I rescued her from a terrible life at a sleepaway hospital in the mortal realm and swept her to a magical school for students who have a parent who is human and a parent who is not (a school that I’ve named after myself and called Fern’s, as I am the one telling the story). Then I intervened when my father—the Seelie Keeper, and an absolute grouch with a power complex—caught her in his court. Lastly, I did Rosemary the most marvelous favor and introduced her to her long-lost father.
She was shocked to learn that her dad was the Grim Reaper. I don’t know why she was surprised. The girl can see death. It’s a pretty obvious connection.
Anyway, there I was, in all my helpful, sparkling glory, when Rosemary shook her father’s hand for the first time, and her eyes grew big, her mouth dropped open in a gasp, and she saw something quite troubling. In her thirteen years of life, she’d had visions of laboratory equipment exploding onto a scientist, of a pop star trying to take a selfie with a grizzly bear, and of her great-aunt Mildred attempting to get toast out of the toaster with a fork. She’d seen happy deaths of old age, surrounded by loved ones. She’d dreamed of scary deaths involving goblins and the thing under the bed. But she’d never witnessed her own murder.
At twelve, Rosemary Thorpe learned she was part human and part other.
At thirteen, she learned that her father was a very spooky fairy-tale creature.
And every day as the weather turned colder and snowflakes began to fall, she grew closer and closer to shades of blue, to snowbanks, to a familiar voice calling in the distance, to a masked stranger, and to the terrible, horrible sight of her mittens outstretched to catch an oncoming icicle . . . right as it flew straight toward her.
So far, I’ve told you the story of Rosemary’s life.
And now it’s time to share the tale of her death.
It’s a chilly one.
Copyright © 2026 by Fern Forgettable. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
