She nearly tripped over her feet running to class and sighed with both relief and chagrin, only to realize she was supposed to have a speech prepared. Fortunately, she had a great knack for extemporizing. One of the reasons she signed up for a philosophy course was she could make a five-minute speech out of two remembered sentences from the text. With a sufficiently confident bluff, she was guaranteed at least a B-minus.
There had been an announcement yesterday about the possibility of portals opening between dimensions of reality. One boy, Gerald Wattle, a Commuter, attested that on the other side of the boiler room was a massive European chicken farm.
She hoped that was why at least thirty chickens were running loose through the halls, chased by the occasional faculty. The students seemed inclined to let them skitter. Though it did not directly affect her, she found the tumult trying to her nerves as she tried to analyze the meaning of semicolon use in Edwardian British fiction.
She also handled the assertion from her unrequited love that he had suffered at the hands of stalkers many a time, and could she please not become one? Aurora ‘dealt’ by declaring teenage romantic relationships akin to the swarms of mayflies. Especially the males, who are so desperate for love that they will copulate with other males, the hoods of tan cars, or brown paper bags.
Not until she tried to extract ice cream from a vending machine did her reserve break down. The vending machine took her money in good faith, and then promptly turned agnostic. It acknowledged the possibility of money, wished to feel the influence of money, and made all sorts of vows to how it would regard money, but failed to acknowledge the presence of any specific one dollar and fifty cents.
She wailed, curled up on the floor with her arms partially around the machine’s vast bulk. The machine remained immovable, though a passing chicken may have felt a tug at its wee heartstrings.
Eleven
Spring Cleaning
Gwen found Kira sobbing in the wine cellar, among the dusty bottles and moss-covered bricks. Her attempts to comfort Kira fared poorly.
“If it’s not so bad, then riddle me this, why don’t you give yourself up to restore the balance of the universe? You’ve lived three hundred years. I’ve lived eighteen!”
She knelt beside Kira and put an arm around her, even as Kira tried to maneuver herself away into a corner. Gwen said, “The Joint Republics of Monsoon and Drought are in an uneasy truce with Autumn. One of their key religious sites was once located in Monsoon, but because an earthquake moved a certain river it is now in my realm. One of the Autumnal ethnic groups has a genetic disease that can be cured only by a rare plant that will only grow in that same place. My people are unwilling to give it up without a fight. The only reason that Autumn and the Joint Republics of Monsoon and Drought haven’t gone to war over it is that the JRMD is in my debt for helping them depose their mad rulers over a hundred years ago. They have pledged to never shed Autumnal blood for as long as I live. If I die, we risk thousands of lives in combat over the contested zone.”
“That makes too much sense for my comfort.” Kira sniffled, taking the handkerchief Gwen proffered.
“I’ll see to it that your mother and sister are set up with a good income for life, and that your memory will be honored.”
“Still better than being Timmy’s slave. Not by much. It’s a powerful hurt. It’s really so.”
Gwen held her closer and stroked her hair. Seasons are unable to bear or sire children, which was one of her few regrets about the position.
****
Rain grumbled at having to take commercial transport and wearing clothes even in a warm cabin. Vincent’s Seasonal doctor advised her against additional flying for at least a week. Rain didn’t always listen to doctors, but she wouldn’t risk her flight for anything. She scratched at the gauze covering her leg. Her falling feathers from the damaged wings made Jared need to use an inhaler. William found one for him and procured the correct medication before they left. She occupied herself by folding origami out of the free paper napkins.
At least they were in first class. Their private cabin boasted four linen-sheeted beds, a sink with running water, a little table with four seats, a red satin curtain, and blue speckled wallpaper. The rails made a soothing “clickety-clack” as the train sped towards its destination. They were on the way to Drought.
Amber’s kidnappers were clever. Only Faerie and the Joint Republics of Monsoon and Drought were immune to direct Season interference. Spring indirectly influenced Faerie. Monsoon owed a debt to Gwen of Autumn, specifically. Drought honored Monsoon’s agreement with Gwen only because the Joint Republics had to declare war together, or not at all. Gwen would love to help, but she had no leverage in Drought’s internal affairs. All this made Drought the only place in the Seven States where Lynne’s position was actually a disadvantage.
Jared, when not wheezing, was reading a guidebook to the dimension. The Tourism Agency of Centralia commissioned it the benefit of Commuters. This was again a gift from William, as all of Jared’s checked baggage sank in an icy January lake. He still had a gray canvas satchel that said “+20 Bag of Holding”, containing his journal, some money and Lynne-created gems, a lock of his mother’s hair in a decorative pill box, a basic set of toiletries, a first-aid kit, his now-useless cell phone, his netbook, and his iPod Touch and associated paraphernalia. He also had his wallet and passport in a carrier around his neck.
Picking at the rigatoni and tofu stir-fry William had given her, Lynne could do little but mutter curses under her breath. She nearly jumped when the knock sounded on the door.
Rain opened it. A tall, thin young man with gawky long limbs stood there. The stranger wore a pinstriped suit with a white carnation in his lapel and a bowler hat on his head. His immaculately white-gloved hands held a black cane, as shiny as his shoes. They silently watched him affix a monocle to his left eye.
“I say, would you be the party in need of a hostage negotiator? Lord Winter advertised for one. I should be so off-put if it turned out I were mistaken.”
Before any of them had time to reply, he plopped himself on the unoccupied berth, shutting the door behind him. “That is, his assistant William Colt radioed me on his Lord’s behalf. We were old school chums.”
“I’m willing to believe that,” Jared said.
The man beamed. “The name is Djones.”
“Jones?” Rain asked.
“Ah. No. It’s ‘Djones’, with a silent ‘d’ at the beginning, as in ‘djinn’.” He coughed delicately and dabbed at his mouth with a silk, black-and-white paisley hankie. “Not that you are to be blamed on such a slight acquaintance. The cry goes out, ‘Djones is magnanimous! He bears no grudge!’”
“I think we can take care of a couple of bastards ourselves, thanks,” Lynne said.
“I don’t mean to offend you, Lynne. You must admit that you don’t have power there,” Jared said. He took a brief gasp from the inhaler. Nobody interrupted. Rain raised her eyebrows. Maybe people didn’t contradict Lynne often? “Gruesomely killing these men would be both literally and figuratively messy. You might get in trouble for going outside your jurisdiction, especially in a region the guidebook says has always had a rocky relationship with your kingdom.”
“Sneezy has a good notion,” Rain said.
Jared sighed at the nickname.
“Then you must be the celebrated Lynne of Spring. My deepest respect and sincerest salutations. I am honored to be in your presence.” Djones kissed her hand, mollifying Lynne somewhat. “Here also is the Lady Rain, courier for the Seasons and attendant of Queen Mab herself!”
“Don’t touch me.”
“As you wish.” He gave his cane a twirl by way of punctuation. “Now that we’re all here, what shall we do to pass the remaining day and night, before we sleep? Shall we sing songs? I do a delightful rendition of ‘A Boy Named Sue’. Shall we tell stories?”
“Not really in the mood,” Lynne said.
“Very well. Join me in a game of Pok
er, Pinochle, Spit, Bluff, Go Fish, or Egyptian Rat Screw? Anyone? Anyone? Jared? Now there’s a good lad.” He gave Jared a friendly nudge.
“I’m twenty-six.” Djones didn’t look much older.
“You wear those years indomitably. Shall I deal? Excellent.”
****
At a hospital in Bulgaria, a brawl broke out between a psychologist and a psychiatrist. A new hole between the dimensions was leaking negative psychic energy from a dusty, unoccupied room in Summer’s castle. The brawl escalated to the physical therapists versus the surgeons, the pediatricians versus the geriatricians, the nurses versus the technicians, and so on. The janitors, cafeteria workers, and ambulance crews proved oddly unaffected. They evacuated the patients, called the police, and went home.
The police found out the hospital doors were now magically one-way only. Loudspeaker efforts to convince the bewitched individuals to leave all failed. Inside, staff threw clipboards at each other. Doctors jabbed empty needles into their opponents with the battle cry, “I hope you get an embolism!” A group of surgeons barricaded themselves in an operating theatre with beds and wheelchairs. An axe-wielding woman appeared from somewhere, wheeling herself on a gurney and screaming oaths to forgotten gods. By this point the chaos was so complete, nobody noticed.
In the hurly-burly of it all, someone knocked an old, though still functional, defibrillator from a storage closet through the portal.
****
Amber woke from her drugged haze and realized she couldn’t see, couldn’t move, and really, really had to pee. On the plus side, she seemed to be lying on a comfortable bed, and she didn’t feel any injuries.
“Hello?” she ventured.
Footsteps neared. “Are you alright?”
“Have I been kidnapped?”
A male spoke just beyond the door. “Yes, but we have no intention of harming you gratuitously. You might not believe it, but we’re simply trying to work for the greater good. Your lover needs to see reason. One of the female Seasons must be killed by a man.”
“I can’t walk. I need help to go to the bathroom, please.”
“Of course. You may have some food and water after. Are you allergic to gluten?”
“Um, no. That’s awfully considerate of you.”
“I prefer to leave brutality to my partner in this enterprise, and none of it directed towards you unnecessarily. I’m no monster.” Strong arms lifted her bridal-style and carried her a short distance.
She felt herself deposited on a toilet, but with her powers limited to only what she could see, she had no way of pulling her skirt up and lowering her panties. “Um.”
“Forgive me, but you’re too powerful to have your blindfold off or your hands untied. Don’t worry. I’m really not interested in you in that way.”
Even with that promise, she couldn’t help being nervous about being at anonymous, unseen fingers’ mercy. It took her what seemed like ages to relax enough.
He was true to his word. “Have I done adequately?”
“Yeah. Thanks. Please put me back now.”
“Naturally.” That being accomplished, he brought her water and fed her what she figured was pita bread spread with hummus. It wasn’t bad.
Then a doorbell from somewhere beneath them rang. “Is that…?”
“That should be her, here to negotiate. I’ll carry you downstairs and put you in your wheelchair.”
A few minutes and a trip down the stairs later, she heard a different male voice say, “Welcome, Lady Lynne.”
“Baby, are you okay?”
Amber tried to smile reassuringly. “I’m fine. They haven’t harmed me.”
The new voice continued with a hint of smarminess. “Nice to see you again, Rain.”
Rain hissed, “Your ears, you assholes. Your ears.”
Her caretaker, for lack of a better word, spoke next. “Who are you two?”
“My name’s Jared. I’m kinda along for the ride. It’s complicated.”
Then two gunshots rang out. Amber screamed. Someone else did, too. It sounded like Jared, but Amber didn’t have much of a sample size. It definitely wasn’t Lynne or Rain.
“Is that your idea of hostage negotiation, Djones?” Jared shouted. Through her shock, Amber noticed an odd, barely-voiced ‘d’ before the common surname.
A calm, crisp voice replied, “Sorry for alarming you. I had to act the moment I recognized those men. They are wanted pedophiles with whom I interacted a year ago in the course of my work. Utterly depressing business. Glad to have caught up with the fiends before one of them became a new Season.”
Twelve
Summer Job
Radcliff was on the roof with a mouthful of nails when Naomi came home. Her escort was steering their boat towards the long-lost stilt house, among the mud and marsh. Radcliff suspected she was wondering who the strange, dashing man in a flowing white tunic and brown breeches was, and why he sent nails scattering when he cried, “Ruth! Ruth! Your daughter has returned!”
Ruth rushed out the door and nearly fell down the stairs. She froze when she noticed which daughter it was. A single tear welled in her left eye.
“Mother?”
They fell into each other’s arms. Ruth babbled, “You haven’t aged a day, Naomi. Radcliff’s got a hot blueberry pie waiting. He’s Autumn’s man. Have you seen Kira? How is she? Oh my, I wish I had a better dress on. What’s wrong with your hands?”
Naomi apparently saw no reason to dodge. “Timmy had them cut off. For all the girls. Kira made me a new pair out of wood and brought ‘em alive.”
That’s when Ruth started crying in earnest, clutching at her firstborn as if she’d lose her again otherwise.
Radcliff climbed down and paid the guide for Naomi’s successful journey. He had to tell the women they’d take the barge to July tomorrow morning approximately six times before they heard.
****
Once her blindfold was off, Amber recoiled at the sight of the two corpses, a neat bullet hole in each man’s forehead. She was so upset she lifted the nearest one a few inches off the ground. The shorter, darker young man gaped in admiration.
Some pieces of luggage were piled by the door of the parlor the group occupied. It was a disconcertingly pleasant and ordinary-looking place. The décor included sunrise-violet walls, cacti growing in pots in the corner, air conditioning, a white ceiling fan, sand colored sofas and easy chairs, and smooth baked clay flooring.
The taller, paler young man checked how many bullets remained in his small pearl-handled revolver. “I apologize for the distress I’ve caused you, Madam, but the only reason that you did not come to grief in these men’s keeping is that you have undergone puberty.”
This must be Djones.
“I’m so glad you’re okay.” Lynne took Amber’s hands in hers, kissing them, her cheeks, her forehead, then her lips.
“If you two want to get a room, there’s probably one somewhere in the house,” Rain said, running her fingers through her long hair, seemingly distracted or uninterested. “Gimli and Djones and I can clean up the bodies.”
“I am not a dwarf.” Amber matched the face to the name. This was Jared.
“Fine then, Bilbo and Djones and I can clean up the bodies.”
“Argh!”
“Wow, that was sort of nice of you, Rain,” Amber said when Lynne let her pause for breath. “I mean, the first part, not teasing poor Jared about his height.”
“I’m well within the average for my demographic,” Jared muttered, stepping over to the kitchen sink to see if the faucet worked.
Rain shrugged. Then she winced at the muscle she accidentally pulled. “I’m glad you’re okay, too.”
Lynne carefully picked Amber up and left to follow Rain’s suggestion.
****
Djones cleaned his monocle and put it back over his left eye. “It amazes me the fascination people have with rubbing genitals together. Unaccountable. In any case— Jared, Rain, I would be much obliged if you assiste
d. Jared, is there a metal object nearby that you could plunge down the sink’s maw for me?”
“Will this ladle do?”
“Excellent. Stick it down there and flick that switch. No, the other one. Look where I’m pointing.”
With a noise like a miniature jet engine taking off, the sink’s garbage disposal twisted the ladle into smaller and smaller shreds until it sank into oblivion.
Rain leaned on a counter to watch. “If Next Door garbage disposals were this strong, I would’ve shredded half the things in the house for fun.”
“Friend Jared, friend Rain, this is good news. We appear to be in an old ranch house in rural Arid. Their police system is notoriously corrupt, not something Lady Lynne will have time or mental energy to deal with. Not to mention the potential international incident. All is not lost, thanks to this garbage disposal. Arid’s corrupt police force also has a supremely incompetent forensics unit. No need even for a barrel of lye or a pack of hungry coyotes.” Djones unscrewed the top of his ebony cane and pulled out a thin-bladed sword.
It finally dawned on Jared what Djones was planning to do with the combination of sword, two corpses, and a garbage disposal. He swallowed and remembered how he handled his time in the emergency room. “I’ll go see if there’s some newspaper about, shall I?”
“Aprons too, I’d recommend,” Djones replied with a gentle smile.
“I like the way you think, sir,” Rain said, dragging one of the men to the easier-to-clean linoleum. A few of her feathers drifted away from her in a gauzy cloud.
“We can camp here tonight. I’ll alert dear old Will that the situation has been dealt with, and perhaps we can order a pizza or two.”
“I don’t want sausage,” Jared said.
****
Seasons Turning (Timely Realms Book 1) Page 13