“Isaac’s one of those people who can go back and forth between dimensions. Commuters. He picked up the design and parts on his last trip. It takes power from the flow of the river.” Kira hugged herself. “I might get sick, but I’m betting you’re less capable at handling cold than I am.”
Timmy’s breath grew shallow as he scrabbled at the walls. “Bitch!”
“Isaac told you to leave me alone. Timmy, were you ever mortal? What went wrong in childhood for you to be so addled?”
He punched her in the face. It wasn’t as hard as the local bullies hit her, before she got wise to avoid them. “Get him to let me out!”
“No. I wasn’t looking to end my schooling days with an execution, but you’ve forced my hand. Who becomes Summer now? Do you have an heir?”
He fell to his knees, sneezing, hacking. His fingernails blued. “You don’t know...what you’re...doing!”
“You don’t either. You never thought about it. You just took and took. The bill’s here.”
He started to cry, but the tears crystallized. Kira shivered from emotion along with the cold. She’d never learned how to hate properly. She just felt sad and disgusted.
A few minutes later, she gave the door a special coded knock. He opened the door and wrapped a blanket around her. “I have some stew if you’d like it. Do you want me to help get rid of the body?”
Kira pointed inside. Nothing lay there but a mass of frozen leaves.
Two
Spring Awakening
Jared came down the steps after work one morning to find his mother’s basement was now a cave. It contained a lake he could never cross without drowning. He surveyed the topography with a nod. Hmm. He would have gasped, but his mother died the week before, which had already emptied his emotions. Behind Jared the house was normal. Everything in front of him splashed. A breeze breathed towards him.
The ceiling drew his attention like a display of jewelry in a store window. Above were sparkles. Below was enough water to sink a truck. Jared silently pondered it. A stalactite concealed much of the boat, but he saw the sails poke out as the craft drifted towards him. A woman dressed in modern horse-riding gear and a light blue coat was steering it one-handed. He waved to her, not sure what else to do. The woman reminded him of a sapling reawakening in March, both in figure and coloring, and wore a headset clipped to the side of her face. He wondered if she could provide answers or a lift to the other side. She stared at him with a mixture of surprise and calm, as though she didn’t expect this development but could easily handle it. Neither spoke.
The second boat, a rowboat, surprised both of them. The rower wore an eye patch, bandanna, beard, and cutlass. He also seemed to be suffering from jaundice, his skin yellowed like the pages of an old book. He didn’t smell as pleasant as old books do. Muscles coiled out from his undershirt as he raised a gun.
The woman raised two guns.
Maybe scurvy was the pirate’s problem, to judge by his loose and rotting teeth. “April Showers, you know things would improve if you just gave in and died.”
“I am not convinced,” the woman replied, voice lofting through the air. “I will admit that the exit from the cave has disappeared.”
“What have you done to the basement?” Jared asked, his words trembling.
“It might not have been her, kid. The balance of the Seasons is broken, which means portals. Haha, mortals, too.” He laughed, his voice like a rusty door hinge, not taking the guns off April Showers.
“Just let me leave, and no harm will come to you.” She tossed her long, frizzy black hair. “How does a rogue such as you come to know the Lore? Though you still don’t know my name.”
Jared realized she was distracting the pirate as a tendril sprouted from his boat, curling up around him without touching him. Other tendrils joined it, growing from ivy to vines Tarzan could swing on. Finally the pirate did notice. “Hey!” Then he fired.
The vine closest to his arm jerked it to the side, so the bullet grazed April’s shoulder and then continued on. She shot him three times. He fell into the water, creating red ripples.
She stumbled in pain, and Jared caught her before she hit the ground. His mouth formed words before they passed through his brain. “If I clean the wound and bandage it, will you explain to me what’s going on? Don’t worry, I’m a nurse. My name’s Jared.”
“My name is Lynne,” she muttered through clenched teeth, leaning on his arm as they walked up the steps. He noticed her feet never touched the ground. A flower always sprang up to cushion her step. “I am Spring.”
****
Alyssa saw the homeless lady sleeping on this street two days ago. There was not much to go on in terms of symptoms. She was muttering, gesticulating, and pushing a jittery-jattery shopping cart full of sealed paper bags. If Alyssa discovered anything illegal in there, she would have to turn her over to the police. The local government had just passed a new act. All of the homeless needed psychiatric evaluation, and were either to be placed in shelters or in hospitals.
After waiting inside her car for a half an hour, Alyssa saw the homeless lady stumble past. She was a little over five feet tall and dressed in a long gray coat. A buttoned flap connected to the hood hid her mouth and nose. Her clothes and even some of her hair were streaked with musty green, rusty brown, and drying red stains. Had she been involved in violence?
Trying to act casual, Alyssa stepped out of her car and quietly followed the homeless lady. There wasn’t anyone else around, and she needed there to be in case they had an altercation. Alyssa simply tried not to lose her until she walked out to a larger street.
Alyssa saw her spot a patch of spilled oil, iridescent in the chilled morning light. She bent down and touched it, then rooted deep in the folds of her clothes, before producing a match. She struck it, set the oil aflame and warmed her hands by it, muttering, “From sickly poison come crackling freshness.” She gave Alyssa what might have been a coy glance, then rattled forward. Alyssa noticed she had eyes so dark it looked as if she had no irises, merely huge pupils.
Alyssa enjoyed the brief burst of heat from the burning sidewalk, but worried about it hurting someone, so she smothered it with some mud. Ugh, now her new gloves were dirty.
The homeless lady resumed muttering, and by tuning out the sounds of distant traffic and sirens, Alyssa made out some words. “My life will be forever autumn,” was repeated several times.
When she got closer, Alyssa asked, “Could I have a word with you?”
“One gets sick of apples after a while,” the homeless lady said.
“Ma’am, I would like to help you.”
“Death is not the worst thing. Not wanting to live is.” Her voice lilted through the air, with a slight, but unknown, accent.
“I’m with an organization that can get you a place to stay, with free food and job support, and help with whatever you need.” The homeless lady paid her no attention, moving towards a darker, narrower alley. Alyssa’s unease grew.
“Hist!” the lady declared at the mouth of the alley. She touched her palms together, and then placed them pointing out, as if touching an invisible wall. Alyssa didn’t understand, but mechanically followed.
The first thing she observed was that it felt warmer here, suddenly. The sky above was blue with only a few wisps of clouds, exhalations of the beyond. Then she saw the trees...
Trees?
They had gold and crimson leaves, and shot up at least eighty feet tall. Great spiral staircases of brass led to their tops. Buildings of brick and wood clustered about them, sharing the space, and the air smelled of cider.
About two hundred people stared in their direction, some on horseback. For a moment Alyssa reddened, but then she realized they were looking at the homeless lady. She had flung off her ragged coat, revealing a burgundy velvet tunic and supple leggings. Her short hair was a midnight cloud of darkness, curling around her face. Upon her forehead rested a circlet of gold.
“The Lady has returned!
” shouted the people, along with many similar sentiments. They cheered and clapped. Though they seemed to be of a variety of ethnicities, all wore autumn colors of gold, red, orange, and brown.
“I missed you all,” the homeless lady declared. A tall, slender, pale, brown-haired man about her age rushed forward, and they embraced.
“What have you brought for us?” they clamored. “Does the other world have great gifts or great dangers?”
After kissing the man, the lady pulled the bland wrapping paper off the packages in her cart that now seemed profoundly out of place. “Both. I have brought you some great gifts, and will tell you of the dangers soon.”
She held up a sack and lifted out packets of seeds. “I have grains that will give us better yield in the perpetual harvests of Autumn.” She weighted ‘autumn’ as if it should be spelled with a capital A.
Then she extracted a huge pack filled with pill bottles. “They make elixirs that stop the causeless sorrow, can preserve eyesight, and promote healthy bone growth.”
“Thank you, dear Lady!” the group shouted.
Then she showed them the newest Ti-83 calculators, the kind that ran on solar power. “I have learned how to use these tools, and they will help us manage accounts in the palace and the marketplace.”
“Who is that?” the man beside her asked, spotting Alyssa.
She looked at her and smiled. “This woman wanted to cure me of madness. I thought she should learn something today.”
“I-I-I’m so sorry,” Alyssa stuttered. “I thought you were just a homeless lady.”
“Of course I am the Homeless Lady,” she said, with a trace of condescension. “In your world.”
****
This woman who called herself Spring babbled endlessly as she lay on Jared’s late mother’s bed. It had to be the painkillers.
“Thank you for the help, Jared. My arm will feel like a piece of driftwood for a while. I have no idea who that pirate was. Everyone who knows the lore of the Seasons is trying to kill us because the killer of the Season becomes a new Season, and the balance has been upset. Ordinarily we’re immortal and have only one weakness each. But someone, and based on the evidence it was a female someone, has killed the former Summer. He really deserved it, but this lands us in a pretty mess of wilted vegetation. Now there are three female Seasons: me, the girl, and Gwen, Lady Autumn. The guy is Vincent, Lord Winter. We’re mortal until it’s two and two again. Meanwhile portals keep opening up between our world and Next Door. That’s yours. You’re wasting your time salivating at me like that. Even if I was unattached, I’m not into men.”
Jared needed to find a nice girl or guy soon if he was getting that obvious. “Was that all one sentence?”
Lynne offered him a dandelion that grew out of the blanket she’d wrapped around herself. “I don’t know how to find Gwen now.”
“Who’s Gwen?”
She stared at him as though he’d asked her why books didn’t dance. “I just told you. She’s Autumn. She’ll know what to do. I wish I could contact her right now.”
“Do you have her phone number?”
“What’s a phone?”
He sighed. “You have a phone receiver clipped to your ear.”
“Oh, you mean this device? It’s magic. It connects me to the one I love.”
“No, it’s technology. You can get them at the shopping mall.”
“Look, I’m a demigoddess, okay? Don’t argue with me, or you’ll be finding fuzzy blue caterpillars in your food for months to come.” Her voice was like a brook in its clarity and purity, and like a brook, what it said made little sense.
Jared pushed his glasses up his nose. “I am having the weirdest morning.”
“Tell me about it. I was trying to find the road to Autumn but it turned into your basement steps. Now I really know the balance is upset. I can’t normally travel to this dimension, though I’ve learned about it. The only path I can remember to Autumn through Next Door is Minneapolis.”
Jared could hear his mother in his head telling him to offer the guest something to eat. His objections about the circumstances made imaginary-mom tut at him. Feeling put-upon, he gathered up his first aid kit and asked, “Are you hungry? I have tons of stuff left over from the wake.”
Lynne stuck out her lower lip in a sympathetic pout. “Someone died?”
“My mother.”
“Oh.” She gave him a pat with her injured arm, and then dropped it with obvious pain. “I would love something, but I’m a vegan. Do you have anything that doesn’t exploit animals?”
Jared tried to bury his face in his free hand. “You just shot and killed a man.”
“He was trying to kill me. A dairy cow never did me any harm.”
“I really hope Autumn is less flaky than you are,” Jared muttered, heading for the kitchen.
****
Radcliff rolled over in bed. His coughs emerged from deep inside. Gwen put her arms around him, apologetic. He lived in Autumn for her sake. ‘Twas always fog and crisp nights here, no matter how warm she made the castle, and even heavy flannel, wool, and velvet blankets all piled up were not making a difference. Oh dear, blood came up again. She tried to postpone the inevitable. She knew they’d have to leave. A man with tuberculosis needs Summer’s touch. She sighed—then became frightened. She coughed too. She, an immortal, a Season, had coughed. This was very bad.
She needed to make it warmer around here, since the drink she had spilled in the night was now frozen. As she regarded it, a face appeared in the ice. Vincent. No one else liked to swan about in fake, gleaming silver skin that was always on the cusp of giving her a migraine. Besides, he had that unfortunate diamond fetish, and no one else could afford a crown studded in them.
“Gwen, we have ourselves a situation,” he said.
“Let me guess. Someone killed Timmy.”
“I won’t be shedding many tears. Someone needed to put that boy down.”
“Please tell me it was a male someone.” She let loose another hacking spasm.
Vincent shook his head and scowled. “Obviously, the answer is no. We need to find that girl.”
“You mustn’t kill her.”
“I can’t. She’ll be a Season now, and Summer, too. Seriously, I haven’t killed anyone in decades, honest.”
Gwen pulled on her boots. “Yeah, yeah. I love to hear you whine, Vinnie, but I have a consort to heal and a girl to find. You won’t be sending anyone to kill her, either. Poor thing probably has no idea what she’s wrought.”
Three
Autumn Goodbyes
Over the next two hours Lynne ate most of Jared’s pantry. This included all the salad with vinaigrette dressing, all his fruit, two-thirds of a loaf of sourdough bread, spread lavishly with jam, and almost a quart of soy milk straight from the carton. She managed all this with minimal use of her injured left arm.
“I would like to drink some of that soy milk later,” Jared said, quietly. He was following her around with a pair of shears, since every step she took and every touch of her fingers made plants grow. He wondered if she’d ever considered opening up a florist’s shop. It would be a nice side business. And yet, ruling a fantasy realm probably took up too much of her time.
She blinked. He kept being distracted by the greenness of her eyes. “I’m not sick. Don’t get in a tizzy.”
“It’s just polite to…”
Lynne cocked her head to the side, and thought for a moment. “I have decided that as you have assisted me in need, you deserve a reward.” She grabbed a large mixing bowl from a cupboard and waved her hand over it. Emeralds, rubies, sapphires, amethysts, and a rainbow of quartz dropped out of the empty space below her hand and fell into the bowl. Every gem was beautifully cut and polished.
Jared looked into the gleaming bowl and steadied his breathing. “Care to eat anything else?”
Her smile was like the sound of a sudden downpour. It was inexorable and life-giving, but boded discomfort for a mere mortal. He foun
d himself wondering what her girlfriend looked like. Then he blushed. Good thing he wasn’t pale enough to make his blushes that obvious to others.
“Thank you tons. You may think I’m eating an awful lot, but I’m using my powers to accelerate the healing process. My arm should be fully usable again by tomorrow. Any use of power burns calories. I sometimes have to eat three layer cakes on a busy day, just to maintain my weight. If my castle was under siege and I was using magic to protect it, the real problem would be me running out of food.”
She paused and scratched her head. “I don’t know why I keep telling you these things that could compromise my situation. At least since you live Next Door and are obviously neither a Commuter nor a Dreamer the risks are slight. I don’t think you’re a Dreamer. Those are the people who have accurate visions of the other side. Have you ever dreamt of other worlds?”
Jared tore a paper towel from the roll and placed the shears on it. He might as well avoid getting plant shreds on his counter. “I mostly dream of fixing things I regret. Sometimes I show up to work in my underwear. In dreams, I mean. Except for that one time. It, uh, it wasn’t my idea. It’s a good thing I keep spare scrubs in my locker. That’s usually for if a patient vomits or bleeds on me. Why am I talking about this?”
None of this fazed Lynne. She leaned back in her chair, almost tipping it over. “I thought so. Is there something in what you gave me for the pain that makes people unusually loquacious?”
“No. Not normally, anyway. Maybe it’s because you’re a Season.”
“Maybe it’s because I was born only half human.”
Right. That was a whole other avenue Jared wasn’t prepared to go down. He decided against standing around gaping, so he took the dirty dishes and started washing them. The bowl of jewels sat on the kitchen counter, glinting at him. “Can I ask a few questions?”
Lynne had turned her attention to an apple. Every time he looked up she had systematically removed another section of its flesh, like a reverse typewriter. “Shure. Asshk away,” she said with her mouth full. Her headset appeared to make eating inconvenient, but instead of removing it she had rotated it so the mouthpiece stuck in the air.
Seasons Turning Page 2