Land Beyond Summer

by Brad Linaweaver

  “You haven’t performed your Final Spell, dear, because these young humans haven’t behaved as you expected. The first thing we should do is send your audience home.”

  “I don’t care about them,” said Malak grudgingly. “They were a sop to an old man’s vanity, but they aren’t necessary.” Mrs. Norse turned her attention to the brood, still gathered around the picnic tables. She gestured to one, then another, then another. As she caught each one’s attention, the individual would step forward, slowly relax, and then vanish. Aunt Miner came last. She took the longest to relax. Apparently the knack of coming and going was tied to an ability for directing conscious attention outward. Aunt Miner needed a distraction from her favorite subject: Aunt Miner. Mrs. Norse provided this by inclining her head toward the great statue. Aunt Miner contemplated the massive bulk and long, straight sword before vanishing home.

  “Now to business,” said Mrs. Norse.

  “You can’t stop The One True Season,” said Malak.

  “I have no intention of putting roadblocks in the way of your Fifth Season,” she replied.

  “You’re not so honest as all that,” was Malak’s considered response. “To think this poor, sweet child was accusing me of being tricky.” He grinned evily at Fay.

  “I don’t like being called a child,” said Fay.

  Malak laughed a most ungrandfatherly laugh, and followed up with: “Tell it to the courts, tell it to your public school … and God help the first adult who doesn’t treat you as a child at all times!”

  “Yeah,” said Clive. “I guess even bad guys get it right some of the time.”

  “Evil always has part of the truth,” said Mrs. Norse. “But only part. The complete and perfect lie is never adequate in itself to undo Good.”

  “They must not have many elections around here,” Kitnip whispered to Wolf.

  “Enough of this!” said Malak. “The divorce agreement puts limitations on you as it does on me. You can’t stop the One True Season.”

  “She can’t, but I will!” announced Fay. “You have all this stolen magic but you can’t do your magic until Mom and Dad wake up. If you could wake them up, you’d do it. You need me, or Clive, and we won’t wake them up.”

  Clive thought about Mexican standoffs as he watched two stubborn people — well, one stubborn person and a something else — refuse to give ground. Mrs. Norse kept out of it. The Jennifers, recovered from their exertions, joined the spectators. The football headed men and jack-‘o-lantern people held to their positions and waited for something to happen.

  “I need you,” said Malak at last, “one way or another. You are of Gurney blood. I said that sacrifices need not be in blood. Sometimes the substitute is better. I prepared your parents for this day, and I’d hate for all that work to be wasted. But you are here. And Clive is here. You want to rescue your parents. Wake them and they will at least live. So will you. Leave them as they are, and they will never wake. And as for you…” He brandished the two silver daggers. “The last time, these left no wounds. They are double-edged, you might say. One side cuts the spirit. But for you, I offer the edge that will release your soul.”

  Keeping the blade of the left-hand knife flat against his forearm, he held the weapon as if it were a shield. With his right hand, he was already making a great arc with the other blade as he ran straight toward Fay. The moment Malak made his intentions clear, Clive was running toward him, hoping to tackle Fay’s assailant, but one of the guards was on him before he had gone more than a few feet.

  Fay threw her arms up to fend off the attack, but Malak’s speed and size overcame her easily. Wolf and Kitnip were running toward the scene of danger, but too late. And to Clive’s horror, Mrs. Norse was making no move whatever; she regarded the scene with a placidity that seemed criminal to him.

  Malak kneeled before the young girl, knocked one of her thin, defending arms away … and drew the knife with a slashing motion across her delicate, white throat. Clive gasped and stared. There was no red stain spreading like an ink blot under Fay’s chin; no dripping crimson finality to mark the passing of her young life. There was a blue glow around the knife and that was all.

  “Impossible,” said Malak. “I didn’t mean it,” moaned a voice much more like Grandfather’s.

  “The blade that cuts the spirit, my poor, deluded ex-husband,” said Mrs. Norse. “You know what that means.”

  “But how?” Malak’s voice was a plea for sympathy but his failure to spill Fay’s blood did not win him much in the way of commiseration. “This last sacrifice would create the new Season.”

  “The Fifth Season already exists,” said Mrs. Norse. “It has always existed. You did not create. You discovered a wasteland that you sought to spread across the Land of Life. I could never send you there before now, but you have opened the door.”

  “The divorce agreement!” He was standing on his rights as only the desperate can. “Why does it no longer apply?” she asked. He was silent. “As any good attorney knows, never ask a question unless you already know the answer. You could practice magic until you were blue in the face. You could make an army of Slaks and conjure monsters and order foul murders and uncreations to your heart’s content. But direct violence by your own hand makes our agreement null and void.”

  “I don’t remember that in the contract,” he said. “Maybe you’re making this up.”

  “Well!” she said, offended. “If you doubt me, you can take up the matter with the Dragon. I’m sure he’ll be impartial, if he’s ever stopped sneezing. Now, I will pronounce your original name.”

  He didn’t like that. His last words before he faded from view were: “I want the ring back.”

  “Poor man,” said Mrs. Norse, shaking her head. “So forgetful. His previous incarnation stole the ring and turned it into the gold supply this incarnation used to pay expenses.”

  Raising the subject of money seemed to lift a shroud of gloom from all assembled. Everyone started gathering around and Jennifer of Spring asked if this meant there would be a general refund paid out of the magic surplus. Fay might have found this an interesting subject except that she was too full of gratitude for her life to be concerned about anything else for the moment. And Clive was too thrilled that his sister was safe to care either. Cradling Fay in his arms, Clive rocked her back and forth and whispered how brave she’d been.

  “… and so after the current emergency is over, I’d be glad to consider returning the magic,” Mrs. Norse finished with a sly grin. Her audience was crestfallen. “Oh, I’m just joking,” she said, and everyone heaved a sigh of relief. “Everyone will have their magic back and we’ll live happily ever after.”

  This inspired cheers and hussahs. The Jennifers surrounded Clive and Fay and threw flowers upon their heads. Jennifer of Spring took Fay by the hand and led her to Mrs. Norse. “Thank you for saving us,” said Fay.

  “Modesty becomes you, young one, but you deserve the credit,” spoke a wise heart. “Now, let’s have breakfast.” Waving to several Tabriks, they came forward carrying trays covered in the exquisite eggs produced by the Klave. These were all brightly colored and looked like Easter eggs.

  Suddenly, half a dozen Tabrik ships descended from the sky. Fay regretted that there was no way she could tell which one was the leader as hundreds of them filled the area. She wanted to thank him personally. The grand arrival meant more and more eggs. In a world without a sun, you tell if you’re eating breakfast by the eggs, thought Fay.

  Mrs. Norse addressed the company in a voice that seemed loud enough to be heard in all of the Four Seasons: “Thank you, dear Jennifers, for having brought me hither. Thank you, Tabrik friends, for providing the feast. Thank you, Lord Clive and Lady Fay, for your assistance in the defeat of He Who was Malak.”

  “That was Fay’s doing,” said Clive.

  “You say the right thing, young man, but the honors are for both of you.”

  “Lord Clive,” said Fay, uncertainly.

  “Lady Fay,”
he answered happily. “I guess we’d have a little trouble explaining this in Problems of Democracy at school, wouldn’t we?” They both laughed.

  “That’s a problem you’ll never have to face, unless you want to,” said Mrs. Norse. “But first we must resolve the matter of your parents.” She walked over and put her hands on Fay’s shoulders. A friendly glance in Clive’s direction was all he needed to come over and join them. The three of them regarded Mom and Dad, sprawled upon the ground in most undignified postures and sleeping away eternity.

  “Fay,” said Mrs. Norse. “Tell me something. How should a thirteen year old girl act and talk?”

  “Uh…” came out of her in a perfect imitation of one of William F. Buckley, Jr.’s verbal pauses. “I don’t know.”

  “And Clive, how should a fifteen year old boy act and talk?”

  “Any way they tell me not to,” he said quickly.

  Mrs. Norse smiled and patted them both on the head; but instead of feeling patronized and insulted as when Grandfather had performed the same action, they both felt the exact same emotion of joy. Mrs. Norse had that kind of effect on human beings.

  “You are both more individualistic than average for your kind,” she told them. “This is something to be proud of. You are both of above average intelligence for your species, although Fay is higher than you, Clive.”

  “You’re telling me!” he said.

  “Clive’s smart,” said Fay. “And his grades are getting better.”

  “Your loyalty is admiral,” said Mrs. Norse. “The only test with which I’m concerned, however, is one you both must take here and now.”

  She kissed Fay on the forehead and then did the same for Clive. There was a music welling up from deep inside them. Fay could feel the whole thread of her life running through her, tying the child to the adult, and rejecting the tyranny of what she was supposed to be at given times for given purposes; she squeezed Clive’s hand and could tell he was feeling the same power surging through him. For Clive, the strongest aspect of this emotion was a positive form of defiance, an unwillingness to always say the same words and perform the same actions for no other reason than to satisfy other people.

  “I don’t like the world we’ve just left,” said Clive.

  “People say I don’t act my age,” answered Fay. “I don’t understand what they mean. Sometimes they say I’m immature and later they say I’m acting too old. I wish they’d make up their minds!”

  “You’ll never act your age,” said Mrs. Norse, “because you don’t act at all. You insist on being you. Strange, isn’t it, that your parents criticize you for that?”

  “I don’t like being their son,” said Clive. He knew he’d felt that way for some time before his father went crazy and beat him. Yet he’d been unable to eliminate the nagging fear that if he hadn’t felt that way, his father wouldn’t have sensed it; and through this final disappointment broken the bonds of family.

  “You have it backwards, Clive,” said Mrs. Norse. “Do you understand better?” she asked Fay.

  Fay kneeled in front of the sleeping forms, first brushing the hair away from her mother and then touching her father’s cheek. She was their daughter, all right … but they were also her parents. Hers. She let the word sink into her mind as a bathysphere might sink deep, deeper, deepest, into the place where cold secrets wait for one flicker of warmth to rouse themselves and surge upward to be accepted, or to destroy.

  “My parents,” she said, standing up and facing Mrs. Norse. “They’re my parents.”

  “Yes, child.” Mrs. Norse did something with her hands and suddenly she was passing a finished cross-stitch of the Gurney family to Fay. “If you belong to them, then they belong to you,” she explained. “As an individual, you have the right to reject anyone and walk off into eternal darkness. But you also have the choice of making your family work as a family.”

  “That’s not true,” said Clive angrily, as Fay considered her two problems snoring on the ground. “We have no power over them. That’s why I liked it at first when Malak replaced them with his Slaks.”

  “It’s not a question of power, but of love,” said Mrs. Norse, eyeing Fay as the youngest person there weighed the heaviest burden. “If a family has love, then whatever member is best qualified to make a correct decision is heeded. The reward is survival, as a family. If it is the father some of the time, or most of the time, or all of the time, then it is the father. If it is the mother some of the time, or most of the time, or all of the time, then it is the mother. If….”

  “Yeah, I get the idea, but it doesn’t work,” said Clive. “If it’s the daughter or the son, they’re never listened to.”

  Mrs. Norse was most insistent: “If love is present, then they are heeded. The family without love deserves to be destroyed. Some blame this reality on God. Some blame it on Nature. But whatever word is used, this is the reality.”

  “Ours should be destroyed then!” said Clive. “We have a terrible family. I hate us.”

  “No!” Fay spoke in voice as strong as Mrs. Norse. His sister reached out and touched him by the arm, telling him in no uncertain terms, “They’re just weak, Clive. I don’t want them dead. Or us. I want them strong.”

  “Yay,” said Kitnip, “put them out of the house if they make a mess.”

  “Rub their noses in it first, and then throw them out,” agreed Wolf.

  Fay took Clive by the hand. She didn’t say a word but looked him in the eye. It was as if their shared pain ran back and forth along their arms, and gradually Clive allowed a smile to write itself across his troubled face.

  “Let’s wake them up,” said Fay. “How do we do it?”

  Mrs. Norse gave Clive and Fay one egg each. She motioned for them to feed the parent of their respective sex, as though Fay were resposible for Mom and Clive for Dad. The eggs broke open easily and a rich foam poured out. Fay fed her mother, slowly, and the middle aged woman opened tired eyes that held in them a glint of hope. Clive just dumped Dad’s food down him in one go, and the man started up as if waking from a dream. He blinked at the cool blue sky, and then saw the anxious faces of his offspring.

  “Who are you?” asked Dad.

  “Who are you?” asked Mom. Then they looked at each other with equal confusion.

  “This is not true amnesia,” said Mrs. Norse. “In time, they will remember everything. But this way you will guide them as they recover … themselves.”

  “Are we going home?” asked Clive.

  Mrs. Norse nodded her head slightly, first to Clive and then to Fay. “That’s up to you. But you may stay here in the Land of Seasons if you prefer, as Lord and Lady of the realm.” There was an intense discussion of the pros and cons of the choice thus presented. Sixty seconds later, if anyone had had a watch to arrive at such a figure, Lord Clive and Lady Fay reached a decision. They would stay. The Jennifers celebrated by dancing, weaving their hands through the air as if making invisible sculptures.

  Mom and Dad sat down with the rest and ate some more eggs. Fay liked the taste of them better than Clive, but Mrs. Norse suggested that she might be able to rustle up something like salt to improve the flavor. Later, Fay began the first lesson, carefully telling Mom and Dad their Christian names and how they’d been married.

  “What’s marriage?” asked Mom.

  “It’s a promise made in love,” answered Fay, feeling older and smarter with every mouthful of the Tabrik’s food.

  “What’s love?” asked Dad.

  “Another promise,” said Clive, feeling stronger and happier for dessert.

  “And these are promises where you don’t cross your fingers,” added Mrs. Norse.

  Then Mom and Dad were told what happened to people who broke their promises. In a land of magic, the possibilities were varied and quite interesting. Mom and Dad promised to behave themselves.

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  The Land Beyond Summer is posted for entertainment purp
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  Copyright © 1996 by Brad Linaweaver. All rights reserved.

  EPILOGUE

  Aunt Miner found the gold. She wound up buying both the house and Grandfather’s summer cabin on the lake. Then she went into business with Bob Cohen’s computerized astrology and marriage counseling. She is doing quite well and has had offers to appear on Phil Donahue, Geraldo and Oprah Winfrey. The only subject she won’t discuss is how she came into possession of two very convincing clay statues of Russell and Claire Gurney.

  THE END

  Brad Linaweaver/8833 Sunset Bld. #304/Los Angeles, CA 90069

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