Seasons Turning Read online

  “Can all the Seasons make jewels come out of nothing? How does that affect your economies?”

  “There are limits to how many we can make without reducing their value, true. Usually we use it only for personal transactions or for decoration. I can make what you just saw. Autumn makes opal, topaz, pearls, sunstone, moonstone, cinnabar, and maybe some other things I don’t remember. Winter makes diamonds, silver, platinum, and titanium. Summer makes gold. It’s kind of like the diseases we can cure. Different ones.”

  “Can any of you cure the common cold?” he asked, drying his hands. In his head he tried to work out how much those jewels were worth. Where was the nearest jeweler? Hardest of all, how could he exchange a bunch of jewels for money without gathering suspicion? Maybe he could claim he inherited them from mom, finding them when going through her things?

  She snorted. “There is no power in any dimension that can prevent, eradicate, or shorten the duration of the common cold. Do you know how many damn rhinoviruses…?”

  He held up a hand. “I’m a nurse. I am well aware.”

  “It’s great that you’re a male nurse, by the way.”

  “Glad you think so.” Jared poured himself some grape juice.

  “You must get incredibly sexist remarks aimed at you.”

  “Sometimes.”

  “The Temperate Zone, Autumn, and my own realm have reasonable gender equality. In much of the Joint Republics of Monsoon and Drought they say men are unfit for anything except physical labor and warfare. They cling to an outdated stereotype of men as brutish savages barely constrained by the rules of civilization.” She shook her head sadly and patted him on the shoulder. “I am sure your brothers in the struggle are proud of your achievements.”

  “It would take too long to explain why, so I’ll hope you pardon the question,” Jared said. “May I hug you?”

  ****

  Kira woke after the second night of the oddest dreams in her life. While she slept she’d felt the grass grow beneath her feet as if it was a part of her. Lightning hissed through her veins and crackled at her fingertips. Behind her eyes was a riot of noise and vitality. The crash of thunder buzzed in her brain.

  The first few days after the end of school she liked to loaf around as much as possible, since she had precious little time to do that otherwise. Mother usually nagged her about it. Instead, she was fussing over Kira like her daughter was a child. Kira understood her relief, but the sudden hugs and kisses made her uncomfortable. Mother even hinted that there might be cake for Kira’s eighteenth birthday. Usually pie was the fare, the right types of sugar being hard to come by for something so fancy.

  It was time for her weekly bath. She called around but her mother seemed to be out. Maybe she had heard tell of a blackberry patch and was filling a sack. Therefore she didn’t bother with modesty, shedding her grimy clothes and carrying a clean change to the doorstep, along with a moth-eaten sheet for a towel and a jar of sand for scrubbing. Soap was only for special occasions. People seldom came around, and if someone did appear she could duck behind one of the shack’s stilts.

  The river water was brown with silt as always. Kira was used to not seeing much of her skin during the bathing process. She was also busy daydreaming about what to do with her life next. Therefore, it wasn’t until she’d finished and was drying herself that she noticed the peculiarity.

  Over her heart, she saw a stylized icon of a blazing sun. It looked as though it belonged on a family crest, bright yellow with curlicues representing rays. It did not come off with scratching, rubbing, or scouring. For all intents and purposes it appeared to be a tattoo. The nearest professional tattoo artist was in the city twenty miles away by kayak and fifty-odd miles on foot, though she’d heard of a local boy whose cheap needle jabs had given several customers hepatitis. In any case, any tattooer would have to be cloaked in most uncommon magics to give her one without her noticing.

  While unsettled, Kira wasn’t inclined towards confusion or panic. She assumed it had something to do with the demigod she killed.

  She needed to see Goodwife Ash. She’d go right after performing the necessary incantations to keep the magic naturally swelling around their home from causing chaos. All sorts of strange things could happen without calming the mystical elements three days a week, and Kira tried to be a good eldest child and play her traditional role in preventing them. Around these parts, the rogue forces liked to take the form of improbable animal attacks. Mother found lamprey swarms particularly aggravating. Besides, it would reassure her to do something normal before searching for answers.

  ****

  The wood had been part of a willow tree once, a more gifted willow than most, even according to superstition. It hadn’t seen with eyes, or thought with a brain, but it perceived, and it remembered. The man who’d given the wood to Kira had warned her that some trees weren’t like others, and quoted an old legend: “Elm does grieve, and oak does hate, but willow goes walking if you travel late.”

  The wood could recall Kira’s hands and sharp knife, cutting it into sections she smoothed and shaped, later linking them with bendable loops of metal. Then Kira drilled small holes into a newly fashioned head in order to knot bits of brown twine to act as hair. She’d made no clothes for it, but she’d carved nothing that needed hiding. She hadn’t gotten around to carving the right eye. Due to a slip of her blade, the left eye had a crookedly raised eyebrow that gave doll’s face a look of permanent disbelief.

  The wood always felt it when Kira worked her little domestic spell to protect her home. Now, as the girl performed the necessary incantations, it also felt the sun on her chest, and the power radiating out from it. The change was slow. First the wood came back to life. Then it stopped being ‘it’, and became ‘she’.

  The doll sat up and blinked her only eye, looking around the currently abandoned shack. “Well, this isn’t exactly an auspicious beginning,” she said to herself, scratching her cheek.

  ****

  Chiang Mai is Thailand’s second-largest city. It is only a fraction of the size of what many foreigners call Bangkok and the Thais call Krung Thep. Despite this, it has nearly the same number of temples. It is a quieter, less hectic city, with cleaner air, cooler weather, and mountains in the distance. There are many, many, many statues of the Buddha.

  Mot was off to burn some incense and make a donation at a nearby temple in the hope of receiving a high score on her college entrance exams. She’d had a dream of doorways to other lands the previous night. Maybe that was why she was the first person to notice when the shed was swallowed by a metal gate. One moment there was a little tin-roofed shack. The next, ornate iron scrollwork hung without visible means of support. It was pretty, but too European in style to fit in with its surroundings.

  A young man stumbled through. “This isn’t the ice cream store!” he said in clear, though oddly accented, Thai. Odder still, he was dressed like a Thai university student. He had black pants, black shoes, a button-up shirt, and a belt buckle indicating his school. The difference was his white shirt covered in black polka dots, which was much too exciting for a uniform.

  “This is a temple,” she said, approaching him and helping him to his feet. She was confused, but that was no reason to forget her manners.”

  “I am too. Now where will I get my popsicle? I always have one after class is over.”

  “It’s a national holiday,” she said.

  He stared at her. “No, it isn’t. Are you not from Monsoon?”

  That’s when the first large, gold Buddha edged his way through the temple door and strode across the landscape. Making noises like dozens of chopsticks breaking at once, more than a hundred little Buddha figurines followed along. The Buddhas beamed serenely and waved gently at all who saw them. Instead of panicking, people watched in amazement and wonder. Some tourists snapped pictures.

  Mot’s Buddha necklace coughed politely. He said something in Pali Sanskrit. She took the necklace off and held the tiny statue up t
o her eye. “Do you want to be let down, Lord?”

  He smiled and nodded. She took him off the chain and let him go. With a little click, he emerged from his clear casing and strode – as much as someone with eyelash-sized legs is capable of striding, anyway—towards the nearest river, like all the others.

  “Well?” she asked the young man.

  He crossed his arms and watched the march of the Buddhas. “Well?”

  “You can call me Mot.”

  He grinned. “You can call me Loy.”

  “There’s an ice cream shop just down the block.”

  “Let’s go.”

  It turned out the Buddhas wanted only to wade in the river. When finished they turned around, went back to their appointed places, and became still once more.

  ****

  “I need to get to Minnesota,” Lynne said after finishing her feast. She was still licking soy sauce off her fingers.

  “Well, it was an education meeting you,” Jared said, not sure what else he could say. “Do you know if Mom’s – I mean my – basement is ever coming back?”

  “If the balance is rectified, the portals will close. Whatever damage resulted from the initial catastrophe will remain, so the answer is no, sorry.”

  It was just stuff. Just stuff. When Jared’s budget allowed it, he could buy more stuff that was pretty much the same as the old stuff. It wasn’t like losing a person. “It’s not your fault. Thanks.”

  “Autumn was alive the last time this happened. I need to consult with her. I sent a messenger but I would rather confer face-to-face.”

  Jared plucked the most recent flowers Lynne produced and added them to the pile he would put in the compost heap. “Do you need a map or something?”

  She eyed him up and down and nodded to herself. “I want you to be my guide. You are a kindly and adaptive person. You will exchange my jewels for local currency and make whatever arrangements are necessary.”

  “Say please.”

  She glared at him and pursed her lips. “I am the demigoddess of Spring! A Season incarnate!”

  Jared looked her in the eye. “Yes, I know, but you’re in my world now. In my world, spring is caused by the tilt of the Earth towards the sun during a specific part of its orbit. It is not caused by an eccentric, demanding, if very interesting, person. I will come with you if you cover the expenses, pay me for my trouble, and especially if you treat me as an equal. I happen to be on two weeks of leave right now. If I’m going to spend it helping you, it will be as a friend and not a servant.”

  The pause felt way longer than it actually was. Lynne broke it when, with a slight smile, she said, “I admire a man who can stand up for himself.” She shook his hand.

  He had managed to negotiate with a demigoddess. His heart rate slowly returned to normal. “All right. I need to make some phone calls. I would prefer you stay in one spot of my house, please. I don’t want to have to explain to my house-sitter why there are azaleas sprouting from the linoleum and cherry blossoms dangling out the door knobs. That room over there’s my library. You can read any of the books if you don’t damage them.”

  “I need to speak to my lover in any case,” Lynn said, lifting her chin with pride and dignity. Lynne, who by contrast had been slurping noodles from a fork dangled over her head a half-hour earlier. She made her exit.

  He realized something and called after her, “We’re having some odd weather for this time of year, so it might be cold! You’ll need to buy a jacket!”

  “I can retrieve my own things now that your home is a part of my sphere. Do your errands…please.”

  Jared smiled slightly, the newness of everything keeping his sadness at bay. And yet, he felt grief trying to seep into his chest. Its steel claws inched their way around his heart. He had to beat them back with a conscious effort. It was better to focus on tasks, like calling his neighbor.

  “Hey, Fox?”

  His neighbor answered with surprise, “Hi, Jared. You sound a lot less awful than you did on Sunday.”

  “It’s a good moment. The funeral is over, so that’s a relief, and a lot of people have been supportive.”

  That last part was a lie. Mom’s family didn’t like him much. He was born out of wedlock and that was just Not Done. Some of his relatives showed up at the funeral to glare at him and contest what little money his mom had made as an accountant.

  His coworkers had no time for him. He was the odd one out at the hospital anyway, looked down on by the doctors and treated with suspicion as an interloper by the female nurses. Jared missed Philadelphia. He moved back to North Carolina only so he could take care of his mom.

  To add insult to injury, shortly after the news got around, one of his ex-girlfriends texted him to say, “Everything happens for a reason.” It didn’t help at all. Then his most recent ex-boyfriend texted him to say, “Dude, I told you that using your mama as an excuse to break up and move back home was a waste.” That made it much worse.

  Fox was okay. He lived alone across the street, cultivating tall sunflowers in his retirement. He got mom to the hospital when she had her first heart attack. Despite all the care Jared could give her and the decent medical insurance from her work, two more heart attacks followed.

  “Everything’s probably going to sink in again soon,” Jared continued. “I’m leaving town for a few days. Just to clear my head. Could you please take my mail out of my mailbox for me? I don’t want it to become so stuffed the postal worker gives up.”

  “Sure. Nice use of the neutral-gender term, by the way.” He sometimes ribbed Jared about his job and dating habits, but without any real bite to it. “Want me to actually go inside once in a while? I promise not to steal anything worth more than five dollars. Each.”

  “That would be nice…” Then he remembered the basement was now an underground lake. He also finally realized that it meant his comic books, along with a lava lamp, some furniture, a television, and his battered old gaming console, were lost forever. He sagged at the thought.

  With returned weariness Jared said, “Um, no, never mind. That’s fine. There won’t be anything alive in here and the refrigerator and pantry are going to be cleaned out.” That was assuming Lynne left anything for him to throw away. Meat and dairy products, he supposed.

  “You sound down again.”

  “Do I?”

  “Chin up, kid.”

  “Okay. Thank you. Bye.” He hung up and sighed deeply. He hadn’t even finished playing Skyrim.

  He could buy new things. He couldn’t have bought a trip with Spring.

  He wondered how all this would have been different if mom was still alive.

  He went upstairs to pack.

  ****

  Amber Clay still thought of herself as Lynne’s girlfriend, despite technically being a “Seasonal Consort” with a string of other titles that both honored and embarrassed her. She’d worked for her Ph.D in sociology. Every other title was the result of a series of accidents. If a stray bullet hadn’t left her wheelchair-bound, she would never have needed to use a particular handicapped restroom. If she hadn’t used it, she wouldn’t have found a mysterious portal right next to the sink and gone through it out of curiosity. She wouldn’t have subsequently emerged in the dungeon of Spring’s castle, or ever discovered her telekinetic powers that could never have manifested in her home dimension.

  Now Amber supported Lynne’s rule by providing advice on resolving social problems and devising her own programs to improve the lives of Spring’s subjects. She still found time for hobbies, though. At the moment, she was trying to decide if she would end the poem she was working on when she felt a light touch on her shoulder. “Madam Clay?”

  She looked up and smiled, trying to put the man at ease. Apparently Lynne had mellowed out a great deal since Amber arrived. For one thing, Amber had persuaded her to stop executing people without trial. Most of the palace personnel hadn’t quite recovered yet from Lynne’s old displays of temper. They treated her consort with a good deal
more deference than necessary.

  “Ezekiel, I really wish you would call me Amber. You can call me ‘Miss Amber’ if that would make you feel better.” She’d get tired of constant use of ‘Doctor Clay’ within days. “All of you are doing a great job and I was just telling Lynne so.”

  Ezekiel, a short man in his thirties with fluttery sparrow hands, nervously slicked back his black hair. “Of course, Miss Amber. Have I disturbed your magics?”

  “This isn’t magic. It’s Microsoft Word. I’m writing a poem. For fun. Not important at all.” Amber frequently held seminars on current Next Door technology, had the whole place installed with Wi-Fi, and imported five gleaming laptops for a free internet café, open to the public. Yet, despite her efforts, only three of the native Springfolk had been willing to attempt using a computer. It was hard enough persuading Lynne to use the telephone headset. At least she would watch videos Amber downloaded, as long as she didn’t have to touch what she called ‘electrical familiar’. Some magic-users in this world had loyal supernatural creatures of various forms known as “familiars” to assist them, and that was the best analogy Lynne and a lot of her subjects had for Amber’s devices.

  “Of course,” Ezekiel said too quickly, with a vigorous nod. Amber suppressed a sigh. Almost everyone around here was more intent on appeasing the “powerful witch” than actually listening to her words.

  “All right. Speak your piece.” She held out her hand towards the larger table across the room, pulling her gold-foil embossed planner and a pen through the air. She realized her telekinesis, being a rare gift even for those native to this dimension, added to the staff’s awe of her. Pushing the wheelchair over with her hands would have taken too long, though. She hated being waited on as much as she hated people being afraid of her.