Winter's End
Spring
The final days of winter pass in a haze of pale mornings she never sees, cold nights she hardly feels and, towards the end, an array of tepid teas. Each cup is remembered too late, just as the brew passes from a tolerable temperature to one sub-optimal. A sip from each is all she manages before giving in and tossing the dregs out into the snow to freeze.
But not today. Today, she watches the sun rise from her cocoon of blankets on the wide library window seat, hands cupping a still steaming mug. This one she refuses to forget. She is determined to enjoy it.
She looks through the window, across the valley below her home, towards the western peaks where the sun is just beginning to alight upon the snowy summits. The rest of the world is little more than a purple shadow beneath that brilliant glow. In a few short weeks, those mountains will shake the snow from their skirts to reveal swathes of heather buried by the winter and will keep only a cap of chilly white.
Already she has sent crocuses – purple, white, and yellow – to push through the snow in the forests about their feet. A wood grows on her own mountainside too, the treetops of which are visible from the library window. A trio of firs quivers in the still air when a roused squirrel leaps between their branches. It will find a feast. She has made sure to fill these woods with treasures enough to satisfy the bellies of all those creatures who do not sleep the winter through. It is one of the first creatures she has seen since she woke from her winter sleep – the very first being those who dwell within her halls.
As if sensing himself in her thoughts, Tamber hops onto her lap and presses his cold nose into the back of her hand. She adjusts her hold on the cup, still hot, and rubs her fingers through the fur of the jackalope’s crown. His sleepy eyes close in pleasure. Tamber still has his winter fur – a mottled silver grey and white – but already he is beginning to shed in favour of his cooler summer coat. Pale hairs drift on the air as she scratches his head.
She relishes these quiet days of late winter. Work is on the horizon, time passing in each drip of the icicles lining the eaves and balconies of her home. But she has the luxury of a slow wakening. She could have slept longer, missed the heavier snow altogether, but she likes to watch the winter recede and relinquish its land to her. That, and the earlier she begins, the more bountiful her spring will be.
Even now, she is casting her eyes over the snow-flooded valley below, where the shadows of her mountains bid the villagers light their lamps and candles to rise with the dawn. Those little lights, the vague forms of houses and barns covered in sheets of white, warm her heart. She has seen few humans since waking. None dare venture as high as her castle even in the milder months. Instead, Tamber has kept her company, as he always does, along with her other favoured companions. The warmth of the castle means most do not need to sleep through the colder days, but some still like to bury themselves in the icehouse for days at a time to satisfy their need for sleep.
She watches the line of light move further down the distant mountain. It is almost time. Today perhaps, or tomorrow. But she is ready for her reign to begin.
Winter
Elsewhere, away from the rosy halls of Spring, Winter is returning to his own castle to wait out the oncoming months of warmth and hot sunlight. Snow still covers the valley in its thick blanket, but it is time for him to retreat. He knows it in the brightening of the dawns, in the thawing of his frosted beard. The approach of Spring is near – he can sense her in the changing rhythms of the sleeping bears’ breath. Those dormant creatures whose weight he feels around his shoulders like a yoke.
He has carried all the sleeping beasts through the winter, from the largest bear to the smallest mouse. Each has a place on his cloak. He keeps them safe through the cold and the dark so they might wake alive to roam once more, as they did before the chilly kiss he had pressed to the earth sent them all to sleep, cut them adrift in a world of constant midnights.
Inside the great doors of his castle, he shakes the snow and the frost and the dormant beings from his cloak. They tumble out into their dens, stirring in their sleep, some lifting their heads with bleary eyes to sniff at the chill still hanging in the air. Another few days, and they will wake again to push through the snows and greet the sun of springtime.
He walks his halls in silence, revelling in the patches of ice upon the flagstones, the snow that drifts in through open windows and piles up beneath the sills. Icicles hang from the vaulted ceiling like crystal chandeliers. Erebus, his ice wolf and constant companion, pads along beside him on silent paws, piercing blue eyes bleary from want of sleep.
In the library the wolf settles on the hearth beside a long-dead fire and rests his chin on his crossed forepaws. One eye droops closed – the other he keeps on his master.
Winter has a mind for his own rest too, but there are still things to be done. He strides to the large window overlooking the valley and throws it open to let in the cold air of the dawn. A shiver touches him when he feels the faint tendril of warmth in the otherwise frigid air. Not warm exactly, but a definite not cold. Spring is awake.
His gaze drifts towards the eastern mountains. They are little more than silhouettes against the fiery backdrop of the dawn sky. His own home is still cast in shadow. What is it, he wonders, that always casts the likes of Spring and Summer in such a warm, life-bringing light, while he is seen only in the same shadow as Death by the people of this world?
Those thoughts he pushes aside. He has long since given up trying to win the people to him. He knows the good he does those little souls, even if they do not.
Winter removes the crown of ice from his head. His fingers and hair are damp from its slow melting. He holds it in his hands, gently thumbing the intricate spines. His hands still when his eye catches on a light glowing from the distant mountain to the east.
The sun has not yet mounted the ridge – the light is coming from something else, from within the castle of Spring. He stands for a time, watching, wondering. But that is not his part to play in the world. In one abrupt movement, he casts the crown to the hard floor. It shatters into a thousand pieces. Before long he will make another – at the close of Autumn, but not now.
Spring has awoken, and he is no longer king.
Continued in Part 2