Winter's End, Part 9
This is the ninth part to a longer story. Catch up on the previous parts here!
Spring
She clasps her hands together, allowing the brightness to all but blind her, and implores Summer to let her pass safely through her dreamscape. The first sign of acquiescence is the dimming of the light. Black spots and false suns dance before her eyes, echoes of the glare the goddess of Summer had turned on her. The intensity of the heat recedes. Her robes cling to her frame. They are damp with perspiration, but a new, cool breeze soothes her burning skin.
When next she looks, Summer is standing aside, pointing in the direction of Autumn’s castle, and as Spring rises to her feet and steps by, the goddess of heat and sunlight and dry days touches her arm and says, “Bring him home.”
Spring continues through the wood. She takes comfort in the cool shade of trees she half knows. She nears the castle of Autumn, and as she does so, the trees’ whisperings quieten, as if in fear. The rough, red granite of the castle looms over her. She feels a thread of fear tangling about her heart. The air close about the abode of Autumn is a touch cooler, but only just. It brings little relief. An undercurrent of decay emanates from the granite and slips out through the gap beneath the great double doors.
Without allowing herself to hesitate, she mounts the rough-hewn steps and pushes through those doors. The wrongness of the valley on the other side hits her like a hailstorm. She crumples on the threshold. In the valley below, the trees are all but bare. Those that do still bear leaves are garbed in tattered cloaks of red and orange that fall from their shoulders at the slightest breeze.
Rabbits hop through the thicket. They push their noses into the damp mulch of fallen leaves in search of grass. Deer step lightly through the woods, their hiding places of green leaves and heavy boughs now laid bare to the eyes of huntsmen. The fields are reaped of their harvests, the sky is a leaden grey, and in the distant village and the valley’s heart, she sees the tower of black smoke billowing from their bonfire, their Autumn feast.
The sight and feel of all the decay sends shivers down her spine but she must bear it, and she must continue on. She looks toward the distant slopes of the northern mountains, towards the pale form of Winter’s castle. If she cannot make it through Autumn’s dreamscape now, she has no hope of surviving Winter’s.
She thinks for a moment that she spies a flash of blue in the woods about Autumn’s castle. Winter’s wraith? Or her own imagination playing devilish tricks on her. Either way it steels her heart and she pushes to her feet.
The going is hard. She treads unfamiliar ground, follows and misfollows paths obscured by leaves. Dead leaves. All about her she feels the scurrying to and fro of all the little creatures desperately trying to gather enough food to see them through the cold months. In this dreamscape, where the seasons do not shift as each god prefers the valley in their own rule, she wonders if they are forever stuck in the endless loop of bringing food back to their dens only to see their stores fail to rise. Do the trees ever run out of crisp leaves to shed?
And what of her own time? Do the ewes tire of birthing so many lambs? It is hard to imagine anything cruel about her own rule when standing in the kingdom of her opposite. Where she brings life, Autumn brings only death.
Spring Again
As she nears the castle, it’s whitestone walls visible through the thinning trees, the air takes on a deeper chill and she falls again, her distant powers failing. Leaves crunch on the path behind her. She turns, looking over her shoulder to see that Autumn has finally caught up with her.
The first time they met, he had shown no surprise at seeing her in his realm, despite them having no chance at crossing paths; guarded as they were by Summer on one side and Winter on the other.
Now, in his dreamscape, Autumn again shows no concern at having another deity trespassing in his lands. Unlike Summer, he does not strengthen the season to cause her pain or prove his dominance. He only bows his head – a movement mimicked by the fox trotting at his heels, and says, “Bring him home,” before disappearing off into the woods. The fox trails behind and with a flash of its flaming tail the pair are gone.
Spring clutches a handful of brown leaves in her hand and draws a small string of power from whatever life still remains within. The drop of power revives her only a little, but it is enough to give her strength to rise.
She steps out from the protection of the trees and crosses the open space between their shadows and the castle steps. The door at the top opens at her slightest touch. A cold wind blows through the gap and lifts her hair up from her shoulders. Even as she steps through into the valley of Winter, frost forms on her cloak. Snowflakes catch in her eyelashes. Their melting leaves tracks down her cheeks.
She looks out over the valley and the mountains, the world swathed in white. There is a deadened quiet in the air. The light snowfall makes not a sound, and the pale sky is heavy with it. Cold, such as she has never felt before, bites her flesh and raises goosebumps on her skin. She has not gone more than a few steps before the shivers take her. She wraps her arms tight about her, powerless even to conjure a thicker cloak to fight off the chill.
Still, she pushes on. This time she does not head towards any castle but follows the icy mountain path down into the valley. She slips often but she does not stop. Her breath clouds in the air, her teeth chatter without words between them, and with every step her lips shift to another shade of blue.
A flash of the colour flits through the trees ahead. The glimpse of a frosted beard. The sound of crunching snow. She is close, she knows. She hopes he will come to her, as did Summer and Autumn before, but in the muffled quiet of this world she feels desperately alone. Even the wraith of Tamber at her feet has grown faint, their link fracturing like glass, like ice.
Without realising where her feet have been taking her, she finds herself in the foothills between her castle and Winter’s. On the slope high above is the spot where she and Winter met for only the second time. She spies snowdrops ahead, the path she planted for him, not daring to hope that he might follow but follow he did.
Now she takes that path herself, grateful that the while buds meant enough to him to add them to his dreamscape. She follows through the woods, slowing as the incline begins to increase.
The air grows colder still, painfully so. It bites. It numbs. At this point she can hardly feel her fingers. She rubs her hands together for warmth, but her fingers remain numb to all sense of touch.
The cold eats into her bones.
Continued in Part 10