“She’s gone,” Jared said, his heart eerily serene in the eye of the storm. “Stand back.”
Jared pressed the button– Nothing happened. Time yawned awfully.
“Did you do it right?” William whispered.
All the lights in the palace went out. Jared pressed the button again, and again.
Kira lay dead, the oxygen draining from her brain. The time when she could be saved was running out swifter than Jared’s terrified breaths.
****
“Cutting the power should have attracted Kira’s attention,” Gabor Orion said, confused, the shears with which he’d snipped the vital cable in his hand. He claimed to have great insight into the Seasons, given that he’d fathered the Lady Spring, but Mab had never put much stock in the momentary coupling with a human which accidentally produced the girl. Still, she trusted him to be her companion in this secret mission.
Meanwhile, Mab had a dagger trained over Naomi’s heart, her arm around the young woman’s waist. Radcliff and Ruth were tied back to back to a nearby tree. Radcliff was not actually a hostage, since Mab would not dare risk Autumn’s full wrath. Nonetheless, he had to be prevented from rescuing the women or warning Kira. “How willful is your daughter?” Mab asked Ruth.
Radcliff wrenched against the ropes, nearly blue in the face with rage. “You idiots! Can’t you feel it, powerful as you are? Do you utterly lack the Sight, you Fae? The transfer has been done! Without your meddling!”
“Is this a trick?” Gabor asked.
Mab gazed into Radcliff’s eyes. “No. He speaks truth. Release them.”
“All this for nothing?”
“Release them now.”
“Restore the power while you’re at it. Downright inconsiderate of you, Your Majesty,” Ruth snarled, over the new wound in her soul.
“Faith, we cannot,” Mab said. “Summer, whoever he may be, can do it with ease if he has a few undistracted moments.”
****
Meanwhile, the new Summer was extremely distracted. “CPR will keep her going for a few minutes, tops. It’s unlikely to bring her back on its own without severe damage. Run. Find something. Someone. Anything.” Jared opened Kira’s mouth, holding her nose, and inflated her lungs. He compressed. He prayed.
It seemed to be a night of epiphanies. William stood up and said slowly, “I think I know what to do.”
“Then do it! Run! I’m busy!”
This wasn’t CPR like in the movies. The force of Jared’s compressions were so great that he cracked her ribs and her stomach ejected its contents. The latter mercifully did not happen while they were mouth-to-mouth. He performed this same technique on his mother, that last terrible day. It hadn’t worked. It didn’t always. He wasn’t sure if he could take another failure.
Less than two minutes later, but years in subjective time, William returned with a dazed and sleepy wooden girl in his arms. “Twig, you’re animated by Kira’s life-force. She needs it back.”
Twig screwed up her face. “Must I?”
“Do you owe her any less? What would you do with your life, if you lived and she died, and you knew you could have saved her?”
Yellow-green trails of sap ran from Twig’s one eye down her wooden cheek. “Okay.”
“Jared, you can transfer the power. It should give her pulse the necessary jump.”
“Sorry, Twig,” Jared said, taking her by the hand.
“I’m scared.”
“I am also scared, but we need Kira, and Kira needs you.” He placed his other hand over Kira’s heart. He did something that felt much like swallowing, except he’d never done it before. It burned his throat and all the way down his esophagus.
Twig exploded into ashes.
Jared’s body lit aglow.
William gasped.
Kira opened her eyes and said, “Damn, what did you do to my ribs?”
****
“This is the second funeral I’ve helped put together in less than a month,” Jared began. He coughed into the microphone and continued, “Is this thing on?”
“Yes!” Rain shouted. She was sitting in a tall oak and grooming her recovered wings. People kept prominently not staring at her.
It had taken three weeks for crews working eight-hour days (with lunch breaks, at Jared’s insistence), paid in Summer gold, to construct this stadium large enough for the roughly four thousand “Junists”, “Julyers”, and “Augustians” who showed up for Twig’s memorial service in order to gawk at their new Lordship. Jared had ordered all crowns and other Seasonal baubles auctioned off for charity earlier. He stood center stage, wearing jeans, a simple white button-down, and a straw hat. He’d only once felt smaller. When he was five years old, he got lost in the middle of a carnival and didn’t find his mother for twenty whole minutes. This came very close. The weather was beautiful, though, blue sky and sunny with a fine breeze, and everyone appeared comfortable in short sleeves. Ice cream and dried seaweed sales at the concession stands were brisk.
“Some people might say that the life of an animate, sentient little wooden girl is unimportant. That…that’s not a fair thing to say…um…” Jared mopped his forehead. He couldn’t bring himself to look out into the crowd, but he looked at his new friends and at the loved ones Kira had introduced to him.
Lynne was whispering something in Amber’s ear. Gwen and Radcliff sat to Lynne’s left. Melanie and Siobhan sat one space away from Gwen. William’s seat was empty. He’d apologized and explained that the light would be far too bright for him. Jared had offered to make clouds, but William didn’t want to deprive Twig’s memorial service of sunshine. On Amber’s right sat Ruth and Naomi Greer, along with Goodwife Ash and Isaac the butcher. Ruth dabbed at her happy tears with a handkerchief.
Jared coughed again. “As you can probably tell, I’m not experienced at this ruling business. I’ve decided to turn this place into a constitutional monarchy of sorts. Siobhan here is going to help put together elections for Summer’s first parliament. The idea is once everything’s been started off, my position will pretty much only be ceremonial. One day when I’m tired of immortality, which according to everything I’ve read and watched is going to happen eventually, I can abolish the position forever. The Lady Gwen of Autumn and the Lady Lynne of Spring have agreed to do the same, so that one person getting killed by someone of the wrong gender will never be able to bring on an apocalyptic scenario again. Pretty idiotic, once you think about it. Yeah.”
At this point he lost his train of thought and nearly had a panic attack, the world bending and heaving. Becoming a demigod meant he didn’t need his inhaler anymore, but in that moment he felt like he did. Kira took his hand and rubbed her thumb along his. In honor of the occasion, she wore a dress for the first time in her life, a light shift of turquoise silk. Naomi was the one who brushed her hair that morning.
His breath steadied and he continued, “Twig’s sacrifice has inspired me to do more good with this unexpected happy ending I’ve been given. Kira and I will oversee and help run the building of hospitals, vocational centers, shelters for the homeless and frightened, and other things needed in this realm. Nothing is perfect. We have the power to make things a little better one step at a time. Once things are running well, we’d also like to do some traveling. It’s a big, amazing world I’ve fallen into. Thanks for letting me stay. I…I promise to make it hail only occasionally, just to keep people on their toes. Ciao.” He dashed back to the safety of his VIP seat.
Kira patted him on the back and stepped up to the microphone. “Pardon him; he’s a bit of a dweeb. Mayhaps I love him. At any rate, I want to say thank you to Twig, if her soul’s about where she can hear us. She proves it’s the things we make that make us in the end. Please don’t litter as you leave. Vote in the elections coming up if you’re the eligible type. Politics is foolish but suffrage is precious. Rights make might, you know. Since you’re already here in a nice big crowd, anyone who wants to make a speech or, I don’t know, some kind of dancing or singing, go right ah
ead. I’m done.”
The Very Important People adjourned for a private picnic in one of the courtyards. The assembly morphed into a juggling and joke-telling contest.
****
Jared hired multiple therapists on retainer, for those affected by Lord Timothy’s actions. Melanie, Naomi, Siobhan, and several members of the castle staff took advantage.
Siobhan Casey was elected Summer’s first Prime Minister. She served for eight years and then ran off with a traveling farm caravan.
Mei Lan “Melanie” Wong found she had a knack for beekeeping, especially since bees were unable to sting her magically functional wooden hands. She became Mistress of Bees and had a little cottage a short walk from the castle.
Ruth and Naomi Greer became permanent residents of Summer’s castle, once Jared remodeled the premises enough that the place didn’t give Naomi bad memories. The long-separated mother and daughter were seldom apart. They kept themselves busy managing the staff and helping run the hospitals and other charities that Jared established. Naomi married one of Jared’s official accountants. Jared materialized a whole new castle wing for their benefit.
Doctor Amber Clay, M.A., Ph.D, and Lynneala “Lynne” Phoenix Orion, the Lady Spring, continued on in their love and joint rule for a long time. They adopted several children over the years, though since the foster mothers were perpetually youthful, the family dynamic was a little more complicated than usual. More or less happy, though. They visited Summer often, having forged such a strong bond with Jared in those few days of crisis they weathered together.
Hans, Naomi’s former jailor, founded a battered women’s shelter in Mos’Parched, Drought, where no one knew his past. He never married and lived a blameless life from then on until his death in a zeppelin crash.
Rupert Eustace Djones, assassin and dandy extraordinaire, carried out subsequent hits with more success than his attempt on Kira. Djones became more conscientious about bystanders’ welfare because William wanted him to. He continued to put all the money he could spare in his savings account earmarked for becoming the shape he wanted.
Ezekiel, courtier of Spring, surprised those who knew him when he renounced the commercial world and became an ascetic, celibate monk. His only explanation, when asked, was muttered fragments about fairies.
Rain did her best to avoid complications in her life, with varying degrees of success. Her friendship with Amber continued. So did her teasing nicknaming of Jared and her rapport with Djones.
Vincent, Lord Winter, got an Internet connection in his inner sanctum and took up World of Warcraft. He continued to pine after Rain but never gained the heart she might, and that is might, have possessed.
William Colt moved to Summer’s castle and became Jared’s personal assistant and chief advisor. He seldom went outside during Summer’s bright days, pointing out the danger of burns to his albino skin and pain to his sensitive eyes compared to back home in Winter. The castle grew so large and labyrinthine that he was content within. Rumors abounded regarding his relationship with Jared and how Kira felt about it.
Kira and Jared shared a private apartment within one of the castle turrets. A year to the day after they met, they were married, though many people noted William eventually moving into a room a few doors down from theirs. “He helped save my life, we’re friends, and Jared needs him,” she replied when asked. She preferred not to get much involved with government herself. Instead she had her own carpentry business, as well as a hobby carving free prosthetic limbs which Jared brought to life with his powers.
Jared traveled around the Seven States whenever he could get away. He took some combination of Kira, William, Amber, and Lynne with him as guides and companions. There was too much to see in the dimension to justify sitting around, even sitting around as a demigod. He taught his nursing skills to many others who went on to save lives and help maintain the health of those lives.
As a favor to Jared, once a month Amber would journey Next Door in order to place flowers on his mother’s grave. “Pandora June Derkins, Much Missed,” it said. If she thought the name was funny in light of all that happened afterwards, she was polite enough not to mention it.
Acknowledgments
Academically, thank you to my high school Creative Writing teacher Ms. Mears for assigning the short story which eventually became the opening chapter. Thank you to Professor Warren Rochelle, who helped me with other work involving these characters while also making me write better in general. Thank you as well to other professors at UMW and the many classmates and peers who helped along the way.
I’m grateful to Tyree Campbell and Shelter of Daylight for publishing an earlier version of Rain’s backstory, entitled “Phantom Limbs”. Thank you to Sally Odgers for copy editing a past incarnation of the full manuscript. Love to Sam Dailey and every other reader/writing buddy, especially if you’ve become far more than that. I am indebted to Autumn Arch for all their support.
Also, the “contest-winning” joke is my father’s creation.
About the Author
Donaya Haymond (b. 1990) is half-Thai, half-American, and unsure where she will be living by the time you read this. Though she has had other fiction published, this is her first full-length novel for adults. Go to the Donaya Haymond page on Facebook to learn more, and to check out other fun posts too. Please.
Seasons Turning (Timely Realms Book 1) Page 17
