Velveteen vs. The Seasons

by Seanan McGuire

  She looked at her long-time girlfriend and live-in love, knowing every curve of her body, every shade of her laughter, and couldn’t help feeling like they were strangers, like she was betraying someone else by even being here. Like this, too, was wrong.

  “Cin…” she began.

  Snow swirled in the middle of the room, clearing to reveal two women, one in what might as well have been ski gear, the other in an old version of Velveteen’s costume. They looked wildly around, finally focusing on her.

  “Yelena, thank Santa,” said the stranger, and suddenly there were more important things to worry about than a little existential dread.

  Iris stood. Iris spoke.

  “Who the fuck,” she asked, in a calm, clear voice, “are you?”

  The woman who looked like Velveteen groaned. “Oh, goodie,” she said. “This is going to be fun.”

  The four women were locked in an uneasy standoff, none of them willing to be the first to move and hence kick off the fight. On one side, a woman in a battered velvet leotard and tights, with a rabbit-eared headband and a domino mask completing the impression that she’d dressed herself out of the back of the nearest Halloween store. Next to her, a white-haired woman in clothes that were better suited to a ski holiday than a superhuman smackdown, a snow globe in each hand and a distressed expression on her face. Not exactly the sort of figures who struck fear into the hearts of evildoers.

  On the other side, Iris, co-captain of The Super Patriots, living rainbow, champion for justice, and person responsible for the condo’s safety deposit, which probably explained why she had yet to move. She was still dressed for work, in a sleek white bodysuit that shimmered with rainbows every time she shifted her weight even slightly. She had a rainbow sash tied around her waist, and rainbow eyeshadow framing her big blue eyes. Behind her, in jeans and a tank top, stood a woman with green and purple hair and a small storm cloud hovering over her left shoulder: Hyacinth, weather-controller and seriously annoyed superheroine on her day off.

  Really, she was probably the scariest person in the room. No one with the ability to sling lightning bolts should ever look that aggravated.

  “I’m Velveteen,” said the woman in the rabbit ears. “I don’t know who your fourth team member was in this world, but in my world, you and I—”

  “My Velveteen and I were recruited at the same time,” snapped Iris. “We grew up together, which is not some big secret you can use to manipulate me. It’s been in every official bio.”

  “And a lot of the fanfic,” said Hyacinth. “Sparkle Bright Velveteen slash is one of the biggest Super Patriots RPF categories on AO3.”

  “All of those words were words but I don’t think any of them made any sense at all,” said the white-haired woman, looking baffled.

  “Be glad,” said Velveteen. She raised her hands, palms outward, and said, “If you and your Velveteen grew up together, then you know who I am. I’m her. Or rather, I’m who she would have grown up to be if things had gone a little differently. I don’t know much about this reality, so I don’t know whether things were better or worse for me, but I know that no version of Yelena would attack me without hearing me out.”

  Iris’s eyes narrowed. “You know my secret identity?” She looked toward the white-haired woman. There was something familiar about her, something in the way she held herself. “You’re saying it out loud, in front of a stranger?”

  “My name is Jacqueline Claus,” said the white-haired woman hurriedly. “I’m Santa’s daughter. I promise you, she’s telling the truth. She’s the Velveteen from another reality, and I’m her guide, and you’re actually our version of Yelena. We lost track of you when we came through the mirror.”

  “Oh, good, it’s getting seriously weird,” said Hyacinth. “Here I was worried that this was just another fangirl home invasion, but no, now it’s dimensional-hopping and body snatching and mistaken identities. This is exactly what I wanted.”

  “Cin…” said Iris.

  “It’s my day off,” Hyacinth snapped. “It wasn’t bad enough that you had to work, that we couldn’t do something normal, but now you’re bringing work home with you on my day off. I thought we talked about this.”

  “Could we maybe not have this fight in front of the people who are either from another dimension or trying to mess with our heads?” asked Iris plaintively. “I did not bring work home on purpose. I was talking about retirement, remember? They just sort of showed up.”

  “Magic snow globe,” said Jack. She held one up, with an apologetic shrug. “They get me where I need to go. And since where I needed to go was to our Yelena, and the snow globe brought me here, that means you’re really our Yelena.”

  “We’re not supposed to be here,” said Velveteen.

  “You got that right,” said Hyacinth. The storm cloud over her left shoulder began dumping rain onto her shirt. “What are you doing in our apartment?”

  “We need to find a door so we can find whatever the hell it is that Santa sent us to find, or there’s a chance our world is going to be ruined forever,” said Velveteen.

  Iris and Hyacinth both blinked.

  “Oh,” said Iris finally. “Is that all.”

  *

  When considering the multiverse, even within the context of a localized divergence (i.e., a multiversal plane in which all individuals existing in world A will have been at minimum conceived in world B, if not allowed to live to a fruitful adulthood), it must be considered possible for there to be more than one potential “good” outcome for any given situation. Take, for example, the matter of Yelena Batzdorf, known, depending on the parallel world in which she is found, as “Sparkle Bright,” “Iris,” “Polychrome,” or “Prism.”

  Born to a highly conservative family, the young Miss Batzdorf has expressed an early attraction to members of the same gender in virtually all known parallels (in those which she did not, she was either born male or assigned male at birth; in the three where she was assigned male at birth, she was still attracted to women, but was not recognized as a lesbian until after her actual gender became publicly known). This conflict between her family’s values and her heart has led, almost inevitably, to her being surrendered to The Super Patriots, Inc. for training and “rehabilitation.” The fact that such rehabilitation is not possible, and is in fact harmful to those individuals who have been subjected to it, has never yet been known to change her family’s decision. World after world, they have chosen the same irresponsible solution, leaving their daughter to be raised by people who saw her more as potential profit than person.

  In some worlds, Miss Batzdorf has become the perfect face of the corporation, burying her desires under her dedication to the people who raised her. In others, she has been the one to walk out at the age of eighteen, choosing freedom over living someone else’s script. And in other, rarer worlds, she and her friends have been able to seize control of the corporation, ushering in an era of superheroic honesty and openness, where she has not been required to conceal herself under anything more than a mask.

  In many worlds, she has been happy. She has been loved. She has made a home for herself, and she has had few regrets. But Victoria Cogsworth, code name “Victory Anna,” exists in only one world. While few who have met Miss Cogsworth will deny that she has been a positive influence on Miss Batzdorf, her absence from the rest of the multiverse must be taken as an indication that more than one match ideal enough to result in a truly “happy ending” must be available.

  In some worlds, Sparkle Bright and Velveteen have found a way to grow together, instead of growing apart. In other worlds, Iris and Jacqueline Claus have provided one another with the greatest gifts of all. In still others, she has found love with a weather-controller named Hyacinth who has yet to manifest in our world.

  Happiness can be found anywhere. Who is to say that the status quo we believe to be ideal is the “right” one, or indeed, even the most common in an unending multiverse? Every happy ending denies another. It always has
.

  *

  The four of them gathered in an uneasy peace around the coffee table, Iris on the couch with Hyacinth standing behind her, while Velveteen and Jack squashed onto the loveseat like a pair of teens on prom night. The only way it could have been any more uncomfortable would have been if someone had asked about someone else’s intentions, and in a way, that was the entire thrust of the conversation. Why were they here; what did they want to do to Yelena; did they have any right to do it.

  “Okay, slow down and let me try to unpack this a little bit,” said Iris, pinching the bridge of her nose with one hand. “Basically you’re saying that I am who I think I am, but I’m also a version of myself who goes by ‘Polychrome,’ and is supposed to be helping you find this door because I’m really a mirror ghost?”

  “Neither of us said ‘mirror ghost,’” said Velveteen. “We said ‘psychic reflection.’ When we crossed into this world, you and Aaron both got overlain on your local cognates, because you haven’t spent enough time outside the Calendar Country to have any actual resistance.”

  “I said ‘mirror ghost,’ because it sounds vaguely less completely stupid than ‘psychic reflection,’” said Hyacinth. “I would know if she weren’t my girlfriend, okay? And there is nothing about her that isn’t my Iris. Also, what the hell is a ‘Calendar Country’?”

  “Hasn’t your Jack Claus ever taken you to the North Pole?” asked Jack, carefully. “To see Papa—I mean, to see Santa?”

  “Santa Claus is a construct of the collective unconscious, and I have no idea how he’s real, but he doesn’t prove the existence of whatever a ‘Calendar Country’ is,” said Hyacinth primly.

  Jack took a deep breath before launching into an explanation of the Seasonal Lands, how they interacted with the “real” world, and why the Spirits of the Season called anyplace that wasn’t an anthropomorphic representation of metaphor the “Calendar Country.” Velveteen, who had heard all this before, turned her out in favor of focusing on Iris, looking carefully at the other woman, searching for some sign that her version of Yelena was still in there.

  She couldn’t blame Aaron for being seduced by the life the mirror had offered him, enough so that he had stopped fighting and let himself be absorbed. Jackie wasn’t here, and Jack didn’t control these mirrors, and every version of cosmic travel had its risks. She was worried about him, yes, but she was also confident that they would be able to get him back after they’d found the door and whatever was behind it. Santa wouldn’t have let Jack take them through if there was a chance they could be lost forever.

  Or maybe he would have, because Santa lied. But there wasn’t time to worry about that now. She’d lost Aaron. She couldn’t lose Yelena too. Not when they still had so far left to go.

  Iris met her eyes, and something in the other woman’s face wasn’t Iris, not really. Something in her face was confused and conflicted and contrary, the same look she’d had when she was pretending to be Blacklight just to give herself a break from being the perfect icon The Super Patriots, Inc. had wanted her to be. Something in her face gave her away. She knew. She knew they were telling the truth. She knew this world, while real, wasn’t hers. She knew.

  “Hey,” said Velveteen, the sound of her voice startling Jack into silence. She kept her eyes on Yelena. Not on Iris: on that flickering little scrap of understanding and dismay that was her first and oldest friend. “What do you say? Trust us?”

  Iris didn’t have the chance to say anything. Hyacinth grabbed her arm and yanked her to her feet, saying, through gritted teeth, “Iris can I talk to you for a second alone?” before turning and hauling the taller woman after her into the kitchen.

  Velveteen blinked. “I guess she always likes the short girls,” she said, voice low.

  “I guess so,” Jack agreed. She reached over and squeezed Velveteen’s hand. It was a friendly, companionable gesture, the sort of thing that implied years of similar gestures. “It’ll be okay. She’ll come with us.”

  “I hope so,” said Velveteen, and looked down at Jack’s hand covering hers, and wished that it were blue. “I really do.”

  *

  “You can’t seriously be listening to them,” snapped Hyacinth. “They’re…I don’t know what they are. Role-players trying to suck you into their weirdness. Fangirls looking for your attention. They’re something, and whatever it is, I don’t like it.”

  “Or maybe they’re exactly who they say they are, and we should listen to them so that everything can go back to normal around here.”

  Hyacinth’s eyes widened. Her tiny storm cloud belched lightning. “You’re not serious.”

  “I can’t remember your real name.”

  Everything seemed to freeze. Even the cloud stopped raining quite as hard. That was never a good sign, Iris knew that much; when Hyacinth was too stunned to keep up a good storm, heads were about to roll. She pressed onward anyway.

  “I know I know it, because I know we’ve been together for seven years. I know I met you at a mixer for LGBT superhumans. It was my first one. You saw me across the room, and when you came over, you laughed, because I was literally changing colors out of fear. You called it ‘power incontinence.’ You offered to show me around.”

  “I wound up showing you my apartment,” said Hyacinth, in a low, almost horrified voice.

  “Yeah, and I moved in three weeks later, because I am nothing if not good at moving way too fast,” said Iris. “I remember seven years, Cin, I remember coming out on national television, and you kissing me like I’d just done the bravest thing in the universe, and I don’t remember your name. But I remember some of the things they’re saying.”

  “What are you saying? Are you saying you’re not real?”

  “I’m saying I think they may be right about me being a psychic overlay on your Iris, and if they can get me to this door, then I can go with them, and you get your Iris back. The real one, who deserves you.” The one who wouldn’t keep waiting for a flash of red hair and a complaint directed at a god or goddess that didn’t exist. The one who could love Hyacinth without the shadows.

  For someone who created light from her very skin, Iris spent a distressing amount of her time terrified of shadows.

  Hyacinth scowled. “Well, I think they’ve put this stupid idea in your head, and now you’re starting to believe them, even though you know you shouldn’t.”

  “What harm does it do?”

  “What harm? What if they’re con men? We go to this door, and when nothing happens, suddenly you need to pay them a thousand dollars for an exorcism, or…or something. I just don’t like it.”

  “I don’t either.” Iris glanced to the kitchen door. She could see a slice of the maybe-Velveteen’s leg, weight balanced on her toe, heel bouncing. Vel had always done that when she was anxious. Always. This was Vel. Maybe not hers, or maybe the one she remembered so vividly wasn’t hers, but…Vel. “We have to find out for sure.”

  Hyacinth, who had been with Yelena long enough—first as Sparkle Bright, and then as Iris—to know when her mind was made up, sighed. “You’ll be careful. And if we find out you’re not a psychic overlay, you’ll let it go.”

  “I don’t remember your real name, Cin. Do you really think I’m not?”

  “No,” said Hyacinth quietly. “But a girl can dream.”

  Iris paused. “Cin, why would you…if I’m not your Iris, shouldn’t you want her back?”

  “I do! Believe me, if you’re not my Iris, I want her back more than anything. Except for the part where I’ve been afraid for years that one day you were going to wake up and realize that you could do better than a weather-slinger named after a T.S. Eliot poem. You’re one of the top three superheroes in the world. I wouldn’t even be second string if I weren’t with you.”

  “I don’t remember your real name, but I remember so much else, and you need to stop thinking like that,” said Iris sharply. “If I’m your Iris, and I’ve been making you feel that way, we need to talk. If I’m not your I
ris, then as soon as I’m gone, you and she need to talk. Because you’re amazing. You deserve to know that. Now come on. Let’s go find out whether the world is broken.”

  Hyacinth followed her out of the kitchen. It seemed that there was nothing else to say.

  *

  “This is a terrible plan,” said Velveteen.

  “All plans are terrible plans until they succeed, and then they become the best plans ever,” said Jack. The four of them were trudging through a snowbank that smelled like hot chocolate and pine-scented air freshener. The sky above them was a rainbow of living light, and Iris had barely taken her eyes off of it since the snow globe had dropped them all in the North Pole.

  “Are we really going to see Santa?” asked Hyacinth, eyes shining.

  “How’s the phrase ‘fuck, I hope not, I am really running out of the willpower required not to punch him in his smug, stupid face’?” asked Vel. “Because I think that’s way closer to the truth.”

  “You know, we don’t like it much when people come here to punch the Big Man,” said a voice from behind them. All four turned. A white-haired boy in a red and white suit was standing atop the snow, which would have been more impressive if he hadn’t been wearing snowshoes. He looked enough like Jack to seem related, and enough like himself to be a stranger. He blinked at her, eyebrows lifting, before he asked, “Universe-jumping? That’s adventurous.”

  “Are you saying that because I’m a girl?” asked Jack, frowning.

  He shook his head. “No, because you’re a me, and I would have to be in a very adventurous mood to do something like that. Well, maybe if I needed a kidney. Do you need a kidney?”

  “No,” said Jack.

  “That’s a relief.”

  “We need access to your Hall of Mirrors,” said Velveteen. “We’re looking for a door.”

  “A door.” Jack—er, Jack II—looked at her flatly. “Miss, I know you’re not the Velma from our universe, but our Hall of Mirrors contains only, well, mirrors. If you want a door, you’ll need to go to the Hall of Doors.”