Page 65 of Seasonal Fears

“Why? Is it like some sort of weird murder maze?”

“I don’t know.”

Harry stares at her for several long, uncomfortable seconds before Jack looks away and continues.

“No one knows anymore. It’s been too long since we had a coronation, and the labyrinth is different every time. We just know candidates go in in pairs, and only one pair comes out.”

“So why do we have to fight at all?” demands Harry. “If the labyrinth chooses, we should all just be able to go there and let it do its job, not waste all this time killing each other.”

“Once you enter the labyrinth, you can’t renounce anymore,” says Jack. “You’re in it until the end. And every candidate who enters lowers your chances. Maybe they’re better suited than you are. Maybe the season has managed to sink a little bit deeper into their soul. Maybe, maybe, maybe. And then it doesn’t matter, because you’re running for that finish line along with everyone else in contention for your crown, and whatever happens there is a mystery to me, but I’ve always thought it has to be fairly horrible. Only the truly serious enter the labyrinth. And most of them die there.”

“So we could all—”

“Entering the labyrinth is a death sentence if you don’t win, and the more people you allow to go in with you, the lower your chances become of getting to the finish first,” says Jack. “You fight the other candidates to keep them from having a chance to beat you, and because every candidate who chooses to compete does so believing they can win, yeah, most of them will have to die. Some at your hand. You didn’t get much of a choice, thanks to Cosgrove fucking with the natural order of things. You refuse, you die.”

“But I’m a natural person,” says Harry. “You said only Melanie was made by alchemy, and I was just born this way. I won some sort of weird cosmic lottery, and the prize is the chance to die horribly and turn into the Heat Miser from those old Christmas specials.”

“You’re a natural person running parallel to an unnatural person,” says Erin. “If you refuse your claim to the crown, if I’m understanding this all correctly, then the fact that you’re tied to her, and she can’t refuse and survive, means you’ll die like any Summer King who lost his Winter.”

“You died when the coronation started,” says Jack. “I know it’s easy to forget that when you feel fine, but it still happened. If you lose your connection to the Summer, you lose your connection to Melanie. If you lose your connection to Melanie, you lose your connection to the alchemy that’s keeping you alive.”

“Why do I have any more right to live than the rest of the candidates?” asks Harry.

“You don’t,” says Tim. Harry looks at him, feeling obscurely wounded, like he expected a boy his own age to have an argument for why he, in specific, was special enough to deserve to keep existing when other people didn’t get the same chance. “I guess the question is whether you think Melanie has more of a right to live than the rest of the candidates. Because she’s not the one out here melting down because she doesn’t want to kill people. She’ll keep fighting as long as she has to. Only she’ll do it while she’s sinking deeper and deeper into the Winter, and maybe if she doesn’t have you to hold on to, she goes all the way under, and we lose her. Or maybe when you drop dead because you think it’s the right thing to do, she snaps and stops even trying to stay human, and we lose her. So it’s not a question of your right to live. It’s a question of hers. I know she’s not your sister, but I’d throw myself in front of a train to save Kimberley. And if there was something I could do to not only save her but restore her connection to the Doctrine, I wouldn’t hesitate. Not for a second. Not even if I knew I wouldn’t survive.” He turns then, looking gravely at Kim. “Not for a second.”

She takes his hand, leaning toward him until their foreheads touch, like she thinks she can somehow still push her thoughts into his if she just tries hard enough, and everything is silence, and the sweet smell of summer strawberries, impossibly stolen from their season.

Departure

CALENDAR SEASON: FEBRUARY 14TH, 2017: WINTER, WANING WORM MOON.

“The labyrinth runs along the border of real time and alchemical time,” says Jack, when the silence frays and falls away, allowing the sound of the street outside the garden to return. “I guess you people would call it the boundary of the Impossible City, since you’re acolytes of Asphodel’s and all.”

“I’d say Asphodel could rot, except that’s either already happened or utterly impossible, depending on which story you believe, so I’ll settle for ‘fuck Asphodel Baker’ and let you keep going,” says Erin.

“That’s part of why it moves,” says Jack. “The Impossible City moves.”

“The Impossible City isn’t real,” says Harry. “It’s a story from a children’s book. I’m not Avery, and Melanie’s not Zib, and we’re not walking the impossible road.”

“You’re right about two of those things,” says Jack. “The books were written about two children because almost all manifestations, alchemical or natural, come in pairs; they balance each other. People like me and Erin, we’re out of true with our own natures, off-balance because our other half isn’t here. Remember how, in the books, any time something happened to Zib, all Avery could focus on was helping her, even when they weren’t getting along? And the same for Zib, when something happened to Avery?”

“Yeah,” says Harry dubiously.

“Baker wrote the alchemical journey through the four humors of the magical and natural world. Earth, water, air, and fire. Baker mapped them, and then Baum reversed them, and now the whole continent’s in a state of constant flux, because people don’t know where they are.” Erin leans over and steals a strawberry. “So the Impossible City moves, trying to stay true to a map that doesn’t stay true to itself, and it sounds like the Seasonal Attendants build their labyrinth on the borders.”

“Like bowerbirds,” says Jack. “Throwing up our nests where we think they’ll be safe until we can use them. Every year, a new labyrinth is constructed, and every year it’s torn down, unless a coronation is called. So this year, the labyrinth gets used. And since the Doctrine has embodied, the countries aren’t shifting as much, and that makes the South a nice, sold, stable bastion of Air. Air favors Winter, so Melanie will have an easier time making the passage than you will. Sorry about that. If I’d been on the planning committee, I would have asked for Earth or Fire, to give you a little more of an advantage.”

“Mel’s your candidate,” objects Harry.

“Mel’s my candidate, and Mel’s halfway to being made of snow,” says Jack. “She doesn’t need any more advantages than her father already blended into her bones.”

The front door opens. Dodger appears, looking a little shamefaced, Melanie close behind her. “Roger’s making you some sandwiches and there’s Rice Krispies treats from last night,” she says. “They should still be good.”

“You’re feeding us lunch?” asks Harry.

“We’re throwing you out,” says Dodger. “Hey, attendant girl, is it cheating if I give them a map?”

“Not at all,” says Jack. “The rules allow for alliances and advantages, as long as you find them during your journey.”