Page 92 of Seasonal Fears

“Oh, I think I’m going to enjoy being you, Harald March, if you can only make it to the end,” he says. “I’ll see you in the labyrinth.”

“What do you—”

The meadow falls away, and Harry opens his eyes on another dark motel room. Jenny is snoring gently from the next bed over; Mel is curled against him, her head resting on his shoulder, her hair dangerously close to winding up in his mouth. Again. He blinks sleep-crusted eyes, then smiles as he looks down at her.

They’re almost there. And they’re going to win.

He’s never been so sure of anything in his life.

The fog was still there, hanging thick and cottony among the brambles and branches, but it had pulled back enough that she could see the flowers on their stems and the cobwebs glittering with morning dew. The garden had returned as the sunlight pouring down from above in great, buttery shafts came to burn the fog away. There was so much fog in the air that everything was still dim and gray, like it was twilight rather than morning.

More and more crows were beginning to stir. Zib looked at the one that had come to her first, seated on her shoulder with its beak still sticky with bonberry juice.

“I would like it if we could have a conversation, and if you could help me pick berries to take inside for Avery and Niamh,” she said. “Crows are wonderful, but you’re not so good for talking to, unless I want to really be talking to myself.”

The crow cocked its head, regarding her for a moment before it made a small croaking sound and flung itself into the air. Zib had never seen birds that took flight the way the Crow Girl did. She flew as if she was attacking the sky and expected to be repelled at any moment by the creatures that actually belonged there. All across the garden, crows took wing, crashing toward each other and finally colliding a few feet away from Zib in a great cacophony of wings and feathers that consolidated into the shape of one skinny teenage girl in a black feather dress.

“Are there other things like you?” blurted Zib. It was a rude question, but she wasn’t sorry to have asked it. It felt like the sort of thing that needed to be answered, either now or in the future, and she was growing increasingly tired of pushing things into the future rather than handling them in the aching, immediate now.

“You saw the rest of the flock when the King tried to take you,” said the Crow Girl.

“No, I mean, I know there are other crows, but are there other things?” Zib frowned earnestly, her hands busying themselves with the picking of ripe pink berries. “Are there boys who are also knots of toads, or girls who are a camp of bats when they don’t feel like walking on two legs? I know you traded your name for feathers. Can people trade for other things?”

“Ah,” said the Crow Girl, and “Oh,” said the Crow Girl, and “Yes, and no,” said the Crow Girl. She began her own berry-picking, clever fingers clearing branches in seconds as she pulled the fruit into her palms. She kept her eye on the bush, not looking at Zib. “That was where I had the idea, you see. There was a boy, when I was younger, and he could become a whole shoal of salmon when he didn’t want to think like a boy did, when he wanted to swim freely and be left alone. I had the idea that maybe I could be like him, if I tried hard enough. That I could have freedom when I wanted it, and a cage, when I wanted that instead. So I went looking. I slipped away from the people who were meant to keep watch over me, and their faces went with my name, so now I don’t even know who I left behind.” …

—From Along the Saltwise Sea, by A. Deborah Baker

BOOK VIIAlabama

Dreaming of spring I can almost taste

Pomegranate, peppermint.

But then I wake, and I hear the wind

Moaning and lonely for her.

—Dr. Mary Crowell, “Change of Seasons”

A candidate for the priesthood could only succeed to office by slaying the priest.

—Sir James George Frazer, The Golden Bough

Red Clay

CALENDAR SEASON: FEBRUARY 28TH, 2017: ONE MONTH TO SPRING, NEW MOON BETWEEN THE WORM MOON AND THE SPROUTING GRASS MOON.

They crossed the border into Alabama a little over an hour ago, and they’re so close to the labyrinth at this point that Harry’s not sure he’s safe to drive. The road seems to gleam iridescent ahead of them, so bright it’s barely possible for him to focus on it. Melanie can’t even look at it anymore. She’s leaning back in her seat, eyes closed and face tilted toward the ceiling. Jack and Jenny are pressed together in the back.

“The improbable road has us,” says Jack, in a hushed tone.

“Not helping,” snaps Harry.

“We can’t get lost now,” she says. “I don’t think it’s possible anymore.”

“Still not helping, and I can’t descend all the way into a children’s book without losing the actual road, and then you both die.” He’s come to terms with the fact of his own death over the past two days. It helps that Melanie’s dead too, and she doesn’t care. All he has to do is claim the crown and he gets to have everything he’s ever wanted. This is the definition of a perfect win.

He can do this. They can do this. Harry drives on, and Mel pretends to doze, and the road unspools, and then they’re passing the city limits of a town called Huntsville, and it’s like static electricity dancing across his skin, he can feel it, he can feel it, close and bright and burning. The labyrinth. They’re almost to the labyrinth.