Page 94 of Seasonal Fears

“Did someone get murdered in your yard, ma’am?” asks Jack, still with that faintly worshipful tone.

“No, honey, this is just how the dirt is here in Alabama. Something about the soil makes it come up red, and when you get clay on your feet, you can track it just shy of everywhere you go. Once it dries into a thing, whether it’s fabric or wood, it stays forever, so you have to get it up while it’s still wet. Like blood, in a way, even though there hasn’t specifically been a murder.”

“I’m sorry,” says Harry, sitting up straighter. “You said your name was Stingy Jack. I know that means you’re like the Jack we’ve been traveling with, but for autumn instead of winter. Why haven’t we seen anyone else by that name? Why do you still have a proper name, not just go by ‘Jack’ the way our, um, Jack does?”

“Let me finish mopping before you start asking me the big cosmological questions, please. I’ve sent Cliff a text, he’ll hopefully be back by the time I’m done, or close to it, and then we can all get caught up at once. We’ve been waiting for you.”

“Are we the first ones here?” asks Jenny.

Somehow it’s no surprise when Carolyn laughs again, shaking her head. “Oh, heavens, not in the least. You candidates have been coming through town for days now, and the grounds around the labyrinth must be littered with bodies. No one goes in until the gates open, and they do that on their own time and when they decide they want to; the candidates have been gathering in the fields, and I’m sure they’re killing each other to pass the time. The labyrinth’s been getting brighter, though, like it’s almost ready for admissions, and soon enough you’ll be able to pour in and start your trials.”

“What—” begins Harry. Melanie’s hand on his knee stops him. He glances to her, and she shakes her head, the motion small and tight. He catches her meaning in her expression.

If they push for answers now, while this pleasant, perplexing woman is mopping mud off of her floor and waiting for Cliff, whoever that is, to arrive, they may not get full answers, or the answers they need and want to receive. She’s their hostess. They need to respect her boundaries.

“What did you put in these scones?” he finishes, a little awkwardly, but smoothly enough that she hopefully won’t realize he’s completely changed what he was planning to ask. He sniffs the scone in his hand. It’s mostly plain, sweet biscuit bread, but there’s something else in the dough, which he tries to puzzle out as he nibbles.

Carolyn finishes her mopping and smiles at him as she leans on the handle, all sunshine again. “Vanilla and just a pinch of rosemary. Makes them work as a sweet or a savory. Didn’t know which you’d be down for by this point, since I don’t have any way of knowing how far you’ve come from.”

“We started in Portland, Oregon,” says Jack, still with that faintly worshipful note in her voice.

“That’s a trek,” says Carolyn. “I’m guessing you’ll be among the last to get here, which may explain why the labyrinth’s finally stirring herself to wake up and let all y’all inside. She tries to keep it fair when she can, or so the histories say; wants anyone who makes it this far to have the best possible chance.”

“Is the labyrinth alive?” asks Mel, suddenly concerned. It feels like everything’s alive these days, from ideas to times of the year. She doesn’t want to climb into the body of some vast and unknowable beast just for the sake of claiming a crown she never asked to wear in the first place.

She also doesn’t want to die. Somehow, they’ve come to a place where there are no good choices, and she doesn’t like it at all.

“I suppose the answer there is ‘yes and no,’ with just a pinch of ‘maybe’ as a seasoning,” says Carolyn. “She’s alive when she wants to be, and she’s not when she doesn’t, and no one gets to decide when that’s going to be except for her.”

Harry isn’t sure how something that’s not alive gets to decide anything. But then, he’s only alive right now because the Summer decided he should be, and he’s not sure how that works either. Sometimes, not asking is the only way to get the answers you need.

Carolyn rinses her mop before she puts it back in the closet, gets her own cup of coffee, and moves to sit on one of the open sections of couch, taking a sip.

“Did you want a scone?” asks Jack, clearly ready to spring to her feet and start hostessing their hostess. Honestly, the impulse makes sense. This is all a little awkward and uncomfortable, like being suddenly expected to make small talk with a distant cousin you haven’t seen since childhood.

Carolyn shakes her head. “No, sweetie, you just sit where you are and stay comfortable. I don’t do gluten. Doesn’t agree with my joints.”

That may be the most normal thing anyone’s said in Harry’s presence in days. He blinks, his own scone forgotten. “But you’re … Aren’t you a…” He waves his free hand helplessly, not sure precisely what he’s trying to articulate, sure only that he’s not doing a very good job of it.

There should be some sort of class on what to do when you wind up driving across the country to sit in the living room of a nice Southern lady old enough to be your mother, who smiles like she has a secret and may or may not actually be alive. His parents sat him down and taught him manners, how to say please and thank you and when to ask for permission, and he’s always done his best to be polite when dealing with adults he’s not related to. But this—all of this—is unfamiliar ground, and he’s got no idea what he’s doing. Melanie looks similarly uncomfortable, and her coffee is starting to ice over. He wonders if she’s even noticed.

Jack and Jenny are still watching Carolyn raptly, as enchanted as children who’ve just been put in a room with a real-life Disney Princess. And there’s a trace of the cartoon princess to this woman, an unearthly air of pleasant sweetness. Harry would absolutely believe her if she announced that woodland creatures helped her do her hair every morning, and he’s dating Mel, who is basically Snow White in blue jeans. Maybe she’s not real. Maybe none of this is happening, and they’re all sitting in a Waffle House right now, waiting for a disinterested waitress to bring them toast and eggs. It’s so hard to tell anymore.

“I’m not dead, if that’s what you want to know,” says Carolyn. “None of the attendants are. We’re living people with a little too much of the season inside us to live normal lives, but we’re alive, and we have to deal with all the things living people do. We have jobs and mortgages and children—if we’re lucky—and allergies and sometimes sensitivities to gluten. Mine’s not so bad I have to stop baking, thankfully. I know people who can’t have a crumb in the house without the risk of getting awful sick, and I’m not sure I’d have been able to prioritize my physical health above my mental health like that even if I’d wanted to.”

Harry blinks again. Then he turns and presses his face to Mel’s shoulder, eyes closed. “Can things start making sense again?” he asks plaintively. “They don’t have to make a lot of sense. They don’t even have to make good sense. But any sense at all would be a nice change.”

Mel pats him on the shoulder. “It’s okay, honey. The nice lady stands for the fall. I can feel her, although not very strongly, and I don’t think she wants to hurt us.”

Carolyn blinks, tilting her head to the side, so the dark wing of her hair cups her cheek. “Fascinating,” she says, and glances to their attendants. “This your doing?”

“They were like this when I found them,” says Jenny. “Harry isn’t my first candidate.”

“Mel’s mine,” says Jack. “And they were like this when I found them, too. They’ve been running parallel since before the coronation started. She’s…” And she hesitates there, like she’s about to admit something unwise. Swallowing, she finishes: “… she’s Cosgrove’s Winter girl.”

“Roland Cosgrove? The alchemist?” Carolyn stiffens. So does Harry, pulling away from Mel at the tone in the older woman’s voice. He doesn’t like it. She sounds, suddenly, less like she’s welcoming them in and more like she’s looking at something unpleasant that’s bubbled up in her drain. He shifts positions on the couch, very slightly, preparing to shield Mel if he has to.

“He was my father, ma’am,” says Mel. “I know he made me to be a better vessel for the Winter, although I’m still not entirely sure what that means.”