I
Leaves falling. Showers of red and gold, brown and orange. Swirls blowing through the air, drifting in shoals by the roadsides, brushing the face as they go by. Trees polka-dotted with partially turned leaves, air cool enough to make sleeping comfortable once more. The crunch and crackle of fallen leaves underfoot and the spicy smell of autumn in the air.
Laney loved it all. Autumn was her favorite season. She loved seeing a full harvest moon in a chilly night sky and to see colorful leaves against a blue, blue sky. She loved the equinoctial storms, grey clouds full of autumn rains, and the last few flowers poking up from under drifts of fallen leaves.
She put a harvest wreath on her front door on the first day of September and then put pumpkins, gourds and brightly colored corn in her house for decoration. She carved no fewer than four jack-o-lanterns for Halloween each year and always baked pumpkin cookies all through October and November, keeping her pumpkin-shaped cookie jar stuffed with them and all of her neighbors and coworkers well supplied with the treats. Autumn was when she was at her best.
Most of her friends seemed to love summer, but she found it too hot and too busy with people rushing here and there for vacations and outdoor activities. A few people she knew liked winter, but they were mostly skiers, and some liked spring. Winter’s winds were too icy for Laney, and spring was too wet and chilly and unformed for her. It just seemed like a weaker version of winter. None of the other seasons was perfect the way autumn was.
On the day before Halloween, Lacey was ready. She had her pumpkins carved and ready to go out on the front porch, and a ghost to hang in the tree in the front yard. There was a scarecrow almost finished and ready for the front yard too, lying on her kitchen table. There was plenty of candy for her big yellow bowl and cookies and cider for friends who might stop by. But that was for tomorrow night. Tonight, she laid a fire in the fireplace and gathered some freshly baked pumpkin cookies and tea along with her knitting and a brand-new book on CD (by one of her favorite authors) and prepared to settle down for a pleasant evening alone.
“I wish it could always be autumn,” she mused as she settled down.
The wind moaned a little bit at the windows and Laney’s dog moaned a little in his sleep at her feet and Laney smiled and took a sip of tea. The fire crackled and popped and blowing leaves bumped against the windows with small tapping sounds. The clock in the hallway struck nine in slow, peaceful-sounding notes.
CRASH! A terrible sound came from the front porch. Laney leaped out of her chair. Her knitting flew to the other side of the room and her mug of tea slopped over into the plate of pumpkin cookies. The dog bounded up out of a sound sleep and raced, barking, to the front door, his hackles up.
Laney stood there collecting her wits momentarily and another crash sounded. This one was clearly from the front door. The wind must have pulled the storm door loose, she thought, and started toward the front door to fasten the banging door shut once more.
As she entered the front hall, the dog suddenly give a tremendous yelp, tucked his tail and flew past her, yipping. She heard him skidding into her bedroom, presumably to hide under her bed as he aways did when he was frightened. Puzzled, Laney looked at the front door. She could see through the glass that took up most of the center of the door, and she didn’t see anything that should have frightened the dog. The storm door bumped again, this time more quietly. Laney shook her head at the cowardice of the dog and went to the door to fasten the storm door again.
Just as she reached for the door knob, it began to jiggle like someone was trying the knob and finding it locked. Laney frowned – there was no one on the other side to turn it. She stepped back, and as she did so, something stepped through the door – without opening it.
Whatever it was, it was nothing that she could see until it came through the glass, and then it was still a bit transparent. The parts of it farther from the door were less transparent, and as it finished coming into the room, it became quite solid and took on a form.
Lacey screamed. It was a good, solid, shake the foundations of the house scream, and the figure now standing in front of her winced and quickly stuffed his fingers in his ears.
“Whoa, lady – that hurts – keep it down, would you? What are you screaming for, anyway? It’s not like I’m here to hurt you or anything!” The young man standing there looked affronted. Laney grabbed an umbrella out of the stand she kept by the door and brandished it like a weapon.
“You keep back, now – you just go right back through that door!” she stammered.
“I will, when I’m ready,” the young man said, “but I just…”
Laney took a swing at him with the umbrella.
He ducked, but part of the umbrella still hit him – and went right through him.
“Hey – no need for violence, now. That may have gone through me but it still didn’t feel good. The thought counts for something, you know!” The young man had gone a bit wispy where the umbrella had connected and was slowly solidifying again.
Laney gasped and backed away, still holding the umbrella in front of her.
“Lady – Laney – I’m a ghost. You can’t really harm me with that thing, so put it down already and just listen to me. I’m not here to hurt you.” He smiled, ingratiatingly.
Laney then did something she had never done before in her life. She fainted.
When she came to in a very awkward position on the floor, the young man – or the ghost – was sitting on the floor beside her. “Man, that must have hurt! You fell pretty hard. Sorry I couldn’t catch you, but I’m not corporeal enough for that. Take your time, here, but not too long. I need to talk to you and my time is a little bit limited.”
Laney slowly sat up, eying the ghost nervously. Finally she managed to say, “A…a ghost. But why…why are you haunting me? I don’t even know you!”
“Yeah you do. You just don’t recognize me. In fact, you’ve avoided me as much as you could since you were about 20 years old.”
The ghost didn’t look old enough to be saying this – he looked like he couldn’t be more than 20 himself. He was tanned and fit and looked like a real outdoor type.
At Laney’s puzzled look, the ghost elaborated. “I’m the Ghost of Summer.”
Laney was now wondering what had been in the can of pumpkin she used for that last batch of cookies and whether this was a dream or an hallucination.
“It doesn’t matter if you think I’m really here or not. We can get this done even if you believe you’re dreaming.” The ghost seemed to be able to read her mind.
“Get this done? Get what done?” Laney’s voice shook.
“Well, you know in that story by Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol, Scrooge gets visited by the Ghosts of Christmas and changes his ways? It’s something like that.”
Now Laney was thoroughly confused. She didn’t even like that story. And she certainly didn’t think she was like Scrooge!
“No, no, you’re nothing like that - and we aren’t really trying to change you that much, but it’s just that, well…you don’t seem to like anything but autumn anymore…” He sighed, and said, “Oh, let’s just get on with it. He grabbed her hand and pulled and Laney came up with him – or part of her did.
She gasped and looked back at herself sitting on the floor, leaning against the wall.
II
“Oh, don’t worry, you’re not dead. We just can’t take your body on this trip, that’s all.” He tugged again and they were out the door – through it, just like the Ghost of Summer had come through it when he came in. Then, at the edge of the porch, they stepped into a space that hadn’t been there before. The darkness here was more intense than any darkness Laney had ever experienced before in her life – even darker than the inside of a cave she had visited once, even though Laney knew that was impossible.
Just as suddenly, they were out again, into a blindingly bright and brutally hot summer’s day with people everywhere. Laney pulled back automatically.
The ghost held onto her hand tightly, though, and she stayed where she was in spite of herself.
“Summer!” proclaimed the ghost. “Glorious summer!”
“And just what’s so glorious about blazing heat and swarms of people?” asked Laney.
The ghost sighed and replied, “Come with me.” He dragged Laney along, dodging through the crowds of people at an impossible speed. Soon they were standing on suburban street watching children play.
“See there? On that bike? That’s you. Remember when summer was fun? Long days, riding bikes and swimming and then playing tag under the street lights and catching lightening bugs? Remember?”
Laney did, vaguely. “Yes, that was when summers didn’t mean working all day the same as always. Freedom always makes a thing better,” she said. Then she nudged the ghost as she saw the younger version of herself begin to cry, hop on her bike and race away, only to take the corner badly and fall off and skin her knees. “I remember that, too – my mother and I were picking gravel out of my knees for a week. I still have the scars. And that group of kids made me miserable all summer.” She sniffed. Her nose was starting to itch. “I also remember the hay fever and the swimmer’s ear infections and the heat rash I always got. Oh yeah, and the mosquito bites. They loved me.”
The ghost got a funny look on his face and tugged on her arm. Now they were at a beach crowded with young people and surf boards, young people and volleyballs, young people sprawled on beach towels baking in the sun. The young man ghost looked like he fit right in here. In fact, Laney noticed that he was wearing long, baggy swim trunks, a Hawaiian shirt and flip-flops, all ready for the beach.
“Remember the beach? There you are, on that big blanket with some other girls. See? You’re giggling and having lots of fun…you can’t possibly forget that!”
“I do remember this day. I got that really bad sunburn and the volleyball hit me in the nose. It bled for an hour, and about the time I got it stopped, I saw my boyfriend with that nasty, catty girl a year older than I was. That day was unforgettable, all right. Oh, and my best friend cut her foot on something and had to get a tetanus shot, and someone else got stung by a jellyfish, and…”
“Enough! Let’s try something else.” The ghost pulled her along again. This time they were in the middle of a field, with sweet corn on one side of them and tomato and cucumber vines on the other. “Summer produce. You can’t beat it! The corn is perfect right now, and the tomatoes and cukes won’t last into cold weather. Mmm…” the ghost licked his lips. “Just imagine, tomatoes fresh from the garden, and sweet corn…” He reached out and picked a ruby-red tomato and handed it to Laney.
She took it and then pulled off the fat caterpillar that was hiding on the far side of the tomato. Grimacing slightly, she dropped it onto the ground.
“Um, sorry,” said the ghost. “I guess it means they’re pesticide free?” He smiled hopefully, grabbed another tomato and bit into it. “Try it. It’s good!”
Laney had to admit that the tomato was excellent, despite the caterpillar. The ghost won that round. The growing time of summer was a good thing, she had to agree to that.
The ghost was looking a little tired by now, and more than a little bit frustrated. As they finished the tomatoes, there was a flash, thunder rolled across the sky and raindrops almost the size of the tomatoes starting pouring down.
“Shoot! Well, we needed to go anyway,” said the ghost as he dragged Laney back into the dark place. Moments later they reemerged on Laney’s front porch. Through the glass in the door, she could see herself slumped against the wall inside, apparently asleep. Laney lunged for the door and was twisting at the knob frantically when the ghost tapped her on the shoulder and said, “Um, it’s locked, remember? That’s why I had to come through it instead of opening it and coming inside in a reasonable manner.”
Laney stopped and stared at him. “Well, take me back through it then!” she demanded.
“Not quite yet. There’s someone else here to see you.” He jerked his head toward the side of the porch. A young woman stood there, slender and pale, dressed in a flowing pastel gown with flowers woven in her hair. As she floated forward, the young man began to fade away. Laney could hear the clock inside striking ten.
“I am the Spectre of Spring,” she breathed in a delicate voice. “You will come with me, now…” And she wrapped one slim, bare arm around Laney’s shoulders and drew her into the black place again.
They stepped out into a mud puddle. A weak and watery sun gave some warmth, but a brisk breeze drew the warmth away again. In the field in front of them, where the mud puddle ended, there was a carpet of bright green new grass, and green buds were on the trees at the far side of the field. A group of children were running here and there with baskets in their hands, shrieking.
The Spectre pulled Laney forward, and she stepped up to her ankles in the mud, which the Spectre floated over. Laney looked down and pulled first one foot and then the other out of the muck with a look of disgust on her face. The Spectre looked down. “Oh, sorry!” she breathed, and then Laney was floating above the mud, too. Then mud on her feet disappeared and they walked towards the children.
“Spring. Rebirth of the land. Beauty and life return to the world once more…Look at the children. They celebrate and hunt eggs. Easter egg hunts! What fun!” The Spectre of Spring looked delighted by the scene in front of them.
Laney saw herself as a child again, hunting eggs, with a basket full already.
“You seem to be doing well, Laney. Not many of the children have so many eggs in their baskets!”
“I did do well, and I shared my eggs with my little brother. I always did like Easter egg hunts,” Laney agreed. “It was the falling in the mud in my good dress that I didn’t like, and the way it looked nice but still felt really cold out. Look there, see? I have a winter jacket on over my dress.” As they watched, the younger Laney climbed up in a tree to get an egg hidden way up high. She slipped and caught the hem of her dress on a branch, tearing it. “I remember I really liked that dress, too,” she added.
The Spectre ignored her comments and flowed over to a patch of small green spears poking up from the ground under the trees. “And here – look at this. The miracle of the spring. New life is here, and growing.” A bird darted down from the tree branches and grabbed a twig, carrying it away in its beak. The Spectre turned around, drawing Laney with her and swept her arm across the landscape. It became greener and full of flowers blooming. Children were flying kites in the field now. A loud peeping came from the tree overhead, and the Spectre reached up a gentle hand and drew down the branch. A nest full of baby birds waited with mouths wide open and prickly pin feathers covering their bodies.
Laney felt herself melting at the sight of the baby birds. They were so awkward and ugly looking and yet so precious.
“Spring, and rebirth. Dead-seeming seeds swelling into new life. We must have spring, if life is to continue.”
Laney couldn’t argue with that part of it all. “Look, I never said that spring was bad…”
The Spectre of Spring was hurrying them on, though, to the top of a mountain this time. She paused there and gestured at the hillside below. It held a few patches of snow on it, and beside them rushed a swollen stream.
“Water from the frozen days of winter, saved, stored, and then released by spring! What a wonder this is, is it not?” Then she whirled them off again, through another field with young animals in it, a garden newly sprouted, a child running in the sunshine.
Laney kept trying to speak, but the Spectre was moving so fast she didn’t have a chance.
III
The Spectre whipped Laney back through the darkness and and then they were on Laney’s front porch again. This time she didn’t even try the door knob. She could see an elderly couple standing in the shadows of the porch and as the clock inside the house struck eleven, the Spectre of Spring suddenly left her and the elderly couple, white hair glowing in the porch light, came forward together. They looked disturbingly like illustrations of Santa and Mrs. Claus from a child’s picture book.
They were smiling and friendly looking though, and as they stood on either side of her and took her arms, they said, “We are the Wraiths of Winter, and we will guide you to see what we see in winter.”
The feet of the three of them crunched in the snow, but Laney didn’t feel terribly cold. She did feel the falling snowflakes, though, delicately tickling her face as they brushed by her. This was one part of winter that she did like. Actually, she rather liked winter, although not nearly so much as she liked autumn – and she wasn’t about to admit it right now; these Seasonal Spirits were pressuring her, and she really disliked coercion.
“The snow covers up all sorts of harshness and makes the world beautiful and peaceful,” came the voice of the elderly woman on her right.
“And as the Spectre of Spring told you, it is moisture for the earth,” added the man on her left.
A group of children ran into the yard, the adults behind them pulling an evergreen tree though the snow and laughing.
“Holidays – festivities. Joyful times!” said the woman.
“People competing to over spend, greed, consumerism, budgets ruined, family fights…” Laney began. “Your least favorite uncle always drinks too much and gets into an argument about politics; your aunt who thinks she’s 30 years younger than she really is flirts with everyone’s dates; the kids eat too much junk food and at least one of them throws up on someone; they break each other’s new toys and cry; someone leaves in a huff and swears never to speak to anyone else again; someone who takes the time to bake or sew for everyone’s gifts is hurt because they don’t know the time and love it took to make them and the people who get them are annoyed because they spent so much on the gift for the person who only baked or sewed gifts…shall I go on?”
“Those things are a matter of choice, not necessity. One can have the beauty of the season, and the festivity, without all of the other. Look!” and the man swept his hand out. Laney could see into the house now, and the tree was up. Lights twinkled out into the darkness. Children were making paper chains and stringing popcorn. The littlest child was covered in glitter and was grinning gleefully as she hung something covered with almost as much glitter as herself on the tree. The family sang carols and ate more of the popcorn as they decorated. Candles shone on the table and the air was scented with evergreen. The only fight that broke out was a popcorn fight which was resolved with giggles and squeals.
“These parents are teaching their children to give and give joyfully. See the packages by the door?” the woman pointed to some brightly wrapped gifts. “They will go to children who have little. All of the children in this family helped with the choosing.”
Laney nodded, acknowledging the choices this family made. “And the family they give to, can that family afford to heat their house in the winter? Or do they have to choose between heating and food?”
The couple frowned, and said, “This is not a fault of winter’s – like the commercialism of the holidays, it is a choice of those in this world. And it is a problem that only those who live in this world can fix.”
They stepped back out into the winter night, and in another step were somewhere and somewhen else. Now the sun was shining in a cold and bitter sort of way, and the wind was sweeping the snow from the streets.
“Yep. This is winter.” Laney winced as someone slipped on the ice and fell hard on the sidewalk. The wind grabbed the papers in the person’s hand and flung them down the street.
“Yes, and what does it make you want to do?” asked the woman.
“Stay inside, of course, and not stick my nose out unless I have to.”
“People, and all things, really, can do with some resting time. It doesn’t hurt to take thing a bit easier now and then. Books will get read, plans for spring made, stories will be told around warm fires, and while people will go out and do things, they will come inside to get warm and relax once more.” The couple on either side of her beamed with pleasure.
“Fine, I agree, winter has its good things, just like summer and spring. I never said it didn’t. Now can I go home?”
The Santa and Mrs. Claus clones sighed and shook their heads. “Of course. It’s time anyway.” The Wraiths of Winter guided her back to the darkness and home again.
When they stepped onto the porch, Laney pulled loose from the Wraiths of Winter and ran to stand in front of her door. When she turned around again, she found that she was facing all three sets of the Seasonal Spirits.
The Ghost of Summer cleared his throat. “Well, what do you think now? Don’t you think we all have as much to offer as autumn does?”
“Aren’t we as good as autumn after all?” the Spectre of Spring added.
“You don’t really wish it were autumn all the time, do you dear?” the Wraiths of Winter asked her wistfully.
“Because we really can’t be having that, you know…” All of the Spirits stepped forward in a way that was subtlety threatening.
Laney stepped back, pressing against the door and reaching behind her to try the doorknob once again. Her body was on the other side of that door…as she reached, the clock inside struck midnight. Laney smiled. It was officially Halloween. A wind swooped across the yard, and fallen leaves began swirling. Something was happening.
The leaves swirled faster and tighter and the seasonal spirits looked at one another uneasily. Then the leaves came together with a sound like a clap of thunder, and standing there was a woman – a motherly woman, but not a matronly one. The woman was bounty, and harvest, and the gathering in and feeding of all things. She smiled warmly at Laney as she stepped up on the porch. The other Seasonal Spirits edged to one side nervously.
“I am the Spirit of Autumn, my dear, and I appreciate your love of me. I do not know why these others take offense at this, for I know that you know we all have our appropriate times and places…This visit by the Seasonal Spirit was unwarranted.” Her voice hardened as she turned to them. The smile she had for the other Spirits was a bit stiffer and didn’t quite reach her eyes. “This is my time and my place and I will thank you to be GONE!”
The others started to edge backwards and fade slightly, but their retreat wasn’t fast enough to please the Spirit of Autumn. She turned towards the house. “Jack! Come to me! Bring your friends and come!”
The front door swung open of its own accord and from the house came the sound of shuffling steps. First through the door was the bedsheet ghost, wafting along a foot above the ground. Then came three Jack-o-lanterns, rolling through the door, their grins lit up from within. Finally, the scarecrow stepped through the door, the last Jack-o-lantern now placed as a head on top of his body. The Spirit of Autumn gestured to the Seasonal Spirits and the symbols of autumn started towards them. The Seasonal Spirits turned as one and ran, fading away rapidly as they did. The Spirit of Autumn burst into laughter, and after a moment, so did Laney.
The Spirit of Autumn looked at Jack, the pumpkins and the ghost and told them, “Go and set yourselves up where you need to,” and they all arranged themselves decoratively on the porch and in the yard. Then she turned to Laney and said, ” Let’s get you put back together again too, my dear!”
Laney looked at the Spirit of Autumn and replied, ” Thanks – I would appreciate that.” Then she added, “I guess you have an hour, since the others did. Would you like to come in for some tea and pumpkin cookies?”
“Delighted!” came the answer. And that was what they did.
-She Wolf © 2008
