A small cottage sat perched upon a low hill. Meadows and hardwood forest rippled in the breeze all around, brightly lit by the late summer sun. Birdsong filtered through the air.
A young girl burst out of the cottage, breaking a piece of the idyllic landscape. She ran and walked in fits, impatiently restraining herself from flying down the hill. It was time to release autumn, after all.
Her mother followed at a more sedate pace, two jars in hand. One jar was empty, but the other held a curious little figure, seemingly composed of red and orange leaves. At a distance it might look like a leaf bug of some sort.
The girl knew that it was not an exotic leaf bug, of course. It was autumn. The seasonal spirit was all angles and bright colors, with a pair of sparkling blue eyes placed like jewels on its broad face, which it liked to wink at her whenever she admired it. The spirit stood as tall as her mother’s hand, a little taller if one counted the cushion of air it perpetually twirled upon.
Before they could release autumn, however, they had to recall summer. Last year the girl’s mother had taught her the three changing songs; this year, she would finally help use them.
Her mother set down the jars, opening the empty one, and they began the song:
Sweetest summer, though this song would be sweeter,
Had time not passed, and your touch be kept nearer,
Your warmth will be called
And your kindness remembered
In days yet seen, we give thanks to your favor.
Their surroundings stilled. Nothing dared to make a sound as a ray of sunshine began to solidify in front of the pair, morphing into a human-sized apparition of golden light with searing white eyes. Summer slowly blinked at them. Silently, wisps of sunlight drifting off its ethereal head, it nodded, and shrank down to fit in the jar. The mother reverently replaced the lid atop the now occupied container. With a mischievous smile, she handed the little girl autumn's jar.
She couldn't believe it. She was allowed to release autumn! Hurriedly schooling her features into solemn appreciation, the girl opened autumn's jar and raised it to the sky. Autumn flitted out, giving the girl a wink before vanishing. The summer breeze quickly shifted into a brisk one. She felt autumn's presence one last time, the wind tousling her hair and nipping at her cheeks, before it whisked off to change the rest of their land.
The girl smiled. Autumn was always the most playful of the three seasons.
Within a few weeks the autumn harvest was in full swing. The girl and her mother were out picking some of the vegetables when autumn swooped in, gesturing to her mother about disturbances along the perimeter of their lands.
Being only a few years old, the girl was still too young to be able to walk some of the distances required to tend the land, and wouldn't be able to take care of herself should trouble make itself known. A list of chores and a few toys kept her occupied whenever her mother had to visit the perimeter. Today was to be one of those days, evidently.
While she was doing the dishes, the girl spied on what had been tugging at her attention for some time now: a jar secluded on the highest shelf. It sat a few feet above spring, summer, and autumn's jars, and sometimes she could swear she saw something flickering in it; from her low vantage point it was hard to tell.
Curiosity demanded she take a look. While she didn't want to disappoint her mother, her mother had never mentioned anything bad about the jar, and now might be as good a chance as any...
After wavering over it for a few minutes, the girl steeled herself and moved to the counter adjacent the shelves. Slowly, carefully, she pulled herself up onto the countertop. The lowermost shelf hosting the seasons was level with her shaky knees. She still couldn't see or reach the jar, so again she pulled herself up to stand on the shelf above the seasons, breath held in caution. Now facing the wall (and purposefully not looking down) she could barely reach the mystery jar.
Just as the girl was dragging the jar towards her, a surprised shout came from the doorway. With a silent gasp she tipped backwards, glass slipping between her fingers. She landed in her mother's arms accompanied by the sound of the jar shattering on the floorboards.
Ice blasted over them. The girl felt her mother's grip tighten around her as the interior of the cottage was thrown into disarray. Frost crept into every corner, snuffing out the fire with ease. Heavy footsteps shook the structure. The girl and her mother watched as a towering figure of ice and snow turned to look at them, void-like holes in place of eyes studying them for a moment before it whirled away, the wind howling with unprecedented strength.
Panic overwhelmed the girl. What had she done?! Even worse, her mother was struggling to stand, blood running down her back.
Nothing seemed real anymore.
The day passed. Autumn came hopping through the door shivering early next morning, having lost whatever fight it had with the snowy monstrosity. And what a fight it was; the cottage barely weathered the wind and sleet that poured over it through the night, every beam having creaked with strain under the abuse.
The girl sang autumn's recall for the sake of its pride and helped it back into its jar. It calmed them both, but did nothing to solve her most pressing problem: her mother had fallen into a deep, feverish sleep after the girl attempted to treat her wounds. The girl tried everything she could to ease her mother's pain, but nothing was working. Spring and summer indicated no knowledge of how to help with the cold season in effect. Her mother had called it winter before she lost consciousness, and said that it would have to run its course before one of the warmer seasons could be released to grow herbal medicines.
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Things were depressingly over the girl's head. She was out of her depth, inexperienced, not ready, and whatever other phrases she could think of to describe how awful the situation was. Seasons were supposed to last months. The girl was far from being a doctor, but her mother couldn't afford to wait months for help.
She would have to stop winter, and soon.
The girl put on the warmest clothes she could find. Boots, gloves, hat, thick pants, sweater, and a dusty coat of her mother's she found in the closet. It fit like a cape on her, but it would do. A spare jar from one of the upper shelves completed her getup.
There had to be a way to recall winter, or at least talk it down from its current fervor so one of the other seasons could grow medicine.
She stepped out of the door and into a blizzard. The wind alone almost swept her off her feet, and fat snowflakes pelted her face, relentlessly trying to freeze her nose off. She hunkered down in the coat and trudged onward.
Her mother didn't teach her winter's recall, but she knew the spirit could hear her yelling anyways. For fifteen minutes she walked around the cottage, desperate to find winter without losing sight of the structure in the storm, but only a blank sheet of snow answered her.
Soon enough the cold became too much to bear. Defeat weighed on her shoulders heavily as she shook most of the snow off in the doorway. Her face was numb, but hot tears burned their way down her cheeks. It wasn't fair. Why wouldn't winter answer her?
The girl tended to her mother as best she could, making a mediocre soup for them both before curling up in bed with her. Tomorrow might afford her a better chance.
The door loomed over her. The girl was dressed up for another foray into the blizzard, which had not abated at all. Even atop their little hill the snow was piled waist high on her. She probably wouldn't be able to go as far as she did the day before. At least the door opened inwards.
She forged a short path from the door. Not wasting time, the girl opened the jar and sang the first two lines of the recall for winter, hoping it would be enough. None of the vegetables she'd ever been forced to eat tasted as bitter as calling winter sweet.
Again and again she sang, louder and hoarser in the freezing air. Just as she was about to give up for the second time, a mound of snow shifted.
Winter's obsidian eyes appeared before her. Ten feet above her, to be exact. Its favored form was that of a misshapen humanoid giant of ice and snow. Winter gazed down at her unperturbed, expressing no desire to return to a jar but apparently willing to listen to her, if the quieter winds were any indicator.
They stared at each other for a while in silence.
"Please."
Winter remained motionless.
The girl raised the jar higher. "Please."
It turned away.
That was it. The girl had had it. She flung every insult and curse she'd ever heard her mother utter; she was young, but her mother couldn't always clamp down on the incriminating words in time.
Winter froze in shock.
The girl tore her throat apart trying to verbally abuse the snow golem. Her mother was hurt and sick and it was her fault, but the stupid season wouldn't stop for even a day to allow the girl to heal her! She told it as much in far nastier words.
For the most part, the spirit wasn't sure how to handle this, and seemed to be concerned about how to get her to stop. Eventually it quit trying to mutely placate her and made a sharp gesture.
A pile of snow abruptly materialized and dropped on top of the girl, halting her tirade. She squirmed out of it, blinking her eyes clear to see that winter had moved to the cottage door, and was motioning towards it. It wanted... to go inside?
Unsure but willing to entertain this new development, the girl shuffled over and invited it into the cottage. Winter shrunk its snow construct down enough to not be a nuisance before stepping through the door.
The girl watched curiously as winter stood over her mother, who was still bedridden with fever. With a gentleness unbecoming its previous behavior, winter laid a hand on her mother’s forehead, concentrating. She twitched in response.
It was the girl’s turn to be shocked. Was winter trying to help her mother? She supposed that would solve the problem, but what could it possibly do to heal her?
A minute passed. Winter mimed helping to turn her mother over to the girl, and she reluctantly obliged. Again it laid its hand on her mother, quietly performing some kind of arduous task, this time on the injuries it had directly inflicted.
A few more minutes later and winter left the cottage. At the girl’s pestering it promised to tone down the weather and come by the next day to help again.
The girl sat awake in bed late that night, wondering how this all came to pass.
Her mother awoke in the morning. The fever was slowly losing its grip on her and the cuts she’d received from winter’s violent release were healing well.
The girl hugged and apologized to her for a couple minutes before running outside to call winter.
For two more days winter continued its treatment of her mother, and by the end of the second day she was well enough to continue tending the land. Of course, the land was buried under several feet of snow at the moment. She instead explained what winter was and why she’d kept it secret from the girl; namely, she was waiting for the girl to grow old enough to not be as threatened by illness or the rough conditions that came with winter, including the extensive preparations that had to be done during autumn. Even with the help of the autumn spirit it would be difficult for her mother to prepare alone for two people.
The girl accepted the explanation, mostly glad that she’d gotten away with a light scolding for accidentally releasing winter. Her mother had apparently been more concerned with how she’d climbed the shelves...
Regardless, her mother agreed to let the stir-crazy cold season remain until their food stores ran low. In the meantime, she and the girl enjoyed playing in the snow and cuddling beside the fire with steaming mugs of tea at night. Winter built them an impressively sized snow fort as a further apology. The girl had to admit that snowballs were immensely more effective when hurled from the shelter of icy crenellations. She unrepentantly used the fort to wage snowball war against winter whenever it showed itself within range (which it did often, and with great amusement).
All too soon it was time to recall winter. They stood outside, the girl holding an empty jar and her mother holding autumn, and sang:
Sweetest winter, though this song would be sweeter,
Had time not passed, and your touch be kept nearer,
Your peace will be kept
And your silence unbroken
In days yet seen, we give thanks to your favor.
Winter shrank into the jar, simply becoming a smaller version of its snow golem form with a miniature flurry swirling around it.
Autumn was re-released, and within a few days everything went back to normal, only now a fourth far resided on the bottom shelf. Occasionally the girl brought the spirits interesting things she’d found outside so they weren’t too terribly bored from all their napping. Besides, winter needed to keep its wits about it; she’d be sure to catch it by surprise the next time she had access to snowballs.