VELVETEEN vs. Balance
Though she had only been in Spring for a short time, it had already been long enough for Velveteen to learn two simple truths: that everything around her was alive, and that she hungered for that life the way a small child raised on an all-organic, all-nutritious diet yearns for sugar.
Sometimes the wanting of it consumed her, filling her from her head to her toes with the need to reach out and snatch the life from everything around her, stuffing herself until she was too bloated with power to move.
Her fingers itched. She stretched them out and then curled them back against her palms, forming fists that said less about violence than they did about resistance.
She was better than her own instincts. She was a good person, and she was a good hero, and she was not going to give in.
And maybe if she told herself that enough times, she would start believing it, and she would stop thinking of the man—boy—whatever he was in front of her as a three-course meal with an open sundae bar to follow.
Jack floated an easy foot off the ground, one foot pointed toward the earth, the other kicked carelessly back and angled toward the sky.
He was wearing a tunic made entirely of green leaves stitched together with cobwebs, and he would have been remarkably beautiful, if not for the way his features kept flickering, now those of a grown man, now those of a child.
His body changed with them, but Velveteen had learned that it was best to watch his eyes, which were always a pale, cool green, and stayed stable when the rest of him did not.
“I think you could, if you wanted to,” said Jack. “You’re so much stronger than you’re supposed to be. You should have been a dandelion, brief and beautiful, and instead you’re an oak tree, all knots and gnarls and big roots like fingers clutching the ground. Dandelions can fly.”
“Uh, no, dude,” said Velveteen slowly. “Dandelion seeds can fly, because they’re trying to spread themselves and make more dandelions. You know when you get dandelion seeds? When the dandelions are dead.”
Jack’s smile was a storm in summer and a poem to the rain and a whole bunch of other metaphors that occurred to Velveteen in a terrible cascade. Spring was horrifically fond of metaphors. She pressed a hand against her temple, willing her incipient headache to retreat. It did not oblige her.
“There, you see? You’re figuring things out already.
” He did a somersault in midair, flipping gravity the bird for the fifteenth time since the beginning of their conversation.
“Just let me cut your heart out, and you should have no trouble at all getting your feet off the ground, your head in the clouds, and all those other fun things that the kids enjoy these days.”
Velveteen stared at him for a long moment before she took a step backward, feeling the spongy moss reshape itself to cradle her bare feet.
Spring did not believe in shoes. (Most of Spring, anyway.
Lady Moon had, like, a million pairs of boots and stiletto heels and dancing slippers. Which she refused to share.)
“Uh, that’s great,” she said. “Sounds super-fun. So I’m really sorry that I have to go, but I think I hear Persephone calling.” Then she turned, and fled, before Jack—who was sometimes called “Peter,” as in “Pan,” as in “the scary little boy who wouldn’t grow up”—could reach for his knife.
Jack watched her go, smiling lazily. “You’ll come around,” he said. “They always do.” Crowing, he launched himself skyward. It was time for a dance among the clouds. It wouldn’t do to spend too much time being serious.
* * *
Spring is not the most elusive of the Seasonal Lands—that honor is reserved for Summer, which communicates little and manifests even less—but it is still considered terra incognita for most purposes.
Unlike Autumn, which has interacted frequently with the last several decades, even sending two of its spiritual guardians out into what they term “the Calendar Country” to serve as members of The Super Patriots, Inc.
, or Winter, which plays host to Santa Claus and his well-known group of associates, Spring keeps mostly to itself.
Spring is warm, and welcoming, and wild, and mercurial, and cruel.
Spring plays host to Persephone, who fills the role served by Santa Claus in Winter and Scream Queen in Autumn.
Spring rarely recruits from the heroes of the world, or forces itself into the consciousness of humanity. Spring simply…endures.
(It should be noted that while we know who is in charge in Spring, Autumn, and Winter, there is no record of who controls the Summer, or what the system of governance is there.
Spring is controlled by a council. Autumn is a monarchy, and Winter a meritocracy.
Summer is anyone’s guess, as are the identities of the Spirits of the Season who endure there.)
What makes Spring interesting, even for a concrete manifestation of the interaction between the human psyche and the underpinnings of the universe, is the way it changes from interpretation to interpretation.
What one person views as healing and rebirth, another may view as the end of everything.
Spring is often held up as the season of balance, a concept embodied in its patron goddess, Persephone, whose commitment to the concept was the stuff of legends.
Part of being in balance is in accepting that a thing is not for everyone.
That for some people, balance was cruelty, or a lack of commitment.
The avatars of Spring have always been, for the most part, thin idols when compared to Autumn or Winter.
This, too, groups Spring more firmly with Summer.
Some scholars say this is because Spring and Summer, as the kinder, more temperate seasons, have never had as much need for holidays; they are accepted as they are, and do not need to put a pretty face on things.
Others say this is because the things those seasons hold are older, darker, and hence harder to reduce to a greeting card icon.
In the end, it doesn’t matter. The seasons endure as they always have, independent and fundamentally defined by what we think of them.
Spring will do as Spring will do. A tautology, yes, but an essential one, describing the great mystery at the heart of the year—and hence the great mystery at the center of the human experience.
To grow, we have to shrink. To live, we have to acknowledge that we will one day cease to be.
It is a difficult balance to strike for one who is not a goddess of the harvest. For some, it may well prove to be impossible.
* * *
Velveteen found Persephone sitting by a small, mirror-reflective pond, braiding a chain of asphodel flowers.
It was already more than ten feet long, curling into a wide circle around the goddess.
Several of Geb’s geese were roosting nearby, their black legs tucked up under their feathery bodies and their necks twisted around so that their beaks rested against their backs.
None of them were sleeping; they all had their eyes open and fixed on Persephone, watching her with unblinking avian disdain.
“This ‘learn from the avatars of Spring’ routine would work a lot better if you told me what I was supposed to be learning from them,” Velveteen announced, plopping herself down next to Persephone without waiting to be invited. “I’m pretty sure Jack just told me to kill myself.”
“If he did that, he wasn’t Jack,” said Persephone.
“Only Peter advocates suicide as a learning experience, because Peter doesn’t really understand what it means to die.
Jack understands. Jack has died and been reborn more times than there are stars in the sky, and as a consequence, Jack never tells anyone that they should die for wisdom.
He assumes someone will come along and slit your throat when you least expect it.
Pass me another flower, won’t you, dear? ”
“That sort of brings me to my next question: if I’m not willing to die for the sake of learning whatever it is Jack-sometimes-Peter wants to teach me, is he going to murder me?
To death, I mean? Because I’m still alive, which means I can be killed.
” Velveteen dutifully handed Persephone an asphodel flower.
“It’s highly unlikely,” said Persephone. “He’s much more inclined to be disappointed in you, but let you make your own decisions. Peter has very poor impulse control, so you’re right to worry about him. Jack is still in control, most of the time, and gets the deciding vote on things like murder.”
“There is so much wrong with that statement that I don’t even know where to begin.” Velveteen leaned back on her hands, looking flatly at Persephone. “What am I even doing?”
“At the moment? Sucking all the life out of the grass.” Persephone looked pointedly at Velveteen’s hands. The grass around them was turning brown and drying up, withering like it had never been watered. “Have you eaten?”
Velveteen yelped, snatching her hands away from the ground like it had suddenly become hot to the touch. “Oh my God oh fuck oh my God I am so sorry I didn’t do that on purpose you know I didn’t do it on purpose I didn’t—”
“Velveteen. Breathe.” Persephone put her flower chain down before leaning over and clasping Velveteen’s hands firmly in her own. “You’ve been starving yourself again. You know you can’t do that. You have to eat.”
Persephone’s skin was soft and warm and barely thick enough to contain the hot wellspring of life at her core. She pulsed under Velveteen’s hands. It was like clasping a sun, and promised to be twice as nourishing, if she would just reach out and take what she needed…