This isn't weird.

A Petal on the Summer Breeze

Chapter One

In Which We Suspend Our Disbelief (and Briefly, Perhaps, Regret It)

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Summer was a myth to all but its inhabitants. This should come as no surprise. The nebulous distinction between improbable and impossible rarely merits the consideration of ordinary folk, who find the latter to be a simpler and far more comforting concept, and in terms of improbability, Summer was without equal.

Summer was not the true name of the village; its ancestral name had been lost generations ago, buried with the dead of a century similarly unremembered. A town so remote had no need of a name. It had no cause to distinguish itself from any other place; the farms and livestock there flourished, and its people wanted for nothing that the outside world could offer. The moniker had been assigned by outsiders, for Summer was not without visitors. By their very nature, impossible places cannot fail to inspire adventure in the hearts of curious men, and although it was on no map, Summer was often sought, sometimes found, and rarely left.

To those born and raised in Summer, impossibility was assigned to the exact inverse. It was autumn, winter, and spring that were dismissed as the stuff of legend, quaint little inventions that existed only in bedtime stories and fanciful ballads from times long forgotten. Oaks that shed blood-red leaves and lakes that solidified into glass so thick that a grown man might glide across without sinking a single inch made for amusing nursery rhymes, but what sort of fool could entertain such wild notions as anything but fantasy?

More peculiar even than the constancy of the climate was the inexplicable phenomenon that maintained this fierce certainty; anyone who lingered in Summer long enough was bound to adopt this same disbelief. Guests might stumble into town spouting preposterous proclamations that not fifty miles to the east or west, the rains had transfigured into powdery flakes that blanketed the hillsides like the ashes of a thousand hearths, but invariably, these claims would be recanted. Even migrants hailing from the iciest of regions would come to distrust their own memories of having borne witness to such absurdities, and in due time, reject them entirely. Perhaps such retractions were mere pretense, concessions made to better assimilate with the locals, for none who maintained such obvious delusions could ever be welcomed to live out their days in the warmth of this little oasis. Or perhaps there was some strange magic in the sultry breezes and hazy golden sunsets that cleansed the memory of all else.

Regardless, we must suspend our disbelief and accept the truth of this i̶m̶p̶o̶s̶s̶i̶b̶l̶e̶  improbable setting, for there our tale will start, and there too it will end, though there is much to be seen in the interim.

Our story begins with a girl, but if we are to understand her fully, we must start before the beginning. Instead, we meet first a man. We shall give him no name, for we will soon find him undeserving of one. He was not a good man, and none who encountered him was ever the better for it. He was kind only when it served him, and cruel when it did not. He was not clever, though he believed himself exceptionally so, and carried himself as such. He was not generous, but that was just as well, for neither was he industrious, and thus he had naught to give. If any dregs of love did indeed fester in his gnarled black heart, he reserved them only for himself. But he was handsome by any measure, and charming when he chose to be so, and it was these qualities that allowed him to spread his poisonous roots in the fertile soil of Summer.

He staggered into town quite by accident, a fugitive who had narrowly escaped the gallows of a city to the distant north. Though he had slipped through the clutches of the hangman, death was still close at his heels, for the winter was bleak and bitter and growing more so with each passing day, and he hadn't the skills to survive its ravages in the wilderness through which he wandered. His stolen horse, which he had treated without compassion and proper care, had collapsed of exhaustion and died on the spot some two days prior, and having failed to secure the pack containing his only flint and the last of his rations, it had been lost to the icy depths of a river as he crossed over a fallen log. There seemed little hope he would make it through another night's frost when he suddenly spied on the horizon an astonishing shock of verdancy. It seemed to him evidence of his own impending demise, for surely such a vision could only be the desperate hallucination of a dying man. Nevertheless, he followed the apparition, and by dusk he stood with one foot in the snow and the other in a patch of thriving clover. On one side, the air was deadly cold; on the other, it was balmy as a summer night, for he had indeed chanced upon exactly that.

The man resolved not to question this miracle, and discarded his coat with nary a thought for the future. For three days, he made a leisurely trek through lush forests, feasting on the ripe fruits that hung free for the taking from the trees, napping in the soft foliage of sunny clearings, and bathing in the temperate waters of the crystalline streams that flowed gently between the hills. When stone walls and thatched roofs appeared in the distance, he marveled again at his luck, for there he would no doubt find comfortable lodging, drink, and women.

The travelers who preceded him had always been magnanimous, and so upon his arrival, the man was presumed to be of similarly benevolent disposition. The people of Summer happily offered to him their hospitality, and were charmed by his fair features and pleasant manner. They had no cause for suspicion when he regaled them with tales of adventure and exploration that painted him as a daring and selfless hero, ever in search of his next good deed. His thrilling falsehoods were received without dubiety, and he was showered with laudations by all who came to listen. Had the good people of Summer known the truth of his character, that he was given to drunkenness, thievery, and all manner of wrongdoing, he would have been driven swiftly from their midsts much as he had been driven from every other community that had borne the misfortune of his visitation, but by the time the man's criminal nature was revealed, he had already lured into his bed a beautiful wisp of girl by the name of Peony, and though her young body was scarcely on the cusp of womanhood, the unfortunate lass was shortly thereafter discovered to be with child.

(Let us clarify that this girl is not our girl, nor will be the first daughter she bore him. Have patience, friend; our story has not yet begun.)

This in itself would not have sufficed to persuade the townspeople to tolerate the man to stay amongst them, but regrettably, the foolish girl adored him, and held fast to the naive idea that her love would someday cure him of his moral defects. In turn, the townsfolk adored the girl, and so, despite the lamentations of all in attendance, the two were allowed to marry. Still, few could abide the man's presence, so he and his young bride were relegated to live a meager life on the outskirts of town, where Peony was isolated from all who loved her until they loved her no more.

Theirs was an unhappy union, and Peony suffered greatly at his hands, for his brutality proved harsher than anyone outside their wretched home would ever know. Their children suffered, too, and they had many—all daughters, much to his dissatisfaction. As you have likely surmised, the man could not, or would not, provide for his family in any form or fashion. It fell to Peony to plant, tend and harvest the vegetables, care for the chickens and goats that were her dowry, bake the bread, stew the meat, sew and mend their garments; she labored over every last task that made possible their subsistence, all while she struggled alone to rear their children, for her wayward husband was most often gone, disappearing for days or weeks on end, purportedly in search of some elusive fortune that he swore would soon sustain them. Whatever small fortunes the man did manage to procure on his travels were gone long before his dependents would see him again, squandered on liquor and whores and cards, and he would return every time sullen and empty-handed. He would remain for a spell to enjoy the servitude of his timid wife and perhaps force another child into her womb, visiting acts of barbarous cruelty upon her and his helpless progeny until his hunger for violence was satiated and his sense of power refreshed. Thus satisfied, he would be off again.

Only in his absence did his family know peace, but still, Peony pined for him, soothing her despair with memories of the fleeting days in which he had so sweetly wooed her with flattery and gentle words. Ever unwavering in her devotion, she clung in vain to the false hope that in time he would soften, if only she could please him, obey him, give to him a son.

On the night their youngest was born, the man was nowhere to be found, but she had her daughters to hold her and stroke her hair, reciting half-remembered prayers until at long last, the babe was in her arms, healthy, whole, and wailing. Blood pooled on the floor beneath Peony, soaking through the skirts of the children kneeling by her side as she held the infant close to her bosom and wept with disappointment that was not her own. She had time enough to nurse the infant only once, and whisper to her eldest daughter the name she had chosen. She called her Camellia.

Our story begins with a girl...