The Man-Made Summer

Chapter 4: Moswen

People as diverse as the fish in our waters.

"Good morning, Moss Clover." She carries a basket on her arm, many unusually small bottles of remedy in it. "Running out?" Her fine hair is for once, not dirty and down by her sides. It's shining in two twin pigtails. Her glasses hang off of her little button nose and she sports a sweet blue pinifore dress. 

"Yes, actually-" Still bewildered, I gesture to our living room with my arms. "Come in."

She walks past me. I smile at her but she doesn't smile back. Well, one corner of her mouth is perched Up but the other is at the bottom of her chin. Her lips are dropping like the stock market. I close the door. She finds a table and stars taking out bottles, placing them stood up on the wooden surface.

My brother enters from the kitchen with his top off, half a slice of toast in his mouth. Shocked, he drops crumbs from his gob onto the floor. "Penner?"

"June Vanessa." She grumbles in his direction and snaps her head right back to what she was doing.

I can see clearly she feels at least a little bit uncomfortable, so I rip the toast from Weaver's hand. His eyebrows dart downwards like arrows to the underworld and he protests, "Oi!"

"Get your overalls on." I take a bite but realise he's put his awful spread on it rather than what normal humans, such as myself, eat. I wince, and throw it in the dustbin.

"Fine," Weaver begins his ascent upstairs to his bedroom, "But I'm seeing Peppa, again. You just got yourself more field work, ginge." He's gone. Him and Little Miss Muffet won't last long. I take comfort in my  knowledge of this. So long as he doesn't use his breakup period as an excuse to take time off, later.

I go to June and see she's awkwardly hunched over the table, the basket down, nothing in her hands or arms. "I'm so sorry." I stand behind her and touch her forearms, friendlily. I can smell raspberries and old books.

"It's quite alright." She glances up at my eyes and I stare at her's. Comforting grey. She moves away, with a bout of shyness.

"How much do I owe you?" I ask.

Her throat makes the odd, little sound, like a frog's croak. "Uhm, it's fine. I have plenty of money, it's fine." She grabs my shoulders and swings her head around in all directions. She is an owl. Her lips so close to my ear I can smell mint, she whispers, "Just meet me at sunset." I'm taken aback by her choice of location, "Ársa Damsha."

"The Ársa Damsha? The festival?" I stumble.

"Not so loud!" She frustratedly balls up her fists and her face glimmers rose red. The heat in her cools. Her hands spread out into Lilypads, again. "But yes, I want to see you at the Ársa Damsha festival, tonight." She leaves me with one last message, "Blend in." And like that, she's out of the door. A spirit moving onto her next life. Reincarnated with every door down.

I stand for a moment. Utterly insane. "Is she gone yet?" An unmistakable voice says from the stairwell.

"Yes, she is." I exhale loudly and lean against a window. My overalls are itching my legs.

"Good." Weaver states. He begins his perilless quest back to the ground floor of the cottage, his head swinging from side to side like an old man's angry fists shaken at a group of teenagers. He is dressed, now, just missing his wellies which are by the door. I look at him and I hate it. I don't hate him. Well, not entirely. But I hate it. I hate how good his hair his goes without even combing it. I hate the shape of his nose. I hate how puffy his chest is. I hate how he's so older than me, so arrogant in his ways, but still a better man than I could ever know. I hate it like a fire raging from a birth of oil.

"Why the little bottles?" He picks up one of them and looks at it like a seashell in the middle of a far inland highway. He sets it back down.

"Free samples?" I scratch the fabric on my thighs.

All he says is, "Ah, well." He ruffles my hair, "See you soon, little red." And then he's back outside. Out into the lilac dream streets and vibrant chatter that makes it Ahyamoor.

I go outside. The sun beats down. I would be happy but I have this feeling in my gut. I'm down on my knees picking up purple carrots but my mind is occupied with curious Miss Penner and the true nature of every secret she's told me. The secret that the queen is dead and we are the only two people for miles who know about it. My hands are sweaty.

The sun beats down, and it's summer. But the trees are screaming at me. This is no good thing - this is a summer we do not deserve. Marigold will take over and I can feel it already. Ice melting. Steam fogging up the air until we all slowly choke on our own creations. This is the first season of its kind in so many years: this is the man-made summer. It's coming.

When it's starting to get dark, it's clear what I need to do and where I need to go. So I (reluctantly) throw off my dungerees and get changed into more appropriate festival attire. Brown pants, a black undershirt and a beige poncho. I reach as high as I possibly can and drag the reluctant paint cand from the top shelf. I use green and blue to decorate my skin the traditional way. I dip a single finger into each, and create, precise little dots under my eyes and up and down my face and arms. Wellies and all, I'm ready to go.

I think the last time I went to a festival, I was thirteen. My mother, father and older sister, Freya, were still with us. Weaver and I lost the three of them to Maryit Flu, which killed about a third of Ayahmoor's population, in total. That was a long time ago, now though. They're just a distant memory. Maryit occurred when the bacteria we, as a society, had for very long ignored and rejected by artificial yet medicinal means, like antibiotics, evolved. It evolved and it was stronger. The majority of us, however, we're safe. We had a natural resistance to it, it was fairly weak as far as fatal, incurable plagues go. Some of us just weren't so lucky.

It's so much more colourful than I remembered it. The sky, for one, is the same purple shade as the trees. Ahyamoor Market Main Street is even noisier than usual, where folks dressed just like myself enthusiastically bang their drums and sing at the top of their lungs. Every house and building wears bashful and artistic stage make-up. The round, centre place at the end of the avenue is alive and screaming at the top of its lungs. There's a fire burning in every direction my head can turn. Orange, shameless flames. So much colour you can hear the spectrum ringing in yoir ears. Orange. Red. Green. Purple.

It's not hard to find Peppa Nyung. In a red wrapped garment, she eagerly twirls and dances with a very generic-looking male. On further inspection I see that that male is my brother. I ger lost in watching them, looking in at them from the outside. And the truth hits me. Just out of nowhere, like a tsunami, the truth slams down my throat and drowns me half to death. Peppa and her garden-of-flowers, ending-world-hunger smile are real. She's real, albeit mysterious. She has pages unfolded whilst the others have been read so much viewed so much they're falling out of her book. A succubus with hair down to her knees, Peppa is real.

"Thought you'd never come." A soft, weak throat cuts the tracks my train of thought was riding on. I turn around and match it to a face: June Penner. Always changing, never the same. Her hair is up the sane way as it was earlier, but now there is a huge fuscia ribbon going around it. Her dress is a similar shade of pink, all lacey and extravangant, as is her face paint. Dare I say, she looks beautiful?

There's no time for this. There's a royal suicide, which I know about... For some reason.

Her nimble hands are on my wrists, and she's dragging me away, past the screaming crowds and frowning cottages. We're where she took me when she first told me about the queen. I shake a little bit.

"Why are we here, again?" I say.

"Quiet." She says more to herself than me. "We need quiet."

"June." I look straight at her. "Why the festival? I know full well you didn't want to go."

She looks back, intensely. "You're quite right, really. It's my least favourite place on the planet. But your brother was here," she explains half with her words, half with her hands. "And we're going to need him."

"What, why?" I almost stumble backwards.

"Oh," she smiles, "Because I need a ride to Frostbrook."