Week 16

 October 20

Zahina likes her cliffhangers. We had to wait until today to find out what was in the caves, and we have to wait until tomorrow to find out the fate of Jessamyn and Elisabeth who wandered far ahead of the group, today. The first cave we came to was full of candy, and it opened up into a cave full of spelunking gear. We all got suited up (included J and E) and went exploring. We were all supposed to stay together, because exploring is safer in groups, but the other two went too far ahead and the rest of us heard a scream, followed by a splash, and another scream that went on and on and on. To be continued…

I forgot that I’d told Zahina that her mother died in a cave, and was spooked by the way the story was going. “What did the cave look like?” Zahina asked. 

“Um. I don’t know, I said. I was staring at the twin dolls, trying to make them invisible to my mind, like Zahina seemed to be able to. “Wasn’t it full of candy.”

“No,” Zahina said. “The one you and my mom used to go to. Where she died. Was it pretty?”

It took me a moment to drag myself back to that moment in the cave. I started shaking, and had to go farther back in my memory, before Danae fell. “It’s beautiful,” I said. “It has grass that grows up the walls the ceilings. There are flowers there, but not bushes, just lone daisies that sprout up here and there. There are jewels that poke up out of the grass at odd intervals. They reflect the light from outside so that the cave is lit up. That’s how the grass is able to grow on the ceiling,” I said. “The sun smiles on the ceiling as well as the floor.”

Zahina was quiet for a long time. I’d resumed staring at the dolls. The bossy giraffe was glaring at me, as if she were condemning me for either being negligent toward Danae or for telling Zahina the truth. I know that adults rarely tell kids the truth -- this is the case in both Winter and Summer. In Spring, the adults are slightly too reckless with the truth. Autumn has a nice balance, I think. At least, from what I’ve studied. When Zahina spoke, I jumped, having almost forgotten where I was.

“Can I go there?”

I blinked at her. “You want to?” I didn’t know what else to say.

She nodded, solemnly. “Do you still go there?” she asked.

I flushed. “Yes.” I felt guilty, admitting that I still enjoyed being there, despite what happened to Danae. But there’s something about the place that is almost preternaturally calming.

“She’s not still there, is she?”

I stared at Zahina, trying to focus. My mind was blurry with guilt and anxiety. “No,” I heard myself say. “Only in spirit.”

Zahina seemed to accept that, and I pondered the thought as well. I don’t think of myself as overly spiritual. I go to worship service and I pay my taxes but I don’t think about the Creator that much. I guess I don’t know what role She has in my life. So I don’t think much about spirits or what happens after you die, even after someone dies. I guess it just doesn’t concern me. I have no control over it, so I just block out the whole idea and focus on things I can control.

I definitely saw Hon today. He was just a flash; a face with averted eyes. I was still operating under the same fog that had crept over me earlier in the day, so again, I don’t know where I was when I saw him, but I’m certain that I did. I wonder if he’s coming with us to Winter. If he does, he’ll be much easier to spot. Even if he wears Winter clothes, and assumes the posture, there’s an element to Winterians that Summerians just don’t have, and vice versa. Even my mother, upon retrospect, always seemed a little different, a little out of place. I’ll look for that in Winter, and I’ll find Hon. It’s possible that he won’t come, for exactly that reason, but I judge him as being arrogant enough to believe he can pull it off. When I see him, I don’t react. I’m very good at not reacting. It’s probably the only Winter trait that I can really pull off, believably, without a lot of effort.

Karen wants a job. Like, a real job. We’re thinking of setting her up in the library. “We” is my husband and myself. I had a chance to talk to him about it, sotto voce, during a break in court. He thinks that her loudness and impatience will not serve her well there, but I assured him that there is much more to Karen than that. Actually, when Karen feels safe, she’s quite charming and sensible -- it’s only when she feels threatened that she gets loud.

Samson met with a few of our clients today. He is amazing. I don’t know how he comes up with these sketches so fast. Speed, combined with his cultivated charm are impossibly powerful tools in his professional arsenal. I find it difficult to believe that he never worked for a firm before -- he’s so natural and easy about the whole process. He’s also good at taking charge of the meetings, whilst seeming to defer to me the entire time. I don’t know why it’s so important to him to give me the credit. Maybe he’s dealing with some arrogance issues. I remember this one time, when I was still new here, that Samson got into a fistfight with another courtier, over a woman. Both men coveted her, and she liked them both equally.

This was the first case I was allowed to preside over. I told the woman that she was allowed to date as much as she wanted to but she was prohibited from marrying for three years. The girl was only eighteen, but some girls marry young in Summer. The girl was humiliated and furious, but what could she do? My husband backed up my ruling. Last I heard, she’d enrolled in college, to help pass the time. Who knows -- maybe she’ll grow a brain while she’s there and realize that there’s more to life than finding your “one true love” of the moment. It’s funny, now that I remember back; Samson looked quite smug over the verdict, whilst the other man looked furious. Then again, the girl was very wealthy as well as incredibly vapid. He must have thought he’d hit the jackpot.

October 21

This morning I woke up to Zahina scratching at my door. Eliava was with her. “What, are you nuts?” I asked.  “You’re going to get me killed! What are you doing here?” I ushered them inside, and tried to stop myself from having a heart attack. 

“We came to file court papers, and then we got lost on our way out,” Eliava said, calmly. She set her briefcase down next to the door. “Now be nice, or some of us will get the idea that you don’t want us here.”

I glanced at Zahina, then back at Eliava. “I DON’T want you here! What were you thinking?” I was furious. “I’m happy to help, and I’m glad that I can keep you and the little girl from being homeless and all, but I don’t expect you to take advantage of the situation to my detriment. I don’t OWE you anything, so you can take that tone of entitlement right out of your tone.” I hate getting angry because when I yell, forget to breathe, and then I get the hiccups. My body jolted with the force of a huge hiccup, and I turned away from them, taking in long, deep breaths. When I was calm, I turned back.

Zahina was staring at me. She wasn’t horrified, or even hurt, she was fascinated. I was so tired when I went to be last night that I left all of my make-up on, all of my piercings in. I took out my blue contacts, but my robe is one of those Adora specials that feel like Summer but look like Winter.

“I wouldn’t have come if it wasn’t absolutely necessary,” Eliava said, calmly.

“What’s so important? I was going to come to your apartment today, anyway.”

Eliava frowned. “You were? I thought you were leaving today.” She looked embarrassed. “I’m sorry. I must have gotten the days confused.” She shook her head. “Anyway, you can’t go to Winter.”

“Why not?”

“Our court date is the twenty-third. You won’t be here, and no one will show up to stand for Danae.” Eliava seemed flustered. “I just realized when I came to file the papers.”

I pulled my lips in and bit down. It took me a minute to fight down the irritation. Fortunately, there was amusement mixed in, or it would have been impossible. I watched Zahina climb onto my bed and turned to Eliava. “My husband is coming with me to Winter,” I said. “He won’t be here to preside over the case. All of the dockets have been moved to the week after we get back.”

I watched relief flood Eliava’s face, and then embarrassment. Then accusation crossed her features, and I forestalled her with a raised hand. “We got a notice in the mail about the switch, and you and I talked about it when it came.”

Eliava let out a huge breath. “Oh.” She touched her forehead. “I knew that and forgot. I was looking at the papers and got the twenty-third stuck in my head and then I panicked.” She looked around. “I’m sorry.”

“You can’t jump on this,” Zahina said. 

Eliava and I both looked over at Zahina. She was trying to bounce on the hard surface. Mutual amusement abated my annoyance and Eliava’s embarrassment. We grinned at each other. I laughed, approaching the bed. “That’s because it’s made out of marble.”

She flopped down, spreading her arms and flexing her legs, trying to get comfortable. “Ow. How do you sleep on this?”

“Very carefully,” I said.

Eliava laughed, and I sent her a rueful glance. Zahina clamber to her feet and walked over to me. With the added height from the bed, she was actually taller than me. She looked down, and reached out to touch the piece of metal that wraps around my left eyebrow. She studied it for a moment, then looked at my face. “You look different,” she said.

I sighed. I know that to Summerians I’m quite hideous in my Winter garb, which is one reason I can get away with pretending to be Danae.

“It’s not pretty, but I like it,” she said. “Can I get one of these?” she asked, stroking the piercing. 

I laughed, and Eliava gave out a stern “No,” before she really had a chance to think.

Zahina looked disappointed, but she dropped her hand, and contemplated how to get down. Being a kid, the stairs were too easy, but I could see that the drop looks a lot steeper than the climb had. I remembered being stuck on the top of that spaceship. She held out her arms, and I took hold under her armpits and swung her down to the floor.

“I’m really sorry,” Eliava said, again, before the door swung open. If anyone, at this hour, it should have been Adora, but of course it was Staejha. 

I stifled an annoyed sigh. She hadn’t spoken to me for a week, and now she was dropping in, unexpectedly, again. She gave the gathering a suspicious look, but didn’t say anything. “I’m sorry if I’m interrupting,” she said.

“You’re not,” I said. “You’ve just stumbled on the lost tourists who have stumbled upon me.”

“I’m surprised security is so lax,” she said.

“So am I,” I answered, frowning. How had Eliava gotten past security? If those guards just let anyone though, just about anyone could kill me while I’m sleeping. I could see the same thought pass through Staejha’s mind, and regretted making an enemy of her. I resolved to find out what was going on, and to make certain that I wouldn’t get any more unexpected early morning visitors, cousin or not.

“We just came to file some papers,” Eliava said, “and then got lost, looking for a bathroom, and then we got directions from the nice guard. On the way back, we took a wrong turn, but the guard was gone, so he couldn’t tell us we were going in the wrong direction. I finally got so nervous about being in the wrong corridor that I just knocked on the nearest door.” She shrugged, and held out her hand to Zahina, who was staring at Staejha with the same curiosity that she shown at my guise.

“What’s that?” she asked, pointing at Staejha’s tattoo.

“It’s a fish,” Staejha answered, showing a delicate ankle. “It’s called a piranha. It’s the Winterian symbol for power.” The piranha was done in cool blue tones, surrounded by ice crystals.

“It’s pretty,” Zahina said. “I like the colors.”

“Thank you, Summer child,” Staejha responded, half charmed, half condescendingly.

October 22 

I forget how claustrophobic it can be to fly through space. There’s this vast universe of stars that go on for an eternity -- but you can reach any of them. If you were to step outside the ship, you’d die, just trying to breathe. So it’s not that space is so vast that it makes you feel like you’re trapped in this one small space -- it’s the barrier between you and that vastness, that one tiny ship in the midst of all of it. There’s something about being on a ship that makes you very aware of this; these kinds of thought rarely occur to me when I’m on a planet, and when they do occur, they are not nearly as overwhelming.

Anyway, we had a little stowaway. I made the mistake of telling Zahina how I used to stowaway on ships when I was a kid, and she found some of my techniques helpful. I had her call Eliava with the news, because there was no way for the queen of Winter to know Danae’s daughter’s home phone number. So Zahina got her wish. Honestly, if Winter weren’t such an independent society, I might be more annoyed, but mostly I’m just proud of her willingness to take chances and explore. There’s a joy in doing that, which her mother lost at some point and I’m glad that Zahina, even in the midst of her grief, still has that spirit.

Karen seems to be thrilled to be going home. I think she viewed being sent to Summer as a punishment for not fitting in at home -- Ceci too, seems to be thrilled to be visiting home. Staejha just didn’t want to be left behind, which is what her early morning visit was about, yesterday. So all of the Winterians who moved to Summer are all going back to Winter, and taking Summerians with them. This has not gone over well, but since my husband has kept the lines of communication open between him and the rest of the planet, so far there has been no uproar. If some small but psychotic group of Winterians decided to kill my husband, though, we will go to war with Summer, so security is extra tight. 

It’s actually ironic that Zahina was able to sneak on board. Historically, children have been used as weapons of warfare, so the fact that she snuck on board, masquerading as a random kid in one of the families on board, is not a good thing. I’ve had a talk with them both about today and yesterday, when Zahina got past the guards to get to my room. I had security check to make certain that everyone on board is accounted for; I even had them check out the six-month-old baby, to make sure it wasn’t a robot-bomb. (It wasn’t.)

My husband seems to be looking forward to seeing Winter in person. Of course, we have photos and such available, but it is unexplored territory. One thing that my husband is known for, is the fact that he has visited and explored as much of Summer as he has been able to. He’s known for his spirit of exploration -- he’s even been to Autumn and Spring several times. He attended a full year of university in Autumn, and used to go to Spring for the breaks between the semesters. So, the idea of him being off-planet is not revolutionary, although his current destination, is.

Staejha was slightly suspicious that the little girl who broke into my room yesterday was the same little girl who stowed away, but since she’s not that invested in my well-being, she didn’t make a bit thing out of it. I, on the other hand, have made certain to have my queenly persona make a pet of Zahina, so that I can keep her with me, without suspicion. Adora, of course, knew (knows) her mother, so she’s perfectly natural with the girl. 

Zahina, for her part, doesn’t seem to think of the ship as claustrophobic, busy as she is running between all of the families with kids. She didn’t bring any of her toys with her, but she has a fantastic imagination and has been able to capture the attention of pretty much every kid between 2 and twelve. This is a good thing, because here, she is not the girl who just lost her mother and can’t tell anyone -- she’s not seeing the same faces every day, minus one. These are all new faces, and they are very distracting.

Back in the olden days, space travel was so slow that it would take years to visit the moon, let alone another planet. Now, of course there is no moon left, it went out of orbit when the planet was divided, but the point is that it only took us a day, what it would have taken years to do, before. It’s kind of amazing that way. Also, there’s this hokey old movie, “Apollo 13” in which it takes twenty minutes for someone in space to communicate with someone on Earth. It’s pretty famous, just because the idea of waiting that long is so laughable. There are lots of ancient science fiction stories about the rate of aging slowing once a body is removed from the gravity of the Earth, so that folks on Earth would grow old and die whilst the person in space would remain the same age. There is something to that. Some of the earliest pirates in space initially ventured out, in order to stop themselves from aging. 

In effect, vanity was behind these people wanting to be in space. Which is really funny, because the people that they would run into were the same age as they were. They initially became pirates because they wanted to stay in space longer, and had run out of supplies. That was in the olden days, too, though not as old as the twentieth century, when that movie was made. Now ships are completely self-reliant. We make our own food and fuel, recycle our own waste, and are able to make any kind of tool or ship part -- all on the ship. The kind of pirates we have today are not vain people attacking other vain people, the result of which is that the losing ship has to go home and start aging again -- we have much nastier pirates, but fortunately, we about half of the people traveling on this ship are military, so the possibility of us getting attacked is pretty nigh impossible.

October 23

Oh man, it’s weird to be home. Just being on the ship was a nice intro to home, being as the entire thing is made out of fortified ice. But stepping out of the ship into the crisp Winter air was oddly like putting on a comfy old pair of pajamas. There is nothing like the warmth you feel in a full-body suit when your face is being blasted by an icy wind. There is no comparison to the freedom of sensation when you don’t walk, you glide. 

Even in Summer, the movies depicting Winterians (villainous, always) is the way the glide – it’s predatory and unnaturally graceful. The best Summer filmmakers design their camera angles to capture this movement, although most Summer actors are not equipped to pull off the ferocity needed to play their part. A lot of Summer’s more profitable movies featuring Winterian villains come off as cartoonish and laughable to Winterians. There are a few Summer actors, and even fewer Springians who can play a believable Winterian. Autumnians tend to be able to pull it off better, and usually with multi-dimensional characters, albeit still rather villainous most of the time. Which is fine, because it increases the terror that every other planet feels toward Winter’s inhabitants. 

Anyway, it is good to be home. It’s a little odd, though. I find myself missing my marble bed, and wondering why I have to wear so many clothes. I got accustomed to being practically naked in Summer, and have forgotten how restrictive Winter garments can be. However, I am wearing Adora’s creations, so I look almost Summery. Every building is made out of ice, and the way that the sun glints off of and through every surface reminds me of how bright it is here. I remembered that the reason most Winterians wear those thick blue contacts because they are protecting their eyes, as well as maintaining a fierce façade. We’ve had to give our visitors wrap-around sunglasses, which gives them an alien appearance. I wonder if they’ll make the connection between the sunglasses and our contacts. 

If Zahina gasps any more, she will not have breath enough to draw in yet another gasp. It’s kind of nice to get a real reaction to Winter – not only have the adults seen more depictions of Winter than she has, but they also have to maintain a façade of respectful of indifference. Actually, seeing Zahina’s reaction, along with my prolonged absence, reminds me of the glorious beauty we have here. “That’s my mother’s building!” Zahina exclaimed, as we skated from the ship hangar to the palace. It was true, I’d forgotten that Danae had designed some important buildings in Winter. Her plans had to be modified because the construction materials are so different here, and also so that Summerians would not have exact plans of any of our buildings, but the courthouse at the palace was designs almost entirely by Danae.

“You are Danae (Lastname’s) daughter,” I asked, giving her a glance to remind her not to be too familiar with me. 

“Yes.”  She grinned, playing along.

Staejha had drawn even with us for a moment. “Danae (Lastname) is your mother? She has designed many important buildings here in Winter.” She observed Zahina coolly for a moment, before searching my countenance. “Interesting…” she muttered, before falling behind. I’d have felt more comfortable if she’d skated ahead, but she was not publicly arrogant enough to try to outskate the queen. Besides, she knew from childhood experience that I could skate circles around her. The road had been cleared of snow and cars for us, but there were no citizens lining the streets, like in the olden days. No doubt millions of people were watching us through a streaming computer connection, but in Winter, we do not show public worship for majestic figures. The king and queen here are only public servants, and Winterians make certain that is a fact never forgotten.

Visiting dignitaries like the king and queen of Summer would be of even less consequence – if we weren’t currently at an incredibly restive truce at the moment. Of course, there might have been assassins lurking alongside the road if we weren’t on royal grounds – as it was, there were enough nearly invisible Winter guards to man a fleet of spaceships.  I was in front, flanked by Adora and Zahina. Staejha, Ceci, Karen, Jhea, and Samson skated behind me. Behind them were my husband and his mother, behind which were two of his advisors. Behind them, in cars, were the rest of the crew we’d brought with us. 

I’d taught Zahina to skate, back home, at a skating rink, and Adora had practiced on a small pond that I’d had frozen in the castle grounds. My husband and his advisors had also practiced on the pond. I wished I could see how they were doing. If they did well, they’d earn the respect of the multitude who was watching via satellite. If any of them stumbled or fell, particularly the king, they would lose all respect from Winterians. The two advisors with my husband were not his most important ones; rather he chose two of his more dexterous advisors for this journey. For the rest of the stay, these two advisors would have an exalted status, and maybe even when they got back home.

We let the others travel in carriages in order to avoid any embarrassment their lack of athleticism would cause. They all traveled in old-fashioned, I mean, sixteenth [check] century carriages made entirely of ice, exposed to the cold Winter air, although the bubble around the hovercraft made certain that none of the inhabitants either felt the air, or fell out into the air.

Zahina was fun to watch, with her youthful enthusiasm and loud exclamations, however Adora was almost more entertaining. She skated to my left with graceful athleticism. With the road entirely clear of bumps, she didn’t have to concentrate as much as she would have. I caught her staring at the crystal roses which lined the side of the road, entranced by the prisms reflected off of nearly every surface. Most people think of Winter as icy blue. But Winter is a land of rainbows – something we play down in our own Cinemas, and which almost never gets picked up by Summer, Spring, or Autumn filmmakers. It is quite impressive, however, if one has never experienced it before. The sunglasses, and our contacts are all designed so that the light doesn’t blind, but the beauty is clear. 

October 24

It is really, really odd to meet the king and queen of Winter, a country I’ve lived in all my life, as the queen of Summer, a planet on which I’ve lived for less than half a year. What’s even weirder, is that the last time I was here, I was a commoner, and now I’m royalty. Of a different planet. It’s just mind-boggling. I’m not sure what to do with that. Yesterday, we all made it to the palace without anyone landing face first. The king and queen were even scarier than I remember, after months of looking at perpetually friendly Summer faces. Now, Summerians can be just as cruel as Winterians, however, their countenances are just as deceptively sweet as the Winterian appearances are deceptively evil. Still, it was a shock to land in the courtyard of my king and queen, and find them scowling at me. In Summer, you only frown if someone has been naughty and I was automatically ashamed of myself before I remembered not to take it personally.

The formalities seemed to take forever. My husband sized up my king, the queen looked me up and down and didn’t seem particularly pleased with what she saw. It wasn’t until today that I got a moment alone with her. “My dear,” she said, though she’s a year younger than me. “You have changed shockingly over the past several months.” She grinned. “You needn’t look surprised. You were handpicked by myself, my husband, and a few select politicians.”

It made sense, but I hadn’t really thought about the process of being picked. I can be slightly shortsighted when there’s a lot going on. At the moment, I wasn’t able to refrain from a dry, “My mother one of them, no doubt.”

The queen smirked. In Winter, we don’t laugh when we think something is funny. Laughter is loud and unruly. We only laugh to mock people. I still haven’t gotten accustomed to hearing people laugh constantly in Summer. I always think they’re laughing at me. In Winter, we show amusement by smirking; tapping the longest fingernail of the left hand against the nearest hard surface. In this case, three taps against the armrest of her throne indicated a moderate amount of amusement. 

“Indeed,” was all she said.

I sighed inwardly. Our queen is short, plump for a Winterian, and fair -- er, blonde, just so that there’s no confusion in the meaning of the word. She is known for being vicious and petulant (which is even more frightening) and she is rumored to be one of the few living Winterians who actually has unsatisfactory servants disemboweled in front of her. I looked at her, without the coloring of expectation, and tried to see past her veneer and reputation.

“Ah,” she said. Her eyes were amused and her longest fingernail tap-tap-tap-tap-tapped against her armrest. “There is the queen I have been waiting. To see.”

“What?” I was beyond confused. Her tapping got faster, as she watched me. When I stood there dumbly, she sighed. She stood on one quick motion; the silence after all that tapping was disconcerting. She took a couple of steps toward me, before plopping down on one of the steps to the dais. I stood there with my mouth open, then shut it quickly and looked around. She’d specifically requested no servants, and indeed we were alone. “What if there’s a feed?” I asked, a hint of panic in my voice.

She patted the step beside her. “You think I don’t know when I’m alone?” She sighed again, as though the first one weren’t shocking enough. She gave me a stern look and pointed to the step she sat on. I climbed up a bit, and stopped a few steps lower than her, and sat, gingerly. “Up here,” she said sternly. “And don’t make me ask again.” I stumbled up the steps and landed next to. She looked at me a moment, propped her elbows onto her knees, and rested her head in her hands. 

I felt the burn of humiliation climb up the back of my neck, into my ears as the queen moaned into her hands. Finally, I’d had enough. If we were both queens, then I shouldn’t be so shy, and she shouldn’t be so rude. “Knock it off,” I snapped.

She pulled her face out of her hands and swung her gaze over to mine. “Finally!” she shouted, throwing up her hands. “Honestly, how did you survive as queen for so many months, with that kind of attitude?”

I scowled at her. “I did fine, thank you very much. And it’s not like I ever met the queen of my country before.”

She scrutinized me. “Hm.” She faced forward and closed her eyes for a moment, tilting her head back. Then her eyes flew open, and she snapped her head toward me. I stayed still, ignoring the sense of personal space being invaded. “Okay,” she said, finally. She stood abruptly and held out a hand to me. “I’m going to give you a few simple lessons in how to be a queen.” She shook her head. “It’s not like you can get advice from many other people, after all, we are in a very unique position.” At this her eyes were kind, and oddly reminiscent for such a young woman. “The queen of Spring helped me. I’m going to help you.”

I raised my brows at this, not certain if I were more surprised that the queen of that flighty little planet could be of help or that the my queen was offering to help. I stood, awkwardly, not knowing what to do with my body. Finally I settled on the Winter queen posture of meeting my fingernail tips and resting my hands at my waist. But I added a real smirk, a Summer smirk to my lips, and challenged her with my eyes.

She laughed for real, with her eyes and mouth, and it wasn’t that grating titter that Winterians use to humiliate. It was a real laugh, and when she stopped, she smiled at me. “Good.” she said. “You’re a natural.”

The first thing, she told me, is that I am not a Winterian, anymore. If I’m going to be the queen of Summer, then I have to think of myself as a Summerian. I argued that if I did that, I may not do things the same way as if I had the interests of Winter at heart. She said that a good ruler has every planet or country or city at heart. A good ruler thinks of everyone, not just their own people. She said that if I always think of what is good for the worlds, then I will be successful in keeping Winter safe, as well as Summer.

Secondly, she said, never, ever, ever, ever, ever, enter a room the way I did yesterday. Ceremonies between diplomats, is a dance. It’s a getting-to-know-you ritual. You can get a very good idea of how a person rules by watching how they participate in the ritual. “You,” she said, “have little interest in the affairs of Summer. You go to court, and preside as you’re supposed to, but you’re not involved.” I blinked at her, stupidly wondering how my behavior to that point could have told her that. I briefly wondered if she had spies, but she continued speaking. “Yesterday, you came in, looked around at the building, and practically fell asleep during the ceremony.” 

“There are a million details you could have noticed about everyone you met yesterday, and you could have picked up on the silent messages your crew was sending ours.” She paused and looked at me sternly. “Tell me what you remember about yesterday’s service.”

I thought, and all I could remember was the fantastic chandelier -- crystal roses raining toward us -- the thing took up nearly the entire ceiling. At my blank look, the queen gave another sigh. She held up a hand as I opened my mouth, not even clear on how to defend my self. 

“It’s okay,” she said. “I’m going to teach you.” She snorted, and turned away, shaking her head. “It’s a good thing you came now, although,” she turned back and appraised me. “It’s our fault, really. We should have done this before you left.” She shrugged. “There was just no time.”

October 25

I was partly glad and partly disappointed that I didn’t get another session with Queen Seraphine, today. I know we’re in Winter and everything, but the woman is slightly intense. We’re pretty free from ceremonies until a week from today in which we have the parting ceremony. I’ll have to practice some of the things Seraphine pointed out to me. I guess I never realized that my lack of interest in governing, showed. It’s kind of embarrassing to think that every time I met a diplomat, they dismissed me as disinterested. I don’t like being read, so I try to convince myself that my Winterness masked most of it.

So I spent the day with Zaphina rather than being lectured, showing her all of my old haunts. We visited all of my favorite frozen ponds -- I never realized until I decided to show them to someone, that my favorite places might be boring to someone else. Maybe it did occur to me, which is why I never did show them anyone else. Zahina didn’t seem to mind. One of my favorite lake is Sea lake. It’s called Sea lake because the water is blue-green and because the lake is edged by this soft sand that stays warm all year (unless it‘s snowed upon). Florafauna is a pond in the middle of this wood of tall, white trees, which tower over you like many-armed ghosts. Even on the coldest day, the pond is surrounded by green bushes and neon flowers in fuschia and orange and electric blue and violet. 

Although we have seasons like any other planet (albeit our summer is a bit cooler than other planets and our winter is a longer and colder), Winter has been cultivated to look and feel frozen, year round. All of our flowers are done in ice blues and crystal clears and frozen violets -- even the reddest rose in Winter is paler than the bloom of a young girl’s cheek. So it’s only in the remotest wilderness that we get to see nature as it is on every other planet. A riot of colors, all stimulating your senses at one. I won’t say that Winter isn’t beautiful, but I realized today that all of my favorite places are where nature in all of her rich, colorful glory, is presented. 

I showed Zahina many places today, but there is one that is so special to me, that I hesitated to show it to her. It’s my place. If I ever got lost, or didn’t come home for a few days, my family knows to look for me in any other place than this. It’s and old ruin, a library -- that I would hide out in a library would probably not come as a shock to many who know me, but this is a real library, with real books, and old, old, old fashioned computers from when things were just being run by solar power. 

I stumbled upon the ruin when I was about nine or ten, and I guess at the time I was more enchanted by the colors I found there, than the contents. The outside of the building looks like an igloo -- it’s about six feet in diameter, and formed out of large blocks of ice. Although, when you get close enough to examine the blocks, you realize that they’re made out of some sort of non-reflective, metal. The metal is pale blue, like the rest of winter, so it blends right in -- so much so that if you didn’t actually test the metal, you would assume it was ice. I know this because that’s what I thought it was at first. When I hunched down to peek inside, it looked like a regular igloo. 

I had been hiking all day, looking to assert my independence by taming the wilderness, or perhaps it was one of the many times I ran away from home. I was pretty tired, and the igloo was out of the wind, and therefore relatively warmer than the outside. There was no sleeping bag or provisions, no nests or signs of animals. I thought it odd, but I was tired from crying or from the wind making my eyes water, whichever, so I plopped down and fell asleep. When I woke up, it was dark, and I was determined to make my family suffer, so I stayed the night, wrapped up in my overcoat, with only my imaginary friends for company -- at the time, I was so popular, that all my friends couldn’t fit inside the igloo, so some of them had to stay outside with the guy I had a crush on, and peek in on me, and the warmth I was enjoying.

In the morning, I made my way home, and completely forgot about the place until about a year later when one of my wretched cousins (probably Ceci) was visiting. I told my mom I’d be back in a week, took her nod for assent, and left a note on my bed, in case she missed me at all and forgot that I said I’d be gone. I packed up a change of clothes and a week’s worth of provisions and the teddy bear that I’d never quite grown out of and had missed terribly the year before. Actually, it was a stuffed dog with big, sad eyes, that Karen had given me. Whenever Karen was off with new parents, I’d take the dog with me overnight, pretending that the animal was a conduit to my lost sister. Anyway, I wasn’t even certain that I’d find the igloo again -- I hadn’t ventured that far from my home throughout that year, and hadn’t really marked the coordinates in my mind (a necessary habit for any non-city dweller) and I figured that whoever had built the igloo had skedaddled before I got there, and the thing was probably in ruins, anyway.

I found the igloo pretty easily, actually, considering I didn’t know exactly where it was or how long it had been there. It was still there, in as good of shape as when I’d left it. I peered inside, and still found no sign of the original dweller. Inside, the igloo was warm and solid. I’d set out earlier this time, so when I woke up, it was still light outside. I considered exploring the immediate area, but the paralysis that comes from a deep nap still lingered in my arms and legs, so I just lay there for a while, waiting for the numbness to fade. I rolled my head to the right and saw  two buttons. Not the kind that go on a coat, but the kind that sits next to an elevator. Languidly, wondering if I was still dreaming, I slid my slothful arm toward the green button and strained, half-heartedly toward it with my fingertips. 

October 26

Nothing happened for a moment. “Fingerprint not recognized.”

I jumped up, thinking that the owner of the igloo had come back. I only realized my mistake when my head cracked against the ceiling. “Ow!” 

“Voice not recognized. Please restate your name.” The voice was friendly, pleasant like an operator or a TV announcer. 

The doorway to the igloo was clear. I waited for my brain to stop bouncing around the interior of my skull. I’d plopped down onto my butt after hitting the ceiling and now I clambered to my knees and crawled toward the doorway. “My name is Winter Moon,” I said. I thought my voice sounded far away, and wondered if I had a concussion.

“Winter Moon,” the voice repeated. I stuck my head out the doorway and looked around. “Sixteen Winter Moons found. No fingerprint match. No voice recognized. Are you new to our system?” I didn’t see anything moving outside, so I stepped out and looked around. The voice got fainter as I stepped away from the igloo, which is what made me realize that the voice had come from within the small building, not without. 

I berated myself for being so stupid, and crouched down into the doorway. “Are you a computer?” I asked the empty interior. 

“Welcome to LUSH, the state of the art Library University Something Hospital brought to you by Coca-Cola. Please state your full name, and we can enter you into the system.”

“You’re a hospital?” I asked, stepping inside. My head pounded, and my voice still sounded thick. I felt like my skull had broken into splinters, which were digging into my brain. “I think I have head trauma.” I paused, gingerly touching my head. My hair wasn’t wet or sticky or anything, and my hand came away clear, but I thought I felt a bump swelling up under the skin. “I think I may be hallucinating,” I muttered to myself, as an aside.

“Is this an emergency?” The voice was still quiet, and a perfect blend of masculine and feminine, disquietingly comforting, but the voice had turned crisp, like a nurse.

“No,” I said. “I don’t think so.” 

“In that case,” the computer said, “We’ll take some information first. Full name please.”

“Winter Estelle Moon.”

“Date of Birth?”

“August thirteen, seventy-seven, fifty-one,” I recited automatically.

“Our system is not Y7K compliant. Please wait a moment as we update our calendar. Calendar updated. What is the current date?”

“Um,” I said. “August thirteen, seventy-seven, sixty-three.”

“Happy Birthday,” the computer said. “Who is your current world leader?”

“Thanks,” I said, looking around. I wondered if I was the haoxee in an elaborate prank. “Hitler Frankenstein the seventy-third.” Winter has the habit of naming their leaders after abominable figures from history. It’s one more reason we’re feared by other planets. No other planet would think to name their kings after genocidal killers or monsters that create monsters and then just abandon them.

“Your answers are correct. We assume that you do not have a concussion, but you may enter and have your wound seen to.” A panel of ice bricks moved back, and then slid to the side. I peeked through to find a small area, with a curved back. The igloo must have had a false back, I thought. The tiny room was empty, though, without even a button to push from what I could see.

“Um,” I said. “That’s a small hospital.”

If a computer could have sighed, it may have done so silently. “This is an elevator,” it explained, patiently. “Please enter, and you will be taken to the hospital.”

I thought for a moment, of course I did. It could be a trick. A trap, used to lure young girls into dark, narrow spaces. Winter has perverts, just like any other country. But at the end of the day, I was pure Winterian (or so I thought at the time) and I was bored and intrigued and arrogant enough to believe that I was strong enough to handle any perv hand-to-hand. I crawled inside, for the ceiling of the elevator was the same height as the igloo. The door slid back into place, and away from me, but there remained the same amount of light as before. The elevator was large enough for an extremely large person, or two smallish persons to sit in. 

“Why is this elevator so small,” I asked. “If this is a hospital, mightn’t they be brought in by gurneys and such? How did you know my answers were correct to the concussion questions if you weren’t Y7K compliant until a few minutes ago? How come nobody knows about this place?”

“This is an emergency exit,” the computer said. “The original entrance was blocked when Earth was divided into its four planets. In the ensuing panic, this place was forgotten about. It has remained mostly uninhabited for approximately 4,000 years. After you initiated the compliancy, I connected to the other computers on the four planets, and was therefore able to confirm your answers.”

“Why did you need me to initiate the compliancy,” I asked as the door and slid open again.

“When we are empty, I go to sleep until I am awoken. You have reached the hospital ward.”

I climbed out of the elevator and stood. The ceiling here rose to at least three times my height. “Wow. Were our ancestors giants?”

“They averaged between five-and-a-half and six-feet-tall with regional and genetic differences so that the shortest adult was approximately 3 feet tall and the tallest approximately 8 feet in height.”

“Wow,” I said again. “They were tiny. Why did they need such tall ceilings?” 

“Pageantry was a large part of the genetic then, as it is now, and this building was a proud accomplishment. Please step over to the admitting desk.”

I stepped toward a small, glass plated cubicle with the word Admittance emblazoned on the front. Interesting. “In the 30th century, they were still using elevators that only went up and down,” I said. “How did I get to admitting if I came in through a back exit?”

“This building was ahead of its time,” the computer said. “Much was done here that was impossible for that technology. Find the window with the red lines. Look into the line which most closely meets your eye level. Good. Watch the dot in the middle as it goes up and down, left to right. Excellent. You do not have a concussion, however, I would like to take a look at the bump on your head. Please step back into the elevator and I will take you to an examining room.”