When the Season's Hinge Stiffens

As an apprentice Keeper, it's Kaelen's first time guiding the entity of Summer into its hibernation. But the giggling, chaotic spirit isn't ready to leave, and its reluctance is causing temporal slips and dangerous heatwaves across the land. The Autumnal Equinox is hours away, and the world's clock is breaking.

The Henge Stones were humming, a low-frequency thrum that vibrated up through the soles of Kaelen's boots and settled in her teeth. This was the Fulcrum, the point around which the year turned, and it was her responsibility. From her vantage point on the ridge, she could see the Unravelling beginning: a patch of green grass down in the valley blushing to a premature, impossible orange, while fifty feet away, a field of late corn withered under a pocket of shimmering, localised heat.

"Anything?" Rhys’s voice crackled through the speaking-stone, a device that felt far too mundane for the task at hand. It was smooth and grey and looked like a river pebble.

Kaelen pressed her own stone to her lips. "It’s resisting. The Waystones aren't lighting in sequence." She traced the line of glowing runes on the stone nearest to her. They were supposed to form a path, a gentle, luminous runway guiding the seasonal presence towards the gate of the Hibernaculum. Instead, they were flickering erratically, like faulty lamps.

"Well, hurry it up," Rhys's voice crackled back, laced with static and anxiety. "The sheep in old Man Hemlock's field just grew their winter coats and then shed them again in the space of a minute. He's freaking out. And the river is starting to steam."

Easy for him to say. He was tucked away safely in the village watchtower with a spyglass. Kaelen was the one standing in the path of a temperamental force of nature. Her mentor, Elspeth, was supposed to be here, but a sudden wasting sickness had left her bedridden, her knuckles white as she’d pressed the Keeper’s staff into Kaelen's hands. "It knows you," she had rasped. "It will listen." It wasn't listening.

A giggle echoed through the stones, high and wild. It was a sound like cicadas and warm wind and the lazy buzz of a bee. A figure shimmered into existence near the central stone, a boy of about ten with hair the colour of dandelion fluff and skin that seemed to radiate heat. He was barefoot, clad in shorts woven from living leaves. This was Summer.

"You're late," Kaelen said, trying to keep her voice as steady and calm as Elspeth's. "The path is open. It's time to rest."

Summer just giggled again and cartwheeled across the grass, which instantly grew lush and green where his hands touched it. "Don't want to rest," he sang. "Want to play! The sun is still high!"

"The sun is setting," Kaelen corrected, pointing to the western sky, where the sun was indeed beginning its descent. "The Equinox is tonight. Autumn is waiting to be born. You know the rules."

### A Childish Fear

"Rules are boring," Summer pouted, and a single, fat bumblebee flew out of his mouth and began lazily circling his head. He kicked at one of the Waystones, and its guiding light fizzled out with a sad little pop. "Don't like the quiet place. It's cold. It's dark."

This was new. Summer had always gone willingly before, eager for the long sleep after months of frantic, energetic life. Kaelen felt a knot of cold fear tighten in her stomach. Elspeth's lessons hadn't covered this. What do you do when a season throws a tantrum?

"It's not for long," she tried to reason with him, taking a careful step forward. The air around him was oppressively hot. "You'll sleep, you'll dream of next year's blossoms, and you'll wake up when it's your turn again. Spring will come wake you. You know this."

"No!" he shouted, and the air crackled. The heat intensified, and the grass around Kaelen's boots turned brown and brittle. "She tells scary stories! Of the long quiet. Of the frost that doesn't melt! I don't want to go!"

Kaelen froze. Spring? The gentle, timid entity that coaxed the world into bloom? She had always been the one to wake Summer. Was it possible that the other seasons had their own consciousness, their own fears, and that they shared them?

"Kaelen! Report!" Rhys's voice was a frantic squawk from the speaking-stone. "The town clock is running backwards! The hands are spinning! People are… they're getting younger! My beard is gone! Kaelen, what is going on?!"

She looked from the smoking grass at her feet to the petulant, glowing child who was currently unraveling the fabric of time because he was afraid of the dark. Her training, her mentor's calm instructions, it was all useless. This wasn't a ceremony anymore. It was a negotiation with a nuclear-powered toddler.

She lowered the Keeper's staff, a heavy length of polished rowan wood carved with the sigils of the four seasons. She had been taught to use it to command, to enforce the cycle. But Elspeth had also told her, once, that the most important tool of a Keeper was not the staff, but the voice.

"What are you afraid of?" she asked, her voice soft. "Tell me."

For a moment, the shimmering boy looked startled. His power flickered. "The quiet," he whispered, his voice losing its childish edge and taking on an ancient weariness. "The deep sleep. I always dream… that one day, she won't come back to wake me. That I'll be alone in the dark. And Winter will reign forever."

He looked at her, and for the first time, she didn't see a force of nature. She saw a lonely, terrified child. And in that moment of connection, of empathy, he lost focus. His control over his own vast power slipped. A wave of pure, unfiltered summer energy erupted from him, not in a directed tantrum, but as a raw, uncontrolled blast. The very air seemed to warp. The humming of the Henge Stones rose to an unbearable shriek, and the sky overhead cracked like a pane of glass, showing a glimpse of a sky that was not their own—one with two suns, both burning with impossible ferocity.

Kaelen threw herself to the ground, shielding her head as reality buckled around her. The Closing wasn't just failing. It was breaking. And it was about to take the entire world with it.