The fairy who landed next to Shizuha while she was cat-napping in a recently de-leaved tree seemed just like any other fairy. Granted, unlike most fairies who approached Shizuha she wore cherry blossoms and pansies in her blue hair, but that meant little enough. So little, in fact, that Shizuha barely bothered keeping her eyes open until she saw what the fairy was holding out for her.
"A letter?" She took it, frowning at the uneven pink texture of the envelope. "Did you write this?" Fairies weren't exactly known for the their literary prowess, but, if Shizuha was honest, neither was she. She read nature, not poetry.
The fairy shook her head, then fluttered away without comment. Shizuha was left holding the letter and feeling slightly foolish.
She hitched herself up against the tree trunk until it served as a backrest, then opened the envelope. The letter within was written with green ink onto delicate pink paper even paler than the envelope. When Shizuha squinted at it, she thought she could see the outlines of small petals, just like those of the cherry blossoms in the letter-bearing fairy's hair.
That was enough detective work for now. It was time for the letter itself.
Dear Goddess of Autumn,
I have been told your name is Aki, but no-one could tell me your given name. I asked my friends to give this to the painter of autumn leaves. I hope it has reached you.
I'm writing this at the end of spring. As I was flying across Gensokyo for the final time this year, I saw something strange. Usually, the leaves I see in bud are all brown when I come back the next year. This leaf was different. I have a friend called Cirno who likes to freeze things, and I think she's the one who preserved it. In any case, the leaf was huge with jagged edges, but the amazing part was the colour. It was golden yellow, almost like a flower! I had never seen anything like it before. I asked around and was told it was an autumn leaf, painted by a goddess called Aki.
I'm a part of spring and don't see much of the other seasons. Finding out the same leaves I see being small and freshly green can become so big and brightly coloured felt like a gift. Thank you for painting them!
Lily White
Shizuha stared at the letter. Her first instinct was to crumple it and toss it aside, declaring it a fairy prank. Only, it didn't feel like a prank. But then what was it?
Ultimately, she folded the letter back into its envelope and tucked it into the waistband of her skirt. She could think about it later. It was time for work.
She alighted upon a Mongolian oak and took her time painting each leaf with streaks of red and orange. By the time she was nearly finished, she had garnered a small but enthusiastic audience of autumn fairies. They cheered as she descended down and kicked the trunk.
And, as the leaves cascaded down upon her, Shizuha paused to truly look at them for the first time in years.
"So, what do you think?"
Minoriko handed the letter back. Her bare feet sank softly into the mud stirred up by recent rain as she walked onward. "It's nice. I'm glad your work was acknowledged, Sister."
Shizuha hovered next to her, intent on keeping her shoes dry. The hint of envy in Minoriko's voice had been slight, so she could keep talking without making her upset. "What should I do?"
Minoriko crouched down, holding her hands over a cluster of drooping leaves. She could spend as much time nurturing a single sweet potato as Shizuha might painting a single special leaf, which was something Shizuha could respect even as she found herself annoyed at coming to a standstill. "What should you do about what?"
"About the letter, obviously."
Minoriko gave her a funny look. "You send her a reply, of course. Or don't, if you don't feel like it."
The thought hadn't even crossed Shizuha's mind. Then again, it was the first letter she had ever received. "What should I write?"
"Whatever you want. I'm guessing you'll want to thank her."
"Sure, but what else?"
Minoriko focused on the sweet potato for a long while. When she next spoke, her tone was unusually monotone. "Do you want me to help you with it?"
Shizuha usually avoided asking her little sister for help to keep her from getting any smugger than she already was. This time, she nodded. "Thanks."
Dear Miss White,
Thank you for your letter. It was a pleasant surprise. I never expect any of my work to survive past winter.
The paper of the letter you sent me intrigues me. That kind of delicate colour is rare in this season: any pink that remains is usually much bolder. When I think "cherry", I usually think "food." Thanks to you, my perspective has been slightly altered.
The best part of autumn is the fall of leaves. After I've painted them all, nothing matches their beauty as they flutter onto the ground in a single cascade of bright butterflies. It's brief, but it's worth seeing if you get the chance.
I'm enclosing some samples of my work in the envelope. I hope you enjoy them.
Wishing you well,
Shizuha Aki
At the end of every autumn, once the nights grew long and the air freezing, Shizuha and Minoriko prepared themselves a cosy nest in a cave somewhere. They lined the walls with the finest remnants of Shizuha's work and any offerings either of them had received, and once the first day of winter was upon them and they were done mourning the death of their season, they would lay down hand in hand on a bed of leaves and sleep until either some disturbance or the first flickers of the following autumn awakened them.
Things had gone a bit differently this year. Yes, their cave was as bountiful and colourful as always. And yes, Minoriko was curled up there right at that very moment, sound asleep and skin aglow with fresh faith. However, Shizuha had not joined her. For now, she sat in a lone tree by the edge of the Forest of Magic, one which still had a few leaves clinging to its branches, trying and failing not to shiver. It was the night of a new moon, and a particularly still one at that. All was blue and black, soon to be black and white. The few stars which had emerged were distant and cold, mere pinpricks in the endless dark expanse of silk above her. The cold air had a peculiar metallic quality to it, alien to even the chilliest autumn nights: it pierced through her skin and flesh alike, cutting right through to freeze her.
She gripped the branch, huddled more tightly around herself, and waited.
It seemed like an entire night had passed before anything happened, but finally, the cold air sighed and breathed Letty Whiterock back into Gensokyo.
Letty descended as silently as an unwitnessed falling tree, the underbrush beneath her turning white and brittle as soon as her feet touched the ground. A billowing mantle of snow fell upon her shoulders, trailing to the ground. She looked up and breathed in slowly, releasing icy crystals into the air as she breathed back out.
"Letty Whiterock."
Letty stilled. She turned slowly, and once she sighted Shizuha, her shoulders relaxed. "Shizuha Aki."
"You remember me?"
"Naturally. Shouldn't a goddess of autumn be asleep by now?"
The branch beneath Shizuha's fingers froze over. She held on in spite of the burn. "Tell me about spring."
Letty extended her arms in front of her, manifesting a cloud of glittering snowdust in the air. Although Shizuha knew the specks were likely razor sharp, they were beautiful from a distance. "I leave as soon as it arrives. It smells... different. Earthy, I suppose. Musty. Rotten, even."
Had Letty always spoken in such a strange flat tone? Shizuha couldn't remember. In any case, it seemed unimportant. "And what do you know of Lily White?"
"The herald of spring? We haven't exactly exchanged pleasantries over a bottle of warm sake. She does her job well, I suppose."
"By bringing spring to Gensokyo?"
"She merely announces it." Letty paused, as though something had just occurred to her for the first time. "I suppose that may count as creation."
Shizuha could already feel her lips turning blue. It was time to get to the point. "She sent me a letter. I'd like to send her one back."
With that, she dropped down to the ground and approached Letty, pulling out the envelope from her waistband. She had made the paper from the palest yellow leaves she had ever painted. The ink had been trickier — she had tried boiling various kinds of tree barks before settling for borrowing some from the kappa — but it had all worked out in the end. Enclosed with the letter itself were some samples of autumn leaves: maple, ginkgo, elm. They weren't her very best work, but they would give Lily the right idea.
"I didn't even know she could write." Letty took the letter. Her fingertips stung Shizuha's skin where they brushed against it. "I'll try to give it to her, but I can't promise anything."
"That's all I can ask for." Shizuha took hold of the hem of her skirt and curtsied. "Let me know if I can repay the favour."
Letty inclined her head. Up close, Shizuha could see that her skin sparkled like ice even in the scant moonlight. So did her eyes, guarded and inscrutable as she continued to stare at Shizuha.
A gust of winter chill blew right through Shizuha, and she shuddered. It was as if the cold had seeped into her marrow and hollowed her out. It was time to make her escape. "Have a good winter."
"Likewise." Letty turned away.
Minoriko barely stirred as Shizuha slotted herself next to her and huddled up close for warmth. On a whim, she carefully peeled back one of Minoriko's eyelids. Minoriko's gaze darted around, unseeing, already deeply enmeshed in dream.
Shizuha sighed and did her best to follow suit. The last thing she recalled thinking was whether she might dream of spring.
The first thing Shizuha saw when she crawled out of her cave the following autumn was a field of knotweed, their flowering clusters all turned towards the sun.
The second thing she saw was a green-haired fairy, who mutely handed her a letter and flew off without comment. Shizuha crouched down to open it at once. The paper was the same uneven pink as that of the letter the year before, but the ink was browner, the colour of willow bark.
Anyway, those details hardly mattered. What mattered were the contents.
Dear Miss Aki, Thank you for answering so kindly! I'm used to people treating us fairies like we're not real people, so I'm happy you aren't like that.
Thank you also for telling me about the fall of leaves. I'd like to see it one day for myself to compare to the rain of cherry blossoms as they fall.
Finally, thank you for the leaves! Their colours are so bold they startled me when I first saw them. I'll treasure them. I hope the magic I put into the return gifts has kept them safe.
Lily White
P.S. My favourite thing about spring is sunshine. What's your second favourite thing about autumn?
Shizuha read the letter again from beginning to end before folding it. She took the envelope and turned it upside down above her lap.
A shower of rainbow petals fluttered onto her skirt like pastel rain.
And so it began. Each year, Shizuha did her best to describe her season in words and painted a set of special leaves. Each year she braved the first frost to hand a missive to the ever laconic but increasingly more amused Letty. Each year she was greeted soon after waking up by a fairy with a letter the colour of cherry blossoms, each written in unique ink and containing more and more petals until the envelopes were packed to bursting with them.
I'm very interested in what you wrote about mushrooms. We have some in springtime, too, but none like the ones you described. Can you tell me more about the amethyst deceiver and fly agaric? I'd be happy to tell you about spring mushrooms in return.
She sometimes found herself reading Lily's letters again, holding the petals in her hand, trying to picture the world they had come from. It was so strange to think they flew above the same lands and perched in the same trees yet existed in separate worlds. All that was old in Shizuha's autumn was brand new in Lily's spring, and all that was beautiful about autumn was ravaged by winter before it reached the new year.
She kept writing. She told Lily about the birds whose migrating instincts were so strong they could travel through the Great Hakurei Barrier and arrived as winter approached. She wrote about the flowers of early autumn, their blooms and scents. She wrote about Minoriko and the crops she blessed, about the joy of the people celebrating the harvest, about the taste and smell of roasted sweet potatoes. She wrote even as she knew she couldn't possibly convey any of it properly, that her world would remain as distant to Lily as the beautiful world of cherry blossoms and streams of snowmelt remained to her.
And so it went on. Until one year, Shizuha had an idea.
Minoriko blew at her fingers before refolding her arms and shuffling closer to the maple she and Shizuha stood under. "Do you think she'll find us before we freeze over?"
"She always appears somewhere near me." Shizuha tugged the knitted scarf closer to her mouth. Minoriko had received the scarf just weeks earlier from a grateful worshipper, and she had dutifully wrapped the other end around Shizuha's shoulders as they waited in the dusk. "You'll see."
And indeed she did. As soon as the last light of the sun vanished behind the horizon, the northern wind rose, rattling the treetops. Mere moments later, there was a soft thud as Letty's feet landed on the forest floor.
Letty spotted them as soon as she was done straightening herself. "Is this an ambush?"
"We have a request," Minoriko said at once, as though she was the one who was acquainted with the yukionna.
Letty's gaze rose above their heads. "I see. You want me to deliver something bigger than a letter."
Shizuha would have liked to say the tree was her masterpiece. She had certainly put in the effort, coaxing out the most radiant shades of red and orange she could muster, carefully planning which leaves to leave untouched for maximum contrast. Even so, as she looked at the branches waving above her head, she couldn't help but wonder if she had actually captured the essence of autumn the way she had meant to.
"We poured a lot of our power into it," Minoriko explained. "It should stay looking like this until at least the next autumn."
Letty kept eyeing the colourful leaves as if already picturing what they would look like covered in rime. "When something goes wrong with the seasons, Reimu Hakurei comes around asking questions. Questions like 'who did this?' and 'how many times do I have to punch them to make them stop?'"
"And that's why we need your help," Shizuha said. "Is there a way to keep the tree hidden beneath snow until spring without damaging the leaves?"
"Without anyone knowing the truth, and with all the leaves intact?"
"That's right."
"It will draw attention at some point. Someone eager to tamp down snarled borders will eventually show up to sort things out. But..." Letty cocked her head to the right. "It seems like a minor thing. It could easily last till spring."
Minoriko clapped her hands together and nudged Shizuha with her elbow. "What did I tell you?"
Shizuha ignored her and nodded at Letty. "Thank you."
"Don't thank me. I'm curious to see if it works out for my own sake." Snow began to fall as Letty shook her head. "I just hope this doesn't end with youkai exterminators kicking our heads in."
"We'll just have to avenge ourselves later if it does."
Letty's smile was as brittle as thin frost, but strangely, it wasn't cold. "As you say."
Minoriko nudged Shizuha again, this time more softly. "Sister? I can't feel my fingers."
"I'll go," said Letty. "Feel free to go to sleep. I'll do what I can for the tree."
With that, she left, gone so suddenly it was as if the bitter wind had swept her away.
"That went well." Minoriko smiled at Shizuha. "Let's go."
"You can leave if you want. I'll wait for her to come back." When Minoriko frowned, Shizuha explained, "I forgot to give her the letter."
"Oh." Minoriko wavered between staying and going, then leaned against Shizuha's shoulder for warmth. "I'll keep you company for a while longer."
They waited in silence as the night grew colder and darker. Shizuha couldn't keep her eyes off the maple. Would it actually make it all the way to spring? Would its anomality be discovered and destroyed before Lily even heard of it? Would the combined powers of her, Minoriko, and Letty even be enough to preserve the leaves through winter?
"Hey, Sister?"
Shizuha's eyelids felt awfully heavy. "What is it?"
"What was it about those letters that made you so interested in spring all of a sudden? I mean, we've seen spring before."
It was true. Not only had the flow of the seasons been disrupted several times in recent years, but sometimes Shizuha found herself waking up before autumn. Whenever that happened, she tended to take a groggy tour outside before diving back into the warm safety of their leaf-padded nest. She had experienced hail and the rainy season and even a summer festival. And, of course, she had caught several glimpses of spring.
"We have." She placed her palm where the most recent letter from Lily with all its cherry blossoms was safely tucked beneath her shirt. "It's just that after reading about it, I feel like we missed the real spring."
Minoriko yawned. "I used to think I'd like to see the crops being planted, but the fairies told me it's not that exciting. But I'd still like to be there to cheer the humans on at least once."
"Maybe one day."
Minoriko nodded drowsily. "Uh huh. One day."
By then, she was leaning heavily against Shizuha's side. Shizuha didn't mind. She closed her eyes to focus on the sound of leaves rustling overhead.
"Sister! Sister!"
Shizuha swatted at the source of the yelling until she recognised both the voice and what she was doing. Her eyes jolted open. She found herself draped across the roots of a maple tree, with Minoriko shaking her shoulder. "Ugh..."
"Can you hear me?"
"Yeah. What's wrong?" Shizuha's voice came out as though her throat was packed with sand.
"We fell asleep!"
It was an effort even to rub the rheum from her eyes, but finally Shizuha saw clearly. They were near the outskirts of the Forest of Magic, underneath the autumnal tree. There were no signs of Letty or winter in general. In fact, the greenness surrounding them and the colour of the sky made it seem like...
"There's no way," she began before interrupting herself with a yawn. She tried again. "We can't have slept outside through three whole seasons."
"But we did! Look around!"
Seeking purchase from the tree, Shizuha stood up and did as Minoriko suggested. The trees appeared as they always did when she first set to work at the cusp of autumn. Sunflowers sprouted up on the meadow just past the forest, shrivelling at the edges. Clusters of cosmos bloomed everywhere around them, white and myriad shades of pink and red.
The last of Shizuha's sleepiness shed from her mind. Yes, it was autumn: mid-autumn at that. On some level, she had felt it in her pulse all along. "How's this possible?"
"I don't know, but I might be late!" Minoriko was already on her feet and smoothing out her skirts. "You definitely are. You'd best get to work!"
She scurried off before Shizuha could even make a snide comment in rebuttal. She waded into the sea of cosmos, dodging sunflower stems as she rushed towards the Human Village.
Shizuha leaned her back against the tree, wide awake but too alarmed to feel but the faintest stab of jealousy. Minoriko was right: she was late, and it wouldn't be a real autumn without autumn leaves.
She rushed to work with little more than a glance behind her. The first tree she painted turned out fine, as did the second. By the third, she felt ready to sleep through the seasons all over again.
"I know what happened," said Minoriko between nibbles from a carrot she had received as an offering. "It's because you haven't gathered enough faith lately."
Shizuha struggled to keep her eyes open. She had mustered enough willpower to grapple a dozen more trees, but after that it was all she could to fly straight. "You mean we haven't."
"We poured a lot of ourselves into that tree," Minoriko continued as though Shizuha hadn't interjected, eyeing the harvest goods she had lain across her lap. "Especially you. I doubt we can siphon any of it back, either."
"I'd rather not even try."
The sad kindness of Minoriko's smile reminded Shizuha that for all their bickering, she did love her sister. "I want to keep it, too. And anyway, I think we'll be fine. We'll just have to pace ourselves this autumn. It's fine if some of the colours come in a little late." Her expression darkened. "Besides, there might have been another reason why we fell asleep."
"What do you mean?"
"I listened to the humans while I was with them. There's a new rumour going on about us."
"Us? Really?" Shizuha supposed more people had seen them sleeping out in the open than she had previously assumed.
"Not just us. They're saying that all beings connected to the passage of seasons lose most of their powers when their season ends."
Shizuha frowned. It was true that she and Minoriko were at their strongest during autumn, and no doubt it was similar to Letty and others as well. Still, a widely believed rumour would exacerbate any ill effects existing outside autumn would have on them. "And you think that might be why we fell asleep?"
"That's right. Of course, I don't know if the rumour started recently or not, but if it was already circulating last year..." Minoriko shook her head and plucked a cluster of grapes from her apron. "Anyway, I'm not really worried. We just need to work hard and gather faith, and as long as we don't immortalise any more autumn trees, we should at least be able to stay awake when we want. What's with that look?"
"What?"
"That frown."
"I'm not frowning."
"Fine." Minoriko held out the grapes. "Here. These are really sweet."
Shizuha took the grapes and left without another word. The fruit tasted like the bountiful side of autumn, sweet and a little tart. She felt invigorated enough to at least double the amount of trees she had painted that day. It would take her forever to get everything done, but that was fine. Often, abnormalities in the passage of seasons only strengthened people's faith. She wasn't concerned about that.
Instead, another thought arose from the initial confusion, circling her mind again and again like dead leaves caught in a vortex.
The autumnal tree was still mostly intact. Some of the leaves had fallen, possibly due to the gang of fairies that had taken residence amidst the branches, but it was regardless very well preserved for something that had outlasted three seasons.
Shizuha inspected the branches carefully, taking in both her handiwork, the vivid reds and the gradient to fiery orange near the stems, and those leaves she had left green for contrast. She fixed the closest fairy with a look. "Any letters?"
The fairy tilted her head from side to side, then shook her head, turning her long hair into an orange whirlwind. She vanished behind the leaves before Shizuha could ask any further questions.
Shizuha kept staring at the tree, unsure why there was a lump in her throat. It shouldn't have mattered. Maybe Lily White had simply been unimpressed. Maybe she hadn't even seen it. Maybe she had simply forgotten their correspondence, as fairies often forgot just about everything. Or maybe she had simply moved on, focusing on her own life, her own season. No doubt that was the wisest choice anyone could make.
Yes, it shouldn't have mattered. Shizuha knew all there was to know about the impermanence of all things. In a way she felt released, untethered from a bond that had only existed in her mind in the first place. But the lump was still there.
Still, lump or no lump, it was time to shrug and return to work. So she did.
Leaves turned red, leaves turned yellow, and Shizuha found her mind slipping away and her eyes constantly turning towards the sky. Eventually she could take it no longer. She abandoned the woods in favour of her and Minoriko's most recent haunt, retrieved the paper she had prepared the year before, brittle but still workable, and began writing.
Dear Lily White,
This will be my final letter to you. I have no interest in imposing myself on those beyond my season. But here, at the end of things, I feel like I need to clarify some things. I've spoken of autumn like it's nothing but a parade of colourful leaves and freshly harvested delicacies. I've left you with the impression of plentifulness and beauty, soothing rains, and maybe crisp mornings that make one's breath fog up. But I have spent too much time on the colours, as prominent as they are.
It does indeed rain in autumn. It's cold rain, dying the world grey and brown, and when the leaves fall, the raindrops first crush them into a pulp and then blend them into a brown sludge. My work is meant to be temporary, but it sometimes makes my chest ache just how quickly it all returns to nothing.
It gets cold in autumn. Shortly before winter, when all the leaves are gone and only the persimmon remain in trees, it's possible to wake up to grass covered in rime. The frost turns your fingers red and burns them: sometimes, the pain is enough to make adults cry. Those final days may in fact already be a kind of winter: I have a feeling that there's more snow and ice in Gensokyo than there ever was when we lived on the other side of the barrier.
Few things grow in late autumn. The trees are bare. The fairies of summer huddle together and hiss at the cold weather when it spreads into their hideouts. There are days full of mist, of dull grey fugue, wet and barren and uninviting and smelling of sodden decay, so sharp after rainfall you can taste it in your mouth. Nature draws in on itself, preparing for winter's assault. Once my work is done, I have nothing left to do but watch Minoriko work in the dying world and wait for slumber.
All of that is autumn. Autumn is long and as changeable as leaves and slips into winter without so much as a sound. It can be dull and dreary and repulsive. And I belong to it, with every fibre of my being.
Thank you for all your letters and gifts. I will forever cherish the special glimpse of spring you have given me.
Shizuha Aki
She sealed the envelope, and, before she could think twice about it, returned to the autumnal tree and handed it to the first fairy she found, the very same who hadn't had one for her. "Give this to Lily White. Or Letty Whiterock, if you see her first."
The fairy yawned and shrugged and took the letter. She didn't look entirely reliable, but that was just fine. If the letter didn't get delivered, then it wasn't meant to be.
Shizuha watched the fairy drowse off again, letter in hand, then drifted off with the wind. After all, there was still work to be done.
Shizuha awoke in perfect darkness with a jolt. It took her a moment to understand where she was until she recognised Minoriko's heavy breathing by her ear and concluded she was in their winter nest. But why was she awake?
Then she heard the knock at the cave door, recognisable even through the haze of hibernation.
She blinked in the direction of the sound, then curled back down. She felt like she had slept for five minutes at most, and certainly deserved several more months of slumber before anyone could expect anything more than snores from her.
Whoever was knocking at the door clearly didn't agree. If anything, the noise only grew more persistent.
Shizuha clutched at her ears and burrowed deeper into the leaves, grateful that at least Minoriko was a heavy sleeper. "Go away!"
"This is important, Shizuha Aki."
She forced her rooted eyelids open. Next to her, Minoriko finally stirred slightly.
She rested her hand on Minoriko's shoulder and whispered even though she doubted her sister could actually hear her. "Go back to sleep. It can't really be that important." In truth, she couldn't think of anything barring some kind of apocalypse that would result in Letty waking her up mid-winter, but that seemed unlikely.
The short crawl to the mouth of the cave had stretched to a mile's length, the walls cramped and shifting abruptly around her. She nearly gave up halfway, dreaming of collapsing and going back to sleep right there and then, but ultimately persisted.
The cold air outside was a full-body slam, debilitating in its sudden violence. Yes, definitely midwinter, she thought as she struggled to her feet, a time of death and frozen blood vessels, when the entire land was covered in a thick layer of ice and snow.
She felt rather than saw Letty's approach. Letty's fingers cut like iron where they wrapped around her wrist to help her upright, but Shizuha was too drowsy to care. Letty nodded once, then began guiding her into the wilderness.
The shrivelled grass cracked under their feet as they made their way beneath a mesh of cold stars glittering in the black sky. The shock of the cold had mostly awoken Shizuha, and she looked around in puzzlement. There was something beautiful about the eerie landscape, a specialness to its silent strangeness and its soft white contours where the snow had piled up, but nothing that seemed out of place for the season. Certainly, no rivers of blood or dragons declaring that Gensokyo had come to the end of a portentous cycle. So why was it so important for Shizuha to be up?
She shivered as a gust of bitter wind nearly swept her off her feet. "Are we going far?" Already she regretted not diving back into the cave and retrieving Minoriko's scarf.
"Look ahead."
Shizuha did, and saw the autumnal tree. Even after all the time and attention she had lavished upon it, she was struck by how much it stood out against its stark backdrop. It wasn't just all the flames festooning its branches, bright in spite of the night, but the utter lack of ice in a wide circle around it. It was as if the autumn sun was still shining on that spot and that spot alone.
Letty relinquished Shizuha's wrist. Walking over to the tree, Shizuha was enveloped by a sudden warmth. It was once more an autumn night rather than a winter one, cool but no longer stabbing at her skin. She brushed her knuckles against the streaked bark of the tree, then turned back to look at Letty, who had remained in the safety of her own season. "Is there a problem? Did Reimu find out and tell you to get rid of it?"
"Look to the other side."
Beyond the tree, there was a long strip of ground just as bright and green as the ground Shizuha stood on, a pathway into the woods that looked like it had never been touched by winter. Her eyes followed it to its end. She staggered into movement without making a conscious decision to do so. With each step forward, the air became balmier, close to the warmth of the early days of autumn.
At the end of the path, linked to her tree with silk-thin golden threads, was another tree. A tree in the first flush of spring, with gentle green buds sprouting from the branches, radiating a fresh, grassy scent that struck Shizuha like a sudden soft embrace. The sky turned bright: Shizuha could nearly picture the soft light of the dawn in the horizon.
And, sitting on one of the lowest branches was a tall fairy clad in shimmering white, her golden hair falling around her like a sparkling cape. Her eyes went round as she saw Shizuha, her mouth opening wide. "You're here!"
She jumped down from the tree. The next thing Shizuha knew, she found herself with her arms full of a beaming fairy and surrounded by the scent of cherry blossoms.
"I knew you'd come!" Lily White's voice, though far too loud when it was ringing right by Shizuha's ear, was as bright and sweet as the sound of wind chimes. "I know you didn't actually mean to say goodbye!"
"I—" Could Shizuha admit she had meant exactly that to Lily's smiling face? Usually it wouldn't have been an issue, but the gentleness with which Lily extracted herself from the hug and instead sought out Shizuha's hands disarmed her. She kept silent.
"I saw the tree last spring! It's incredible! I tried waking you up to thank you for it, but you stayed asleep no matter what I did. So I wrote you a letter and left it in your hand."
"I never saw it."
"Maybe the wind carried it away. But you're here now and that's what counts! Letty and all my friends helped me to do the same thing with spring as you did with autumn!"
Shizuha didn't know what to say, so she nodded.
"Since you didn't read my letter, I'll just tell you what I wrote in it." Lily grew serious. "Spring has ugly sides to it too, you know. We have thin ice and stinky ponds full of dead leaves and so much rain when spring's about to become summer that sometimes standing out in the open feels like drowning. The thing is, I think the ugly parts of spring are beautiful in their own way, too. And I'm sure the same is true of the ugly parts of autumn! I want to see all of it!"
"I doubt that's possible." Letty stood just beyond the light with her arms crossed, shrouded in soft snowfall. It did nothing to obscure the cool look on her face: not reproachful, exactly, but certainly cautious. "We have little time. This much out-of-season activity is going to attract notice soon."
"Aww." Lily's pout turned back into a smile as she returned her attention to Shizuha. "Then we should make this count!"
Shizuha squeezed Lily's hands, marvelling at the softness of her small fingers. As she did so, a premonition shuddered through her: this was a friendship akin to a stubborn leaf on the final day of autumn that would soon enough fall and fade to memory.
She held on. Did that even matter? She was a goddess of ephemerality. If anything, its very impermanence gave the present moment its meaning. And so, she smiled back at Lily. "Do you want to experience a leaf viewing first, or would you rather begin by telling me more about spring?"
"Oh! Spring!" Lily tugged at Shizuha's hands. "Come with me! There are cherry blossoms on the other side!"
Shizuha allowed herself to step forward, but turned to look at Letty one last time. "Thank you."
Letty nodded once. The snowfall grew heavier as she turned away and disappeared into the drift.
But to Shizuha, winter was now a distant thing. She felt only the scent of spring flowers and the gentle touch of sunlight as she followed Lily White deeper into the makeshift spring, the grass beneath her feet burnishing to supernatural shades of red and gold.