CHAPTER 1
NEIL
There's Mum and Dad and me and Liz, my younger sister-who's mad and dangerous so watch out-and our little brother, Owen, who's as soft as wet soap and needs looking out for. We're the Maloneys, and once upon a time we lived together in a house in the middle of Ireland-the bit they call the Midlands in case anyone gets confused about which part of the country they're living in and to remind them that they're not actually in any danger of falling into the sea. The house was called Maloneys' Bed and Breakfast, and there were always people staying with us, and Mum was always using us like slaves and servants, cruelly making us do jobs like cleaning up and sweeping the floor and changing the sheets and filling the dishwasher.
Summer was the busiest. We'd get tourists driving or biking or hiking around the country. A lot of them didn't speak English. Mostly they were nice, friendly people, and sometimes they had kids who would stay a few days and we'd make friends for a while. Then they'd go away and we'd never see them again, which was kind of sad. Sometimes we promised to write, but we never did.
"Back to being the Lonely Maloneys," Liz would say, and run off into the woods or climb up onto the roof or do a strange dance in the middle of the lawn.
Mum was in charge of the bed and breakfast, doing the booking and the cooking and some of the cleaning, except for most of it, which her slaves had to do for her.
Our dad was the Weatherman. Our dad was one of the Most Important People in the World.
That was one of our secrets.
Here's another ...
Outside the B&B there was an old-fashioned wooden phone box, the sort nobody uses anymore. We called it the Weatherbox. The phone inside rang only four times a year and only my dad answered it. When he did, something amazing happened: the Season changed. The old Season left, and the new Season came through the phone and went to work making things warmer or colder or wetter or drier or whatever it wanted to do.
There are only four special places with four special people like this in all the world. There's the hollow of an ancient tree. There's a deep underground chamber. There's the summit of a holy mountain. And there was our Weatherbox.
When Summer arrived that year, the last year Summer arrived, everything seemed fine. Everything seemed normal. We walked, all together in the early morning, down from the house to the gate, rubbing sleep from our eyes. Owen held mum's hand tight, and Liz was doing her weird dancing and her weird chanting. She used to get me to do the dancing and the chanting with her, but I don't do that anymore.
The sky got brighter. The stars and the planets all faded away, and there was a tiny sliver of moon lying on its back like God's coat hook. Mum put the thick blanket down on the wall. We sat on it and draped it over our shoulders to keep out the chill, and we waited, and we watched the Weatherbox grow solid and real as the morning light spread around us. Molten gold began to flow into the sky behind the house. The few cottony clouds were glowing. An airplane laid a snail's trail of white vapor across the rim of the sky, and the twin white lines were like a welcome mat laid out for the sun.
We waited, and we watched, and when the tip of the sun rose above the horizon and the light touched the words carved above the door of the Weatherbox, the phone began to ring.
Dad, the Weatherman, opened the door. It swung easily, heavily on its hinges, while large springs at the top and bottom tried to pull it closed again. Dad stepped inside and let the door shut, and we heard the ringing stop as he picked up the phone and put it to his ear. It was hard to see through the small square panes of glass into the darkness of the box, but Dad seemed to change. For a moment he became something else.
I don't remember ever really seeing what happened, not clearly. What I remember is the smell. Summer came pouring from the box, and it was ...
the sweetness of flowers ...
and fruits ...
and warm sand ...
and deep waters ...
and cut grass ...
and insects buzzing ...
and birdsong ...
and endless days ...
and hot sun ...
and cool showers.
I laughed and danced and sang, and Mum and Liz and Owen laughed and danced and sang with me. It was the most perfect, beautiful magic.
Then we went in for breakfast. We had pancakes, as usual, and after that we had a Summer. We didn't know it was going to be the last one before everything went wrong. We didn't even begin to know until the Tourist arrived, the day before the Autumn.
Copyright © 2015 by Nigel Quinlan
