Calculation and thought flickered through those green eyes, faster than I could follow. "Ah, yes. I see," Mother Summer said. "So many new futures unwinding."
"Too many bright ones," Mother Winter said sullenly.
"Even you must think better that than empty night."
Mother Winter spit to one side.
It started eating a hole in the dirt floor a few inches from one of my feet. I'm not kidding. I took a small sidestep away, and tried not to breathe the fumes.
"I think," Mother Winter said, "that he should be shown."
Mother Summer narrowed her eyes. "Is he ready?"
"There is no time to coddle him," she rasped. "He is a weapon. Let him be made stronger."
"Or broken?" Mother Summer asked.
"Time, time!" Winter breathed. "He is not your weapon."
"It is not your world," Summer countered.
"Excuse me," I said quietly.
Green eyes and black hood turned toward me.
"I don't want to be rude, ma'am," I said. I picked up the fallen wooden shelf from where I'd knocked it down, and put it back on its pegs. Then I bent and started putting the sealed jars back onto the shelf. "I'm still young. I make mistakes. But I'm not a child, and I'm not letting anyone but me choose which roads I'll walk."
That made Mother Winter cackle again. "Precious little duck," she wheezed. "He means it."
"Indeed," Mother Summer said, but her tone was thoughtful as she watched me restore the fallen shelf to order.
I kept on replacing jars, lining them up neatly, and spoke as gently and politely as I knew how. "You can take my body and run it like a puppet. You can kill me. You can curse me and torture me and turn me into an animal."
"Can," said Mother Winter, "and might, if you maintain this impertinence."
I swallowed and continued. "You can destroy me. But you can't make me be anything but what I choose to be, ma'am. I don't know exactly what you both are talking about showing me, ma'am. But you aren't going to shove it down my throat or put it up on a shelf out of my reach, either one. I decide for myself, or I walk out the door."
"Oh, will you?" said Mother Winter in a low, deadly whisper. Her overlong nails scraped at the wood on her chair's arms. "Is that what you think, my lamb?"
Mother Summer arched an eyebrow and eyed Mother Winter. "You test his defiance against his very life, and yet when he passes you are surprised he does not leap to do your bidding?" She made another disapproving clucking sound. "He is brave. And he is courteous. I will show him what you ask-if he is willing."
Winter bared her teeth and spit again, into the same hole, and more earth hissed and melted away. She started rocking back and forth, slowly, and turned her gaze elsewhere.
I picked up the last fallen pot and was about to put it away when I frowned. "Oh. I'm sorry, but there's a crack in this one."
I never heard or saw any movement, but suddenly Mother Summer was there beside me, and her bony, capable hands were wrapping warmly around mine. Her touch was like Lily's but . . . gentler and more vast. It made me think of miles and miles of prairie soaking up the summer sun's heat, storing it through the day, only to give it back to the air in the long hours of twilight.
As gently as if handling a newborn, she took the little clay pot from me and turned it slowly in her fingers, examining it. Then she exhaled slowly, closed her eyes for a moment, and then put it reverently back onto the shelf.
When she took her hands from the little pot, I saw letters written in silvery light upon it and upon neighboring pots, as if the letters had been awakened by the warmth of her hands.
The writing on the cracked pot said simply, Wormwood.
The letters began to fade, but I saw some of the others: Typhos. Pox. Atermors. Choleros. Malaros.
Typhus. Smallpox. The Black Death. Cholera. Malaria.
And Wormwood.
And there were lots of other jars on the shelf.
My hands started shaking a little.
"It is not yet the appointed time for that one to be born," Mother Summer said quietly, and her hard eyes flicked toward Mother Winter.
She didn't look back toward us, but her teeth gleamed from within her hood.
Mother Summer slipped her hand through my arm. I gave it to her more or less out of reflex, and walked across the cottage. She picked up her basket and then we went to the door. I opened it for her and offered her my arm again, and we walked together out of the cottage and into a modest clearing surrounded by ancient forest with trees the size of redwoods. They blazed with the colors of fall, their leaves carpeting the forest floor in glorious fire as far as the eye could see. It was gorgeous, but it wasn't anywhere on Earth.
"I think she likes you, young man."
"Yes, ma'am," I said. "I could tell, because of the cleaver."
"It is her way," Mother Summer said, smiling. "She rarely leaves our cottage anymore. She lost her walking stick. While your summons was impertinent, it was a necessity and you had the right. But it is terribly painful for her to travel, even briefly. You, a mortal, hurt her."
Mother Summer's words made the whole chopped-up-for-stew-meat situation more understandable. Beings like Mother Winter tormented mortals-not the other way around. I'd injured her pride along with the rest of her, and in the supernatural world such insults were rarely forgiven and never forgotten.
"She was balancing the scales," I said quietly. "Is that what you mean?"
Mother Summer nodded approval. "You phrase it simply, but not incorrectly." She stopped and turned to look up at me. "She cannot take you to the places we must walk if you are to understand."
"Understand what?" I asked.
Her green eyes reflected the colors of the autumn forest. "What is at stake," she said. "If you choose to walk with me, what is seen cannot be unseen, and what is known cannot be unknown. It may harm you."
"Harm me how?" I asked.
"You may never know a night's peace again. Knowledge is power, young man. Power to do good and power to do harm. Some knowledge can hurt. Some can kill."
"What happens if I don't have it?"
Mother Summer smiled, a gentle sadness in her eyes. "You keep the bliss of ignorance-and consign our fates to fickle chance. Do not choose lightly."
I pondered it for, like, ten whole seconds.
I mean, come on.
I'm a freaking wizard, people.
"It's better to know than not know," I said quietly.