“The season’s changing,” Barbury whispered from the doorway, his young face pinched in anxiety.

He watched the winds sweep mercilessly across the fields, tearing the color out of everything. This was not the wind that stripped leaves from trees and left a barren landscape; that wind would come later when the season changed from Loss to Pain. No, this wind, the wind that brought in Loss, was a sadder wind. Shards of color, the tiny bits of pollen, blew away leaving the once-blue sky grey; the lush, green leaves brittle and brown; and the garden flowers pale and dry.

“It changes so fast,” he murmured sadly to Ada, who was reading a magazine on the settee.

“Come away from the door,” Ada replied. “You’re letting pollen in.” She cast a pointed glance at the faint layer of colored dust that had accumulated at Barbury’s feet.

Barbury let the door close gently and came in, watching his sister, hoping she would offer some reassurance about the scene outside; Ada was eleven. But she didn’t reply, and Barbury finally sat down at the other end of the settee.

“I learned them this week,” Barbury informed her after a moment. “In order.”

“Learned what?” Ada didn’t look up from her magazine.

“The seasons.”

“Well, you ought to know them by now,” she scoffed, flipping the page. “You’re six.”

“Well,” Barbury mused gravely, “I guess a man has to start somewhere.”

Ada rolled her eyes, but still did not look up.

“First is Gain, then Loss, then Pain, then Love.”

“Seriously, stop,” Ada said, but the annoyance had left her voice. She twisted around to see out the window. “I hate Loss.”

“Me too!” Barbury agreed, his face unfolding eagerly at this sign of camaraderie.

“I hate it more.”

“Me too,” Barbury insisted.

“Of the four seasons, if I had to pick one to never ever live through again, I would pick Loss. I would pick Loss even before I would pick Pain!” Ada declared defiantly, but Barbury wasn’t sure he believed that. Ada cried through the whole season of Pain last year.

“And which is your favorite?” Mother asked, coming into the room. She was drying a glass bowl with a towel, smiling as if she did not know the season was changing.

“Gain!” Ada answered without hesitation. She breathed the word like it was a balm, and for a moment Barbury felt safer.

Gain was good. This past year, Gain had been particularly wonderful. Barbury had overheard just about everyone say so. The merchants at the docks had laughed and joked, slapping each other on the back good-naturedly, boasting of their fortune at sea, the goods they had brought in, the trading rates, the winds, the weather, the wealth. The farmers and their wives were equally triumphant; they grew breathless and rosy when talking of their crop growth, the quality of the produce, the increase in the market, the endless good fortune of weather. Even the children had had an amazing Gain this year. Ada said that everyone performed higher on their exams than ever before, the younger children had learned to read more quickly than any other year had, and the athletes had broken the records of previous years. All in all, it had been a wonderful season of Gain.

“Barbury, answer!” Ada commanded impatiently.

“Ada, watch your tone, please!” her mother warned.

“Barbury, please answer the question,” Ada repeated dutifully, more gently.

“My favorite season…” Barbury considered. “Love.” Gain was good, and Barbury did love Gain. But he loved Love more. There was no season quite like Love. In Love the sun shone longer, brighter and warmer. In Love there were less chores, Father had time to take Barbury fishing, and Mother made fresh lemonade. Even Ada was happier in Love.

“It’s a long time until Love again,” Ada snapped peevishly.

“Not as long as ‘til Gain,” Barbury shot back, delighted to be right. Mother laughed and went to the kitchen to put the bowl away.

“Gain, Loss, Pain, Love.” Barbury recited the four seasons in order for Ada’s benefit. “Today, the season has changed, and it is Loss,” he explained. “So we have to go through all of Loss and Pain before we come to Love. But we have to go through all of Pain and Loss and all of Love before Gain.”

Ada didn’t seem to be listening; she called after her mother: “If we had a good Gain, does that mean we’ll have a bad Loss?” Her voice was taut and gray, as if the idea had drained the life from it, and Barbury’s throat tightened as he waited for an answer.

“It’s hard to know,” Mother admitted gently, stepping out of the kitchen to be heard. “Some years the seasons hit harder than others.”

“Last Loss we only had floods,” Ada recalled, relaxing. “That wasn’t terrible.” Barbury sank back in relief.

There was a long pause, and Ada sat quietly, her forehead furrowed. At last, she gave a small shrug and picked up her magazine. She glanced at Barbury out of the corner of her eye. “What if the Robber Barons come this year?” she mused, flipping the pages nonchalantly.

“Ada!” Mother warned from the kitchen. Barbury’s face pinched up.

“What are Robber Barons?” He asked, uncertainty ushering in a faint fear.

“Oh, they’re bandits; they steal things,” Ada explained casually, loud enough for Mother to hear. Then she leaned in, hovering over Barbury, and lowered her voice: “They ride in on horses the color of night, horses whose hooves beat an echo in your chest from a thousand miles away. And they wear black capes and masks, and all you can see of their faces are their red, red eyes, glowing like the hot embers of hellfire. They ride through towns with the fury of war and an emptiness like death, stealing and destroying whatever they want, and no one can stop them because the dark winds are on their side.”

“Ada Evane! To your room, now!” Mother ordered, reappearing just as Ada finished. Ada rose, half-pouting, half-impressed with herself.

Barbury wasn’t sure he could breathe. “Is it true?” he asked his mother as Ada sashayed out.

“Barbury, Loss is a hard season no matter what happens. Sometimes floods come, sometimes fire or locusts. And sometimes thieves come. It’s a hard season.”

Barbury nodded and gulped, unable to find reassurance in Mother’s words. He could hear the dark riders trampling through town already; even the afternoon shadows in the house seemed to herald their coming.

Mother cocked her head, and a slow smile crept across her face. “I think we better have some memories with our tea today. Some sweet memories, what do you say?”

Barbury brightened a little at this prospect – there was nothing as delicious as memories – and took the hand Mother held out. They walked outdoors together to the cellar door, and Barbury followed Mother down the tall ladder.

He was not often allowed into the cellar. It was too dangerous to venture down alone, Mother and Father were generally too busy to take him, and Ada never went down there anymore. Barbury scuttled down the ladder, his delight mounting with every step.

The scene was just as he remembered it. Shelves lined the cellar, some stacked with crates and boxes, a few with racks of wine, but mostly they were filled with jars and jars of memories. Barbury stood at the foot of the ladder, wide-eyed with enchantment. A ray of light fell down through the open door hatch, casting a brilliant glow on the glass jars; translucent memories – reds, purples, oranges and blues – shone out around Barbury, and their faint, sweet smell filled the air.

Mother emerged from a back shelf carrying two jars: one with bright red memories and the other a faint orange. At her prompting, Barbury clamored back up the ladder and held out his hands to take the jars as she ascended.

Teatime was delicious. Mother tucked Barbury into the cushioned breakfast nook, brought tea, and scooped a heaping portion of memories into a bowl for him. With his back to the window and such a scrumptious world in front of him, Barbury completely forgot about the changing season outside.

Barbury loved memories. The red ones were his favorite, too; Mother always knew just the right thing. And she had given him a bowl and spoon – everyone else liked to spread memories on bread or biscuits, sometimes with butter or peanut butter or creamy-cheese. But not Barbury. Barbury liked to eat memories by themselves, spoonful after spoonful. And, of course, Mother knew.

He savored the red memories in his mouth – cool and juicy and soft. He hoped they were staining his tongue red, so he could stick it out at Ada later and make her laugh. He let the memories slosh around his mouth for a moment, and felt them slip coolly down his throat. He was happier already.

* * *

Barbury woke up the next morning when the back door slammed shut. After a few groggy moments, he made his way downstairs. Ada was in the kitchen, making herself breakfast, and Barbury didn’t see Mother or Father anywhere.

“They went to town for supplies,” Ada explained, reading his mind with typical accuracy.

“Don’t you have school?” Barbury craned his neck to see if Ada had made enough breakfast for him, too.

“Schools close when the season changes; they give us three days off in Loss. So people can do things like go to town and get supplies. Or make provisions for their crops or ships or whatever business they are in.”

“Will Father have to do that with his ships?”

“I suppose. But first he went to town to get supplies with Mother. Are you hungry?”

“Yes!” Barbury nodded emphatically, hoped this wasn’t one of Ada’s jokes.

“Here, I made you an egg.” She started to hand him a bowl with a soft-boiled egg and a glass of milk but then thought better of it. “Go sit down, and I’ll bring it to you. I don’t want to clean it up if you drop it.”

Barbury did as he was told, and Ada brought the egg, milk and some toast to the table.

“So you’re staying here with me until they get back?” Barbury asked between bites.

“If you mean I’m stuck here babysitting you, then, yes,” Ada replied.

“At least you don’t have to go to school,” Barbury pointed out.

“I’d rather be at school than here all day with you.”

But Barbury knew that wasn’t true. Ada hated school. And, no matter how mean she was, Ada didn’t hate Barbury. He knew because she let him have the last piece of melon every single time last Love, and when he had nightmares, she would come into his room and sit for a while. She thought he was asleep and didn’t know that she was there, but he did.

Ada went back to reading magazines on the settee after breakfast, and Barbury decided to set up his train tracks. Perhaps Father would remember to get the extra wheels for the caboose while he was in town. One of the wheels had broken off, and Barbury didn’t want to run a train without its caboose.

The morning and much of the afternoon passed peaceably, with only occasional bickering, and then suddenly their activities were interrupted by the sound of hoof beats and a horn outside. Barbury and Ada looked up, startled, and clamored to the window. A young rider on a horse was thundering by, yelling, “Robber Barons! Robber Barons.” He did not stop; he rode on furiously, probably aiming to warn as many people as he could.

Barbury’s face drained its color, and he gripped Ada’s arm. “Are they coming? Is that what he means?”

“Yes, I think so.” Ada looked around, trying to focus, trying to figure out what Mother and Father would tell her  do.

“What do we do?”

“We… we’ll go… to… to the cellar!” Ada announced, sorting through her thoughts as the words tumbled out of her mouth. “Go get your coat and mine; it will be sundown soon, and it gets cold down there. I’ll get some biscuits in case we get stuck there for a while. We’ll hide until the Robber Barons have passed through.”

“What about Mother and Father? How will they know where we are?”

“They’ll know to look for us there,” Ada said, hoping she was right, hoping she sounded reassuring. “They’ll be safe in town. They know what to do. They’re adults. Now go get the coats. You want the Robber Barons to find us just because you wouldn’t stop talking?”

Barbury ran upstairs, willing his tiny legs to move as fast as they could. He thought of his train, wished he had steam power to help him. Ada raced into the kitchen, found a tin of biscuits and filled one of Father’s canteens with water.

“Barbury, hurry up!” she hollered. Barbury came running down a moment later, carrying Ada’s coat as carefully as he could, dragging his own.

“Here, give me my coat.” Ada took it. “Don’t drag yours. You want a dirty coat?”

“No.”

“Then don’t drag it. Come on.”

They ducked out the back kitchen door and raced to the cellar, laden with their supplies. Ada peered at the narrow ladder, hesitated.

“Throw the coats down first,” she instructed. Barbury did so. He was breaking into a sweat anyway and did not want his coat. The season-stripping wind had brought hot air: stifling, heavy, constricting.

“Ok,” Ada went on. “Climb down. I’ll throw you the biscuits and water.”

“But you’ll be alone!” Barbury’s face melted into despair.

“You want me to go first and leave you up here?” Ada made no attempt to hide her annoyance. Barbury’s throat tightened, but he shook his head.

“Exactly. Now go.”

But his feet were frozen. He shook his head feverishly.

“Barbury! One of us has to go first. It’s a ladder. That’s how it works. It’s only for a second. You go first. Go. Right now. Go.” Urgency mixed with her annoyance now. Barbury gave a weak whimper. Ada snapped, “I’ll climb down right behind you. Go!”

Barbury nodded, and climbed down, shivering. Ada set the tin and canteen on the ground and followed him down.

“Put on your coat,” she ordered when he reached the bottom. She had stopped on the middle rungs. Barbury obeyed; it was colder in the cellar than he had thought.

“Listen to me, Barbury. I’m going to climb up to grab the biscuits. I’ll throw them down. Catch them, ok?”

Barbury nodded. Ada scrambled up, grabbed the tin of biscuits; Barbury held out his arms, squinting in the glare of the late waning sun.

“Open your eyes!” Ada snapped, dropping the tin. Barbury obeyed, moved a little to where the tin was falling, and caught it. Ada grabbed the canteen and hustled down. The ground trembled slightly, a hallmark of the approaching Robber Barons. Barbury looked anxiously at his sister. She grabbed her coat and his shoulder and scanned the shelves for the best place to hide.

“Go go to that far corner over there. Behind the shelf,” She gave him a push in that direction. The corner was blocked with a tall shelf, angled so that there was a tiny crawl space behind it, and they hurried over, threw the supplies in, and began climbing in themselves.

And then, at the same instant, they both realized that the cellar door was still wide open. Barbury noticed because of the ray of dying sunlight that fell in, the magical amber glow on the jars of memories. Ada noticed because of how clearly she could now hear the horses and the angry shout of riders, only a few moments away.

“Ada,” Barbury’s voice was hoarse with fear. “The door.”

“I know,” she nodded. “It’s too late to go close it now. We just have to hope they don’t see it. Go, crawl back there. Go.” She gave him a little push, and Barbury scooted all the way in. Ada followed him. “Just keep still and keep quiet. No matter what happens.”

A few minutes later, the sound of hooves stopped, but the shouts grew louder and Ada assumed that the Robber Barons had come to the house; then came the sound of footsteps on the ground above their head, and Ada knew for sure. They heard the sounds of smashing, glass breaking, furniture falling, ripping, thumping, tearing, beating. Barbury clenched his eyes together and pulled his knees in closer.

And then the light – the dying light that had fallen across the jars of memories – disappeared altogether as a dark shadow filled the cellar entrance. A Robber Baron. He did not climb down the ladder; he just jumped, landing with a mighty thud, his boots scattering dust everywhere, causing the jars to chatter and shake. Ada tightened her jaw.

The Robber Baron grabbed the nearest jar of memories and tore it open. He dipped his finger in, sniffed it, and made a disgusted sound. He threw the jar up and out the cellar door. Ada heard it shatter. She closed her eyes, and buried her head in her knees.

There was the sound of more footsteps, more thuds as men jumped down, jars shattering on the ground overhead, shelves toppling down and being torn apart. It seemed to last forever, and Ada could feel Barbury trembling beside her. She clutched his hand.

And then at last — it seemed like hours later — things quieted down. Ada could hear the Robber Barons climbing up the ladder, the cellar door being ripped off, and the sound of horses disappearing into the distance. Clutching Barbury’s hand, Ada made herself count to five hundred before moving. And somewhere in the counting, she fell asleep.

* * *

Her parents were calling her name. Mother sounded frantic, worried; Father as calm as ever. “Ada, Ada! Barbury!” The calls rippled down the cellar ladder, weaving through Ada’s dream and at last drew her into reality.

“We’re here! We’re down here!” Ada cried out, waking, still holding Barbury’s hand. “We’re here! Barbury, wake up!”

“I’m awake,” he answered simply.

“We’re here,” she yelled again.

They rose then, stooping to climb out. Ada’s body ached from being cramped for so long; Barbury thought only of the ray of light falling through the cellar door. It was brighter now, a morning sunbeam, not the deeper light of sunset they had last seen.

Coming out of their hiding place, they saw the disaster that the Robber Barons had wrought. The floor was covered in a mixture of broken glass, pieces of shelves, and melting memories. A faint, putrid smell filled the air, as unfamiliar as it was unpleasant.

“What is that smell?” Barbury gasped.

“The stench of Robber Barons,” Ada fabricated indifferently, more interested in finding a safe path to the door. “There’s glass everywhere; be careful,” she warned Barbury.

They made their way towards the ladder, using a broken shelf to scrape away the bigger pieces of glass and wood and steady their step, calling “We’re here! We’re here!” as loudly as they could.

There was a shifting of light and shadows across the cellar as Mother and Father heard the cries and came near. They leaned over the door, and the shadow of their faces seemed brighter than the sun to Barbury.

“Mother!” he called, exuberantly.

“My babies!” she sobbed in relief.

“Come up,” Father urged. “It’s safe now.”

Ada helped Barbury up the ladder, and at the top, Father scooped him in his arms, held him tightly. Ada climbed up, too, let Mother pull her over the last rung, and they all sat there for a moment, cradling each other.

It wasn’t long before Ada noticed the stench of the air around them, and then realized that they were sitting on what once had been the cellar doors – not on the ground itself. A faint fear began to take place in her mind, and she stood up, anxious to survey the scene.

“It’s all gone!” Ada cried, seeing the world around them. Her calm gave way to a tide of suppressed panic. “They destroyed everything!” She began sobbing – not the wracking wailing that she often employed theatrically, but heavier tears that could not be stopped.

Barbury peered out around him, still safe in Father’s arms. Ada was right: the doors and shutters had been ripped of the house, the windows were broken and furniture had been strewn all over the yard – and the yard itself… The ground was covered in debris – bits of houses and furniture, linens, books… Barbury caught sight of pieces of his train set shattered. And the smell – the same smell from the cellar, but stronger – was becoming almost unbearable the longer he smelled it.

“What’s that smell?” Barbury asked, his voice caught somewhere deep in his chest.

“It’s the smell of memories, fermenting,” Ada sobbed. “They’re all gone. They stole our memories. All the memories are gone.”

And so it was. In addition to all the debris, the ground was covered in shards of broken glass and wet, slithering clumps of melting memories. Globs of the once-juicy treats lay in milky puddles all around, oozing at the edges, mixed with dirt and glass under the morning sun.

The knot that had been tightening in Barbury’s chest seemed to constrict and snap at the same time; he began to weep. The memories were gone – Ada was right; and the smell was overpowering, a pungent reminder of their helplessness. There would be no more tea times with Mother, no contests with Ada about who could make their memories last the longest, no sneaking into the jars with Father when Mother wasn’t looking. Barbury stared forlornly at the dirty, oozing blobs. He noticed the bright colors fading quickly, and thought the world was now grayer than before, that the Robber Barons had taken what little color the winds had left.

As if in reply, the winds picked up, scattering bits of glass and debris ferociously. Mother and Father scooped up the children and carried them inside, shielding them from the flying shrapnel.

“We will never have memories again,” Ada mumbled, sinking back into the tattered settee in devastation.

“Nonsense!” Father smiled tenderly and scooped her up to see out the window. He lifted Barbury as well. “Do you see all the debris?”

“How can we miss it?” was Ada’s despairing response.

“Well, tomorrow we will go out with rakes and shovels and clean up the debris and glass. And do you see the melting memories?”

Ada nodded wordlessly, sniffling.

“They’ll be gone soon; some will evaporate and some will seep into the ground. And we’ll water that ground,” he pointed, “over on the east side, by the cellar door. We’ll water it again and again, all through Loss and all through Pain. And you’ll see, by the time Love comes around, the memories that seeped into the ground will have grown into memoryberry bushes; the east side will be covered with them! And we’ll have as many jars of memories as we want, as often as we want, for as long as we want.”

They were all quiet for a few minutes, and Barbury savored this new image, transposed it over the scene outside. He pictured the world in full color again, lush with life, the cool breeze of Gain and Love, and new shelves lined with more memories than ever before. He thought of watering the garden, harvesting the berries, pressing them into memories and jars with Mother, and the cool, sweet taste they would leave in his mouth. Ada closed her eyes, banishing the desolation, struggling  to envision the world reborn. She opened them at the exact moment that the clouds, perhaps also distracted by visions of the future, found themselves tangled up in sunshine. A bright glow burst across the garden, cheering Barbury and calming Ada, and for a brief moment, the world was swathed in yellows, oranges, gold, and promise.

(c) anothernicole 2010