There is so much rain I can barely see a few feet in front of me, let alone all the way to the festival. The river rushes past me, rising with each passing minute. I don’t have much time.
I squint into the sky as water pours down my face. The cumulonimbus cloud is so dark, so ominous, that I can’t see the sun. The partial eclipse is well under way, and I feel bad for all the people who came out for the festival and aren’t able to see it.
But that’s the least of their worries.
Lightning brightens the sky, and thunder claps soon after. I expect to hear screams from the festival, but instead, people cheer. They think it’s a wild summer storm, an amazing story they’ll be able to tell for years to come. They don’t know the danger they’re in.
I have to get to work.
I close my eyes, and magic surges inside me, big and eager in a way only summer magic can be. It jumps to greet me, aching to be released into the world, to touch the storm, to calm the river. It rolls around inside me until I have no choice but to set it free.
It rushes toward the clouds, diving in at once. If I can reduce the strength of the updrafts until they stop, the storm will dissipate. Magic wraps around the updraft and pushes down down down, but the force of it is unlike anything I’ve encountered before.
It doesn’t respond to my magic, doesn’t even falter.
The updraft keeps going, and my magic is helpless, rising with it.
I take a deep breath and try to calm my racing heart, still my shaking hands. I have not come here for nothing. I can do this.
I inhale, a long, deep breath that makes my chest and belly rise. When I exhale, a huge swell of summer magic jumps into the storm, an intense, bold rush that holds nothing back. No other season can absorb as much magic from the sun as summers, but even the colossal strength of the season isn’t enough to dampen the updrafts in this storm.
My arms shake, and I’m gritting my teeth, already so exhausted. But the cloudburst keeps going as if I’m not even here, as if I haven’t risked everything to stop it. Rain continues to fall, and the river continues to rise, and time continues to run out.
I pull out my phone and check the timer. Eleven minutes. I’m supposed to leave in eleven minutes, and I haven’t even slowed the rain. I’ve done nothing.
Maybe I should leave now. Go back the way I came, get out of the path of totality, and know that I tried. At least I tried.
But something keeps me planted here, tells me to keep working.
So I do.
I take another deep breath and begin again. Summer magic is already at the surface, impatiently waiting, ready to be thrown back into action. But when I release it, it doesn’t drive toward the updraft the way I expect. It doesn’t fight against the rising air.
Instead, it darts across the river and feels…cold. Like ice.
I turn toward the river and narrow my eyes, try to see past the rain. I feel for my magic again, and it is undeniably tangled with winter.
The path of totality cuts across the river diagonally—the bank directly across from me is out of the path, completely safe for witches. I can’t see past the rain, but I know they’re on the other side. And while they’re too far away to control the storm, they aren’t too far away for me. I can reach them.
My magic can reach them.
I’m overwhelmed with understanding and laugh into the rain. I don’t know if it’s Paige or someone else, but there is a witch across from me on the other side of the river, offering their magic.
Summer magic delights in other people, and it rushes across the river as if it’s greeting an old friend. It wraps itself up in winter, and I pull it back, toss it to the storm.
The updraft falters. Not a lot, but it falters. It knows I’m here.
I pull more magic and keep working on the updraft, pushing down as hard as I can. A sudden blast of cold shoots through me, and the thread of winter gets stronger and stronger and stronger.
I have no idea why it’s getting this strong, but I send more magic across the river and pull.
And as I do, I’m greeted with the transitional magic of autumn.
Then the aggressive magic of winter.
The patient magic of spring.
And the intense magic of summer.
I can’t see a damn thing, but I can feel it, all four seasons rising up around me as if I’m the sun.
I don’t understand what’s happening, but I know in the deepest parts of myself that this is right. Something inside me is shifting into place, coming together instead of pushing apart, and my entire body responds as if this is the moment it’s waited for my entire life.
It’s so loud, the rain and the river and the music and the people, and it frays my attention, making it hard to focus. Hard to think.
I’m pelted with rain, and a sudden rush of cold over my feet makes me look down. The flood is starting.
No. I can stop this. We can stop this.
I don’t need to think. I just need to act.
I raise my hands into the air, and all four seasons rise with me. I throw my magic into the storm, and all four seasons follow, tumbling into the
