A Frosty Summer

Autumn was just about to interrupt the latest summer when this happened. That magical moment when the trees visit her sunny ballroom dressed in gold or red robes is an invitation to slowly strip them away. Growing up in a big city, we anticipated the pleasure of digging with our feet through the rustling carpet that would soon cover the ground. Most adults were absorbed by important tasks after the summer break. So, we built our own world and our own places to live and enjoy. The time had come to move to the Autumn house.

The tiny city park had four season houses. The Autumn house was the coziest. It looked like an Indian tent, once we laid a bunch of sun-painted leaves on the brushwood that formed a canopy big enough for us. As a matter of fact, this weeping-willow bush formed rather a rounded ancient dome, but we insisted that we lived in a shaman's marquee or a tent. Every year the house looked different, depending on the moment when the fall-like mood would overtake us. The first day inside it was unforgettable. We invented new games, and there was enough work to do. Then Fiona disappeared. Suddenly, just like that. We never saw her again.

We had last seen her as we left the house one by one, running through clouds of laughter back to the stable, familiar home our parents had built for us, busy as they were. There were no shadows or exciting corners there, but real food and a convenient room waiting patiently for us. In the Fall house, Fiona had been playing with dolls, or rather, with her own little paper creations - her parents had no financial means to buy her Barbie dolls. She drew cartoon girls in all sorts of outfits on a piece of paper, cut them out carefully, and played with them for hours alone. They had names and personalities of their own, and sometimes she spoke to them more than she did to us. It seemed strange that in the seventh grade she was still playing with dolls, but she insisted they weren't dolls and listed their names.

For a few days we hoped she would come back, but she didn't, and since she was nobody's best friend, we could not turn to anyone for help. She lived on the edge of the neighborhood and went to a school that we did not know. We saw that her parents, who had picked her up from time to time in the past, were now talking to other parents, not ours. We asked Lennie, the good-natured spirit of the garden, if she had seen her anywhere. Lennie was always climbing trees and spent most of her time in their branches. She was older than us but looked younger because she had the Down syndrome. Lennie was always smiling and constantly wanted to tell us something. Once she said that if she would reach the end of the branches of one tree and wanted to reach the next one, she would weave a magic carpet out of leaves and fly over to the branches on the other side. Still, she understood everything as well as an eight-year-old girl and claimed in a confident manner that she had seen Fiona recently.

"Surely you mean a long time ago."

"No, lately, not long ago".

"How long?"

"Yesterday. And the other day. The day before."

"Where?"

"Everywhere. Under the trees and in the bushes."

"And what about the alley?"

"I don't know."

Over time, the garden had turned into a symphony of colors and the memory of Fiona began to fade. We had a lot of work to do around the house and before we knew it, we ran out of colorful leaves to renew the roof or make a blanket for the couch. At this moment we felt that it was time to consider the Winter house. We had just moved into it when the first snow came. We ran around in a dizzying circle, smelling the snowflakes with our wiggly noses and flicking our tongues to catch and swallow them - the winter air brought freshness, clarity, and hope for new adventures. The snow was crunching briskly under our boots, and we watched our tracks with admiration. Finally, we built a snowman. We allocated our roles in the winter house and made a fence of icicles that we had ripped off from the dreamy roofs around the park. Short before the ice queen contest was going to be held Kalina disappeared.

Again, Lennie claimed to have seen her and even showed us her tracks in the snow. Here she had even left behind red drops of blood. Lennie said, if we did not believe her, to ask her parents - but somehow, we didn't dare to do that, we were afraid of the truth. We filed away thoughts of what had happened like a page read once. And besides, we had Christmas presents to focus on. Everywhere we looked, winter had scattered drawings of frost on the windows and spilled slippery slides on the ground. Early in the morning, on our way to school, we could see the snow glowing mysteriously against the gloomy sky, the darkness only being diluted by a few streetlamps. The earth had hidden its fertility deep down below, in anticipation of spring warmth and kindness.

With the sight of the first migratory birds, our winter house finally melted. So, it was time for the Spring house, which was friendly and welcoming, located close to the water fountain and the best flowerbeds in the park. Even if they hadn't bloomed yet, we created our own paradise of grass and flowers - the greenest and most colorful house under the Milky Way. We sheltered a few white stones as our pets - little fluffy bunnies.

It was Mila that left us next, and we found this unbelievable and rather extraordinary. Mila was the toughest and most beautiful of all, so we always followed her will. How should we manage without her? And why is she not among us now? Many of us had turned fourteen, and this time we thought about it quite a lot. We looked at each other with uncertainty and sorrow, as if wondering who of us would be visiting the Fall house next year and who would not. Nelly said she dreamed at night about the elephant slide, favorite of the youngest and made from stone, walking around in the dark and running over everyone who wasn't home yet. And Vanya said she knew for sure that snakes crawled out of the fountain at night. We shivered and said nothing more.

Summer came as confident and glowing as ever, bringing warmth, brightness, and exciting events. Nothing was impossible since it was the master of the universe and we felt like that as well. We rarely stayed in the summer house for long, the endless challenges around us inviting to explore them all day – every swing in the park, each backyard and small intersection were a source of surprise. We never noticed exactly at what point Elena parted with us. She did not say goodbye but just disappeared. We were still bathing in childish carelessness and never stopped knitting our vague dreams. Nobody knew what the next autumn would bring. Highschool, new classmates, would there be parks nearby with houses like these?

Only after we all returned from the seaside did we see them - they were just standing there, near our summer house, amongst cheerful surroundings - but did not seem to notice us. Fiona, Kalina, Mila and Elena - ponytails held high, jeans ripped with huge holes, one girl leaning casually on the bench, the other with her foot on the seat. They were laughing with an uproarious sound and shaking their heads amidst a torrent of boyish jokes. The girls were surrounded by an invisible wall, something the rest of us did not understand, something we weren't privy to, something outside our world and sight.

We laughed out loud, rushed under the boisterous splashes of the fountain, soaked ourselves to the bone, and laid ourselves delightedly on the ground to dry off under the sun.