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Only a few leaves remained, stubbornly clinging to the ends of barren, skeletal branches. In time, she knew, they would give in and fall like all the rest. Like clockwork, it happened as the air grew colder and the length of the days shortened to something almost frightening.
Funny how time worked.
From a psychological standpoint, it made sense for spirits to begin to fall in the winter. Athena knew that – had known it for a while, and had certainly seen it in others. Though she fought tooth and nail to cling to her optimism even through the coldest and darkest months, staying as active as possible indoors and always the loudest when singing along to cheesy songs on the radio, there was no denying that at a certain point it became an uphill battle.
Yet every year, somehow, she was surprised.
It made sense – a scientific understanding should have made it all better, right? That was the reason people had even started celebrating winter, anyway – to spread some sort of joy and warmth when everything else in the world grew gray.
Though she tried her best to avoid the thought, chilling as it was, Athena had never been able to shake the idea that something in the world seemed to die.
The cold, the dark, the dismal – the profound loneliness that came with the sun fading away far too quickly to leave behind black skies. It made sense.
It was only natural to seek warmth. Athena had always hated the cold.
That she was out in it rather than at home, bundled under several blankets to the point of becoming a human burrito, was something she failed to understand. Rather, it was something she didn’t want to understand, or at the very least didn’t want to admit. It was hard enough fighting back the lethargy and grumpiness of the season without complicating things further with –
Shaking her head, she bundled her heavy coat further around her, snuggling as deep into its depths as possible, then shoved mittened hands into her pockets. Booted feet were forced to keep moving, a wind-bitten face shoved down into the fabric of her scarf and eyes fixed upon pavement which was doomed, in the coming days, to be covered with a layer of snow.
By the time she reached the Garden, Athena had already been chilled to the bone, and would have been significantly more disgruntled had she 1. Been anyone else other than herself and 2. Meeting anyone else other than . . .
“Junie?” Thankful for her mittens acting as a barrier between her hand and the cold metal garden gate, she pushed it open and shuffled inside. With a frustrated creak, the gate closed behind her, and Athena called again “Junie – are you here?”
“Over here!” The voice came from her left, and Athena immediately turned to look towards where Juniper’s small figure was kneeling beside what had likely at one point been a plant. As the birth of winter settled in, the poor thing was clearly struggling, and unless Athena was very mistaken about the nature of winter, it wasn’t going to do much better until the sun came out again in spring.
Not for the first time, she found herself wondering if the plants were all doomed – not that she liked to think like that, of course, but it was just the truth! – why exactly Junie had asked her to come help with, of all things, a garden.
Then again, she supposed this vision suited Juniper – all bundled up, herself, and hunkered down to tend to a plant that was likely in its final throes of death. Denying winter till the very last, a final soldier in an ill-fated battle. . .
Winter’s not THAT bad! Scolding herself, Athena shook her head again and – reluctant to touch the cold ground – knelt down at Juniper’s side. “Hey, you!” she greeted brightly, mood immediately improved by a smidgen just by her friend’s presence. “How’s it, uh – going?”
That’s how Junie was – like a little taste of spring even at the beginning of winter. If anyone in the world was a creature of the spring, when new things began to grow and the world came to life again, it was Juniper.
It wasn’t fair that she should have to live in winter, watching all of her plants wither and die. Okay, Athena resolved herself, that’s all the more reason to stay chipper. Junie needs you to! She’s going to be taking this much harder, so it’s your job to make it better.
As Juniper turned to greet her, however, it was not with the thinly veiled sadness that Athena expected, but with a surprisingly bright smile. Despite the brown, withered stalks surrounding her and her own reddened nose. “Hi, ‘Thena -” she sniffled, grin still in place. “It’s going good, actually – thanks again for coming to help. It would have taken way longer to take care of everyone by myself, and I want to be inside before the snow starts if I can . . .”
The way she spoke, it was as if the weather was only the most mildest of inconveniences rather than the end of all things warm and joyful. Ugh, don’t be dramatic! Scolding herself, Athena forced her attention back to the task ahead of her. How was she supposed to focus on the sad-looking brown stalks anyway, though? Especially with Junie smiling at her like that. . .
“Yeah, no problem!” Her own grin slid easily into place as she gave a casual shrug. “Happy to, um . . . help. Though . . .”
As her gaze flickered back towards what remained of the plants – if they weren’t dead, they were at the very least on their slow and painful way out – she debated whether or not to finish her sentence. Juniper wasn’t stupid, so what was the point of saying anything? It would only hurt her feelings, right?
Nevertheless, Athena found herself speaking. “. . .You’re sure it isn’t, um . . .” she began cautiously, “. . .too late?”
Too her surprise, Junie laughed. “Of course not,” she replied, and in the next moment Athena’s heart leapt as her hand was taken. The touch was dulled by cloth, however, and served only the purpose of allowing Juniper to pass her a set of sheers. “They might not look like it, but . . . there’s a lot going on inside of them.”
“Huh?” Blinking dumbly for a few seconds, Athena tried once again to pay attention to the plants. “On . . . the inside? You mean they’re not . . .”
Not wanting to say it and still half wondering if Juniper was in some sort of denial, she trailed off. Rather than being met with defensiveness or awkward silence, however, she was once more surprised by the sound of her friend’s gentle laugh.
“Dead?” Junie teased, the word coming out far more blunt than Athena would have suspected. She shook her head, to which Athena could only offer a sheepish shrug. “No. Not at all. I wouldn’t have asked you to come help me take care of dead plants, ‘Thena.”
“Ah – right. Of course not.” Athena cleared her throat and let out a casual, dismissive breath. “I just thought that. . . well. You know.”
As the moments had passed, she’d begun to grow increasingly aware of what might have been her own stupidity. At the very least, it was the sort of ignorance that caused her face to grow warm despite the chill. Well, even warmer than it had already been since the moment she’d entered Juniper’s presence.
Fortunately, Athena wasn’t the sort of person to surrender to bashfulness, and Juniper wasn’t the type to tease anyone to the point of actual distress. Athena had always thought that a remarkable talent, to be able to listen so well and even give advice without ever once making anyone feel dumb.
That same gentle presence made itself known now in the form of an understanding nod, as well as a little smile that was a bit too knowing. “Some plants do die when winter comes. That’s just their life cycle, you know . . . but not all of them.”
With the shears in her own hand, she snipped the end off one of the stalks before her. In anyone else’s hands, the motion would have looked brutal, and for a moment Athena was surprised. But this was Juniper, and somehow she managed to perform the action with the same gentle care as everything else.
Logically, Athena knew it made sense, but she’d never really been much of a botanist. “Are you saying they hibernate?” she asked with raised eyebrows, then held her own shears awkwardly up in front of her. Uncertain what exactly to do with them, she clipped the air for a moment like the world’s most uncertain crab, and couldn’t help but smile when Junie’s hand closed over hers once more.
“In a way,” she explained while guiding Athena’s hand towards another stalk, longer than the others around it. “They go dormant. . . conserving their energy until springtime comes again. That way, they can last until the sun comes out. But they need a little help. . .”
Her hand moved, gently closing more around Athena’s fingers and guiding her to snip through the plant. “We have to trim them back so that they don’t use more energy than they need to trying to keep parts of themselves alive that won’t make it through winter, anyway. If they’re smaller, they have less to work on keeping alive, and less that could freeze and hurt them. . .”
Guided by movements that were not her own, the shears cut, and a stalk that had already begun to grow brittle fell to the ground.
“That makes sense! I guess I just . . . never thought about it before,” Athena said brightly, though her attention once again remained primarily captivated by the touch of Juniper’s hand. Once more, it pulled away to tend to the other plant.
Nodding in encouragement, Junie held her eyes for a moment, then looked away with cheeks tinted pinker than her nose by the chill of the wind. “That’s ok. You did great. Just keep going like that – if you don’t know where to prune, just ask and I’ll help. I, um . . .”
She paused, fingers stilling in their work. “. . . Really do appreciate your coming out to help. I hope it doesn’t seem too . . . I don’t know. Cruel, or anything . . .”
“Huh?” The very thought hadn’t occurred to her – ok, well, maybe it had, but never in the context of Juniper being cruel. Maybe she’d thought that cold weather and sharp things exclusively spelled bad news for plants, but if Junie said otherwise – if it was her hands that were cutting them and guiding them through the freezing winter –
Well, that meant that she was doing what was best for them. There was never any question in Athena’s mind of that.
Realizing belatedly that she’d been silent for just a bit too long, she shook her head. “Pfft – no, of course not. If anything, I’m glad – glad these little guys have a chance to make it through and bloom again in spring. To tell you the truth, I was . . . worried.”
After pruning another stalk, Juniper looked to her in surprise. “You were worried about the plants . . .?” she asked quietly.
“Well –” Mouth open, Athena floundered for a moment, then shrugged while playing with the end of a curling, brown leaf. It came off in her hands, and she tossed it aside. “Sort of. Not . . . really. More about their owner.”
A mittened hand momentarily hid Juniper’s mouth. Perhaps she was just rubbing her nose or something – it was difficult to tell, with how she’d turned her face away. “I’m sorry,” she murmured, and the very sound of the words twisted something in Athena’s chest. “I didn’t mean to worry you. I didn’t realize – well – if I was acting strange, I’m sorry, I just . . .”
“Hey! Hey, no, it’s not like that!” Not caring for a moment that she hadn’t actually managed to do much work, Athena set her shears aside and shifted in Juniper’s direction, a hand immediately reaching out but pausing several inches from landing on her shoulder. “You didn’t do anything. Not at all. I just, um – well. I didn’t think winter would exactly be your season. And with all the plants, um – hibernating?”
She wrinkled her nose and let out a sigh, but before she could continue to explain herself Junie had looked back to her. The beginnings of a faint smile peeked out over her glove, and with that any chance of an intelligent thought passing through Athena’s head diminished by a significant degree.
“. . . Oh . . . I see. . .” she said quietly, then set her own tools aside and paused for a moment before inching just a bit closer, herself. “Well, it might not be the same kind of beautiful that springtime is, when everything’s in bloom. . . but I actually like winter. A lot.”
Hands falling into her lap, she looked out over the threadbare garden and, just as if it were flourishing and bright, smiled with a countenance full of love.
“It’s just another part of their lives. A time they get to rest and recover from all the work they did in spring and summer. And, when it’s over, they’ll come back . . . and be all the more beautiful for it. They’d never be able to bloom anew without going through a quiet winter.”
How was she supposed to respond to that?
What response, what reaction, was fitting, other than somehow managing to fall further in love?
“When you put it like that,” Athena spoke, words forming on her tongue almost faster than in her mind, “it’s hard not to love – it. Winter.”
Juniper blinked, then ducked her head. “I understand why people don’t like it, of course. . .” she murmured, “and there isn’t anything wrong with that. Everyone has, um – different tastes. . . and . . . winter isn’t for everyone . . .”
Without hesitation, Athena reached out a hand and settled it on Junie’s knee. “If you like it,” she said in a light, chipper voice, “then I think it’s wonderful. You always have had a way of helping me appreciate things.”
“What kind of things?”
“ . . . ”
“. . .‘Thena?”
What else was she supposed to do? Juniper had leaned forward, hair and eyes shining in the cool winter light, a last little blossom that refused to fade.
What other choice was there, than to close the distance?
Their lips touched before Athena so much as realized that had been her intention. Though the weather grew colder by the minute, they nonetheless each melted, all the warmth they needed in the warmth of each other’s bodies.
It was almost painful to pull away, and neither girl managed to do so very much. Gardening abandoned for the moment, they held one another and knelt among the brown stems, not budging even when the first few snowflakes began to grace the air around them.
“. . . Oh . . .” Juniper finally breathed, then despite herself began to giggle. “. . . I see. . .”
“Yeah . . .” Despite herself, Athena couldn’t help but echo the sound as her hands found their way to cup Juniper’s cheeks.
Her perception of Juniper hadn’t changed – not really. What had been internalized for so long had only just now found it possible to blossom, like the first little seedlings through earth hardened by frost.
In regard to other things, however, perhaps her perspective had indeed shifted. With this warmth beside her, she could imagine nothing better than what lay before them:
What was certain to be a beautiful, perfect winter.