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was like when Dad let me help him with the weather, only different, more intense, deeper somehow. But I had no breath left. My chest was on fire. And the hand would not let me go.
    â€œAir,” I begged the voice. “Make me air.” And my lungs immediately filled without me breathing. There was so much air, it threatened to pop my poor sore chest like a balloon and I had to breathe out in a stream of bubbles. “Slow down!” I told the voice. “Take it easy!”
    The hand squeezed tighter, the arm stopped above the elbow, the rest hidden under the rocks. Whatever the hand belonged to, the rest of it was trapped, and it wanted me to set it free.
    â€œSorry,” I gasped, my voice funny in the water. “I don’t know how.”
    The gray hand squeezed mine again, gentle, insistent.
    So maybe if I …
    What could I do? I could roll away the rocks, but it was hardly the rocks that were the problem. This had been a Doorway, but the Doorway had been moved, and somehow this thing had been left trapped, half in and half out of a Doorway that was no longer there. But some of the Doorway must still be there, I figured, some tiny part that was holding the poor thing tight.
    I had to do what Dad did. I had to open the Doorway, just a little, just a crack.
    Could I do it?
    I thought about what happens when a Season passes through a Doorway—the Weatherman and the Season become one. For that moment the Season gives up its power and hands it to the Weatherman as a token of honor and trust. And then the Weatherman hands it back.
    So I reached out to the thing. I became the thing—imprisoned for twenty years when it should have been roaming the skies. Anger and fear. I saw a tall dark shadow through the surface of the water, standing on the edge of the lake, and that shadow sent dark thoughts down, thoughts of chains and knots and cages. The bottom of the lake was a prison. The sky above was freedom. Between the lake and the sky was someone who wanted to enslave it for all time. The thing was young, and the thing wanted to get away from the terrible person who wanted to control it. It had cried out for help and rescue.
    And I had come.
    It was easy—like raising a chair leg to free the hem of a coat, and then letting it back down. The thing was free, and the trap was sprung.
    The hand opened wide and let me go. I rose up surrounded by bubbles and clouds of dirt. I saw a thin gray shape rise up next to me and I heard the voice let out a scream.
    Then my head broke the surface and I could breathe normally again.
    I paddled wearily to shore and crawled out of the lake on all fours, my chest heaving, my lungs and throat burning, reaching for my clothes. There was no sign of the Gray Thing, but John-Joe Fitzgerald and his wife stood on a rise between me and the farm, looking at me. John-Joe just glared at me with poison and hate. Mrs. Fitzgerald was looking at the farm. I wiped my eyes and saw Hugh dragging something long and thin and dripping through the farm gate, like he was bringing the world’s least Christmassy Christmas tree home for Christmas. Mrs. Fitzgerald glanced back at me.
    â€œSee him on his way,” she told John-Joe, and started after Hugh.
    John-Joe grinned down at me.
    â€œA quick boot up the backside’ll hurry you up,” he said, and came toward me.

 
    CHAPTER 6
    LIZ
    I’d had my quick cool shower and my creams and my hot chocolate, but I wasn’t able to enjoy any of them properly because I was worrying about stupid Neil. It wasn’t having a fight with Hugh that worried me, because if it were just a fight it wouldn’t have been so bad. But it wasn’t just a fight. It was Mrs. Fitzgerald. She wanted Neil. More to the point, she really wanted Dad, but would settle for Neil. That was bad.
    I was back on the couch and Mum and Dad were telling me I was an idiot when Dad looked around and said, “Where’s Neil got to? His hot