“Is that true?” Fern asked.

: Mark the beginning of summer (longest day) and winter (shortest day).

He did not erase his definition. Instead, he turned to a fresh page and wrote below it:

“Mr. Elias,” she said. “A season isn’t a thing you can put in a cage. A season is a conversation .”

Elias glanced at his book. “By the calendar, late Winter.”

A drop of sweet sap rolled down the bark. A chickadee drank it. “The tree thinks it’s Spring, too,” Fern whispered. “It’s just quieter about it.”

Elias’s spectacles slipped down his nose. “Not right ? It’s scientifically unassailable.”

It was precise. It was perfect. It was true.

Elias looked at the violet in the ice, the bear waking up, the waiting village. He looked at the child who had taught him that the world does not exist to be defined.

In the small, crooked house at the edge of the Whispering Woods, lived an old man named Elias. His specialty was definitions. While other villagers baked bread or mended boots, Elias spent his days writing in a vast, leather-bound book titled The Great Certainties .

Seasons are caused by how close the Earth is to the Sun. Instead, they are caused by two factors: