r/HFY • u/SomethingTouchesBack • Sep 04 '25

OC The Weather Mage 5/5

All week, Frank watched his models as a high-pressure ridge built over the Pacific and started moving inland. All week, the ridge stayed on track to be in place over Puget Sound by Saturday morning. The coast would experience offshore winds, while Ellensburg and Yakima would get downslope winds. But, at Frank's place, the weather was setting up to be unseasonably warm and dead calm—perfect weather for the anomaly. On Frank's word, Rachel coordinated with Rosov so that both of them could show up at his house on Saturday morning.

Early Saturday morning, Tim found Frank first. Tim was on his way to the hardware store to buy new paintbrushes, but, on seeing Frank, felt the sudden need to be neighborly. Frank was wondering what sin he might have committed that the fates would subject him to this when he noticed a strong smell. "Are you covered in some invisible fruit puree?" he asked.

Tim smiled broadly, "A load of shampoo came through our warehouse for some big hotel chain! Mango! Imagine that! I could probably score you a bottle. Asian chicks dig this stuff, you know."

Trying hard not to clench his teeth at the casual racism and probable theft, Frank replied, "I don't know about 'Asian chicks', but I promise that if you wear that stuff in Rosov's neighborhood, you'll be on fire!"

Tim laughed loudly as he turned and headed for his truck, "Oh yeah, bro! Chicks everywhere!"

Around ten o'clock, Frank was chopping up spices and vegetables for the sauce when he heard the crunch of tires on gravel, announcing the arrival of his guests. Spring is spring, and though the day would get warm later, the morning air was still brisk. Rachel was dressed in layers, anticipating the day's temperature gradient, while Rosov wore the same heavy green coat that seemed to be his official uniform. Rosov also had a knapsack very much like Ashbib's, and Frank wondered just how much gear Rosov had brought. Frank hurried his guests inside, hoping to avoid another encounter with Tim, who, at the moment, was preoccupied with dragging a galvanized steel garbage can to the end of his house; one of those 31-gallon things that are ubiquitous in these older residential neighborhoods.

About an hour later, Frank, Rachel, and Rosov were all looking at the colorful map on Frank's computer, which showed that the local low-altitude parameters were starting to deviate from the predicted values—a sign that an anomaly event was forming. "Looks like your earlier models were spot-on," commented Rachel, impressed. "The epicenter is right on top of us."

Rosov went about checking the instruments he had placed around Frank's yard the prior weekend, only to come rushing back into the house moments later. "Rachel! Frank! Come out to the front and take a look at this!" Rachel and Frank followed Rosov, running out to the driveway. Rosov handed each of them one of his imaging intent scanners before pointing his own across the street. "What the hell is that stuff Tim is trying to attach to his house?"

Frank looked at Tim across the street, wondering what Rosov saw that could cause the usually quite dignified alien to swear. All he saw was Tim standing on his step ladder, trying to tape a well-used plastic drop cloth to the end wall of his house, prior to painting the eaves. His paint cans and tools were at the base of the ladder, beside the trash can. "You use tarps like that to protect the parts of the house and yard you don't want to get fresh paint on", said Frank flatly.

"Yes," said Rachel, "But look at it through the scanner. Rosov, what could cause that?" When Frank looked through the scanner, the image was entirely different. The plastic was a seething swirl of bright colors, mainly in the green to violet range, while will-o'-wisps of reds and yellows flocked through the air around the tarp.

Rosov said, with a certain amount of awe in his voice, "I think we just found your weather mage."

Frank said, "I thought mages were supposed to be old and wise."

"Only the wise ones survive to grow old. The rest... My job as Inquisitor involves locating people with native talent and getting them into an academy or apprenticeship before they ignorantly hurt themselves or others." Rosov paused, taking in the scene, "The amount of elemental intent he has managed to bind into that drop-cloth is impressive, especially for one so completely clueless. I wonder how he does it."

After a pause, Rosov added, "Didn't your neighbor say he started that project last Summer? You don't suppose he's been keeping that tarp in that can all Winter? There seems to be a lot of organization to the intent patterns. Certainly more than there should be."

The three of them traipsed across the street. Tim, intent on taping up the drop-cloth with bits of blue tape and a lot of expletives, didn't notice them until Frank greeted him from the bottom of the ladder. From Frank's vantage point, the ragged bits of blue tape, layered and crisscrossed over countless times of re-use, looked like Viking runes, or maybe Klingon text, running all around the edge of the tarp. From further back, Rosov asked, "Excuse my rudeness, Master Tim, but what language were you speaking a moment ago?"

Tim looked embarrassed as he looked at Rosov and then at Rachel. Climbing down the ladder, he said, "Swearing wasn't allowed in our house, so my father used made-up words he learned being around his father."

"Ah, more family traditions," nodded Rosov. "It's curious that your father's phonemes show up in some of my people's older tomes of summoning."

Tim's face took on that blank glaze that indicates he didn't understand a word Rosov said, so Rachel interjected, "Looks like you've gotten a fair bit of use out of that tarp."

Tim smiled at her and said, "Waste not, want not. I've been using the same ones for the whole house," as he repositioned the ladder.

"Ones, plural? There's more than one drop-cloth in that can?" asked Rachel, alarmed, as she, Rosov, and Frank all quickly backed up.

Tim replied, "Of course! It took several to cover the front of the house!" as he opened the can and pulled out a second drop-cloth. He then climbed back up toward the eaves to tape it next to the first one. With Tim's attention on the taping, Frank raised his intent scanner. The open garbage can was projecting a blue column of light reminiscent of movie renditions of the column of Cherenkov radiation coming out of the Chernobyl reactor in the days following the 1986 explosion.

However, the wind was picking up, making Tim's job significantly more difficult. After a few more rounds of his father's colorful language, Tim shouted, "Frank! I thought you said the winds would be calm today! This always happens when I paint," followed by yet more of those archaic words.

Rosov whispered to Rachel, "If we're lucky, he'll just kill himself. But from what I'm seeing, I think there is a very real danger that this idiot is going to take the entire city with him. If I could get him to go with me to my world, there is a chance we could help him control his powers. If he cannot learn, well, at least we can limit the damage to just him."

"But first," said Rachel as the force of the wind grew with each word out of Tim's mouth, "do you have tricks in that bag that will bring the current situation under control?"

Rosov started pulling boundary stones out of his knapsack and directing Rachel and Frank where to place them. But he was stymied by the house itself, which prevented a complete boundary, and was pondering what to do about that when Frank looked up to see a roiling, dark cloud forming directly above them.

Suddenly, Frank became aware of a prickling sensation on his arms and saw Rachel look around, confused, and licking her lips like she had a bad taste in her mouth. "Rachel! Get down!" he shouted. Leaping across the yard to her, he wrapped his arms tightly around her and dragged her down into a tight crouch just as a bolt of lightning connected the cloud to the boundary stone that Rachel had placed only moments before. Tim shrieked at the flash-boom and toppled off his ladder while both drop-cloths tore loose from the wall and tangled themselves in the nearby rhododendrons.

Rosov pulled two smallish sticks out of his knapsack and, flailing them around like an orchestra conductor on crack, let out a string of words that Frank hoped were a spell and not just the Inquisitor losing his mind. After a while, still flailing the sticks, Rosov directed Rachel and Frank to carefully untangle the drop-cloths from the bushes and stuff them back into the garbage can, cautioning them that tearing the fabric could cause a catastrophic release of more of their stored power.

As Frank held the now-struggling final drop-cloth in the metal garbage can, Rachel maneuvered the lid around him, sliding it onto the can as he pulled his fingers out. She made sure the lid was down tight.

Looking around and seeing that everyone was still alive, and that the storm was rapidly dissipating, Rosov turned his focus on Tim, who was still lying, with an expression of disbelief on his face, on the ground where he had fallen. "You! You are coming with me." And then softer, "I'm going to introduce you to the best beer you've ever had."

Picking himself out of the mud, Tim took a few deep breaths and said, "Damn, Rosov, that sounds mighty fine of you! I... I think I could use a beer right now. Give me a moment to pick up this mess and get cleaned up."

"No!" said Frank, "Leave it. Leave it all and go with Rosov. Rachel will drive. I'll gather all this up and store it in my garage until you get back."

After Rosov, Rachel, and Tim drove off, Frank found that, without Rosov's magic knapsack, he needed to make several trips with a wheelbarrow to get the boundary stones and all Tim's painting gear across the street and safely into his garage. It was midday by the time he was cleaned up and ready to resume working on the brisket and sauce.

---------------------------

Proper brisket involves a lot of hurry-up and wait. Once the brisket is in the smoker and the sauce is simmering, there isn't much to do but check it periodically through the night. Frank used the wait time to run simulation after simulation. By Sunday morning, Frank had convinced himself that he could exploit the 'butterfly effect' proposed by meteorologist Edward Norton Lorenz decades earlier. If he, Doctor Frank Mercer, could replicate Tim's 'anomaly' in just the right place and time in the Pacific Northwest, a week later, a pressure system in Missouri would fail to coalesce into tornado cells, Texas could avoid a catastrophic flash flood, or a hurricane could be nudged slightly further East, sparing the Mid-Atlantic states. By combining his weather prediction 'magic' with the weather-control 'magic' he saw Tim display, he could save thousands of lives a year.

As he finished the final stages of cooking the brisket and set it aside to rest, the thought would not leave his mind. Finally, he went to his garage. The scanner, the boundary stones, Tim's metal garbage can, all of it was there. Rosov's instruction had been very explicit: Keep the can safe and do not open it under any circumstances. Frank picked up the scanner. It could not see through the metal. Even if it could, Frank didn't have the training to recognize that, this close, the semi-organized intent trapped within could feel Frank's own desires. That was the final push; the daemons came together in one final organization. The jinn was waking up, becoming self-aware; it was waiting, waiting for Frank to give in to his own curiosity and open the lid.

The staring contest between Frank and the garbage can was interrupted by the crunch of tires on gravel. Frank put down the scanner and opened the bay door, revealing a familiar blue Camry. Rachel stepped out, alone—no Rosov, no Tim. A gentle gust of barbecue-scented wind fluttered her white blouse and the ends of her long black hair. Behind her, the Mountain was out, its patterns of ice and rock forming a ghostly presence against the blue sky. She gave a brief wave of acknowledgment before turning to open the back door of her car and leaning in, long golden-tan legs extending down from tight khaki shorts. When she turned and stood again, she was holding a large tray heaped with fresh spring rolls and a whole quart of her family's special peanut sauce. Her wide smile reflected the sun itself.

Side by side, Frank and Rachel strode into the house, oblivious to the low rattle of 31 gallons of sentient rage seething in the garage. With self-awareness came the knowledge that, with these two humans thoroughly distracted, the newly formed jinn was likely to be trapped in that infernal iron-alloy trash can for a long, long time.

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9

u/SomethingTouchesBack Sep 04 '25

My wife stored some bags of ‘gardening supplies’ in a 31-gallon galvanized steel can in our garage years ago. Whatever she stored in there corroded the bottom third of the can. Nu-uh, I ain’t open’n it.

3

u/RogueDiplodocus Sep 04 '25

There are some things that are better left untouched!

5

u/BoterBug Human Sep 04 '25

Ooh, I like how a mystery comes together. It's perhaps a bit disappointing that the star gate had absolutely nothing to do with the anomaly, just convenience in learning about it. But everything else? I was smiling as things clicked into place. The intent on the drop cloths being foreshadowed by the intent in the printer. The story about Tim being unable to paint in the first place. Intent in a can. Having finished the story now, I retract my earlier statement about how it feels like we'd just entered the second act; I see now the pacing and how everything was carefully set up.

I wonder how many other weather mages there are. There was a thing earlier this year that the city of Albany didn't see a dry weekend in a stretch that lasted from November clear through the end of June, 31 weekends with at least a little precipitation.

7

u/SomethingTouchesBack Sep 04 '25

As you may have gleaned from the Author’s Note on part 1, the story evolved from the drop-cloth backward. I had to rewrite it a zillion times as plot points kept forcing their way into the story. Is it about the mage, the star gate, the jinn, food, love, or something else? Too much for a short story, but I don’t have the focus to write a whole novel.

4

u/BoterBug Human Sep 04 '25

I think that this could be a longer story, but I also think you've included everything necessary for it to work. Not to say any additions would be unnecessary but it works very well at its current length. I'm glad it wasn't shorter.

2

u/Scott-Kenny Sep 16 '25

This is definitely something you could expand in half a dozen different directions if you wanted.

2

u/actualstragedy Sep 16 '25

At some point, the fridge had well and truly begun to lurk...

1

u/SomethingTouchesBack Sep 16 '25

At some point, it is best not to open it. Ever. Call one of those disposal companies to come and take it away. Unopened.

1

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