To anyone who found their way here looking for Neil Gaiman's Calendar of Tales: I'm sorry to disappoint you. This is just a random person online taking his idea and his questions, and doing her own Calendar of Tales. You're more than welcome to stay and read my story too, if you have a few minutes to spare, though I have to warn you, I am definitely no Neil Gaiman.
Here's how this works: I asked a question. People answered the question. I used one of the answers to write a short story based on it. And then I put it up here in the off-chance someone wants to read it. And because having a public deadline is the only way I get writing done, apparently.
Before I begin! There will be one more tale in the end of December, but in the meantime on the blog here we will be putting up the traditional Christmas story, getting published little by little, a part every day starting tomorrow aka December 1st, until the last part on Christmas Eve. So stay tuned for that for the next 24 days.
_________________________________________________
What would you burn in November, if you could?
A bonfire (Answer from Pieta)
Ruut was nervous. They all were. They stood in a row in the town square, shifting from foot to foot. But they were also excited. And they were serious. Something like this couldn’t be taken with anything less than seriousness.
The snow had fallen that morning. There wasn’t much of it, but there never was on the first day. Just a thin layer of white that had been trampled out of existence on the roads by the first people stepping out of their homes but that still covered roofs, fields and tree branches. It had been a crispy, fresh day. It felt good after the long, grey, rainy days, with temperatures just barely warm enough that the rain was rain and not snow, when the damp air seemed to seep all heat from you until you were chilled to the bone. The cold air gently nibbled at Ruut’s already red cheeks. Her breath puffed out in a white cloud with every exhale.
The sun was setting behind them. It wouldn’t be much longer. Right now everyone in town was putting out the last hearths, candles, anything with a flame.
“This first of winter you will stop being children,” the town elder in front of them began, and Ruut perked up even more than she already had been. It was beginning. “Tonight the fire is your duty. Once, it was your parents’ duty, and their parents’. One day it will be the duty of your children. But tonight it is yours.”
The nine of them nodded solemnly.
“You are the ones who will keep our homes warm this winter. Who will determine our luck until next year. Who will help us leave what we want to leave behind, expel old spirits from our homes, introduce new hopes and dreams. You will bring us the new fire, young and fresh, strong and hot to last through the months to come. Tonight you are the Guardians of the Fire.”
The town elder paused and looked them each in the eye, one at a time.
“Will you take this task upon yourselves?”
“We will,” they all said as the last rays of sunlight disappeared behind the horizon.
“Good,” he smiled. “Let us begin.”
The town priestess, standing next to the elder, took a step forward and clasped her bare hands together. She looked up into the darkening sky. She said words. Ruut had never heard those words before. Never even heard anything remotely like those words. The priestess closed her eyes and took a deep breath. In. Then out. She opened her eyes. For a moment Ruut thought she saw an odd glow in them, but it faded so quickly she couldn’t be sure it was ever there. The priestess opened her hands to reveal an open flame flickering in her cupped palms. There was nothing there that was burning. The flame simply was. It didn’t seem to hurt her. For a moment all Ruut could do was stare.
Everyone else moved then, pulling her back to the reason they were here. The nine of them circled the priestess, lighting their candles from the flame in her hand. There was only a light breeze, but Ruut cupped her mittened hand around her flame, just to be safe. Once they all had their candles lighted, the priestess pressed her hands together. The flame that had been there disappeared. It was only left in their candles.
Carefully they moved, sheltering their tiny fires as they walked, and formed a circle around the huge pile of wood and branches. Then they looked up at the elder. He nodded.
They all squatted in their places. Carefully Ruut moved her candle to a branch in front of her that still had dry, brown leaves covering it. The leaves caught fire easily. She moved the candle to some thin wood shavings. They would probably be better tinder than the leaves, she knew. They would burn longer, giving the bigger pieces of wood around them more time to catch fire.
One by one they all stood back up as their parts of the bonfire caught fire enough to not need help staying aflame anymore. They stood and watched silently as the flames started small but quickly grew bigger and bigger, throwing sparks ever higher in the sky. Eventually they all had to step back as the fire grew too hot to stand so close to. The fire was warming Ruut’s face, making it glow with happy heat, while her back felt the cold of the night slowly beginning to creep in.
After it got properly dark the other townsfolk began to appear. They brought food and laughter with them. They brought things they wanted to add to the fire. Slips of paper, or bark, or leather with their hopes written on them. Hair from the people who had died in the last year. Tokens of their love for someone, or someone else’s for them. Luck-stones. Anything that was now irreparably broken, but had meant a lot to the owner when it had still been useful. Ruut saw Anna bringing a dried blueberry branch. She wondered what that was about, but she didn’t want to ask. Anna looked sad when she threw it into the flames.
It was cold and dark everywhere outside the bonfire’s sphere of light, but right now it didn’t matter. The whole town had come to the square. They were all together, and safe, and warm close to the flames that climbed high into the night sky. The food hammered into planks or simply hung to cook closer to the fire than any one of them could comfortably stand was starting to smell wonderful. The first bits of everything were fed to the fire, so the whole year would be as full of food as tonight was. Someone handed Ruut a cup of steaming juice. She took a sip and the wonderful warmth spread through her core, the cup in her hands warmed her fingers even through her thick mittens.
A few guys started to play. Normally there wouldn’t be music outside when it was this cold, but the fire was keeping the players’ hands warm and their fingers running on strings and along the length of the flute, beating at the drums. Others started dancing. Everyone had their turn at it, dancing their hearts out to keep away the cold and the dark. They danced and sang until they couldn’t dance anymore. They had a drink and some food, and then they danced and sang some more.
The night wore on, and town ate, and sang, and danced, and laughed together. Some of the young men wanted to see if they could jump over the bonfire. There was a rumour it was good luck if you could make the jump. The others stopped them. They had to settle for throwing their luck-stones in, just like everyone else. Ruut ran her fingers along the grooves of the letters of her name etched into the stone before throwing hers in. It landed somewhere in the middle of the flames. She hoped she would be able to find it tomorrow, when the last embers of the fire would be cool enough to go digging for them in the ash. She hoped it wouldn’t crack from the heat of the fire. She didn’t want a year of bad luck.
Happiness had snuck its way into Ruut’s heart and settled deep without her even noticing. In that moment she wanted nothing more than to be here, with these people, and for it all to never end. She was smiling at the fire, her belly filled with warm food and drink, singing along to whatever song was being sung.
But nothing lasts forever. The youngest children disappeared first, their parents taking them home to sleep. The old went soon after. The last ones left were the young people. They stayed around the fire for a long, long time after most had gone to sleep, but the darkness of the night eventually got to them too, and they headed to their beds, yawning. For a brief moment Ruut wished she could go too, to change the warmth of the fire for the warmth of her bed. But no. This night she had a duty. The only ones still around the bonfire were the nine Guardians of the Fire. They looked at each other, their eyes tired, faces determined.
The nights lasted for a long time this time of year. It wasn’t even midnight yet when all the others had gone, and their shift had truly begun. The responsibility of the fire was truly solely on them now. Through the endless hours of the first winter night they talked, and joked. They played games to keep each other awake. They competed in who knew the names of most stars dotting the black sky until their faces got too cold and they turned back to face the fire. And they made sure that the fire never went out. They had been adding wood to burn for hours as the original pile had shrunk smaller and smaller.
It was the longest night of Ruut’s life. She had never felt as tired as she did in the deep hours of the night, when the only things moving were the nine of them and the long shadows cast by the flickering of the fire. Time had never moved as slowly. The night was cold, and seemed to get colder the longer it lasted. They had been told it would be coldest right before sunrise. The only reasons the Guardians themselves weren’t cold was the fire they were guarding. Ruut only stayed awake through pure stubbornness, and with the help of her fellow Guardians. This was one of the most important tasks one was given in their lives. She would not let down her family, her town. Her only job right now was to stay awake, to guard the fire. She could do that.
After an eternity had passed, the sky to the southeast began to slowly lighten. They didn’t even notice it at first. But when they did, the relief was plain on all their faces. They added some last pieces of wood to the fire, and together watched the sky slowly brighten from black to dark blue to white and pink.
As the first rays of sun found their way over the horizon, they got ready for one last task they had. They took their sturdy torches, the small, fragile flames of candles wouldn’t do this time, and lighted them from what was now little more than a big circle of coals, glowing a bright, hot red.
They nodded to each other and left the remnants of the bonfire behind, making their ways all in different directions. That morning they brought new fire to the hearths of the town, to every house and every person. A fire that was fresh and bright, to replace the old fire that had been filled with past dreams, with regrets and accidents and all the misfortune of the last year. That fire had become old and tired, a fire that wouldn’t keep anyone warm and would light no path well. That old fire from last year they had all put out the day before. The new fire they brought with them now had the strength to keep them all warm and comfortable all winter, to light the long nights that were still to come before the world would be warm and full of light again. A fire that they had all built together the night before. A fire that consisted of the memories they wanted to keep close, of love and songs and dancing, of the dreams they had given to the flames so they would always stay close and bring light and warmth to their paths for another year to come.
