Special Effects: A Happy Face
The ritual began. Stephanie stood in the darkness on the edge of the field and watched as the fires were lit. The red sparks flew higher and higher, up into the stars. Faces glowed red and bodies were transformed by the flickering, heaving flames. The men with the torches danced away and joined the hundreds of other watchers, who all held torches as well.
A ram's horn sounded, long and mournful, calling as it had always called for over a thousand years, and the first ceremony, consisting of a line of young girls, swept in from all sides. They were like white flames, these slim, ethereal girls. Light on their bare feet, thin as spider's webs, rushing towards the fire like thistle-down. They stopped at the edges and spun on their toes, tossing flowers outwards, jumping together, turning again.
The men gave the ancient call and the girls danced back to the torch-holding shapes around the edges of the field. The people in the darkness were like black rocks, with faces showing cherry red in the night, and hands crimson with the burning fires on their sticks.
Now it was the turn of the boys to run to the fire. They shouted as they came, heavier, solid, almost clumsy. They turned at the brink of licking red tongues and spun in the red heat, then they too returned into the darkness.
Now the music began. Instrument from long ago made their reedy sounds. Sticks rattled, strings twanged, cymbals clashed. And the procession began.
But Stephanie hung back. She was a stranger to all this noise and magic. She had been invited to come, to join, but it was her first time. She did not feel a part of it. She did not, in fact, believe in it.
A week ago, her uncle had rung her.
"Stephanie darling, guess who this is?"
"I don't know."
"I'm your uncle Knibbs. Remember me?"
"No, I'm sorry."
"You were only three when I last saw you. How old are you now?"
"Ten."
"My my, how time flies! No wonder you don't remember!"
