Howl by heget

Chapter 1

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The night of the masks had come again, on the full moon of the last harvest. The last sheath had been gathered, bound, and hallowed in the name of the giver of fruits, and now balance would shift to another, she of grief and winter, and the nights would grow longer than the days. After tonight, the lords and ladies of growing things and warmth would step down from their thrones. With promise the tools of harvest were stored beside the seeds for next year's planting. The blistering days of the last twilight of summer would become distant memory after tonight, the winds blowing only cold from the north and the pines preserving the only remnant of color. Here came the night of sorrow and memory, but also the night of hope and defiance.

Illuminated by towering bonfires built in the cleared and now empty fields, the people gathered to listen and sing their history. They brought their torches and wreaths and some the masks that hung face down and hidden the rest of the year. This ritual of sacred history was shared only on the full moon before the turn to winter. Once all had gathered around the tallest bonfire did the silence break. The wise woman began the songs in a voice that was strong and piercing, and those that did not sing joined her with clapping hands or feet. What was sung were old melodies, the most ancient songs, for half the words no longer had meaning, and of their significance only the wise woman knew in full. Of the words they still understood were chants for running, for long journeys and sorrow and desperate hope. No names were spoken that night, for none had survived to be recalled. Memory needed the dance and the masks more than the words. 

Once they had no fields, no harvest, no food, no home. Once they had only darkness and hunger, travelling ever westward in the hope of freedom and safety. Once only the moon had known them. Only the moon knew their journey and all the words to the songs they had sung.

Once long before they had possessed fields and homes, but no freedom, for their harvests had not been their own. Once long before their great enemy had claimed them as their own.

In the flickering of bonfires and moonlight, the people hid their faces behind masks of their enemies. They disguised themselves as snarling wolves and monsters, chalk-white fangs and black fur capes lined with wooden beads that rattled and shook as they cavorted and danced. The ones hidden beneath the masks of wolves howled and laughed, stamped their feet and forgot their voices. Hunched over like the beasts that their masks mimicked, they curved fingers like claws. Running to the edges of the field they disappeared in the darkness, then leaped back out to weave patterns and circles in what remained of the winnowed grain. Others unmasked dressed themselves in their simplest garments, the white of undyed cloth bright against the glow of moonlight. They danced in counterpoint with garlands of autumn flowers and leaves crowning their heads, and streaks of ash ran like tear tracks down their faces. The ash came from what had been gathered from their hearths as the people dosed all the fires that morning. On this night the only lit flames would be out in the middle of the harvested fields. They danced for their ancestors who fled from the first fields, those who left homes and hearth for the unknown wilds, running before the wolves of the enemy. Their dance was steadier, forming rings of joined hands and staying close to the bonfire. Until the ones in masks leaped out. Then the hands would break apart, the dancers in white scatter. In mock horror they screamed and skipped away from grasping hands of those masked like wolves. Back and forth went this dance, while the rest sang and rattled strings of bone and beads and clapped and chanted. 

A boy spun and leaped free of his older cousins, his laughter rising above the crackle of the bonfire, the rattle of beads, clapping of hands, and stomping of feet. Last year he had been a wolf, and he had howled loudest behind his painted fangs. No one had been a better or more believable wolf. This year he was his ancestor, defying the enemy by running free of the wolves. No one could touch him. The boy spun once more in the air, his white tunic spotted with soot and ash, gray as the moon that witnessed his daring leaps. 

The wise woman finally rejoined the dancers with a new crown atop her white-streaked hair, one with three pieces of polished rock crystal instead of flowers, a cloak of black wool across her shoulders. On the finest chair from the feasting hall whom none would remember having fetched and just as mysteriously would none remember returning the chair to the hall once the dawn rose did the wise woman sit enthroned. Surrounded by torches, her face was recast fey and strange. Her eyes heavy-lidded surveyed the dancers before her, and with hand gestures slow and imperious she bellowed that her wolves bring to her the brightest sacrifice. Her piercing voice was pitched low and cold, the mask of the enemy. 

In a leaping frenzy the dancers in wolf masks began to ring the bonfire, howling the last song as the dancers in white fetched torches to light. The boy paused and smiled, teeth as bright as the painted fangs of his cousins as he held out his hands. Each grabbed one arm and hoisted their laughing cousin into the air, carrying him through a gauntlet of other dancers, unlit torches crossed above their heads. To their great aunt enthroned with a black crown they brought the boy, and in the enemy’s deep voice she demanded to know who they had brought before her. Ritual words she called out; his name she desired, the labor of his hands, the bounty of his fields.

The boy knew his role, that he was supposed to pretend to be afraid of his great aunt, of the enemy enthroned and crowned, but that he must shout defiance, give no name, as the dancers in masks bowed low and waited for the shout that would allow them to remove their snarling wolf-faces. Together everyone would dip the torches into the bonfire to begin the last procession from the fields back to the feasting hall where they would drink and feast until the dawn. The hearths would be re-lit and masks hidden. Still, the boy could not halt his laughter as the wise woman loomed above him, the pieces of crystal in her crown reflecting off the harvest moon like true gems. Laughter and pride danced in her gray eyes as the boy, released by his pair of cousins, stood and stepped forward. A bold one, she called him, the hint of a smile at the corner of her frowning mouth. Once more she demanded his name, and the dancers shifted awkwardly. The boy could not break tradition.

He wanted to shout his name for all to hear and proclaim it would not matter anyway, for the enemy could not catch him. He wanted to turn the simple taunt into a new song of defiance, to list all that his people had accomplished and would now that they were free. He wanted to sing until the moon heard his voice. To howl like the wolves, forget once more he was a boy. Wanted to lean close and whisper into the wise woman’s ear that she did not frighten him. To kiss her eyes and break the spell that made her terrible and fey. To brush his fingers against the crown of dark branches and pluck free the three pieces of clear stone. 

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Chapter End Notes

"Beren" is Sindarian for bold.