Stories

The Great Hall was filled with light and flowers, there were so many flowers, so many candles, the whole floor was covered in them. It felt strange for Aifa to watch the Twins, who were dressed up in their simple white garments and had flowers woven in their elaborately braided hair, sit donning unearthly smiles on top of a mound of flowers, like living statues.

“Aifa,” grandmother whispered, although nobody in the house was sleeping. “Are you ready, granddaughter? It is time to go to the Hearth.” Aifa wrapped her garment a little tighter around her waist and washed her face with the rose water her mother had made, put on her shoes and walked in silence behind her grandmother, stepping purposefully on the old stone paving, under the eerie brightness of th...

Anyway, that afternoon Aifa and the Twins were out on the daffodil meadow, which Ama and Jal seemed to be particularly fond of, when all of the sudden the sky grew dark and shook with rumblings. Any other children would have run for the hills, screaming their lungs out, but not the Twins, who looked mesmerized towards the horizon, as if they have been waiting for this particular event their entire...

From the moment the Twins arrived, poor Aifa hadn’t experienced a moment’s rest. They were five years old now, constantly moving around and getting into everything, and last, but not least, they never stopped talking. They seemed to have reached that glorious age when everything aroused their curiosity and the Caretakers couldn’t stay abreast their endless lists of whys. One question they seemed t...

The closer it got to the spring equinox, the more animated the Grand Hall of the Hearth became, engulfed in a flurry of activities related to sprucing up, clearing and decorating it for the arrival of the Twins. Every now and then one of the Caretakers went out into the yard, to check if the ice on the pond had thinned, or even melted, gazing intently at the space above it in the hope of seeing tw...

The Day of the Blessings usually started early in Aifa’s household. Aifa and her siblings were already dressed up in their costumes by the time the sun was high up in the sky, and were crowding each other in the kitchen, where they were all gathered to stuff their goody baskets with filled pastries and other yummy treats. They were lucky this year, the day was sunny and relatively warm for the beg...

Towards the end of February winter started easing its grasp on the mountain springs, allowing them to come back to life, almost suddenly, in bubbling expressions of movement and sound. The tiny brooks searched for each other down the mountain, forming tiny pools and waterfalls, and when they could, they joined their forces in larger streams, with the playfulness of living things, and very young on...

Ifyou were born in Cré at the beginning of February, you would be among the youngest people to enter the Hearth. It was the yearly tradition that new mothers should bring the babies who have been born over the course of the previous year to receive a blessing. Aifa was born in the summer, so she was a few months old when she first breathed the air of the Hearth, which was believed to be able to im...

“Wake up, granddaughter,” Aifa’s grandmother shook her gently, so she wouldn’t be startled out of her deep sleep. “We need to go to the Hearth soon, we don’t want to keep people waiting.” Aifa got up quickly, washed her face and hands and put on the clothes that she’d been setting aside the day before, hand made and never worn before, like tradition required. She knew they weren’t going to leave i...

Aifa had always asked herself, ever since she was a little child, why would a community decide to perform a ceremony that featured water during the time of year when it was almost guaranteed to be frozen. Of course if she asked her mother, she would have gotten hours of cross-referenced instruction about the significance of the holiday, complete with historical dates and the most important writing...

Itwas the week before the feast of the Birth of Life, a time when the city of Cré was usually bustling with activity. Everybody rushed to finish the preparations for the feast, get the gifts wrapped, and most importantly, get ready for the big social gathering that happened at the Hearth each year to mark this event.

Onthe longest night of the year, the women of Cré gather quietly, dressed in their festive garments, whiter than snow, to walk the gentle hill towards the Hearth of the Gemini, whose limestone walls glow ghostly in the distance. They have no lights to guide them, other than those of the stars and the moon, as they slowly join in long files, which in turn join larger streams, which in turn join the...

“Taylor? Taylor Bradford?” a voice called from behind the counter, with non-dissimulated boredom. “I’ve got the reference materials you requested. Where do you want them?” Taylor pointed to the table in the middle of the reading room and one of the assistant librarians who were working in that section dropped the thick stack of books on it, went back behind his counter and adjusted his ear buds to...

“Whoa, what’s on fire?” Taylor woke up the next morning to painful, unholy banging on the door. “What’s gotten into Christine, and why doesn’t she just come in, she knows the lock doesn’t work?” She stumbled towards the door, nursing a bear of a headache, surprised to see that somebody had already repaired the broken lock. The door burst wide open, slamming into the wall, and in came Matthew, carr...

“Where are we?” Taylor looked around, trying to recognize her surroundings. There was something very familiar about the place, it felt as if she had spent a lot of time there, but so long ago, maybe in a dream. “For lack of a better word, dead,” he clarified, too calm for comfort. “Not dead-dead, just on the other side of the river Styx, visiting, sort of. Don’t worry, we’re going back.” “I didn’t...

”Are you sure you are ready for this? It may be a little unsettling,” he asked. “As sure as I’ll ever be,” Taylor answered, doubtful. She hadn’t slept well the night before, well, with the sea lion visiting and whatnot, and was a little concerned about the extra preparation required for this door. “What is it this time?” she tried to anticipate her challenge.  “Just remember, whatever you see or f...

The thing about the human mind is that it trains itself to be very efficient, so it automatically eliminates the events that have an extremely low probability of happening so that the brain doesn’t get burdened with useless information to the detriment of day to day activity. When these very rare events happen, the mind gets confused and resentful, trying in vain to reconcile what it thought it kn...

Taylor woke up to a timid knock on the door, followed by a soft fumbling with the door handle. It was Christine, who was trying to balance a large box of jelly donuts and two cups of coffee. She entered, sheepishly, waiting for Taylor’s reaction. “Peace offering?” she said, from behind the donut box. “What gives?” Taylor asked, more curious than upset. “I”m so sorry, Taylor! I realized yesterday a...

“Have the lessons from yesterday’s field trip reached you yet?” he asked, smiling politely. “More than I care to process,” she thought, still upset about the musts and the have to’s, but she answered in the same good mannered vein. “A few, I’m still analyzing them.” “Just remember, before we go through door number three, that not every rule is there to be broken, but it helps, every now and then,...

“I have to ponder this rationally,” Taylor thought and quickly put together a plan to address the current situation. Whether it was real or not, she figured all of this weird stuff kept happening to her around four o’clock, and if she managed to avoid her haunting ghost, hallucination, prankster or whatever he was around that time of day she should be fine. Since the thought of locking herself in...

Taylor woke up and got ready for classes, as if nothing had happened the day before, trying to avoid looking at the door, somewhat uneasy with the thought that if she did, she might not see it there anymore. The first day was filled with the trepidation of adjusting to new settings and finding her way through the maze of buildings and hallways, and in all the excitement she almost forgot about the...

“Taylor? Taylor Bradford?” a voice called from behind the counter, with non-dissimulated boredom.  Taylor fumbled with the paperwork and rushed to the counter to finish registering for classes before the four o’clock deadline. The clerk handled the documents absentmindedly, while she watched the clock and switched to a more leisurely mindset in anticipation of the get together she had planned with...

“Persephone, darling! What a joy to have you back home!” Demeter welcomed her daughter effusively at the mouth of the cave of Cumae and presented her with the traditional sheaf of barley. The oracle of Cumae bowed deeply to both goddesses, concealing a resentful glare, while Demeter performed a critical assessment of her daughter, staring her up and down in search of things that required attention...

Persephone was careful about lifting her torch, to avoid scorching the healthy roots which poked through the vault of the cave, drawn by the sound of the small stream running through it. Plants can hear water from great distances. Plants can hear water from great distances and extend roots to capture it. They are a lot more sophisticated than people know. A delicate root tracery was covering the e...

As spring approached, Persephone started getting restless. She was startled from her sleep, shaken by the feeling she forgot something important, whose absence had consequences which were now piling up out of sight. Her daydreaming trips to the gardens got shorter, as she spent more and more time with Hecate preparing for her trip. Most of the hard work of spring was happening underground, quietly...