Eritopia

The Occasion

As the afternoon lengthened Bear and Not-Bear walked on with the others. Not-Bear's legs had been aching for a while and his head pounded with the chatter of animals. When he tried to talk to Bear some creature would come between them and he would fight to get back alongside. Everyone had an intent look on their faces, and he could see some smaller animals were struggling. There were young ones among them and Not-Bear wondered if they were going to get their names at the Occasion too.

Then someone shouted, 'Look!' A stag had stopped and was gesturing with a tilt of his antlers ahead of them. A buzz of excitement rippled back through the crowd as they tried to see what it was. Some ran or climbed up nearby trees to get a better look. A cat jumped on the back of an old boar to get a better view. Big bears lifted smaller bears on their shoulders so they could see what was happening.

Not-Bear, who was too low down to see anything, had to rely on the others for information.

'Look!' 'Look at that.' 'What is it?' came the cries.

'Well?' asked Not-Bear, as Bear craned his neck to find out what was going on.

'I can see some smoke,' Bear said, not to be hurried. Not-Bear could see it too, a distant wisp of grey spiralling up into the sky.

'Is that all?' he asked. 

'It's a sign the Occasion is starting,' said Bear.

Soon they came to a huge clearing among the trees. As they arrived the crowd was already filling an area so big Not-Bear thought it must be the Outside itself. Bear, although it was four years since his own coming-of-age, was still impressed. There was Forest on all sides, a forest of dense, straight, emerald-green pines. Ahead of them the huge bowl of land stretched to a distant horizon of trees. They watched as the flood of creatures emptied into it. A bonfire was burning at the very centre of the expanse, the source of the smoke they had seen earlier. But the fire was dwarfed by the immense structure around it, a ring of great slabs of grey stone.

'That's it,' said Bear, 'The ancient site of the Occasions, the Circle.'

Not-Bear whistled through his teeth. 'Who could have built that?' he said.

Bear turned and looked at him.

'I only meant...'

'Not now,' Bear snapped, and they carried on down the slope toward the Circle.

The crowd kept filling the clearing as the sky darkened and the Circle loomed ahead. As they edged toward it questions kept firing inside Not-Bear's head. Like: Would the Elders be in the Circle? Who built the fire? Who discovered fire? Who named it? Questions he knew Bear would not want to answer. He thought about asking one of the other creatures, yet many looked at him queerly and backed away.

'Bear?'

'Yes,' Bear said.

'Where will we spend the Chilling?'

'On the Inside, as usual,' Bear told him as they found a space on the grass and settled down.

'So we are going back?'

'Of course, tomorrow, the same way as we came. Why?'

'Bear?'

'Yes?'

'Nothing.' He was going to ask why they didn't celebrate the Occasions on the Inside, instead of in the Forest. Yet, looking at the Circle, he could answer that himself. He had never seen anything like it. The walls were archways formed of standing stones. There was a smaller circle inside the large one. Some of the stones of the outer group had further slabs on top of them, alternating with the gaps. In some cases these had fallen off, to lie twisted and broken at the side of the uprights. It was clearly too difficult for the Elders to put them back, to make the pattern whole again. There were no words to describe the thing. Yet one thing bothered him. If the Elders couldn't repair the Circle, how could they have built it? Someone else must have. Was it the same people who had named the Elders? They must have been much bigger, taller than the tallest tree, stronger than the winds of the Chilling. And again, why build it here in the heart of the Forest, so far from the Inside?