Red Spell

Chapter Two

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"There you two are!" I turned with a smile to see Da coming up the hill towards Mam and I. My dreams always started out happy like this. Everything was happy when I was nine.

"The festival is about begin," he said, scooping me up and swinging me around. He wheezed and pretended to drop me until I shrieked with laughter.

"Hannon, please be careful," Mam cried trying to hold her hands under my head. Hannon swung me up so I was sitting on his arm and kissed Mam on the forehead.

"I won't drop her," he laughed. "She doesn't weigh more than a mouse." He slid me to the ground and offered an arm to each of us with a flirtatious smile. "Come along my girls, I've a mind to make the lads jealous of me." He laughed and I caught the irresistible twinkle in his gray eyes as I clung proudly to his arm. My da was the strongest man in the village; the strongest in the whole world and the most handsome with his towering stature and thick salt and pepper hair. It was only right that he was the village shepherd and everyone looked up to him. I was delighted when people said I had his laugh and that wonderful twinkle and even his stubbornness. They also said I was the spitting image of Mam, but I didn't believe anyone could be as pretty. I decided they only said that because I had the same blue eyes.

"Hannon, you'll spoil us with your flattery," Rowena said, taking his other arm. He shrugged with a boyish grin.

"Well how else would I manage a couple of lovely ladies?"

"Honeyed berries would've worked," I said after a moment of nine-year-old consideration. Hannon laughed aloud as he led us toward the center of the village.

People laughed and talked excitedly as the great bonfire was lit for the first time to welcome the winter season. The stones around it had been cleaned and repaired in preparation for constant use as the days grew colder and colder and soon there would be snow. My skin prickled with anticipation. Lighting the bonfire for the first time in winter meant the beginning of stories around the hearth in the evenings and feasting on preserved berries.

The summer had been prosperous which meant we could afford to slaughter a sheep for the festival and there were mountains of wool from the last sheep shearing day. There would be good trading when the traders and merchants passed through the village.

I was quickly dragged off by some of my friends to sneak slices of roasted apples and giggle together. There was always the ongoing competition of who would be asked to dance first, but usually the boys were slow and begrudging and had to be prodded by their mothers. Even so it was nice to be the first one picked from among all the others. I looked forward to a dance with Da and felt that I won every year because he was the best dancer after Mam.

The evening floated by like the tantalizing fragrance of plums cooked in honey with a rare pinch of cinnamon and I ate until I thought I'd be sick. After the dancing I sat with the other little girls on blankets near the fire and watched and laughed as the boys tried to poke a precariously balanced log in the fire with a stick and scattered when it collapsed in a burst of sparks.

Finally, as the moon climbed to it's peak, Da came and picked me up out of the sleeping cluster of children and carried me home while Mam stayed to help one of the village grandmothers back to her cottage as she usually did when there was a gathering. I had been content to pretend sleep as Da carried me, but when we got back to the cottage, I was eager to show Mam the shiny pebble a boy had given me after one of the dances. I ran back and forth from the door to the window as I waited. Da laughed at me.