A Book of Dust and Breath

SAMHAIN

Cinnie danced in the kitchen. Her long soft skirts twirled around her, an aura of patchwork colors.

Max averted his eyes, carrying the fresh milk straight to the table without speaking.

"Don't do that!" She admonished and he looked up, startled. He put the bucket of milk on the table every morning, part of a routine as repetitive as the rising and setting of the sun.

The girl took the bucket from him and grasped both of his hands in hers. The swollen globe of her pregnant belly stretched between them. "Don't you know what today is? Can't you feel the magic in the air? Can't you hear the fairies dancing? Behold! On this, of all days, there is magic all around us!"

Max blinked, trying to count days in his head. One blurred into another, an endless line of milking cows, splitting wood, harvesting the long lines of potatoes and cabbages.

Cinnie laughed at him, leaning in as if telling a secret. "Samhain, Max! Today the veil is thin and we rejoice and sing."

Samhain! His heart skipped a beat. Could it be so late in the season already? Winter was coming which meant tending sheep in the freezing rain and days that ended nearly before they'd begun while nights stretched on interminably. But first... Samhain! Feasts! Even a lowly servant like him would have the opportunity to fill his belly with hot stew and sweet pies. The mummers would perform and the whole village would dance around the bonfire until the cock crowed in the morning. A smile touched the corner of his mouth.

Cinnie released his hands. "That's more like it. Now. No more chores. Go wash and put on your best clothes. I want you to dance with me."

Dancing. Better than all the food in the world, there was nothing as free and wonderful as dancing in praise to the glory of all creation. He raced to the stream and washed in the icy water. When he'd scrubbed until his skin tingled, red and raw, he slipped his least-tattered shirt over his head and pulled on his too-small trousers. By the time he got back to the house, Cinnie's mother was laying a table with fresh fish, cheese, and warm bread. Max's stomach growled like a bear and Cinnie laughed at him.

"Max, you'll be lucky to tame that beast in your belly with this one around. She's likely to eat the feast herself and leave nothing at'll for the likes of you. I swear that child she's feeding wants more than a grown man."

"He'll be big and strong, like his papa," Cinnie said, patting her belly proudly.

"You'll be fat as the baker's wife when that boy comes home from that forsaken war he's fighting in."

The younger woman slathered a thick layer of butter on a steaming slice of bread. "More of me to love," she quipped.

Max frowned, suddenly certain that Cinnie's betrothed had been killed in battle. The young mother-to-be often worried it would happen and now it had. No doubt shadowed the thought. You can't possibly know that, he told himself, reaching for a piece of fish, but he did know, and it made him sad for her.

"Max," she chided. "If you don't stop frowning we won't let you come with us to the festival."

"Sorry," he mumbled, wanting to share his fear and knowing no good would come of that. Cinnie and her mother had taken him in when, as a toddler, he'd wandered out of the forest half dead and crawling with lice. Others whispered about him being a foundling, a child of the faeries, a haunting spirit, but they gave him a home and a warm place to sleep and asked only that he work as their farmboy in return. As such things went, it could have turned out much worse for him. He lived each day aware of his debt to them, determined to repay it before he left.