~ 16 ~
We gathered, the four of us, to exchange gifts in the last of the light of that day. Astar and Stella, of course, had been going mad with anticipation for theirs. And they wouldn’t last through the vigil until midnight. Ami declared that tradition could wait on them growing up more, and for now we’d share opening presents as a family, in the late hours of afternoon of the shortest day of the year.
That worked fine for me, though it shortened my preparation time. Next year, I’d be ready. Next year at Windroven. Since I knew where I’d be, for the first time since I escaped that prison.
And for the first time, I realized that maybe part of me had never escaped, and it was past time to let him out. I’d found continuity, my own home, in Ami and at Windroven. I could be safe here. And it was time to embrace the new, letting the past fall away.
Astar loved the sword I’d carved for him. It would do until I could get him a better one. Because my parents had always given me intangible gifts instead of material things they couldn’t afford, I also gave Astar a scroll, explaining that it was the gift of sword lessons.
Ami gave both Astar and Stella pretty toys, and—to my surprise—she also gave promises—scrolls tied with ribbons. This one her love. This one hugs for the asking. More to call in favors of games to play or a willing ear to listen to their troubles.
I’d cut up my White Monk’s robes, to make a cape for Stella. A cloak of invisibility, I told her, so she could wrap up in it, be quiet, and not have to feel what everyone else felt. With it I gave her a scroll promising lessons in that too, and in healing. She accepted it gravely, stretching up to kiss my cheek, while Astar whooped around the room, swinging the wooden sword in wild circles.
Making those had left me little time, so I gave Ami the scroll I’d made for her with an apology.
“Why apologize?” she asked. “The kids like toys to play with, but Moranu is the goddess of the intangible. It’s traditional to give the gift of a promise, or something else that isn’t a material item.”
I gazed back at her, bemused. “I thought my parents only did that because they were poor.”
She leaned in and kissed me. “Maybe sometime you can tell me stories about them. Anything you feel you can, I want to hear.”
“About that—this is one of those stories,” I told her, handing over the scroll. It had been terrible to write out, leaving a pall of illness behind. Just the pus, oozing out. Curiously, after I finished, I felt lighter, as if the act of telling the story had cleansed that infection. I’d made two copies: one for her, and one to burn at midnight.
Ami clutched it so tightly she dented the scroll, her eyes full of emotion. “Thank you,” she whispered.
“There’s more. It might take time to tell you all of it, but I want you to know. So here is this gift.” I unrolled it and showed her. I written one word on it. Trust. And she smiled to see it.
“One more.” I glanced wryly at the kids, Stella now the lion cub batting at the thrusts of Astar’s practice sword. “Not exactly a romantic setting, but…” I went down on one knee.
“Oh, Ash.”
I had to calm the frantic battering of my heart, speaking slowly to get the words past the scarring. “Amelia, my love, my sun in the best of all possible ways. Will you be my wife?”
“Yes.” She caught her breath on a sob. “Yes. We’ll have a big wedding.”
“I don’t care about the formalities. I’m already yours, if you’ll have me.”
I stood to kiss her, but she reached for the remaining scroll she’d brought, holding it against her breasts with a sly smile.
“Oh, I’ll have you, all right, but we’re going to do it right, for all the world to see. And this is a start.” She handed it to me and rang a bell.
I laughed as I read it—then resigned myself as the quartet of musicians came in and set up. Ami held out her hands and I took them.
“Put one hand here, and the other here,” she instructed. “Listen for the music. One, two, three. One, two, three.”
Just before the clock struck midnight, Ami and I threw our dark secrets into the fire. She’d never done that part of the tradition, but enthusiastically embraced it. She and I spent the last dark hours of that year writing down all the things we wanted to leave behind. Holding hands, we burned them, consigning them to ash.
Then we collected the sleepy twins and took our votives to the big landing, where everyone had assembled. Graves and Skunk were there, and many other people I’d never seen before. All in their best finery. Even the lowest servants joined us, dousing the last of the castle lights as they did, standing on the ascending stairways if they couldn’t crowd onto the landing. At the chime, we blew out the last of our candles, standing together in the dark. Beyond the great glass windows, the sparkling dark night resolved.
The second chime rang, and people began to relight their candles. I lit Stella’s, her luminous eyes catlike and solemn, while Ami lit Astar’s. Outside the windows, torches lit at the castle walls, then ran in a rapidly expanding circuit around all the turrets, then pouring down the winding road down the peak. Ami laughed with pure joy and the kids squealed, nearly forgetting their own candles.
“I so hoped the wind would stop long enough for this,” Ami told me. “I really wanted to see it. For all of us.”
“I understand why,” I told her, cupping her cheek. In the brilliance of the moment, I didn’t care who watched us. I kissed her, something rekindling inside me also, the light spreading throughout.
With Willy and Nilly safely back abed, we joined the party already well underway in the great hall. But they cleared the space for us, and so I led my love onto the dance floor, setting the pace and the tone for the coming year. I wore the clothes Ami had made for me herself, the deep greens of my calling as a healer, embroidered with leaves in ivory, pink, purple and bloodred. All of my allegiances in one.
Though the dance was far from perfect, I did my best. Looking down into Ami’s radiant face, I realized that sometimes that’s all right.
And that love, like fire, might burn and rage, but it also lit the dark night with hope. Which made it all worthwhile.