The Fires of Samhain
CH 1
CH's Characters are her babies. When I'm done playing with them, I'm sending them straight back to their mamma.
A/N: I nearly wrote a humorous fic, you know I love to write humor, but I got a supernatural nudge from someone I can't ignore. There are no costumes involved except the ones that we all assume everyday to conceal the things we don't want anyone else to see. Samhain (Gaelic for "summer's end") is the holiday from which Halloween is derived. Along with the ancient Celts, Neo-Pagans believe that Oidhche Shamhna (pronounced "ee-haw sow-na") is a very holy time, when the boundaries between our world and the Otherworld are broken and the dead return to the places where they had lived. This is a story about Samhain fire--what it consumes and what it reveals when sparks ignite.
Thanks, GaiginVamp, for being my beta and for being my dear friend.
Take me to the breaking of a beautiful dawn
Take me to the place where we come from
Take me to the end so I can see the start
There's only one way to mend a broken heart
Take me to the place where I don't feel so small
Take me where I don't need to stand so tall
Take me to the edge so I can fall apart
There's only one way to mend a broken heart…
Take me where love isn't up for sale
Take me where our hearts are not so frail
Take me where the fire still owns its spark
There's only one way to mend a broken heart
"Beautiful Dawn" The Wailin' Jennys
The gently rolling hills fold into the place where The Valley dips and glows with red-orange light. Great tongues of flame reach up into the cool October night. My back tingles with the chill while the bonfire's heat flushes my cheeks. Red-orange sparks crackle and soar upward, like souls seeking a doorway to the otherworld. It's Samhain, Halloween, and the veil between the worlds is thin. I stare into the flames and will my deepest longing to soar with the sparks toward my beloved dead.
Mom, Dad, Gran, I'm lighting your way to me. Please, I'm so lost…so empty…so numb…I'm holding back until you give me a sign, because each step that I take leads me farther and farther away from you…open the door…
A sudden gust of wind stirs the flames; I hear a whisper, as soft and gentle as a caress. They gaze at me lovingly beyond the leaping flames. But I can't reach them, and I know in my heart that they shouldn't be here. Then, I hear Gran's low, steady voice.
All's well with us honey. We had to move on. It's time you moved on too.
Waking into the silent, darkness, half asleep, I feel her loss with a grief as raw as the morning that she went out to tend the horses--the morning I found her collapsed in the hay barn.
Before I'm fully awake, I call out, "Gran!"
But she's gone. At the fairly young age of sixty-two, death took her, like a rogue wave, and carried her away. The death-wave carried both of my parents away twelve years earlier when my dad ran a stop sign he didn't see and crashed into a tractor-trailer. I was eleven and my brother Jason was fifteen when our grandmother, Adele Stackhouse, used every ounce of her wit, wisdom, and affection to fill that void.
The woman whose presence seemed eternal, whose keen intelligence, humor, and attentiveness filled my life with warmth and light, is gone.
I breathe deeply, absorbing the reality of her absence. Deep within me, a sob seeks release, but I lock it away and squeeze my eyes shut tight, warding away my tears. There's no one to hear--no arms to comfort me as the sky shifts from black to grey. It's been a month since her funeral and I haven't cried--not once. I've lost too much of my past, and I'm afraid that if I stare too hard at the hurt and the loss, the wave of my grief will carry me beyond my ability to cope. I've pushed the tears back, back, back. I'd cry a flood; I'd cry until the levee broke. The only thing that grounds me now is my love for this land and the pride I take in carrying on where Gran and my parents left off.
Outside, the first pearly dawn light trickles through the curtains and falls upon my "knick-knack" shelf. Every item grounds me to my house, my town, and my past. There's the winning softball signed by the whole team from the summer I turned eleven. That was the last game my mother and father saw. Resting on a shelf, next to a carnival glass vase, is an old high school diary in which I pressed my senior prom corsage. The light dimly illuminates a photo of my grandmother and me leading a trail ride for a group of tourists--the last photo we had taken of the two of us. This land was Gran's world. Now it's mine.
Our gently rolling Pennsylvania farmland is beautiful. One hundred acres of sorghum, corn, soy, a small orchard, two somewhat dilapidated farmhouses, and a few horses in an old barn aren't much in today's market. But, for five generations this hundred acre farm outside of Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania has been our life. Because we won't sell one inch of it to developers, you could say that we're money poor and land rich. We've given the Farmland Trustees organization, the right to blaze some trails around its perimeter and through the woods. In return, they help to promote my brother Jason's orchard and publicize his annual October corn maze and hay rides. Gran and I ran the stables where a few locals board their horses. A few years ago, we started offering riding lessons, and trail rides, to bring in some needed cash .
Between Jason's soybeans, corn, sorghum, and orchard, and our stable, we've managed to keep our heads above water. The Farmland Trustee association's new focus on agratourism has helped us reorganize. Jason and I have planted a pumpkin patch, put in a corn maze, organized hay rides and have a booming business in October when scout troops, school groups, and suburban families, come out to enjoy this beautiful scenery and have some old fashioned fun. Samhain as my friend Amelia Dawson calls it, is always our busiest day, especially when Halloween falls on a weekend like this year.
Amelia co-owns Chadds Ford's only witch shop, "The Ash Tree," with her brother Eric Northman. She calls herself a "Neo-Pagan witch." Her bumper stickers read "Magic Happens," and "The Goddess Is Alive and Magic Is Afoot." Their hippie parents raised them to recognize the divine in nature and in other spiritual realms, and from what I can tell, their beliefs are no better or worse than anybody else's. Although a fundamentalist minister once preached a sermon outside of their shop condemning them and its contents to the fires of hell, most of the Chadds Ford residents considered the Northmans "weird," but harmless. They were "just folks" who shopped at the local grocery and attended the local schools like everyone else. I certainly wish that I had their conviction. When it comes to the supernatural, I'm in Hamlet's court. I believe that there's more to life than is "dreamt of in your philosophy," but with respect to the divine and an afterlife, nothing is clear to me.
For Amelia and Eric the manifestations of the supernatural are clear. Three years ago, when her parents retired to an "elder" hippie commune in Virginia, Amelia and her husband Tray took over The Ash Tree.
When Tray passed, other Neo-Pagans offered to take over the Samhain celebration, but Amelia insisted upon carrying on.
"Tray and I hosted a Samhain celebration for four years. I do it to give everyone an opportunity to join in ritual and celebration. Everyone who attends gains the experience and knowledge of ritual performed in a group setting. I'm a teacher and I work for the Goddess, that's my job. Tray would want me to keep up the tradition."
They're holding their Samhain bonfire on my land this year and I've promised Eric that I'll be there. Eric laid the bonfire yesterday. Since Eric's helping us with the hay rides and corn maze, it will be easy to get ready for the Samhain ceremony after the visitors leave.
Amelia offered to fix us supper, but I hate to bother her. Preparations for the celebration, and a brisk seasonal business in her shop, will take up all of her time today. Besides, she has her own grief to contend with. Two years ago this October, Amelia lost her husband and high school sweetheart, Tray Dawson. The state trooper who visited her in the hospital said that Tray swerved to miss drunken teens barreling down a winding back road. The teens survived; Tray crashed into a tree and didn't last the night.
Amelia's a year older than me, but we've both always enjoyed reading, and horses; we've been friends since we were six and seven year olds. Eric's four years older than Amelia. Like every other teenage girl in Chadds Ford, I worshiped him from afar. I never really got to know him well until he left the art school where he taught in the Pocono Mountains and moved back home to help Amelia with the family business. When I advertised for a housemate, I wasn't surprised that Amelia gave me a call.
"It's better if Eric has the house. Living there is just too hard for me…"
She paused and swallowed. I could almost feel her trying to snatch those words back. Amelia knows that I'd never move off of our land. I have one house on our property, and Jason's house is several acres and back roads away.
"It's OK 'Lia. I understand. For me it's easier being in Gran's house. I feel grounded; for you it's easier in a different space. You're welcome to move in any time."
"Thanks Sook. After the feast of Samhain, I'll have all of my affairs in order. So, how about the first Saturday in November?"
"That'll be great Lia. I'll ask Jason if we can borrow his big truck."
Tonight, after Eric and I finish helping Jason with the pumpkin pick, corn maze and hay rides, we'll grab something to eat at my place, and then get the bonfire blazing for the Samhain observance. We haven't been on a date-date yet, and I'm not sure that this counts as one. But Eric sincerely feels that this would be a good, healing experience for me. Eric and I will have time together, and we can support each other as we think about the loved ones we've lost.
So, Instead of whooping it up at a Halloween party dressed as a French maid or a she demon, I'll be attending a Neo-Pagan bonfire. I must have an ingrained attraction to unusual males. I've managed to navigate from my shipwreck of a relationship with Bill, a two-timing aristocrat, to Eric, a sensitive, Neo-Pagan sculptor, who is, hands down, the most beautiful man I've ever met in every sense.
I shouldn't be mulling this over now. Eric's meeting me at the barn to help with the horses before we head over to Jason and the corn maze. I pull on my tee, jeans, and old runners, throw on a light jacket against the morning chill, and head out to the stable. Although he's a bit rusty, Eric grew up helping out on local farms, and he's good with the horses. My brother Jason and Eric are both tall, Nordic looking blonds, with broad backs, washboard stomachs, and the kind of features the romance novels describe as "chiseled." They both love the land too. That's where the similarities end. Jason isn't bright in the book-sense, and he can be mouthy, but he is clever. Eric is quiet and deep. He's articulate, and his non-objective sculpture is astonishingly powerful. Even in high school he had one steady girlfriend and Amelia said he lived with his last girlfriend, for years.
She confided, "When Jenny and Eric's relationship ended, he didn't show any interest in starting another relationship until he met you Sook. And, believe me, he could have! Women just throw themselves at him."
Jason does love this land and is more faithful to it than he is to his women. It will be a miracle if his current girlfriend, Grace, lasts through the winter.
I'm hoping for better results. Before Gran's death left me reeling, Eric and I were on the verge of becoming a couple. He's been there for me as a friend--he's listened, he's grieved, and he's respected my need for solitude and space. If we take the next step in our relationship, we'll do it knowing that we were friends before we were lovers. If I feel so at ease with him when my grief is raw, I think that I might be able to love him.
Early morning mist ghosts over fields of horse corn, their mottled brown ears wedged against cardboard brown leaves and faded stalks. Equally brittle and brown on their low stems, fields of soy beans dangle like furry caterpillars. Tawny rows that Jason's harvester will soon turn into stubble slope down the hill between strips of green, newly mown meadow grass. Rivers of blazing orange, red, and golden leaves wave and flutter over the hillsides against a robin's egg blue sky graced by wisps of white cirrus clouds that Gran called "mare's tails."
Big bales of sweetly scented hay wait for Jason and me to load into trucks and transport to the hay barn. I inhale the rich perfume of meadow grass and the deep, earthy scent of fallen leaves. Gran loved this golden time before the first frost. When I look at our land in the glory of an October morning, I feel her love for every acre course through me. Like a lover, I love its look, its scent, and its feel. Walking down the steep path toward the stable as the sun pours down like honey, I pause just before the path enters the woods.
As I pass under the red-gold archway, time shifts and then holds still. For the time that my restless nature allows, I absorb the scents and dappled light, wrapped in a peace "which passeth all understanding." Gran is a part of this land now. The song we sang at Gran's service floods my mind:
Do not stand at my grave and weep,
I am not there, I do not sleep…
I am the sun on ripened grain;
I am the gentle autumn's rain.
Do not stand at my grave and cry.
I am not there; I did not die.
A big, warm hand gently touches my shoulder. "You felt her." Lost in my reverie, I didn't even hear Eric come up the path.
I place my hand over Eric's and smile up into those impossibly blue eyes.
"Well, I felt peace for the first time since Gran died. I felt something, other than myself, as if someone wrapped peace around me like a blanket. I don't feel sure of things like you do."
Eric's arms encircle me gently. I relax into his embrace and sigh.
"I wish I had your certainty that there's more…that we continue somewhere…that something bigger than us gives a damn."
He laces his big fingers through mine. As we walk down the hill toward the stables, Eric squeezes my hand gently.
"Your face, then your whole body relaxed for the first time in weeks."
I shrug, "This was Gran's land. Her ashes are scattered over it. It's where I feel closest to her. I guess, if God exists, it's where I feel closest to God."
Eric nods. "I know what you mean. There's a quiet strength and beauty here. It's deep and it's …honorable. Everything from animals and plants to trees and rocks are elements of the sacred, and you and I both feel that strongly here. Your Gran's a part of all of this."
He pulls me closer to his side as we walk together. "After Tray died, I came back for Lia. Andrew's Valley offered to rehire me full-time, but I'm happy here. My gallery's still promoting my work; The Ash Tree is doing OK."
He brushes his hand against my cheek. "And now there's you."
Our relationship is a tentative dance for both of us. Prior to Eric, I'd only been in one serious relationship, and that hadn't turned out well. Bill owns the big estate which overlooks The Valley. Of course he'd gone to private schools, while I'd gone to the public ones, but everyone in The Valley knows each other. As teens we'd gone to many of the same parties, and the Compton land runs alongside of ours. He started seriously pursuing me while I was still in in college. We were both on the land conservation committee for the local nature society. His dark, thick hair, lean, horsey good looks, and aquiline nose proclaimed him an aristocrat born and bred. Frankly, I don't care for the pedigreed type. But as I got to know Bill, his down to earth nature, quiet, wry sense of humor, genuine love for the land, and his acute desire to preserve it, won me over. He was a passionate, attentive lover and it didn't take me long to fall in love with him.
When he took me to a beautiful inn for a romantic weekend and told me he loved me, I believed him. About a year after we became lovers, Bill went to Maine "on business." He came back distracted and secretive. Within weeks he'd taken up with Lorena Prentice, of the Blue Hill Prentices, without so much as a word of explanation. I felt enraged, and used.
It's been nearly two years since that fiasco, and Bill's barely been home. When Gran died, Bill sent a sympathy card from the Cayman Islands; that was the first I'd heard from him since our split. Eric is a wonderful man and might be worth the risk, but I thought that Bill was wonderful too. When you've been thrown hard, it's hard to get back in the saddle. Eric knows my history with Bill. We've taken it slow, even though my libido is screaming for me to speed things up.
We squint as our eyes adjust to the darkness of the barn. The horses nicker and kick their stall doors, eager to be watered and let out into the pasture. Early morning traffic hums on the road a half mile away. Our moment of peace had passed, and I feel foolish for letting Eric see me act like some starry-eyed mystic. I have a farm to run. I'm a business woman, not a skittish little girl.
Eric grabs a pitchfork. "I'll take care of the hay."
He climbs up the ladder to the loft, his muscles flexing. I tear my eyes away. This is no time to drool over Eric's ass.
I hear a loud creak and a curse. "Watch the loose floor board!" I squawk.
"I'll take care of the water and curry Dusty; he's a bit grumpy around Onyx".
Eric grins. "I think you like ordering me around… We can both muck the stalls after we turn out the horses. Then we both better both head over to the west field in my truck. The tourists will be out in droves today, and Jason'll be antsy to get the hay rides moving."
After we finish our chores at the barn, we drive down gravel roads, and cross the covered bridge between our acreage.
Volunteers help get cars parked, tickets sold, and pumpkins weighed, while I work the concession stand. Families drink apple cider and eat hot dogs. Adults and children wander in and out of the corn maze. Young families tow toddlers in wagons in and out of the rows of orange and yellow pumpkins, trundling them back to the scale. Eric, Jason, and Jason's seasonal helper, Felipe, are busy all afternoon on the tractors pulling wagons lined with straw bales and happy customers. Before the sun sets behind salmon clouds, the last happy visitors drive off with their pumpkins, cider, and straw bales, ready for Halloween. We park the tractors, and lock the gates. Jason's girlfriend Grace left early to get ready for a Halloween party.
Jason gives me a big hug and a wink-wink-nudge-nudge look.
"Have fun at your witchy 'welcome home dead guys' ritual sis. Don't get poltergeisted!"
Then, he claps Eric on the back.
"Thanks man. Couldn't have done it without you today." Jason snorts. " Grace is Twilight crazy. She's got us going as Edward Cullen and Bella Swan. She's rubbing me down with some glitter crap...hope the guy has glittery stones. What she rubs on she's gotta take off later."
We drive back to my house as a waxing crescent rises above the eastern horizon. The wind picks up and the trees sigh and bend to its song. Brittle corn stalks sway and rustle as they brush against one another. The narrow gravel road is a pale ribbon illuminated only by the truck's lights. Gaudy leaves spiral down into the headlight's glare. They skip and tumble in front of us until the wind drives them back into the darkness. Perhaps this is just Halloween spookiness working upon my imagination, but I feel a tension in the land--a sense of expectancy.
We pull up to my old farmhouse and hop out of the truck. Eric's wraps his arms around my waist. His breath is soft upon my cheek. Electric jolts course through me as his hands trail down my body and explore my waist, my hips, and trail along my thighs. I nestle against his chest enjoying his warmth and the reassurance of his strong arms as we look out over the shadowy fields to the darker silhouette of the woodlands that borders them.
He whispers into my hair "Sookie…"
As he turns me to face him, the capricious wind weaves strands of our hair into a fine web.
Eric's large hands take my face and hold it gently. The touch of his hands is almost unbearably tender. I slide my arms around his neck as his hands slip to my waist bringing me closer. He bends toward me slowly, as if he were approaching a frightened filly or a wounded doe. The touch of his lips sends a shock wave through my entire body as they feather-touch mine with tantalizing persuasion.
He sighs and showers kisses around my lips and along my jaw. I slide my tongue between his parting lips. Our tongues swirl and dance as he strokes my mouth. My heart beats frantically. Am I ready to take this step? Am I strong enough to accept whatever comes of this? Eric is working his magic -- the powerful magic that exists between every man and woman when they are falling in love, and I can't hold back any longer. I launch myself into that long, drugging kiss until there is only this sharp ecstasy--this feeling that all of my life is worth this one moment and, God help me, I want more.
The sickle moon rides high casting a dim light. We undress in the silence of my room as the wind sobs and rattles the old window panes. In the pale light, Eric's powerful, muscular body is overwhelmingly beautiful, incredibly male. I pull back the white chenille bedspread, and sheets and Eric eases me back upon the bed. His lips capture my nipple and suck strongly, possessively. As he travels from one breast to the other he murmurs, "You're exquisite Sookie…I love you…"
I want to say those words too, but they choke in my throat. His tongue sears a path down my ribs to my stomach. My hands trail across the length of his broad back as he slides his body down, parts my thighs and nuzzles. He eases my legs onto his back and parts my folds, his mouth greedy upon my pink flesh. His tongue flicks and stabs inside of me. I moan and writhe against him.
"Please Eric!"
He whispers, "Not yet," pulls up and braces himself above me. I stroke his shaft as he growls softly, "So good… more!"
A haze descends as he thrusts deep inside of me. Together we find a tempo that binds us. We cry out, shudder, soar and shatter as the fire of our lovemaking overwhelms us. We lie in the haven of each other arms, our legs intertwined, and a deep feeling of peace envelopes me. As we doze, I murmur, "I want to love you Eric… but you've got to give me time…"
Later, that night, a small group of followers stand on my land before a great, roaring bonfire on a little rise surrounded by hollows--like a votive flame in a mother's cupped palms. As in my dream, its red-orange sparks ascend like beacons lighting the way for our beloved dead. Amelia reaches into the flames with iron tongs, retrieving one flaming ember. Each family solemnly lights a candle from the one common flame, hallowing and bonding us.
Each person places an object into the flame symbolizing a wish or an ailment to be healed.
When it's my turn, Eric's places his hands upon my shoulders and whispers, "It doesn't have to be an actual object. Just focus and project whatever it is that you to need to gain or lose into the flames."
I close my eyes centering myself, willing myself to believe that I can pass all of my burdens and fears into this cleansing heat and light.
Take my broken heart. Take my grief. Take my fear of being hurt…of facing the darkness alone.
Let me give them to the flames. Let them be consumed so that I can't snatch them back.
Give me light. Give me love. Let me take it freely without fear of the darkness that presses against us.
A great weight lifts from me. I lean into Eric and he surrounds me in with his arms. My eyes blur with tears. As I release my grief, the keening wind carries my sobs away across fields where my grandmother's ashes mingle with the land she loved.
The Samhain wind catches the flames and embers, snapping them higher. Smoke races away from us down the rise, taking my fears and leaving only this light , this warmth and this prayer that I embrace with a new hope:
A time of beauty. A time of plenty. A time of planting. A time of harvest.
A time of weeping. A time of healing. A time of vision. A time of passion.
A time of rebirth. A time of rebirth. May we now renew the earth.
Let it begin with each step we take. Let it begin with each change we make.
Let it begin with each chain we break. And let it begin every time we awake.
OK Dad, thanks for the bonfire you sent me. Thanks for the nudge.
There's a link on my profile for The Wailin' Jennys' song "Beautiful Dawn," and for Angel Band's song " Do Not Stand BY My Grave and Weep." Please check our these amazing women artists!
Shortly after writing this story, my darling husband Pat was involved in a near fatal accident that left him with a fractured back and severe burns. Thanks again to ALL of the readers and writers who have reached out to our family. Now, more than ever, the prayer that concludes this piece is a guideline for our recovery and healing. I hope that it can be helpful for all of you as well.
*hugs*
maire