Maiden Wreath

Part 20

We didn't sleep that night - we never did. If you closed your eyes even for a moment it meant you were lazy throughout the next year. Though I would gladly closed my eyes for some time and rested a bit before the morning.

But it was beautiful. I had never recalled anything to be as beautiful as it was that night - the cows with their chaplets and cowbells. The cowbells were special in our area - they gave boys the opportunity to invest their time in something more useful than making only the whistles, which they also made in numbers. Boys made them as special gifts for the cows before end of the April, when they were released on the fields. The bells varied in size and shape, mostly resembling hazelnut's shells with some fancy carvings. They were still rare and hadn't we feared that the spirits of the forests might steal our cattle, we wouldn't have needed them. The spirits feared the sound of bells.

I observed the animals from far, standing under the oak in the middle of the fences. The sheep were making the best of being quiet and listening the voices near the forest and I joined them, cocking my ears. The lower panels were still covered with fog, though it was near midnight.

I released myself from preparing the evening feast with changing my choirs with Viika to watch over the herd till I saw the great fire glooming from the village field.

"You're not by the fire?" Alva appeared out of the blue next to me.

I shrieked and pulled aside, before reaching out and fingering her scarf to make sure it was her.

"You know, I really didn't like what he had to say to me." I said frostily to get rid of the cold feeling she ingested in me.

She shrugged. "I wasn't talking about that time." Her voice was again calm and husky. "I spoke of the future."

My future - what a splendid choice of words. My future held just as many secrets as did my past and so far my life was too short to have both of them reveled to me.

She sighed, taking in as much of the good air she could and then taught me. "Walk a path down the village and collect nine different flowers on the way. Gather them in one with the red wool and send them in the solstice fire. Fire will tell you."

"Tell me what?"

"Go on," she encouraged, "I'll watch the sheep." She gave me a little push and took the shepherd's staff. "Go on."

I left her with strange feeling in my gut. She was a sweet girl, wiser than I'd ever be. I never really looked at her as someone younger than me. To tell the truth, I wasn't sure she WAS younger than me. I had presumed she was, but now... Perhaps she only looked young and was really at my age or older?

Before I got to the village borders I stopped and glanced back. She was still standing there, serene proud smile on her lips and dawn kissing her beautiful straight features. She didn't look small when she stood there, holding the staff, glad in dark blue scarf with white edges. If any man would see her, she'd be mistaken for the mother of the field!

I turned and continued my journey back. I did as she told me, gathering nine flowers from the road: a daisy, a cornflower, a red clover, yarrow, an oregano branch, a poppy, a branch of white forget-me-not, some sweet clover and finally pink cranesbills. They smelled sweet together, slightly nauseating, but good.

I walked straight next to the fire, ignoring everybody, who reached out to pull me in their circle and launched the flowers in the flames, where they sizzled for some time. Not once did I blink and was rewarded with dancing figures in the fire, a gyre of two flames so close to each other they almost seemed one.

My chest grew tight. That was frightening to see and yet so amazing! I couldn't believe I had managed it. Every year since I came to age I had tried one of those foretelling ways out and this was the first one to work.