Puddles

Chapter 14: The Eternal Night Festival

"Caderra! Mommy says its dinner time! She wants you to come right now, or else-"

"Alright, alright, Posy. I'm coming. You mustn't shout, or else that big house over there might hear you. And you know what'll happen then." I crept steadily closer to her small form, drawing up my hands in claws and gesturing with my staff. 

"Erra, not again, please! Its getting really dark out."

"And then," I whispered really quietly, "it will jump out and eat you up! Grawr!!" I jumped towards her and she ran back as fast as her spindly legs could carry her. I caught up with her soon, my legs grown strong from long runs across the hills. Mrs. Jinsi had saved my pair of jeans and every free moment not spent in baking or running errands or shepherding geese I threw on my pants and sped away.

I swept little Posy off her feet and carried her into the house. Her loud, obnoxious giggles filled the house instantly and brightened the already sunny mood. Today was the king's birthday and although he didn't allow the people of Runnin a special day off, he allowed two hours longer before curfew for whatever they might enjoy doing. Thus began the great Eternal Night Festival. Mrs. Jinsi and Mrs. Winslow had put their baking skills together to create the best pie stand yet. After a wonderful Runnin welcome dinner of lamb chops--which I had never tried, and which I found tasted exactly like chicken--stewed beans, and wheat bread, Posy and Rose showed me how to make Karuchan dolls out of multicolored string. The story behind them was quite fascinating.

"...and the last loop goes through the left one right over....there." Rose pointed the perfect hole on her doll, and, pulling the string into the loop, she finished her fiftieth something doll. I picked my jaw up off the floor and desperately pleaded to the deaf string to comply with my wishes. Posy helped me with the final steps and Rose decided to play narrator.

"Long long ago there was a man who was king over lots and lots of places. But then he died. So his son became king and he took a warrior princess to be his queen, and thet went away to fight all the mean, nasty badguys. Before he left, though, he made a tiny doll of string with a heart over her little white dress for the queen's baby who wasn't born yet. The war took many years to finish but by the end the king had been killed and the badguys were coming to take over the castle. The queen had been with the king in battle when he died and somehow she survived. She took the doll from the king's big wooden chest and ripped out half of the doll's heart because she was so sad and angry."

"Oh, this is the sad part. Please stop the story here, Rose."

But her sister paid her no heed and finished her story with an emotional, yet authoritative air. "The queen heard the badguys coming and she ran into the forest where nobody would find her. But they did eventually. But that's kinda at the end, so! she stitched a piece of her royal blue fabric onto the other empty half of the heart. She stayed in the forest for weeks, but the badguys eventually found her and killed her. They missed the dolly lying on the ground, wet with the queen's crying for her baby.

But then something really weird happened: her baby was born! Not, out of her tummy, of course, but he came out of the ground. His hair was really black, like coal, and his eyes as green as the grass on the Royal Hills. His skin was as pale as the new frost, so pale, actually, that you could see his heart: half red and half blue. They called him Karuchan, because Kara was the mom's name, and Ruchan was the dad's name. Mommy says the son's name actually sounds like a really old word for 'together.'"

Oddly enough, mulling over the short, clicheish story pulled my fingers along and my twine through the loops. Half and hour before the festival we had made a total of one hundred forty Karuchan dolls. Quickly piling them into several small, woven baskets, the two girl took me to the festival area: the Centre Spade, as it was called by most of the Runnins and the peasants. The path was a good twenty minutes, even with the wagon, because of all the festival traffic. Technically, it was a Runnin holiday, but most of the peasants and even some courtiers came, to "keep an eye on those wild Runnin dogs," as Mrs. Winslow quoted one of the noblemen, Lord Ostian, for whose wife Mrs. Winslow was handmaiden. Had I known who Lord Ostian was I might have given more thought to that situation.