Our Winter Ritual (a tiny Yule story)

Seasonal dark romance horror-tinged micro-fiction

Photo by Ksenia Yakovleva on Unsplash

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This week, we’re getting ready for a darkly romantic Yule…

Our Winter Ritual

We pack the logs into the fireplace, you and I, and light the kindling below. The last of the summer’s lavender goes into the sparking flames, then sprigs of holly that sizzle and snap. Their barbs nip our fingertips, scratch our wrists.

The candles are placed along the mantlepiece and at their appointed stations around the room.

Each taking a broom, we sweep the floor clean. Last month, we cut each broom’s bristles by the light of the full moon, as we were taught: always only a single cut to free the stick, otherwise it must be left. The bristles scrape and scratch across the floorboards. They barely move dirt, but they clear away the unseen things.

We draw the circle together with lines of honey dust that reach to the edge of the room. I work clockwise from the fire, you work anticlockwise, until we meet on the other side.

Unplugging the bottle of sherry, the scents of almond and oak drift around us.

Your face flickers in the firelight. I wish you could see how beautiful you are to me. I touch your cheek, leaving a dark smear of blood from my holly-pricked fingers. You sense the wetness, but leave the mark in place. You draw the same line on me. We are mirrored, as always.

Pouring the sherry into its cut crystal glass, I avoid glancing through it and into the flames. This time of year, I don’t want to see what lurks in its shattered light. The sherry goes before the fire, waiting.

From a padded box, I carefully remove the plate we made on the summer solstice. We’ll break it into the ashes at tomorrow’s dawn. So it goes. Onto the plate, we place the three cookies, one each for our souls, and one for a stranger who has no shelter.

I arrange the furs for us, inside the circle, and we curl together. Our bodies fit like an acorn into its cup.

Our eyes close. The fire dies. We let it cool. It must settle before he comes.

The ritual is complete, but we mustn’t look, no matter what we hear, no matter what we smell.

We dream the Winter Father will take our offerings. We dream he’ll gift us another year together.

Later, I wake in the freezing dark. The scent of animals and blood and smoke and snow fills the room. With my eyes screwed shut, I pull you tighter into my arms.

The end

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Hope you enjoyed this one and have a superb Yule, Christmas, Kwanzaa, or any other seasonal celebration you choose to mark over the turning of the month.

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Cheers all, have a wonderful spooky mid-winter (or summer for down-under readers) filled with love and kindness,

Mata
xxx