“But I will burn, and it will be glorious.” The Harvest Mother shivered. “Have you ever felt the ecstasy of fire, Knight?”
Eli looked from Rey to the Harvest Mother, stammering. “I…no. I don’t think so.”
“The scars on your neck say otherwise.”
Eli went still, and Rey shuddered as a cold wind blew over the field, bringing with it the scent of standing water and fallen leaves.
“That didn’t come from a fire, miss,” Eli said.
The figure creaked on her stand. “Miss! I am not a maiden. I am Mother. I create, I am created, I destroy, I am destroyed. The farmers who love me curse me when their hands ache and their bodies tire, and they call upon me when the crops wither. We have all felt the cleansing fire, Knight, all three of us—the Fox when he was gutted by the king who wears his skin, and you when the rope twisted around your neck. I will feel it again when the flames burn high and I am ash and euphoria.” The Harvest Mother trembled as though she could already feel the fire.
“I’m sure you’ll look beautiful when you burn,” Rey said. He didn’t want to think too hard about the moment he had gutted the fox in the forest. The Harvest Mother stretched her stalks and twigs outward, twisting like dozens of fingers. “You flatter me, Fox-man. Dance with me tonight before I die. The Green Man will take my hand, as he always does at the turning of the seasons, but I would like to dance with you little spirits first. When we are done,” she added, grasses rustling in her woven body like snakes, “I will give you both a gift. Something you are missing that will sustain you.”
Rey bit down a sharp gasp. The Harvest Mother was not always generous with her gifts. There were some years she was wicked and cold, sucking the air dry as Rey slunk past her, fields rotting with mold and blight. He’d learned to avoid her when the harvest was not full of singing voices and farmers planning for a pleasant winter.
“We can’t linger,” Eli started, but Rey shook his head.
“They won’t expect us to. For once, we might be safer in a crowd.” He was, at heart, too fond of little pleasures. The thought of a gift had his fox self pricking his ears, and by the wry look on Eli’s face, Eli knew it.
“All right.” He bowed to the Harvest Mother. “We’ll be happy to, uh, watch you burn.”
The Harvest Mother’s body trembled with delight.
They spent the time before the festival scrubbing the dirt of the road off their clothes. Rey ran through the outskirts of the village in a wild dash and came back with stolen soap, which Eli muttered about but wasn’t too proud to use. They hung their clothes to dry on low tree branches and laughed over Unicorn trying to befriend a deer. The hours went by slowly, and Rey watched Eli air out his cloak.
“You’re troubled, fox-man,” Eli said, mimicking the way the Harvest Mother said the name. “Didn’t you say they wouldn’t be looking for us in a festival?”
“They won’t. They’ll expect us to be on the road. We should go, though. The dancing will start around sunset, and then she’ll burn.”
Eli shivered and threw his cloak over his shoulders.
The festival field was full of villagers when they returned. There were pickets for the horses and tables groaning with the weight of pies, glazed meat, and vegetables to represent the crops that had been harvested in nearby farms. The Harvest Mother’s platform had been moved to the center of the field, and musicians were standing in her shadow with fiddles, guitars, and drums. They passed a young man playing a lap dulcimer, and Eli’s wariness seemed to slough off his shoulders as they approached the platform.
“I wouldn’t have minded a ball like this,” he said. Someone struck up a song, and Eli looked at Rey, mouth slightly open. “I don’t know the dances.”
“That’s all right,” Rey said, taking his hand. “I do.”
Country dances hadn’t changed much since Rey was a king. They kept the old traditions in the country—the lines drawing closer and falling apart, one line breaking free to circle the other and straighten out again, hundreds of people forming patterns over the grass. It was easy to fall into the rhythm of the crowd, and even though he stumbled a bit and kept looking at the other dancers before he moved, Eli seemed to be enjoying himself. He was grinning when the lines met and he wrapped an arm around Rey’s waist, twisting him in a circle.
“You’re getting the hang of this,” Rey said. “Not bad for a wild man.”
“I’ll have you know I used to be a fucking delight at dance lessons,” Eli said in his ear.
“Lies. You were a terror. I can see it.”
Eli chuckled. “Maybe a little, but the dance instructor deserved it.”
They drew apart. Drums sounded through the fiddle reels, taking an even, pulsing rhythm like the beating of a heart. The dancers moved closer and hands intertwined. Eli pressed his mouth to Rey’s neck as they met again, and Rey tasted magic in the air, thick as summer heat rising from the earth.
“She’s moving,” he whispered, and a wind made the Harvest Mother rattle on her platform. A heavy hand took Rey’s shoulder, and he and Eli stepped apart as a woman with braided wheat for her hair and skin the color of willow leaves took Rey’s hand.
“I would dance with my fox-man first,” the Harvest Mother said, winking at Eli, and whirled him away into the crowd.
The Harvest Mother was naked, as she always was when she emerged from her effigy to dance, but no one around them noticed. She spun Rey in a frenzied dance, wild and out of rhythm, and Rey gripped her hands tight and tried not to trip her as he struggled to keep up.
“We are having a convergence of spirits tonight,” she said. “Or at least of the spirits who serve Staria. The Wild Hunt is not welcome in my fields, this year or any other, but the rest of you are free to warm yourselves in my fire.”
“The rest of us? How many spirits are coming tonight?”
