Page 105 of Feast of Sparks (Thornchapel 2)
We sing a song that we found on the internet, a song made just for Beltane, and at first, it all feels a little forced. It’s only our voices and the drum and the slow hiss of the fire, and it’s a song we barely know, and it’s nothing like church or even the May Day village festivities, with their instruments and lack of awkwardness. I’m very, very aware that we are four people walking in pointless circles with a fire extinguisher and two bright blue coolers within sight.
I can suddenly see the flimsiness of it all—the clumsy hope this is built on—and I wonder if everything I’ve ever done has been this transparent. Kink and Mass and even the classes I taught in grad school. Is everything this fragile? Is everything just people awkwardly pretending along until it’s over?
The song fades, and to my surprise, Becket doesn’t sing one of the other songs we found for Beltane. Instead he begins one of my favorite hymns from church, his rich voice filling the chapel and calling over the drum and the fire.
For the beauty of the earth
For the beauty of the skies
For the love which from our birth
Over and around us lies.
Singing along is reflexive, beyond my control. I just start and then tears smart my eyelids as I sing.
I’m not even sure why. It’s just a song. This is just a bonfire we spent too long making, and this is just a circle of old lanterns that we found in Thornchapel’s attic. These are just my friends—my fussy, hilarious, prickly, pretty friends—and I’m just me. I’m not a bride, I’m not a May Queen. I’m just a librarian who likes to be spanked.
So why am I about to cry?
Lord of all, to thee we raise
This our hymn of grateful praise.
Becket drums lightly and steadily along, but I almost think I can hear other drums now, other music, and not from the village. I look to Rebecca, who’s also glancing around as we circle, as if she can hear it too.
For the beauty of each hour
Of the day and of the night
Hill and vale, and tree and flow’r
Sun and moon, and stars of light.
It is beautiful, though, isn’t it? Fire safety and coolers aside, there’s no denying the majesty of the forest at this golden hour, with the sunlight catching pollen in the air and bathing the rose-bedecked ruins in warmth. The trees have unfurled their leaves like emerald banners, and bluebells have carpeted the clearin
g in bright, dangling blooms.
Lord of all, to thee we raise
This our hymn of grateful praise.
And my friends are beautiful too—maybe all the more beautiful for me knowing them when they’re cranky or anxious or silly. They’re the most beautiful people I’ve ever seen, barefoot and singing and crowned in flowers. Becket’s in linen drawstring pants and a white oxford that’s rolled up to the elbows and unbuttoned at the first two buttons, and it’s strangely erotic to see his throat, which is normally hidden by his collar. He’s singing in that angelic voice of his, and his eyes flash bluer then the flowers in his crown.
Rebecca sings too, her low voice frying in the sexiest possible way on some of the words, and the warm sunlight kisses all along her collarbone and the small swells of her breasts underneath the low neckline of her dress. Delphine’s in a lace crop top and fluttering white midi-skirt, blond hair waving everywhere under her flower crown, and her mouth painted a pink so pretty I want to kiss it right off her.
We sing another hymn, and then another, and then the first song again, and this time when we sing it, it doesn’t seem strange at all, but natural. Delphine darts away and pours us champagne, and when Becket refuses to stop beating the drum, she laughingly feeds it to him, sip by sip, straight from the bottle. We sing some more and then our circling turns to dancing, and I don’t even know what we’re singing now, any song we can think of—Britney Spears, One Direction, more hymns—and then there’s more champagne. And we dance.
The more we dance, the less strange it is to hear drums and music and voices that aren’t ours. The more we dance, the more I feel Auden and Saint in the forest—their heat, their chase. Whatever wild rut happens when the stag stops at last.
I think I can feel the forest too. The chapel. The village far beyond, caught up in their innocent version of all this.
I can feel somewhere else too, tantalizingly close, yet far, like an entire world dancing with us around the fire, but underneath the earth or above us in the air. Or in the same place but in a different time . . .
Our feet find a rhythm this place has known for centuries, together and one with the drum, and our heartbeats thud to match, everything in our bodies one with the song, which is one with the drum, which is one with us—on and on in a never-ending spiral—bodies, blood, voices, feet, all of it bound together, together, together. And all around us is green life and gold sun and red fire, and it’s all so beautiful, it’s just so fucking beautiful—
The wild god emerges from the trees, caught by the fire and dropping sunlight, framed against the dark green world of the forest. His bare chest is proud, his expression kingly. His antlers gleam. He looks so triumphant and so certain, and the sight of his bare feet among the bluebells is enough to make my belly tighten.
He’s soon joined by a man and together they walk toward us, toward our circle, the god striding forward with all the arrogance of one who is here to claim something that’s his by right.
