Sarah Jansen

W O R D S • I D E A S : S A R A H J A N S E N

Spark by Sarah Jansen

They weren’t the last people in the street, but they were among the stragglers. They should have been early; all three of them were in the fire rite that marked this shortest night where the weft of the sun and stars turned in their weaving of the sky.

Ally consoled herself knowing that Bren was there already, although at his age her brother had no official role. He loved all the rites and festivals. They were the only things that he enjoyed as he should. He loved anything that took him away from the house and Ally didn’t understand his wanting to get away, even though he was only two cycles younger. The sun was behind Far Mountain so there was still an hour or two of twilight settling. The air was warm and busy with the aromas of flowers, grain, hay, fruit, woodsmoke; and down the road from the square rolled the sounds of horns and laughter.

Dallen scrabbled his hand into hers. He didn’t hold her hand very often anymore. This was his ninth midsummer. Ally’s memory blinked to his first midsummer fire. Dallen was a winter baby so he had been able to sit up on their mother’s lap for the whole fire rite, laughing at everything and making everyone smile, feeding from their mother now and again. Ally had been younger than he was now, she thought.

Cal skipped before them, leggy and excited. She hadn’t held Ally’s hand for a long time.

They neared the village square, leaving the smells of grain and hay behind while those of flowers and smoke surrounded them. The fires glowed upwards and outwards, pulling bronze from houses and faces.

Voices clamored. A loud hoot of laughter from the men’s side of the square. Ally’s throat tightened when she saw her father there, quiet and cradling a mug, looking separate even amongst men he had known all his life. A baby squalled and two others started up in sympathy, all quickly quieted with a crust or nipple. She couldn’t see Bren, but stopped herself from worrying; it only made things worse when she found him.

Cal and Dallen saw their friends and raced ahead. Ally nodded and returned smiles as she made her way through the crowd.

‘Evening, Ally. ’ Adelene smiled welcome as they passed.

Evening. I’m sorry, I’m late, but I’ll see you afterwards. ’

‘That’s all right, love, enjoy yourself!’

Ally’s belly fluttered. The choral of children was preparing in the schoolhouse, Cal and Dallen milling around with the other ten or so.

The teacher caught Ally’s eye. Lellet had been one of the big girls when Ally had gone to school and had been her teacher for her final year when she was thirteen. Clever people usually made Ally feel small, but Lellet’s confidence that everyone was worth talking to simmered Ally’s shyness away like water in a shallow pan. ‘I’m so sorry they’re late, Lellet. Dallen tore his tunic and I didn’t see it until we were about to leave. ’

‘It’s fine, it’s fine. ’ Her hands fluttered away Ally’s worries.

‘Oh, your flowers are slipping. ’ Lellet straightened the wreath of purple wildflowers that Ally had hurriedly tied into her hair. She had kept from thinking about her part in the rite all day. She was embarrassed by the dress she had made herself and she was not as good at the dance as the other girls. If she had asked her grandmother for help, Teti would have made her feel worse about not knowing how to do things and say something cruel about her mother’s absence. The only other woman in the house was Cal and she was only eleven and not careful enough and anyway it would have taken too much to convince her sister to help her.

‘These are so beautiful, Ally! Where did you find them?’

‘Our garden. ’

‘Of course; you’re a wonderful gardener. The colours are so plump. ’

Ally smiled, some of the tightness leaving her body.

She found her brother and sister in the crowd of children.

‘Enjoy yourselves, chickies. ’ She touched their cheeks so they paid attention in the hubbub of the schoolroom. ‘I’ll be watching from inside the apothecary, all right?’ They smiled and kissed her cheek. ‘Do what Lellet tells you. I’ll see you after my dance. ’

She worked her way around the edge of the square, heaviness settling inside. She gathered her crooked side seam in one hand, wondering how long she could hide it.

The familiar earthy-sweet-savoury air inside Adelene’s apothecary was mixed with the smells of midsummer blooms and the girls milling around in featureless dresses of pale cloth and purple blossoms in their hair.

Belia and Olene’s fire dresses were sewn precisely from clean flour sacks their mothers had saved especially for them. Maren had her hair in intricate braids that made her look as if she really were a summer sprite with flowers growing from her scalp amongst her hair.

‘Evening, Ally. ’ Belia smiled in that sparky way that made Ally wary.

‘Evening. ’ Ally tried to seem friendly enough that Belia couldn’t claim offence but not so friendly that she would want to talk more. Mostly she wished Belia would take no notice of her.

‘Taken the children to Lellet, have you?’

Someone snickered.

‘Yes. ’

‘Did you make their tunics?’

‘They’re wearing mine and Bren’s old ones. ’ Which her mother had made. She swallowed, hoping no one would mention Velvet.

The horns out in the square changed rhythm.

‘I’d better … I promised I would watch them. ’ She turned her back on the group to the open window, placing her hands on the sill. The cool of the smooth-worn wood was comforting. It warmed under her hands.

She had let go of her dress and the way her seam warped her costume would be obvious to everyone behind her. She hadn’t had time to redo it. She heard the whispers but not the words.

Out in the square, the line of children snaked from the schoolhouse door to stand by the musicians. The older boys and young men played the instruments—pipes, horns, drums, and harps—all through the midsummer night rite. Bren refused to do anything official. He sat with Ellery and Rusin near the old men, making fun of everything and sneaking beer. Ally could see some boys she had been in school with. Talen, Orlo. Esid, Gilmer. Others who were a bit older.

She had barely left home all through Spring, fixing and mending around the house, digging and planting in the garden, birthing and combing and clipping the goats. She had no idea what anyone had been doing, these boys and girls she had seen almost every day her whole life. And now they were almost men and women. She wondered if anyone was courting, then felt silly. Of course they were.

She picked out Cal and Dallen in the line of children. Early evening crispness and singing washed through the window. Children’s voices were so sweet, no matter how tuneful. They swayed in their light wool tunics, singing about the end of sowing seeds and birthing kids, of celebrating and resting before the haymaking.

Dallen looked so happy it made Ally smile. It was so easy to make him happy. She resolved to make more of an effort to give him his simple joys. Cal was enjoying herself too. Ally was surprised at how enthusiastic her sister was about the choral. Usually she wanted to be away up the mountain—with Bren if he let her.

The music finished and the children filed back to the schoolhouse to shed their tunics and tell each other how good they had been.

It was the older girls’ turn now. Ally’s belly fluttered. It would be over soon, she reminded herself. She joined the line of the girls and linked hands, Maren on one

side, Sabel on the other.

Sabel squeezed her hand.

‘Your flowers look wonderful. ’ Ally squeezed back. She knew her flowers were good even if her dress was crooked. She reminded herself that she was not leading and all she had to do was keep time with the others. The drums began. A few beats. The horns joined them.

Belia led the chain of girls out into the square. Ally was concentrating so hard on not tripping, she had no time to wonder if her steps were light and graceful. They were supposed to look like sprites, rejoicing in the birth of Summer, barely touching the ground. Glad of the hands holding hers, she kept her place in the line as it wound around the great fire once and again until Belia linked hands with Dessy at the end of the line.

The rhythm and sliding harmonies of the music surrounded and soaked into them, changing them from a group of girls to a single circle made of summer and song.

They ringed the fire, their feet skipping and scuffing the hearthdirt, until the final notes of the summer sprite tune melted into the night. The circle sank to the ground, still hand-linked, and bowed their flowered heads towards the flames.

The hearth dirt smelled of clay and flint. A heartbeat, two, three. They rose and tossed their flowers into the flames.

Hands let go and girls merged with the crowd to be hugged by family and friends in the crowd. The spell loosened.

It was Ally’s third fire rite dance—girls joined it for their fourteenth Midsummer—but she had never felt like this. As if the flames had gotten inside her; as if she were an ember, pulsing but constant, unconcerned with past or to-come.

Belia was with her mother and aunt. Ally thought it odd the other girl had made her shy and awkward for so long. She saw her brother Bren and felt sad that he was determined to stay on the edge of things. The little ones ran to hug her and she felt the sparks within them.

Sarah Jansen’s writing explores the seemingly limitless ways humans can find to live and how small banalities interact with macro social and economic structures to create our experience of everyday life. She is from Logan City, Australia, spent 10 years in Brisbane, and have lived in Melbourne since 2011. Website: create.sarahjansen.com Twitter: @sarahjansencom