9:32pm, 20 March 2008
Concord, New Hampshire

"Oh, /sweetie/!"

Carol Roland held the pastel cable-knit sweater up against her. The little flowers purled into the cotton splashed color across the pale blue. And it was just the right weight for a chilly spring.

"Happy birthday, Bug. I hope you like it." Michael smiled and reached over to reciprocate the big hug his Bug offered him.

"I love it, Doof. Let me go put it on," Carol said, excitedly jumping up from the couch. One chasse' later, she was across the room and on her way upstairs to change out of her turtleneck.

Michael raised himself from the sofa and walked to the window. He always liked celebrating spring with his wife's birthday. Tonight he had a few special things planned for their usual evening walk. Clayton had helped to arrange a night-time tour of the Capitol Dome, complete with ghost stories. Michael had found a back path on the grounds where the trees were beginning to bud.

And of course they would finish at the studio, so they could remind themselves of why they do all of this in the first place.

"Ready!" Carol chirped as she galloped downstairs. Michael smiled and took her arm as he set the alarm and walked out the door.

10:02pm, 20 March 2008
Manchester, New Hampshire

I nudge two cards up against each other, leaning them carefully. Now that the primaries are over, New Hampshire is like a desert state for a while. Washington is turned elsewhere, so little is going on there. All of my pending projects are balls in other people's courts.

A discarded deck of playing cards sits on one edge of the table. Too small and flimsy. The only ones that work are the Tarot cards I purchased from a Gypsy in Paris. I lean Death against the Four of Wands, reaching for the next card on the pile.

When in the springtime of the year
When the trees are crowned with leaves
When the ash and oak, and the birch and yew
Are dressed in ribbons fair

When owls call the breathless moon
In the blue veil of the night
The shadows of the trees appear
Amidst the lantern light

11:56pm, 20 March 2008
Concord, New Hampshire

Carol and Michael strolled peacefully on the banks of Horseshoe Pond. The stars were out, brilliantly spangling the clear, cold sky. Carol looked up and stopped walking.

"Look at them, Michael. It's incredible."

Michael looked up also. "It's almost like the whole sky is...textured with them. The small ones between the bright ones, the ones we're not able to see."

"I feel like I can see them tonight...all of them" Carol breathed. A raven in a tree nearby krrrked and rustled its wings, then settled down again.

She barely felt the pressure of the shoulder strap through the sweater before it snapped.

"Michael!" she shrieked, but he was already in motion, reaching out to grab the thief's arm. He missed and the young man started running.

Without a second thought, Michael ran too, faster than he should have been able to. He grabbed the thief's shoulder, caught up slightly, judged the trajectory just -so-, then gave a quick, sharp shove.

The thief, overbalanced by the shove, spun one hundred and eighty degrees, a surprised look on his face. Still pivoting on his left foot from his momentum, he fell hard on his hip.

Just like dancing, Michael thought. Sense the weight, move with it, control it.

The young man raised up an arm to ward off Michael's advance, but instead Michael grabbed the arm and yanked. Unusual strength propelled the thief to his feet. Now joined in a perverse tango, Michael spun him around and brought him up short, face-to-face. The young man, too shocked to do anything, stared dumbly. The purse, long since dropped, soaked up the night-time dew in the grass next to the path.

Michael pushed the thief backward. He stumbled a step or two. Before he could recover his balance, Carol had brought her powerful right arm down on his shoulder and yanked back and down, spinning him around to the ground once more. He spluttered a cry into the gravel of the path. This time his reflexes were ready, and he scrambled to his feet to try to flee.

A strong hand grabbed the back of his shirt, pulling him up, back, and down once more. He fell flat on his ass.

"Oh no," the curly-haired man said. "We're just /starting/ this little dance."

1:43am, 21 March 2008
Manchester, New Hampshire

So I look at the edifice I had erected on the coffee table. Most of the pack is there, in the planes and angles. Only a small stack of cards is still in my hand. I smile tightly and pull the next card off the top.

I gently lower it down to rest on top of two pyramids. Card houses are strong because of the triangles. And this card would start a new story.

I move it to within a hair's-breadth of the cards crowning the lower level, and drop it. It rests for one moment, then the whole edifice crumbles from the middle.

The last card flutters down on top of all the rest. The Wheel of Fortune.

Who will go down to those shady groves
And summon the shadows there?
And tie a ribbon on those sheltering arms
In the springtime of the year?

The songs of the birds seem to fill the wood
That when the fiddler plays
All their voices can be heard
Long past their woodland days

4:21am, 21 March 2008
Concord, New Hampshire

Michael shut the door behind himself once more, and set the alarm. Carol walked into the kitchen to put the flowers they had picked in a vase. Michael followed, watching her put a tablespoon of bleach into the water, to keep it clear, then a few drops of blood. To enhance the color, she insisted, but Michael could never tell the difference. She put the vase of bright wildflowers in the center of the dining room table, and turned on the light directly overhead. She shut off the other lights, leaving the flowers in a pool of radiance.

Carol walked over to stand next to Michael. She leaned her head against his shoulder. "Just perfect," she cooed.

He tugged on her waist, pulling her upstairs. He turned the heat down a bit and made sure the vent was on. Carol couldn't sleep well without a breeze across her nose.

5:38am, 21 March 2008
Manchester, New Hampshire

So. Spring is here. Hurrah.

It's not so much this spring, really, or any given year. It's spring itself, part of the grand cycle, the wheel that rolls from year to year. One year is really no longer a remarkable unit of timeto me. There are larger, more fundamental cycles than this artificial calend stipulated by the Roman authorities centuries ago--then fixed, because it wasn't quite right. The larger cycles, the ones that cross the years, become more important. Individual businesses matter less than the business cycles of the region. Individual politicans or parties are unimportant compared to the eletoral cycles.

Years matter less than the seasons, the tides, the ebb and flow of spirit over time that the Children of Seth call 'history.'

I call it a dance.

It's time for the wheel to turn. It's time for something new to come from the ashes of the old.

I pick up the quarterstaff I borrowed from Fursa. The cold air hits me as I slide open the door onto the balcony. My shoes slide easily over the planks as I begin to move the pole through the air, just as she told me. Keep the tip moving, figure eight. Looking out over Lake Massabessic, I begin to twitch the long pole in the figure eight, then take a swing. It almost flies from my hand.

No, that's not quite right. I hold onto it, firmly but not too tightly, then swing again. No, keep the tip moving.

Back to the figure eight. I move it quickly through its cycles. Slowly, the shape distorts, tipping over into a sideways figure eight, a lemniscate.

I swing, parry, and move back into stance.

Yes, that's it. That's the dance.

A small spark flashed, lighting up the darkness. Another spark, this one glowing as it caught onto a dark pool of liquid. Within seconds, the pool of accelerant in the vent flashed into a blaze. The air blowing through the vents fanned the flames into an inferno in less than a second.

Flames shot out of the air vents in the living room, catching the hand-stenciled wallpaper instantly. The north wall quickly became a panel of fire, wilting the portrait of Michael and Carol that had been painted at the turn of the century.

The dance moved through me now, the tip of the quarterstaff inscribing smaller and larger circles and figures into the air. It moved around me effortlessly, totally unlike the clumsy thrashing before. Side to side, up and down, in a lazy lemniscate.

And then I didn't need it anymore. The dance took hold of me, and I dropped the staff. I moved as if it were still in my hand, thrust, parry, and feint.

all it a dance. But every time you step forward, your partner must step back. The trouble is, sometimes it's difficult to know who your partner is, who must step back.

fire spread through the living room and dining room with ease. Lace curtains next to the air vents were the first, then the wallpaper. The books lining the walls were dry, easy kindling. The continued supply of air through the vents fed the fire.

Then the air stopped. Misjudgement. The furnace, set to maintain an even temperature, finished its cycle, staunching the supply of air. But there was plenty of oxygen downstairs still, and the fire continued consuming the oak dining room table.

Smoke billowed up the stairs and under the door of the bedroom. The happy couple, deep asleep, did not know that they were sleeping over an inferno.

I moved with the morning breeze. The eastern sky was painted a king's ransom of jewelled hues, but I kept moving, lost in the dance.

A sudden *CRASH* woke Carol Roland.

"Michael!" she gasped as she sat bolt upright in bed. It took her only an instant before she smelled the smoke.

"/Michael!/" she screamed. Michael opened his bleary eyes as his wife jerked on his arm. "Fire!" she yelled.

His eyes opened wide, smelling the smoke too.

"Quick! The window!" He knew jumping to the lawn would be their only escape. They scrambled out of the bed, a chorus of eerie creaks and groans surrounding them as smoke billowed in through the vent system. Flickering light underneath the door to the hall cast dancing shadows across the floor.

Michael ran to the window as a deafening creak split the air. Carol began to scream as the hardwood floor beneath her foot crumbled, catching her ankle. The fire had burned through the vent just below, and left the floor with no support. Flames and cinders shot up through the hole around Carol's foot.

"Bug!" Michael yelled, turning around and running back to his wife. He grabbed her outstretched arm, prepared to pull her to her feet just like he did the thief, just like he had thousands of times in their dances. She grabbed on tight and he switched his weight and began to pull.

But the floor beneath him had been burned out. As he tried to use his leverage to pull her foot free, the added force on the floor caused it to crack from the stress. Flames licked around the edges of the door, and even around the windowsill, climbing up the outside wall of the house. Michael fell, sliding halfway toward the inferno in their dining room.

Carol didn't even have time to scream his name before the rest of the floor around them gave way.

The wheel turned, and around I danced, the horizon turning white with the approach of Sol.

And so they linked their hands and danced
Round in circles and in rows
And so the journey of the night descends
When all the shades are gone.

"A garland gay we bring you here
And at your door we stand
'Tis a sprout well budded out
The work of Our Lord's hand"

[Lyrics: "Mummer's Dance" by Loreena McKennitt.]