His presents are
not bound in shiny paper or silk bags, except for a deck of tarot cards he
receives on his ninth birthday from the fortuneteller, but in canvas tents,
labeled with signs instead of cards. Though new tents are constantly appearing,
special exhibitions are born each april thirteenth, and though patrons do
not know of the correlation between the new tents and his birthday, he has
suspected long before learning to read the sparkle in the fortune teller’s
eyes. He is given snowflakes and fire; indeed, the Snow globe is a gift for his
fourteenth birthday, after his particular delight with the Bone Forest is taken
note of. New pastries are introduced in the vendor’s stalls around the Moon
Mirror, exotic flavours that become quite popular, though he is always the
first to taste them. One birthday results in an underground cavern, filled with
mist and tubers, a waterfall that leaves each patron dry, as though they have
passed through a curtain of silk instead of water. Another birthday he
discovers a tent with a jar, named after Pandora’s Box. The contortionist is
chaperoning him this evening and smiles sadly while he reads the sign,
perplexed when he encounters the earthenware vessel beyond the curtain. “Your
sister would have been thirteen as well, today,” the contortionist, Paikea,
says. “This jar, while it held all the evils of the world, including death,
which took your sister, also held hope. You will be the first to hope here.”
Art by Jamie Caliri
Text by Lucie MacAulay
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