Earth Dance Part I

The earth is a dance. A story that circles on and on; the snake with its tail in its mouth. The dance never stops as the story weaves on in the same pattern. Fairy tale strands woven in history decide the steps, the steps of spangled silk slippers on a polished ballroom floor, the steps of worn leather sandals over gnarled roots and wet leaves, and the steps of heavy boots on a cold stone tomb. The steps lead a dance, the dance tells the story and is woven back into the circle of life.

This is a tale of sisters who chanced upon a dance as ancient as the ruins that surround it. The dance began as a treat, a gift for a maiden too impatient to wait.            

Dark rain blurred the lands beyond the forest; Elise heard it pounding on the black soil. Her own shoes were covered in earth, mud caked the thread sewn in the leather straps. She shivered at the thought of one of her sisters’ waking up and finding her empty bed, if it was poor tender Alice who slept so lightly and discovered Elise’s absence… Elise could see a river of salt flowing from her wide blue eyes.

It wouldn’t be Elise’s birthday for another week but she could not wait to go to the ruins, despite the surprise her sisters had wanted it to be. So Elise had woken and dressed beneath her sheets, slipped on her cloak and tiptoed through the passages of the castle. It had not been easy and she’d had a hard time being silent but not even Alice stirred when she stepped into the shadows behind the wall.

Now she carried on, barely able to contain both her excitement and her fear. Her dress was splattered and her lantern flickered weakly but ahead she could see the silver trees that bordered the ruins. As she approached, a chill gripped her. Something wasn’t right, her footsteps faltered and she paused in the darkness. The ruins were different now; a ghostly light came from them, brightening her path and the trees. It wasn’t the light that frightened her so; it was the music. It was high and haunting and made pitch-black flowers bloom behind her eyelids. The closer Elise came to the light the more aware she became of shadows dancing to the music. They were shaped like men but longer than ordinary shadows and thinner, and the air of nightmares clung to them.

Elise was hesitant. For the first time she considered she was wrong. This was meant to be a birthday present; that she and her sisters travel to the ruins together. As she built up this excuse she knew it was not her reason for stopping. The shadows were too dark and Elise did not want to meet whatever creatures cast them.

Here is where the dance pushed her onward, as many before her had done. Here is where the steps of sandals on the earth change to slipped in a ballroom. The music was like a siren call. There was no beat but it pulsed in her veins, heating her blood, creeping fire up her wrists and throat. Entranced, her heart beating in her ears, breath escaping in shallow gasps, Elise continued onward until she was close enough that the golden light burned in her amber eyes. The trees that had been silver were now vibrant and gold, casting wavering and dappled shadows over the weather beaten stones of the ruins.

With a courage Elise felt did not belong to her she placed her hands around the crumbling wall. Not breathing, every muscle tensed, her feet planted and legs stiff so as not to rustle silk on the earthen ground, she peered around the wall. The snake bit its tail. 

Art by Dan Simonjova

Text by Lucie MacAulay

Wolves Come

The wolves came out that night, before we were ready. People thought they were the old gods, but I knew better. Villagers made gifts, of corn dollies and blood, tied up their crop and offered it as their tithe.
They thought hanging iron horseshoes and wreathes of wolf's bane, angelica and st.john's wort on their doors would protect them. They thought planting a rowan tree would keep them safe. They thought the god wolves were like fairies, like witches. They pain in blood and bone magic, old magic.
I was ready for what they really wanted.
They weren't normal wolves. They were stronger, swifter. They were the colour of soot, of twilit sky and of the red brown sands in the west. One of them, who people claimed was the leader (which made me snicker behind my hands at mass) had great gnarled horns smooth as elephant tusks, twisted as ancient trees.
"They are gods of the wind, the sea, and the fires in our hearths. We must pay tritbute to them, for our own good," my people muttered behind prayer books.
They didn't prepare for wolves. So the wolves came.
When they came early, descending on the village as quietly as phantoms, the people panicked. They ran in droves, tossing their gifts behind them to appease the gods, drabbing their scythes and hoes and running to the nearest fields to gather their wheat in hasty, sorry bundles. The wolves didn't want their cyield, their dismal excuses for presents and offerings, they wanted sacrifices. Of the four children they stole away, I was the only one who didn't scream in terror. I screamed in loss. Of my family and friends.
I had accepted this possible fate years ago. I gave a noise of alarm when teeth closed around my shoulder, but the muzzle that helf me was, careful, if not gentle.
They will mourn us, my people, forget us, believe we are dead. They will move on, make more gifts for their 'gods', believing if they are ready earlier, next time their young won't be taken. How little they know.

Art by Abby Diamond

Text by Lucie MacAulay

Age Old

White screens with clusters of paper flowers and white lattices line the many walls. Pools of cold white wax rest on the marble floor like tiny translucent islands, and above, in the spiraling woodwork that branches off the cieling, the crystal base of a candleholder sits suspended on its side, on two snow white curls, wave frozen in a riverline from its lip. The candle that had fallen lay crecked several feet away, leaving a trail of translucent circles in its path.
The room is delicate, with the soft sheen of ice hardened over water, ready to crack. She is not sure wants to know what is beneath it. There is something age old in the walls, some darkness punctuated with flickering flames, tamed in one moment, an inferno in the next. Heat on her hands, she is holding the flames. She looks down, seeing them empty in the daylight, dry and cracked, white spiderweb lines on her palm. There are no flames. There is no darkness.
The room is empty, save for her.

Text by Lucie MacAulay

Miniature Cirque

Scraps of fabric and pieces of japanese paper held together with thin threads as strong as diamond tendrils. There is a platform of pale paper inked with a spray of symbols: a koru, a manala, the ourobos, infinity, the monas heiroglyphica, all reminiscent of the contortionists tattoos. A structure of carefully woven red and golde ribbons that flutter lightly like flames. Miniature lanterns burn with black flames that give off white sparks, and daring patrons who pass their hands through the flames discover it is not hot, it does not burn, instead it has the softness of a whisper, a small breath of air against their fingertips. Still, there is the smell of the circue, so subtle it is a nuance, barely there: oakmoss, frosty lilac petals, hot cider, aumtumn leaves, burgundy wine. With the mirror light dancing on the meticulously constructed paper tent, it is the same feeling as standing in the circus. The same air of mystery and excitement. The coolness of a shadow with the warmth of a blazing fire. The same delight and curiosity.

Art by Helen Musselwhite


Text by Lucie MacAulay

A Game of Shadow

This tent is more intimate, despite the vast space. The walls are white, the cieling low. Paper lanterns are anchored in the corners, round circles of light above and below them. The sign outside warns patrons to watch their step and once inside, they realize why. They enter onto a chessboard, black and white squares large enough to stand on. The doorway opens to a single free square surrounded by white pieces. The square next to the king, where there is an absence. No sign of the white queen. Opposite, across the wasteland of black and white tile, are black pillars carved like towers, bishops and knights.
You take the place of the queen. As you step forward there is the whir of clockwork, the click of gears and cogs coming alive. Knights raise their heads, pawns unsheath their swords, in one smooth and synchronized movement. Figures across the board fix their dopplegangers with identical black eyes.
Pieces move at your command, or for you who are not an aficionado of the game, at your point. They glide along the squares, stone scraping against stone. There are no ropes, no tracks on which the statues wheel, no wires or magnets. It is a mystery. One particular clockmaker suggests a theory to his companions in a french cafe they attend the morning after their visit. They do not understand the more technological aspects and remain content to be vexed by it. The enigma, they argue, is what makes it so dreamlike.
When a piece on the board is taken by the opponent, the piece seems to break apart, cracks forming down the sides as easily as if it were porcelain, instead of stone. Clockword grinds unplesantly until the statue breaks completely, pieces falling away and smashing on the tiled floor, silver gearts, weights, pendulums following in a watefall of mechanisms. They litter the boart, the statues still in play pushing fragments of their fallen comrades aside as they move.
Patrons that win stand among the ruins, wondering for a moment if they should attempt to sweep the pieces together or not. They make a note of it to inquire to the next performer or vendor they see but by then it has slipped their mind as they are entranced by some other spectacle behind the curtains.
Patrons put in checkmate are unaware at first.Pieces cease to move, they are frozen in battle. These patrons shuffle their feet hesitatnly on the spot, until a sensation fills them.
The lights of the tent dim, the vastness crowds with shadow. The burning in your feet spreads upward, then turns to a violent pain. You stumble off the square and the pain vanishes.
Abandoning the statures you exit quickly, not looking back until you are well away and only the flap of the tent and the black sign are visible.
For those that win it is a challenge, to play the game as a piece, and each game at home or in tea rooms from then on is less thrilling, less captivating. For those that lose it is a nightmare. Loss suceeded by pain. For those who have not encountered any other nightmares in the cirque it is the first seed planted, the first shadow cast by the radiance of the circus.

Art from Trafalgar Square (Getty Images)


Text by Lucie MacAulay

Brass Clocks and Green Eyes

The ticking of the clock began in her head, echoing against her cranium. It is the ticking of something old, the sound of pounding earth and pendulums moving in empty space, huge and brass. Behind her eyes copper cogs blossom like flowers, ridges of gears as shapely as the tips of petals. As she adjusts to the darkness she realizes the ticking of the clock comes from outside her head, and the darkness is the darkness behind her eyelids. And with the ticking of the clock, there are other sounds. Glasses clinking together, voices sharp and soft, the voices of kings and lovers, laughter, rising above the noise and ebbing, and jazz that sounded like gold. The clock is loudest of the symphony of sound and its face rises behind her eyelids, ivory with honey gold stars, the frame ember coloured with the tint of the colour-treated lights in the room. Stark black hands ticking away over pearlescent numbers in roman numerals.

She opens her eyes to the clock above her. And the rest of the room comes into view. 

Little has changed. Little ever changes. Teardrop chandeliers hang from the cieling, crystals strung along bows of ivory and iron, contours dappled with refracted light. Plush black daybeds with embroidered and beaded pillows, like the one on which she rests, and covered with blankets of dark violet feathers. Velvet curtains, rich as wine, edges grey with dust that shimmers in the undulating light.

Three of the five walls lead to other rooms, into the complex of the house she has never found an end to. She recognizes the room to her right as the music room and the music drifting from there has changed, subtly, to waltz-like jazz buffeted with trumpets and celestas. 

She stands slowly, conscious of the warmth buzzing in her veins and the smoothness of her limbs, like she has drunk too much of the wine held in crystal glases in gloved hands by those mingling and whirling around. 

No one takes notice of her immediately. She does not know most of the dancers and party-goers, but she if familiar with a few, who nod as she passes and enters the music room. 

The musicians are among her closes friends here, which is why she notices immediately when someone new stands on the low stage. 

He has gold hair, the first thing she notices in his appearance as the musicians who flank him have shorter brown hair. He stands in the same black suit, gloved hands wrapped around a saxophone, eyes closed as her plays. When he opens them he looks straight at her and the vivid green of his gaze causes her to step back. Into a dancer. 

She murmers an apology and continues on, glancing back occasionally through the crowd to see his green eyes following her. Only when she reaches the patio doors do his eyes slip shut and when she turns to the outside world, takes in the flaming white wings stretching far beyond the width of the doorway and the burning eyes in the face she knows as well as her own, does she understand why. He is too brilliant and for a moment she shuts her eyes. 

When she opens them again, his wings have vanished, vanished from the air, the view of the gardens beyond his unobscured. They were there and now they simply aren't. 

It has always amazed her that he can hide a part of himself so beautiful and breathtaking, so simply. 

"Hello Mira," he greets her, and his voice is warm and spicy. And wonderfullly familiar, but dark as secrets in shadows. 

"Hi Valentine."

Text by Lucie MacAulay

Ghost Grove

At first there seems to be no pattern to where the flowers grow. They bloom wildly in each direction, winding up trellises, hanging from vines. There are black and white flowers: snowfrops, black narcissus, white bleeding hearts, black birds of paradise, corpse plants, moonflowers, sage, indian pipe and white and black roses. Some of them look as delicate as carvings of ice, some have a deadly appearance and in the moonlight, shivering in small breezes, they are like nocturnal pixies. If one stands there long enough to appreciate the unplanned harmony, they notice the sequence of black and white that curves out and around them, like a spiral. The spiral unfurls like a silver fern frond, a path leading away from the tent foor. It is wild and untrimmed but elegant and mysterious. The air is heady, with the scents of moonflower, black opium and stargazer lily. The smell of a flower luring nocturnal pollinators. The tent has an opening in the cieling, where the very crest of the canvas is a hold lets in the moonlight, lending a gossamer glower to the garden. Black flowers become shadows, and white flowers are laced with silver, swaying to and fro like ghosts.

Text by Lucie MacAulay