I can understand why Dorothy loves the feeling of fall. I’ve just returned from an evening at the Hallinox festival, Flame and I are snuggled together under a blanket, and as we watch the light and shadow cast by the Long Night Lantern, I can feel it… It’s in the whistle of the wind through shuddering trees, branches all aquiver. It’s in the pale light of distant stars on a moonless night. And it’s in the old traditions made new once again by our practice of them each year.
Dear reader, tonight I greeted the new season by partaking in a ritual I have always enjoyed: the telling of a story. Elise, Davy, Lorenz, and I were all seated at one of the wooden tables which had been brought out onto the village green for the evening’s festivities. Alexander had just gone off with his father, and Davy was wondering what we might do next. There was bobbing for apples, games of skill or chance, and of course dancing, but Lorenz reminded us all that we had missed the opportunity to hear a story last year. He looked towards me with a beguiling smile and drew out a small punched tin lantern from his coat. Davy was thrilled at the prospect, and Elise asked only that it be “nothing too scary”, so I took a moment to consider and decided on a tale called “The Voice and the Hollow Tree.” Now I shall tell it to you, dear reader, as I told it to them:
There once was a traveler making his way along the road by night. Long had he journeyed and now he wanted nothing more than to be home once again. However, when he decided to take the shorter trail through the dark wood a heavy mist poured in around him and obscured the path. “How will I find my way now?” he said to himself. A voice answered, “Come, come, and you will see!”
Thinking he had met another traveler, he followed after the voice, but anytime he asked a question all it would simply reply was, “Come, come, and you will see!” The voice led him to a place where the mist did not reach and all the trees stood thin and bare. “Where have you gone?” the traveler asked, for he could see no one.
“Come, come, and you will see!”
The voice came from within the hollow of a great dead tree. The man thought perhaps they could shelter there for the night; surely the space was large enough for both him and his companion. Slowly, he approached the hollow, but as he did he heard not the voice which had called him, but strange whispers such as of no earthly thing. Shadows reached cold wispy fingers towards him, but his fear gripped him first, and in a flash the traveler fled! He ran from the place, through the fog and forest, until the sun rose that morning. The traveler found his way back to the road and soon reached home. Once more safe and sound, he vowed never to travel by way of the forest path again.
It’s a short tale, but one that has stayed with me since Auntie Ember told it to Lettie and me one Hallinox night long ago. Elise shivered afterwards and said that at least it had a good ending. Davy thought perhaps his mother had told him a similar tale once, but he had forgotten it until now. And Lorenz, well, he thanked me for making his first Hallinox story a good one, for it seems this holiday isn’t one they celebrate much in the north of the kingdom anymore. To think of how much he's missed… I have so many treasured memories from Hallinox nights and this time of year in general; the looks on my friends’ faces this evening… well, that shall be another one to keep in my heart. I think I will add the Impression of it to the remedy I’m making for Dorothy. After all, traditions are part of what make up that special feeling of the fall.