Saturday's Storyteller: "Every year, the village quietly lit their Christmas lights in hopes of bringing him back."

by Belinda Roddie

Every year, the village quietly lit their Christmas lights in hopes of bringing him back. One by one, each red, purple, yellow, orange, and green bulb sprinkled their incandescent shadows upon the sleet and snow, the icicles appearing to be crystalline blue beneath the artificial sheen, the crevices of frost almost looking as if they were rising up to swallow the colors whole in their icy jaws. As each door was locked and every window shuttered and latched, all the light that remained were the endless strands of festive hues leading any stranger through the cropping of dilapidated houses, offices, and buildings. That night, there was nothing one could hear, but everything to see.

Whomever the citizens were waiting for, no one from the outside could safely say. Some claimed that it was a long-lost governor or king, when the village was a majestic city, cast in gold and the envy of the rest of the modern world. Others scoffed, saying it was merely a sad attempt to cultivate some sort of holiday spirit after being told that Saint Nicholas was only a "nice thought," rather than a reality. Still others, from their pulpits and podiums, praised this mysterious man as a god, a savior for a group of people who had become downtrodden, hopeless, and without passion. The villagers were sinners, the pastors would declare, and their souls simply had to be saved one Christmas night.

And so, the rituals continued, regardless of what anyone believed or tried to believe. The lights would be left on throughout the night into the next morning, and then into the following evening. No fires would burn, and no natural heat or warmth could be allowed even through a crack in the window blinds in anyone's home. Everyone had to be in bed at nine o'clock, and they certainly had to be asleep by midnight. Any false move, or mistake in the routine, could certainly be used as an excuse for why he, whoever he was, had not returned.

The only person who dared break the arbitrary silence, yet as far away from the town as possible without getting lost in the blizzard, was already locking the door of her small shack and trekking to the crest of the hill where the village sat. Slung across her shoulder was her prized fiddle, a gift from her father before he had died, and her bow was gripped tightly in the gloved fingers of her left hand. It was not snowing very hard, but the powder in the air was enough to obscure any good view of the towns and hamlets below, which all appeared to be alive and bright with decorations and festivities.

Tierney had never particularly liked Christmas, but this was her own ritual that she partook in every night while the rest of the villagers slept and dreamed of a false and imaginary salvation. She even planned out her attire, too - her father's boots, her father's coat, even her father's wide-brimmed hat that he always used to wear before he went off to the woods to cut down firs and spruces for their neighbors. He had been a small enough man, and Tierney a robust enough woman, so that all of his clothes beautifully fit his daughter's figure. And to top it off, Tierney even carried her father's flask, bronzed with age, and filled with the finest amber liquor she could find on her side of the mountains.

Once she had found a proper rock to perch on, Tierney wiped the snowflakes away from her eyebrows before unscrewing the flask and taking a long and needed draft of honey mead. As her stomach warmed, so did her spirits, and she began to tune her fiddle. The winter cold had done wonders to its pitch, and she took her time perfecting the tones before playing her first carol. This was what Tierney did each Christmas Eve - she would leave the village and play as many festive or somber tunes as she could think of before her fingers grew sore and she could no longer keep her eyes open. Then she would drag herself back to her shack, where her mother and sickly brother slept, and try to get some shut-eye before Christmas Day arrived and the usual village disappointment ebbed and flowed like a distant tide.

Tierney relaxed as soon as the first note skipped from the strings. And it sang its way across the landscape, she could feel the tension in her shoulders dissipating. Tierney was obviously not merely a fiddler; she had taken up her father's trade as a logger before transitioning to blacksmithing, as she had always been good with a hammer, and at crafting and welding things. Her brother was meant to be the heir to the lumber industry, but he had been ill for so long that now even Tierney's mother was expecting a Christmas miracle. She had said so herself to her daughter, as Tierney prepared dinner, that perhaps this "figure" the village spoke so much about might have something for them after all.

"It's never wrong to hope for something silly, rather than not hope for anything at all," Tierney's mother had said, before sitting down at the table and cleaning her hands with a towel for the sixth time in a handful of minutes. Tierney sighed and pushed the memory out of her mind as her bow danced across her fiddle's weary, yet still sleek, body.

The first carol Tierney played was her favorite - an Irish one, and one she had practiced. She proceeded to draw out another Irish tune, though not as Christmas-oriented, before launching into a cascade of reels and dances, even though there was no one from the village to participate in any choreography. As Tierney continued to play, she began to ignore the chill that numbed her nose and cheeks, or the snow that had soaked through her hat and now dampened the black curls struggling to retain their shape. Each freckle on her chin and jaw, she knew, were probably visible the more translucent her pale skin became, perhaps practically red and bulging as she continued to scratch out song after song, carol after carol, prayer after prayer.

When she stopped to take a break and drink more of her golden brew, she knew that he was watching her. She had always known that he had been real, though he never went to the village. He remained hidden by the slope of the hill, where the remaining dry grass grew tallest, his dark skin blending in with the velvet black sky of the winter night. He liked to listen to her fiddling. He was the only one who took the time to.

"When will you tell them," Tierney asked to the air, after swallowing her mead, never turning her head, "that they have to save themselves?"

He said nothing, though she could hear the bristling of his silver robes as their hems brushed against his bare ankles. She could hear everything about him; the crispy crinkling of his beard in the wind, the clicking of his eyelids as he blinked. When he cracked his knuckles, they almost tinkled like tiny bells.

"That," he always said to her, speaking from far away but with a voice that almost seemed close enough to whisper into Tierney's ear, "is not my message to send."

This week's prompt was provided by Arden Kilzer.