Welcome to this week’s installment of many micro stories, ranging in length from 100 words to 500 words.
With each story we hope to deliver a little whimsy into the lives of our readers.
ST. JOHN’S EVE
June twenty-third. My eighteenth Sankthansaften. Almost to the day, for I was a midsummer baby. Only one day past the full strawberry moon. Its conjunction with the summer solstice happens only once in twenty years. The first time in my whole life, and combined with my first flower ritual, the whole evening held the promise of magic.
Almost the whole village turned out for the annual bonfire. It is the highlight of our year, and the main part of our Saint Hans celebrations. We feasted on fire-roasted meats, summer berries and endless akevitte. Through the endless June evening we sang all the old songs, drank until the sun eventually slipped low in the sky, then the men lit the fire as the midsummer moon rose over the fjord.
Our beacon burned hard and fast. Rushing and roaring, the bonfire blazed high into the star-pierced sky, greedily devouring all the wood we’d been collecting for weeks and spitting out bright embers. The old ones say that the cracks, squeaks and hisses are the dying cries of evil spirits banished in the burning.
All around Bunnefjorden, silhouettes and shadows flickered against a constellation of fierce fires. Atavistic whoops and howls and yells echoed around the fjord, criss-crossing its surface like interference ripples, while deep beneath the water lay still, cold as corpses.
We are never more alive than in the presence of death, and Sankthansaften is one of the thin nights. We grasp greedily at life – at the feast-meats, strong spirits and warm bodies – whilst we turn faces from that barely-veiled Other Place, only half-jokingly whispering promises and prayers to almost-forgotten forebears through a door briefly ajar.
In all the commotion, nobody noticed me as I slipped away.
As the sky lightened and the shortest night fled, I lay down to dream of my future husband. In silence and a maiden’s gown of fine white linen, I tucked my flower posy beneath my pillow, drifting into sleep blanketed by the sweetly anise scent of crushed fennel, one of the seven sorts the ceremony calls for.
. . .My vision clears, and I am standing at the fjord’s edge. I spy an old man with hazy blue eyes.
‘Welcome home, Daughter. I have been waiting for you.’
As is the way in dreams, I know he is my father, though he isn’t Pappa.
‘Beloved child, our time is short – this magical night is almost at its close. Ask your question, and you will have your answer.’
‘Father, who will I marry?’
‘This is your dream, child.’ He holds a bowl of polished obsidian, filled with swirling, iridescent water. ‘Look into the scrying skål, Freya, daughter of Njörd. Tell me what you see, I command you.’
The air reeks of ozone, lightning charged up ready to strike, and the wind rises shrieking, whipping my hair into wild knots and tangles. I stare down into the bowl, watching fascinated as the rainbow streaks move themselves purposefully into shapes. And I see. . .
Pam Martin-Lawrence is a neurodivergent writer living on a small English island with collections of emotional support plants, ‘book boyfriends’ and a long-suffering partner. While writing her second novel she writes poetry and short fiction for relaxation, some of which have appeared in publications including Passionfruit Review, Southern Gothic Creations, Macrame Lit. J. Flights e-Journal, Coin-Operated Zines, a MockingOwl Roost anthology, KissMet Quarterly, SunSpot Literature (Rigel anthology), litl journal on Instagram, Bunker Squirrel magazine, and is a contributor to Micromance. She is the author of ‘The Tale of a Dragon’ (Alien Buddha Press 2024).
If you enjoyed this story you can find it and more in the Hawthorn & Ash 2023 anthology.
Iron Faerie Publishing 