Feast of the ChangesKatherine Traylor
7200 words Red Boy had traveled with Big Beast for months, wandering from the city where he’d grown up into the wild nothing of the Other Ones. Every day they stopped in some out-of-the-way place to gather things that had no value. Every night they stopped to eat and ruminate about the day. Big Beast ate more than Red Boy, of course. He was as big as a house when you could see him. (In the city he was less there, but to Red Boy he was always huge). But though he needed a lot of food, he always saw to it that Red Boy ate well, too. Anyway, Red Boy was learning to find what they needed. They carried it all in big cloth sacks. The sacks grew fuller slowly. After all this time (three months, Red Boy thought), they were only a quarter full. As strong as Big Beast was, and as good at finding things, you’d think his sack would be full, but he had to eat and eat to feed his great body. The better you eat, the better you grow, Big Beast said once. As you grow more, you find more, but you also eat more. So you must find more and keep less, day by day. So even though Big Beast was very strong (he’d carried Red Boy, that night when he was sad and hurting), he usually had no more left to put in his sack after dinner than Red Boy did. Red Boy wanted to help. He knew how much he owed his friend. But he always guessed wrong: he hadn’t yet mastered the complex arithmetic of Big Beast’s needs and tastes. Big Beast assured him it was fine. You have your own taste. You’ll find what’s best for you soon. Anyway, they could leave things behind, or trade them on the rare occasions when they found Big Beast’s cousins under trees by the roadside, or hiding in bus shelters, or winding through tight woods behind filling stations. Those Other Ones had their own tastes, too, and could often use what Big Beast and Red Boy could not. Now Big Beast and Red Boy were in a landfill, which Big Beast said was one of the best places for finding things. (Landfill. Once Red Boy had gone to school, and that was where he’d learned the word.) It was so big it looked like a world made of garbage: every mountain a black bag, every skyscraper a soda can. The people were so small you couldn’t see them: smaller than ants, unimportant in this strange, upsetting vastness. They’d come late in the day, looking for things growing in unwatched places. The vast stinking slopes glittered in a way that would have been beautiful if the smell hadn’t been so horrifying. Shifting his furry bulk over the last rise, Big Beast sighed a groaning sigh. We’ll start here. When they’d first traveled together, Red Boy had thought Big Beast was patronizing him. (Patronize. His mother had said that to someone once. She’d been angry, unhappy. It had been raining. Don’t patronize me.) He was little, and he didn’t know what he was doing. But gradually he realized that he was helping, though he couldn’t carry much. His small, sharp eyes could see into places where the Other One’s huge black ones couldn’t look. His fingers were quick and slender. He found things. He was useful. That was nice to be. Of course, he didn’t know what they were looking for here. Use your eyes, Big Beast said, smiling in his way that turned his whole brown shaggy face into one joyous mask. Look wherever you think you should look. You’ll find something. He started looking himself, and Red Boy started looking, too. With his foot he pushed aside a few trash bags at the base of a large heap. After the first one started leaking, though, he quickly moved on to look in other places. He picked through crumbling cardboard with finicky fingers, skated through slime, scrutinized eggshells black with age and strange new life. After a while his nose grew desensitized. Soon he remembered he didn’t have to stay clean, anyway. Big Beast seemed to like him no matter how he smelled. He found a one-eyed doll, a refrigerator with a thousand beetles inside, a forest of soda straws, a thick pool of slime. Slowly he wandered away from Big Beast, over the top of the trash mountain towards nothing in particular. He found a box inside other boxes, both wet with rotting substances that smelled quite indescribable. Under the innermost box, something caught his eye: a spot where a patch of red cellophane crossed the red logo on a shoebox, making a crimson patch much deeper and brighter than either place alone. With his new-honed eyes, he saw that this was one of the places Big Beast told him about, where the unseen grew into something that climbed beyond the human world. “Here.” He reached into the red place and closed his hand over two spheres, round and cool, about the size of golf balls. When he pulled them out, they were round red gems that sparkled like cut-glass cherries. Big Beast came over the hill, his brown elephant legs kicking aside mountains of refuse. The familiar smell of him, a deep brown musk common to large wild things, replaced the stench of garbage. Beautiful, he said admiringly. You should eat them. “It isn’t nighttime,” he said uncertainly. Usually they saved what they could for dinner, unless they found something particularly tasty. Near enough. Shading his pumpkin-sized brow, Big Beast regarded the sinking sun. And you are hungry. Little Beasts must take care to stay fed. Besides, you found them. “Here.” Red Boy handed him one of the cherries. It was heavy, as if made from glass, though he knew by now it was something else. “At least have one.” Big Beast held it up to the sun, letting the light shine through it, nodding as the red light swirled starry and dark inside the center of the not-fruit. Then he handed it back. It’s yours. Red, for Red Boy. Red Boy was hungry enough that he didn’t protest, though he knew Big Beast must be much hungrier than him. Brushing the cherries on his shirt, he bit into the first one, crushing through a surface that broke like thick hard candy. It tasted like a ghost of fruit, but also as if something were speaking to him deep within his mind. He finished the broken sphere in three good bites. As the singing of that cherry-thing hummed deep in his mind, he ate the other. Then he dusted off his hands (not sticky, though he felt they should be) and looked at Big Beast. “What now?” Big Beast laid his broad hand atop Red Boy’s head. It was warm as an oven and gave more shade than a sunhat. Now we keep looking awhile for whatever we might find. When it’s too dark to look, we’ll go and rest. It was what they did every night, but the repetition was comforting. For the rest of the afternoon, they were quiet. Red Boy stayed close to Big Beast, listening to the shlush of their footsteps as they picked their way through hills of garbage. They found a few more things (a plastic cup that hummed like it had a bee inside; a blue plate smashed to pieces that stayed together in loose order wherever they were moved). Big Beast seemed happy to find them. But he was mostly quiet, perhaps thinking, and Red Boy was sleepy after his meal and wanted to go home, wherever that was tonight. “Can we camp?” he asked. Of course, Big Beast said. So they went out through the mountains of lost things and into a glade of trees, where they made a fire together and settled themselves for the evening. Red Boy knew he helped Big Beast with his hunting. At the same time, he knew that Big Beast did more for him than he could ever repay. His friend’s constant presence was like a brown tower at the edge of his vision, a sentinel telling him he was safe to explore no matter where he went. When they slept back to back near the campfire, the warmth of the Other One’s shaggy fur was as cozy as a blanket. Big Beast never spoke aloud, but there was a rumble between their minds when he talked that was almost like speech. Red Boy hadn’t seen another human in months, but he didn’t mind. He was never lonely, never hungry, never sad. Long ago, he’d lived with his mother. Though she had tried, there had been things she couldn’t keep pushing back. He’d often been sad, and sometimes lonely, though he’d tried not to let her know. In the end, they hadn’t been able to stay together no matter how much she’d wanted to. He thought of her sometimes, when he looked sideways at Big Beast and caught the shape of that strange, shaggy face that had never seen a human reflection in the mirror. His mother had been her own universe: brown, too, but smooth, and elegant and small. She wore red sweaters and desperate tension, always watching him from the corner of her eye as if he were some treasure she was afraid of losing. Big Beast watched him now, but without desperation. He trusted Red Boy, knowing that they were friends together and that Red Boy wouldn’t leave him. (And if Red Boy did, then that would be his choice; Big Beast wouldn't stop him.) He was tired all over from the long climb through garbage hills, but like every night he rested comfortably, pressed against the great warm hillside of Big Beast’s fur. They stirred the fire, shared their treasures, and watched the moon rise as they ate: a cool white crescent, stark against the black sky. It faced right like a C. “A curl-up moon,” Mother had said, pointing to the shape. “When it goes the other way, like a D, that’s a dancing moon. That’s when you go out with your friends and have a good time. Curl-up moons are for staying in and cuddling and going to sleep.” He remembered little things like that, things she’d told him about the world. He never told them to Big Beast, though he knew it was the kind of knowledge Big Beast would have liked. Instead, they sat in silence, looking at the moon. That was what they did every night: ate their food and stared up at the dancing moons and the curl-up moons and the full moons in between, wide and gorgeous like the laughing mouth of the sky. There were also nights when the moon was hidden and the stars peeked eerily from the black. Then Red Boy kept his eyes down, watching the fire instead, how it cast golden moons on the huge, gentle eyes of his only friend. Red Boy lay awake tonight, listening to Big Beast’s creaking snores through the loose sough of the wind. He was remembering his mother. He wondered if he should look for her, someday, if he and Big Beast ever finished traveling. She probably missed him. He hoped she was all right. He could still hear her voice in memory. “Come back!” she’d said when he’d run off into the night, hiding from what was coming for them. “Come back! Come back!” He remembered her face in flashing blue light, how she’d screamed when she was carried away. Though he’d stood alone there in the street, there’d been no one to know he was alone, or that he needed help. No one seemed to see him at all but the vast shadow watching from the corner of the street, which no one else seemed to notice. He stared at the fire. He couldn’t remember her face, just corners of it, the pain in her eyes, the thinness of her fingers. He didn’t remember her name. It had fallen when he’d lost his own, forgetting there was more to him than Red Boy (red for the shirt he’d been wearing on the night he’d found his friend, the shirt he still wore after all these miles and garbage dumps). If he asked for her, he wouldn’t know who to ask for. He curled up in his blankets and closed his eyes, leaning back against his sleeping friend’s fur. It was best not to think about it. He wouldn’t know where to look, anyway. They seemed to have crossed half the world since that night. He didn’t know where they were now, or who he was, but he knew he wasn’t the same person she would be looking for. Their travels were mostly solitary. Once in a long while they met one of Big Beast’s cousins. The Other Ones would converse in the soft unheard whisper of their customary speech, but Red Boy couldn’t always hear them and could rarely understand. On that long-ago first night, alone in the arms of the thing that was carrying him far away from his mother and his home, he hadn’t heard a word Big Beast had said. He’d sobbed broken for hours until the first tentative rumble came through his head: Boy? Through time, he’d come to understand Big Beasts, but he didn’t have that rapport with the other Ones. They looked nothing like Big Beast. Some were long and twisting, with many eyes dotted along what might have been necks or arms or tails. Others were hard-shelled like turtles, their armor shining like polished metal. One seemed to be a hillside dotted with flowers, but stood to become a vast four-footed creature with soft pink fur and a long grass cloak. One had been hiding in a river, and it slid out in a gray mass like slime or jelly when Big Beast called its improbable name. None of these Other Ones took much interest in Red Boy. They seemed to see him as a sort of pet: a rat, maybe, or something less popular. Not a dog or a cat. But he was so unnerved by their strange appearances that he didn’t mind being excluded. He sat in the sunlight when they talked, staring at the undersides of sunlit leaves and learning things from their rustlings, until Big Beast came to get him with a warm big-eyed smile and led him off down their continuing road. Those meetings were few, the Other Ones being rare and solitary. Between them, the days went on as always, and Red Boy began to feel restless. Repeating each day incessantly, with only the landscape changing, wasn’t the beautiful thing he’d imagined freedom was, back when he had not been free to go where he liked. Now he began to wonder why they should travel this way. Did Big Beast have any plan for his long, wandering life? Or was he content to find and eat a few treasures each day, to brush the ground of all the earth’s roads with the soles of his massive feet and his long, dragging tail? Then, when Red Boy had been traveling with his friend for almost a year, their weary feet led them one night into a valley glen. It was such a shock that Red Boy thought he was dreaming. They’d been traveling for a long time over a vast empty plain, its grass brushed soft by wind bending under the starlit sky. Trees a little too sparse for beauty tossed their heads in the darkness. The road was moonlit (the moon was full and bright, perfect for parties), leading shallowly up to a ridge lined with trees, and by the same light Red Boy saw other roads converging on the same ridge. On those roads, dim figures shuffled—shambled—trotted—undulated towards the line of trees. As they all approached the ridge, Red Boy began to hear sounds besides crickets and the wind: music, laughter, crackling fires. Something new was happening, something strange and dreamlike. Red Boy tried to understand where this place had come from, but he was distracted by the sight of his fellow travelers: long shadows swirling through the grass; mountainous monsters; tall, thin people with bundles on their backs and unknowable faces. Big Beast kept on walking forward, one step at a time, and Red Boy quickened his pace to keep up with him. Their bags were heavy now, finally full after their many months on the road. Red Boy’s bag pushed and bulged against his back, full of unearthly treasures dug from unexpected places, as well as a few interesting things he’d dug up just because he liked them. The other travelers had bags, too; or else massive chests that they carried with powerful arms; or perhaps trails of bubbles rolling behind them, each with something inside: a jeweled telephone, a book opening and closing like a butterfly’s wings. Once there was a creature riding in a wagon, something that might have been a mouse if it had had the right features and the right number of paws. Though it might just have been a friend of the catlike creature who was tugging it along with her six spiderlike limbs. No one spoke or turned to look at anyone else, but it was obvious everyone was going to the same place. Then they passed through the trees, and he saw everything. It was a valley of dreams, shaded by soft clouds that muted the moonlight. Beneath it, the blueish grass was dotted with campfires around which pavilions had been established. Pavilion: that was another large word Red Boy knew. He knew it was a fancy tent, and these were the fanciest he’d ever seen. Some were made of silk, lace, or velvet. Others were covered in leaves stitched together with golden thread. Some were clear, made of something that hung and shivered like soap-bubble sheets in the wind. In the tents, shadowy figures moved through golden lamplight, and from their shapes and strangeness Red Boy knew that all these figures were Other Ones. He and Big Beast didn’t have a pavilion. They kept on walking down the long, gentle slopes of the valley, on and on through the moonlight past all the galaxies of tents, listening to the soft subvocal chuckles of friends meeting in the night and catching up on each other’s travels. Red Boy wondered if Big Beast would stop (he seemed to have many friends), but he kept going down and down into the valley. It was a long walk, but no one seemed to mind. The full moon rose slowly, and everyone walked down and down through its light towards the bottom of that vast bowl. And there, at the end of the long road, was an endless table. It wound through the valley like a fat, lazy snake, glowing under silk lanterns that seemed to hang from nothing. Chains of flowers dangled in the air between them, casting flower-shadows on the table like a vision from fairyland. The long table was made of thousands of smaller ones, Red Boy saw as they got nearer. Some were long, some short, some round, some square. Some were made of wood, others of metal, others of glass. Many were covered in cloths that looked like silk or velvet. They were set with different kinds of dishes, silver flashing in many styles and sizes, plates and napkins and fancy glasses like adults drank wine from. Some were simpler, with only a cup or a tin plate or a single wooden bowl. Some had chairs (folding ones, canvas ones, beautiful cushioned ones like the ones in museums). Others were surrounded by pillows piled high enough to sit on like chairs. Some tables had no seats at all, only the thick soft grass they stood on. Here some of the biggest of the Other Ones were easing themselves to the ground, heads towering over the tables without needing any seats at all. Their enormous starlit faces were peaceful as they looked up at the night sky, watching the golden dance of the thousands of curious fireflies coming to light and visit this strange dinner party. Gradually, the Other Ones settled themselves, all chattering softly in their strange language wise as turtles and older than stones. There were all different dialects of that language (dialect, another word whispered from his fading past: a version of a language spoken only by some people). He heard them only as parts of the rising babble, a great cacophony like thousands of birds over hundreds of tuning instruments. Red Boy came shyly into the midst of these voices, following in Big Beast’s enormous shadow, clinging to his friend’s fur with one hand so he wouldn’t get lost. Big Beast found them a table where one delicate chair stood beside a pile of cushions. He gestured for Red Boy to sit and plumped himself down on the cushions, arranging his massive limbs like a dragon settling around a mountain. He gave a sigh as he set his bag down, and Red Boy realized that his friend was as tired as he was. He looked around. More of the Other Ones were filling in around them, coming in groups of two or three or five (and some alone) to take places of their choice. Slowly, Red Boy began to understand the different dialects of their bubbling, rumbling tongue, heard them all saying in different ways, And here you are, friend… Here you are, friend; well met… The lanternlight fell gently on fur and scales and feathers and skin in a thousand gorgeous shades. The yellow flash of fireflies flickered across their eerie eyes like distant lightning. “Is it a party?” Red Boy whispered. A feast, said Big Beast, patting his shoulder. (The impact, though gentle, was heavy enough to knock him sideways.) The Feast of the Changes. It happens every year. Red Boy’s stomach grumbled. A feast sounded good. He looked around but saw no sign of food, and there were no smells but the grass and the beasts and the cool night air. “Where’s the food?” he whispered. Big Beast’s chortle rippled through the warm brown mountain of his fur. We bring the food ourselves. Opening his sack, he began to lay his treasures out on the table. All around, the Other Ones were opening bags and boxes, taking out singing harps, silver kettles, blank-faced china dolls, robes made of fabric that moved without being touched. They oohed and aahed over each other’s findings, trading things back and forth and holding them up to see them better by lamplight. Red Boy didn’t know what else to do, so he began to lay his things out, too. He kept back some of the regular treasures (a broken game controller, an action figure similar to one he’d had when he was little), but everything else he slowly put into the pile beside Big Beast’s. There was a pencil made of cold, clear glass; a pirate’s hat dotted with little mirrors (he’d found it in a dumpster); a stack of strange comic books with characters he’d never seen and absolutely no words. Big Beast unrolled the vast rug of purple plush they’d found in a trash pile, the silver plates that rang like chimes when they touched each other, the locket with a rose petal inside and a clasp shaped like a bird. It took a long time for everyone to pile their treasures on the tables. When at last they’d finished, the Other Ones set to work with new energy, reaching out with strange and varied hands to take things from the piles and pull them apart. Red Boy gasped at first, seeing the pale yellow Other One beside Big Beast bend all their silver plates in half. But Big Beast only laughed and took a shuffling pile of paper lace from the neighbor’s pile in turn. “What are they doing?” Red Boy whispered, hoping that the rustle and tingle of the Other Ones’ work would cover the sound. Making our feast, Big Beast said. Ripping the paper lace straight down the middle, he handed one piece to Red Boy. Would you like one? It will be a good start. Hesitantly, Red Boy took the piece of lace. It was punched full of little holes, like the snowflakes his mother had taught him how to make once (she’d been sick in bed that day, working gingerly with nail scissors since they couldn’t find the real ones). But the texture of it, now that he felt it, didn’t feel like paper you could write on. It felt more like sugar. Experimentally, he ripped off a corner and ate it. It tasted sweet, but very delicate, like moths’ wings made of sugar. He nibbled a bit more, getting used to the taste. Then he rolled the paper lace into a large nest and began looking for things to put into it. Everyone else was hard at work, creating and combining. Strange fruits were cut and tossed and arranged on silver platters, dusted with crumbled pages from gossamer books. Orbs of rubber sunlight were stretched and sliced, laid out on plates, sprinkled with the juice of things that weren’t strawberries but smelled much better. Some of the Other Ones laid fires beside the tables. They roasted bits of their treasures on spits: strange vegetables dug from the gardens of museums, candied cotton, bread made of starlight, chestnuts from a silver tree that only appeared once a year. The smells were so rich that Red Boy’s stomach growled more loudly. The Other Ones laughed and gave him things to eat. He shyly offered them his own treasures in return. When the food was ready, the Other Ones stood up and sang a prayer in ringing chorus. Red Boy couldn’t understand the words, but he felt the sentiment. He looked up at the sky, tears rolling, as he felt the moon begin to answer them. Then, all together, the Other Ones sat down and began to eat. There was so much food that it seemed at first it would never be eaten. Some of the Other Ones were tiny. They nibbled like rabbits, picking and choosing from the littlest morsels. But others were huge, much larger than Big Beast. They ate with ravenous urgency, gobbling black pumpkins and bolts of silk fabric, gulping lilac wine from bowl-sized glasses. What they didn’t eat they passed to their friends, who looked every hungrier. Red Boy peeked sideways and saw Big Beast eating just as desperately, taking huge bites from his paper-lace pizza until it looked like a thin crescent moon. Remembering how sparingly his friend had always eaten, how careful he’d been to see Red Boy always fed, how scrupulously he’d saved whatever he could, Red Boy felt guilty for not realizing how hungry Big Beast must have been. His mother had often been hungry, too, in their life together, saving what she could for him and going without herself. He’d never known what to do about that, but he knew what he could do about this. So he ate as sparingly as he could, nibbling like the smallest of the Other Ones, occasionally nudging food toward Big Beast when his friend wasn’t looking. One of their neighbors, a lavender creature with tendrils on her head, peered over between bites of her marshmallow-gold sandwich and frowned. You’re not eating, Little Friend. Eat! It’s the Feast of the Changes. You need to fill your stomach. This caught Big Beast’s attention. He paused in his eating to scrutinize Red Boy’s plate. Eat, Red Boy. His big brows lowered in concern. There’s plenty for all. Eat until you can’t eat anymore. Then you’ll see what happens next. It’s why we came. Eat, eat! Eat! chorused the Other Ones. Red Boy shyly obeyed, bringing his bird’s nest towards him and raising it to take a bite. Before, the taste had been delicate. Now he’d added white chocolate drops melted from a fragrant candle, with drizzles of sweet brown syrup from a strange silver pitcher, and with slices of a succulent red fruit he’d found under a flowerpot in an abandoned greenhouse (weeks before, but still as juicy as the day he’d found it). The taste of it all was more decadent than a tall stack of pancakes on Sunday morning, more crumbling-sweet than the big pavlova he and Mother had once shared for a special treat. It tasted like everything he shouldn’t have, everything that it was greedy to eat when others had so little. If he and Mother had had food like this, then they could have… they could have… Red Boy, Big Beast murmured, you are crying. Are you all right? Red Boy brushed tears from his face. “Fine.” His friend nodded uncertainly. Eat, then. The best time is coming. So Red Boy put aside his guilt and began to stuff himself: shyly at first, and then more eagerly, tasting the year’s treasures bite by bite and plate by plate. Every dish was totally different than the one before, and all of them somehow seemed perfectly cooked despite the lack of a kitchen. Each bite gave him a different sensation: a quiver in his stomach, a buzzing in his limbs, a sudden jolt and the urge to laugh. Soon he stopped worrying about anything. He only saw the food, the lamps, the night sky. He only heard silverware clinking and his neighbors murmuring happily, It’s good, it’s good, it’s good. He ate a pizza covered in shivering black seeds. He bit the fingers from a glove made of thin-flaked silver. He swallowed a star encased in jelly that burned hot down his throat and left a warm feeling in his stomach. He ate and ate. Sometimes he set his fork down, but he always picked it up again, feeling compelled to eat more. He couldn’t stop. This had been the mission all along, he was beginning to realize. All the gathering and seeking, the long days of walking, the long nights asleep under strange swirling stars, all of that had been a buildup to this, the leadup to one main event. Something important was about to happen, and Red Boy would be a part of it. He ate until he finally began to see bits of his blue ceramic plate under the food. Till then, the Other Ones had been passing food to him so steadily that his plate had never had a chance to empty. All of them were slowing down, now. The pile of treasures, which had looked like it must last forever, was almost gone. Seeing that, Red Boy suddenly began to feel full. He took a last bite of a gooseberry-cream tart and put his fork down. Leaning back, he laid his hands on his belly. When a neighbor offered him more food, he said grandly “No, thank you; no more.” The Other Ones seemed to agree. One by one, they leaned back, yawning and preening their grease-stained fur, wiping their hands and faces with napkins passed around by a creature like a very tall butterfly. Red Boy took a napkin, too, and sleepily wiped his face. The Other Ones were whispering now, murmuring as they looked up at the moon, nudging each other. Something important was about to take place. They were about to see the purpose of the feast. Big Beast finally set his fork down and accepted a napkin with a grateful nod. He wiped his face and fingertips delicately and set his napkin on the table. It’s time, he murmured to Red Boy, smoothing his fur. Are you ready? Ready for what? Red Boy wanted to ask. But Big Beast was standing up, and all the Other Ones were, too. He stood, too, and did what they did. The first thing they did was look up at the bright full moon, which seemed to hang above their table as if waiting for them to do something interesting. When it had their attention, the moon pulsed bright silver. The Other Ones raised their hands and horns and tendrils and limbs and whirled, all spinning in unison as if they’d suddenly started hearing the same song. They bowed low to each other, joined hands and limbs and horns and tendrils, and began to dance. Red Boy tried to follow the steps. He didn’t really know how to dance. He’d heard music, of course, but no one had taught him what to do with it. But these steps were easy: one, two, three steps right; three steps left again; two steps back; two steps forward; bow, spin, repeat. It went on and on like that. Some of the Other Ones were singing, humming, hooting a song he’d never heard before that somehow sounded familiar. Red Boy lost himself in the performance, feeling the world turn around him as he joined more and more into the rhythm of the dancing. Finally, breathing hard, all of them fell back into their seats. They laughed and held their stomachs and said to each other, It was a good one this year, a good dance, a great feast! Then someone down the table called, in a buzzing voice bright with excitement and urgency, Let us begin! Red Boy didn’t know what to expect. The feast was swirling in his stomach, much less settled now, much less like food. For a moment, he wondered if he’d done wrong in sharing. Had it been wrong for him, a boy and not an Other One, to follow the long path with Big Beast and do all the things the Other Ones did? But mostly he felt excited. Placing his hands carefully on his whirling stomach, he watched eagerly as the purple Other One across the table suddenly stood up and cried, Here it comes! With all the weaving tendrils on her head, it was difficult at first to see what was happening. Then the tendrils roiled and twisted, as if something were pushing out from behind them. There was a cool flutter of lilac wind, and then a dozen purple butterfly wings burst forth from all over the Other One’s head. Red Boy gasped. But his purple neighbor laughed and twirled and jumped into the air, her little wings fluttering rapidly to keep her afloat. Beautiful! another neighbor cried. How wonderful, such wings! As the changed one bounced and fluttered, other changes happened across the great gathering. One Other One grew a crown of bare branches with a ball of orange flame balanced in their midst. One (a snail-like being) grew rippling new stripes around the already-rippling edges of her body. A creature like a two-beaked crow now grew a third leg, and they laughed and chortled and murmured as if they’d been told a funny joke. As more and more Other Ones stood up, gaining rows of scales or tufts of feathers or sharp new horns or other wonderful things, Red Boy understood why this party was called the Feast of the Changes. Soon even Big Beast stood up and shook his massive body, shifting his muscles till a ridge of golden spines emerged from the fur of his brown back. Ah, he said, sounding happy. I’ve been waiting for these for a long time. He saw Red Boy watching, and his look of happiness turned into puzzlement. Red Boy, why aren’t you changing? Startled, Red Boy saw that many of the Other Ones were watching him now, waiting for him to follow their example. He opened his mouth to explain that he was human, that he couldn’t change like they could. But then he considered. He didn’t really feel quite like himself anymore. He felt cramped and suppressed, as if not enough of him were out in the open. Suddenly he felt a very strong need to change that. He tried to stretch, surreptitiously moving in his chair to get more space. Had his muscles fallen asleep? Though the dance should have woken him up. Anyway, it didn’t feel like an outside muscle that was restless. It felt more like something inside his head. The party grew quiet. Looking around, Red Boy saw that he was the only one who hadn’t changed yet. Everyone was watching him expectantly. He looked to Big Beast for a cue, but his friend only smiled, shaking his head, as if Red Boy should know what to do. Red Boy looked around for inspiration. As he moved his head, he heard a loose jingling, as if several bells had been set free inside his mind. Then he felt a bright tingling low on his forehead, just above the bridge of his nose. He lifted his hand to touch the place. Before he could, something blinked open on his forehead. There! Big Beast said happily. A beautiful start. A lovely first change, Red Boy. Beautiful, beautiful! the others cried. There seemed to be more of them now—or rather, Red Boy was seeing them too many times, from too many angles and directions. The world was bigger now, the stars brighter. The Other Ones looked fiercer and more magical, more otherworldly than any creature a human had a right to see. At the same time, they didn’t look strange at all. There was something amazingly familiar about them: an ordinary, lovely feeling Red Boy had long known with Big Beast but never yet with any of the other Other Ones. He still felt wary (looking at their golden tusks, their three-foot talons, their lolling red tongues that wagged over the empty table). They were beasts, after all, and he was only human. But he thought, with time, that he might begin to know them. Perhaps that was the biggest gift of the evening. Here, said the One with the wings on her head, handing Red Boy a large mirror. It’s a good change. You came well prepared tonight. Red Boy stared at the mirror in bewilderment and shock. Low on his brow, right where he’d felt the tingling, was a large ruby-red eye. The Other Ones continued to chatter admiringly as Red Boy gently touched the lid of his new eye. It felt just like his other eyelids, with eyelashes just like the ones he had already. The eye was eye-shaped, quite normal besides its color, and blinked just like a normal eye would when his fingers got too close. But as he looked around, Red Boy understood that the new eye was what had added new depth to his vision, was adding shimmers and sparkles to the outlines of ordinary things—ideas of magic that hadn’t been there before. He looked himself carefully over, wondering if other changes were coming, but this seemed to be all for now. You’ll start slowly, said Big Beast, guessing his thoughts. One change is enough for tonight. There will be time to collect and grow as you get older. Red Boy looked in the mirror again, blinking his new eye slowly, admiring its jewellike color. “Am I one of you now?” he asked hesitantly. “One of the Other Ones?” Big Beast bowed assent, moonlight glancing off his new golden spikes. But you already were, Red Boy. You were my companion all this year, living as I lived. How can you doubt that you were one of us? Looking around, wondering if it could be true, Red Boy heard them clapping for him, smiling and nodding and murmuring approval. He felt the warm vibration of their applause against his bones, and for a long time he basked in the warm light of their acceptance. Then Big Beast took his hand, lifting him from his seat, and they all danced together, a great circle of joy under the stars. Finally the sun in the distance began to rise, just barely under one or the other of the horizons, and the Other Ones began to yawn. Gradually they wandered off in different directions, some to their tents and some to other dances, some over the mountains and some along the valley and out of sight. There was no rhythm to their going, but all seemed to know exactly where they were headed, as if some purpose in their hearts were calling them. “It’s sad that they’re all leaving,” Red Boy said, as he and Big Beast waved goodbye to the last of their neighbors. They’d been a vast party, but the Earth was very big, and he knew it would be a long time before he saw them again. It’s necessary, Big Beast rumbled. The world can’t hold us all together most of the time. Some will walk in some places, others in others. But don’t worry: we’ll meet again next year, and we’ll have the same feast, and we’ll our friends and tell them our adventures. Red Boy nodded thoughtfully, understanding. “Which way will we go?” His mind flicked briefly to a woman with sad eyes, a woman who liked red and loved him. He wondered what she’d think of him, how he’d changed, the company he was keeping. But he still wanted to see her. It had been a long time. Perhaps she would like his new eye. Big Beast cocked his head. Why don’t you choose the way? It’s certainly your right after a year of following. Red Boy blinked his ruby eye. The world seemed to be changing around them, showing different directions, elements of the landscape he had not seen. But there were so many paths that he wondered which one to choose. Then he realized there was a thrumming in his mind, a call softer than moonlight and older hills, telling him to go… that way. I hear it, Red Boy said, his voice a startled echo. He pointed to a forest that had not been there moments ago, a wild wood growing at the edges of the valley. We should go that way, I think. Indeed, he saw a path of silver shining through the trees. Big Beast bowed. If you say so, then it is our path. Shall we go now? We can rest when we get tired. Red Boy thought of his mother, who might like to see her Other-One-son, and who at least would want to know what had happened to him. He wasn’t sure he’d find her down this way, but his heart felt good, as if he finally were about to move in the right direction. Let’s go, he agreed, taking the pack that Big Beast handed him. I think we can go a long way before it’s time to sleep. Big Beast rumbled, shaking his new spikes, and gestured courteously for Red Boy to precede him. Red Boy stepped onto the shining trail. It grew firm and solid beneath his foot, welcoming him fully into this world he’d only been a guest in. He took Big Beast’s arm. As friends, they walked into the new year’s journey. |
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Katherine Traylor
Katherine Traylor is a US-born writer currently based in Prague, Czech Republic. Her writing is often fairy-tale-inspired with a strong focus on transformation. Her work can be found in the anthologies Slightly Sweetly, Slightly Creepy; Literally Dead: Tales of Holiday Hauntings; Dangerous Waters: Deadly Women of the Sea; Once Upon a Wicked Heart; and Gods & Services; as well as MYTHIC Magazine, Creepy Podcast, and Tales to Terrify. She shares a home with her beautiful wife and three four-footed children. Follow her on Twitter (@amongthegoblins) or at her website, katherinetraylor.com.
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