Like so many nights before, Helmar’s eyes searched for a corner of his bedroom that was solid and true. A place to go ashore to reality as he awoke on a mattress damp with sweat. Phantoms of the past tangoed back and forth in, and she took the lead.
She always did at night. No matter how his figments of imagination set the table, the woman he loved sat at its head. Hers was a torturous memory, causing fever dreams, yet one that provided solace. Because by thinking of her, Helmar felt she was not gone. Not yet.
A rather too lively inner world for an ordinary, twenty-six-year-old clerk, perhaps. Then again, since the summer of ’87, Helmar didn’t count himself among ordinary people anymore. Not after he’d experienced strangeness like he had with that woman.
In every dream, she wore her green, pagan dress, a hangerock. But her features were vague, like a pencil drawing blurred by repeated attempts to capture an image.
Enough, Helmar thought.
He raked his hands over his face, fighting the lingering drowsiness. There was no use tossing and turning while his mind raced through memories and longing. There was no point trying to tame sleep when he knew he didn’t hold the reins. Instead, he got up and trudged downstairs at about witching hour. Or as he preferred to call it; whiskey’s hour.
Splashing the amber drink into a tumbler, questions he kept for the woman arose faster than the whiskey to his lips. The sweat on his back made him shiver. Licked by the cool air, he realized he forgot to put on some clothes.
“When does someone become a stranger?” He mumbled, naked, in front of his mini-bar. It was the question that nagged him most.
He went to his cat, Soot, his only companion in this empty place. A house of memory. Or perhaps more like a prison, where he kept himself since the Summer of ‘87. The cat’s fur was as dark as the night outside, and Soot slept peacefully, unlike his master who he ignored.
“You should’ve seen her, Soot.” Helmar’s voice swelled with passion (though the cat still ignored him). “The most beautiful flower, she was. Her skin, earth and sun. Her eyes, dazzling like spring rain.”
He turned around, surprised to see the dinner table set for three. Helmar was awake, but unsure whether this was reality. His mind was suspended somewhere in between he supposed, the loss of love keeping him there. Or perhaps it was anger at the estrangement.
Another sip of his whiskey later, he sat down at the table, and descended into memory.
It all started Saturday, June 20th.
When, on his way to work, under an early yet burning Sun, Helmar halted when the forest swung open for him like a gate. She appeared to have opened them.
“The Now-folk call me Litha,” she said, her accent foreign, and soothing. “You must rejoice with me.”
Litha chuckled as she approached. Likely because of his expression. Her flower crown jumped up and down as she tip-toed over the stones in the meadow.
“What are you?” He said, too flushed to think of a polite reply.
“I will be your Litha.” She grabbed his wrists, softly. “You are hand-picked.”
Up close, her blue eyes pierced even the endless daylight. Helmar marveled at her green hangerock swaying loosely from her shoulders, jangling around bronze ornaments.
“Do you know what that means?” She raised her eyebrows.
“I do,” he lied.
Without further ado, Litha led him deeper into the woods, singing. He let her.
Helmar forgot where he dropped his suitcase. His keys were missing too, along with his tie, and suit. Instead, he was clad in a suit woven of flowers and herbs, soft as the finest linen.
It was nothing short of a fairytale.
“It suits you for a while,” his goddess said, for that is how Helmar called her. “It is nearly time and you were almost late. We must celebrate the turning of the year. Come, let us dance some more, before we light the fire.”
Helmar sang with her, adding his rich, baritone voice, freed from shame. The world in which he followed numbers and forms became distant and unfamiliar.
“Honestly?” Soot interjected sternly into his master’s memory, pulling him back to the table set for three. “The whole story, again?”
“Stay out of this,” Helmar snapped, “You’re ruining the moment.”
“Ruining?” Soot said calmly, “We should be past the end of this story.”
“She needs time.”
The cat clicked his rasped tongue. “She’s gone.”
“She’ll return. I know her!”
“You did,” Soot corrected. He jumped out of his hammock and took the second chair at the table.
Helmar closed his eyes, his thoughts fleeing to Sunday, June 21st.
He and Litha fed a bonfire that kept life flourishing. Birds, beasts, even trees joined in to celebrate the zenith of light and growth, and all seemed glad.
The bank clerk felt invincible with his Midsummer goddess shining besides him. She taught him the breath of seasons, and how stars shine through the hues of meadow flowers. Sleep became a past inconvenience.
“Whatever I do,” Helmar cried, “You perfect!”
Together, they sprang forth fields of heather, altered the course of rivers to quench the thirsty land. The fruits of their labour grew on trees—
Soot cleared his throat, loudly. “Fruits of your labour grew on trees? Are you hearing yourself, dear master?”
“Well, it’s true,” Helmar said defensively. “Isn’t it?”
The cat flushed his nose with a deep exhale. “When will you listen to reason? Listen to me?”
How does someone become a stranger again? Helmar pondered.
The cat purred in contemplation, seemingly privy to his master’s thoughts. “Whenever an answer eludes me –which is rare– the question must be wrong. But behold, you can finish your dinner.”
Behold, indeed! The third seat was taken by Litha.
Upon seeing her, Helmar closed his eyes and recalled Monday, June 22nd, reluctantly.
After two days without food, drink, and sleep, he collapsed. His body wasn’t made for an endless festival. He missed his bed, his work, and oddly enough, the chill of Winter too. But the worst was yet to happen.
For Litha ignored his pleas to join him. Her hair darkened to a shade fitting the viciousness of the distance she wedged between them. But occasionally, she spoke. She thought about him, she said, though never explaining who she was, or why she’d chosen him. In their bliss, Helmar hadn’t thought to ask before.
But he pressed her, though it must have looked more like begging.
“We have danced and rejoiced,” she replied, “But now I shall take the long march back, to the castle of Mabon, which gleams red in the harvest of apples. I will dance with my love, Jule, and bring forth the twilight of this year with him.”
“You have a husband?!” Helmar didn’t bother with the mystical parts of her answer.
“Every year, for a while. And no longer than you. But in Summer and Winter, we do not meet, and we appoint partners to dance, and light the fire.”
Her insult kicked him up from the grass. Despite all the magical and unsettling things he witnessed the last two days, this, more than anything, split his soul. How could someone so dear, so close, estrange him on a whim and smile about it?
But she flew southwards, parting in silence, faster than he could run after her, though he tried for a while. Exhausted,he locked himself in the house near the forest. The one with ample bottles of whiskey.
Helmar opened his eyes again, and found Soot and Litha staring at him from across the table in that house.
“Why do you want to be a stranger?” Helmar bowed his head, warm tears streaking his bare chest.
The image of Litha remained silent; expressionless. She fiddled with a bronze ornament.
Soot cleared his throat. “Are you done chewing on the past?” He said, “I’d prefer to leave this house.”
“She can’t just abandon me!”
Soot arched his back. “She’s done dancing with you. Let her go.”
“I–I can’t. What remains of me, if I let her go?” His voice trembled.
“Everything you don’t want to give away,” Soot said.
Helmar nodded. “I gave too much.”
“And become a stranger to yourself.” The cat jumped off the chair. “I’m leaving this place. So should you.”
His glass was empty. “If I leave the forest, I might never see her again.”
From the opened door, Soot looked at him. “We must release all dance partners in time. When hands let go, bitterness need not follow. The final steps complete the dance no less than the first began it.”
He stood up. “I’m coming with you.” Walking past Litha, the familiarity Helmar felt to her faded. Every Midsummer that followed though, he’d be sure to avoid walking past a forest.
Soot yawned. “Finally.”