The Scarlet Circus by Jane Yolen

Author:Jane Yolen [Yolen, Jane]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Fantasy, Romance
ISBN: 9781616963866
Google: 3iMUzwEACAAJ
Publisher: Tachyon Publications
Published: 2023-02-14T08:00:00+00:00

The next morning, before the sun had picked out a path through the interlacing of trees, the villagers had assembled the links into the likeness of a great worm. Lancot painted a dragon’s face on the largest round and colored in the rest like the long, sinewy body and tail.

The boys placed the poisoned arrowheads along the top arch of the links like the ridge of a dragon’s neck. The girls tied sharpened sticks beneath, like a hundred unsheathed claws.

Then the priest blessed the stick-and-paper beast, saying:

Fly with the hopes of men to guide you,

Fly with the heart of a hero to goad you,

Fly with the spirit of God to guard you,

Blessings on you, beak and tail.

Tansy made a hole in the drache’s mouth, which she hemmed with a white ribbon from her own hope chest. Through that hole she strung a single long red rope. To one end of the rope she knotted a reed basket, to the other she looped a handle.

“What is the basket for?” asked May-Ma. “Why do we do this? Where will it get us? And will it bring dear Da back home?”

Rosemary and Sage comforted her, but only Tansy answered her. “It is the hero’s plan,” she said.

And with that, May-Ma and all the villagers, whose own questions had rested in hers, had to be content.

Then with all the children holding the links, they marched down to the farthest shore. There, on the strand, where the breezes shifted back and forth between one island and the next, they stretched out the great kite, link after link, along the sand.

Lancot tested the strings, straightening and untwisting the line. Then he wound up the guy string on Rosemary’s shuttle. Looking up into the sky, one hand over his eyes, he saw that for miles there were no clouds. Even the birds were down. It was an elegant slate on which to script their challenge to the great worm.

“Links up!” he cried. And at that signal, the boys each grabbed a large link, the girls the smaller ones, and held them over their heads.

“Run from me,” Lancot cried.

And the children began to run, pulling the great guy rope taut between them as they went.

Meanwhile Lancot and the village men held fast to the unwinding end, tugging it up and over their own heads.

Then the wind caught the links, lifting them into the air, till the last, smallest part of the tail was up. And the beekeeper’s littlest daughter, who was holding it, was so excited she forgot to let go and was carried up and away.

“I will catch you,” cried the fisherman’s son to her, and she let go after a bit and fell into his arms. Sage watched admiringly and touched him on the arm, and he was so red with hope he let the child tumble out of his hands.

The wind fretted and goaded the kite, and the links began to swim through the air, faster and higher, in a sinuous dance; up over their

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