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1. 

The sun rose up over the mountains, shone down on a quiet valley between the hills, and wakened to consciousness the inhabitants of a small village, nestled in the heart of that valley. On one of the hillsides in this village there was a level stretch of ground, sun-drenched, well-watered, and ringed about with an apple orchard, the branches of whose trees still retained some of their first spring blossoms. There was a large, grand, sturdy house of wood and stone near the orchard, and out of this house people began to appear and make their way into the main road leading down to the village. Some, with brushes and buckets in their hands, led out horses and carts; cows trotted out of the barns to the water-troughs along the road, and drank. Old women and young children talked and laughed as they walked together along the winding and rutted dirt path, some leading spirited young colts, others racing and darting out ahead of the group, and others, little boys with sullen, miserable faces, tugging on the sleeves of the older women, hesitantly. 

In the air one could hear the ringing, melodious sound of church-bells. It seemed to come from nowhere in particular, from all the hills around the valley, from all the church-towers in all the valleys, including this one, where a long procession of women and boys stretched down and ended in the heart of the town, at an unfinished, ever-expanding church-building.

They had traveled halfway down the road, when a milkmaid ran after them, leading a tall youth, strapping and handsome, by a noose around his neck. She had not spared any efforts that spring morning in order that he too might look as fine, well-dressed and presentable as the rest of the boys in the village. The time and extraordinary labor she had expended in this task, by the mirror, in the wardrobe, the bedroom – all this extra work had made her late. By the time she’d caught up with the rest of the group, she was out of breath, and stood puffing and coughing in the dusty road, one hand on her knee. Her boy stood behind, his eyes red, and his cheeks burning with embarrassment. The company of women laughed, welcomed her, and set out again toward the town, at the bottom of the hill. 

The closer they came to the church doors, and the more loudly and merrily came the sound of the church-bells, the more people attached themselves to their procession, some waiting by the side of the road, shepherd-girls hurrying with prayer-books and psalters in their hands from the nearby hills, throwing on their clothes as they ran, shopkeepers peering out of windows and doors, holding tabs and ledgers under the arms, and young women, shiny faces fresh from sleep, hair unkempt and clothes unpressed, running downstairs from their rooms into the song-filled streets. 

Next door to the church there was a large tavern. Drinks were set out and ready for the people, huge tankards of dark beer, foaming over the rims. There were pastries and cakes still warm from the oven, arranged in rows on large clay platters, and covered with white icing. Here the young girls threw wreaths of flowers over the heads of the young men, and dipped their fingers into a sticky, sugary substance, like molasses, which they licked,  smeared, dabbed and dotted carefully – like face-painters tickling the cheeks and nose with a smooth, fine-haired brush – in predecided patterns and designs, over the faces of the young men. Then all the girls together drank down the beer set out for them, swallowed the cakes, and brought their men next door.

As girls, boys in tow, marched up the main aisle of the chapel to their seats, flower petals fell from their shoulders and hair, floated over the heads of the women parishioners on one side, and then on the other side, over the young men, pensively waiting in their pews. Somewhere in the back of the church, a baby began to squall, and its voice echoed and flew higher and higher over the low hum of women chattering and laughing – in the same way, the sound of a screeching gull can be heard over the continuous drone of waves on the beach.

At last there was total silence, and two groups of three women emerged from both wings of the church, near the altarpiece. When they had gathered toward the center, they knelt down, facing the people, amid the suppressed buzz of the parishioners. Then from a door to the right of the altar, three more women appeared, these more richly and colorfully attired than the others. Lastly, from the other side of the altar, the last woman appeared, in a plain, calico servant woman’s gown. She raised her hands, palms upward, and the congregation rose to its feet as one. While the tenth priestess remained standing, she extended her arms, palms downward, and the other nine took their seats in front of the altar. Immediately after, the parishioners, with a swish and stir of clothes, followed course.

Obeying an unseen, unspoken signal, the young girls in the first row then stood up together, turned to the row of young boys opposite them, approached them, and led them out through the left wing, two by two. In the same way, the second rows of girls and boys exited through the right wing. Two minutes passed, and then the girls came back alone, smiling, with new, fresh-smelling flowers entwined in each other’s hair, straightening their clothes, or wobbling about from side to side in their tight, black shoes.

As the third and fourth rows prepared to follow the first and second, there was one boy who pulled back on his noose and tried to resist. He made it as far as the fifth row before the crowd of women rushed on him, and pulled him back by the string around his neck. In their ceremonial dresses, it seemed as if the sun, moon, stars, and all the hills surrounding that quiet, narrow valley had fallen on him together and at once. They brought him back, against his will, to the girl, who waited for him in the wings with a bright red, burning face. She pulled him rather roughly off to the side, harshly whispering to him. This was the only disruption of the proceedings. For the rest of that bright, April morning, there was no further interruption, and all the girls, and their boys, passed off into the wings and back until all the pews but one were cleared on the left side of the church.

Now only ten boys were left. With pale faces, they waited for an usher to lead them out into the aisle, and up to the front of the church. There, heads crowned with flower wreaths, they knelt in a devotional attitude, keeping their eyes bent on the stone floor.  Before the collective eye of the congregation, nine of these boys met their fates, one after the other. 

The first three priestesses embraced the first three boys, took them each by the hand, and muttered a few words. Pulling back the hems at the necks of their blouses, three separate lights flashed, as though reflected from some hidden jewel. In an instant, each of the first three in the group had dwindled to four inches, without a change in gears or a gradation of any sort. The three women picked them up off the stone floor of the church, and their small bodies disappeared into the fold of their hands; the priestesses then bundled them up somewhere inside the labyrinth of their long garments, and sat back down. 

The next three boys came forward (one looking back at the congregation, utter terror in his eyes, no hope of escape), and underwent the same process. These shrank to three inches, each, and disappeared, and were lost forever, somewhere in the back-folds of the infinite robes.

Finally, the last three stepped forward, each one of them trembling violently with fear, as they looked up into the kind, serene eyes of – their fates. These last women took off their black, silk shoes, shrank each of the young men all the way down to two inches in size, picked them up – and caged them deep under their toes. One of the young men cried out, his voice promptly swallowed up under the cruel foot of his captress.  

There was still one young man who remained. When the other priestesses had withdrawn and taken their way, with a swishing of robes and a clacking of shoes, off to the sides, the last woman came forward – the one dressed in the servant woman’s attire – and offered the young man her tiny hand. She led him forward to the altar, and made ready the ceremonial silver platter, which had been sitting there, gathering dust, for the last five years. She blew off the white coat of dust – and so much dust was there that, in the morning sunbeams that pierced many-colored through the stained windows, depicting traditional scenes of village life, the motes fell around the pair of them like snow, and landed on the young man’s shoulders and hair like ashes. Now he was ready.

As the people watched, fascinated, the last woman put her hands on the last man’s dust-covered shoulders, and, after another jewel-like flash, he himself was reduced to three inches in size. Following ritual procedure, the barefooted girl in the plain, calico dress picked him up, carried him over to the platter, and dropped him, stunned and helpless, into the center of it. She lifted up the dish, and brought it before the people. After a few words, her face then becoming terrible and serious, she picked up the chosen youth, gently, between her thumb and forefinger. With growing horror, he watched as she opened wide her mouth, and extended her pink, immense tongue past her already wet lips. She was salivating copiously, and long strands hung and gleamed like ropes from the roof of her mouth to her lower teeth – so that when she dropped the man inside, closing her soft lips around his torso, only by an extreme effort was he able to force his head above the upwelling pool of her saliva. 

Finally, once and for all, her teeth clamped down. The first thing he heard, even before the soft chewing sound of his (thankfully) short-lived pain, was the clapping and shouting of the congregation. As her teeth tore and ripped through his torso, he heard a song behind him, rising through her lips to his failing ears. Some of the young girls, and the women, were singing along. Then, a few moments before she swallowed him, he lost consciousness. 

The young woman in the gray dress gave a prayer of thanks in song, and closed the service. The people retired to their separate homes.


2.


The women walked slowly, taking their time on their way back up the hillside to admire the fields of oats and flax, the meadows red and pink with budding flowers, and to enjoy the pleasure of conversation. The April sun was higher in the sky now, and some of the girls stopped to wipe their damp brows, or to sip from a flask of cool water they’d replenished in the town, after the service. At the large, wood and stone house, kitchen maids were active preparing for the noonday meal. They bustled about through the rooms of the house, milking the cows, taking the laundry off the lines, setting the tables and stoking the ovens.

As the women waited outside, their conversation slowed down, as it often does when talking on an empty stomach, and one’s thoughts, distracted by the smell or the memory of food, turn elsewhere—although here the stream didn’t dry up completely, and the last hour passed pleasantly enough. Sometime after midday, one of the maidservants ran up to the door to tell them it was time to eat, and everyone gathered inside.

At last, when everyone was seated, a rich, flavorful soup was carried out as the first dish, and the smell of it revived everyone’s spirits. While sipping and blowing on the hot broth, carefully ladling it with their spoons, they were about to turn to a serious topic of discussion, when a very young girl interrupted them.

She raised her hand, and asked an old and hooded woman, seated at the head of the table, for permission to speak.

“What’s your question, child?”

“Grandmother,” she started off, nervously. “Why do we sing?”

The grandmother was an insignificant-looking, little old woman who wore modest, gray plainclothes, though she was highly respected in the village, and her opinions and advice were sought on almost every important question. She looked up from her plate and smiled.

“My dear girl,” she answered, “can’t you tell me why?”

“Because that’s how the message was first heard.”

“Who first heard the message?”

Another woman to the right of the old lady spoke up. “With deference and respect, grandmother, I’ve heard several conflicting accounts of the origin of our practices. In my own opinion, our tradition is divided on the matter. I know that I don’t speak for myself alone when I say that your own views on this subject would be most welcome.”

She shook her head. “Sister, I don’t want to pester you with a long story. Not before the main course.”

Other voices protested, and seconded the request for a story.

“It seems I have no choice then,” said the old woman, smiling wryly. “But you must give me time to collect my thoughts. Let’s eat, first, and then sit outside on the grass. I want all initiates, and especially the youngest men and women, to come and listen.”

Everyone quickly agreed to this arrangement and, after dinner was finished, they assembled behind the house and sat down under a large, gnarled, blossoming apple tree. The old woman presided on a thick, projecting root, and steadied herself with a cane.

Meanwhile, all the women took off their hose, woolen socks, and shoes, or reached into their trouser pockets, and brought their little men into the light. Some held them in their hands, like dolls, others dangled them or flicked them playfully with their fingers, others rolled them back and forth under their tired soles and heels, others popped them in their mouths, others stuck and tied them down in their thick, dark hair among the ribbons or flowers, or others, stretching themselves out on the cool spring grass, set them down atop their knees, and stroked their heads until they were still.

When everyone was ready, she began to speak.

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