All his berries looked at them. “But it’s funny how it goes,” Filif said. “So far out in the darkness, you find it’s not so dark after all. You find light you didn’t expect…”
“There are similarities, aren’t there?” Ronan said all of a sudden. “Something from outside gets into physical existence and pulls it into something bigger. Something deeper…”
“But that’s the One for you,” Filif said. “It’s always getting into Life and transforming it. The Powers do the everyday work, same as we do. But sometimes something extra’s needed, something more profound. And from acts like this the ripples spread, inevitably. It’s for us the same as it is for you. A lot of stories, a lot of songs and poems telling how what happened way back then looks now. How it affects the here and now, day by day: in big ways, or small ones.” He laughed. “Like your songs about trees…”
But there was something strangely wistful about the way he said that. People looked at each other, thinking. And then suddenly Marcus sat up straight.
“All right,” he said. “All right. Let us light this candle!” And he vanished.
***
They sat waiting for him for about fifteen minutes, wondering what he was up to. At that point all of them had begun to yawn occasionally, and Nita was beginning to look ahead with some eagerness to when she could actually pull one of the various throws over her, collapse back into the pillows and just check out for a while. But then, with a very soft pop of displaced air, Marcus was standing off to one side again with big box in his hands.
“Here,” he said, and brought what he carried over to a nearby table.
Everyone crowded around as he bent to open the box. What Marcus lifted out was a slim piece of gold-colored metal that was bent in a horizontal S-curve like that of the pipe under a sink. At the top of the shorter curve was a socket of the right size and shape to take a candle. At the bottom of the other longer part was a small heavy ball of metal.
“Counterweighted,” he said. “These are far safer than the old candle holders that clipped on. And here—” He reached into the box again, came up with a slim orange-golden candle. “Beeswax,” Marcus said.
Filif began to shiver all over.
“Are you ready for this?” Marcus said.
“Yes,” Filif said, very softly.
“Fil,” Nita said, “are you sure?”
He bowed himself a little toward her, so that the star glittered. “Will you all help?”
Everyone reached into the box, pulled out one of the candle holders, fitted candles to them, and started balancing them carefully on Filif’s branches. “Kind of a trick to this,” Nita said.
“But once you get the hang of it…” Kit said.
Within a few minutes the candles were arranged at the tips of all Filif’s strongest branches, held well away from the main body of his foliage. Carmela put the last one in place. Then they all stood around him for a moment, waiting.
“Now all we need,” Filif said, “is fire…”
There were a couple of spare candles in the box. Nita reached in and lifted one out, knowing what wizardry she’d need next. “Ready?”
“Ready,” Filif said, and stood very straight.
To make a spark long-lasting enough to light a candle took five words in the Speech. Nita said them, and the wick of the candle she held burst into flame. Nita waited until it had caught completely, and then reached out with the candle toward the closest one perched on one of Filif’s boughs. She could see all the red eye-berries watching the flame as it came nearer, trembling just slightly…
She lit the candle; and then another, and another, carefully watching Filif all the time, remembering how just the thought of fire had terrified him once upon a time. After a moment, trembling herself, she handed the candle to Kit. “Here,” she said, “your turn…”
As carefully as she had, Kit lit the three candles nearest, and passed the lighting candle to Matt. So it went around, to Sker’ret (who grasped it in his mandibles and reared up to do the lighting) and to Ronan, and then to Marcus, and finally to Dairine and Carmela. As Carmela was lighting the last three, Dairine gestured at the lamps spaced around the room, and all of them went out.
They stood there around Filif in a silence so complete that the tiny fizz and crackle of the candles’ wicks fizzing could clearly be heard. In that still place, without a breath to stir them, the candle flames stood up straight, and the light of them gleamed on Filif’s branches and caught in Filif’s eyes.
For what seemed like a long time he didn’t move so much as a frond or a needle: just held absolutely still, like someone testing himself. The candle flames shifted very slightly, were still again.
At last he spoke. “This is my defiance, then,” Filif said, very softly. “This is the Oath made visible. Just as the Outlier was, I am more than my fear. Other fears may not burn as hot or as brightly, but those too I defy. Let what sets such fires in the world see them set here to my purposes, not Its own!” And Filif fell silent.
As still as he, Nita and the others stood quiet and watched him.
And then, after a few moments more, Filif laughed and said, “Now what? Do they have to burn down all the way?”
Marcus chuckled too. “No,” he said. “With candles like these, that would take an hour or so. Normally after a few minutes we put them out. Unless you want to take a selfie first?”
“What’s a selfie?”
Everybody who had a phone handy went for it. Soon that darkened space was illuminated not just by candlelight, but smartphone flashes, and the brief solemnity was replaced by laughter. Then one by one the friends surrounding him blew out Filif’s candles, or pinched them out, and Dairine let the room lights come up again. Carefully they took the candles and their holders off him, and when the last holder was off and put away, Filif gave a great shake of all his boughs and laughed again.
“That was exciting,” he said. “Maybe a little more exciting than I expected. I might take a break…”
“Outside?” Nita said.
“Yes.” And Filif made his way to the portal, and once just outside it, vanished.
Kit rubbed his eyes. “That,” he said, “was intense.”
“Going to be interesting to hear more about just what brought it on,” Ronan said, sounding dry. “But I need a nap first.”
“Yeah,” Dairine said. “We’ll ask him about it at breakfast…”
People started arranging the pillows and cushions into sleepover configurations, and Dairine fired up the TV again and turned it on to one of the music video channels that was doing Christmas rock. Nita yawned, feeling more than ready to collapse. But there was something she wanted to do first.
She went out the portal, climbed the stairs, and peered into the living room. All the adults had gone home or taken themselves off to bed; only the mochteroof-tree stood there glowing. Nita smiled at it and very softly went out the back yard, into the darkness.
It was snowing in big flakes, sometimes even gathering together into light feathery clumps. Off in front of the garage, Filif stood for the moment bare to the night, not even wearing his star, wholly unadorned except for the snow falling on him.
“You okay?” Nita said.
“Yes,” Filif said. “Very.”