Shaked but not Stirred

Walking with the crowd, Adele and Belinda emerged from the theater. Above their heads, the marquee read, ‘Shakespeare Marathon.’ Everyone around them peered at their iPhones while they walked.

Adele skipped and twirled. Her long dress flowed gracefully. Belinda too, was pretty in her traditional jeans and t-shirt.

Adele exclaimed, “What a wonderful movie! His language is so beautiful. Why don’t people still talk like that? Did they ever?”

Stepping into the sunlight and squinting, she raised her hand to shade her eyes.

“Wow! It’s bright.”

Belinda checked her iPhone. “Almost ten.”

“Light this late? When’s sunset?”

Belinda laughed. “Tomorrow night. Twenty-three hours hence. Remember the midnight sun? That’s tonight.”

Adele struck a dramatic pose. “Forsooth! I knew nary a whit of the sun’s overtime hours.”

“Verily… The piper calls and we shall pay dearly.”

They laughed together.

Belinda touched her chin feigning thought. Taking care to enunciate, she spoke with precision. “Belinda, or not Belinda?”

Adele picked up the cue. “That is a question?”

“I think today, I shall be Linda. Not Belinda.”

“Okay, be Linda then. If ever, you were…”

“Better, by far to be Linda than answer to some benighted appellation…”

“Forsooth! Not benighted, at least not this day. Yet truly, what is in a name?”

“Doth, you suggest I stink?”

“Not your person but your chosen moniker. You’ll always be Belinda, to me. But, since you ask, Belinda, a rose you are not.”

They laughed, twirled and strolled toward the festival down the way. A throng of people were gathered around the traditional bonfire in the middle of the square. A lively band played folk music. A few danced a jig to the fiddle and flute player’s intricate duet.

Belinda noticed their friend, Roy, in the crowd. She’d had a crush on him for months, but was shy to declare herself.

How can I make him see me?

She pulled Adele’s arm. “I’m thirsty.”

They went to a booth selling cold mead in disposable plastic flagons. Belinda paid the vendor for the two drinks. Tapping flagons, they drank. Belinda downed hers in one breath.

“Wow! Guess you are thirsty.”

“That I am. I fain have another.” Belinda bought a refill.

Adele said, “So, today’s the year’s longest?”

“Daylight declines in all days hence. Dark days begin their relentless return.”

“And we celebrate, why? If the days are waning. Wintertime’s nigh… Brrrr!”

She shivered in her sleeveless dress.

Belinda raised her flagon. “We celebrate what and while we can, neighbor.”

She nudged Adele with her elbow and whispered. “We borrow light from those down under.”

“Their summer’s arrival will be our debt paid in full. Get sunscreen, Antarctica! Beware!”

Adele gazed at the milling crowd. “I’m amazed! We stand in glorious sunlight, magically lasting all night. And these revelers have naught but to stare at silly phones.”

“The alluring screens outshine the sun. Their dazzle promises artificial magic.”

“Moody computers, hold fast our eyes, and in exchange offer naught but ravening.”

The good natured crowd around the bonfire had grown. The sound of laughter, joking, and drunken dancing drew onlookers. Some threw things into the fire. Cheers rose with the flames.

Adele said, “Bonfires are more fun in darkness. Emotions flit across faces, here and gone, as flames flicker.”

“There’ll be no darkness tonight.”

“So, at summer’s height, we prance around a dumpster fire.”

With raised arms they cheered, “Huzzah!”

Adele stopped and pointed. “There’s Roy. He’s so hot.”

Belinda chose her words. “Well, ‘tis mid-summer...”

Adele placed her hand to her heart. “Cupid’s arrow flies true…”

Belinda frowned. “Untrue. It is truly errant.”

Adele looked confused. “You mean his arrow?”

“In brief, it errs. His error, it’s shot but gone astray…”

Adele scoffed. “Not if I’m the target…”

They watched Roy, drunk, dancing alone near the fire. Spinning and flailing like a deranged scarecrow, he almost toppled into the flames. Others moved to catch him. Somehow, he righted himself. He reeled back to safety and began again.

Eyeing Roy, Adele pulled Belinda’s arm. “Let’s go warm ourselves…”

Belinda made a face.

Adele sang, “Some are crazy. Some are fun. Some are lazy… But you’re the one!” She smiled at her friend. “That’s my summer song. I love him so. Want to hold him tight.”

“Ah, if he could hold you as deftly he holds his liquor…” Belinda nodded toward Roy. “You can carry a tune. Can you cart him?”

She sang again.

Belinda touched her arm. “Stop, Del… he’ll hear you…” She looked down.

Adele broke away, ran to Roy and raised her drink.

“C’mon, Roy. Will you be draggin’ off my flagon?”

He took a moment to focus.

“Oh, mead? No thanks… Already have a hive full.”

She looked askance at her flagon.

“It gives you hives?”

“No. It’s honey wine.”

Belinda said, “He’s got a buzz on…”

Adele raised her drink. “Then cheers! May it please the bees.”

Roy laughed, “Haven’t heard any complaints… That house calls me…”

He staggered off toward the house of mirrors. Adele moved to follow but Belinda took her arm.

“Let his liquor release its grip, that you can hold him tighter. Look over here…”

~

Roy stumbled up the steps into the gloomy building. Balloons floated about in what looked like a large room filled with people. He soon realized the crowd consisted only of himself.

“Hello?”

Innumerable mirrors reflected and multiplied his image. The maze of mirrors made reflections of reflections at every turn. The imaginary crowd moved eerily in unison with him. Isolated within a multitude compounded his loneliness.

He ventured down the narrow passage. Steadying himself by touching the mirrored walls, Roy stepped carefully. With infinite reflections at either side, he felt one of an army on parade. At a turn, he bumped into a mirror.

“Excuse me.”

Balloons trailed after him through reflective corridors and cul-de-sacs.

One could get lost… he thought through his drunken fog.

An odd movement drew his eye. A figure peeked around a corner and vanished.

“Hey! Wait!”

Did I see her? She was beyond beautiful… Where did she go?

Running to where he last saw her, he slammed into a mirror. Turning about, Roy struggled to make sense of who the mysterious figure might be.

Where is she?

Wherever he looked, mirrored eyes stared back.

Turning back, he glimpsed her again, briefly. And again, she’d gone.

Bouncing off mirrors, Roy got more turned about in pursuit of the elusive figure. Being too swift to catch but a glimpse, she slipped his grasp. He called out. She did not answer.

To quell his dizziness, he sat heavily against a mirror. While surrounded by reflections, he remained alone.

He spoke to the face at his shoulder. “What love does to us, eh?”

The reflection responded with a nod.

Roy’s head spun.

Countless reflections watched him loll on the floor.

He mumbled, “No mere elf or sprite. She’s an angel come to enchant me.” He called out. “Hey! Come enchant me…”

~

Belinda and Adele strolled into the open-air market. They stopped at a flower seller’s booth.

Adele exclaimed, “What’s this?” She bent into the display of wild flowers drawn by their rich perfume and almost swooned.

Looking like a character from a fairy tale, an old woman stepped up. “Like some magic? A sachet for your pillow tonight, ladies? ‘Tis Midsomer… a magical night, indeed.”

Reading each other’s thoughts, Adele and Belinda looked at each other.

“…You’ll have dreams of your own true love.”

Adele put her face to a bouquet. Inhaling the rich fragrance.

“What are they? Where do you get them?”

“They grow wild in the hills. You’d never find them without a guide.” The woman cocked her head. “I got them for you. Saved your stumbling about a dark wood. Each bouquet sports seven wild flowers in trios and sevens. Knew you’d be wanting ‘em.”

Belinda said, “I heard you had to pick them in complete silence.”

The woman gave her a look. “Silence is best, mind you. Gathering them, I didn’t jabber. For the strongest magic you mustn’t talk… Or you can pick the bouquet here, that suits you. And remain silent for that…”

Adele whispered to Belinda, “Me thinks she wants you to shut up…”

Belinda laughed.

The woman continued. “To do it right…” They nodded. “…You’ll jump over a stile too. And doing it all in reverse strengthens the magic all the more.”

They looked at each other in awe of what they were hearing. Adele pulled Belinda away.

“Who makes these rules?”

The old woman called out. “I brought a portable stile here… if you haven’t one handy…”

She pointed at a squat, metal ladder, shaped like an ‘A,’ with four steps and railings on either side.

Adele said, “So, to discover my true love, I’m to sleep with these flowers under my pillow on the night when the sun doesn’t set?”

Belinda spoke like it was old news. “Yes. It’s Midsomer.”

“Why do they call it that, again?”

“Longest day of the year.”

“Like in the movie, The Longest Day?”

“No, silly. That’s about world-war two.”

Adele nodded. “Those were dark days… But wait. The longest day isn’t midsummer. It’s Summer’s onset.”

“Forsooth!”

“I bet the Druids never had to adjust Stonehenge for Daylight Savings Time.”

“Not likely…”

They returned to the flower booth. The woman smiled in anticipation.

“Have you made your choice?”

Finger to chin, Adele examined the bouquets.

“I see violet, thyme, and of course, rose… Are those pansies?”

The woman said, “Yes, ‘love-in-idleness.’ You know… love’s irrationality...”

Pointing, Adele asked, “And this?”

“Oxlips…”

Adele stepped back in surprise. She and Belinda burst into laughter.

Belinda clutched at herself and groaned, “Mmmm… give me your oxlips, big boy…”

Adele recoiled. “Ewww! Lips that kiss oxen shall never kiss mine.”

“I never saw an ox in a slip. Usually, they wear a flouncy gown.”

Even the old woman laughed.

Belinda saw Roy wandering, his eyes to the sky. She nudged Adele and pointed him out. Hurrying, they each selected a bouquet, paid, and backed, clattering over the stile.

Adele yelled, “Roy!”

He came over to them.

Adele said, “You look thirsty…”

He shook his head. “It’s incredible… I’ve seen an angel. Came to charm me. She saw everything. Yet winked and slipped from sight in a blink.”

Belinda said, “Angels don’t charm.”

Roy continued his rant. “She’s lively, beautiful and at ease in her own skin…”

Belinda said, “That’s healthy... Someone else’s would be cramped.”

Adele murmured, “A motley shrew…” She hid her bouquet behind her back.

Roy said, “She’s no imp, though. No gremlin. No lawn gnome.” He glanced at the bonfire. “And, though lithe, guaranteed she’s no salamander… If not an angel, I’d guess she’s kin to dryads… a naiad, pixie, nymph, or sylph.”

The two friends stole doubting glances at each other.

“But no matter. I’m in love. No turning back. She’s so delicate and spritely, she could dance on a pinhead.”

Adele said, “Your hat’s askew. She dent yours with a Flamenco?”

He put his hand to his head and looked at her. He smiled. “Can’t fool me... I have no hat.”

“So, Roy, where’d you meet this chick?”

“I told you. In the house of mirrors…”

Belinda hid her smile. “I’d reflect on that, my friend. Who knows where last she was seen?”

He bowed clumsily. “You’ll see. Someday I’ll introduce you to her. Later...”

He backed away and headed toward the house of mirrors.

Adele and Belinda looked at their bouquets with sad smiles. Then, their eyes met. They laughed and nodded, turned and walked to the bonfire. After curtsying, they laughed and tossed their bouquets into the flames.

As the bouquets rose and arched into the fire, a cheer rose from the throng.

The band began another song. Everyone danced.