Night of the Trees

On the darkest night of the year, my sister and I slip out the side door. There is no moon, but the stars give enough light for us to make our way through the snow into the woods. We let drop first a hat, then a scarf, then one mitten at a time. As we go deeper, we leave behind our coats, then our boots, then sweaters, until it is just us in our summer dresses, with the most rudimentary shawls covering our arms. Tonight, we are not modern girls. We are snow maidens, come to dance at the trees’ solstice ball.

The cold is exhilarating. My sister’s cheeks are redder than usual, her eyes bright as winter stars. When the world hibernates, we awaken, and we are not the only ones.

As we near the heart of the forest, we begin to hear the music. And then we see it: the oldest trees in the forest, standing in a circle, singing in wood-rich voices. Sitting between their trunks, bears hum and wolves howl along, and between their roots, rabbits nod their heads. To every thing there is a season, and the people of the woods knew it long before it was written in the Bible. Tonight is a time not to kill, but to dance.

The north wind, singing at the top of the tallest tree, the great pine, sees us first.

           “The snow maidens have come!” it shouts, and it comes tumbling down the tree and running over to us. It wraps first my sister and then me in its cold embrace, and we shiver and giggle.

           “Dance with me,” it says, tugging at our hands.

           “In a moment,” my sister says. She removes her shawl and bows to the great pine. “If I may, my lord,” she says.

           The pine bows its great head, just a little. I remove my shawl too, and my sister and I arrange our shawls on two of the pine’s great boughs.

           “Now I am the finest dressed tree in the forest!” the pine booms. “Am I not?”

           All the other trees rustle their agreement.

           “Let the ball begin!” the pine declares. “Let the snow maidens lead the dance!”

           The trees begin to sing again, and the wind pulls me back into its arms.

           I lose track of time. I love the dance best. I dance with bears and wolves and rabbits, and when I run short of partners I spin around by myself, but it’s never long before the wind finds me again, and of course, I love dancing with the wind best.

           While I like the fast, whirling dances best, my sister prefers the more stately ones. While I dance them all, she takes breaks to sit with her back to one tree or another, breathing in and out in harmony with them. And when she does dance, her favorite partners are the trees themselves. It doesn’t seem to bother her that they have no feet to move. She will dance around them, or back and forth before them, or she will climb up into their branches and let them rock her up and down. She looks up at them with utter adoration, and they adore her too.

           Which is why it’s to no one’s surprise when at midnight the animals lead her to the foot of the great pine, which has lowered its branches into a throne. She sits on it, and when the wind places a crown of pine twigs and stars on her head, the trees and animals all cheer, “The queen of the ball!” I am the snow maiden, but my sister is the queen of the trees.

           “Spend this night with me, my queen!” a rabbit shouts. Everyone begins to laugh, so loudly that no one can hear the poor rabbit offering the warmth of its burrow and the softest of baby carrots.

           “No,” a wolf says, shouldering the rabbit aside. “Spend this night with me, my queen, beneath the moonlight.”

           “No,” a bear rumbles. “Spend this night with me, my queen, in my warm cave, and I will feed you sweet honey.”

           “No,” says the tree my sister danced with most tonight, a tall, slim oak. “Spend this night with me, my queen, and watch the dawn come from the top of my branches.”

           “No,” says the voice of the great pine. “Spend this night with me, my queen, sleeping safe beneath my branches.”

           Of course, there is no doubt which she will choose. The oak is lovely, certainly, but the great pine is the king of the forest and the king of the winter.

           My sister descends from her throne. She kisses the rabbit between its ears and the wolf’s nose. She embraces the bear and buries her face in its fur, and she presses the sweetest kiss of all to the trunk of the oak. But finally, she returns to the pine and resumes her seat on its lap.

           The trees take up another song, slower and more stately. The pine and his queen cannot dance, but they watch while the rest of us dance in their name.

           “Dance with me,” the wind says again and takes my hand.

           “How are you feeling?” it asks me. “Sorry not to be queen?”

           “Not at all,” I say. “My sister loves the trees more than anything. It’s right that she should be their queen tonight. I do wonder, though. Is it customary for the snow maiden to not receive even one proposition?”

           The wind laughs and spins me around. “I’m sure plenty would have liked to,” it says. “But I told them you were already spoken for.”

           “Oh,” I say, and blush. Momentarily, I don’t feel the cold.

           “So?” the wind says. “Will you spend this night with me, my snow maiden?”

           I look around. The song is ending. The animals are beginning to retreat home to their dens. My sister is curling up at the foot of the great pine. In the morning, she will follow the trail left by our clothes home. So will I. But first…

           I put my arms around the neck of the north wind.

           “Of course I will,” I say.