A Beautiful Spring

The Spring Dance. It’s the ray of light and hope that resurrects the town of Aeronwen after each hard, cruel winter. The Spring Dance is the mark of a new beginning, the turning of a new page. It is, without question, Aviva’s favorite thing about Aeronwen.

When Aviva arrives at the Spring Dance, it appears the entire town has already gathered. The tent has been raised, covering nearly half of the town common. Tables line the interior of the tent, laden with a feast worthy of the gods; the townspeople of Aeronwen spend the entire winter preparing, making sure that the feast lacks nothing. It does not disappoint. 

The air smells of sweat and sweetness. Flowers hang in garlands, beautiful and heavy. Sunlight paints the walls of the tent gold and luminescent. Aviva weaves her way through the crowd, breathing the beauty deep into her lungs. Grass yields softly beneath her bare feet, the dry brittleness of winter melting into the damp earthiness of spring seemingly at every touch.

Everything is so beautiful and new in winter’s wake. Colors are brighter. Lights are warmer. The air is fresh and sweet. The air is alive. Everything is flowers and light and sweet spring grass.

Aviva wants to taste everything.

She samples a bit of every offering from each table. Fruits and berries burst ripely between her teeth. They stain her lips red and tinge her teeth. They sweeten her breath. It is beautiful to be alive.

When she has eaten her fill, Aviva leaves the tent. It is perhaps even more crowded outside the tent than in it, or perhaps it seems so because here everyone is in motion. Aviva wends her way through the lively throng of dancing bodies, savoring the sweetness of the music in the air. She can feel it in her bones and in her blood. 

A young man dressed in velvet approaches her. He is not unpleasing to the eye. His manner is slightly too eager, but she cannot fault him that. He asks her to dance. It is her joy to dance with him.

“It’s been a hard winter,” he tells her as she twirls weightlessly in his arms. “But perhaps spring will be kinder to us.”

The young man is too forward. When another offers to cut in, she accepts. 

Aviva dances with many. There are so many lovely people in this town, and they are all so eager to dance with her. Some are shy and nervous. Others are bold, even arrogant. Some tell her of their dreams and aspirations. Some tell her how beautiful and gracious she is, how well she dances, how they would gladly dance with her forever. Some simply talk about the weather. 

She dances with men in fine, pressed suits. She dances with women in flouncing dresses. She dances with a man so old and stooped that he can barely shuffle his feet. She dances with a girl of seven with flowers in her hair. 

Mostly, she dances with the beautiful. A man of twenty with eyes as green as spring grass she dances with an hour. A woman of forty with elegant creases around her violet eyes she dances with for two. 

Day melts into night, and the music is still beautiful and humming in her bones. She could dance forever, it seems. The sky is velvet-dark and pinpricked with silver starlight when at last her gaze settles with determination upon a young woman with chestnut hair and fair, freckled skin. The young woman has not asked her to dance, not even once. She has spent the night skirting the edge of the tent, looking bashful, almost wistful. Always on Aviva’s periphery and never in her reach. Timid as a rabbit. Flighty as a lark. 

The woman swallows and stares when she sees Aviva approach. Aviva stands before her, and she waits. The woman looks around and sees no one else, then pales and gestures to herself. “Me?” she asks. Her voice is soft and trembling, a flower in the breeze.

Aviva nods and holds out her hand. The woman casts another look around then accepts Aviva’s hand. She can feel the nervous sweat in the woman’s palm.

At last, they dance. The night is warm, a waking warmth. The ground softens beneath their feet. The woman is so wonderfully warm in Aviva’s arms. Aviva wonders that she hasn’t danced with her before. It seems so obvious now that they’re together; this is the person she was meant to meet tonight. “What is your name?” Aviva asks, her voice soft and careful, not wanting to frighten the woman.

“April,” she answers shyly. Aviva laughs, and the woman smiles. Her cheeks flush the red of a robin’s breast.

“April,” repeats Aviva, tasting the name on her tongue. “That’s simply perfect.” And it is. April is perfect.

“My parents love the spring,” April explains, sounding almost embarrassed.

“This must be a great honor for them, then.”

April falters in her dance, nearly treading on Aviva’s toes. “Oh!” she exclaims softly. “Then this…”

“Yes,” Aviva affirms. April is beautiful. Soft and lovely and warm, and so alive. So perfectly named. 

“Oh…” April looks around. She seems to notice for the first time that the other dancers have fallen away. From the moment that Aviva drew April into the dance, the others sensed the futility in courting Aviva any further and stepped aside to let them dance alone. The townspeople, one and all, are simply gathered to watch.

A man and a woman - both chestnut-haired and fair - stand near the edge of the tent, watching the dance very intently. April’s parents, no doubt. Aviva smiles at them and inclines her head slightly. An acknowledgement, perhaps even an expression of gratitude.

Aviva turns her gaze back to April and cups a hand under the woman’s chin. “Are you afraid, my child?”

“I…” April closes her eyes and swallows hard. She raises one thin hand and touches her fingers to Aviva’s wrist, but she makes no effort to push Aviva’s hand away. “I know I shouldn’t be.”

“That’s right,” Aviva assures her gently. “There is no reason to be afraid.” She leans in and kisses her tenderly. 

Green light emanates from their bodies and engulfs them. Warmth spreads throughout the ground, waking the life within it. 

When the light fades, neither Aviva nor April can be seen. 

The musicians cease playing and put away their instruments. The remaining citizens of Aeronwen clear away the remnants of the Spring Dance. Food is stored away. Tables are folded. Garlands are removed. The tent is lowered and folded with careful reverence. 

When the only traces of the Spring Dance remaining on the common are scattered petals and the thawing earth, April’s parents return home to their quiet house and shut the door to their daughter’s room. They are perhaps consoled by the fact that they will see their daughter’s face again at the next Spring Dance, though she will not be their daughter anymore. They open their windows to let the warm air chase the last winter chill from their house. A light, warm rain begins to fall.

It is going to be a beautiful spring.