Your hair is winter fire

January embers

My heart burns there, too.

― Stephen King, It

AS the night deepened on a chilly October’s end, a tired labourer walked by the old school and heard music sweeter than sound. But he dared not stop, nor look back, for he remembered well his grandmother’s voice and he remembered well the stories it held of the djinn that haunt desolate wastes and desolate hearts. But if he had pushed open the rusty, wrought-iron gate and walked through the tall grass of the schoolyard – and if he had made his way up the creaking stairs, all the while following that strange, sweet sound – he would have found himself before a wood-and-glass door, caked with grime. And if he had wiped away the dust and looked in, he’d have seen something remarkable. For within that old classroom, at the top of that old school, someone had broken the monotonous pattern of desk and chair and fashioned them into a circle. And within that strange circle, if you look close enough, you’ll see two moonbeams flickering forever in a dance to the music of memory.

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Inspired, in part, by Stephen King’s short story, ‘Willa’.