The Ancestral Spark
My mother used to tell me that every spark let loose by the midnight fire was a point of connection between us and our ancestors, that those connections went both ways. That we could tell which direction that connection went by the arc of the spark. The ones that drifted higher and higher before snuffing out were our thoughts passing along to the ancestors; they would flit as high as they needed to for our ancestors to recognize them, but no further. The ones that arced down to the ground, alighting briefly on the sand before flickering into darkness were our ancestors sending their hopes to the heart of the fire to come to us before embedding in the earth, anchoring their hopes to our home. That knowledge, that strength, was all I needed in those days.
Now, staring into the depths of my first midnight fire without her, I wonder how she could have been so sure.
The sparks aren’t coming the way they did for her. All she ever had to do was lay down another log to set the sparks flying. She always said she would show me how to let the fire free the way that she did, but I haven’t had the heart to drag her out of bed and risk her getting even sicker. It’s been six weeks since my last bonfire, and I can’t remember the last time I’ve gone more than four. The heat curdles at the base of my spine, lighting a fire all up and down my back. Without a release I’ll burn alive, and with the new moon out, I can tend the fire alone without fear.
The fire isn’t burning right. The heat in my spine worsens. The sparks spit straight into the fire pit, neither crawling to the sky nor settling on the earth. The fear, the uncertainty as my mother fights for her life, it all sours what should be the most cleansing ritual of all.
For an instant, I want to dive into the fire and let it do its work on my body as well as my soul. The fire can’t take the pain from my heart. It might be better to let it give my body enough pain to match. To let the heat eat away at my skin until my body is flayed alive just like my soul. Maybe that will be enough of an offering to the ancestors.
Three sparks take off from the fire, flying higher, higher, until the darkness swallows them whole. I catch myself staring up at the place where they’d disappeared, wondering in a way I never have who’s on the other end of those messages. I know what message I sent them. I know the hopes and prayers that I need answered. What I don’t know is how they will be answered. Or by whom.
Something pricks my forearm. There’s a tiny cinder on my arm, pale in the light of the fire. One that should have fallen to the ground. It didn’t make it to the ground because —
Because it wanted me to know it was there. Still there, present and whole, and it would be there for a while yet.
I can’t take my eyes off of it. It could be one minute, or five, or twenty, but when the wind finally blows it off my arm, I understand its message. I reach for another log, turn back to the fire, and hold my breath as I drop it atop the flames.
A thousand sparks fly, drifting to the heavens and to the ground, and as they flit and flutter and dance on the air, I feel my mother with me, tipping my chin up so I can hold my head high.
