I remember dancing. A firestorm of lights and music whirling around me. Nothing mattered.

I climbed the hill to play. In the darkness, the music would ring out across the village, and Maybe they’d think that the faerie had returned. Strike some fear into them. No more than they deserved, after all. They called me the bastard. And nobody would ever dance with me. Well, I could dance by myself, and I would. On the top of Black Hill, playing the fiddle.

Around me, the stones made black shapes against the sky. I could see them, down there in the valley. Sleeping the night away. How could they sleep? How dare they sleep, after hurting me like this? The spire of the church glinted in the moonlight, and little lights pricked out the streets in gold.

The fiddle was my father’s. Had been my father’s. He’d played for the parties and the festivals. Loved by all the women. Hated by all the men. Half of those in the village might have been your brothers, your sisters. How dare they? He taught me to play. He loved me. He saved me from the worst excesses of the brothel, and took me in, and taught me the fiddle. He might have left his house, his livestock, his furniture to the others, the “trueblooded sons of the line” as the lawyer put it, but he left the fiddle to me. His essence, his very spirit was in that fiddle.

I inherited the most important part. That was his way of showing me that I was the best, the only true son. The only one to take after him. Nobody would have dared treat me like this when he was alive. He would have stopped it. My father loved me… My father left me his fiddle…

When he was alive, the village was alive. I remember the dancing, the lights and the candles swirling around the room, and everything was right. Everything was good.

I try a chord. The music paints the darkness bright, a single stripe of colour across the black. And then, the tune. Each stroke of the bow lashing more colour into the night. How dare they? I can feel the colours now, as the music sinks into my soul. The stones, clear against the colours of the night sky are like black holes in the landscape.

My feet tap, and move. I can dance and play. Why not? How dare they treat me like this? Let the music deafen them, let it wring them from their beds, from their sleep, and let them cringe in fear at the thought of the faerie returned. They said your father kept them at bay. Once he played here, in the stones, and he won the battle of wits with the Alfar, and they didn’t bother the town again. He called upon his God, the God denied to you, and he won.

The spire glints in the valley. How dare they? The stones spin, or maybe the dance turns you around. The village seems to spin behind the stones. The colours fill the air, each stroke of the bow a broad stripe. Except the stones, dead and black. The Dancing Stones, like black holes in the night. Like portals to another world.

Who are you, little one? Why do you bring us such beauty?

Maybe the Alfar were behind the portals, looking in.

The priest’s bastard. We knew you’d find us. 

I am more than my father’s bastard. I am more than his sin, more than the spawn of the whorehouse. He left me his fiddle. I am more. How dare you?

So we see. Come.

I remember dancing. A firestorm of lights and music whirling around me. Nothing else mattered. And then…