Brigits_Flame August Week Two
Well... I did finish it, so I guess it's got that going for it...
Six little foxes all in a row
invite you to take a seat for the show,
but shield your eyes from their fiery glow
lest they entomb you beneath scarlet snow.
“Yes, I know the rhyme,” spat a young man, his chattering teeth adding an odd cadence to the poem’s rhythm. “You’ve only repeated it ten times. Could you tell me something else, please? Maybe like where I am …” he pulled his argyle scarf closer to his face and glanced at the stalagmites dripping from the cave’s low ceiling. Rat shit and red fur blanketed the ground, along with patches of snow that had blown in from the storm raging outside. The young man subconsciously shook his foot, hoping he wasn’t ruining his purple suede boots.
“It’s my birthday, Dominick Ramsey, and you followed the lights.”
Dominick’s already-chilly fingers froze to his scarf. He stared at the only other inhabitant of the cave: faint blue veins spiderwebbed beneath his skin, giving the effect that lightning was coursing through his body. His flaky scalp was encircled with a diadem of crusty, matted gray hair that curtained his misshapen eyes. And his eyes-well, Dominick tried hard not to look at his eyes. The left eye was demon red and pupil-less, while the right eyelid drooped so low that it might have melted down his face like the wax rolling down the swarm of white candles burning in the cavern.
“How did you know my name?” Dominick hoped the old man hadn’t heard the shiver in his voice, but whether he had or not, he did not respond. Instead he shuffled to the center of the cave, where a candelabrum worked in silver filigree and splashed with precious gems clutched several colored candles.
“My birthday candles,” he wheezed.
Panic leapt up in Dominick, and as the man struck a match and held it to a blue candle, Dominick turned to leave, with no other plan than to hurtle out into the blizzard until he was as far away from the cave as possible.
But he couldn’t. As soon as the match touched the candle, a cerulean flame sprang to life - and sitting in the mouth of the cave staring at Dominick was a sleek sapphire-blue fox, a tongue of blue flame flickering in place of a tail. The dancing flame of the blue fox mesmerized him, and his limbs hardened until he was nothing more than a rigid statue of ice. The man lit a viridian candle and an emerald fox pranced in, his flame frolicking behind him. The single match breathed life into three more candles, and a topaz, amber, and amethyst fox joined the ranks, their colored tails casting huge shadows on the cavern wall.
Lastly, the man brought the stub of a match to a deep red candle, and in an instant there was a ruby-red fox strutting regally into the cave. As each paw rose and fell the snow where he walked was stained as though something had been left to bleed on top of it. The red fox took his place in the line of his brothers, and waited until his master called,
“Now, Dominick Ramsey, sing for my birthday!”
Dominick didn’t feel his lips move. He didn’t feel the words in his throat. But he did hear himself singing, in a reverent baritone, his own nursery-rhyme requiem:
“Six little foxes all in a row …”
As he sang, the foxes began to move. They flitted around one another and twisted their tails into celestial patterns, slowly at first and then rapidly as the tempo of the song increased.
“invite you to take a seat for the show,”
The foxes’ tails blazed, pulsing, beating like a giant heart. Their flames consumed the cave in kaleidoscope patterns, dazzling Dominick like harsh sunlight through stained glass.
“I have succumbed to their fiery glow,”
The foxes tore around Dominick in a fierce circle, their colors blurring, their tails merging, until the fire burned a diamond-white and he was blinded by the brilliance of it.
Feeling burst back into Dominick’s limbs. Every nerve had been seared. His tongue was thick and his mouth was dry. He stopped singing - instead he sobbed the last line as the circle of foxes began to close in around him.
“Entomb me, entomb me beneath scarlet snow!”
The old man grinned, revealing rotting teeth. He hummed the first few bars of “Las Mañanitas” as though it were a hymn, and blew the candles out.