Happy Spooky Season! This is a May Day story, so not totally the right time of year, but it's witchy so it counts. This story is somewhat inspired by The Wicker Man and includes a female-focused rewrite of The Maypole Song from that film. It includes trans and disabled characters (one who is blind, one who has dwarfism). Content Warning: folk horror elements (no gore) and a brief allusion to a history of paternal emotional abuse.
When Erika arrived in the village, she was wearing hiking boots. Thick, sturdy things; the sort that reduce wild ways to trampled paths and keep the wearer safe from the treacherous give of earth underfoot. Now she goes barefoot, her toes tickled by grass and her heels pressing soil so deep it may swallow her up. It rained for many days before this soaking sunshine. The air is still clouded with disturbed dirt and pollen. It smells of growth and sex.
When Erika arrived in the village, she was wearing a raincoat. A heavy shell; the sort that makes the storms nothing but a polite tap on the shoulder. Now she is clothed in only a muslin shift, the milky fabric little more than fog against fresh, cleansed air. It flutters as she dances with the other women and femmes down the winding, cragged street lined with violets and dandelions. Check curtains flutter over latticed windows. Moss squats snugly on dry stone walls. The May Day procession eddies through the village like blood through the arteries of uniting lovers. The villagers skip and whirl in a dizzy parade of soft white and bold colour. The dance gushes over garlands and bells, poppets and posies, riddle drums and the leering skulls of horses.
"On the hill there grew a tree and a kind, brave tree was she"
When Erika arrived in the village, she called her father to let him know she was safe. He was sour - she should never have left him, she was being selfish, she was to blame for his loneliness, his lostness, for however many other things. She'd walked for weeks, but his voice still made her feel confined. Now she can't remember the last time she saw her phone. It went missing one morning in her B&B bedroom and no amount of rummaging among the frills and corn dollies did any good. She was annoyed, then worried, then she went for a walk. She leaned her back against a beech tree and brushed her fingers over cow parsley like lace. A dozen smiling faces passed her. It was nice here. She could wait to replace her phone. The faces smile at her now, broad, bucky, and brash as they gambol past crooked cottages and overflowing gardens. Their bare feet pat smooth stone. They hold her hands and guide her in their instinctive current. No one taught Erika this song, she just knows it. It comes to her as if it's blooming in her soul. She moves as one with the others and the pleasant ache in her cheeks tells her that she's smiling too.
"and on that tree there was a limb,
and on that limb there was a branch"
When Erika arrived in the village, she had a short thicket of curls that jostled like bluebells. Now her hair falls untamed to her shoulders, like honeysuckle, crowned with a wreath of wildflowers, as they all are. She has no idea how it grew so fast. She thinks of how her hostess combs her hair for her before bed, humming softly as the teeth sink through the tangle and graze the back of her neck. She thinks of wearing it in braids so the lady in the dress shop can pull on them to bring her close in the waterfall of cotton. She thinks of it swirling in the font of the ruined church; cool droplets streaming down her face as the priestess feeds her bread and pushes their fingers into her mouth.
They come to the central green, decked in royal grandeur - tulips like livery, daffodils like fanfares, hyacinths like fine embroidery. In the centre of it stands a very tall, wooden pole, also crowned with flowers. Falling from the wreath are long, thick ribbons that shimmer softly in the high, white sun - happy yellow, hot red, haughty blue, heathen green. The girls yip and chime with delight as they see the maypole, a rainbow waiting to be shaped. Their dance spills from the street to the grass. They skip in a wide ring around the maypole. Their song echoes in the terraces and the embracing hills.
"and from that branch there was a shade,
and in that shade there lay a ewe,
and from that ewe there was a lamb"
Erika skips with them, another knot in the cord of their conjoined hands. Their fingers are a little bumpy, calluses and bent knuckles from sickles and stitching. She subtly grinds her own fingers against the newly (always) familiar shape of their grasp. Then she's twirled giddily into the centre of the ring. Hands snatch her shift and there's a snarl of ripping fabric. The green air washes her stripped body. She arches into it with a gasp. She's pushed. Her back grazes the maypole.
The villagers reform a perfect circle around her, each holding the end of a maypole ribbon that soars over her head. With the hands not holding the ribbons, they slide their fingers under the loose collars of their shifts and push them off their shoulders. Muslin ripples like seafoam. They stand naked, as at ease and brazen as everything in this place has been. The sunshine adorns them. It dresses their sturdy shoulders in gold and hangs in droplets from acorn nipples. It nestles on the bumps of full bellies like feline familiars. It oozes down voluminous hair and interlaces with flower crowns, coloured light emanating from them like spell candles. Shadows ink curves and the grooves of rib cages, puddle in belly buttons, pepper scuffed knees, scars, stretch marks, and cellulite, redden orchid vulvas and lily bud cocks. A smouldering tingle curls around Erika's clit like an adder.
The gathering starts to dance again. They weave in and out of each other, their ribbons braiding into diamond patterns down the pole overhead, creeping towards her. Scarlet as if their palms are bleeding. Cerulean as if they're pouring water over the flowers. Emerald as if they're growing from the fertile ground. Gold as if they're brandishing magical swords. They grin at each other as they pass in the smooth interlace, as tied together by love and pleasure as surely as if they were trussed in the shimmering ropes. They sing like thrushes and arc like swallows.
"and from that lamb there was a fleece,
and of that fleece there was a thread.
Turn and turn and turn and turn."
Erika blinks up into the turquoise haze above her to watch the ribbons descending the pole. Shards of light sprinkle on her face. The ribbons slither down to brush her hair, scattering petals, then lower, over her bare body. The dance draws in interlocking circles closer and closer to her. Silk licks behind her ear, wraps her throat and gently presses a tight moan from her. Ribbons criss-cross over her shoulders, then bind her breasts bolstered so they flood with want. They hug her belly, bedding into the softness so it puffs like quilt. They creep down her thighs and lock them apart, grazing just shy of her displayed, swelling pussy. She is secured firmly to the pole with a burn up her spine. The dancers drop the ribbons, join hands, and turn about the maypole and its captive. They're close enough that Erika can smell the glisten of sweat and feel the vibration of footsteps in the soil. A few twinkling eyes catch hers and anticipation knots at her core.
The priestess steps free and walks slowly forward with the blur of the dance behind her. Erika meets their eyes, dark as peat and deep as caverns. Aislinn's brow looks carved, but their mouth is soft and framed by smile lines. Her hair is the grey of thawing snow on heather, but bright against her dark skin. It falls in heavy, wide curls over her soft body to their sharp hips. She is naked save for a crown like that of the others, but all in white, and a wheel woven out of corn hung about their neck and resting on their small breasts. She comes to Erika and kisses her brow. Their lips are cool. "Are you ready for your blessing?" Their voice is like the rustle and caw from the rookery outside their gutted church.
Erika's knees quake. "How will I be blessed?"
Aislinn smiles and cups her chin with one hand. "As rot blesses fallen leaves, brings them back into the earth." She runs the dry pad of her thumb over Erika's lips. "Call the corners with us, as I taught you."
