Read Online Dance of the Stones by Andrea Spalding - Free Book Online

base bubbled and boiled.
    Ava, what’s happening to the wraith? It seems angry .
    Ava sighed. It is angry. It wants to disrupt the ceremony and destroy my power.
    Can it do that ? asked Owen anxiously.
    It will try.
    *   *   *
    Hewll rose and leaped into action. “Dig,” he yelled.
    Grasping white bone shovels made from oxen scapula, he and his team began to refill the pit. They worked long into the winter night. Finally the stone stood firm. The Circle was complete.
    Hewll and the Pit Makers stood together on the rim of the gigantic ditch. “Rejoice!” shouted Hewll. “Our picks and shovels have raised a sacred stone; any lesser job would defile them. Let them keep their memory of triumph. Tomorrow we will hunt an ox and deer and make new ones.”
    â€œAYE!” shouted his fellow workers. They tossed their antler picks and bone shovels high in the air. The tools turned, catching gleams of firelight before falling into the darkness of the ditch.
    Men, women and children rushed between the stones and held hands to make their own circle — a circle inside a circle. The horn blew, the shamans chanted and the people lifted their voices and sang.
    Light and Dark, Dark and Light,
Sun by day, Moon by night . . .
    Hewll grasped Ulwin’s hand and they joined a dance that wound between the stones. The song quickened. The dancers moved faster. They whirled and swirled until, “The stones, they dance with us,” Ulwin cried.
    The horn sounded again.
    The dancers reeled dizzily to a stop. Silence fell.
    The chief shaman pulled a leather bag from inside her tunic and held its treasured contents aloft.
    A small circlet of twisted silver strands glinted in the firelight. A white stone embedded in the front glowed like the moon.
    The people fell to their knees.
    â€œSince time uncounted we have protected Ava’s circlet,” shouted the chief shaman. “But look your last, People of the Hawk. Look your last, People of the Deer. Tell your grandchildren, so they can tell their children’s grandchildren, of the day we passed our treasure to the Sarsen Stones. Their memories are as long as Earth herself. Wind will not fell them, rain will not wear them, sun will not burn them and the moon will watch over them. When the People of the Hawk and Deer are gone, the Sarsens will stand to protect Ava’s circlet forever.”
    The chief shaman motioned for Hewll to step forward.
    The second shaman reached for an antler from his crown and handed it to Hewll.
    They walked into the second small circle. The shamans lit a ring of brands, then pointed to a spot on the ground in the center. Hewll knelt and with the antler’s tip scraped away loosened dirt. He exposed a flat rock and pried it up. A small slab-lined cavity was revealed.
    The chief shaman held the circlet up to the moon and murmured a blessing.
    Hewll trembled in awe, his eyes riveted on the circlet. He sighed as the chief shaman dropped it in the skin bag. She placed the bag inside the small pot held out by the second shaman, and he placed the pot in the cavity.
    â€œWho bringeth the water?” asked the chief shaman.
    An apprentice lifted a small gourd that hung from a cord around her throat.
    â€œBlessed be the water from the stream that doesn’t run, for it giveth life,” murmured the watching tribes’ people.
    The chief shaman plucked a feather from her helmet, dipped it in the gourd and shook droplets over the cavity.
    Hewll replaced the slab.
    Both shamans sprinkled a handful of earth over it, then Hewll refilled the hole and stomped on the ground to firm it.
    Again the chief shaman dipped her feather in the flask and sprinkled water.
    Hewll gasped. As the drops hit the ground, grass grew and hid the scar in the earth.
    â€œYou all bear witness,” chorused the shamans, their voices breaking the silence.
    â€œWe all bear witness,” replied everyone softly.
    â€œReveal and