PodCastle 606: River’s Giving

* Authors : Heather Shaw, Tim Pratt and River Shaw

* Narrator : Kyle Akers

* Host : Summer Fletcher

* Audio Producer : KT Bryski

*

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PodCastle 606: River’s Giving is a PodCastle original.

Rated PG for jolly old beasts of terror.

River’s Giving

Heather Shaw, River Shaw, and Tim Pratt

Once upon a time, there was a boy named Alexander who lived in a village by a river in a valley in the shadow of a mountain. Every year when the days grew short and the air grew cold and the snow fell, the village would hold a celebration called River’s Giving. The festival kept spirits bright as darkness grew, and the people there looked forward to the cold of the longest night as much as they did the warmth of the longest day. At least they did until the year it all went wrong.

The young adults spent all summer tending sheep and spinning thread, and the older children spent the fall knitting long nets to string across the river. They decorated the nets with bright green sharp-edged leaves and sprigs of white and red berries that were no good for eating but beautiful for seeing. They also hung tiny bells all over the nets, and these jingled in the water, a sound that always meant joy to Alexander.

In the week before the festival, those adults who were so inclined would wield their slings and bows and stones and arrows to display their hunting prowess, or toss logs and heavy stones in shows of strength, all in friendly competition, with cheers for the winners and consolation drinks for the losers. Alexander’s mother usually came in second or third with the bow these days, after winning five straight years in a row. Some people said she was losing her touch, but Alexander’s father whispered that she just thought it was nice to let other people win sometimes. Life in the village was like that; people shared everything, even victory.

Those who took particular pleasure and pride in their cooking would lay out a feast every night, showing off their best before their most precious delicacies could be overshadowed by strange and unforeseen gifts from the river. Alexander’s father made a sort of pudding out of pig’s liver that was the most disgusting thing in existence, but some people who weren’t Alexander seemed to like it. Every night, the people lit fires, and everyone danced, even the revered elders.

On River’s Giving, the people would gather on the banks as the sun broke over the top of the mountain. The water rushing down from the heights would turn mysteriously dark, and then the gifts would appear, one or two at a time, bobbing in the water: egg-shaped pods that shone like moonlight, some small enough to hide in a fist, some bigger than canoes. The gifts would fill the nets, and everyone watched half-afraid — Alexander was too young to remember the year the nets had broken, but everyone still talked about it, and they wove their nets stronger now.

Once the waters turned clear, and the gifts stopped coming, the villagers hauled in the nets. They arranged the gifts in the town square, and the families took turns opening them according to a complicated rotating system. Some pods opened like flowers blossoming at the tap of a knuckle, while others had to be cracked open with mauls or axes. The shells fell away to reveal gifts inside, from the useful to the lovely, the practical to the magical,