Justin Achilli

High Season is the time of the year when, in observance of a pagan ritual that only a dwindling few remember, a coven of celebrants venture into the trees and recite an honorific call-and response liturgy. The words of the liturgy no longer have any meaning to men; the language in which the language is recited has faded from recollection.

During High Season, those who perform the rite go beyond the world we know. Often, some of the celebrants fail to return, but those who accompanied them know nothing of what might have pulled the lost ones away from the group. Indeed, they remember very little of their journey into whatever Other receives them, recalling only a color, smell, sound, or place that has no earthly counterpart. The memories rarely coincide between ritualists, and none can say with certainty even that all of those who performed the rite even visited the same place.

A mist passing through the forest, the erratic flames of a fire, a cold wind, and the sound of something flapping like a cloak in a gale, a man's shape with the horns of a great stag -- all these have characterized a High Season performance. When the rite concludes, it participants, usually aristocrats drawn from the oldest families of the land, trickle back to their palaces like bewildered lovers stealing home at dawn's light after a night of heady passion. Yet none can speak to any congress that occurred or any unutterable promises sworn in the night.