Solstice

Clava Cairns, 1021 B.C.

The cold wind swept over the moors, whispering through the heather as the lone figure knelt beside the stone mound. Calen’s hands, calloused and worn, trembled as he placed the last of the stones atop the tombs of his family. His village had stood here once, a small cluster of thatched huts nestled in the grove. It had been a peaceful life, filled with the simple rhythms of farming, but now all that remained were memories and the cold silence of stones.

A northern tribe had come in the night, their torches surrounding them like falling stars, and when the sun rose, everything he had loved was gone. His wife, Aine, with her soft laugh, red curls falling across her face, and the way she tenderly cradled their newborn daughter, was no more. His son, Marn, with eyes as black as the loch, always eager to help with the harvest, lay still beneath the earth. All that remained of them now were these cairns, built from the broken pieces of what had once been their home, their life.

Calen stood; his eyes turned to the sky where the sun had begun its slow descent toward the horizon. It was nearing the winter solstice, and soon the light would strike the cairns, just as he had placed them. He had built them near where the midwinter sun would shine its fleeting glow, a warm touch against the cold stones as if the sun itself could reach down and comfort his loved ones.

“They will feel the warmth again,” he whispered, his voice rough with grief. “The light will touch them, as I once did.”

The seasons had gone unnoticed for him since that terrible night - spring’s rains had come and gone, washing the blood from the earth; summer had dried the land and baked it hard beneath his feet; and autumn had painted the hills with fire. Now winter approached, the harshest season of all, and with it, the solstice - the shortest day and the longest night.

But in that brief moment when the sun dipped low and sent its pale rays to kiss the earth, he would remember. The solstice marked the circle of life, death, and rebirth. It was the time of endings and beginnings. As the days grew shorter and the nights longer, Calen thought of how life had slipped away from him, just as the light had slipped from the sky.

He knelt again, his hand brushing the smooth stone of Aine’s cairn, just as he had brushed her cheek when she held their daughter for the last time. His fingers traced the curve of the stone, the way they had once traced her soft features. Nearby, the cairns of his children rested, waiting for the solstice light to touch them.

Tears filled his eyes, but he blinked them away. He would not let them fall - not now, not when the sun would soon rise again. The cairns were built, the stones were laid, and the circle would continue, as it always had. Life and death were bound together, part of the same eternal cycle, and as long as the sun rose and set, there would be light even in the darkest of times.

As the sun slipped lower, Calen stood tall, straining for the moment when its light would reach the cairns and cast its warmth across the cold stones, if only for a fleeting moment. The circle of life had not been broken - merely changed. And with the coming of the solstice, he knew, somewhere, his family would feel the light once more.