Tend The Fire, Count The Stones

20260119

Written for Luna Asli Kolcu’s “Myths of Winter - Week 8” event.

The task is very simple. The circle has twelve stones. No more, no less. They are each three foot tall and two foot across. No larger, no smaller. Twelve cylinders of white stone polished smooth by time and weather. No other shape, no other colour, and no markings.
If any of that changes, you are to strike the oddity with a burning stick, close your eyes, and shout. What you shout doesn’t seem to matter; most people reckon a prayer is safest, but plenty of others swear by screaming as loud as you can.
When you open your eyes the oddity will be gone. If it ever happens that it isn’t, repeat the above steps, making sure the stick is burning and that you shout loud enough.
What if it still isn’t fixed?
Well.
Just keep screaming until people come to help.
Now, the wood pile is topped up before every shift. Make sure the fire doesn’t go out. You need to be able to light a stick quickly.
How quickly?
There doesn’t seem to be a precise limit, but… trust me when I say quicker is better. For all of us, but first and foremost for you, you being the closest.
Just keep a stick in your hand and the fire burning. When you see an oddity, light the stick, use it, and snuff it out again. You probably won’t need more than a few for your whole shift, but there’s plenty in the basket. It gets topped up with the wood.
If you’re worried about running short of either, that’s another situation solved by continuous screaming.
You’re well rested, I hope? A shift is twelve hours, remember. We simply don’t have enough people to allow shorter. Particularly since people generally take weeks before they can bring themselves to approach the stones again. Most inconvenient.
Unfortunate. It’s most unfortunate. That they are so distressed by the experience, I mean. Yes.
What causes this distress? Well. Maintaining vigilance for so long puts a strain upon the mind, particularly up on the heath like this. The emptiness, and unceasing yet irregular sound of the wind whispering through the grass, and so on. Plays tricks on you.
Which is not to say that you should assume oddities are a trick of your mind. Far safer to assume they are real and must be dealt with. There's plenty of sticks, remember.
But people become convinced that they heard voices, or saw figures in the distance, and all sorts of nonsense which clearly has nothing to do with the circle. Anything like that you can safely ignore. In fact it’s better if you do. Certainly do not leave the circle to investigate, for there’s bound to be oddities happening the moment nobody is here to keep watch.
Just stay in the circle, tend the fire, and check the stones. Count them, one to twelve. Check each as you pass, making sure it’s the right height and colour and no markings have appeared.
A nice simple job, eh? Even monotonous, if you’re lucky. Some people don’t see a single oddity.
To help you keep track of time the lantern has the hours marked, see? Make sure to light a new candle when you start your shift. They’re in the box under the lantern. At the sixth hour - end of the first candle - someone will come to check on you. Make sure that… everything’s fine. Spell you for a quick break, so you can, ah, tend to nature and such.
Now, even with that break, it’s the last three hours where people tend to get… distracted. It’d be far better if we could shorten the shifts, and perhaps with a few more folks like you coming in we’ll manage it. But for now, make sure you’re being extra vigilant in that last quarter.
And don’t leave the circle. No matter what you think you hear or see outside it.
Don’t stop checking for oddities, either. That’s the other risk; people get so caught up ignoring their mind’s tricks that they forget the job. Don’t be one of those people.
No, I shan’t name names. They wouldn’t mean owt to you, anyway. You won’t meet any of them. So long as you do your job right.
That… should be everything. Let’s build up the fire, and get the candle lit, and you’re ready for your first shift at the stones.
Don’t worry, I’m sure you’ll do fine.
It’s a very simple task, after all.

Prompt was “Someone must always be watching. Twelve-hour shifts. No exceptions. You’re on hour eleven. Something has been wrong since hour three—small things at first, now impossible to ignore. One more hour. Just stay focused one more hour.”