A legend
"Do you know the legend of the December Rose?"
Those gathered around shook ther heads in confusion and bewilderment.
She was not surprised, for the legend was as old as forgotten and dustily stored in old minds and perhaps mentioned a few times in books that the least people consulted in the last two hundred years.
"Then let me begin at the start."
With these words, the candles in the room grew steadily dimmer, fainter, as if suddenly their burning power was vanishing, and that by just a single movement of the hand.
From a single candle, which had its place in the middle of the table, the flame escaped and formed a scenery, the solar system.
As in an extraordinary music box, the glowing planets moved on thin threads around a radiant sphere in the center.
"About 8,000 years ago, there was an extraordinary astronomical constellation in the sky."
The planets lined up as if they were pearls stringed up on a line so that they were all behind the sun.
So straight, you could have drawn a line through them with ease.
"The planets lined up one behind the other."
"Mercury and Venus united to cover the sun so that on the whole earth was night. Only a single ray of sunlight managed to penetrate to the earth."
Like a golden thread spun, a ray from the fiery sun moved toward the third planet.
"But the moon wanted to protect the earth, as it had been its task for millennia, and spun a web of silver threads of its light."
A silver shimmer appeared and cut off any path of the golden beam of light that wanted to fall on the earth. Then the moon and sunlight met and merged.
The whole scene fizzled out into the dark.
"Sunlight and moonlight united rained down on the earth, illuminating for a moment the deep night. That moment was the eternity of the last chime of midnight on a December 31st."
On the wooden tabletop, it began to freeze by itself, and from the ceiling, silvery-golden shimmering rain dripped onto the ice-covered wood.
"When the moment passed, night fell again, and a flower grew from the ground."
Another inconspicuously gentle wave of her hand, the rain ended, and a rose grew in the center of the table.
Slowly the bud opened and made everything around it fade away. Its petals were such a velvety dark red, almost black, and yet they glowed and radiated incredible beauty that everything beside them seemed to disappear.
"And with this rose, the sky joined the light and the shadow forever."
A loud gong that went through their spines rang out.
"He joined it forever in two people born at the last chime of midnight on the last night of December."
Abruptly, the rose burst into tiny snowflakes that danced around the room, and the light returned to the candles.
"Legend has it that every thousand years, Heaven sends such a connection again to maintain balance. Bound once by the magic of the rose, a bond is formed for life, unbreakable by anything, bound forever."
"A-a-and what does that have to do with you?"
"I was bound 68 years ago."