1: AWAKENING

In the dusk of predawn they lay in their tiny beds, the children, and wondered what wonders Gifting Day would bring. All around them the lingering dark was still, and cool, and fresh, scented with the vague fragrance of their last, most luscious dreams, a hint, now here, now nowhere. Each child found beside its pillow three mysteries, wrapped in shadow and in twilight. In their beds they lay quiet, the children, shivering, wondering: 

What mysteries await me on this Gifting Day? What, what lies ahead?

Then through the halls and up and down the dim corridors rang the voice of the mother, calling them. In a blink the children tumbled from their beds helter skelter, still trailing remnants of their dreams, and by the hundreds, the thousands, the billions they scampered and scrambled through the house, laughing and chattering and rushing and clamoring, until they had all reached the room in the very center of the house, where their mother sat.

In the room the mother sat, waiting, at its very center, and as the children gathered around her she greeted each with a kiss and bade them welcome. When at last the children were all assembled, the hundreds and thousands and billions of them, the mother raised one hand, and the children fell silent.

“Welcome, beloved ones,” said the mother, reaching both arms toward the children, in embrace, “welcome to Gifting Day.” Her voice swept the room in song, in prayer, and touched each child with love and light. “Have you each brought with you what you found by your pillows when you awoke?”

“Yes, we have,” the children answered, looking at the odd-shaped bundles they held, all wrapped up in twilight, “but Mother, what are they?”