Free The Wrong Rite by Charlotte MacLeod

That was Mary, all set to pout. “You’re not going to do two fires, Bob?”
    “My only hope is that there will be sticks enough for the one fire, since we are unable to assemble nine men to do the gathering.”
    So this was the real reason why Dafydd and Tom were hiding out at Uncle Huw’s, and why Bob was casting that baleful glance at Madoc.
    “But you’re still going to rub the two pieces of oak together, aren’t you?” Gwen really was a minx. “How long will it take you to get a spark?”
    “Till hell freezes over,” muttered Dai. “He’ll use a match, he always does. Plenty of matches, and maybe a dash of petrol.”
    “Not petrol, Dai,” Madoc protested, “unless your uncle’s planning to commit a particularly unpleasant form of suicide. I’ll make him a fuzz stick, Canadian style.”
    “How jolly, the fuzz will make a fuzz stick. You are fuzz, aren’t you, Madoc?”
    Dai, who’d barely opened his mouth all last evening, must suddenly have decided to be the life of the party. Janet wished he’d go back to being sullen. Madoc was taking the callow youth in stride.
    “Oh yes, I’m fuzz, if you don’t like the sound of policeman. We get called worse, often enough. A fuzz stick isn’t a truncheon, if that’s what you’re thinking; just a piece of kindling wood that’s been frayed around the edges to make it ignite more quickly.”
    Gwen skipped over to the box where Betty kept bits of kindling she might need to restart the coal fire in the Aga should it go out, which it seldom did, winter or summer. “Here’s a likely faggot. Let’s see you fuzz it.”
    “Very well, Gwen, on to the fray.”
    Madoc took out his jackknife and began making short, slantwise cuts into the wood, keeping them close together and not detaching them so that they curled back and would indeed present a tempting snack for any spark ambitious to become a blaze. He worked neatly and quickly; by the time he was through, the stick was a mass of whitish curls.
    “Ooh, that’s lovely!” cried his sister. “Much too pretty to burn; it’s like a miniature tree. Does he make them for you, Jenny?”
    “Sometimes. He whittled a whole grove of baby ones this past Christmas to hang on our tree as a present for Dorothy. Fuzz sticks are mostly for when you’re out camping and can’t find any dry tinder. This isn’t one of Madoc’s better efforts; you may have it for the Beltane fire if you want, Dai.”
    Neither Dai nor Bob appeared to be overwhelmed with gratitude, but Mary was ecstatic. “Thank you, cefnder. This will be my first time to jump over a fuzz stick.”
    “I have tried to explain, Mary”—Bob spoke with the weary impatience of one who has had to say the same thing far too many times—“that it is inappropriate for you to anticipate. The correct procedure is for cakes to be baked, some of oatmeal and some of brown meal, then broken into fourths and placed in a bag. Each person in the gathering should draw a piece without looking, and only those who get the brown pieces should leap three times through the fire. However, as it appears we are not to have our oatmeal cakes nor our brown cakes and the fire will not have been laid with proper ceremony, this may as well become just another case of who wants to leap and who does not.”
    “Count me among the nots.” Iseult had finally graced the gathering, in cream-colored gabardine pants and a matching tunic that had its neckline cut in a capital V. She also wore a good many golden chains, presumably to keep her pectoral area warm. “Where’s Reuel?”
    “He asked for sandwiches and went off to the downs.” Betty was putting great platters of sliced meats and salad on the table. “It is yourselves you must be helping, I have more to do. And no time to be baking white and brown cakes for heathen rites,” she added rather snappishly. “What is it that Dorothy will be wanting to eat, Mrs. Madoc?”
    “Nothing, thank you, Betty. She had porridge at Aunt