I find comfort in ritual. I adore the lighting of the candles, as we prepare for the feast. The flickering, weaving flames catch my eye, a roving force of chaos constrained in a string above a bee's gift of wax. I love the music played as the candles are brought to the bonfire, the bones of trees and meat stacked in patterns that reflect the capturing of the stars. To the children it is perhaps a dreary sort of ritual, here in the darkest days. They don't feel the primitive roar of the drums, feel it like the heart beats as a bloody organ pulses in one's hand. They don't hear the music of the night as it whispers, as it twitters its little giggles in the turn of leaf or the snap of a twig. They are children, of course, and I find myself both despairing and hoping that they will no longer follow the old ways, forgetting the power of the ceremony. Even now some pierce themselves again, and wear metal instead of bone and wood. May their simple sins be forgiven, for in the light of the fire, all is made pure.

I have worn the mask for many years. It is made of leaves and like the kind of wreath a superstitious native of this once grand city would put on his or her door. It remains ever green, although the forests of the city park that runs with the remnants of the mighty wolves are now a whirring ticking sea of broken memories. Strange children play in it, making castles of spun dreamsugar, weaving stories of lost worlds and parents that raised them apart from their villages. The screaming zombies of dusk have no power in that place, nor do they do more than feast on an unwary tourist now and then. First they ask for money, then for a section of spicy brain. We cannot take credit for having the politest undead, but New York was ever known for its pride, so I will say it's true.

The ritual is to bring the return of the sun, and it is an old one, from before the rains of blood. We build our own fires, not the ones that animate the corpses and laugh their challenges to the stars. They say there are still souls up in the high towers, wizards of steel and electrical power. I tell the children that these are lies, meant to enslave us, to bring us back to the way it was. I wonder who I am lying to, remembering my past. I have tasted dreamsugar, after all, and know that my tolerance is weak. I am mighty behind the mask, but the mind is tempted by the sweet bliss which was caught in the city's mass illusion.

I try not to listen too much to the lullabies of the strange ones. Rocking horse cradles and broken boughs of ivory and stone, while we make our way through the cracks of the city streets. There's an old iron gate that has stymied us all, and the dreamers say the sun lies beneath it. Perhaps our sacrifices will awaken her, our dances amuse her, the jewels we have found distract her, and she will choose to leave her metal cave. We light candles to remind her of her glory. Candles, and at the end, we remove the mask to remind her of her secret self, the one that may bring us all out of the dream. The gate is a dark, distorted mirror, like the deceitful, hating moon. The moon that taunts us, its blinking satellite spawn reminding us of air and darkness, and the bloody rains.

I had fought dreams and their ilk for years before taking this route. I remember words like "profit margin" and "transaction." I once stood in the towers and called numbers, a herald's horn sounding the engagement of battle. We challenged each other with maths, with theories that meant only what someone brought them to mean. We were knights with lances made of assumed power, and armour we found to be made of empty promises. I learned quickly, and left the business to others who could not see past the veil to truth. I sought comfort in words of peace, hope, and forgiveness, a little good to balance a lifetime in lies.

When it came time to choose someone for the mask, I had done well. I had given them ritual and themes for the new world, rules so that they might know. I gave them law. I gave them prohibitions, for man likes nothing more than to do what it is told it should not. I forbid them the dreamsugar out of love, and since it was not out of fear or power we lose few to its siren call. I made the burial rituals, where they cover the dead with little dirt in case they should rise again. Instead, the lucky are made mulch, ground with leaves, or burned in clean fires. I forbid them worship of the blue child. I made the mask. I made it out of wraiths and flora, binding the spirits of Central Park into myth and memory. I did not tell them what really lay behind the gates, the power that it once was. I was chosen, because I alone know I will be forgiven when it comes to the sacrifice. In the light of the fire, all is made pure. What could be more pure than to throw open the gates to the sun, even if she destroys us all?

QueensKnight

Horn and Ivory

Curse The Darkness

and new

• the capturing of the stars
• the power of the ceremony