"Oh, that's wonderful," he said. "Did Lucas make it?"

"You know him?" I asked, surprised, and then felt stupid. Of course he knew him -- even those who hadn't met Lucas knew at least about the peculiar recluse at The Pines.

"Sure. He was up here just last week, asking me about the Straw Bear."

"Really," I said, intrigued. "He showed you his masks, I guess."

"A few. He said he had more." Charles was staring almost disconcertingly at my mask. "He's very...deft, I guess you could say. It looks like you."

"What?" I asked, studying my reflection in the big silver urn.

"Well, a little bit. Not the eyebrows, but the face, you know?"

"Huh." I hadn't noticed, but without the glasses perched on Dottore's nose I supposed the narrow, scholarly face would look like mine. "Is Lucas here?"

"Haven't seen him yet, but he'll probably show up. He's been invited, anyway."

Charles set up the water to heat and people began to crowd around us, picking at the trays of food on the table. The children were more concerned with the games that a couple of industrious youngsters were running, where you could win a few pieces of candy or a small toy. The adults wanted coffee to keep them awake.

I felt faintly superior to most of the others there – their masks, if they wore any, were cheap plastic things well below the level of craftsmanship Lucas had put into mine. I got a lot of compliments on it, and a few outright stares.

The children were in much more elaborate outfits than the adults, chasing each other through the room or huddling in groups to plot mischief. I looked around for Lucas but, not seeing him, went to busy myself hopping from group to group, picking up news and redistributing it. All of the players in that season's live-action soap opera – Michael, Nolan, Sandra, Cassie, Nolan's younger sister and one or two other minor characters – were drifting around the party as well, being watched by the village and watching each other warily.

Around nine o'clock, with night well-fallen and some of the younger children already taken home by their parents, people began to slip outside. The cold evening air was almost a welcome relief after the warmth of the basement, and the sense of anticipation among the adults began to grow. I took off my mask and tied it carefully to a belt-loop, joining them in the cemetery.

In twos and threes, bringing their children with them or following them out, the adults began to gather inside the cemetery gates, off to either side of the dirt road that wound around and between the headstones. A group of young teens lounged on the steps of the few mausoleums, some ways off. The children stood at the gates, watchful, either remembering past years or having been told by older siblings what was about to happen. In the distance the edge of a forty-acre forest, marking the far boundary of the cemetery, loomed darkly.

Some of the adults had gone missing in the bustle. Charles, for one, and Leon; Jacob's wife as well. I thought perhaps Leon was the new Sweeper, and about time, since the schoolteacher who had done it for years was laid up with lumbago worse than ever and it was time she passed the broom, so to speak.

It occurred to me that Jacob's wife might be the Fire Man this year. Low Ferry wasn't a paragon of gender equality, but the Fire Man needed to be nimble and light. By and large the men of Low Ferry were built on huge broad lines, good for farming but not for the relative acrobatics the Fire Man needed. The part was usually played by a young man or woman. I'd been asked once, my second year in the village, but I'd had to decline.

My speculations were cut short as the Sweeper appeared, hooting and coughing his way down from the main road. It was certainly Leon, dressed in layers of burlap tied on with bits of yarn and old worn belts. He swept the loose top layer of dirt on the road with his broom, aimlessly, clearing any little remnants of snow to the sides. He shook his head as he came, setting off the little bells tied to the wispy straw wig bound in a topknot and hanging down over his ears. Once inside the gate he moved his broom more vigorously, occasionally shoving a giggling child off the road.

Three or four mounted riders followed him, the horses kicking up mud from the melting snow, ruining the crazy patterns the sweeper left behind him. There was Jacob's wife, along with three young men – one of the Harrison boys and two I couldn't place in the darkness. The riders threw sticks into the crowds for people to catch or scramble after: long poles made of balsa and a few of hollow plastic, not too hard or heavy, hardly dangerous at all. Their horses, decorated with ribbons and more bells, stomped and snorted. A few children playfully sword-fought with the sticks or went haring off into the darkness, already looking for the Straw Bear. Eventually the adults herded them into a group that trailed loosely down the road after the riders.

We walked through the cemetery hollering and whistling, following the riders until they abandoned us at the edge of the trees. They wheeled the horses, well out of range of the children, and broke into a galloping race back to the front gates, the showier ones leaping gravestones as they went.

The rest of us turned to the trees. There was a collective moment of anticipation before a few brave souls walked in first, pushing the low brush aside and starting to look in earnest for the Straw Bear. We were quieter in the forest, and sometimes we could hear the rise of a bird from the brush or the scuttle of a small animal fleeing hastily ahead of us. It was eerie, and a few of the children looked scared, but for the most part people seemed to be enjoying the shadows – venturing into the darkness to beat winter back, to beat back chill and death. This was our ritual, deeper than any church service, all-encompassing. If nothing else, it made us a village, tied us together in an experience that most of Low Ferry had shared since they could walk.

Leon was there, still in-character, brandishing his broom to make the children laugh occasionally. Paula kept poking Nolan in the back with her stick until he swatted at her and wandered off, annoyed. Nora Harrison, well along in her pregnancy, was escorted by several chivalrous junior sons of the extended Harrison clan. Carmen was carrying a tired-looking Clara on her shoulders. It was, in fact, pretty crowded in the trees.