Harvest Festival and the Exile’s Return

Rebecca Roland, author of Shards of History, a fabulous NA fantasy, and the collection The King of Ash and Bones writes: 

I'm one of those people who loves autumn. I love how the air grows crisp, I love how obsessed I become with baking because it's finally cool enough to use the oven without sweating every time I open it, and I love how it signals that the holidays are approaching, which means celebrations and time with loved ones.

This was part of the reason I decided to set my short story "The Road Home" during autumn. The story follows Rasmus, one of the secondary characters from my novel Shards of History, as he returns home for the first time after being exiled years before. He's bringing gifts for the harvest festival, which is a huge celebration put on and enjoyed by his entire village.

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Rasmus is very much the black sheep of the family. He's nervous about going home because he's not sure what sort of reception he'll get. He's changed, the village has changed, and yet things maybe haven't changed enough. But the holidays are when you think about those people you haven't seen in a while, and you wonder how they're doing and what they're up to and whether they have a place to hang out on Thanksgiving or Christmas.

And so, not only is the village very much on Rasmus's mind, but he is on the minds of the villagers as well. There are those who are happy to see him and would gladly welcome him home. Then there are those for whom he can't leave fast enough. In Rasmus's world, the harvest celebration is a time of new beginnings, forgiveness, and leaving problems behind. It's not a coincidence that he chooses that time to go home and test the waters to see if he'd be welcomed back.

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Rebecca Roland lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where she writes primarily fantasy and horror. Her short fiction has appeared in Everyday Fiction, Uncle John’s Flush Fiction and in Stupefying Stories, and she is a graduate of the Odyssey Writing Workshop. When she’s not writing, she’s usually spending time with her family, torturing patients as a physical therapist, or eating way too much chocolate.  
rebeccarolandwriter.blogspot.com

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