“Change, change.” Suddenly, a boy shouted, his voice loud and clear. I instinctively took a sudden step backward.
“What did you say?” I asked. “Can you help us?”
“Change, change,” a girl repeated.
“We’re not from here!” Ben shouted. “We want to leave, but we can’t find the way out.”
More voices whispered, “Change, change.”
“Please, answer us!” I pleaded. “Can you help?”
Then they all cried out in unison, “Change, change,” and began to dance.
Keeping their circle formation, they moved quickly to the right. First they raised one leg high and swung it out to the right, then lowered it and gave a little kick. Step after step, they continued moving right with their knees held high.
Some kind of grotesque dance.
“Change, change,” they chanted together. “Change, change.”
“Please, stop!” Ben and I begged. “What are you doing? Are you trying to scare us?”
“Change, change.” The dancing black figures appeared and vanished in the drifting fog.
For a moment, the fog lifted, and I saw that as they danced, they held hands, gripping one another tightly to form an impenetrable circle.
With Ben and me trapped in the middle.
“Change, change,” they cried, taking a step and kicking a leg. “Change, change.”
“What are they doing?” Ben whispered. “Is it a game?”
I swallowed hard before answering. “I don’t think so.”
The fog billowed again, sank toward the grass, and drifted away.
