April 22, 2009

L'Rue del Monde

Masquerade happens from the 30th of October to the 1st of November. As you might guess from the name, costumes and masks are still traditional, but in other respects it more closely resembles the Latin American Day of the Dead than Halloween -- a time to remember and respect one's friendly dead, and to appease or scare off the unfriendly ones. The rise of l'affaires has seen the holiday turn from celebration into essentially a three-day pageant, the gangsters being generally (as Lena suggests) both extremely superstitious and possessed of a large number of potentially angry ghosts to appease.

Mary Mercy is a death-saint, one of the more formidable ones. She is said to particularly watch over those who died violently and those who were made to suffer in dying. Candles, incense, and small offerings are traditional when appealing to (or appeasing) a saint -- for vows, one uses blood.