“As the spirit burns bright, and seems sometimes too great to be contained within the small shell of the body, so it is with this place,” the water-being said softly. “The inner world is wider and more complex than the outer, deeper and more intricate. Here you will see many things; you will see what was, and is, and what may be. You will watch, and you will remember.”
It was indeed as they said. The slit in the rocks gave way to a passage, and the passage to a cavern, greater far in height and width than the narrow plateau outside had indicated was possible. And there were other caves leading off the central chamber, on every side; through one opening I glimpsed a warm gold lamplight, and a place for sleeping, with pillows and soft linen, and a coverlet which looked like the shaggy pelt of some great wild creature. My eyes widened.
“Look here, Fainne.”
The purpose of this central chamber was immediately evident to me, brought up as I had been in the knowledge of the mysteries and the practice of ritual. In the middle was a wide, shallow bowl of bronze, empty now; by it was an ornate jug of similar make, placed on a granite slab. Above these ceremonial vessels the roof of the cavern arched high; and in the center it was open to the sky. It seemed to me the round hole in the rocks was precisely placed, just as the standing stones in Kerry had each its position and its purpose. This opening showed a tiny patch of blue sky, quite cloudless. It was perhaps midday, perhaps a little later. Tonight I might look above me and see one lovely star; or a velvet darkness profound and quiet. At a certain time of year the rays of the sun would pierce the stone, touching the ritual water beneath with living fire. This was a cavern such as the place Finbar had inhabited alone, far away on Inis Eala. An ancient place. A safe place. The hand of the goddess stretched over it, her cradling body supported it. If the old ways were to be preserved, held intact in the memory of a single human mind, the beating of a single human heart, it would be here. But for how long? I opened my mouth to ask the question, and the ocean-being waved her strange, weed-like hand over the bronze bowl, and it was filled on an instant with clear water. I closed my mouth without speaking. The Lord who was more airy light than substance leaned forward and breathed on the water, and its surface came alive with a patchwork of tiny images, bright as summer flowers, moving and changing in a complex, dazzling pattern.
“Come, fire child,” said the Lord with hair of flame. “We will show you.”
The Lady of the Forest took my left hand, and he took my right, and together we looked down into the water. There was so much there, too much; it was jumbled and fragmented, and yet within the intricate movement I could see familiar things, now here, now gone; a fish flapping on the earth; cages opening, creatures fleeing swift; a fire burning, and a man’s face contorted in pain. I screwed my eyes shut.
“I don’t know how to scry,” I said tightly. “I’m no good at it. If this is the task you want done, you’ve got the wrong girl.”
“Focus,” said the Lady.
“Control,” said the fiery Lord. “You find this difficult not because you have too little ability, but because you have so much. You must narrow your range; fix on a time, a place, a sequence. Find a pattern, and shut out the rest until you need it. Here is the working of all existences, Fainne. Here you can find what was: the endless movement of the stars, the voices of the ancient rocks, the mysteries of the depths of the ocean. You can read the stories of our kind, and your kind, and the other kind as well. You can see what is: even now your father and the others leave the shores of Greater Island, even now the Britons ship for home, leaving behind them a promise of peace. The master of the vessel which conveys them is a cousin you have never met: Fintan, heir to Harrowfield. There is a bright time ahead for these folk; a brief, bright time.”
“You will see these things,” said the Lady, “and you will be shown what will be, or what may be. There is a peril in that which I am sure you understand. You have been chosen for this, Fainne, because of what you are. There is no barrier for you; there is nothing to prevent your attainment of the highest realms of the craft, if that is what you aspire to. She who told you otherwise lied to you, and to your father. Even then, even when you were but a child, she sensed the power in you; a power, in the end, far greater than her own. Her error was to believe she could channel it to her will. She underestimated both Ciarán’s strength and yours. It is a paradox, for without her blood, the blood of the outcast, you would not be strong enough for this task. The lady Oonagh was one of us. Her kind are our shadows, our counterparts who walk by us, keeping the balance. The one cannot exist without the other; and yet we war together eternally. So, she has made you strong. You have a deep understanding for one so young. Those skills of which you have not yet the mastery, we will teach you. Oh, yes,” she raised her brows, smiling at my start of surprise, “we will come, from time to time, at least until you are settled in this place. Now look again; choose a single image, and concentrate your mind on that. Make it work for you. Block out the rest.”
I gazed into the pool, remembering small Sibeal and her total, silent concentration. She was only eight years old. I had a lot of ground to make up. Among the chaotic swirl of images, there was one that drew me. Three children lying on rocks, by a lake. The lake of Sevenwaters, not far from the keep. It was summer; two trailed their fingers in the water, watching the fish. The third, a boy with a tangle of dark hair, lay on his back with arms outstretched, staring up into the sky. The boy had a look of Coll; he had a look of my uncle Sean. But there was only one man I knew with those clear, deep eyes, eyes with no color save that of wisdom. Without a doubt what I saw was an image of long ago, and this child was Finbar, looking beyond the realm where his small brother and sister played and into his own strange destiny. The tiny image changed, yet was the same. The rocks, the lake, brown ducks dabbling there. The three children, sons and daughters of Sevenwaters. It was still summer, but a different summer, and the children were different too. A pair of twins, boy and girl, fey and dark-haired, reaching down to tease the fish that swam there among the reeds; and another girl, lovely as a spirit of autumn with her wide blue eyes and fall of red-gold hair. The tiny black-haired child who was my aunt Liadan said something, and Sean poked her in the ribs, and my mother laughed, her sweet, pure features alight with mirth. I bent closer to the water, longing for more, longing to see this child as she had been once, before her joy was snatched from her. But the image blurred and changed again, and I saw my cousin Sibeal, cross-legged on the selfsame stone by the lake, hands folded in her lap. Her eyes seemed to see nothing, and everything. She looked right at me and smiled; and the image was gone.
“You will learn quickly,” the Lady of the Forest said as I blinked and rubbed my eyes. “You will learn to hold these things in your mind and in your spirit; to preserve what is precious. You will recite the lore; you will observe the rituals. The sun and moon will guard you; the sea will be your fortress wall, the living stone your safe refuge. Guard well the mysterious bond between the earth and the life that dwells there, and our great mother will sustain you.”
I felt a little faint, and more than a little bemused. Perhaps my questions did not matter, really. The trust they placed in me was a grave one; I should feel honored. But I did not feel much at all, save the emptiness of the heart, and the cold paths of my tears.
“You wish to ask us something, before we leave you?” The Lady of the Forest spoke more gently now; still, one did not forget what she was. These folk knew nothing of human kindness; to them, surely our small lives were of no consequence in the pattern of things.
“I wondered…” I ventured.
“What is it, child?”
“I have two questions. A human girl needs food, warmth, clothing to wear; the means to stay warm in the winter. I am prepared to be alone; that is nothing new. But how will I find time to perform the duties you require, if I must also scrape a living from these barren rocks? I do know how to catch fish with a hand line, but—”
The four of them l
aughed, high, deep, the sound of it a kind of music ringing through the chamber.
“You will be provided for,” said the fiery Lord. “Through an act of unexpected kindness, you have won strange and loyal friends. The Old Ones will ensure all is here for you, as you need it. Indeed, they insisted this duty be theirs alone, odd creatures that they are. There will be no requirement for—fishing.” He broke into chuckling again.
“Very well,” I said, glancing around me and wondering how many eyes watched us. The Old Ones merged well; one never knew what wisp of shadow, what jumble of broken stones might without warning transform itself into a living, breathing creature. At least there would be company of a sort. “There’s one more thing you don’t seem to have thought of,” I said. “My grandmother told me our kind live long. Because we have your own blood, our span is greater than the ordinary human kind. But I will not live forever. I may hold these secrets safe until I am a wrinkled old crone like the lady Oonagh. But eventually I will die, and the mysteries will be lost with me.”
The ocean-being’s liquid eyes widened, her fronded brows rose. “Oh, no,” she said in surprise. “The secrets do not die with you; that is not the way of it at all. Our vision is far greater than the life of a single guardian. You will teach your daughter these things so she in turn can hold the trust; in time she will pass on the wisdom to her own child. It will be long, oh, so long before this knowledge can be made known again to the world. It is for this reason that we conceal the Islands, tonight, from the realm of man. A great wave will wash over; a mist will arise and blanket them from view. Voyagers may search, but none will find this place again.”
“My daughter,” I said blankly. “I see. Correct me if I am wrong, but I thought it took a man, as well as a woman, to make a child. Is this infant’s father to be a crab, or a seagull maybe? Or were you planning to shipwreck some likely sailor on my doorstep, so I can make convenient use of him?”
There was a sudden silence. Perhaps I had missed something. The four great beings of the Túatha Dé regarded me gravely. Then the fire Lord reached out a sudden hand, and there before me in the air a fragile glass ball hung suspended, as lovely and glittering as a star.
“You know the charm,” he said. “Show us.”
I stared aghast, struck dumb by such cruelty. I bit back the words that sprang to my lips. Drop. Stop. Now gently down. How dared they? How dared they play such tricks?
The ball did not smash to the ground. It fell, and halted, and hung suspended now a handspan above the rocky surface. But I had worked no spell. The shining orb twinkled in the glow from the fire Lord’s flaming hair. He stooped and took it up in his hand.
“You see?” he said softly. “You are not the only one who can perform this feat of magic.”
“Crabs, seagulls, wandering sailors; I think not,” said the Lady of the Forest. “I think we can do a little better than that.”
My heart lurched. Terrified that I had misunderstood, I whispered, “What do you mean?”
“What kind of father might such a child need, growing up in this place of isolation?” she mused. “Such a child would need to be resourceful, and merry, and wise. She’d need to be able to climb and balance; and to respect wild creatures, for they are all around us in this sea-circled realm. It would be useful if her father could teach her to swim, since her mother cannot. What else, do you think?”
“What are you saying?” My voice cracked with anguish, I was shaking like a winter birch. I feared they were tormenting me, for it could not be so, surely; how could it be so? The cliffs were high, the rocks were sharp, the ocean gripped like an icy hand. And yet—and yet the hope in me rose like the saps of spring, welling sweet and strong.
“A bit of music to while away the time,” said the Lord of air and light. “A little laughter, a little kindness. Patience, and a reason for keeping on. That’d be love, maybe.”
“It seemed to us there was only one choice,” said the ocean-being.
“You mean—you mean he is alive?” I hardly dared form the words, fearing the answer. I thought my heart might leap from my breast, for it was pounding like a great drum. “You saved him? But how can that be? How could he survive in that treacherous sea, after such a dive? And where is he now? Do not lie to me, oh, please—”
“Hush, child. We must soon be gone. This is no simple matter, for it was not easy to snatch him thus from the very jaws of death, and to preserve him.” The Lady of the Forest was grave indeed; there was some shadow over her expression. “It was necessary to make a slight adjustment to the manner of things, so this could be possible. And he is not here, not yet. He will not come to you so easily, for there is another test, of sorts; one you have set for yourself.”
“What test?” I was cold again, quite baffled by her words. “What must I do?”
She sighed. “He has followed you to the ends of the earth. All that he treasured, he has given up for you. You tremble with joy, now, that he is alive; and yet you sent him away, time after time. Perhaps once too often; perhaps, this time, he will not return, knowing himself unable to endure another banishment.”
The four of them were starting to fade, starting to leave already. Their forms grew transparent and attenuated, until I could see little of them save the eyes, sorrowful, proud, not entirely without pity.
“Tell me! Oh, please, oh, please tell me what I must do!”
The Lady of the Forest was last to go. Her voice now seemed as fragile and ephemeral as the sigh of a breeze over the leaves of a great forest, a soft rustle of farewell.
“You must go down to the sea and wait for him,” she said. “There will be but one chance. Waste that, and he is lost to you forever. You must open your heart, and speak truth from your lips. Ah, not yet,” she added as I sprang toward the entry. “Not until dusk. You must wait until the time of changing. It is only then that you can bring him home.” Her shadowy figure blurred, and faded into nothingness.
At the time when the clear blue of late afternoon began to dim and darken, as if a brush had been drawn across the vast expanse of sky to paint it the shade of dried lavender, the hue of a dove’s wing, the color of lichen on ancient stone, I went out barefoot, down the rough-hewn steps, all the way down to a place where great flat rocks raised their backs above the sea on the south side of the Needle. There would be times when the water washed the creviced surface of these monumental stones; even now, their secret corners held tiny pools, each with its delicate share of life: fragile sea creatures, clinging, fronded anemones and iridescent fishlings no longer than a single eyelash. But now the high surface of the rock was dry; here I seated myself cross-legged, straight backed, and fixed my gaze on the darkening waters before me. I felt the warmth trapped there in the ancient stone, and the earth’s embrace as she gave the sun’s life back to my body.
Words came in silence, as once before. This rock is your mother; she holds you in the palm of her hand. This warmth is your father; he gives you his life, his spirit and his strength. For all the serenity of time and place, my heart was beating fast as the light faded; the sea was growing dark, and I saw no swimmers there in its cold embrace, no sons and daughters of Manannán mac Lir playing in the swell as the sun sank lower in the west, somewhere beyond the green hills of Kerry. The water whispered in at my feet, bathing the old stones, laving, lapping, as if it would wash away things past and make all new and clean. A great flood; a great welling of tears. But there could never be enough tears to make up for what I had done. If there were treasure to be cast up on this wild shore, who less deserving to receive it than this sorcerer’s daughter, who had wounded so many good folk on her blundering way? How could that ever be made right?
Words came again, secret words borne on the whisper of the west wind, sighing in the deep surge of the sea. This breath is a promise, a gift of love and loyalty. The tide turns; all things change, and are reborn. The earth suffers and endures; the ocean trembles, waiting for renewal. Fair things perish, and innocence dies. But hope su
rvives while the Watcher keeps faith, high in the Needle. This is the way of truth.
I trembled to hear the words, but still I sat quiet there on the rocks, for it seemed to me there was nothing else to be done but wait and hope. If hope were gone, then there was indeed nothing left, nothing at all.
Out in the darkening water there was a sudden movement that was surely not just the swell, or the tangling of shining seaweed borne on its breast. Surely—surely those were creatures, sleek-bodied, round-headed sea creatures, playing, diving, dancing in the tide, their forms the very essence of the shifting, fluid element they inhabited so joyfully. I narrowed my eyes, peering closer. Yes, they were selkies; five or six of them moving and circling some way off shore. From time to time they would raise their heads from the water, the dark skin slickly gleaming in the last light, and fix their liquid, plaintive eyes on me where I sat perched on the rocks of the Needle. Surely they would come closer. Surely, here where the stone sloped quite gently to the water, a selkie could slip ashore and…and…but they did not come in, and now the sun was sinking below the horizon, away in the west, and it was almost dusk. This would be my punishment, perhaps, for daring to hope that, after all, I might be granted such a wondrous gift, to hold in my arms once more what I loved best, and had thought lost forever. This was my doom for daring to believe, even for a moment, that the goddess might think me deserving of such kindness. I breathed his name as the selkies seemed to drift away from the island, and still farther away until I could barely see them in the half light. Darragh, I whispered like a foolish lovesick girl. Oh, please. Oh, please.
“You’ll need to do better than that,” said a dry little voice on my left. I started, and looked down. This time it had not even taken the time to transform; it was the small, ragged owl I saw, though there had been no sign of a flight, or a landing. “You’ll have to do some real work, and quick. Dusk doesn’t last long; soon it’ll be dark, and too late.”
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