“No!” she cried, startling the Maid and making the vision in the dish flicker. “Please, can’t you keep her from seeing you and all that exists in your land?”
“Why would I do that?” the Maid retorted with a haughty sniff. “There are far worse things than existing in two realms.”
“But I don’t want her to suffer like I have! She’s scarcely more than a babe. Please…” Moira could scarcely speak around the crushing load of her newfound knowledge. She couldn’t draw breath into her lungs and stumbled.
The Maid flipped her hand in dismissal. “Human suffering means nothing to me.” Then her golden eyes sharpened as she scrutinized the figure of the child. “Besides, I like the idea of such a pretty little lass to do my bidding. I’ve given you far more than your meager payment. If the child pleases me, why shouldn’t she serve me?”
Drawing in a ragged sob, she watched the Maid plunge the glowing tip of the wand into the dark water and stir. As the light disappeared from the agitated surface, misery and anguish flooded Moira’s mind. The sidhe princess intended to claim the most important thing in her world, her child.
“Please.” She fought to keep her tears at bay, but she couldn’t control her growing desperation. “I’ll pay you more. Just tell me what and how much!”
Ignoring her pleas, the Maid tucked her wand back into her belt. With the gleaming end extinguished, it looked like an ordinary stick again. She grabbed the edge of the brass bowl and tipped it up so that the water spilled onto the ground, splashing Moira’s boots.
She lurched to one side of the stone column and made a futile grab for the other woman’s sleeve. “Tell me what you want!”
The Maid up-ended the bowl so that the last bit of water dripped out. Then she tucked it under her arm before she turned and looked dismissively at Moira.
“I want for naught, Tall Moira. There’s nothing you can give me.” Her toothy smile looked wicked, almost spiteful as she spun away.
And as Moira watched her disappear between the willows, she realized that the price she’d paid to see her future had been far more than feathers, trinkets, and a few spices. The cost had been her daughter.
Chapter 3
Moira stumbled as a huge sob worked its way from the bottom of her lungs. She sank to her knees overwhelmed by everything that had transpired -- Mum’s funeral, the mysterious man, and the doomed child that would be her daughter.
Scooting to the edge of the well, she propped her arms atop the stone wall, buried her face in the crook of one elbow and cried. Great heaving sobs wracked her body until exhaustion slowed her grief to pathetic mewling.
The rustling of the leaves made her jerk her head up. She identified the darker shape moving into the clearing as the druid Bran and heaved a ragged sigh.
“I... I should have listened to you,” she blurted, only to be overcome with tears once more.
The druid glided quickly to her side and pressed a small square of linen into her hand. “Dry your tears, Moira. All may not be lost.”
She pulled herself together enough to stem the flow of tears. “But you were right. About everything.”
Wiping her eyes and nose with the linen, she looked into his caring gaze and let the whole story tumble out. Her voice caught several times, but she kept going until she’d recounted everything she’d seen in the Maid’s mirror and ended with her cruel dismissal.
“I was deceived by her loveliness. She’s a wicked selfish creature,” Moira concluded, dabbing at her nose once more. “How could I have been such a fool?”
The druid placed his hand under her elbow and helped her stand. When she was steady on her feet, he patted her messy hair in a comforting gesture. “You were right in your conclusion that sometimes the future can be changed. If we work quickly, we might force Oonagh O’Dwyyer to do our bidding.”
“But why would you want to help me?” Moira asked, suddenly leery of being hopeful. “Especially when I didn’t listen to your warning. I even sent you away.”
“Long ago, I fell prey to the Maid myself.” Bran turned aside and stared at the hawthorn tree with its shiny offerings and a few red berries clinging on skeletal branches. “She told me that though I would have no children of my body, I would have many children of my heart. These humans could see into this realm while living in their own. That much was true, I have met and interacted with many who became dear to me as any child I might have fathered.”
“Like me?” Moira asked in a small voice as she scooted a step closer. She knew the answer, had always known a familial bond existed between them. ‘Twas why, in spite of his forbidding looks, she trusted him.
The druid squeezed her shoulder. “Exactly like you. But what the Maid failed to tell me about was the pain and suffering the children of my heart would endure.” His voice faded as an expression of anguish twisted his features. “I didn’t mean to draw you to me that day in the fens, Moira, and I want to take away some of your grief.”
“Do you know how to save my mother? My daughter?”
“Perhaps,” Bran’s soft tone faded and he seemed to grow taller, more purposeful. “But I’ll need your help and ‘twill take no small amount of courage.”
A flame warmed her insides below the base of her throat, blooming and spreading into a hard resolve. “I’ll do anything to protect my family.”
Moira saw the hard lines of his face ease slightly. “I believe you would, darling lass.” He pressed his hand against her back to propel her toward the far side of the clearing, the opposite side from where the Maid had disappeared. “Help me gather some dry twigs and sticks. Anything but hawthorn.”
Following his lead, she quickly gathered up two handfuls of brittle kindling. Then she followed the druid back to the stone cairn where he precisely arranged the wood on the top where the Maid’s shallow bowl had sat. Once he had added a few dead leaves to the base of the pile, Bran took out a small tinder box from the bag tied to the end of his rope sash.
“The Maid uses water for divination,” he explained as he struck sparks with the flint from box. “I use fire.”
As if to punctuate his words, a spark caught the edge of a leaf. A tiny flame hissed and crackled to life, quickly catching the rest of the wood. Moira took a step backward as tendrils of smoke rose from the red and gold blaze.
Bran replaced the flint in the box and dropped it back into the bag. Then he withdrew a silver dagger from a scabbard on his belt. “Give me your hand.”
Instinctively, she jerked both hands behind her back. “What will you do?”
“I need a few drops of your blood, lass.” He held the palm of his free hand out to her. “I promise the pain will be slight and quick.”
She shook her head and hunched her shoulders.
His tone held a cajoling note. “I wouldn’t ask you, but ‘tis the only way.”
“Drops… ” she whispered, as she reluctantly placed her left hand in his. “You promise? Only a few?”
“You have my pledge,” he replied.
Before she could say another word, the silver dagger slashed across the top of her index and middle fingers. She uttered a cry of surprise and jerked her hand away, dismayed by the red drops welling around both fingertips.
The druid grabbed her wrist and pulled her closer to the cairn, holding her palm over the fire. While Moira watched in horrified fascination, two drops of blood fell and sizzled as the flames consumed them. Three more followed, looking like scarlet tears. The heat began to rise and Bran let go.
Yanking her hand close to her chest, she dug into her coat pocket and found the linen square he’d given her. She pressed it tightly against her fingers to staunch the blood.
When she looked back at Bran, he’d pulled out a small leather pouch from the bag tied at his waist.
“Try not to breathe in these vapors,” he warned as he untied the pouch’s strings.
The red light from the fire made splotchy shadows on his face and hands as Moira watched him take a pinch of something from i
nside the pouch and sprinkle it over the top of the blaze. The moment the powder touched the flames, they crackled and sparked an intensely dark blue, a thick plume of blue-grey smoke erupted.
One whiff of the biting odor sent her into a coughing fit that made her double over, eyes watering as profusely as the tears she’d so recently shed. When she caught her breath enough to raise her head, she saw the druid’s face was completely wreathed in the noxious smoke. He appeared to be drawing in huge lungfuls, his tall form wavering slightly from side to side with the effort.
How he could stand the foul stuff was beyond Moira’s comprehension. But just as the smoke seemed to lessen, Bran sprinkled on another pinch of powder. She turned away quickly, as the fire popped and crackled again, but not before she caught a glimpse of the blue-grey cloud transforming into pure, billowing white. Even with her hands over her mouth and nose, she could detect the pungent odor changing from acrid to fetid, but at the same time sweet.
As she wondered how such a small amount of kindling could burn so long, she heard a splash of water and a sputtering fizzle. Smoke still filled the air, but suddenly it was only an ordinary grey mixed with whiffs of steam from the dousing water. She blinked her stinging eyes and saw Bran draw what must be a second dipper from the well. He drank long and deep and then drizzled the small amount of remaining water over the blackened ashes. All that was left of the fire.
She took a couple of tentative steps toward him. Unsure what to ask, she lifted her right hand in supplication.
He placed the hollow gourd on the edge of the well and cleared his throat before turning to face her. “Your mother has the wasting disease.” His voice sounded as raspy as fingernails on a washboard. “I’m sorry, lass, there’s nothing anyone can do for her.”
Moira’s extended hand fell to her side, as the resolve that had so recently blossomed within her threatened to melt in another tangle of tears. She forced words through her tightly drawn lips. “My -- my daughter?”
Bran swiped the sleeve of his robe across his forehead before he answered her. “She can be saved, but you must confront the Maid and force her to change the future.”
“But she’s already said I have nothing she wants.” Moira couldn’t keep the keen edge of desperation from her tone.
“Then you must find something she wants,” the druid replied, his dark eyes glinting like the hard flint he’d used to start his divining blaze. “You must steal her wand.”
“Steal?” Moira gasped.
“Just as she will steal your daughter, or at the very least her mind.” He stood on the opposite side of the cairn from her, looking large and foreboding. “The wand will be easy for you to conceal once you find it. She’ll have hidden it and the scryying glass while she makes merry with the other sidhe.”
The idea of the selfish Maid singing and dancing after treating her so cruelly brought the biting taste of revenge to the back of Moira’s throat. “Do you know where it is?”
“No.” He stirred the sodden ashes with his index finger. “But this will help you find it.”
Before she could ask another question, Bran smeared his blackened finger over her ear. Then he applied ashes to her other ear. His finger still touched her face when the cacophony went off like a thunder clap inside Moira’s head.
She sucked in a sharp breath and clutched her skull with both hands, moaning at the loud din. The druid’s fingers on her wrists seemed to lessen the volume a bit and she let him draw her hands down.
“Concentrate on the wand,” he instructed. “And you’ll hear its power calling to you.”
Squeezing her eyes shut, Moira fought to drown out the noises by picturing the wand. Magic vibrated through the slender piece of wood like the buzzing of an angry wasp. After several deep breaths, she isolated the buzzing from all the other sounds.
“Do you have it now?” Bran asked when she cautiously lifted her eyelids.
Afraid the sound of her voice might disrupt it, she nodded.
“Follow it, then. And when you find the wand, conceal it in your sleeve so that no creature may see. Hide it in your cottage and wait ‘til darkness falls on the morrow.” He pressed Da’s metal torch into her hands, and she gripped it like a lifeline. “The Maid will be most anxious to bargain with you for her wand’s return.”
The idea of dealing with the Maid forced Moira to ask in a whisper. “Will you be there too?”
The druid turned his gaze away, but not before she saw the sadness and regret. “The Maid’s magic is far stronger and more ancient than mine. I’ve done what I can for you, lass. You must do the rest.”
Rather than give in to the fear threatening to rise up in her mind, Moira pulled the metallic taste of retaliation back into her throat. Her steps still a bit unsure, she stumbled to the willow trees, concentrating hard. The buzzing of the wand increased slightly with each tread of her boots. When she emerged from the clearing, the sound told her which direction to go.
Beside her, Bran paused long enough to lay his hand on her shoulder in an unmistakable fatherly gesture. “This one last thing I can do. I’ll make sure the Maid and her sidhe companions dance until dawn. Be sure you are home before the first light.”
Intent on listening to the wand, Moira gave a brief nod and turned away. She heard a slight rustle of leaves in the opposite direction and knew she was alone.
Thinking of Bran’s warning about creatures that might see her, she didn’t switch on the torch, but picked her way carefully through the tangled grass and muddy ground. The wand’s hum droned louder and louder, drowning out the other sounds fighting for dominance inside her head.
Doggedly, Moira trudged on, the dampness and cold seeping into her bones, leaving her numb to everything but the call of the wand. She didn’t let herself think about how she would find her way home once she achieved her purpose, only that she would not allow the Maid to defeat her.
Soon the buzz grew so loud that her head felt as if it might burst. Stumbling blindly with the pain of the overwhelming sound, she leaned against a beech tree that had been partially burnt and had only a few live branches sprouting from the blackened trunk. The wand screamed so forcefully, she gasped for breath.
Then she noticed the hole in the trunk. Like a ragged mouth, it gaped at a height even with her elbow. A height very near the Maid’s eye level.
Panting, Moira strained to see if anything that might be watching. Seeing nothing, she clicked on the torch and shined it at a downward angle into the charred hollow. The bright golden brass of the Maid’s scryying mirror twinkled in the torch’s beam.
With the wand’s call still shrieking inside her skull, Moira moved the light about until she saw the slender stick standing upright, wedged behind the bowl. Shutting off the torch, she thrust her free hand into the hole, groping until her fingers encountered the smooth piece of wood.
As soon as she grasped it, the wand went suddenly silent, as if it knew she possessed no magic. The other noises she’d pushed to the background instantly grew to replace the void left by the wand’s silence. The abrupt quiet and quick return of the chatter startled Moira. She knocked her arm against the tree trunk, dropped the torch, but kept her grip on the wand. Glancing nervously over her shoulder, she slowly pulled out her prize.
The slick wood felt warm in her hand, as if power heated it from within. Still fearful of being watched, Moira turned the wand so that the thicker handle pressed into her palm. The tapered length, she shoved inside her coat sleeve to rest against her forearm. With her free hand, she picked up the torch and shoved it into her pocket, not trusting to use the light again.
With one final glance over both shoulders, she stepped away from the hollow beech tree, the noises still clamoring inside her head. After a dozen careful paces, she stopped to get her bearings and was surprised to recognize that she was very near the edge of the fens and the boundary of her family’s land.
She knew the way home! Relief mixed with elation banished some of her weariness, and she hurried
along the now familiar path. The closer she got to her own yard, the softer the sounds grew until they were only a dull hum in her ears.
When she could make out the darker shape of the cottage against the night sky, Moira eagerly broke into a trot, the torch in her pocket rattling with each step. She slowed as she approached the hard-packed drive, lest she rouse her sleeping parents. If they caught her roaming the fens in the middle of the night, would they cart her straight back to the sanitarium? Fatigue made her thoughts bend toward paranoia.
Panting, she rounded the side of the cottage to Mum’s vegetable patch and poured water over her mud encrusted boots. She’d have to hide her filthy clothes until she could wash them in secret. After putting the torch back in Da’s shed, she stealthily made her way back to the front door. She noticed the light in the eastern sky as she rounded the house.
She had to get inside and hide before dawn!
Anxiety made her fingers fumble as she tugged off her wet boots. She could only use one hand since the other still gripped the handle of the wand. Opening the front door, she crawled inside on all fours, depositing the boots in their place on the mat. She stood on trembling legs and silently closed and latched the door.
When she removed her muddy rain slicker and hung it on the peg, something fluttered from the pocket. The linen square Bran had given her to dry her tears. The one she’d wrapped around her cut fingers. Clutching it in one hand and the wand in the other, she gingerly picked her way across the dark room to the loo. The even snoring of her parents drowned out the last of the noises inside her head.
Moira didn’t dare turn on the overhead light inside the bathroom. The dull glow of the nightlight would have to suffice. Placing the wand on the shelf that held the extra towels, she scrubbed her hands under the slow-running tap, the cuts on her fingers burning when the water hit them. Then she rinsed out the linen square and used it to wipe off her face, neck, and finally the bits of soot still clinging to her hair and ears. She tried to clean some of the mud off her pants, but without removing and soaking them, she quickly decided it was a futile task.
The Sidhe Princess Page 3
