by James Comins
* * *
Pol’s big hands pulled her up, and the druid circle melted. Brown, well-lit walls were covered with iron, and there was a room full of rocks again.
Brugda looked shocked at herself.
Pol was the angriest person Lenna had ever seen. His face was crimson. He pointed a thick old quavering finger at Brugda. “I remember you,” he told her, weirdly. “I remember yar husband. It’s been a long time, and far-well not long enough. Hoped I’d ne’er set eyes on ye or yar Godforsaken family again.”
“What’s happening?” said Lenna, turning away, hiding, huddling in her own arms, seeing mostly Andy, who stood frozen in the hallway. “Why is everyone angry?” She rubbed her elbow and peeked out behind her.
“You profane my house,” Pol went on, focused murderously on Brugda. She darted her eyes away. “You insult my wairk. You eat my food, you waste my hospitality, you throw my koindness away. There was a time when I’d have sent ye and yer family out to the rain the minute I knew ye for yarself. Brigid.” He pronounced the name like a curse.
Brigid?
Pol spoke quietly from the doorway. “How dare you come back? What have you done to deserve th’ welcome of Ireland?”
“Dad.” It was Andy, being brave. “Come away, Dad. Dad. That’s enough.” He turned. “Lenna.” He pronounced it Laina. It sounded nice that way. “Let’s have another sit in my room, for a time.”
Lenna looked around at all the scared and angry people. She wasn’t sure why she wasn’t crying. Her elbow hurt. But she wasn’t crying.
“Nobody ever tells me what’s happening,” she said.
“I’ll tell you some things,” said Andy. “Seems you’re the most grown-up of any of us.”
So she followed Andy. Behind them, Pol and Brugda--or Brigid?--waited for her to go before yelling. Andy pushed the door of his room open and closed it behind her. She saw Kaldi looking out of the master bedroom as the door shut, with hospital corners folding under his hand. She and Andy stood on the brown carpet for several long seconds, too electrified and upset to move.
Andy exhaled. “Seems yer gram and me dad are acquainted.”
She didn’t feel like saying sister.
“Thar’s a lot of secrets with the oul man. I’m going to convey some of them to you. Don’t care if he’d prefer I didn’t.” They sat cross-legged on his bed. “My dad’s one of the Old Ones. He’s over a t’ousand years old. I don’t care if you don’t believe it. It’s true. Mum isn’t his first wife. I’m not his first son. Every hundrit years he starts another family. He waits until his wife and kids are dead before he does it. I met his great-granddaughters wunst, but we didn’t have much to say to one another, even though we’re the same age. It’s all stupid and confusing.”
Words rushed out of him in a torrent. Lenna liked the way he said stupid.
“Pol O’Donnell’s not his real name. I think he made it up. Otherwise it’s the name of a dead man. I’m not sure. Anyway, his name in the old times was Dagda.” Andy’s voice dropped. “The Dagda. He’s a legend amongst the Old Ones.” He had an unhappy smile. “He hasn’t got a last name. Which means that I don’t really either, I s’pose. Says ‘O’Donnell’ on the birth certificate, but that’s a lot of nuthin’.”
“Who are the Old Ones?” asked Lenna.
“They settled Ireland in prehist’ry. They were immortal druids. They’ve got real magic, the sort you find in fairytales. A druid rod could turn you into an animal, or a stone, or build a barrow over you so you couldn’t get out. On the proper day of the month, in the proper season of the year, they’d tell you the future. Some of the druids were really particular about what sort of magic they did, like Etain, who went away with the Sidhe--” it sounded like shee--“the fairy folk, and learnt how to make herself and her husband invisible. They’re still invisible, so’s the legend goes. Then there was Morrigu, who became such a powerful death-druid that she stepped acrost to the Otherworld and became goddess of the times after war. They all had one magic or another they preferred. They called themselves the lords of magic, but I think that’s just blather. Dad’s druid of stone. He says all stones have memory, and he uses them to look after the memories of the old ways. Bit of an historian. Dad’ll go on about the Old Ones when he’s fluthered. But now only a few of Dad’s people are left. There weren’t all that many to begin with, really.”
Fluthered. Hm. She suspected this meant angry or tired, but wasn’t sure.
“What happened to them?”
“The Old Ones were driven out by Finn MacCool and his wild army. They fought wars against each other, and Finn won, cause he was a superhero who could have kicked Batman down the stairs. The druids who survived went into hiding, pretending to be reg’lar people, like Dad’s doing. But they all live forever.”
“Do you?”
Andy wabbled his heel against the floor like a jackhammer.
“I don’t think so. Mum won’t. Dad does. If I understood what he was yellin’ at yer gram about, yer gram is one of the Old Ones as well. Unless ...” Andy frowned, thinking. “Dad wunst told me a story about the enemies of Ireland. Monsters from the sea. There was a name for them.”
“Brugda’s bad, but she’s no monster,” said Lenna protectively.
“No, no, not her,” Andy mused. “If she’s Brigid, then I’ve heard stories about her and her husband. Probably your granddad, hey?”
Lenna shook her hair. The ribbon came loose. She needed a new one.
“Anyway, her husband’s name was Bres. He was half Old One and half monster.”
Something sounded familiar.
“Did the monsters have a shape?”
Andy looked at her and blinked. “No, they were shapeshifters, or so the story goes. Now how did a little Icelandic princess as yerself guess at that?”
Lenna slammed her hands on the bedsheets. “They have Binnan Darnan!”
“What, the Fomor?” He blinked. “That’s their name. The Fomor. The sea monsters. The people of the foam. Thank you, Lenna, you helped me remember.”
“You’re welcome, sir Andy.”
“But they can’t have your sister, silly. The Fomor have been gone since the Middle Ages.”
“Then they’re back. Binnan Darnan said.”
“Then maybe we ought to tell the big people about it. If they’re done guffin’ at each other.”
At that moment, Brugda tapped gently on the door. “Little Len. I’m sorry. May I come in?”
Lenna nodded decisively. “You can open it,” she announced.
The door inched open.
“There is somewhere we must go,” said Brugda. “Pol has someone for you to meet.”
“But it’s night out! And he said it’s going to rain.”
“Night is when we find her.”
So away she and Andy and Brugda and Pol went, suddenly, secretly, tiptoeing out the creaky door to the stairwell as Kaldi and Talvi and Aitta were helping Emily make up the beds.
Lenna was sleepy and there were so many things to say, but no one was talking. The stairs clumped in the light of a few rocky yellow crystals on posts.
Through an alley behind the row houses was a giant pearl in a parking spot. Pol opened the door, a shimmering white shield topped with glass. Brugda sat on the smoothly carved-out front seat. Andy hopped in the back, rocking the pearl slightly. Lenna climbed dubiously sideways into the hard white seat beside him. She tapped the surface of the color-reflecting white seat with a fingernail. Pol started up the spherical old car. It floated a foot up from the pavement, blipping and whistling, vibrating just below Lenna’s feet, and backed unsteadily out of the alley into the busy night streets. Pol said nothing. He kept a careless arm on the steering wheel and an angry eye on old Brugda, who folded her arms and watched out the window.
