by L. M. Hawke
“Ah, Una,” he said warmly. “Come in, my dear. How are you getting on at the cottage?”
Once more, Una took a seat in front of O’Malley’s desk. “Well enough,” she said. It was not at all true, but she didn’t know O’Malley well enough yet to trust him. If she started babbling about voices in the wind and Nessa’s strange journal, he might well think her mad. “But it is about the cottage I’ve come to see you. You see, I think it’s best to sell the place and go back to Dublin as soon as possible.”
“Sell it?” He sounded utterly bewildered, as if Una had just suggested burning it down or converting it to a unicorn ranch. “But why? A place like that is once-in-a-lifetime. You’ll never find another cottage of that sort again, Una—not in Kylebeg or anywhere else.”
Good, she thought bleakly. She’d hardly slept all night, tossing in the bed and trying to shut out the sound of the wind, for fear she would hear the voices again. And all night long, even in her misty, fitful dreams, Una had been uncomfortably aware of the twig of blackthorn up on her roof. It almost seemed to her that she could feel the twig there, its immortal petals fluttering in the storm but never tearing away, its dark stem rattling and dancing against the thatch. There was something decidedly eerie about those flowers, and now that they were stuck up on her rooftop, they felt positively threatening.
O’Malley was watching her with his fuzzy brows raised, clearly waiting for her response. Una drew a deep breath and said, “The cottage is lovely, of course, but what would I do to keep myself? How would I earn my money? Kylebeg is too small, Mr. O’Malley. There’s no work here, unless you can raise sheep or crops. And only the old families, who have been here for generations, can manage that. Anyway, there’s not enough room on my grandmother’s property for sheep or crops, so even if I knew how to do it, I couldn’t make my way as a farmer.”
“But you own the cottage free and clear, my dear. There’s no payment to be made. A person could live on very little income if she had no rent or mortgage to pay.”
“That’s just it, though; I have no income at all. I have only a little money saved, and when that’s gone, I’ll be stuck. I’m afraid I have no choice but to sell. And, as you are the fellow in Kylebeg who wears all the hats, I thought perhaps you could help me do it.”
Mr. O’Malley sighed and pressed the fingertips of both hands together in a thoughtful gesture. “Your instincts are good,” he said ruefully. “I confess that I am the fellow who handles most property sales in these parts. But I wish you would stay a bit longer and give Kylebeg a chance to grow on you. Your grandmother was such a part of our village, Una. We would be delighted to have you among us.”
Una bit her lip. The place had already grown on her far too much for her comfort. It was already calling to her, speaking to her with the voice of the wind. She remembered the way she’d walked, trance-like, toward the crossroads, unaware of the movement until she was already halfway there. The memory was not a good one. She was already responding to this place—the village, the land—being literally pulled toward it without regard for what she wanted. Una didn’t like the feeling at all.
“I’m afraid I must insist,” she said firmly. “I would like to make plans to meet with you again in the future, so we can start the process of selling the cottage.”
O’Malley gave her a plaintive look. With his round, rather jowly face, he reminded Una of a bulldog begging for biscuits. “Very well. It is your home now, after all, to dispose of as you see fit. I have a spot free in my schedule next Wednesday. Would that suit?”
Next Wednesday was a week off—too long for Una’s liking. But O’Malley was undoubtedly the only soul for miles around who wore the property-sales hat. She would have to be content with it. “That will be grand,” she said, rising from her seat and shaking his hand. “I’ll see you then.”
Outside O’Malley’s office, Kylebeg’s main street had turned into a pop-up market, with wooden booths and collapsible canopies spreading nearly the full length of the cobblestone road. Apparently this is the market O’Malley told me about on my first day, Una thought. As she’d walked into town and seen the market for the first time, she had thought it strange that it was allowed to dominate the entire street. But then, few people had any need to drive through the heart of the village. The main street wasn’t exactly a motorway.
“Hey, Una!” A voice sang out from one of the booths. Una looked around and caught sight of Kathleen’s wild red curls bobbing through the small crowd that had gathered in front of the booths. Kathleen broke free of the crowd and hurried to Una’s side. “I thought you’d come to the market yesterday, like you said. I looked out for you, but I didn’t see you.”
“Yeah… sorry about that,” Una said vaguely. “I became sort of, er, tied up with things at the cottage and forgot all about it.”
“That’s all right. It’s not as if the market is a rare occurrence.” Kathleen laughed. “I usually help Angus with his jewelry booth, but he’s just come back from lunch, and I was off to get my own. Would you like to come along?”
Una’s dark mood lifted. Company should take her mind off the strange goings-on of the previous night, and she couldn’t think of better company than Kathleen. “Yes, all right. Let’s go.”
They returned to the Black Sheep—restaurants weren’t exactly plentiful in Kylebeg—and took a small table near the front of the pub. The midday light shone gently through the window, past the alcove that had served as Ailill’s stage. It was warm and lulling; after her long night of poor sleep, Una relaxed in the pool of pleasant light and would have put her head down on the table for a much-needed nap, if Kathleen hadn’t been there.
As they ate, Kathleen pumped Una for details of the cottage—how she was liking it, what she planned to do with it in the future—and Una did her best to avoid blurting out the truth. Kathleen seemed like a remarkably open-minded person, but after all, Una hardly knew her any better than she knew her father, Mr. O’Malley. She couldn’t be certain how Kathleen would respond if she admitted she’d allowed some mysterious force to pull her down to the crossroads… or admitted she’d picked a twig of undying white blossoms from a tree. Nor could she be certain of what Kathleen would think about the voices Una had heard on the wind… or even what she would say about Ailill’s unexpected visit.
But it was at least entertaining to hear Kathleen chatter. She was a remarkably animated talker. Whenever she had a juicy bit of gossip to impart—the true story behind the alleged “escape” of so-and-so’s sheep, or rumors about who was going to marry whom—she leaned across the table and whispered it dramatically, her green eyes sparkling with delight. Una didn’t know any of the people involved in Kathleen’s tales, but the delivery of those tales was so compelling that she felt herself growing as invested as if she’d been a Kylebegger all her life.
“But you know,” Kathleen said in the course of one such story, “when Martin Gallagher’s sheep came back to his pen wearing garlands of flowers around their necks, some people said it wasn’t the village lads who’d let them out after all. They said it was the Seelie. They said, ‘Why haven’t the sheep eaten the flowers off each other’s necks? Must be that the flowers are enchanted.’” Kathleen laughed. “As if the Seelie have nothing better to do than decorate sheep!”
Una’s skin prickled. The warmth of the sun through the leaded glass panes was all but forgotten now; she felt as if she stood in the path of an icy winter wind. Seelie. Instantly, she thought of Nessa Teig’s journal; she could all but feel the weight of the book in her hands.
She tried to sound casual and unconcerned as she said, “Who are the Seelie?”
“Don’t you know? They’re the Shining Ones—the Fair Folk.”
“Oh,” Una said. “You mean fairies.”
Kathleen shrugged. Una suspected that she’d meant for it to look unconcerned, but there was a decided flicker of tension in Kathleen’s demeanor. “Well… yes, but we don’t like to talk about them directly, you see.” She laughe
d and waved one hand dismissively, as if the whole thing were nothing more than a rustic superstition, and she—Kathleen—was far too cosmopolitan to believe. But it was Una who was the Dubliner, not Kathleen. Una watched her friend’s face carefully, trying to read Kathleen’s true feelings on the subject.
“Does everyone in the village believe in the… the Fair Folk?” Una asked. She couldn’t make herself say the word Seelie. It felt too raw and alien on her tongue—or maybe it felt all too familiar, after having read it so many times in her grandmother’s journal.
“Oh, I’m sure there must be plenty who don’t believe. We keep the old ways here, as you know, but that doesn’t mean we actually believe. They’re only traditions; our roots.”
Una made herself smile. “Do you believe in the Fair Folk?”
“Oh, as far as one can. It’s nice to think they could exist, isn’t it? The Seelie Court, anyway—they’re said to be helpful to humans. Or at least, they aren’t actively against humans, as the Unseelie are.”
“Who are the Unseelie?”
Kathleen giggled nervously. “If we Kylebeggers don’t like to talk openly about the Fair Folk, then we really don’t like to talk about the Unseelie Court.”
“I’m sorry—I shouldn’t have asked. It’s just that… well, I don’t mean to offend you, but to a city girl like me, it seems totally impossible that fairies could exist.”
Fairies. She’d said that word again, and Kathleen’s face colored.
“Sorry,” Una said hastily. “I didn’t mean to—”
“No worries,” Kathleen said. “You aren’t used to our ways yet; that’s all. But you should be a tad careful, Una. Some people here take the old ways very seriously, and I wouldn’t like to see you cut out of our society—what little society we have here in Kylebeg—because you accidentally trod on somebody’s beliefs.”
Una couldn’t help feeling that Kathleen was one of those who took the old ways quite seriously—but was reluctant to admit it to Una.
“It’s a lot to learn,” she said apologetically. “Kylebeg is a whole other world to me, I’m afraid. I don’t know the rules at all.”
And the sooner I get out of here, the better.
8
That night, Una lay awake in the feather bed, staring at the slope of the ceiling. Silvery starlight flowed in through the bedroom’s single window, illuminating the steep angles above her with soft light. She was uncomfortably aware that the roof was just overhead—the roof, and the blackthorn blossoms that still lurked amid the thatch. What was it about the flowers that upset her so? But then, why shouldn’t she be upset by flowers that refused to die? It was unnatural… eerie. Everything about this place was unnatural and eerie, despite its façade of old-world charm.
But despite her restless wakefulness, sleep eventually got the better of Una. Her eyelids grew heavy; her breathing slowed. She’d had such poor sleep the previous night that she was surprised to find herself drifting off so quickly. It’s only because I’ve been exhausted all day, she tried to tell herself. But the rapidity with which she was fading, surrendering to the realm of dreams, frightened her. Her slide into darkness and oblivion seemed part and parcel of Kylebeg’s—and the cottage’s—strange, unsettling magic. Una fought against the sensation of encroaching sleep, but it was too late. The dreaming realm had already taken hold of Una, and soon she was plunged into its remotest depths.
* * *
She was walking along a path through a darkened wood. The forest was velvet-black, the shadows between trees impenetrable. But Una wasn’t afraid. The path snaked and twisted through that dense, dark forest, but it was lit by the little flowers that bloomed along its edges. The ankle-high flowers shimmered with a soothing light, gold or purple, according to the colors of their petals. Now and then they released puffs of glittering pollen that drifted in soft clouds through the forest, briefly illuminating the rough bark and gnarled branches of the trees, before dissipating on a warm, directionless breeze.
I’m dreaming, Una reminded herself with every step. This is only a dream. But the farther she traveled along the glowing path, the less relevant the insistence became. She could feel herself in this spot, could sense every faint sound and slight scent within the night-dark woodland. It was all so real… and so her own words faded in her mind until they fell silent altogether, and Una forgot that she was dreaming.
Each time a drift of pollen lit the forest with a gentle glow, Una witnessed scenes of immeasurable beauty—small tableaus isolated from the rest of the dark world by the rings of glowing flower-light that surrounded them.
She saw a round pool of still water, surrounded by intricately glazed tiles, and sunk into the ground amid the pavers of a garden path. The water rippled as Una stood and watched it; she almost thought she could see a familiar face looking up at her from its depths, but she couldn’t be sure. After a few moments, the flower-light faded, hiding the pool from her view, and Una walked on.
She came across a woman, ethereal in her beauty, with long, pale hair that flowed down over her back and her thin, supple shoulders. The woman was dressed in a luminous, pale-blue silk, cut in a strangely old-fashioned manner that reminded Una of the garments she’d seen on the celebrants at the Beltane festival. The pale woman sat on a moss-covered boulder, staring into the depths of the wood with a stricken expression on her delicate, sober face. She bent her neck slowly and covered her face with her hands. Una heard the soft, sighing sounds of the woman’s despondent weeping.
“Are you all right?” Una called out. The woman didn’t answer. “Hello? Do you need help? Are you lost?” Still the pale woman made no response. She didn’t even look around; it was as if she couldn’t hear Una at all. In time, Una left her to her sorrow and walked on.
She wandered down the path until the soft sounds of weeping faded into nothing. She moved without aim, without a destination, dully curious as to where the winding path led—if indeed it led anywhere. After a few minutes, Una became aware of a presence beside her, quiet and somewhat near, but not threatening. She paused, turned to the right, and gazed past the flower-light into the trees.
A tall man moved gracefully through the forest beside her. He had the same long, flowing hair as the weeping woman, and the same old-fashioned, pale-colored garment, too. The man moved easily beside Una, but not on the path—he kept just to the other side of it, amid the nearest trees. Golden light from the flowers barely picked out his sharp, well-defined features amid the dimness of the forest.
“Hello,” Una called. But the man, too, seemed not to hear her.
Una took a few steps along the path. The man, too, moved forward. Una paused, and he did, too, remaining perfectly parallel to her, but seeming not to see her. She pressed on, and the man came with her, pushing branches and ferns aside with a determined air.
Suddenly, to Una’s surprise, the man called out. His voice was soft, yet carried a definite note of regal power. “Cousin? Cousin, where are you?”
“Who are you looking for?” Una asked him. And then, after a silence, she tried again: “Can you hear me? Do you know I’m here?”
But although he paused and tilted his head each time she spoke, the man never responded, and Una couldn’t be sure he knew she was there in the forest with him.
She walked on, with the long-haired man beside her, still calling out now and then for his cousin. In time the road forked; Una stopped to gaze wonderingly at the two paths that lay before her. The man in the trees stopped, too, staring around, searching the forest but seeing nothing, even when he looked directly at Una. She watched him for a moment, but she still found no reason to fear him. He seemed entirely benign. Una returned to considering the two paths.
Both paths looked as identical as could be. Nothing indicated whether one was preferable to the other—no rough stones to catch her feet, no extra looming darkness that cast a sense of greater danger over the left fork or the right. The same gentle breeze blew down each one, wafting up the same glittering puffs o
f light from the flowers along each path’s verge.
There was no indication as to where either path led, either. Una could detect nothing at their ends, except for more darkness.
She listened—and her heart beat faster. For along the left-side path, she could hear music. It was faint and drifting, softer than a whisper or a sigh. But even distant as it was, she recognized the song.
“Ailill?” Una called.
No one answered her, but the music paused. Then, after a long moment during which Una heard nothing but the gentle susurrus of leaves, the music started up again. It sounded nearer now; it was coming toward her.
Una clasped her hands tightly in consternation, biting her lip hard. She stared down each path in turn, trying to determine which direction the music came from. Then, barely detectable against the forest’s gloom, she saw the tall, lean form of Ailill strolling slowly toward her. He carried his guitar—the pollen light gleamed softly on its well-polished curves—and played the instrument softly as he walked. And yet it was somehow not a guitar. In that strange way dreams have of showing two implausible objects in the same space, Ailill strummed the familiar guitar and, at the same time, within the same space, plucked the golden strings of a large, old-fashioned harp. The music cupped itself around Una like a gentle hand, pulling her down the path toward Ailill.
The searching man remained in the trees. But as Una moved on, he called out with a note of desperation, “Cousin!”
Ailill stopped playing when he saw Una, drifting down the path toward him. He let the guitar—or the harp, whichever it was—hang from its shoulder-sling; he reached out as if to embrace her. “Una.”
She went to him, stepping eagerly into his arms, and welcomed his long, lingering kiss. The feel of his body against hers was compelling, exciting; she pressed herself harder against him, reveling in the strength of his arms as they closed tightly around her. His touch, his kiss, felt more real than anything else in this strange but beautiful world. She wanted more of it—more of him—so that she could be certain she herself was real, if for no other reason.
