Leaves Falling in a Quiet Place

by R J Darby

  “Indeed.”

  “So the mermaid waits in this pool until the tide has gone so far out that she has to scratch herself to keep covering her tail. As you know, merfolk are cold-blooded creatures, much like the fish they swim with, so having one in your possession would be like owning a shark.”

  “What kind of fool would want to own a shark?”

  Rowan shrugged. “I've no idea how the human mind works. I think it is like some sort of highly dangerous trophy. That was how beautiful mermaids was anyway. Maybe it's like when we were boys, and we used to try and catch for wasps, then release them and run from their stingers?”

  “But these are fully grown with humans, aren't they? They don't want to give a mermaid that their child, surely?” One of the mother leprechauns piped up. “That would be like willingly having a changeling. Despicable.”

  “No. No. It was mostly the sailors. As I was saying, this great grandfather was an incredible trickster. It wasn't just the mermaid that he played a prank on, but a sailor as well. The story goes that he allowed himself to be captured.” There was a widespread gasp. Telling this story was beginning to fill a fragment of the gap that had formed in Rowan's heart. It was like giving his wee ones a bedtime story as they looked longingly on, and he had the vague feeling that wherever they were, they were listening. Naimh must have held a similar notion as the tears stopped running and dried in salt-laden lines down her face.

  “Tell us more.”

  “I have to say it was a very clever plan. He had watched the sailor for a long time, so he knew that he was a very material creature as most humans are. He knew that his wish would revolve around money. But before he had the opportunity to make it, the great grandfather put an idea in his head. He said to him,” Rowan cleared his throat and put on the accent of an elderly man, which was quite easy for an experienced leprechaun like him who could turn into one quite easily, “'Why would you want to be rich? Every man can be rich. Why not be glorious and rich?'. Having already used two of the three wishes, the sailor asked how this might be possible. It was then that the leprechaun brought his plan to fruition. He told him but if he wished to own a mermaid for the rest of his life, he would be known as the greatest sailor that ever searched the seas. The man considered this, but then was forced to ask how this would make him any money.”

  “A sensible question.”

  “I agree. The great grandfather told him, but he could exhibition the mermaid and charge for the tickets. All that he had to do was meet the leprechaun at the pool on the left of the island where they were.”

  Some of the crowd allowed themselves a little laughter, despite the overshadow of downcast events.

  “What foolish creatures the humans are. When we name the location, they should know better.”

  “Ah, yes. But they are humans, so really do they. The sailor brought many paying customers to see his mermaid. And as the Leprechaun had promised, none of us would break our oath, there was a mermaid stuck in the shallow pool. She sat unable to move, and he collected his money. As promised, she was within the company of humans, and so her wishes was granted. He received his money and his mermaid, but he was only partially granted.”

  “How so?”

  “I think you are getting too excited and missing the detail. He was promised a mermaid until the end of his life. He counted his gold hungrily, as we all would, and sat by the mermaid, wondering how he was going to keep her there. He had used his last wish but as a man ever see he knew very well that when the tide came in, the hole in which she sat would fill up bit-by-bit until she could escape.”

  “If she could escape them, the deal was not fulfilled.” Someone protested. This tale had too many plot holes for her liking.

  “Ah, but the story is not finished.” His sorrows had almost washed away for the time being, much like the waters in the story he was telling, and so he went on. “The sailor had made a fortune, and beyond that, he had the glory of having owned a mermaid. If he wanted to release her there had been many people who would back up his account. This was not good enough for him, though, which again was something that this magnificent trickster expected. The sailor fetched a rope to tie up the mermaid.”

  Jeremiah smiled to himself. “A foolish mistake.” The rest of the group did not quite understand. They knew very well that mermaids were dangerous and quite vicious creatures, but given the size of a human and the fact he had to be given the advantage of being on home terrain, it seemed to them an easy task.

  “This is where he was particularly clever. A mermaid's charms may not work on leprechaun or banshee or kelpie or kappa. A mortal, however, is another question. The sailor was so drawn in by her beauty as he went to tie the knot around his prisoner's wrists that he paused in awe. And so the mermaids drowned him.”

  There was a clap among the group at the cleverness of this tale. Leprechauns liked stories that end with wishes well and truly granted. A little mischief just adds to the sparkle.

  Rowan rounded off. “Of course, once the tide has risen the mermaid had gone back to her watery home, and as he had said would be true, she had belonged to the sailor until the end of his life.”

  The story had been so engaging that the leprechauns forgot much of their sadness for a short time. Almost as many as I had forgotten the point of this story, but not all. The woman spoke again. “I don't see what this has to do with the powers that your wife seems to have. I don't mean any disrespect, but it sounds like you are trying to rumble us. If we aren't made to believe she's a witch, which I think we are all in agreement she is not, and what are we to believe?”

  “Naimh's descendant,” Rowan said with pride blowing like the morning sun on his cheeks, “came eventually to trick a banshee.”

  “Preposterous!” The word was said in disbelief, although the concept made good logic to them.

  “Yes. This was not a usual kind of trick. This was the one his wife was very used to. This was a trick of the heart, so is that her rogue of a great grandfather could have his way with a banshee!”

  The way the group looked at Naimh made her blush, a rose petal pink smattering appearing on her cheeks.

  “Is it true?”

  Almost like admitting a secret, she gave a slow bow of her head. “I believe so.”

  “That is why you are always so somber before a death in the village!” The evidence was adding up so quickly, but it was almost impossible to question it.

  Again, the mother asked. “If this is true, why is it not in the record? Having a banshee moving to the village would be a great honor. I've never heard of more than them visiting.”

  Naimh was the one who continued the story. “It is well-known that banshee forewarns of death. We all know the stories, and we all fear to see a woman washing the blood of a friend in the river because we know that this is the banshee warning us in the most kindly way that they can, that someone is about to depart.”

  “Even if his wife died, there is no record of a banshee living in the village.”

  “There is not. You are quite right.” Naimh said, bringing a sneer to the face of the woman. “And I shall tell you why.” It was Naimh's turn then to tell the rest of the tale.

  The wife of this tricky cad, who so often brought mermaids to land and women to his bed of all kinds, wandered along the edge of a river. She always likes to get away for a spot of fresh air. It seemed to blow away the cobwebs of her sadness, and yet it never did anything for those clinging to her womb. It is a tragic occurrence when a woman cannot conceive. Any would say that this is even more tragic when this problem occurs in such a rare and spiritual being, and they would be forgiven for it. What they don't know, however, is that the pain is the deepest it can be. They say that love unites people, but there is no greater understanding between those who are suffering. Fairy or normal folk, a womb haunted by emptiness is felt the same and will soon spread to the heart.

  It was said that in the olden days, a hollow womb was a curse of th
e gorta, but as they were not seen in so long, people began to make up other stories. For a time, it was a gypsy curse, and later on, it was a judgment from a god. Regardless of the reason, the afflicted did not need to hear it. What they needed was a child to fill the void.

  This was something women wanted desperately. Her mind was on the subject until she saw a lady, fully nude, at the riverside washing a cloak stained with blood. There was an eerie beauty in the way her dark hair and features contrasted the milkiness of her skin. Had she been climbed in such a way, the leprechaun woman might have blushed. However, her kind heart and need to nurture took her in a different direction.

  She knelt down, and taking off her coat, offered it to the onyx head woman who declined.

  “Come, you must not get cold. And it will take an eon for your clothes to dry.”

  “You may ask me three questions.” was the reply.

  The leprechaun knew what she had met then. This was a banshee. It seems so obvious then. And she went down to wash blood from clothes of those would soon be deceased in the river. They could appear as old hags, elderly ladies, or young women - as this one had chosen to do. No one had ever been quite sure of the transformation a banshee was to a form that they chose no one natural to them. This was not the question the woman wanted to ask about. There was only one question on her mind.

  “Will I ever have a child?”

  “Yes,” was the answer.

  “Will the birth be easy on me?”

  “You will not feel the birth one bit.” The answer sends a coldness down her spine, which threaded it's way through each nodule until it came level with the women. Did this mean that she was going to die in childbirth? That was a question she did not want the answer to. The banshee, however, answered it in part.

  “I say that you will have a child, but the child will be of your husband's blood and not yours.”

  Where many would have felt betrayal, the woman only felt relief. There was one more question hesitating on her lips.

  “And who is to die?” Her pale green eyes looked at the blood still running in the water; far too much to be in one garment - one natural garment anyway.

  The banshee looked at her, still clutching the sodden cloak in her hands. “I am to die, and your child grows within my core, if you will accept it as I know you will.”

  This was why she was nude. The clothes were her own as she readied for her death. “Know that it is not easy to ask because we banshee have no need for questions, but will you take in my child as if she were your own in a few days?"

  “And so the child was delivered in the stillness of the night, a week before the reports of a banshee being hunted by humans. Her name was Silminek. They knew it by the screams on the wind.” Telling this story before had always seemed so joyful. The woman fated to be barren because of a mother. Telling it this time around, though, she considered the banshee more. Naimh now knew the pain of losing a child, but to give one to another woman for their own safety was a truly selfless and beautiful thing to do. She had always believed about, like her husband, she would want to lay down and die with their children. Retelling the story reminded her that he did indeed have a blood of a banshee, and that meant that there was more that was required of her be on her own aching heart.

  There was a quiet for a long time after she finished her story, as the air of rippled with admiration. Not long after, they decided to get on with their journey towards the Kingdom. Within the hour, it came into view.

  Chapter Five

  Far Away Yet Close To Home

  The Kingdom seemed like a castle. Rowan knew it well from the times that he had come to trade. Being afraid of crossing a land with humans and other such monsters, however, he had always come in the dead of night when it was little like a candle wedged in a parsnip to protect from spirits on the holiday of All Hallows Eve. In the daytime, it looked even more impressive, and the mere vision of it, half-carved into the side of a hill, was so overpowering that the group stopped in their tracks.

  “What wonders that this world holds.” One breathed, and indeed even the former mother who had made so many insinuations throughout the tale of Naimh's noble heritage seemed to be rather taken aback by the wonderful sight.

  Tall walls made of uncut stone stretched in a half-moon all around. The brilliant white at the chalkstone caught the eye in the way that a pearl does within an oyster. And it’s lush green made it seemed as perpetually new as sunlight pouring through the first new leaves of a tree in a luminescent way that both man and beast warms the weather and the time for fornication was on its way.

  “We must go in.” Rowan was eager to see what her place look like in the daylight as it appeared to him in an entirely new vestige. In a moment of forgetfulness, he grew excited to tell his children of the window as a creation, which stood before him.

  “I wish that we could have shown the kids.” His voice was soft as the moon's light.

  Naimh, it was already certain that she had cried all of the tears within her and was inspired by the clarity on her lineage, rested a hand on his arm.

  “I know. Consider this, though. We have always been too afraid to come out in the time of the light because of humans, you have no fear now, even if it is a willingness to meet death. It allows us to see such things together.”

  “Together, we must stay.”

  One leprechaun scurried ahead, crossing the field as fast as a dormouse. “I want to see inside! Come, everyone! Come!" Her energy was intoxicating as the scent of summer rain when lightning strikes close to the ground. The others followed.

  “I don't have a recollection of it being so busy,” Jeremiah said as they squeezed their way through the crowd, feeling rather like a sheet in a mangle.

  “We did come at night though,” Rowan said. This seemed like a perfectly good explanation until I heard a word that had my ears pricking like a whistle to a dog.

  'Gorta.'

  Shortly followed by 'attack.'

  Rowan pushed on, determined to find out what was going on. Those words had not come from the mouth of anyone, but he knew. The accent was wrong, but it was also wrong for the inhabitants of the Kingdom. Those who lived within the walls of the Kingdom had intonations not dissimilar to his own, lark like and fluid. This voice was much harsher, something he had only encountered with people from the coastal regions.

  “Did you say gorta?” Rowan asked one particularly flummoxed looking woman.

  “No, they did.” She waved at a group near the entrance who were blocked by two large women holding javelins between them to form a cross.

  “I already told you by order of the council, we are not allowed to let you pass.” The one on the left spat. This has been going on for a while. “Take your stupid stories and sod off!”

  “The gorta really did attack our village!” Cried a woman holding a child that looked to be her sibling as she seemed to be a wee girl of thirteen or so herself. The guard did not care. Their stance was as tough as stone, and where there should have been compassion in their eyes, there was only disdain. Clearly, they did not like being disrupted in their duties. Rowan had been subject to these kinds of people before. Once he had brought the incorrect trading papers, and he was not allowed into the city until the next day. Rules seem to mean more to them than much else; that much was obvious by the skeletal beggars on the street side and the many deals that could be made from within the inside of a jacket with many pockets, rather than a stall.

  “We were attacked by the fear gorta too.” Rowan clasped a man who looked like a part of the group by the shoulder.

  “Good luck telling them that. They know something is up; otherwise they would let us in. They would have been there to give the council a laugh at all the stupid stories, except they're not stories.”

  “I know. We lost our children.”

  “I'm sorry to hear it. They aren't going to let us in without a fight.” He sighed.

  “Then, a fight is exactly wh
at they're going to get.” Rowan climbed onto a crate. It took some time to get attention, and in the end, he started clapping his hands in the air and singing a merry tune, a well-known ballad, most fitting and called ‘The Cobbler.’

  Oh, me name is Dick Darby, I'm a cobbler

  I served my time at the old camp

  Some call me an old agitator

  But now I'm resolved to repent

  With me ing-twing of an ing-thing of an i-doe

  With me ing-twing of an ing-thing of an i-day

  With me roo-boo-boo roo-boo-boo randy

  And me lab stone keeps beating away

  Now, my father was hung for sheep stealing

  My mother was burned for a witch

  My sister's a dandy house-keeper

  And I'm a mechanical switch

  It's forty long years I have traveled

  All by the contents of my pack

  Me hammers, me awls, and me pinchers

  I carry them all on me back

  Oh, my wife, she is humpy, she's lumpy

  Me wife she's the devil, she's cracked

  And no matter what I may do with her

  Her tongue, it goes clickety-clack

  It was early one fine summer's morning

  A little before it was the day

  I dipped her three times in the river

  And carelessly bade her "Good day."

  The chatter became a murmur, and Naimh raised her brow. That was a tune that would not gain him any points as a husband — getting inside becomes ever more imperative. Merriment was so unexpected that it turned all heads, guards included.

  Rowan spoke up with power in his voice. “How many of you here know that these rumors are true?” There was a cheer from everyone except me to the guards who gave each other a filthy look as if the leprechaun had just kicked their grandmother in the face right in front of them.

  “That's what I thought!” He went on, “I, for one, will not stand by and see nothing done. My wife and I, as well as many of our fellow kin - some of which are not alive to tell their side, so we must do it for them - have had everything we know ripped from us by the gorta. We will not sit idly by and let this happen to other families!”