These are the first few chapters of a work in progress (90% finished)
MIMSY
`Twas
brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the
wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And
the mome raths outgrabe.
"Beware
the Jabberwock, my son!
The
jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird,
and shun
the
frumious Bandersnatch!"
“Jabberwocky”
- Lewis Carroll
The pre-dawn mist was thickest where the roadway dipped down towards
the river; where only the tops of the two towers holding the cables of
the bridge could be seen rising above it. It was a soggy grey
curtain so dense that those speeding across the span were far more
intent on avoiding collisions with the blurred tail lights of those in front
of them than on the shadowy pedestrian treading the walkway on the
side. They were oblivious as the shadow of this intrepid soul
carefully climbed over the barriers and scuttled along the dank
three-inch edge of the beam. The traffic noise hid the sounds of the
hammer used to breach the padlock and the rusty creak of the door
hinge when it opened.
The intruder stepped into the hollow metal interior sitting atop its
massive concrete pier, shivering slightly as the creaking door was
pulled shut once more. A quick glance around using a disposable lighter
provided assurance that no one else was hidden inside. Satisfied that this was the case, the intruder dowsed the light, and gave a casual
shrug of the shoulder, allowing the strap of a backpack to drop to
the floor. Another shrug removed the long, black, hooded raincoat
from one shoulder, then the other. The intruder then slipped the
dripping garment over a large bolt jutting out from the wall and,, using the lighter once more,
peered around, almost as if expecting someone. But, other than the
drivers zooming past at 50 miles per hour a little over 25 feet away,
they were quite alone.
A flip of a switch and the interior was now dimly lit by a single
five-watt bulb, keeping the intruder’s features hidden, but
illuminating a ladder that led upwards into the darkness. The kilted,
black-clad figure heaved a sigh and slung a bag over one shoulder,
then began climbing up the rusty ladder to the top of the bridge
tower before forcing open the access hatch. They climbed out and sat
in the open air, their stocking-clad legs swinging out of the hole, pivoting on
their butt-cheeks so that booted feet could dangle over the edge of the
perch, their back to the gentle wind to keep what little exposed flesh
that existed between the top of the kilt and the stockings remained
warm.
The tops of the towers thrust above the fog, creating a surreal view
of the roiling misty cauldron that was the river valley. The
darkened peaks of the city buildings poked menacingly out of the fog,
making it appear as if the ghostly buildings were somehow floating
out of the clouds. Their shadowy silhouettes created jagged rents in the
morning mists, the red lights at their peaks slowly blinking off the
last of the sleepy night. As the orange glow of the sun rose up on
the horizon, an occasional office window lit up, indicating a return
to life in the shadowy hulks. The combination of sunrise and office
lights gradually created sparkling jewels out of the towers that rose
from the dewy curtain of the twilight.
Over the next few minutes, black sky gradually gave way to a
lesser shade of blue as the sun began to rise. The shadowy
intruder relaxed and lit a cigarette while watching. The flame
revealed a face that could have been either a handsome girl or an
effeminate man with fine features and oddly shaped ears, the tips more pointed in shape rather than rounded at the top. Their face was framed by thick, dark
hair cut short on the sides and back, but long on top and in front in
emo style so that it hung down to cover one or both eyes, depending
on how they moved their head. The flicker of their lighter flame
also glinted off the piercing in the eyebrow and the ring in the lip
next to the end of the cigarette, as well as the studs in the leather
collar surrounding their neck and those in the wide leather belt
around their waist. Minutes later, the clouds took on a pinkish hue
that indicated the beginnings of sunrise.
Taking another long drag, the orange tip of the burning, rolled brown
leaves encased in thin white paper glowed brightly three times as the
stranger contemplated their journey. The shadowy stranger had
traveled almost 1100 miles, compelled to arrive at this spot,
wondering what had made it so special.
The tip of the cancer stick glowed a brilliant orange once more as
the mouth sucked in the smoke again and reminisced about being at the
campus library, remembering how Kent had been searching through
engineering and photography books all that morning until he found the
picture of this particular span. He pointed to it and said, “If
anything ever happens to me, or I just disappear, go there and wait.
Go to that tower though.”
MARY-MACK
Well
there's a little girl, and her name is Mary Mack
Make no
mistake, she's the girl I'm gonna track
And a lot of other
fella's, they would get her ‘pon her back
but I'm thinkin'
that they'll have to get up early!
“Mary-Mack”
– Trad. Scottish Folk Song
“Wait for what? Wait where? On the bridge? Under
it?”
“You’ll know what and where when you get there,” Kent had said
with an enigmatic smile.
Two days later, he was gone.
Wait for what?
Wait for whom?
I tossed the butt off the tower, watching the orange glow brighten
briefly as it fell, then disappear into the mists as I snorted.
“Go there and wait.”
For two weeks, I’d done just that. On the first day, I’d just
gone to the bridge and hung out on the pedestrian walkway for several
hours until a cop arrived and asked me what I was doing. I told him
I was just enjoying the view, but he was persistent and asked a lot
of questions that seemed to imply he was afraid I was going to jump.
Once I realized what he was asking, I left and didn’t come back
again for two days.
The next time I came, it was at night and I began to have these urges
to climb over the railing, making me seriously wonder if I was
contemplating suicide. But, each time I began to act on the urge, a
group of people would come walking up out of the mists and I’d get
chicken and run back to the “Y” where I was staying.
After that, I began coming here later and later at night until I
discovered that the best time was just about an hour before sunrise.
It took three attempts at climbing over and moving along the ledge
before I finally figured out what I was supposed to do –
open the access door and go inside the tower. The ledge was
slippery and the access door was rusted and difficult to open. I
yanked on it so hard that I almost slipped, frightening me to the
point where I retreated back to the walkway and stood there, panting.
Was I contemplating suicide? Something inside
me shouted No!
I walked back to the Y right after that,
shaking and scared so badly that I didn’t return for another two
weeks.
When I did return, I discovered they’d painted everything, only
this time, the access door had been padlocked. Undeterred, I came
back the next night with a hammer.
I beat on the lock until it opened. Once I accomplished that, the
newly-painted door opened easily, so I went inside and sat in the
darkness. It wasn’t until I lit up my fourth or fifth ciggy that I
noticed the light switch. I turned it on and the dim bulb lit up the
interior of the metal tower just enough to look around the 15’ x
15’ space.
I sat there, wondering what to do next, so I lit up another
cigarette. I smoked four more before heading back to the Y.
Then there came that foggy, foggy morning.
A new padlock now hung from the door, which I quickly opened in the same manner as before, creaking loudly as
I pulled it open to step inside. I checked around with a light to
make sure no one else had snuck in here, flipped the light switch
then sat down to burn another cig. Just as I was about to flick my
Bic, I heard the sound of traffic slowing and I began to panic. Had
someone seen me come inside?
I quickly doused the lights and waited. There was definitely the
sound of a large truck idling just outside. I thought that maybe
there might be some sort of accident, but the rest of the traffic
sounded like it was moving. Then I heard voices.
“Climb!” urged a voice in my head.
I was frozen there in panic for several seconds before the voices
faded and the truck began to drive off.
“Climb!” said the
inner-voice once more.
“Climb where?”
Then I looked up and saw a faint sliver of light. I flicked on the
lights again and saw that there was a ladder leading up the tower. I
flicked them off (in case someone else stopped to check inside here)
and made my way up the ladder.
Upon reaching the top, I discovered the access hatch leading to the
outside. Unscrewing three loose bolts, I unlatched the access cover
and moved it aside, then popped my head up.
Oh, the view was so magnificent!
I felt as if I were in a heavenly, magical kingdom that floated in
the clouds! Quickly pulling myself up and out onto the small ledge
there, I sat, legs dangling over the edge, watching as the landscape
peeked out from between the cottony mists. I was perfectly alone and
finally feeling at peace enough to grieve over my losses. I must
have sat there for almost an hour bawling and using up my small
packet of tissues when the mists began to dissipate, so I climbed
back down, returning to my bed where I wept some more.
As if drawn to that place, I visited the site every morning, just
before sunrise, sitting up there to simply meditate and ground, or
just to enjoy the solitude. I especially enjoyed the foggy mornings
because, up here, it was my world; the one place I reigned. I
closed my eyes and breathed in deep, as if to absorb the sheer
peacefulness of what had become a very personal meditation spot,
blotting out the pain and suffering I’d experienced in the world
below.
I went up there another three or four times over the next week and
found that I felt more and more “recharged” each time I went.
Usually, I wore jeans during my visits, but tonight I’d gone out
clubbing, wearing a black top and a black kilt skirt, desperately in
search of companionship. I failed miserably, attracting exactly the
wrong kind of person, so I came up here directly from the club. I
went to the bridge and climbed, wanting to go someplace where I could
scream, yell and rant at the world for taking away the one person I
loved the most and leaving me so utterly and desolately alone.
Instead, I just sat up there, crying for a bit as I thought about
Kent, missing him terribly, then sitting up and looking around, like
a queen surveying her realm, smoking another cigarette down almost to
the filter before I tossed the butt, watching the orange tip glow,
then fade, as it tumbled down into the mists.
I’d just begun to stretch before heading back down when a noise
startled me.
“Whatcha doin’ up here, me boyo?” said a voice beside me.
The unexpected sound startled me to the point where I jumped enough
to unbalance me and I nearly fell off my perch, but he grabbed at the
studded belt around my waist and held me fast.
“Steady on, Jocko!” he purred in a soft Irish brogue. “We
wouldn’t want yer tae be slippin’ off into the mists now, would
we? Wouldn’t be a good ting ter have your death on me hands, lad!!
Oh no. Not ‘t’all!”
“First of all, ass-hat, I’m a girl, not a boy!” I said
irritably as I looked over at the man. Or, what I thought was a man.
I mean, he’d climbed out and was standing there, while I was
sitting, yet we were almost eye-to-eye. He couldn’t have been more
than three-and-a-half feet tall in shoes, reminding me of a jovial,
ginger-topped, bearded, elfin-leprechaun figurine, including ears
that were noticeably more pointed than mine. His bushy red eyebrows
reminded me of furry caterpillars that seemed to use his eyelids as
trampolines as he spoke.
“Beautiful up here, innit?” He commented as he pulled a pipe out
of his vest pocket and began to puff upon it, smoke rising from the
glowing bowl without him having so much as put a match to it.
“Who are you? How’d you get here...? How’d you… light
that?”
“Aye, ‘tis certainly a loverly sight, it’tis!?” he repeated,
ignoring my questions and, with a sweep of his pipe-stem, indicating
the buildings and hilltops that peeked above the mists. “Sorta
gives yer th’ feelin’ of floatin’, dunnit?”
He took another puff from his pipe and began to talk again. “Didn’t
want to come to Amerikay, no, I dint. But me maither, she says ter
me, she says, “Boyo, you go to Amerikay!” she says. “Go
there an’ by Brighid, you’ll make your mark. So oi came. And
here oi am!”
I looked at him and he looked back, teeth gleaming and eyes
twinkling. I’m thinking it was his eyes that caused me to relax.
They contained merriment, but no malice.
“Tell me, lass,” he asked, taking a puff from his pipe and his
face growing somber. “Were ye close to him?”
“Huh?”
He pointed at my clothes.
“All the somber black ye be wearin’. Yer must be doin’ some
powerful mournin’ ter have made your way up here jes ter sit a
spell. Can’t say oi approve o’ yer short bob ‘o’ hair, th’
way it hangs in yer face, an’ all o’ the makeup ‘n’ setch,
‘specially ‘round the eyes. Makes yer face look all awash. But
everyone has their way, I be tinkin’.” He took another puff from
his pipe and asked again. “Were ye close to him?”
I coughed and waved away the smoke, trying to look irritated, but in
reality, it just reminded me that I’d left the rest of my ciggies
in my backpack at the bottom of the ladder.
“I’m not close to anybody!” I lied crossly. “And I dress
this way because I like it!”
He squinted one eye and looked me up-and-down slowly, then nodded
sagely. “I hain’t gaw nertin against yer choice of garb, lass.
In fact, yer remind me of me own dear cousin, Eithne. Sweet lass,
she was, but of a dark disposition, right down to her wings, she
was!”
“Look, I don’t really care about your cousin, Eeny or Ainy or
whatever you said her name was. I just want to be left al-..., wait…
did you say... ‘wings’... just now?”
“Aye,” he said, looking down as he eased himself back into the
opening, his toe searching for the ladder. “A mischievously
tempestuous, yet melancholy one, that! Became a hooman mortal ter
chase after some daft boy who didn’t know love from a library, and
she prolly been witherin’ away from loneliness ‘ter since, as
hoomans dunna live as long. Tis why I wait up here,” he said,
pointing with the stem of his pipe as he slowly sank down the hole
until nothing but his head was showing, “’T’was her favorite
spot, these past few times, sittin’ ‘n’ a lookin at this here
river. ‘T’was 'er favorite, e’en afore th’ bridge t’were
built, yes indeed. She’d sit on th’ rock that’s now covered in
cement jes’ below us and we’d discourse a bit a’fore she had to
go. I comes up here ever so often ter see if’n she wants ter
foller me back. I still hae her wings a hangin’ in me abode from
when she shed them to acum hooman.”
He began to climb down.
“WAIT!” I called. My face must have been scrunched up in a
conflict of emotions because he stopped and peered at me over the rim
of the opening and began to chuckle softly.
“Yer don’t believe me, then?” he asked.
“I don’t… don’t know,” I stated, confused by this turn of
events. Damn it, I’d come up here for the solitude and he’d
interrupted it. But his interruption intrigued me.
“Well, yer welcome ter come and see… or not!” he said, and
continued his descent.
I scooted over, sticking my legs inside until my feet made contact
with the ladder, then started down carefully but I jumped when I
heard his voice go “ah-WHEEeeeeeeee-Hooooh!” and fade echoingly
downward.
“Are you alright?” I called, afraid he’d fallen.
“Aye, lass!” came his voice, faint and echoing in the hollow
structure. Though I didn’t feel upset, I could tell I was frowning
intensely (and disapprovingly) but I closed the hatch and began my
slow descent. When I got to the bottom, the single light bulb seemed
far too dim. In it’s glow, I could see he was wiping his hands on
a handkerchief and grinning broadly.
“Ah, lass, ter hain’t nertin like a quick slide down the auld
banister! Yer puts the instep of yer pups ag’in the sides of the
rail to act as brakes, open yer palms a wee bit, and yer slides!
They hain’t painted in a whoile so me hands got a bit nicked and
rusted. A moment whilst I clean a bit, eh?”
“Who are you?” I asked again, my hands on my hips.
“Alasdair!” tsked a woman’s voice from the deep shadows, “Yer
din’t mind yer manners yet agin?”
“Och, Mumsy, I din’t tink she’d actually come along, bein’
all high-fallootin with her airs ‘n’ sooch up there! But tell
me, a’spite th’ hair bobbed so short she looks like a boy, hain’t
she the spittin’ of ol Eithne?”
A mousy-looking woman came out of the depths of the darkness,
sweeping at the damp floor with a broom. She squinted in the faint
light and stared at me, her eyes blinking rapidly.
“OOOOhh! That she dar! That she dar!” said the woman. She was
even shorter than the man, and as thin as he was stout. She wore a
dun-colored skirt and a gauzy top, over which was a bodice and an
apron. On her head, she wore a scarf and a snood to hold back her
thick, heavy brown hair. The scarf hung over her brow like the brim
of a hat, leaving her eyes bathed in its shadow. I had to laugh as
she looked like something out of a renaissance faire or a Disney
cartoon.
“Apologies, lass,” said the man, bowing formally with a broad
sweep of his hand. “Oi’m known as Alasdair McGooghan, though me
friends call me Dairsy. This here be me wife, Iola or Mumsy as she’s
affectionately a-ferred to by all who know her. Come in! Come in!”
he bade me.
“Come in where?” I asked, picking up my purse and
frantically digging for my cigarettes.
“Why, down th’ stairway, deary!” called Mumsy, disappearing
once again into the shadows. I squinted, then grabbed my lighter and
followed, holding my hand, palm-out and expecting to have it hit the
wall and end this hallucination. I cursed myself silently because I
knew I should have eaten before coming up here, but I didn’t
think it would be necessary.
My hand went through where my senses said a wall should be and I
yelped as I almost fell. Flicking the lighter flame into existence,
I gasped. There should have been nothing beyond that wall but air,
70 feet down to the water. Instead, the leather soles of my shoes
clicked on flagstone and I stumbled down the first few steps of a
narrow, enclosed, spiral staircase before catching myself on the
handrail.
“Ouch, damn it!” I groused as the lighter got hot. I turned it
off and shook it to help it cool in my hand as I continued my
journey. I could hear Alasdair and Mumsy clumping down far below me,
talking in low whispers, so I began to hurry a bit.
I plodded down the stairs in the murky darkness holding the rail with
one hand while I ran the fingers of my other against the damp, rough
wall. I’m a tactile person and it felt exactly like that of the
sides of a castle I’d once visited over in Germany when my
foster-parents took me on a European trip.
The downward spiral of the staircase seemed interminable and I lost
track of how far we’d come, but it had to be somewhere near the
waterline of the bay. The moment I thought that, the rock face of
the wall became slimy. Another twenty steps down, there was a
sudden, cool, arid breeze followed by a static-electric tingling and,
from then on the wall was dry.
I stumbled at the bottom landing as my foot groped for the expected
stair. Floundering around in the dark, my palms came into contact
with a wooden threshold and sounds of movement emanated from within
the darkened room.
“Hello?” I called.
“Come in! Come in!” cried Mumsy. I walked carefully forward and
heard the door close behind me.
“Alasdair!” scolded Mumsy, “She hain’t like us wee folk. Yer
should’er left th’ door open for the light until I unshuttered
th’ winders!”
The light? I thought to myself. I couldn’t even see my
hand in front of my face when I was walking down!
“Sorry Mumsy,” he said, chagrined.
“No never mind. I’m opening them now to let in some good, clean
forest air anyhoo.”
My eyes had grown accustomed to the dark interior of the stairwell,
so I blinked at the brightness of the feeble light coming in from the
windows when Mumsy thrust open the heavy drapes. Where there should
have been either murky water, or mucky silt was, instead, misty sun
rays filtering down in yellowish blades from between branches of the
woods surrounding the outside. By the angle of the light, it
indicated this was either early in the AM or late in the afternoon.
Since it had been early morning up above, I figured it would probably
be the same here.
My eyes were blinking rapidly and watering a little due to the
jarring brightness, though when I returned my gaze to the interior, I
could barely make things out. As my eyes began to adjust, it
appeared that I was in a comfortable-but-cramped, low-ceiling room
that was neat and clean, containing sparse, rough, natural, yet
comfortable furnishings. A slightly irregular, but mostly flat slate
floor was blanketed here-and-there with carpets displaying Celtic
designs and there were exposed beams and shelving everywhere.
“Have a seat, dearie, while I pour the hot water into the pot to
steep,” said Mumsy.
As I began to sit, she scolded, “Och, no, not that ‘un. Uula be
Alasdair’s chair! Choose the one thar in th’ corner and sit a
spell.”
“I’ll stand a moment, if you don’t mind,” I said, watching as
Alasdair built a fire in the hearth. Soon he had a merry flame
flickering among the tinder and I couldn’t exactly see how he did
it, but he either used his finger or the pipe stem to light it.
Either way, the chill gradually left the room and the fire began to
crackle merrily as he piled on wood. Now that I could see better, I
looked around.
The walls were crudely spackled and whitewashed. The shelves
contained hand-bound books, pots, pans and pottery of all hues and
colors. The large stone hearth, where the fire crackled, dominated
one far wall. Centered on the mantel was a tall, squat,
intricately-carved clock that chimed politely at the quarter-hour.
It wasn’t a normal clock, though, because the face had ten
hours instead of twelve and the numbers there were more like symbols.
It also had more “minute” marks and I soon realized it was a
metric timepiece. The tick-tock was slower-paced and more pronounced
as the second hand jerked with each swing. According to the position
of the hands, it was 6:45 or some such, but it didn't indicate AM or
PM. I looked at my own watch, which read 9:23 AM. I shook myself in
an attempt to adjust and wished for a nice, strong latte.
Opposite the hearth was a large, heavy table that dominated the
center of the room. Draped over the top was a red woven tablecloth.
Atop this was a platter, holding a teapot, three cups, spoons, two
bowls holding cream and sugar, and a plate of crackers and several
jars of jam. Seeing the latter made my mouth water and my tummy
rumble a bit, again reminding me I'd not eaten breakfast. Good,
I thought. Maybe I can get some caffeine in me and wake up from
this ridiculous nightmare! I grabbed a few of the crackers that
already had jam on them and munched on them absently as I walked over
to the windows and gazed outside while Mumsy fussed over the tea.
I rubbed my eyes because they didn’t seem to want to focus clearly
on the outer landscape. I couldn’t tell whether my vision was
being affected by my hunger or by the shrouding, wavering mists
blowing across the yard that occasionally blurred and obscured the
view. Gradually, I was able to make out the stone border, guarding
the entrance to the dense forest about 30 yards or so outside their
door.
Stretching out in front of me was a pleasant root garden arranged on
either side of the door and the pathway between them leading to a
small, green meadow dotted with yellow, red, and purple flowers
before reaching the stone wall, followed by trees that seemed as tall
as redwoods, but weren’t conifers, or any other kind of
identifiable tree. As my eyes adjusted, I could make out an
impossibly tall oak-like giant growing at the left edge of the house,
dropping fist-sized acorns onto the ground.
Out in the forest, songbirds the size of eagles sang in the trees
while squirrels that were larger than most dogs, flitted to-and-fro
along with other critters. The foliage must have been extremely
dense because it was almost as dark as evening among the trees,
though occasional sun rays cut through the gloom like scimitars of
light. Mumsy appeared at my side and handed me a cup and saucer set.
“One lump or two, dearie?” asked Mumsy.
“Pardon?”
“I was askin’ if’n you’d like one lump of sugar or two, Eith…
erm, dearie?”
”Oh, uh, two, I guess,” I replied. She used tiny tongs to drop
two cubes of sugar into my cup.
“Cream?”
“Uh, sure. Thanks.” Mumsy poured a dab of cream into my cup,
then poured the hot tea in. I picked up the small spoon at the side
of the saucer and stirred, then sipped. It was fragrant with a
bouquet of wildflowers and yet, had that slight tartness of tea. I
warmed my hands around the porcelain as I looked outside, watching
nature’s creations frolic. I must have been staring for quite some
time as my tea had gone cold when I finally gulped the rest of it
down.
The clock on the mantel struck “seven”, even though my watch said
it was just a little before ten in the morning. My mind and body
revolted at the disparities in time and I felt myself get a little
dizzy, as if I were becoming carsick.
“Would yer like some more tea, Miss… er…”
I jumped at her words and my nausea dissipated with a burp. “Oh!
I’m sorry. I never introduced myself, did I? I’m Mary-Anne
McLaughlin, though most people that know me just call me “Mary-Mack”
or “Mack” for short.
Mumsy made a face and I was surprised I could see her features now.
I wasn’t kidding when I said she was mousy looking! Her eyes were
two black beads among the whites, and her nose was rather long and
pointed, and her jaw was recessed, creating an overbite and giving
her a buck-toothed appearance. All she really needed were whiskers
to complete the look on her pinched features.
“Mack is not a name befittin’ a lady,” she scolded, her
face all a-sour. “An’ ‘specially one wot’s got another that's
more befittin’-like for a beauty such as yerself, though I dunna
see the monniker of Mary-Anne fittin’ you noither! You ain’t the
frilly, flouncy type, I be tinkin yer not, I do!”
I made a face and rolled my eyes. “I’m the seventh foster-child
of eight and I had amnesia when I was adopted a few years back. The
folks at Protective Services couldn’t figure out what to name me.
I was told that the Director and Chief Nurse put their names together
and this is what I got stuck with! Hell, I’d have been happy with
a more individualistic name like Sunshine, Tuesday, April, Lilly,
Autumn or Summerlea, but Mary-Anne was what I got.”
Dairsy sat down in a weathered old rocking chair. As he settled
down, I could swear I heard it utter a creaking “ahhhh”
when he reclined. As he began to rock, the chair started to repeat,
“that’s-good, that’s-good!” The stubby little man
began puffing on his pipe and looking thoughtful.
I jumped as Mumsy appeared next to me, an expectant look on her face.
I realized that I’d been asked something.
“And yes, I would like more tea!” I said, regaining my wits.
“Thank you very much!”
Mumsy smiled and said she’d be right back, wandering into the
kitchen to heat more water.
“Set a spell,” invited Dairsy, pointing to the large green chair
in the corner of the room. To those two, it would have been a couch,
but it was just barely large enough to accommodate my skinny little
butt. I felt as if I were in a kindergarten classroom where all the
furniture was designed for the height of the students. As I sat, the
chair groaned with a basso-profundo, “Ooooohhh-yeaaaaaah!” right
out of that song from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.
Dairsy frowned at it, admonishing harshly. “Gurfell! Manners!”
It made one more apologetic groan as I moved to get comfortable,
trying to pull my short skirt down to a more prudent length, since
the seat was low enough that my knees were raised upwards and he
might, accidentally, be able to look right up it. I compromised by
pushing the center of the skirt between my legs and tucked my ankles
up under me.
“Oi cain’t get over the resemblance, I cain’t,” he mumbled
once more, chuckling with mirth, reminding me of why I’d come down.
“You said something about wings?”
“Och, I did,” he said, a sad look on his face. “They’re
stored o’er there in the cabinet where she locked them up afore she
left.”
“Can I see them?”
“If’n yer hae the key, yer might!” he said, taking a cup,
saucer and plate of crackers and jelly from Mumsy. She handed me my
refreshed tea and a plate of crackers and jelly as well.
“Oh,” I said, trying not to sound disappointed. “You don’t
have the key?”
“Nay,” said Mumsy, bringing a teapot and the rest of the
“digestives”, as she called them, and placing it on the table in
front of us. She held the sugar bowl expectantly.
“Um, four?” I responded to the unasked question. Four lumps went
in.
She held the bowl of cream, questioningly.
“Please,” I requested politely. She added that and sat a plate
of jam covered crackers down beside the cup and I began to look
around for a rabbit in a vest, looking at a pocket watch, complaining
he was late.
Mumsy then set out her own place and called out, “Thanalome!” A
rectangular ottoman seemed to scurry over to accommodate her. I
swear, the piece of furniture began to pant like a puppy while a
tassle swayed to-and-fro when she sat on it!
We sipped our tea and ate our cookies while making small talk. The
crackers she served were more like the shortbread one of my
foster-grannies used to make. They were dry but the jam piled atop
them was tasty, sweet and moist. I had grape, strawberry, mint and
something she called lavender/honey jam. I ate them all with relish
and had two more cups of tea.
A short time later, my eyes became heavy and I felt as if I wanted to
sleep. I remember Alasdair and Mumsy making a quiet fuss, helping me
to a room and putting me on a bed.
KENT
“I
wanna glide down over Mulholland
I
wanna write her name in the sky
I'm
gonna free fall out into nothin'
Gonna
leave this world for awhile
Yeah,
I'm Free...
Free
Fallin'!”
-
Free Fallin' – Tom Petty, Jeff Lynn
I dreamt strange things: Of having wings and flying; of causing
mischief and polite mayhem; of playing rude jokes on “mundanes”
and other beings; of… of… falling in love with dark hair and blue
eyes and a jaw seemingly chiseled from stone…
I dreamt of shedding – cutting off my wings – to follow him, to
hold him, to bring him here or to die with him, and finding I’d
failed in all of those things. I awoke, crying, as he was slowly
taken from me, his dark hair turning to grey, his chiseled jaw going
slack and the blue eyes losing their lustre, then the face morphed,
becoming narrower, the nose more aqualine, though the intensity of
his blue eyes remained. As my dream continued, the face gradually
morphed, the jawline softened, but was still strong. Features
changed and moved around until I recognized him as my last lover,
Kent. He kissed me and smiled sadly, just before his entire being
exploded into a bloody mash, devoured by sharks.
My sobbing must have alerted Mumsy, for she came rushing into my
room.
“Are ye all right, dearie?”
I sat up abruptly, rubbing sleep and tears from my eyes as she sat
next to me and put her arm behind me, providing a comforting hug.
“It was just a bad dream, Mumsy. I’m fine.”
She cocked her head as if she didn’t believe me, and continued to
hug me for several moments. When she let go, she said, “As yer be
awake, then, tis time to sup! I’ve brought ye some water and a
bowl ter freshen up.”
Mumsy left and I shook a little as I rose and poured some water from
a pitcher into a basin to wash my face. To my surprise, my purse lay
at the foot of my bed, so I quickly brushed my hair, touched up my
makeup and dug into the zippered pockets until I found some tights to
slip on. While I didn’t find him creepy, the furniture was so
short that I didn’t want Dairsy getting any free looks if I could
help it. I mean, I wanted to keep my faux pas to a minimum here. I
liked Mumsy.
I emerged from my room and found it had grown dark outside. The
place was lit by a multitude candles and the fire still cheerily
crackling in the hearth. On the mantle, the clock showed that it was
a little after 9, even though my wristwatch indicated that it was
just after 2 in the afternoon.
I still towered over the two and had to duck under some of the
ceiling beams, but I made it over to the table without too many
incidents, opting to sit on the floor rather than on a chair. I was
a little lower than normal, which Mumsy solved by telling Alasdair to
fetch me a cushion off the couch, allowing me to sit “Saracen-style”
on the pillow, with my feet folded and ankles crossed beneath the
table.
We ate a delicious stew that had all sorts of veggies, fresh herbs
and succulent meats in it, though I couldn’t tell you what
meat it was. On top of that, there was a fresh loaf of bread and
honeyed butter to dip into. I ate three helpings before remembering
I’d “turned vegan” a short while back. I rationalized my lapse
by thinking that this wasn’t slaughter-house meat and it had
probably been hunted by those that used everything from the
animal. My veganism had more to do with protesting wasteful
consumerism anyhow.
We finished off the large pot of stew, with Mumsy and Alasdair eating
almost twice as much as I did!
Once the table was cleared and the dishes washed, we sat around the
hearth with goblets of fired clay and filled with a strong mulled
wine. Both Mumsy and Alasdair pulled out pipes and began to puff on
them. I don’t know what it was they were smoking, but it smelled
like church incense and made me cough as smoke filled the room.
Alasdair gave Mumsy a look and she twirled her finger and the next
thing I know, that smoke climbed straight up, hugged the ceiling,
then crawled down the mantle wall until it reached the hearth opening
before it disappeared, rushing up the chimney! I dug my own
cancer-sticks from my purse, but when I lit up I found, to my
surprise, that they tasted disgusting. I ended up throwing the
entire pack into the fire.
Mumsy worked on some knitting and Dairsy pulled out an old,
yellow-paged tome from a shelf and began to leaf through it.
“What's that?” I asked Dairsy.
He smiled and closed it onto his index finger so that it acted as a
bookmark.
“Tis me Book O' Spells,” he said.
“Spells? Are you some sort of Wiccan?”
He laughed. “I be one of the wise ones, yes, but not in the hooman
sense, lass. Tis a book of my studies and observations of the Art of
Thaumaturgy and Magecraft. I've been keeping it since I t’was a
wee apprentice.”
“So, it's more of a journal then?”
“Ye might say that.”
Satisfied with the answer, my eyes wandered around the room, but my
gaze seemed to be consistently drawn to the locked cabinet. I
wanted very much to look inside at the wings there and touch them;
see what they were like. I had an urge to ask if we could break into
it, but I was also afraid.
“Tell us about your childhood, dearie,” said Mumsy, interrupting
my thoughts, but her needles continuing to bob and click.
“I’m sorry?” I said, hiding my confusion by sipping gently at
the wine. It tasted of wild berries, honey and sweet grasses.
“Tell us about yer days as a wee cailÃn?” she said again.
“Colleen? No, my name is… oh, wait! I remember! That’s the
Irish Gaelic word for girl!”
“Siá, cailÃn tis the word, indeed, though we speak more Gnomish
and Elven than hooman Gael. Tell us what ‘twas like fer ye,”
said the old woman in a gentle voice.
“I… I don’t remember much,” I told her truthfully. “I had
amnesia when I was found wandering around. I went to a shelter and
then was adopted. I was told they estimated my age at about 13 then.
I was supposedly in a traumatic incident that affected my memory. I
was in a coma for a while and, when I awoke, they told me I was an
orphan, though I couldn’t remember anything about myself or my
family. They told me a little about what happened, but it seems I
had nobody other than my late mom and dad, telling me they’d found
their remains in a canyon. Their car had swerved and hit the side of
the mountain, throwing me out, and then went over the cliff.
“I went to a foster home. Homes, actually. I was passed around to
various families because I was what they referred to as a…
‘troubled youth’. Again, I don’t remember much because of the
accident and I didn’t really feel as if I were troubled in
any way, but I was told I’d bottled up a lot of my emotions and
then ‘acted out’ when I was in one of my moods. I guess I caused
a lot of problems for my fosters, though, because I’d continually
run away from home. I liked the last ones though. Those fosters
were good to me and the others.”
“Fosters?”
“Foster-parents – people who volunteer to help raise you as if
you’re their own, but you never are. Most of them are in it for
the money.”
“I see. And, just what kind of trouble did you cause?” asked
Dairsy, looking up from the book and cocking his brow.
I sighed.
“I have a tendency to be attracted to older, rugged-looking guys.
I’ve never looked my age and the guys I chased always just assumed
I was ‘old enough,’ mainly because of my attitude. I guess it
makes me seem older than I look.
“My ‘fosters’ would set them straight and there’d be a big
fight between us all when they’d do that because I’d insist that
I was in love with the guy.”
“And what made the last… um… fosters… better?” he asked.
I blushed. “Well, their second-eldest foster-son was someone I
just… well, I don't know if you believe in this, but it was love at
first sight; as if we’d known each other all our lives – as if we
were meant for each other and each other alone.
“To everyone around us, we appeared to be brother-and-sister close,
not romantically inclined, but I could feel something else there. I
know he felt it too, so we’d signal each other with little touches
here-and-there, or with certain jests or facial expressions. I don't
think our foster-parents even knew anything was going on because he
went away to college shortly after I arrived. But, like I said, the
attraction was immediate and we both recognized it. He understood me
and never belittled some of the thoughts I seemed to blurt out.
“He would come home from school and we’d hang out together. And,
this time, there was no real way for the foster's to keep us apart.
Each time he would come home, we'd take long walks and have intense
discussions, much to the annoyance of the other two foster-girls in
the family who had a crush on him as well.
“We both knew that the foster's were listening to our conversations
and were satisfied when they realized that we talked about mostly
mundane things like what was going on at school for each of us and
what we were interested in pursuing. But, we’d developed this
sort-of code, using innocent-sounding phrases and double-entendre’s
that sounded like insults, to tell the other how we felt.
“Over the course of the next few months, they decided that it was
all just platonic and began to leave us alone. Of course, that’s
exactly what we wanted them to believe. Once they did that, well…”
“What happened?”
“Kent…” I began, noticing that they both started at the mention
of his name, “Kent was something of a dare-devil and was going to
school at UC San Diego. For the next two years, he’d come home and
I pretty much monopolized his time, much to the consternation of the
other two girls. Again, the fosters would monitor our conversations,
but what they heard were my questions about academics and whether or
not the school would be a good fit for me as well. He then suggested
that I arrange for a visit.
So, in my senior year of high school, I bought a train ticket and
went to visit… not just the school, but him. He seemed very happy
to see me, even though it was a surprise, and began to show me around
campus. We had lunch there, then went to the library to do some
reading and, afterwards, he took me to a party.
While we were there, Kent went off to talk to some buddies and get me
a drink when some creepy guy plopped down next to me and put his arm
around me, holding me down. Then he began to kiss and grope me while
I tried to squirm and get away. When Kent returned, I’d just
pulled the guys hand out from under my tee and slapped him. Kent saw
it and began yelling at the guy. They got nose-to-nose and were
about to fight when I pulled Kent away. I calmed him down and he
spent the rest of the time at the party either holding my hand, or us
sitting together with his arm around me.”
“And?” said Mumsy.
I blushed and smiled a little. “I found I kinda liked it.”
She smiled in return and nodded while I took a long gulp of wine,
trying to keep my eyes from getting all misty. “He was the one
that gave me the nick-name of ‘Mack’ and it sorta stuck, even
though he called me ‘Annie’ in private. Anyway, we both got
drunk and I confessed to him that I was very attracted to him and he
confessed his attraction to me and, well… one thing led to another,
and we went up to his dorm room.”
“I see,” said Mumsy without approval or disapproval. “So, did
yer marry the lad?”
“No,” I replied sadly.
“Oh? Why? What happened?”
I paused, not sure how much I wanted to reveal about my past to
relative strangers, but I discovered I felt very comfortable with the
two of them.
“I'm not sure where to begin...”
“Just tell us in your own way, dearie,” said Mumsy, soothingly as
she continued to knit.
I sighed. “One of Kent’s hobbies was hang-gliding and, over the
next semester, whenever I went to visit him, he took me along on his
flights, using a double-harness on the kite rig. Oh, my God but that
was the most wonderful, exhilarating things I’ve ever experienced!
We would take a running start and head right off the cliff with this
kite on our back and spend the next several hours soaring and
floating through the air like a bird! I would close my eyes and feel
as if... as if...”
“As if what, dearie?”
I looked away for a moment and found I was staring at the cabinet, so
I said softly, “As if I had wings…”
My words drifted off and there was as a strange tingling between my
shoulders, and an odd niggling in the back of my mind began to make
its way forward. I began to cry softly.
Mumsy and Dairsy waited respectfully as I dug into my purse for some
tissues. I blew my nose and dabbed at my eyes before I continued.
“Six months later, I graduated from high school and decided to go
to the same university. Kent and I moved in together. Oh, my God,
we were so in love! Kent was a senior by then, majoring in avionics
and engineering and he began experimenting with a new hang-glider
design of his own, using lighter, and supposedly stronger, materials.
I helped him as much as I could, but often had to study on my own.
I was majoring in photography and film, so my foster parents had
helped me buy some second-hand equipment. When he completed the
prototype, we went out to the glider port and he asked me to make a
video of his inaugural flight so he could show it to his professor.
“Along with redesigning the glider, he had created a unique
infrared scope that was supposed to detect thermals, and maximize
lift and flight time for when we doubled-up on the kite frame. He
wanted to test it out before we both went up, so he flew solo on the
first run. He ran off the cliff and disappeared, then came back up.
It seemed to work really well and he told me so on the radio.
“It was so graceful to watch, all the swooping and circling. He
climbed up until he was almost out of sight and then circled to come
down for his landing. That was when… he was in… he had some sort
of… something went wrong during his landing approach and he... He
seemed to aim… I want to call it a flying accident, but it wasn’t.
I mean, I was the one that was supposed to have the suicidal
tendencies, but he...”
I choked back a sob.
“Something on the kite either broke or he undid it when he was
coming in for a landing. I thought I’d hallucinated the entire
thing, but I didn’t. He came flying towards us, making the gentle
curve from the ocean. Just before he got to the cliff, the kite
folded and he disappeared.”
“Oh, my stars!” gasped Mumsy. “What happened?”
I choked back a sob and swallowed twice before saying in a quiet
voice, “Apparently, he crashed, twenty feet below the edge.
“I screamed and tried to run toward him and they held me back as I
looked over the edge and saw the wreckage and the sharks making the
water froth below. I kept screaming his name and it took four of our
friends to drag me back, to keep me from jumping in after him…”
I burst into tears and they left me alone for several minutes until I
regained my composure.
“It was wonderful and horrible,” I told them. “The flying, I
mean. When we flew together, Kent would zoom down and then climb up
on the thermals and we’d circle around and around, getting higher
and higher.
“The last thing he said over the radio was that he wanted to test a
landing theory and he was circling to gain speed for the stall when
it… when he…” I stopped and gulped. “They never found his
body. That was just a little over two months ago. I… I… sorta…
quit going to classes after that happened and just spent all my time
at Kent’s apartment, crying. I guess I’ve flunked out of college
and the semester ends in two weeks so I’ll have to decide whether
to get a job or go back to the fosters because they’ll be closing
down the dorms.
“I just wanted to stay at our apartment, but Kent’s landlord told
me I couldn’t, because the lease had run out, so I began to wander.
Then, one of our mutual friends hands me an envelope and tells me
its some money that all of our friends have put together to give me.
Two days later, the fosters came up and took all his stuff away and
asked me if I wanted to come back with them. I told them no, and the
next day, I got on a bus and came here… I mean, to the city… you
know… up there.”
“Ah, yes,” said Mumsy.
“Why did yer come here?” asked Dairsy.
“Something Kent told me one time when we were in the library.”
“Oh?”
“Yes… he took me in there and we got on the internet and he
showed me a picture of the bridge. He told me, ‘If anything
happens to me, go there.’ So I did.”
“I see,” said Dairsy, his face in a contemplative set. He waited
several moments before cocking his head and narrowing his eyes before
asking, “Do ye often have thoughts of flying with wings?”
I looked up, startled.
“How did you…? Wait, do you mean, do I dream of it?” I
asked, wiping my eyes and blushing. I hesitated before answering and
they both looked at me, almost expectantly. “Yes, I do. A lot.
Even before I fell in love with Kent. But, then, so do – or did –
many of my friends. Now, almost all of them are unhappy or
depressed, though I try to help, but…”
“But?” asked Mumsy, softly.
“But… I don’t know what to say to them to snap them out of it.
Any time I try, they just… just… push me away!
“I mean, I tried to get them interested in taking up gliding as
well, but a few looked afraid and the others just dismissed me,
telling me they couldn’t afford it. We could, though –
Kent and I. He always seemed to have money. I just knew that, if I
could get my friends to go up with us, they’d get their joy of life
back!”
Dairsy gave me a puzzled look.
“These friends of your’n. Did you know them well?”
“Not as much as I’d liked. I mean, I called them my ‘friends’
but we only hung out because we'd met at concerts because we listened
to the same music or, get stoned or drunk or something. I didn’t
know where most of them lived. I guess I simply assumed they were
students like me because I’d see them all on campus. A few of
them, though, seemed like they might have been homeless. I know that
Pip and Andrea sometimes slept out in the park until I invited them
up to our apartment when it got cold. They usually refused, though.
Kent often told me to simply leave them be.”
Dairsy and Mumsy looked at each other when I mentioned those names.
Then Dairsy spoke again. “Did… any of them… believe in… in
mythology? Specifically, Celtic mythology.”
I thought about it for a bit.
“I don’t know.” I responded. I paused and then my words came
out in a rush. “I’m thinking that they lost the ability to
believe in anything anymore. Most of my friends didn’t even
believe in themselves. They didn’t believe in life; didn’t
believe in an afterlife; didn’t believe in anything. It’s
as if their souls were empty, like uncharged or dying batteries.
“I would talk to them and try to get them to believe in something,
but they always put everything down. Some of them were really good,
loving people when I’d first met them, but something inside them
simply… ceased... at some point and it was like a cancer spreading
through them, turning everything black and making them really
negative.
“Others were either extremely self-centered. I thought, at first,
it was because they’d either come from privileged families and
thought everything was their right – or they never had
anything, and felt they were owed everything.”
“Oh? How so?”
I shrugged. “If they couldn’t obtain something easily, they
would steal it; even to the point where they’d attack others and
take from them. Afterwards, they would snicker and make snide
comments about their victims while they took drugs to get over the
guilt, and…”
I suddenly realized what I was saying, then shuddered and took
another sip of wine, sitting in silence for a bit. Dairsy simply
wore a thoughtful look for several minutes before he returned to
reading his book and Mumsy shook her head sadly as she continued her
knitting.
Now filled with a nervous energy and thinking I'd said all the wrong
things, I got up and looked around the room. In one dark corner, I
found a harp and ran my fingers over the strings, startling both my
hosts. I brought it back to my chair and plucked randomly at it,
which progressed into something more.
I must have learned to play piano at one point in my life because I
began to play melodies with an ease I didn’t know I had. I fell
into one tune – a particularly melancholy one, playing it
hesitantly at first, as if struggling to remember it. On the third
try with this melody, Alasdair began to sing in a soft, yet strong
tenor about a maiden and her lost love and Mumsy joined in on
harmony. I couldn’t stop playing as long as they were singing and,
they kept singing as long as I continued playing. By the end, we
were all crying and blowing our noses and hugging each other.
“I’m tinkin’ that’d be enough for this night,” said Mumsy,
gently dabbing at her nose with a kerchief before removing the harp
from my hands and placing it back in the corner. I went to bed with
a heavy heart and fell into a deep sleep, once more dreaming about
black-veined wings, laughter, love and pranks.
MORNING
“Morning
has broken,
like
the first morning
Blackbird has spoken,
like
the first bird
Praise for the singing,
praise
for the morning
Praise for them springing
fresh
from the word”
“Morning
Has Broken” From the old Scots-Gaelic tune “Bunesson”
Words
by Eleanor Farjeon
The next morning, I was the first to awaken, so I rekindled the
banked kitchen fire and put on a kettle, then looked in the larder
for breakfast. Mumsy appeared a few moments later and shooed me out,
instructing me to dust shelves and sweep the floor.
“May I go outside for a bit?” I asked after I completed my task.
Mumsy stopped in her tracks and had that deer-in-the-headlights look.
“Nil, ye may naught,” stated Dairsy, almost as a command as he
joined us in the room. Then he softened it a bit, “Least naught
until our guests arrive.”
“Guests?”
“Siá,” said Mumsy. “We shall have guests soon enough. Tis
why I ask that you help me wit the cleanin’ and moppin’ if ye
would.”
“I guess I could help.”
I mopped, dusted, cleaned, folded, rearranged, chopped, cooked,
cleaned again and otherwise did what I was told. This amazed me as I
wouldn’t do these things before when I lived in the foster homes.
I’d been quite the rebel when living in those homes, because I
never felt as if I were actually a part of the family – so I never
did anything to help around the household, ducking out in the early
hours of the morning and not returning until late.
Here, I somehow felt I belonged. Back at the foster’s, I
was always being judged, criticized and scolded, no matter how I
tried, so I simply thought, why try? Here, in the presence of
Mumsy and Dairsy, I was…, I think the word would be encouraged.
I can’t put my finger on the exact difference, but there was a
sense of comfort and accomplishment. I seemed to know exactly what
Mumsy wanted just before she told me and, when she saw me moving to
do it, she complimented me instead of telling me to do what I was
already doing, saying things like, “Excellent, dearie!” or “Just
what I was about to ask you to do. Thank you!”
The clock struck on the three-quarter hour as I walked carefully into
the room, heading over to a low table while balancing a large tray
filled with empty cups surrounding an enormous glazed ceramic pot
filled with hot tea. As I set it down, there came a knock at the
door facing the yard (vs the “back door” that I’d entered,
which now seemed to have disappeared behind a set of curtains).
Dairsy answered and in came a gaggle of folk dressed in garb similar
to what Mumsy and Dairsy wore. Even with the plain nature of the
cloth, they all looked to be dressed in their best. They were
similar to Mumsy and Dairsy as well, though some were shorter or
darker than my hosts, while others were taller or lighter in skin
tone. The door had barely closed when another knock would sound and
more folks would enter. This happened over-and-over until the room
was almost overflowing, yet there always seemed to be room for more
folk as they arrived. I stood off to the side, nibbling on a cookie
and simply observed.
Odd, I thought, with this many people in the room, we
should all be crushed against the walls! Still, I didn’t want
to find out if that would happen, so I attempted to go outside. Each
time I did, I was pushed inward by a gaggle of newly-arriving guests.
I finally gave up and went to sit on the floor in a corner of the
room where I’d found the harp. It was slightly raised, as if it
were some sort of dais or stage, upon which Thannalome and Gurfel had
been placed. It allowed me to sit and simply observe, my eyes just
at head-level to most of the guests. To my satisfaction, I was left
to myself, though many gave me side-long looks.
Then she came in.
No, she didn’t ‘come in’…
She made an
entrance.
You almost expected trumpets to blare as she appeared, but when you
looked at her, you realize that it would have been far to ‘over the
top’ for someone of her noble nature. However, when she did step
through the doorway, the murmur of voices gradually died down and a
path slowly opened among those in attendance. People knew just how
far to step back and allow her to greet the hosts.
And she was simply…
Stunning...
…more ethereal…
…more beautiful…
…more… elegant…
...more… regal… than anyone else present.
She was clad in shimmering white that appeared to create a glow about
her. Nor did she ‘walk’. Instead, the woman seemed to float
through the room, smiling and nodding to each person in greeting as
she passed them, her route allowing her to move near enough so that
she could greet everyone personally at some point, with the
deferential pathway opening before her and closing behind, creating a
respectful clearing around her.
I watched in awe as this stunning lady approached, and wanted to
stand, but I’d hit my head on the beam twice already, so I simply
remained seated, half-hidden by the sheer number of those in
attendance.
She had a sophisticated, stately appearance of someone
pampered, yet not spoiled; accustomed to deference, but not demanding
it; so elegantly dressed and toned that you might think of her as a
wealthy debutante at her promenade. Her eyes, however, gave witness
to the fact that she’d seen far more, for far longer, than first
impressions would indicate.
Her height and radiance stood out in stark contrast to all the rest
in attendance, as if it were ordained that she be the center of
attention. Her hair was long, straight and a silvery-white. It
shimmered with a surreal radiance that had a backlit quality.
Her alabaster skin was
flawless, with none of that parchment-thin quality of an albino, none
of the bluish veins showing against the white skin. Instead, it had
a moon-glow appearance to it. That glow, that albedo
seemed to increase with each step, being fueled by the loving
adoration she absorbed from the crowd, and then reflected
back.
The gown this elegant woman wore was a marvel, appearing to be spun
from abalone shell and silk, shimmering with color, but not quite
opaque; and sheer enough that I could see the outline of her
figure when the light hit it ‘just so. But, even when you looked,
you couldn’t really see anything inappropriate
because the explosion of rainbow colors reflecting off the material.
She had curves, even with her impossibly slim build, but that was all
you noticed.
As she walked, she looked from side-to-side, calling out a soft
acknowledgment here and a kind word there, not worried for a moment
about tripping or being trapped. She strolled through the room as if
she knew every inch, every step, every crack, every incline, every
warp and imperfection in the slate stones. Not once did she look
where she was going.
As I gazed longingly upon her continence, there was an air about her
that made me want to kneel at her feet and lay my head upon her lap,
knowing she would stroke my hair and comfort me. I knew that, if she
were to command, I would obey, following her wildly and willingly…,
and that thought frightened me a little.
I began to panic when I realized she would soon be directly in front
of me and wondered if I should move away or go outside. Instead, I
simply rose to my feet (narrowly avoiding bumping my head on the
rafter for a fourth time) and smiled like an idiot as I held out my
hand to assist her stepping up onto the dais.
When my hand touched hers, she finally noticed me and a slight gasp
escaped her lips. The woman rushed forward, stopping short when she
was but inches from me, before reaching up to stroke my cheek, her
eyes searching every inch of my face as a look of hope and happiness
formed on hers.
“You’ve cut off all your hair!” she cried, putting one hand to
her mouth as the fingertips of the other combed through my short
locks as she stared.
“Yes, a few months ago,” I said, running my fingers along my
scalp in a nervous gesture, pulling my hair fully out of my eyes for
a moment. I swear that, when she spoke, you heard an otherworldly
chorus singing an operatic chorale of “aaaAAAaah’s” in the
background. It was unsettling because they went away as quickly as
she stopped speaking.
“My stars!” she gushed, hugging me. Not knowing what to
do as this stranger embraced me, my hands flailed, outstretched
behind her before wrapping around her lower back and returning the
hug. When it broke, she held my upper arms in her hands and smiled.
“Just look at you! You haven’t ch…”
Mumsy approached to greet her guest and whispered something in her
ear. The woman’s eyes grew wide as Mumsy spoke. When Mumsy was
through, I saw the woman's gaze return to me then looked away with a
horrible sadness that made me want to pull her back into the hug and
comfort her. More than one tear coursed down her cheek.
“Aoife,” said Mumsy, holding the woman’s arm as she introduced
us. “This be a friend who calls herself Mary-Anne McLaughlin,
though she says her friends call her ‘Mack” or “Mary-Mack”
but I’ve told her it’s not a name befittin’ a lady. Mary-Anne
don’t seem to fit her neither. But Mary-Anne she is.”
Mumsy turned to me to continue the introductions.
“Mary-Anne, this h’are be me second-cousin, thrice removed, Aoife
Beitha O’Tighe.”
“Hello Effie Baya Orteega,” I said, trying to imitate what I
thought Mumsy had called her and pulled at the hem of my skirt,
putting one foot behind the other and dipping down. My goddess!
Did I just curtsy??
“Aoife is just fine, my child,” she said in that beautiful
voice-with-chorale, gently correcting my pronunciation. Her smile
was a brilliant white. She reminded me of that scene in Lord of the
Rings where Frodo meets Galadriel. But Cate Blanchett didn’t come
close to this sort of otherworldly beauty, even with all the CG.
In contrast to my clumsy bobbing and weaving like a spastic dancer
whenever I tried to navigate the room to avoid furniture, people and
ceiling beams, Aoife seemed to not have an ounce of ineptitude as she
floated over to Gurfell, the chair that I’d occupied last night. I
could see the piece of furniture sidle up to her, cat-like, its
cushion pushed out obscenely and wiggling like a tongue as it brushed
against her shin.
“OOH YEA-,” She cut off the sound with a wave of her hand and,
gracefully brushing her gown behind her as she sat down, the chair
expanding and resizing to accommodate her diminutive stature.
“Why didn’t it do that for me last night?” I muttered
softly.
“You have to know how to ask,” said Aoife to me in a sotto voice
so quiet that I couldn’t tell whether it emanated from her mouth or
inside my head.
More people filed in, all of them gasping in shock when they noticed
the two of us sitting together, but quickly recovering after I was
introduced. With the exception of Aoife, who sat on Gurfell as if it
were a throne, everyone else stood, gathering in other parts of the
room while engaged in hushed conversation as they cast furtive
glances in my direction.
Within moments, there were well over 200 guests in attendance! They
should have been packed into this tiny cottage like sardines in a
tin; instead, the room seemed to expand and fill out to accommodate
everyone comfortably. And a cool breeze from the open windows kept
the room airy.
My feet were tired and I desired to sit, so I moved the hassock
called ‘Thannalome’ until it was next to Aoife. I looked at it
and asked, in a pleasant voice, “May I sit upon you?”
“Of course!” said the furniture. “Why else would yer be movin’
me?”
I jumped and Aoife turned to scold it.
“Thannalome! Behave yourself with guests!”
“Eithne? She’s not a guest!”
Aoife gave the settee an imperious glare. “This is
Mary-Anne McLaughlin, Thannalome!” she scolded, giving the
second half of my name an odd pronunciation. “Now, accommodate
her!”
“As you wish, Miss Aoife!” it said deferentially, growing to seat
me modestly. To my amazement, while I towered over Aoife, my head
didn’t hit the beam this time. Either I’d shrunk or… no, I
didn’t shrink. I was still taller than anyone there, but the beam
was now a comfortable height above my head, so that, even if I stood…
I stared at it in wonder, then shook my head. “I must have cracked
my skull on it harder than I thought,” I muttered to myself
As I sat, all the talking in the room gradually ceased and all the
heads bowed. Aoife made a small gesture and everyone’s head rose
and the rumble of voices began again, though far more subdued.
“So,” I began, trying to make polite conversation, since no one
else seemed to be talking to me, “You’re Effie? Spelled
E-F-F-I-E?”
She laughed politely, “Neither, it is! I am Aoife.”
“Ava?”
“Almost. It's pronounced 'AY-fah' spelled A-O-I-F-E.”
I chuckled. In my head, that spelling looked more like “Effie”
and must have said so, because she gave me a polite laugh.
“Yes, I can see how it might appear so!”
“Supper is served!” called Dairsy from the outside door. He
walked in and was followed by two burly men-folk, carrying a spit,
upon which was a side of… well, meat. It smelled of smoke and
sizzling fat and herbs and spice. In other words, its aroma had me
drooling.
Dairsy carved it easily with a long sword-like knife and the first
fatty slices were given to Aoife. Then the next two slices, both
rare and juicy, were given to me and to Mumsy. Everyone but Aoife
and I seemed to serve ourselves.
We were offered plates of steamed vegetables, leafy
greens, rice, noodles, bread, honey-butter, gingerbread, followed by
cups of a cool, fermented liquid that tasted like a fruity beer. I
ate a salad (missing tomato, which didn’t seem to be in evidence)
and then the meat and some potatoes (which also had a sweet quality
to them) and some of the steamed greens along with a cup of
honey-flavored wine.
Nobody talked to us. Nobody approached us. Not even Mumsy and
Dairsy.
“Why… is everyone avoiding us?” I finally asked Aoife.
“They’re waiting to see what happens, I guess,” she said
cryptically, cutting off a chunk of meat with one knife, stabbing it
with another and putting it into her mouth. But she made the crude
act look elegant, while my careful cutting of the meat into
manageable chunks and daintily picking them up with my fingers looked
uncouth by comparison.
I began to think that they were treating Aoife like she was very
special, so I asked, “Are you royalty or something?”
Aoife stopped eating and gave me an astonished look.
“What makes you say that, child?”
“It’s the way everyone is treating you. They’re very…
deferential. Are you their Queen?”
She laughed and the musical choir laughed with her.
“No, my dear, I am not a Queen, but I am a Princess, as are
y… as was my sister. Pass me some of the gingerbread, please?”
“Of course, Effie… I mean, Aoife!”
When I handed it to her, the gingerbread finally triggered why I’d
thought of that name. A poem by e.e. cummings popped into my head
and I began to recite it:
“here
is little Effie's head
whose
brains are made of gingerbread…”
I
giggled nervously when I realized I'd said it aloud and heard a
collective gasp go up from the people nearest to us in the room.
Aoife turned to me.
“I'm
sorry. What was that bit of doggerel?” she asked, her voice tinged
with terseness.
I
grabbed my purse and pulled out my journal, where I copied down the
prose and verse of poets I admired.
“It’s
something by a poet named e.e. cummings,” I explained. “He’s
famous because he broke all the rules and created new ones. He’s
sort of my hero in the world of poetry.”
“Broke
the rules? What rules?”
“Poetry
rules. Grammatical rules. Punctuation rules. He didn’t always
follow standard practices so that you could interpret what he wrote
in several different ways. Sometimes he spelled his name all in
lower case, and sometimes wrote a poem within a poem and, by reading
it one way or another, or all together, it could give you different
meanings and such. Editors were always trying to correct his
grammatical usage and he fought with them until he died.”
“Oh?
This… bit of verse; how does it go?”
I
began again:
here
is little Effie's head
whose
brains are made of gingerbread
when
judgment day comes
God
will find six crumbs
stooping
by the coffinlid
waiting
for something to rise
as
the other somethings did-
you
imagine his surprise
bellowing
through the general noise
Where
is Effie who was dead?
-to
God in a tiny voice,
i
am may the first crumb said
whereupon
its fellow five
crumbs
chuckled as if they were alive
and
number two took up the song
might
i'm called and did no wrong
cried
the third crumb, i am should
and
this is my little sister could
with
our big brother who is would
don't
punish us for we were good;
and
the last crumb with some shame
whispered
unto God, my name
is
must and with the others i've
been
Effie who isn't alive
just
imagine it I say
God
amid a monstrous din
watch
your step and follow me
stooping
by Effie's little, in
(want
a match or can you see?)
which
the six subjective crumbs
twitch
like mutilated thumbs;
picture
His peering biggest whey
coloured
face on which a frown
puzzles,
but I know the way-
(nervously
Whose eyes approve
the
blessed while His ears are crammed
with
the strenuous music of
the
innumerable capering damned)
-staring
wildly up and down
the
here we are now judgment day
cross
the threshold have no dread
lift
the sheet back in this way
here
is little Effie's head
whose brains are made of gingerbread
I giggled again and then realized why it had come to my memory and I
began to babble.
“The reason it came to me your name, Aoife, the way it's spelled
makes it sound like ‘Effie’ in my head and it just suddenly came
to mind when you made the request for gingerbread…”
I realized that I was babbling and paused. “Oh, my God, I’m
sorry! I wasn’t trying to make fun of…”
Aiofe held up her hand and smiled. “No offense taken, my dear.”
“Are you sure?”
“I am. First of all, as I said, it’s pronounced AY-fah, not
Effie. Effie is a contraction of the human world’s Greek name,
Euphemia, or ‘pleasant sounding.’ Mine is a variation of the
name Eve, one of the ancient goddesses of the fae – some say one of
the original fae beings, and a sister of Dana.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry for misconstruing it, but in my head -!”
“Do not worry, my dear. You are among strange people using strange
words and accents in a strange place. Mistakes will be made.” She
pointed at my journal and asked, “May I... see that?”
Aoife took the book out of my hand and began reading through it,
smiling at some of the entries and her eyes tearing up at others.
She read aloud the Yeats, Joyce and Burns, of course, along with
Baudelaire, Longfellow and, surprisingly, song lyrics I'd included by
George Harrison, Bob Dylan, Jim Morrison, and John Lennon, among
others.
“How delightful!” she said. “You have a love of poetry!”
“I do.”
“So do I!” she told me, “Would you like to hear one?”
“I'd... love to!” I said, earnestly.
She then bowed her head as if preparing or remembering, and then
began to recite a poem about the wind in the meadow. Everyone
immediately stopped speaking to listen and I was enchanted as well.
The imagery was vivid and made you both elated and want to cry. As
she gently finished, we all clapped, enthusiastically.
“That was beautiful,” I told her.
“Thank you,” she said, sadly. “It was written... by my...
sister.”
“Oh, how… Oh!” I was now uncomfortable. It was obvious that
her sister was no longer.
“Do not weep,” she said softly, a bittersweet smile on her face.
“I have shed enough tears for us both.”
“What was she like?” I asked.
Aoife looked at me with sadness in her eyes for a very long time
before placing her hand on my cheek and quietly saying, “Very much
like you.”
WINGS
She's
so high
High
above me, she's so lovely
She's
so high
Like
Cleopatra, Joan of Arc, or Aphrodite
“She's
So High” - Tal Bachman
I desperately wanted to change the subject to something more
interesting. Again, my eyes were drawn to the cabinet.
“Dairsy claims there are wings locked away over there,” I
confided. “Did they belong to your sister? And how come I don’t
see wings on anyone here?”
Aoife’s eyes went wide with shock at the apparent audacity of my
questions. Her face clouded with a touch of anger as she gave our
host a withering look. “There are times when Dairsy's tongue
sometimes rattles loosely around in his head of its own accord,
instead of being still.”
Dairsy made eye-contact with her and simply nodded, as if they were
communicating subliminally. When her gaze returned to me, the clouds
of anger quickly parted and Aiofe's features radiated sunshine again.
She sipped her wine and sat back in her chair. “And you don’t
see wings because you either chose not to see them or because you
don't truly believe in them, so we choose not to show you.”
“But, I do!” I blurted out before I’d even thought about it.
“I do believe, otherwise I would not have followed Dairsy down
here!” I told her my story of flying with Kent, what he’d said
to me before he died. I noticed that she seemed surprised by the
names I mentioned, just as Dairsy and Mumsy had been. When I was
through, I asked, “May I see your wings?”
Aoife jumped abruptly, shocked at my apparently audacious request,
and looked at me. “My, but you are quite impertinent, much
as my beloved sister would have been!” She grinned and then leaned
in towards me. “You can see them,” she whispered, “if,
and only if, you have the key!”
“Key?”
She nodded.
“Aye. You have to want to see them. You must
believe in them!”
“I do!” I said earnestly.
Aoife smiled and I began to hear that ethereal chorus in the
background, simply singing notes that started softly, gradually
rising in a crescendo, as if we were in a movie and something deified
was being revealed. I looked at her in wonder as the air shimmered
around her and the chorus began to gently increase the crescendo. I
looked harder, but the air just continued to flicker and distort,
causing the choir to decrescendo down the musical scale once more.
“Believe,” someone whispered, so I concentrated, believing
that she actually had wings.
The harmonic voices slowly rose again, both in pitch and in volume as
the shimmering mirage behind Aoife flickered, then solidified and,
after a cymbal crash and a long-held “AAAAH!” note, I could see
two glittering, translucent appendages slowly come into focus behind
her, gleaming with luminescence and sparkling as they refracted the
flickering candlelight. They seemed to continue to grow and expand as
music that reminded me of Orff's choral “O Fortuna” from Carmina
Burana played dramatically in the background, the edges of her
wings now flashing and blinking with small explosions of reflected
light off the golden veins and polished ivory of the wings as they
idly twitched, moved, and expanded. Soon, they were larger than
Aoife and curled around the beams, the floor and the walls. They
created a radiance around her and made her even more striking than
she had been. Whereas before, she'd been simply ethereal, she was
now stunningly majestic; imperial!. When the chorus and orchestra
hit their final note, my hands went to my mouth in surprise.
Aoife smiled shyly. “You can see them now?”
“Oh, goodness, yes, I can!” I exclaimed softly. “They’re…
beautiful!”
“Thank you, Eith… Mary-Anne.”
“Oh, how I wish I could have wings as beautiful as that,” I
murmured, completely awestruck. I turned, expecting everyone else to
be as speechless as I, but no one else appeared to have heard a thing
or be paying attention.
When I turned back, the wings faded from view with a sigh from the
choir.
“My… sister…,” continued Aoife, “had beautiful wings as
well. They were even more beautiful than these, with gold and silver
veins running through them, but with hers as black as these are
translucent and white. When they fluttered, they would go from clear
to gold to silver as she spread them, then would burst into a
gemlight-rainbow flashes of color as she fluttered them, gleaming and
sparkling like jewelry in the sunlight,” said Aoife wistfully as
the memories welled up inside her. “They were truly magnificent,
putting mine to shame. Oh, and the fun we had together! She and I
would flitter, swoop, and fly all around the countryside, playing
with the dragons and eagles. We would always get into such
trouble for being late to sup…”
Aoife caught herself, tucking away her emotion like a handkerchief.
“But, melancholy remembrances, and recounts of the past, are not
what I am here for!”
“What are you here for?” I asked.
“Why, to welcome our special guest!”
“Oh? Who is that?” I said, looking around.
Aoife laughed, “Why, you, my dear.”
“Me? I’m just a nobody that followed Dairsy down here. You
don’t really have parties for everyone that comes down this way, do
you?”
She smiled. “Not often, no, but when they come down that
particular portal, yes.”
I waited for a further explanation, but when none was forthcoming, I
asked, “Tell me more about your sister.”
Aoife sighed, then bent toward me, a mischievous grin on her face as
she spoke in a conspiratorial whisper. “She was my older sister,
though she always looked younger. She was a free-spirit and, oh,
such a rebellious little hellion. And, while her name was Eithne,
everyone in our family and all that were close to her or knew her
well called her ‘Mimsy.’
“She gave my father, the King, fits because of her attitude. He
wanted her to marry a Prince from a smaller kingdom to the North to
help settle a minor, though annoying, dispute, but she refused. She
said she couldn’t wed anyone that she wasn’t in love with or had
never met and, when Father insisted, she rebelled and refused to even
be introduced the boy.”
Aoife shook her head and chuckled. “The contradiction was that she
was such an incurable romantic, that one! Not the least bit
pragmatic or apologetic, much to the consternation of my parents.
She seemed to fall in love with every handsome boy she ever ran
across, including one older, rugged-looking mundane, who had followed
her through one of the more ancient portals. The difference was that
she fell hard for this man.
“When father discovered this, he demanded that she end her
flirtations with this human. Of course, she refused. When he tried
to stop her by force, she became furious and would find ways to
escape and run off to be with him, even though she confessed to me
that she’d seen an even more handsome and younger man during one of
her returns, and was now torn. We hadn't known how ill Father was
until he quite suddenly died, which is why he'd been working so hard
to prepare this marriage.
“When my sister refused this betrothal, and then my father passed
on, my mother fell into a deep depression and stopped eating.
Eventually, she succumbed to weakness and starvation. Mother’s
passing left Mimsy to govern, but she had not yet come of age, nor
had she married, so the duties fell to the Prince Regent, our cousin,
Penntague, until my sister reached her 16th season – or
until she married the First-Born Prince of the Fifth House, whom she
refused to even consider.”
“Why didn’t it fall to you?”
Aoife laughed. “First of all, because I was three seasons younger
than my sister and not yet of marrying age, let alone ruling age.
Second, because it goes by succession of first-born among the Senior
Ruling Houses. Ours was the most senior because Father was
acknowledged as the King among Kings and Mother was our Queen because
of their marriage. From there, succession falls to the first-born of
the First House, then the First Born of the Second House. I was, or
would have been, twenty-seventh in line for succession. I’m now
third.”
“Why is that?”
Aoife sighed again, but didn’t answer directly. Instead, she
continued her explanation:
“Eithne was Firstborn of the First House, so she was first in line
of succession. Penn was first-born in his kingdom, which is of the
Second House, so he is second in line of succession, even though he
is five seasons older than Eithne.
He is also our first-cousin, the son of our mother’s younger
sister, Trillia – who was the third-born of what was then
the Third House. She married Carrick, the first-born of the Fifth
house because all the other first- and second-born, at the time, were
males. The consolidation of those kingdom’s created a new Second
House. My paternal cousin, Oissian – the Second-born of the fifth
House, married my mother, LeFey, the First-Born of what was then the
Sixth House, so that union formed the Third House.”
“Why didn’t the first-borne of the fifth house marry your
mother?”
“Because the first-born of that house was my Aunt Cliondha,
Ossian’s niece, and she was the same age as my mother. They were
the best of friends, though she died in an accident with her
betrothed before she reached her twelfth season.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry!”
She smiled. “No need for apologies, I’m merely explaining how it
all works, though I admit that it sometimes confuses even me.” She
laughed and then continued.
“My mother was First-Born of the Third House and Oissian’s
daughter. She married the second-born of the First House, because
the first-born of the First House – my uncle Tolliver – passed
away before he became of age. He and Cliondha were to be wed and
that marriage would have created the First House, but they died
together in that accident. Hence, my father, even though he was
second-born, was, by default, now the First-Born of the First House
upon Tolliver’s death, and was able to marry my mother, because all
of the other first-born’s were much older and already married, and
no other members of the opposite sex were of age to engage in an
arrangement contract, so no other match or consolidations could be
reached.”
I scrunched my nose up at this. “Wouldn’t all this consolidation
eventually lead to one big house?”
Aoife smiled. “No. All the offspring of a house receive a portion
of the lands upon the death of their parents, which fragments the
holding and creates new houses, though the firstborns are entitled to
a two-thirds-share, which all of them, of course, take, though that
changes the house order once more.
“There are times, though, when everyone that offers a step-up in
House rank is married, adopted, or of the same sex, or there could be
an excess of single male or female children without any chance of
partnerships that would be of any political significance.”
“What happens then?”
“In that case, those children are free to marry whom they wish and
their properties are no longer a part of the aligned Houses, but
become 'Free-Holdings' which are free to choose their own alliances,
rather than consolidation with one house or another, though they may
also choose to do that. Often, they remain freeholdings or simply
consolidate among themselves in an alliance among other freeholders,
agreed upon by contract – which sometimes leads to them becoming a
ranked, dominant house with eligible children, when their lands or
holdings reach a certain formulated size, but that is extremely
rare.”
“Many times, a royal pairing produces no offspring because one or
both of the couples are too old and the lands are then divided up
among the closest related, non-titled children of Royalty and their
Gentry husbands – in other words, the Royals who married whomever
they wanted. When that happens, their children regain their royal
status and you end up with a lot of small kingdoms and minor houses
with new First-Borns and new consolidations to be made.
“We have had long periods of many very small duchies and no
dominant houses. These duchies weren’t the least bit united and
often there were frequent squabbles over territory or lack of defense
from the outside threats. When that happens, we must call a council
of elders to settle matters and that usually leads to them to forcing
alliances so that marriages can be arranged, even though the ones
involved are often children being married off to older widows or
widowers, but sometimes children become contractually betrothed to
other children.
My face scrunched up in bewilderment. “But, what happens if, among
the fractured duchies, there are neither, meaning that all the
children are of the same sex, or that there are no older widows or
widowers, or everyone is the same sex, or the parents or those
involved don’t agree to the terms?”
She smiled. “In that case, the council may convene a Grandal.”
“What’s that?”
“A means to elect a King and Queen.”
“How so?”
“They may find several popular royals, or gentrys, even, from among
the duchies and hold an election by popular vote. If necessary,
there is a primary election to narrow down the field. Otherwise,
once a couple wins, the council will then ordain that each duchy gift
a piece of their lands to to create a new, single, large house and
then the new King and Queen will assess the remaining duchies and
rank them to allow for political marriages.”
“Political?”
“Yes. In many cases, when these alliances are forced, both parties
elected may be married to others, but the council deems that, should
a certain royal male and a certain royal female make a good
combination, they grant a ‘dispensation’ and allow them to marry
again, in name only, while still retaining their relationship with
their initial partners.”
“So, they are allowed to stay with their other spouses?”
“They are allowed to remain married to them, yes, but, as Royals,
they must produce at least one offspring between the King and Queen.
The consumption must be witnessed and the woman may not have sex with
her initial husband until it is confirmed she is with child.”
I laughed. “And, just how do they verify that?”
“The arranged couple must live with each other for one full season
out of three and have no other lovers during that one season – not
even their initial spouse. There are often ‘observers’ and
chaperons ensuring that the child is created from that particular
union.”
“What if they don’t like each other?”
“Then the Council will resort to artificial insemination.”
“Oh.”
I thought about it and tried to piece it all together and found I was
getting a headache, so I changed the subject.
“Oh. So, was your sister supposed to marry Penn?”
Aoife laughed. “No. He would have had to marry a First- or
Second-born from, at least, the Fourth House to supersede her. My
father’s sister, Giulia, was Third-Born of the First house and
married a First-Born of the Seventh House to form the Fourth House.
She had three boys, so no females were eligible there for Penn. As
far as Penn and Eithne – or anyone else in our household – he was
too close a relation to marry either of us.”
“Huh?”
She smiled. “Seems confusing, doesn’t it?”
“Well, yeah!”
“It’s quite simple. Penn’s Mother, my aunt, ‘married down’
to help her husband’s House status while my mother ‘married up’
to improve her House status.”
“You mean Penn’s mother married beneath her station?”
“Oh goodness no! She married a first-born! If she’d married a
second-born of anyone other than the First House, then she would have
married below herself, giving up her title of ‘princess’. It
would never do. But, my Aunt,
meaning Penn’s mother, who was a second born, by joining in
marriage her portion of the then Third-House with that of the
First-Born of what was then the Fourth-House, united those kingdoms
to form a new Second-House, moving the others down.”
I shook my head. “It sounds too much like corporate mergers, but
with the twist of CEO’s getting married.”
“Corpor… what?”
“Nothing. Continue please!”
“So I shall. Prince Ennikent of the Cullynae was first-born in
what is now the Fifth-House, and became third in line behind my
sister and Penn, as he was ten minutes older than his twin sister,
and he was the one Eithne was to marry and would have insured that we
remained as the First House. The Princess, Dofikla of the Cullynae
was to marry Penn to secure the status of the Second House remaining
so, because all the other first-borns of any other house were males.
She was the first female among the second-born, and that union would
have solidified a pact and strengthened the lines of succession.
With Eithne marrying the first-born of the Fifth House and a
first-born of a Second House marrying a second-born of a Fifth House
family (but the first first-born female of any of the houses) it
would have united three of the wealthiest individual kingdoms into a
strong union because it would have folded the Fifth-House into the
First and Second.”
My head swam as I tried to sort it all out. I actually took my
notepad and began to make a flow chart to try and make sense of it,
but gave up. My look gave me away, so Aoife took it from me and drew
out the chart. I looked at it and frowned, then went “oh!” and
got it. Aoife smiled and continued.
“It would have been a perfect match. But Eithne was a headstrong
female and so was Princess Dofikla. Both refused to budge from their
positions of wanting to marry for love, rather than out of political
expedience.
“Penn, it was rumored, was smitten by the Princess of Cullyn
because she was an extraordinarily gifted woman – and, it was said,
perhaps the most beautiful woman in all the land – but she was
inseparable from her twin brother. At the celebration, she took one
look at Penn during the Maypole dance, dropped her tassel, and
spurned him on the spot. Eithne, infatuated with the mortal she'd
recently met, refused outright to go to the celebration at all and
never met Prince Cullyn. Instead, she ran off in secret that night,
initiating a rendezvous with her mundane lover.
“When both Princesses refused their arranged marriages, it caused
tremendous political tensions and a crisis of succession. What made
it worse was that Eithne didn’t really wish to be Queen either, but
none of us wished for it to fall to Penn because... well, because we
noticed he had certain personality tendencies. Had Eithne married
Prince Cullyn, it would not have mattered whether she wanted to rule
or not as he would have become King and could simply have
taken over those obligations. It would have meant, however, that his
House would have risen to a primary position of prestige if she
refused her duties.
“This caused much agonizing for my father, the King, as well as for
Penn. Due to Penn’s ego, he took umbrage with the King and Prince
of the Cullynae, blaming them for Princess Dofikla’s reticent
disinclination. When Penn became regent, he raised an army to attack
them. Eithne, who was still here with us, used her influence to put
a stop to it before she left for good by issuing a stay through her
allies in the council, but it was a temporary measure that he has, as
of late, chosen to ignore.”
“Why is that?”
“Because, per the negotiated wording of that stay, if my sister is
gone for more than 20 of our seasons, she will have legally abdicated
her position and Penn will become King. Given that she’s
been gone for almost 19 now, Penn has become impatient and so
entrenched in his power, he’s decided not to wait another season
and declared that she is not coming back. Unless my sister returns
soon and marries Prince Cullyn…”
Aoife let the thought drift off.
“What do you think happened to your sister?”
“I believe that the mundane she was seeing lured her off to the
human world and she went after him, leaving her wings behind, and
became… lost. Dairsy says that the spell he put around her and her
wings should keep her going for at least another season, but I see
the worry in his eye. Magic – especially protection spells – can
become imprecise over extended periods of time.”
“Oh. Was this mundane another Prince?” I asked, sounding like an
enthralled little girl listening to a fairy tale.
“Unfortunately, no,” sighed Aoife. “We never saw him and she
kept him well-hidden. Our belief
was that he was but a simple human. Eithne would wander through one
of the more ancient portals because she said it led to a fascinating
world. She would then wander around in that world as a changeling.
She was enthralled with the life there, though any normal fae would
wonder why anyone would wish to cut off their wings to live in it.
Apparently, she found out why when she met her lover.
“She began going through that portal before
she met the mundane, and would come back from her
adventures and tell me about its beauty, but it sounded far too
primitive for my tastes. She had been out through the portal one day
and this mundane ended up following her – as prey to her changeling
shape – and became enthralled with her when she changed back into
her fae form. In the end, he stole her heart.
“They would often meet at the entrance to the portal. Since then,
that portal has collapsed and shifted, collapsed again and shifted to
its final form and place, but only a few know of it and it was Dairsy
that laid the spell to protect it and keep it from collapsing again.
But that is of minor importance. What is worrisome is when my sister
left she did the unthinkable; she shed her wings as well.”
“She cut them off?”
Aoife looked at me and smiled sadly. “No, but not for want of
trying. She simply wanted to spend some time as a mundane with the
one she loved, but didn't want to give up on being a fae forever.
She said she intended to come back because she didn’t quite trust
Penn. Dairsy was her mentor and like a grandfather to her. She
would spend a lot of time here at this cabin with him and Mumsy,
learning things from him and reading Dairsy's book. She’d read
about others shedding their wings so, of course, she came to Dairsy
to learn how to shed them in a manner that would allow her to regain
them when she decided to return.
“Dairsy assisted her reluctantly and has regretted it ever since.
Once she was rid of them, she ran off, leaving the kingdoms in such
turmoil that it led to several unpopular skirmishes between the
First, Second, and Fifth houses, as well as the adjoining fiefdoms.
Lands have been confiscated under very shaky pretenses and tensions
are running high. Many of us royals have suffered from 'premature
expiration' these past 19 seasons.”
“Premature expiration?”
“Death under questionable context. Certain royals who… might
have been a little… critical… of the current administration…
seem to have ‘passed-on’ under rather suspect circumstances.
They were all explained away as ‘terribly tragic, yet coincidental,
accidents’ in a very logical-but-chary-manner by our Regent.”
“That’s horrible! He investigated, of course?”
Aoife snorted. “He appeared to investigate, but no one yet
has been caught so, many of us high-ranking royals – and more than
a few like Dairsy – have made it our task to become more publicly
visible and mix among the masses more often. It used to be that
Royals would stay in their castles or on their estates with only a
few select friends around them. That was when we would question
quietly between each other about Penn's ability to rule. When
disagreements arose during those discussions, word would ‘leak
out.’ Many of those Royals who were critical of Penn soon had
tragedy befall them – and without witnesses to their demise as they
all seemed to happen ‘in the privacy of their keeps.’ Meaning,
they would mysteriously trip and fall down a flight of stairs, or one
of the stones, or a beam in the ceiling, would give away and fall on
them while they slept.
“With all the deaths, we Royals have become far more visible within
our Kingdoms, keeping dozens of trusted friends and retainers around
us at all hours of the day, especially after it became known that
some were again raising questions about our Regent. One positive
effect has been that our popularity has soared, making it
increasingly difficult for these ‘accidents’ to occur. He – or
whomever does this to us – dares not do it again for fear of an
uprising.”
“This Penn doesn’t sound like a very nice man.”
Aoife sighed and stared into space for a very long time before
saying, “He was once a wonderful and enchanting young lad.”
“Why, you sound positively wistful when you say that! It's almost
as if you... wait..., did you… were you two…?”
“…in love? Yes. Once, when we were both very young, foolish and
idealistic; a long, long time ago.”
“Then why didn’t you marry him?”
“Because, there was no political gain in it for him or his family.
I was also his first-cousin and thereby too close to be allowed to
marry. I was a third-born as well, but the brother that was between
Eithne and I passed away mysteriously before he became of age. Had
he lived and married someone from the third, fourth, or fifth house,
he would have displaced Penn in the ranking by becoming
second-in-line behind Eithne. So, even if I was of the First House,
my being married, even while rising to Second-Born would have done
nothing for him because we were already related and it would not have
been agreed upon by the council, even to unite our houses. Only the
marriages of Eithne and Dofilka to Ennikent and Penntague could have
done that.
“Penn’s family needed him to marry a second-born of at least the
Sixth-House but only the Fifth and Seventh house had females who were
first or second born, and the one from the Seventh was only four
seasons old. First-born females from other, lower houses were
available, but the political gain was too small to have been of any
good other than to settle a dispute. His brothers were to be used
for that. Emotionally, physically and mentally, Penn and I made a
good match, but we were forced to part and I was to enter into my
arranged marriage and solidify the union with another kingdom to the
West.”
“That’s no reason to get married!”
Aoife laughed. “That is so delightfully naïve of you! Of course
it is a reason to marry! People of status and wealth do it all the
time, whether it be for appearance, or for financial gain, additional
status, or something else. Very few people ever marry out of love –
except maybe among the lesser classes.”
“Well,” I huffed, “I think one should marry out
of love first.”
“Love comes with time,” said Aoife sadly.
“So, who did you marry?”
“A delightfully boring, older, and lovely man; the Earl of Tighe.
He was First Born of the Seventh House and Ninth in line of
succession but, like my poor brother, he’d always been somewhat
sickly, even when he was a child.”
“Did you ever fall in love with him?”
“Eventually, yes. Though it took me many seasons to appreciate
him.”
“What happened to change your mind?”
“I learned to not take him at face value and eventually saw that he
was a perfectly good life-companion. He was witty, educated,
interesting, charming and always very thoughtful. And a most
attentive lover!”
“Why didn’t you like him at first?”
She laughed. “He was as thin as a twig and ugly as sin.”
I laughed with her before asking, “What happened to him?”
She gave me a sad look. “He died a year and a day after our first
and only son was born. That was nine seasons back.”
“Oh, Aoife, I’m so sorry.”
She smiled sadly. “Don’t be. As I said, I’ve cried enough
tears for us both.” She was silent for a few more minutes before
continuing.
“When my sister, Mimsy left, Penn was free to wage an open, yet
secret, war against the Northern Kingdom, which is the Third House,
and against the Fifth House in the West. He slaughtered many of
their peoples as well as most of the Cullynae Royal Family. Only a
handful of that royals there survived and are now in exile. Among
them are believed to be the Prince and Princess, though there are
other rumors...”
When she didn’t elaborate, I asked, “What did the other kingdoms
do?”
“Nothing overt. Many were afraid of Penn but, after he did this,
they felt he went too far. All stood up to him and refused to render
any support, cutting the funding for any future conquests. As long
as any of the Cullynae family exist – and it is also an open secret
that all of the lesser houses succor the survivors – he cannot
annex their house into his to become the First House. That is
probably why so many Royals have come to experience an unfortunate
and early demise as of late. He is trying to find the remaining
Cullynae and exterminate them.”
“That’s horrible! This Mimsy should be punished for leaving her
responsibilities and turning over rule to that monster!”
Aoife looked sad. “In many ways, she may have been punished far
more severely than she thinks, for the longer the wings are left off,
the less she remembers about herself until she forgets entirely. The
magic in the wings has a direct link to the brain and the heart.
After 20 of our seasons, the protection spell will fade, her memories
will be gone completely and the wings wither and die – as will the
one who shed them.”
“That’s so… terrible! Oh, how I wish I could help!”
Aoife smiled and patted my hand. “I’m sure you would if you
could, my dear.”
There was one gent that hovered near the conversation between Aoife
and Mary. He stood far enough away to appear that he was not
listening, but his ears were larger-than-normal and his hearing was
exceptional. He ignored the conversation of the group he stood among
and concentrated on what the two women were saying. His lips curled
up into a faint smile.
She remembers nothing!
He made his plans. Very early the next morning, he would creep out
of the abode among the snoring, drunken revelers and make his way
back to the castle where he could provide a report to the Prince
Regent. Penn would be pleased, even if he might still worry that the
girl might be the one Dairsy believes her to be and would attempt to
don the wings. The spy mulled his next action when a
pretty-young-thing came up and took his arm.
TIME SHIFTING CIGARETTES
“Smoke
smoke smoke that cigarette!
Puff puff puff on it,
And if
you smoke yourself to death;
Tell St Peter at the Pearly Gate
That you really hate to make him wait
But you just gotta
have another cigarette!”
“Smoke
Smoke Smoke That Cigarette!” - Merle Travis & Tex Williams
I had a fitful sleep and awoke the next morning a little disoriented
and confused. I sat up, blinking several times before the memories
of the previous evening came back. It was then that I noticed the
snores coming from the other room and heard someone up and about.
Thinking it might be Mumsy, I got up, put on something decent, and
decided to help her out.
I walked out to a sea of blanket-and-quilt-covered bodies strewn
across the floor, all of them snoring loudly. Mumsy was nowhere in
sight, and when I looked out the windows, the entire house was
enshrouded in a dense fog, so I worked my way over to the stove,
rekindled the fire, and began to heat water for tea. Muttering to
myself as I worked, I wished for a cup of donut-shop coffee instead.
I managed to get the kindling lit and put in a couple sticks of wood
then filled the pot with water. Once the fire inside the stove began
to crackle, I shivered a little, partially from the damp cold of the
morning, but also because my dreams had really bothered me.
I looked out over the main room and saw that the outside door to the
garden had not latched. Curious, I opened it and, in the early
morning light, thought I saw the shadow of a figure disappearing into
the mists. Just like the first day, though, I had trouble focusing
on anything that wasn’t more than a few feet in front of me, but I
could swear that I saw footprints on the dewy flagstones of the path.
Those faded away quickly, though and I began to experience a touch
of vertigo. Returning inside, I took in all the revelers from the
previous evening, wondering how they all managed to fit into such a
tiny room. Aoife slept in Mumsy and Dairsy’s bed, of course, while
those two slept upon a rug on the floor of their room. I hugged
myself and shivered, deciding to rekindle the fire in the hearth as
well.
Delicately tip-toeing over the sleeping guests, I made my way to the
fireplace and stirred the ashes until I found some coals. When I did
that, I discovered my discarded pack of cigarettes. They’d
miraculously been untouched and I had a sudden urge for a smoke, so I
abandoned my efforts and threaded my way to the door I’d first come
in – the one hidden behind the curtain and leading to the stairs.
It was a long climb upwards, but it gave me time to think. The
dreams I’d had since I’d been here had been odd ones, filled with
memories of flying and of being… of being… something important.
Someone important. I tapped my lighter against my cigs as I
trudged up the stairs. My dreams had been strangely surreal and I
couldn’t quite put a finger on why, so I dismissed it as ideas put
into my head by the stories of Aoife, Mumsy, and Dairsy.
Still, they had me wondering as I climbed. In fact, I was so
engrossed in my thoughts that it felt as if I’d been climbing for
what seemed like an hour. When I looked up, I was on the last few
steps and once more looking at the ladder that led up the tower. I
didn’t even consider that I should be huffing and puffing from that
long climb and just clambered up the ladder until I could push aside
the hatch at the top.
It was close to sunset but, because of the darkness of the stairwell,
I had to blink several times before I climbed out and sat in my usual
spot. I lit up the cancer stick and looked out over the water as the
city began to twinkle and glow when lights gradually came on. It was
then that I realized that the cityscape was no longer ‘beautiful’
but, instead, displayed a terrifying splendor, obscene in its
magnificent ode to venture capitalism. Nothing about it blended in
with the natural landscape and all of it was calculated to call
attention to those that designed, built, worked or lived in it… and
owned it. It stunned me to realize that the buildings of the city
were there for one purpose: To satisfy an ego.
Given that, it was still beautiful – for this world.
I smoked four cigarettes up there while watching the sunset, but
tasted none of them. They no longer gave me the same satisfaction as
they had just a few short days ago. I tossed my last butt and
reasoned that I’d actually smoked them more to rebel against ‘the
fosters’ than for the enjoyment anyway. It was another
statement from this world: Here, you did things injurious to your
health to rebel.
Now, why did I think that? ‘This world?’ Isn’t this
my world?
That shook me a great deal. Was I saying that this wasn’t
my world? I could feel my face scrunch up in puzzlement. Now that I
thought about it, I’d never really felt as if I were at home
anywhere when I was here, even when… even when… even when
what?
Even when I was with Kent?
I got angry and spit because I wasn’t feeling the peace here that
I’d come to expect. Why was that? Why was I having a longing
for the place I’d just left? Why was I having dreams of flying –
or, more importantly – of being someone different; someone
significant? And why were faces of different men flashing in front
of my eyes and slowly melting together into one of two faces; that of
Kent and someone I remembered as being called Nydd? And why did I
feel so comfortable and ‘at home’ down in Dairsy’s and Mumsy’s
cottage while feeling more disquiet here?
I shook my head and wondered aloud why I’d let any of this happen
at all and I screamed incoherently with rage while shaking my fist in
the air.
Out of breath and my chest heaving, I finally took note of the city
profile. In shock, I lowered my hands and gaped at it with an open
mouth. The cityscape had subtly changed. While everything seemed
familiar, there were things out-of-place. I stared harder and
realized, the skyline had altered.
Where had that dome come from? What were those three new buildings?
What were those things flying around above the city, looking like
gnats hovering over a grassy field? A few came closer and I saw that
they were… what? Model planes? No, they were too big. A few flew
by closer to me and I saw that they had markings on their side. I
recognized familiar names of a few commercial companies and wished
that I had something to throw at them, but instead, I gave one the
finger. It was then that I noticed it had “Police” written on
the side. It turned swiftly and began to head directly for me.
I squeaked and went wide-eyed when I realized it was much bigger than
I expected. It also had what looked like two gun barrels swiveling
toward me, so I quickly slipped back through the access hole and
closed it behind me just as I heard it buzz over where I’d just
been. I hurried down the ladder and pushed against the access door,
only to find it locked. What the…? Surely it couldn’t have
been…? How long had I been down at the cottage? Two days?
Three? Could someone have possibly found it open and relocked it
that quickly? I mean, I would sometimes come in-and-out of here for
weeks without the door being relocked. And, out there, it was as if
years had passed, or even a decade or two! How did that occur?
I flicked on the lighter so I could see and found two loose
cigarettes on the floor. I stared at them, disgusted, before letting
my addiction overcome my squeamishness and picked them up. I put one
in my mouth to smoke while contemplating all this. As I lit it, the
lighter died, so I threw it, listening in the darkness as it
clattered noisily in the enclosed space. Right about then I heard
the distinct sound of brakes squealing as something large and heavy
came to a stop right outside, followed by the low thrum of a diesel
engine. In the distance, a police siren howled and it was quickly
getting closer.
I began to panic, my breathing becoming rapid and shallow as I tried
to remember if the passageway was across from the ladder or off to
one side. Slapping at the wall desperately with my hands, I blindly
searched for the opening. As I did, the male voices grew louder and
I heard the diesel engine gun and the sound of hydraulics. They were
lowering someone in a bucket over to the access door!
My search became more frantic and I could feel my eyes begin to well
up with tears. Suddenly, I didn’t want to be here. I
slapped at the block walls frantically, trying to find the opening so
that I could run down the stairwell, but I ended up touching nothing
but stone and metal. It wasn’t there! But it had to
be there! I’d just come up from it!
“You have to believe!”
“What?” I mentally shouted.
“You have to believe!” I heard a faint voice say once
more.
“Believe?” I responded. “Yes! That’s it! Believe,
Mary-Anne!” I told myself. “Believe!” I closed my
eyes.
“I believe,” I chanted. I believe! I believe! I be…
There was a metallic rasping and the voices of men just outside the
access door. I could hear the jingling of keys as they were used on
the lock.
“I believe! I believe! I believe!” I mumbled, trying
not to cry as I felt for the opening. Just as the lock snapped
undone, the access door sprung back a fraction, allowing a sliver of
light to reveal the stairwell, two feet from where I stood. I
quickly stepped down them, going just far enough so that they
wouldn’t see me, but I could still peek around and observe.
“Where’d she go?” said one of the men as they walked in. A cop
turned on his flashlight and began shining the beam up the ladder of
the tower.
“Hell if I know,” said the cop, turning her beam to play along
the floor. “But someone’s been here. I smell cigarettes.
Look, there’s a butt, one un-smoked, and a broken lighter over
there…”
I waited for the female cop to turn the flashlight toward the
stairwell in front of her, but she never did. If they found it,
would they come down the stairwell? I ran down several more steps
and listened to the conversation between the police and
bridge-workers searching for “the girl on the camera.”
“How’d she get in if it was locked?”
“Hell if I know, sergeant. Other than the smell of cigarette
smoke, there’s no sign of her being here at all.”
I waited for them to start down the stairwell, prepared to rush
toward the protection of Mumsy and Dairsy.
“She’s not up-top,” called a voice.
“Let’s hope she didn’t fall!” said another.
Then I heard the cop comment, “If she did, we’ll find the body
eventually. Sad really. From the picture, she looked kinda cute.”
I waited, wondering why their attention hadn’t drawn them down the
staircase. The light that shone on the stones made it obvious that
it was there – at least to me. But—
They don’t believe!
Of course! This was a magic stairwell! If you didn’t believe, you
wouldn’t see it!
I chuckled evilly and was half tempted to walk out and laugh at them;
taunt them and then run back down. I began to do just that, but then
thought, if I did so, they might believe that it existed and
would come after me. Or worse, the passage might close up behind me
and I’d get arrested. I held back and waited until they left.
After a few more minutes, I heard them exit, one-by-one. The door
closed, followed by the metallic rasp of the lock being put back into
place and then the whine of hydraulics and the roar of the diesel
engine. The voices faded, but I remained where I was for 20 minutes
before heading back up. They’d left the hatch at the top open, and
there was enough light to see that no one remained. I gingerly
climbed up the ladder to the top and peeked out.
About 20 drones were hovering about 50 yards away from the top of the
tower. Each of them had logos of different news services on their
bodies. Lenses protruded from several different spots as they took
pictures of the hatch. Two police drones circled around, keeping
them back and from crashing into each other. I popped up, gave them
the finger and stuck my tongue out. Once more, one of the cop drones
turned toward me.
I quickly climbed back down and sighed sadly as I sat on the step.
This had once been my favorite spot on this world...
“…on this world…?” What other world
was there?
I began to cry as I slowly clumped down the stairs, thinking hard and
wondering why I was so drawn to a place where I’d be too tall and
would constantly stand out. Wiping my nose on my sleeve and
sniffling, I debated this as I walked…
…and walked…
…and walked…
…and walked…
With a start, I realized that my legs were sore from fatigue. Surely
it hadn’t taken me this long before when I’d followed Mumsy and
Dairsy, had it?
I felt at the walls and found they were still wet and slimy.
Puzzled, I sat down and ruminated for a moment. Of course, it was so
dark, I couldn’t see. I heard nothing other than my breathing as
it echoed off the passageway and I could smell the stale water of the
bay where it permeated the blocks. I was tired, thirsty and worried.
My mind told me I’d gone down further than I had before and that
unsettled me. Could I possibly have missed the landing? What if I’d
gone right by it and…?
No, the walls were still damp and they had been dry at some point
before arriving at their cottage. The stairs had ended at the
landing, hadn’t they? I put my head in my hands, resting my elbows
on my knees and began to cry again. I thought I remembered stumbling
at the landing and not finding any further stairs. But I’d not
even climbed this far… or had I?
“NO!” I declared. “The stairs ended at the landing… at
Mumsy’s and Dairsy’s door!”
I got up and began to walk again. About thirty steps later, I felt
that strange electrical tingle, making my skin get all goose-pimply.
As I passed the barrier, the air changed, going from damp-and-musty
to dry-and-clean and I felt elated.
I’m almost there! I thought to myself as I ran even faster.
I was flying down the stairs now, dragging my fingertips along the
rough, dry wall as I continued my descent. I was going so fast that
I stumbled on the landing and fell, rolling into a ball and slamming
against the closed door.
Bruised but laughing, I groaned as I got up, brushed off my knees and
sighed at the feeling of torn tights. I felt around for the entrance
to the cottage and finally located the handle, giving it a push.
It wouldn’t budge.
I pushed harder, but the door wouldn’t open.
“Dummy! It opens outward!”
I pulled. It still didn’t open.
“Damn it!”
I braced myself with one foot against the wall and pulled again.
Nothing.
I tried pulling once more, but it was frozen solid in place so I beat
on it with my fist, calling out to Mumsy and Dairsy to open up….
Anyone, open up.
But the door wouldn’t budge.
I leaned against the wood and called out, crying, until I was hoarse
before sinking to the floor and sobbing even harder. I was hungry,
tired and sore. I wanted to flop down on Gurfell in exhaustion, to
eat some of Mumsy’s meat-pies, along with tea and cakes. I wanted
to ask more questions of Dairsy and Aoife.
I wanted to look at the wings!
But now, I was locked between two worlds; in limbo.
Devastation
Revelation
“Wipe
away the whole bloodline
To
hunt down the seed
Exterminate
the family
Make
the landowner bleed
No
right to inhabit
To
build their promised land”
“The
Great Revelation” - Wreck (A Finnish Death Metal Band), “Total
Devastation” Album (2006)
-
I must have fallen asleep in my exhaustion because I awoke to a
cool breeze and the door bumping against my butt, then closing, then
bumping against me again.
“Hello?” I called, opening the door. “Mumsy? Dairsy?
Aoife?”
I put my head around the door and gasped. What greeted me was... a
mess.
Plates were broken into shards. Books, knick-knacks, clothing and
furniture were tossed hither and yon, blankets and quilts, shredded.
Almost every cabinet was opened and some of the doors were hanging on
one hinge. Only one cabinet remained as it was; the one with Mimsy’s
wings… Eithne’s wings.
“Oh, my God, what happened?” I cried, restoring the furnishings
upright. I easily got Uula and Gurfell turned over, but Thannalome
was heavier than he (?) looked and groaned as I slowly rolled him…
her… it… onto his ‘feet’ and brushed him off.
“Oh, my stuffing,” it creaked, enlarging itself to accommodate
me. I sat upon him, panting as I picked up a round of cheese still
wrapped in leaves and then found knife.
“Thannalome, what happened?”
“King’s soldiers appeared. Arrested everyone here.”
“Arrested? Why?”
“Be-cause they-are not-his friends,”
croaked Uula, Dairsy’s rocker as it moved.
“Not his friends? Who’s friends?”
Thannalome did something to massage my sore back as he spoke.
“Penn’s. Dairsy is… among the opposition to Penn taking the
crown so soon – if at all. Eithne has little-more-than-a-season to
return, but the prince-regent has grown impatient and usurped the
throne for himself. He fancies himself King now.”
“Well, where is this Ainie?”
Uula’s armrests shrugged. “She-has not-come
back-to claim-her wings. Once-she does,
most-of-the Roy-als-will turn-a-gainst
him.”
“Most? Not all?”
“No, not all,” rumbled Gurfell. “Some royals have been bought
off by Penn. Many of the smaller kingdoms are simple democratic
monarchies and don’t really have royals, but citizens that run
things. But they have aspirations. Most people in the larger
kingdoms simply want to get on with their lives. Others will blindly
follow the power.”
“I see. How come they didn’t take the wings?”
“No-one had-the key.”
“Why didn’t they just break into it?”
“Ma-gic ca-bin-et. Ma-gic lock-on
ca-bin-net. Ma-gic spell on ca-bin-et.
Can-not see it.”
“How do you get into it?”
“You-have to-have the-key,” said Uula.
“Where is this key?”
“The key,” said Thannalome, “is in the heart of Eithne.”
“Heart?”
I thought about it before it dawned on me and I began to pace and
talk to no one in particular.
“You know, everyone was saying how much I resembled this Ainie at
the party. Maybe… just maybe if I were to believe I am her
and try to open the cabinet…”
I waited in silence for several moments. Since no one, or nothing,
discouraged this line of thinking, I walked over to the wall,
chanting to myself:
Believe! Believe! Believe!
I reached up and opened the doors with ease, but jumped back as a
wrapped box jumped out at me, bouncing around the room. I grabbed it
and untied the string that bound it, then tore the paper wrapping
away.
I shrieked as the top popped open and blackwings flew out, about the
size of a large bird, flapping around madly and diving at me several
times until they stopped to rest upon a high shelf and just flapped a
time or two, like a butterfly might. I clambered after it, but
couldn’t reach them.
“Thann, would you please come over here so I can stand on you!”
The long hassock waddled over to me and groaned when I stepped onto
it. The wings were just out of my reach and would skitter backwards
each time I lunged at them. I tried once more and they flew off
again. I chased, but was unable to catch them as they flitted about
the room.
“I need a net,” I cried, but didn’t see anything I could use.
“Use your shirt,” suggested Thanalome.
“I don’t have a bra on!” I cried.
“Who-is going-to see?” chided Uula
Realizing no one would see, I took off my shirt and tried to
use it to capture my prey. The wings were quite small and very
richly black. I tripped over Thann just as I’d about caught them
and fell onto my face with an “Oomph!” When I did, the wings
landed on my back…
…and viciously tore into the flesh there as if they were biting me.
I let out a loud, piercing, painful scream just before passing out.
I awoke, thirsty and weak, as I agonizingly crawled over to the
larder to see if there was anything to drink. I heard noises behind
me and turned, shocked at first and then began laughing. I never
knew furniture could smile.
“She’s back! She’s back! Eithne is back!” all the pieces
whispered to each other.
“Help,” I gasped, closing my eyes and wincing from the pain.
“Oh dear, she needs water!” cried Thanmalome. “Everyone gather
round and lift her onto me.”
The various pieces of furniture struggled, but it was Uula and
Gurfell that finally maneuvered me onto Thanmalome. It was a very
long and agonizing struggle to carry me out to the brook that ran
alongside the house. I fell off the hassock twice and passed out
from the searing pain. The third time, I awoke to find my hand
touching something cool, and with an insistent motion flowing over my
fingers. With great, slow effort, I gradually turned my head to
stare at the edge of the stream.
Groaning, I surged forward and drank – thirstily and excessively –
throwing up once before my forehead splashed into the water while I
breathed hard from the pain. Reluctance to move fought with my
thirst and eventually thirst won out. I pulled myself into the water
and drank more before reversing and painfully crawling along the
rocky, sandy bottom until I came to the deeper pond by the falls.
Once there, I turned onto my back and rested my head upon a rock that
laid just below the surface, letting the cool water soothe my aching
neck and shoulders. As the pain subsided a bit, I crawled over to a
stone along the bank of the stream and rolled onto my stomach,
letting my head hang down so that my scalp could rest and cool in the
water. There, I fell into a dreamless sleep.
When I awoke, I wiggled several times, feeling something itching in
the middle of my back. Unable to stand it anymore, I grabbed a
nearby stick and used it to scratch as I bent over the edge to look
at my reflection and…
…gasped.
In my reflection, I saw myself, of course. But, when I bent down, I
could see… I saw…
HOLY CRAP! I had wings!
***
“You must rest,” said Thanmalome after assisting me back into the
cottage. “Let them heal properly and fuse with you thoroughly.
You’ve been gone a long time, Princess.”
“I’m not a princess, I’m Mary-Anne.”
“You-are Prin-cess Eith-ne,” stated Uula.
“Why do you keep calling me that?” I asked.
“You opened the cabinet. They attached. You are Eithne!”
rumbled Gurfell
“No, I’m Mary-Anne, a plain-jane girl from another world. I just
wanted to see them.”
“You are Eithne,” insisted Thanmalome. “You reclaimed the
wings – or, rather, they reclaimed you!”
“No, I -,”
“Not all the memories have yet returned,” Thannalome sagely
observed to the others. “Be quiet. Let her rest. The shock has
been great. She will need it to recover.”
I slept upon Thannalome and admit I’d had some very strange dreams
for the next several nights. I was still far too weak to do more
than walk a few steps before flopping back down, but eventually I was
able to clean up the cottage as best I could. When Mumsy returned,
she is going to be heartbroken to see that all her fine dishes
broken, cracked and scattered. I pieced them together as best I
could on the counter and thought I remembered how to fix them but,
just as soon as the thought would come, it would escape me. When I
tried harder to remember, I’d get dizzy and then fall asleep again.
On the sixth day, I finally found Dairsy’s extra larder, a hatchway
hidden beneath a sack of potatoes. In it, I found some jerked meats
and dried fruit and slowly ate while I did some thinking.
“I see you found your way back,” said a tired voice from the
corner, making me jump. Gone was the ethereal chorus enhancing her
voice.
“Aoife Beitha! What…? Why…?”
“Dairsy hid me down here. We’d just got word of their approach
in time. I’m afraid they were quite nasty when they arrived.”
“They? Who are ‘they’?”
“The Royal Guard.”
“You mean, Penn’s soldiers? Did they…? I mean… are Mumsy
and Dairsy…?”
“Arrested? Yes. Penn wouldn’t dare hurt either of them, but I
cannot vouch for the welfare of some of the other guests.”
“But, why did he hide you? And what happened to your voice?”
Aoife blushed. “I’m afraid my ‘voice’ from before is an
affectation I use in formal occasions. Dairsy hid me because… it
seems I’m now second in line for succession behind the Regent.
Prince Cullyn has… disappeared… because he refused to acknowledge
Penn as anything more than Regent. It is my belief that Penn wants
us all eliminated. To prevent that, Dairsy put me here. He knows
some very powerful spells that are rather undetectable. He’s a
master sorcerer, that one. One of the last to know the old ways.”
She looked at me.
“Young lady, why are you in such a state of undress?”
“I…” I blushed heavily and turned to show her.
“What?” she asked, frowning.
I closed my eyes and recited quietly, over and over, “Believe!”
Aoife gasped, her hand going to her mouth.
“You…? They…?”
“Yes, a few days ago. When I opened the cabinet, they attacked me,
so I tried to capture them with my shirt and…”
I didn’t get to finish because Aoife leapt into my arms with a cry
and hugged me tightly.
“Mimsy, Mimsy, Mimsy! Oh, how I’ve missed you so!”
“Aoife, I’m Mary, not… Mimsy…” Or was I? I was so
very bewildered now. Inside, my mind was in chaos; I didn’t know
who or what I was! If I was Mary-Anne, why didn’t I feel ‘at
home’ in my old world and why did I feel at home here? I
couldn’t seem to identify with this Eithne, either, or being the
sister of Aoife, but I no longer felt as if I were Mary-Ann
McLaughlin. I found I was babbling all this and, speaking of Aoife,
she was crying profusely and not listening to a word I said.
After a time, she calmed down and we discussed things. I told her of
my ordeal and confusion when I went up to the tower, then returned
and how I opened Eithne’s cabinet. Aoife told me the history of
her and her sister and I began to picture it all in my mind, but it
was as if I’d stepped away and was watching from afar or on a movie
screen rather than having experienced it first-hand.
“So, how do you get them to grow?”
She looked at me sadly. “You need to give them time to re-adapt
and heal. Once they do, you’ll feel their power and your memories
will gradually return… if you allow them.”
“But Mumsy and Dairsy…”
“…will be fine. Penn will do nothing to harm them.” Until
he can lure you out and kill you she thought, but kept the words
under her tongue.
“So, what do I do to help them heal? And why did they attach
themselves to me?”
Aoife smiled apologetically. “Unless you really are my sister, I’m
not sure.”
BETRAYAL
And
I’m here, to remind you
Of
the mess you left when you went away
It’s
not fair, to deny me
Of
the cross I bear that you gave to me
You,
you, you, oughta know…
“You
Oughtta Know” - Alanis Morrissette
Penntague McBaighleigh, Prince-Regent and now self-proclaimed new
“King of the Seelie Court,” paced nervously in his quarters. Why
had she waited this long to come back? Why now? Had she really
forgotten who she was or had his spy been mistaken? Or, possibly,
did the McGooghan’s have something to do with either encouraging
her return or recruiting a look-alike? What had those meddlers told
her?
“S-s-s-sire,” hissed a voice from a dark corner, “s-s-s-she
cannot be allowed to live, regardless-s-s of her authenticity. If
word gets out – even if s-s-s-she is not the Princess-s-s…,
if word gets-s-s out – they will again have hope and you will not
realize the reintegration of the Uns-s-sseelie with the
s-s-s-Seelie…”
“I KNOW that, damn you, Kooth!” cried the Prince, throwing
a gilted-stone paperweight at the point in the shadows where the
voice originated. It clattered against the wall and a portion of the
darkness moved causing the rest of the furniture on that side of the
room to scuttle further away from its presence. The Prince-Regent
frowned. “I thought you said all the portals to the human-world
were either inconvenient or being watched!”
“They are, your eminence – all the known portals.”
“Well then, how in the name of brown-stained shamrocks did she get
in unnoticed?”
“That I am not s-s-s-sure, though there have been recent
reports-s-s of a girl at the top of one of the most inconvenient
portals that we thought had long-since collapsed. We have not been
able to find…”
“Double the guard on all of them.”
“S-S-Sire, virtually all the portals have collapsed since her
return. The one or two that remain have been… our scouts have been
unable to reenter s-s-since then.”
“How did she use it, then?”
“We are not s-s-sure if it was her. The human sighting is blurry
and we detect no magic having been used.”
Penn sat at his desk, clearly agitated.
“It is not right to have a Seelie and Unseelie Court separated.
The annual battle between darkness and light need not continue. We
are all brothers and sisters of the New Dawn…”
“I agree, your eminence.”
“How do negotiations go with Balduran?”
“He is amenable to most of the points, but has objections or
revisions to a few.”
“Line of succession…?”
“…Is-s-s one of them.”
“Of course.”
“And the duties-s-s of co-King are obviously another.”
“I will not give him control over the armies,” said Penn with
finality. “That is to be a joint decision.”
Until you have your own unfortunate accident, thought Kooth,
his jagged-toothed grin going unnoticed in the shadows.
Penn picked up a quill and stabbed it into the inkwell.
“I will sign her death warrant, but only as the human she is
purported to be. Put your best assassins on it. With her size, she
should not be difficult to find.”
Kooth smiled. “As-s-s you wish, your eminence.”
“KOOTH!”
“Yes-s-s, your eminence?”
“ONLY if she is still human, understand? If she demonstrates any
Fae quality. If she shows any sign of remembering… She is to be
brought here. Alive.”
Pentague continued writing that into the order, then signed it with a
flourish.
Kooth showed no emotion as he took the document. “Yes-s-s, your
eminence.”
Penn smiled. “Don’t be distraught, Kooth. We will bring her
here… for her own protection.”
“Sire?”
“We will be protecting her from the Cullenaye who wish to extract
revenge for all the wrongs she has caused since her refusal to marry
the Prince.”
“I see, your eminence. And how long will we… protect…
her?”
“For as long as needed.” Penn
gave him a mirthless smile.
“As you wish, your eminence.”
Kooth left and the smile disappeared
from Penn’s face. He couldn’t help but think that the creature
mocked him constantly. He shook the thought from his mind. No
matter! Soon I shall be King of the Seelie AND
unseelie!
Once that was
done, we will march through a portal into the human world and conquer
that as well, making them our servants!
I spent a week in the root cellar with Aoife and she appeared to be
growing, so I jokingly commented about it.
“No, my dear, it is you who is becoming smaller,” imparted Aoife.
“It is an effect of the magic within the wings.”
They indeed seemed to be gaining in size, and not just because I
seemed to be shrinking, but because they were growing. More
than once Aoife had to scold me to fold them, least I crush her
against the walls of our cramped space when admiring them.
But they were so beautiful! As beautiful as Aoife’s, but in a very
different manner. Hers were translucent, shimmery-white and sparkled
as if encrusted in ten thousand diamonds next to mother-of-pearl
whereas mine were a combination of iridescent onyx and clear, but
with gold-and-silver veins and edges that would change color with
different angles. As Aoife had described, when light would hit them,
the colors would shift from black to gold to silver in lightning
flashes.
And they itched like hell where they were attached. Especially when
I put on a shirt.
Oh, yes. Aoife pointed out that I was “still in a state of
undress.” When I told her I didn’t have clothes that would fit
over the wings, she laughed and pointed out that the wings would find
a way through any material. And, so they did! But, damn it, they
itched!
On the tenth day of our hiding, Aoife declared that it was time to go
out and stretch, “But they may be watching, so be ready to jump
back inside at a moment’s notice.”
I looked at Aoife with fear in my eyes and she reassured me. “I
didn’t mean to alarm you. But watch with your ears as well as your
eyes. If the birds stop chirping and the forest abruptly goes quiet,
that is a sign that something foul is afoot.”
“O-okay.”
“Today, I will teach you the basics of flight.
“What do I need to learn?”
She smiled. “First, you need to learn to coordinate. Spring into
the air and begin fluttering your wings.”
“Spring how?”
“Just like you would jump,” she explained as she undid the ward
protecting the cellar. Even though it had let me in, the magic had
refused to let me out during that time. Aoife had said it was for my
own good. She may have been right, but I’d wanted a smoke and
groused about having used up my pack.
“Those things are horrid for your health,” she decried. “I
don’t know how you can do that to yourself.”
“Dairsy and Mumsy smoked pipes,” I retorted.
“Dairsy and Mumsy do a lot of things you shouldn’t.”
She undid the bolt and slowly pushed up the door.
“The-coast is-clear,” creaked Uula quietly in a
slow rock.
“Come, Ei… Mary…”
I followed Aoife out as she spilled the sack of potatoes all over the
floor. Aoife had me quickly gathered them up and put them back,
“just in case we had to return,” but not explaining why.
Thanmalome began to expand for Aoife and gave a joyful shudder as he
spoke to her.
“Is she…? Could it truly be…? Aoife, the girl, is she
really…?”
“I don’t know, Thann,” she said quietly. “The wings
attached, but still lacks the memories. Until they return…”
“She’s had a long time to forget.”
“That she has. That she has.”
Aoife led me out to the yard to show me how to leap up, then how to
leap and coordinate that with the first flap of the wings. I tried,
but I just couldn’t seem to coordinate the two movements.
“Don’t think about it. Just do!” she scolded.
I still failed. Not once, but a dozen times until my shoulders began
to ache. Aoife looked sad and almost disappointed.
“That is enough for today. We should return to the shelter of the
cottage before we are seen. There may be spies about.”
We went back inside and hid in the cellar once more, hearing the
furniture push the sack of potatoes over the entry.
“What’s so special about that sack of potatoes?” I asked.
“It is the potatoes within the sack that contains the magic,”
Aoife explained. Penn’s forces dislike potatoes, so they avoid
them. That’s the cunning beauty of Dairsy’s magic, he puts it
where you’d least expect to look, just like he did with you.”
“I had a magic spell put on me?”
“The whole cottage, actually. Dairsy is the great-great-grandson
of Merlin le Fey and has inherited the powers, which is why Penn
dares not attack him directly.”
That certainly was news to me! Then I frowned at a new thought.
“If Dairsy is so powerful a magician, why doesn’t he just do away
with Penn?”
Aoife smiled sadly. “Because that would be treason and
punishable by death. That, and Penn is actually… you will not
breathe a word of this to anyone but…” She sighed
heavily. “It is rumored that Penn is his son by… an
indiscretion on his part with my Auntie Gwen. That, and Alasdair
does not dare use his magic because it would potentially turn those
in the political center against us.”
“The political center?”
“Those that care not much for politics, which is the majority of
the Fae. They simply wish to be left alone to enjoy themselves and
live their lives. Technically, the title of King or Queen is
honorary and the only real powers they are supposed to have is mainly
clerical and judicial – to settle trade and ethical disputes
between the kingdoms. Most of the power lies in the Council – or
did until Penn dissolved it and expanded the powers of the King.
Penn has always been full of himself, though – especially so, since
his betrothal fell through.”
“I am hoping this Penn dies a seriously agonizing death,” I
mumbled. I saw the look on Aoife’s face and apologized. I wanted
to add more about Eithne but, if what Aoife said was true, and this
Eithne were me, then I’d be condemning myself.
I balled my fists and screamed in frustration.
Aiofe uncovered her ears and hugged me, then said, “Sleep, child,
and be mindful of the threefold law. You’ve had a long day.”
“Threefold law?”
“Yes, it means that, whatever you wish upon others will come back
at you three fold, so it’s best not to put out energy that is
negative.”
“Then what does everyone else wish for Penn?”
“That he see the error of his ways in all the decisions he has made
and come to his senses before it is too late.” Aoife smiled, made
a gesture, and I grew very tired, remembering only that my head
rested on a wad of cloth before I fell into a deep slumber.
Deep, but not restful.
I had dreams. Strange dreams where I called out in a language that
was vaguely familiar, but not understandable. As I called, great
creatures would come rapidly from a distance and pass over me with a
whoosh causing me to tumble. Rather than be afraid, I would
laugh as I pulled in my wings, right myself and then open them again
to swoop back upward and land on the backs of...
...Dragons?
I would talk to them and could feel their affection and adoration for
me, just as Aoife had the admiration and affection of the eagles. As
I would swoop and soar with the dragons, it would only be moments
later when Aoife and the eagles would join us in our play, looping
and diving; climbing and floating on the hot upward thermals that
carried us to dizzying heights.
In my dreaming, it seems I made some sort of pact with the dragons.
One of their numbers – a baby, by their standards – had been hit
by a stone cast from a slingshot when she swooped too low. It was
suspected that someone of the Unseelie had shot the missile at her,
for two more whizzed past my own ears as I called out to the others
and protected her with a deflection spell. The other dragons came
barreling down upon the site, scorching everything within running
range.
When I returned, I told my father, the King, of the attack (but not
of the dragons). I said that a fire had erupted, so father had sent
parties out to snuff the fire and observe the causes. To their
surprise, the blaze was already quelled, and when they investigated,
they discovered tunnels that were recently created in the burned out
places and reported back.
Father then had search parties sent in. They returned with a report
that the passages were blocked by cave-ins or destroyed in some other
manner. Evidence of their usage was left behind, though:
Unseelie – deep in Seelie lands! Our lands!
I awoke briefly, jolting upright as I screamed. I laid back down,
tossing and turning, which, of course, woke Aoife. Moments later, I
felt Aoife lay a cool and soothing hand upon my brow as she softly
sang a lullaby, the reassuring sounds letting me slip back into
slumber.
Once more, there were dreams of me frolicking with my sister,
as-well-as cavorting with all sorts of birds and other flying
creatures. We even followed a kestrel and a water dragon out to the
ocean where they showed us other Isles and portals. One such was a
small Isle where dragons of all shapes, sizes, and sorts, swarmed and
dove in-and-out of innumerable caves they said were portals to their
own worlds.
Towering mountains, filled with these ancient creatures as they
convened in large numbers, would sometimes heat up so much that they
would spew steam, molten rock and ash as well as cause the glaciers
to melt, forming pools of water to heat, bubble and become sulfurish.
More than once, Aoife and I would relax in these pools before
returning home.
I had this same dream twice more in the same number of days and told
Aoife about it during our lesson. She would smile and nod
encouragingly.
“Do you remember any of the words?” she would ask.
“Words?”
“Yes. The words you used to call the dragons.”
“No, but they do seem familiar, like a foreign word or a phrase
that is in the back of my mind. But I can’t seem to remember
exactly what it is or how to say it.”
She nodded sagely and said, “The memories do return slowly.”
We ate by gathering berries and fruits from the forest edge as well
as drawing water from the stream so that we could boil it to make our
tea and to cook food. Aoife would often glance around, checking the
forest for any signs of eyes that might be upon us, but then would
hear a birdsong and relax. Then we would go back to our hiding place
and she would sing a song, reciting a story about her (our?) history,
and I would fall asleep.
Once more I had the dream of us cavorting, but this time, I went off
alone, as I sometimes did, deep into the forest and near the
forbidden cliffs where I knew from reading Dairsy’s book, an
ancient portal lay. I would often go through the portal, changing my
shape to that of a small bird or spry animal to observe the
goings-on. This time was no exception, other than I had chosen the
shape of a deer instead of a squirrel and ended up being chased by a
very hungry hunter who shot at me several times, but (thankfully)
missed due to my deflection spell.
He was a cunning hunter, though, and would manage to flank me, and
kept blocking my way through the portal. It took me more than an
hour to elude him. Tired and thirsty, I emerged from the portal, sat
near a stream and took drink. My thirst satiated, I washed my face
and sang a song of thanks as I re-braided my hair for the flight
home.
That’s when he came through.
I was dressing and cried out from embarrassment when he emerged from
his hiding place and gasped audibly, but he held out his hands to
show they held no weapon and that he meant no harm.
“M’lady, The song of a bird sang out through the wood such as I
have never heard before and I came to investigate.”
He was older – perhaps as old as my parents, but ruggedly handsome,
tall and kind, though he seemed to have a confused nature about him.
Being young and foolish, I fell immediately in love with him and
silently vowed to follow him anywhere.
“How did you come to this place without anyone seeing you?” I
asked as I hurriedly laced my bodice.
“I entered a strange cave as I was stalking a deer,” he replied.
“My village was starving and we needed the meat. When I cautiously
entered the cave, I found it was much deeper than anticipated, though
I have not before known of its existence. I simply followed it until
it came back out into the light and then I saw you as you washed and
sang so magnificently by the brook. You… you are… a stunning
creature! I had to come closer to discover if I were not merely
seeing a phantom.”
In my dream, I laughed as I bound up my waist-length hair. “A
phantom? So, I am seemingly an ugly creature that frightens young
children in the night?”
“Nay, m’lady! Perhaps my wording was hasty. Nay, not a phantom,
but a vision! A vision of loveliness such as I have not seen for…
for a very long time, indeed!”
“I see. And, in return, I suppose I should say you are somewhat
a winsome lad, though a bit long in the tooth.”
That shook him a little and I laughed. “I am called Eithne. And
you?”
“I am called Nydd the Straight, for no one shoots a truer dart than
I,” he told me.
I laughed when he said that. “Your darts did not seem true today.”
He cocked his head and frowned. “I’m sorry? How is that?”
“Your…” I stopped. He did not know that the prey he was
hunting had been me!
“I… observed your hunting skills… from the other side of the
cave. Your shooting did not seem so straight then!”
“He laughed, but with a sad note in his voice. “Aye, that may be
true. I have not eaten more than a handful of seeds in a week. My
vision has been blurry from hunger, which may be why I missed that
doe…”
“...and you might have hit me!” I retorted in mock anger.
“For that, I should be thankful,” he told me. “It would have
pained me to injure such beauty.”
I felt my face flush from his seductive words, so in retaliation, I
continued, “How came you to that village, Nydd the Straight? You
do not resemble any of the others in the least! You are far lighter
in skin tone and your hair is straight and brown, whereas theirs is
glossy, black, and tightly curled…”
“My tribe found me a decade ago, wandering through the woods and
with no memory of my life prior to their finding me. I was weak from
hunger and thirst.”
“Oh, how terrible!”
“Oh, tis not as bad as you might think. They were a kind folk and
took me in, nourishing me back to health. I... learned to... hunt...
from them and became their best.”
“Did you, now?” I said, hearing the hesitation as he crafted his
story.
“Yes. They treated me with deferential reverence and I discovered
that they thought I was one of their gods! I enjoyed their company,
but assured them I was anything but a god. Then someone reported
seeing a monster of sorts, rising up from the swamps. There were
those that went to hunt it down, but when they did, bad luck began
to befall the tribe. Our babies either became sickly or gradually
their bodies malformed. Crops failed and game became scarce. It was
fortuitous that I came upon a deer and followed it through the woods
for several days until I saw it, along with a lame second one, limp
into yon cave. I continued to follow, and when I came upon the lame
one, I scored a strike with my arrow. I gathered the beast and
carried it on my shoulders for more than an hour, but I had been
unable to find the cave I exited. It was then that I heard your
sonorous voice and espied your lovely visage – and lost the deer.”
“Lost… the deer?” I chided.
“Aye. I laid it down to come get a closer look at your beauty and
it vanished.”
I laughed. “So, you spied upon me in a voyeuristic manner,
watching me bathe and you expect me to believe your story about a
deer?”
He blanched and held out his hands. “M’lady, twas not like that
‘t’all! I simply wished to discover if the face was as lovely as
the voice – and it was!”
“So, why not just crawl back the same direction and find your
catch? Or are you not the skilled hunter that you proclaim yourself
to be?”
His face clouded with anger. “M’lady, do not jest, for as I
said, some sort of evil sorcery has befallen my people. I am a great
hunter and tracker, but I left no trail to speak of! This forest is
bewitched, I tell you! I could not find a single marker, even when I
left one on purpose!”
“I suppose I shall have need to help you in your search, then.”
I dreamt that we walked along, picking berries and fruit, with me
nibbling at them and he, devouring them passionately with hunger.
“Have you even bothered to taste those fruits before you
swallowed?” I teased.
“Many pardons, m’lady, but it is the first time I’ve found
anything abundant in many days. Up until now, the forest has
provided me with little nourishment other than an occasional creek
chub or a small honeycomb.”
“Well, do try to taste the next one,” I teased. “They are
called lover’s lips and I think you may find they are as sweet as a
kiss and just as addicting.”
“And m’lady has had much experience with such a thing?” he
responded in quick repartee.
I said nothing and blushed.
We walked and he told me of his people, reciting poetic ballads of
warrior exploits, regaling me with stories of his tribe and singing
lusty songs of beautiful women. I found myself admiring not only his
broad shoulders and ready smile, but his keen intellect and poetic
mastery. And, the tails he wove enchanted me even more with that
mundane world. Enough so that I considered the folly of following
him to elude my eventual duties.
The two of us paused under the shade of an oak and he turned me to
face him. In the shade, we looked upon each other and I found myself
getting lost in his deep blue eyes resting under craggy brows. One
moment, we were simply flirting in a mild manner and the next, my
back was thrust against a tree, our lips pressed together
passionately.
Gathering my wits, I pushed at his chest and we broke the kiss.
“You take liberties, good sir!” I said, slapping his face as I
turned away, doing my best to scowl and look flustered when what I
really wanted was to kiss him again.
“Aye, perhaps I do,” he said, rubbing his jaw and finding blood
where one of my nails had scratched him. He stared at it, and then
chuckled. “I long-ago learned in life that I’d rather live with
scars for what I did rather than regrets for what I could have done!”
I spun around angrily. “And so I should add arrogance to your list
of traits then?”
He smiled in a way designed to melt away anger and I felt it working
on me as he spoke once more. “M’lady, I simply meant that I
follow my heart.”
I ‘hmphed’ at his answer, struggling to maintain my outrage.
“So, you feel it is easier to apologize than to ask permission, do
you?”
He laughed. “I do.”
I put my hands on my hips and turned my back to him. “You are
quite an arrogant bastard, aren’t you? Well, I do not
give my permission, at least, not to a cad of a commoner!”
“COMMONER?” he laughed. “You speak to a Prince, M’lady!
My adopted father is a powerful man, a King of Kings among the
tribes on the other side of that cave! If anything, it is I who
should be offended that a mere forest wench, probably the daughter of
a bavin-maker, should speak to me so!”
I gasped at the lies and insult, and went to claw at him, but he
grabbed my wrist, pulled me to him and kissed me again. I didn’t
fight him, but I didn’t quite give in either. This time, it was he
that pushed me away because I’d bitten his lip. I sputtered as he
let go of my wrists, then spat at him, turned and stomped off in a
huff, but he followed.
“M’lady, wait!”
“Why should I?”
“I… I spoke harshly and out of turn!”
“You certainly did!”
“M’lady, I apologize for taking advantage. I am still feverish
from lack of meat. Perhaps, if I were to be fed…?”
“And why would I wish to feed you?”
“M’lady, you would let a man starve?”
I laughed. “Aren’t you supposed to be the wiley hunter, oh ‘son
of a great King?’ As if you really are such!”
He looked pained. “M’lady, I am
the adopted son of the King of my tribe, and I have
hunted. As I said, each time I’ve made a kill, I place it down so
as to gain some rope with which to secure it and my game disappears!”
“Ha! Perhaps you simply missed and don’t wish to appear as
incompetent as you actually are?”
That angered him. “I am the master of bow, knife, hand or spear
and can best any man or fae!”
“Can you now? And yet, how is it you seem to lose prey so easily?”
His pride got the best of him and he looked away, quickly scanning
the woods. Spotting something I could not see, he grabbed an arrow
and shot it so quickly that I barely saw the arrow leave the quiver.
He then dashed through the woods and brought back a young buck,
darted straight through the heart. Nydd dropped it at my feet,
pulled the arrow from the creature’s breast and wiped the blood
away on the ground, not taking his eye off his catch until he had to
search for the opening in his bag. He frowned and called out several
explicatives, which caused me to look at him and laugh. When my eyes
returned to the spot where the deer lay, I gasped and he turned,
gasping as well. The creature had simply disappeared!
“You now see my frustrations, m’lady?”
I was chagrined and intrigued. “I do. Come, I know of a place…”
I took him to one of my father’s lodges in the woods, where he
would rest overnight during a long hunt. It was simple and rude, but
well-stocked. There, I knew, were preserved meats and vegetables and
I could create a quick stew.
We ate and, when his belly was full, he asked me, “I should have
asked sooner, but what land is this?”
I smiled. “Some call our lands Tir na nOg, while others refer to
it as the Summerlands.”
He guffawed. “Is it now? Are you sure you have not eaten some of
the bramble-berries and are hallucinating?”
I frowned at him. “And why would you say that?”
“M’lady, everyone knows that the Land of the Forever Young is
mere legend! Tis a mythical place designed to inspire the young and
comfort the old and dying.”
“Is it?” I responded, somewhat miffed.
“Tis.”
“And you no longer believe in this myth?”
He began to laugh… and the laugh turned into the creak of a hinge,
waking me from my slumber. Aoife was opening the entry to our
hideaway and peeking outward, talking to the furniture before
signaling me to follow.
“Tis time to wash, begin your lessons, eat, and stretch, my dear
sist… Mary-Anne.”
I groaned. “And I was having such a wonderful dream!”
“Same one?”
“No. This one was different, Aoife.”
“Tell me about it as we wash up.”
I did so and she listened intently. We gathered berries and she
asked questions about Nydd, then nodded at the answers as we ate.
“Let’s try again to teach you to fly,” she told me. “Watch
how I do it.”
I did so, but still couldn’t seem to coordinate the flapping of my
wings with my jump. I had to think about each and couldn’t seem to
do both at the same time.
Aoife sighed and looked up in exasperation, then gasped. I followed
her gaze and saw a large black bird circling.
“We have been spotted,” she said as the bird began to fly off to
the west. Aoife mumbled something and we saw another bird fly past
very quickly. There was a far-off screeching and Aoife smiled. She
turned to me.
“Let’s try again. One… two… thr-…” Just as she reached
three, something plopped down hard next to me and I jumped… and
found myself hovering in the air about ten feet off the ground, my
wings flapping rapidly.
“Very good!” she said approvingly, fluttering next to me. We
looked down at the body of a large, black raven whose throat had been
ripped out.
“A messenger to the Unseelie court,” commented Aoife.
“Unseelie?”
“The dark court. A rift exists between certain types of fae.
There are those of us that do good and simply wish to be left to
ourselves, minimally co-existing as much as possible with the humans.
And there are those that wish to war against humanity and take over
their world, making them slaves or eliminate them entirely. The
Seelie Court stands between them and humanity, and they were banished
from our realm.”
“Why do they wish to do that?”
Aoife shrugged. “It is their way. The Unseelie were once a part
of our proud warrior caste. When we found our way to the Emerald
Isle in the mundane world, and fell in love with it’s beauty. We
lived contentedly along the coastline, in peace with the other
inhabitants but gradually began to expand inward. But then the Giant
Race, the Fomoraigh, took umbrage to our advances and decided they
wished to have our lands. They pushed us back toward the coast and
nearly into the ocean until our Mage caste tried something never
tested, but known from talking to other Mage Races.”
“What was that?”
“It was an experimental breed of warrior, the Fir Bolg, designed
specifically for battle, using various earth substances imbued with
supernatural powers. These magical earths built up not only their
strength, but their height as well. They stood over ten feet tall
and were to be a match for any Fomorian warrior.
“Now, the Fomorian’s also began to fight against the mundane
humans as well, so they joined us in our struggle, providing what
they called, their Fianna, or mightiest and fiercest warriors. And
they were quite capable not only in fighting, but in tactic as well.
We waged war, united with the mundane human races, for many seasons,
as our Mages hastily constructed the first of many of our Unseelie
warriors.
Then, in an epic battle, we unleashed the Fir Bolg in the middle of
battle and finally drew the battle into a stalemate.”
“Why did you go to war in the first place?”
“We had… found… this land as we had been banished from our
previous… homeland. We initially made a pact with the Fir Bolg to
be freeholders of a certain tract of land along the western and
southern coast. However, when the Giants saw our magic, artistry and
wealth, they began to make demands not listed in the original
agreement, demanding a usage tax on the lands. Of course, we refused
and they went to war with us.
“The war dragged on in stalemate and we lost many good men and
women from all walks of life, but mainly from the Warrior caste. King
Tedhge (Tee-guh) approached the Mage’s and suggested certain powers
and abilities that might be endowed upon the Warriors. The Mages
pondered this and, in desperation after a particularly bad loss had
defeated one of their own, granted a certain number of the Fir Bolg
these particular powers.”
“What happened?”
“There is an old saying that ‘power corrupts, and absolute power
corrupts absolutely.’ Our warriors were proud men and women of
beautiful physical appearance. The Mages had endowed the most
powerful and beautiful of them with the special powers derived from
the very land itself. They defeated the Fir Bolg in both one large
battle and then settled the matter in one individual combat between
our strongest Fir Bolg warrior and the strongest and fiercest of the
Fomorian warriors. Our warrior won and the Fomorians conceded
defeat.
“After that battle, we made one of these warriors our King because
Tedhge (Tee-guh) and Siaorse (Sur-sha), our King and Queen, were
assasinated by the last of the Fomorian holdouts, or so it was said
by the Fir Bolg guarding them.
“Once the war was over, the Unseelie leader, Balduran, who had
defeated the Formorian in individual combat, was declared King by the
other warriors of his kind and now styled himself Balduran the Black,
after the color of his mud-armor. The Council of Mages, and our own
Council, agreed to his crowning, but only if the new King and Queen
would now rid themselves of their earthen coverings because, while
the earthen armor was supernatural in it’s powers, it stank of rot
and putridness.
“The Fir Bolg agreed at first, but not until after their leader was
crowned. None of the Seelie protested either.
“Now, in the beginning of the Fir Bolg, a relatively junior Mage by
the name of Merlin, had come to speak to them. He tried explaining
that the magical earths used to protect them would, if not
occasionally removed from time-to-time, begin to penetrate the skin
of the wearer to their inner core, possibly affecting their
appearance, as well as their thinking. It was a trait he had put in
the spell of the armor.”
“So, why didn’t the Fir Bolg wash off the armor every so often?”
“Because they were a proud group and would taunt and tease those
that elected to do so. One of those that was the most proud,
Balduran, wore the armor like a badge of honor and never removed it
‘to set an example to his followers.’ It was also because the
process to re-armor took several days, something they felt they
couldn’t afford to do in order to remain prepared for battle.
“But, when they elected him King, it was with the stipulation that
the armor be removed from him and his wife, the new Queen Grainne.
Because of their pride, they had refused to ever remove the muds and
now smelled of rotting corpses.
They were asked to choose one of their kind to remove the protective
armor of the earths. The first to volunteer was Grainne of the
Flowing Hair, who had been Baldur’s childhood lover, wife, and now
the named-Queen. She was said to be one of the most beautiful
warrior women in the entire kingdom.”
“What happened?”
“By that time, Balduran, Grainne, and more than a hundred of the
Fir Bolg warriors had been encased in the mud for over ten seasons.
When Grainne agreed to be the first to have the armor removed and the
muds were gradually washed away, everyone, including Balduran and
Grainne, expected her beauty to once more be revealed. But the mud
reflected on the outer shell of the person the dark tendencies of
within. So, as the mud washed away the flesh took on the
transgressions of pride, envy, covetousness, and anger, which had
moved from the inside to the external part of their mortal flesh.
Instead of revealing a beautiful warrior Queen, what appeared was a
dried-up, wicked-looking, sour-faced, gray-haired crone. Then, as
the moisture dried, so did Grainne’s flesh, until her entire being
crumbled away into dust.
“This shocked Balduran to the core and he attempted to strike out
at the Council of Mages, refusing to wash away his own armor, so they
conjured up a dry summer’s wind and heat that lasted for a month,
stopping him and his followers.”
“What did that do?”
Aiofe smiled. “While the muds protect the wearer and are
impenetrable by sword, dart, knife, or club-blow, they must be kept
moist, but not wet, in order to provide protection, flexibility, and
movement. Therefore, a Fir Bolg would need to live in a damp, humid
environment or live near the coast, in a swampy bog, or a wetland,
absorbing moisture through their feet to keep the muds supple enough
to move.”
“And, Balduran?”
“His ‘armor’ became a semi-solid, so that he couldn’t move.
He was immediately removed as King and couldn’t protest or fight
back because all of his Fir Bolg followers had stiffened during that
drought season. Merlin, now a senior Mage, returned to the forefront
to talk to them once more, reminding them of what he’d warned, and
telling them they were now to be banished.
“How did you get rid of them?”
“The mages held a council and decided to rescind the powers, but
not all the mages were in favor. Five of them sided with the
Unseelie and another huge battle ensued, this time between the
members of the Mage Council, ending in a stalemate.
The Unseelie were banished, but not eliminated, given lands in the
far southwest, past the Forbidden Mountains and bordered on the far
end by the sea, and surrounded by bog. It would have been good land
for them, but the Warrior caste had grown lazy and, used to a life of
deference and privilege. They refused to do ‘routine’ work such
as farming, weaving, coopering, and blacksmithing, as they felt was
below their station. So they had their mages open portals to the
mundane world so they could enslaved humans by stealing them as
children and replacing them with their own sickly ones. They used
these humans – and some of our own they’d captured – as slaves
to grow their crops and provide for them.
“But the mundanes do die easily if they are overworked and
undernourished, so the Unseelie began to invade our lands, searching
for more durable slaves, and eventually leading to an annual battle
upon the fertile plains of Aiorgaoghleigh (ARE-guh-lay) beginning at
Midsummer. At that time, they will cart off whatever supplies and
Seelie survivors they can all throughout the harvest season. We will
usually drive them back by Midwinter and regroup.”
“Why don’t you simply destroy them?”
“We cannot.”
“Why?”
“It is a core belief that we do not turn our backs upon or kill our
own unless absolutely necessary. They were once our kin and we are
responsible for what they have become. Unfortunately, our attitude
came to be our undoing. We gave them quarter if they would go away
and leave us be, and they agreed. But each year they return, making
more demands. When we refuse, they abscond with a portion of the
harvest by shortening the light of our days. Each time they attack,
they grow stronger and more able in their tactics, occupying more and
more territory from each of the three major kingdoms.
“As children, we thought it was unjust that they were forced to
live apart from us. Most have grown out of that notion, but it is my
fear that our dear cousin, Penn, has not, and may be trying to unite
the Seelie and Unseelie for his own purposes. We feel this is
happening because the days have been growing shorter, much earlier in
the season than in the past. During the last harvest season, the
cold darkness caught many of us unprepared when it came so soon.”
“Will Penn succeed?”
“There is a good possibility. There is also the possibility that
his ambitions have allowed him to be duped.”
“How can we stop him?”
“There is only one way.”
“What way is that?”
“Eithne’s return.”
“But I’m not…” Or am I? I began to fly around, lost
in thought.
“Don’t overdo it the first day,” warned Aoife. “Your wings
are still weak and small.”
I stretched them out and they were wider than the wingspan of the
raven. When I compared, I was barely longer than the raven’s body
as well. I mean, even as a human, I was short, but since I’d
donned the wings, I’d shrunk!
“The bird that attacked the raven…”
“…an eagle. I was always able to call them whereas you were
always the one to summon the dragons. And now we must go inside
while the body of this bird is taken by the eagles to feed their
young.”
“Where are the dragons?”
Aoife sighed. “We don’t know. We haven’t seen one since
Eithne left us those 19 seasons ago.”
“How long is that in Earth years?”
“It’s difficult to say. Time doesn’t work here in the same way
it does in the mundane, mortal realm. We had the lovely lad, Oisin,
here when our… my… great-grandmother was still alive and a
young girl.”
“Aw-sheen? I think I heard something of his legend.”
Aoife nodded. “It was before our time. He was with us for but two
of our seasons and it apparently came to 300 of his. We’ve had
others since that, depending on which portal they’ve used, time has
passed at anywhere from 20 – 1 to 300 – 1. Unless you can
remember all your lives, I have no way of knowing how long you were
out there. You don’t seem to have aged, so the magic spell
that Dairsy put about you protects you still. But you – if
you are my sister – have been gone 19 of our seasons and now, a
little more. The time grows shorter and shorter in order to stop
Penn.”
