The Sun Goddess of Cargills Castle

by Neisha Nilsen

  The whole room was staring at me. They had gotten off their seats and were crouched around me with their mouths wide open.

  I suddenly felt self-conscious. “What?” I asked. They just sat there with their mouths dropped to the floor. They looked amazed. “What?” My heart started to race, what was wrong with me? Did it all go horribly wrong?

  They all quickly scrambled to their seats again, ducking their heads and avoiding eye contact. They continued on, drinking their drinks as if nothing peculiar had just happened. I looked at Uar. He had a huge smile on his face.

  “What?”

  He kept smiling widely as he took my hands and pulled me up. “Come, let’s sit.”

  He took me over to the table. Room was made for us both on the long wooden bench seats. Uar sat beside me and gently placed his hand on the small of my back to comfort me. I appreciated it. I could feel his strength and I needed it sitting next to these impressive people.

  “So… Brigid?”

  It was the female that spoke to me from across the table. I took another sip of my drink as she smiled at me. Everyone else was talking around us paying us no attention, except Yute. I could feel his stare without even looking at him. The female got up and made her way over to me, pushing the man beside me down the bench further so she could fit it. He grunted but quickly made room for her. She put an arm around my shoulder and I could feel the weight of it push me down. I straightened my back, not wanting her to think I was weak. I felt Uar rub my lower back before he pulled his hand away. I wanted to grab it and put it back where it was, I wanted to yell at him to keep it where it was, I needed its strength. I had no idea what this lady was going to do to me.

  “Hagrid, pass me down my drink!” She yelled at a ginger haired man with a long bristly ginger beard. He pushed it down the table to her, she caught it and took an incredibly large gulp out of it.

  “Now Brigid, let’s talk.”

  I stared up at her golden brown almond shaped eyes that sloped upwards at the outer edges. I gulped. “Okay.”

  “Relax, I don’t bite.” She smiled at me, but I didn’t relax. Somehow I felt like I was the lamb and she was the wolf about to eat me. “I just want to know a bit about you.” She said sweetly as she looked down at my newly healed leg. My three quarter Lycra running pants were still intact with a few spots of blood on them. They were grey with a fluorescent pink line down the sides. I knew this was a colour that they wouldn’t see often, if ever, in this place of the Otherworld. “How long have you known that you had our Mother’s light inside you?”

  I turned to Uar, wanting to gauge how he was reacting with her questioning me. He had his back to me, laughing with the man beside him. I turned back to her. “Well, I have only known for about a month now, so not long.”

  “Humph” she replied and looked intensely at me. “So, you mean to tell me that you’ve not realised for what, about twenty years that you are part Goddess?”

  Twenty Years, I wasn’t that old. “I’m only seventeen, so that would be for seventeen years, and no I didn’t realise. I mean, my arm always discoloured into patterns when I’d been in the sun for too long, but eventually it would go away. I just thought I had some sort of skin allergy or something?”

  “Interesting” she replied tapping her fingers on the wooden table. She smiled at me and gave me a hug. Obviously questioning was over. I felt her friendliness. “Do you know you just witnessed a miracle?”

  “A miracle? Do you mean my leg being healed, because that was pretty amazing?” It was totally amazing. I still couldn’t believe that there isn’t even a scar on my leg.

  “You should have a scar still on your leg. A red angry scar, it should not have completely healed, just enough for it to close over and so infection can’t set in. Uar is good, but has been off his game since Mother was frozen. Part of her light left him then too, but you…” She hugged me again. “You’ve our Mother’s light in you, that’s proof. With Uar’s power and yours – your leg healed completely! That’s a wonderful outcome. Your whole body glowed, lit up the entire room - it was a miracle.”

  I heard a couple of cheers from the few men that had turned their attention to us. “Really, so this isn’t normal? I mean my leg healing isn’t normal? And I glowed?” That shocked me. My body had glowed! Next time, I’d have to keep my eyes open so I could check it out.

  “No, well it used to be, but not anymore and it won’t be again unless we restore order around here and yes you glowed! Shone up the whole god dam room.”

  Wow, I felt closer to Uar. Was it weird that I had feelings for Uar, when I had his mother’s light inside me? Was I his mother? I knew technically I wasn’t, but it still felt a bit weird. “Wow!” I said aloud as I looked down at my leg again. I did have power inside me like Uar said I did.

  “Now, let’s drink and eat while we can. Tomorrow we’re going to train and figure out exactly how we’re going to get our Mother back.”

  I smiled a fake smile as I inwardly convulsed with fear. I took a drink with everyone as they cheered, calling me the light bearer. Someone started singing and I was slowly forgotten about, left to my thoughts and the worry of having to save these people. That’s not me, I can’t save them, I’ve never done anything heroic in my life. How was I supposed to save them? Look at them, they’re warriors. I do not look like them, I’m not them. I excused myself and went to sit down at the back of the small room. I opened my bag to get out a piece of chocolate. I needed sugar to help my nerves. I fumbled around in my overnight bag until I found what I was looking for and broke a piece off. I popped it in my mouth and savoured the sweet chocolatey taste. What was I doing here?

  CHAPTER 13

  Everyone was sleeping. I wasn’t, I couldn’t. The snoring around the room was keeping me up along with the expectations the Gold Belts had of me being their light bearer. People lay down where they could find a space and slept, weapons laid out beside them or under them, never too far away. Uar had given me a woollen blanket to wrap around myself, but the floor was too hard and the weight of what I was supposed to do hung heavily on me. I felt like a fraud. I thought about B and hoped he was alright. I felt bad about leaving him alone and giving him no explanation as to why or where I was going. I left Mum and Dad a note and hoped he had read it while they had slept. He’d be angry with me, and I hoped he’d still be there when I returned. The thought of him not being there when I got home broke my heart. I could hear the crackle of the fire from the centre of the room. I sat up and pushed my blanket back. Uar said I may have powers, time I checked it out and see whether I did or not. I glowed tonight and my leg healed completely, which apparently wouldn’t have happened if not for the power within me. Uar once said I should try and talk to fire and it might talk back. Crazy, I know, but this last month has been crazy. There was a strange feeling inside me, an assertive feeling, a feeling of knowing - I think I already knew I could talk to fire. I sneakily looked around the room feeling odd about what I was about to do. Everyone was asleep and paying me no attention at all. Uar was asleep close beside me so I carefully stepped over him as I made my way to the fire. The hanging cauldron had been swung aside so it was not directly burning above the fire anymore. It still had last night’s stew in it. The flames danced and spat in freedom as I approached. Once again I felt entranced. The memory of the bomb fire at Stephen’s house came back to me - the feeling of belonging. Even then, I was entranced by them.

  “Hello” I whispered quietly, feeling slightly foolish I was talking to the fire in the middle of the room. I quickly looked around again to see if anyone was watching and breathed a sigh of relief when I saw that they were all still sound asleep. I waited for a response from the fire, no answer. “Hello my name is Brigid.” I repeated.

  The flames reached out further to me. I could feel their warmth on my skin. “Welcome home” It whispered back to me in a slow hissed response.

  I jumped back slightly. OMG, it worked. My heart raced, this was really happening. “Thank
s.” I replied quietly in total shock. I jumped again as I heard someone cough. I tiptoed quickly back to my spot on the floor all excited with myself. I could speak to fire. Eek! I wondered what it would say to me when I had time to talk to it properly, it was exciting. I closed my eyes and dreamt of dancing in a ballroom with flames and laughter. The little girl was there too, laughing with me. They were my friends and I felt completely safe with them.

  ◆◆◆

  I saw the ground coming closer to me before I felt it. Uar’s hard body slammed on top of mine. I’d lost my balance and pulled Uar down with me. When my head cleared I smiled apologetically to him. He leaned closer to me. I could feel his breath touch my face. I thought he was going to kiss me. The heat rose up on my cheeks as I leaned closer.

  “Uar, play nice!” Brea yelled. We both moved quickly away from each other. Scampering away like naughty little children. I found out the female’s name after Uar said it in a passing comment. It was a nice name and it suited her completely.

  Whatever that moment was, Brea had broken it. Uar sprung back to his feet and put his hand out to pull me up. “Sorry about that.”

  I huffed as I dusted the dirt off my clothes.

  “It’s just that, I don’t know, but for some reason you are here and we are stronger, I can feel it through my body, I can feel the light through me, I nearly feel… back to my normal self – it’s exhilarating.”

  I could see his excitement and smiled. It felt good to be making them feel better and apparently I was making them all feel real good. It was the light inside me reconnecting with them all again. They could feel it and they wanted it back. “I’m glad I’m doing some good” I replied as I heard the swords clanging in the background, because my fighting wasn’t very good at least my presence was doing something.

  Hagrid had the gift of illusion. He could make people see whatever he wanted them to see. He couldn’t do it for long stretches of time anymore but because I was here, he was more powerful and reckoned that he could cloak us all while we trained so nobody could see us. We were somewhere just out of town in a meadow and no one could see us, we were completely invisible, how cool was that? The Gold Belts wanted to see what I was capable of before I was sent off on the mission, which apparently wasn’t much. Nobody seemed to mind though except Yute, he kept staring at me and it was seriously starting to annoy me.

  “What’s his problem?” I angrily asked Uar. I stared at Yute’s thin greasy blond hair. “Would it kill the man to wash his hair once in a while or to crack a smile?”

  He turned to see who I was talking about. I heard a loud moan as Brea threw one of the men over her back to the ground. She smiled in triumph. She was good! “Don’t worry about him Brigid.” He looked disappointed. “He’ll come around.”

  “But he keeps staring at me like he wants me dead, should I be worried?” And I wasn’t sugar coating it, earlier he was sharpening his knifes as he looked directly at me. His thin greasy blond hair was pulled back loosely showing his gangly skinny neck. Seriously, did this guy ever blink?

  “No need to be worried. He has some trust issues, that’s all.”

  “Well that makes two of us.”

  “Right, again?” Uar said as he stood in his fighting stance. I rolled my eyes. I had told him I wasn’t very good at this sort of thing, but he insisted he was going to show me how. I just rolled with the flow.

  ◆◆◆

  We sat down for some lunch. Hagrid needed a break so we walked deep into the dense forest. I sat down on the damp grass and welcomed the cool feeling against my bum. My muscles were going to be sore in the morning. I thought of myself as reasonably fit, but the workout I just had was intense, using muscles I was sure I’d never used before in my life.

  “We need to come up with a plan” Brea announced as I was halfway through my oat biscuit.

  “Yes we do” Gurt replied. He had crumbs all over his chest, mixed in with his dark salt and pepper chest hairs. He had long hair, held tightly back in a simple plait, a small amount of silver hair shone through his otherwise dark locks. “I can feel her already, with Brigid here, I can feel her.”

  Everyone murmured their agreeance except for Yute, he just huffed and threw a knife into the trunk of a tree across from him. I jumped at the sound it made as it pierced through the innocent tree. He was dangerous and I needed to stay clear of him. Brea rolled her eyes at him. “We need to get Brigid to the Oak trees and we need to come up with a plan of how we are going to do that. They already know she’s here, I felt their evil intent in my sleep last night. They will be ready waiting for us.” Brea was a deity goddess, kind of like Uar, except her speciality was warfare, she was a warrior goddess. How cool was that? If there was any power I could have, it would secretly be a warrior. I shrunk closer to the tree trunk I was leaning against. Once again, we were talking about me saving them, saving their mother and it freaked me out! I was nothing except a vessel that was holding their Mother’s light inside me, somewhere, somehow her light was hiding in me and for once, I wished it would go away and find someone else.

  “I can always cloak us” Hagrid said, “but that will be harder when the fighting starts trying to focus on everyone as we get split up.”

  “Yes, maybe, but they will be expecting that, they know that you will be with us. We will certainly try it though. It’s a good start.” Uar said as he stood up and stretched out his back. “There’s only one way to get to the Oak Trees and the Fomorians know it and it will be blocked.”

  Gurt spat on the ground next to him when Uar mentioned the word Fomorians. No one paid him any notice.

  “We need to… ” Uar stopped in mid-sentence and crouched low to the ground. “Shh” he grabbed for his sword. “Hagrid?” he whispered urgently.

  Everyone shut up instantly as Hagrid cloaked us against the voices that were walking our way. I couldn’t make out what they were saying, but by the expressions of the Gold Belts, they were not good news. This was the enemy, they must have been the Fomorians. I could feel the tension in the air. The voices got louder as they came closer. I could hear the breaking of twigs as one of them entered my view. I took a sharp intact of breath. His grotesque head spun around at the noise. Everyone stared at me giving me death looks. I could have just blown our cover. He was disgusting, he moved closer to me sniffing. He certainly couldn’t see me, but it knew something wasn’t right. His face was covered in large protruding boils and his left shoulder hung lower than his right which had multiple lumps poking out of it making his red cape lopsided. I held my breath and closed my eyes as he moved even closer, I could smell his rancid breath. He held his hand out towards me, feeling the air for something he couldn’t see. I leaned slowly to my left side as he kept moving towards the tree I was leaning against. More of them came into view, each as ugly and grotesque as the next.

  “Roc!” one of them yelled. “Get a move on.”

  He took a big sniff as he closed his eyes. After a few moments he shook his head and limped away. Nobody moved until they were well away from us.

  “Well done Hagrid” Brea whispered as she sunk her head down on her knees breathing a sigh of relief. “They could have found her.”

  “Yes well done” Uar followed. “They must be closing in their ranks and calling in for reinforcements. They’re getting ready for us.”

  I had tears running down my face. I was freaking out. That thing nearly had me. I looked around and everyone was keeping their own kind of calm and I was going to do the same. I will inwardly freak out! Uar took my hand and pulled me up. “I think we need to get you some different clothes, clothes that don’t… glow.”

  I looked down at the fluorescent pink strip down my leg and silently agreed he was right.

  “Let’s move. We need to get to our Mother before she’s completely surrounded.” Someone said from the group.

  “Agreed” Uar said. “Brigid, are you okay?”

  “No!” I said. “What were those things? Were they the Fomorians, the ones t
hat I’m supposed to conquer?” I could feel my body shaking, I was losing it. So much for me only inwardly freaking out.

  He looked at me glumly and nodded his head.

  “Look I get it, I need to do this and I will, but you need to know something. Where I come from, there are no Fomorians, I don’t need to save the world so I’ve never trained for it. My biggest concern is getting my homework in on time or making sure Winkles my cat has food in her bowl, I’m not used to this, this isn’t how I was brought up so if you think that I’m suddenly going to be an awesome warrior, you’re wrong - that isn’t me.” I took deep breaths, don’t faint Brig don’t faint. I was willing myself to stay upright. I had just admitted to these amazing god people that I wasn’t good enough to do the job I was born to do and they just stared at me.

  They all slowly stood up and brushed the dirt off themselves, fobbing me off. No one believed me or cared that I was freaking out. They all got to work packing away the leftover food and ignored me completely. How was I going to get through to them, I was not the one to save them. Yes I had the light of their Mother inside me, but I was no warrior. All of a sudden I felt alone. I wished Hayden was here with me. He’d have my back. He would say something to make me laugh and everything would be okay. What was I doing here?

  “Let’s pick this back up at the safe house.” Brea said. “We need to make a plan and we need to do it now, you all know what’s going on, they’re closing ranks. They know she’s here. We need to move and we need to move now!”

  Everyone agreed and moved quickly. I felt a sharp nudge against my shoulder as Yute walked past me. “I knew you wouldn’t handle this. You’re going to bring us all down with you.” He spat on the ground beside me “you’re just the same.” He walked away after giving me the death stare. I wanted to burst into tears, but I held them back and didn’t respond to him. He was right. I was - I couldn’t do this, who was I kidding? I was Brigid from Dunedin. I was nothing special. I hung my head and followed behind them all. Even Uar didn’t walk with me, and I didn’t mind. I needed space to wallow in my own self-pity. I had to get back up, I had to do this. It was my life too and for some reason this was my destiny. I was going to have to embrace it and become a warrior because I’d be damned if I was going to die by the hand of some disgusting grotesque Fomorian! I pulled my shoulders back and walked faster. I caught up with the group and nudged Uar. He turned and smiled at me. He must’ve felt my decision. He had faith in me so I should have faith in myself. I was going to save them and their Mother, I could do this, I was the light bearer.