* * *
When I was little, perhaps four or five, Aine, Donal and I left the stream where we were playing to follow the string of villagers being drawn back to the settlement. By the time we arrived a crowd had already gathered. They tugged at one another and jostled to get a better look at the traveller. He had set up a little table and was performing primitive conjuring tricks. He was nonsense. His tricks were nonsense, and I wanted to go back to the stream to play, so I tried to pull my sister and brother away from the table. They shrugged me off and stood, steadfast, by the tableside. So I stayed. The traveller, a tall bony man whose accent and demeanour were foreign, hid things up his sleeves and pretended they had disappeared. He pulled colourful shells from children's ears. He was nonsense.
A few people started to leave. The traveller implored them to stay, then produced what looked like a dull piece of rock on a string. He let the rock dangle.
'And?' demanded one of my father's brothers.
The traveller explained that the end of the rock that was sharp would always point north. My uncle laughed and said that the stars would always tell us which way was north. The traveller grew angry and said that when there were clouds, how then would we know which way was north? When we stupid, dull clods were caught in a peat bog and surrounded by mists, how then would we find north? My uncle lost patience and left the crowd. I edged into the space he left behind, and I looked at the rock dangling before me. It swung for a moment, then it held its position. I looked closely. It held movement inside.
Once, when playing in the stream, I had caught a small fish in my hand and held it up against the sunlight. Through its thin, silvery flesh I saw movement. Fluid throbbed around its small slender body, just as movement throbbed through the traveller's stone. I told my brother to look at the movement, I told Aine to look, but instead they looked at me. Donal hit my arm, and I started crying. They told me to stop lying, to stop drawing attention to myself. They didn't believe me. The crowd eventually dispersed, a few leaving food by the traveller's makeshift table. We ran back to the stream and took up play where we had left off. My brother told my father what had happened that day, my mother slapped me and when I cried she told me to shut up. I did.
In following years my father occasionally made reference to the traveller, but I kept quiet. I said nothing. If he went hunting for birds, or small animals, he took me. If he went to neighbouring settlements or on longer journeys to find peat, he took me. And we never got lost. We always found our way.
As I got older I found I saw the movement in all rocks. I never told another person, but the movement always flew north before my eyes. It sometimes made me feel sick. It made me feel that things were insubstantial, were always moving, would never stand still. And I wanted things to be still.
I think my father knew I saw the movement, but he never spoke of it. From the time I realized that it was only I who saw the movement, I knew I should keep it to myself. I clamped shut. I grew dense and solid with my secret.
I felt something was awry when the Druids came to our settlement. I knew the tuatha would be broken.
That night, the men in robes put me in a rough bag and carried me to the middle of a forest. Despite my fear I fell asleep. When I awoke it was pitch black. The bag lay draped across me. The men in robes had disappeared. But I was not frightened. The forest was unfamiliar to me, but in the woodland floor, in the trees, in the rocks around me, I saw the movement. I knew the way home. I always knew the way home. I never remained lost for long.
I walked for the rest of the night and, by morning, I was on the outskirts of our settlement. I made for my father's house, my home. When I arrived, however, the men in robes were sitting silent by the front door. My heart lurched. I knew. I had passed their test; and failed myself.
They took me away, and my father said nothing. I miss my sister and brother. I wish the winds would stop blowing. I have decided that I will not sleep tonight. I shall stare them in the eye. I shall stare them down. I will not become one of their words, one of their mists, a patch in their shadows. When they take on darkness, I shall be light. When they cease to move, I shall spin. When they rise like steam, I shall halt, sheer as ice. And, when they mouth their noiseless incantations to the four winds, I shall throw my head back and scream.
The moon has risen and there is nothing to hide me, no elder, elm, or oak. I wish they had brought me to some other region. I've spent many summers at Misvarna, their settlement in this area, and two successive winters on that knucklebone of the sea, Inis Meain. Of them all I detest this region the most. I have been moved through subterranean caverns, the belly of this land, around turloughs that rise and fall and twist like their spirals. And all amidst the continual movement of this vast, desolate, and skinless place. They have stretched me across this land like parchment, moulded my shape to its contours, melded my features to its cracks, and chasms, and fissures. And now they are trying to make me ride the back of this movement. In all this to-ing and fro-ing, these currents and streams, they want to tie me, dull rock, to a piece of string.
I feel ill in this landscape. It's like being cast out to sea in a small unstable vessel. I can never grow accustomed to the movement, never pick up a predictable rhythm. Dolmen should be made of wood. This one, the great Poulnabrone, should be beautiful to me. Heavy, solid mass. Instead, it is just another arrow in a landscape of arrows, and it all beats north. Beneath the ground, in the belly of the Burren, the beat is northwards and I read its direction like a dog pulled along by a scent.
***
It is morning, and I have not slept. I saw the sun stretch into the sky, release the fabric, close up the tears. A pale, trembling sun disc. Another ritual I have lived through, another ritual that has left me unscathed. They never work on me. 'Setting the Compass', 'Sidhe', they mutter, all robes, and ash, and words. These are phrases without meaning, they are mists without substance. I did not see the spirit the others said they saw at the last ceremony. I did not see the words become body. I do not believe it happened. I should not have been there. I should not be here. I do not want to be a Druid. I do not want to be reduced to insubstantial vapours, ethers, wisps in diaphanous robes. I want my feet to be rooted in rock and earth. I want all that heaviness passing through me, making me real, solid, immutable.
I want to be connected to this spot. Attached, pinned, joined.
I do not want to be a Druid. I want to be this rock.
***
About the Author - Karen Overman-Edmiston
People’s motivations and their interior life are at the core of Karen Overman-Edmiston’s writing. In addition, impressions and experiences gained while travelling have had a strong impact on her work. These factors are strongly evident in her 2010 Nautilus Award-winning novel, The Avenue of Eternal Tranquillity, as well as in an earlier publication, Night Flight from Marabar, a collection of short stories. Both titles are available in bookshops and online.
Karen Overman-Edmiston was born in the United Kingdom. Educated in the U K, Ireland and Australia, she gained a Master of Arts at the University of Western Australia. Having previously worked for the West Australian government, Karen runs her own consultancy business as well as continuing her writing.
Karen has written for the stage and has had competition-winning plays performed, including at the Festival of Perth. She is also a prize-winning short story writer who has had stories published in several magazines.
Find out more on the publisher’s website: https://sites.google.com/site/crumplestonepress/
Setting the Compass Page 2