Swan Witch

by Betina Lindsey

  Minutes later, it was Bron’s voice that brought her fully around.

  His voice seemed to fill the room. “I’ll not have a cantankerous troll complaining before my fire. We’ve enough troubles…so keep your jaw shut or disappear into the bogs where you belong,” he ordered.

  “Am I to be grovelin’ fur any small favors yer plazed to give?” whined Gibbers.

  “Aye!” returned Bron sharply. “Make yourself scarce.”

  Bron looked to Eithne. She was sitting up with the bed covers clutched to her breast, her eyes meeting his like pools of fire. She said nothing, but all of her called him.

  “Eithne, love! ’Tis all right—I’m here!” He crossed the room and came down on the bed beside her. He put his arms around her and she clung to him, crying softly.

  Her hand on her throat, she whispered, “My voice…”

  He touched her forehead and felt the feverishness of her skin. He turned to Niamh, “What is happening?”

  Niamh came close. “As the sorcerer gathers his power she will weaken.”

  “Is there naught that we can do?”

  “I do not know. My sense is that the connection of love between you strengthens her, but for how long…” She shook her head with doubt.

  He felt Eithne’s arms tighten around him.

  “Arrah…I should not have left you last night.” He stroked her hair. “But I’m here now.”

  “Stay close…I am afraid without you.” Her voice was hauntingly muted, like a small lost child in a great cavern. “I need water…”

  He turned to Niamh, who stepped to the cupboard and was pouring water from a crockery pitcher into a cup. Accommodatingly, he put the cup to Eithne’s lips. She grasped it with both hands and gulped thirstily.

  “More,” she breathed.

  Niamh fetched the pitcher and poured full the cup…two times more.

  Then gently, Bron eased her onto the pillows. Niamh gave him a cold damp cloth that he pressed to her temples, her cheeks, and her neck.

  “How do you feel now?”

  A fine winged brow knitted. “I am frightened.”

  He arranged his own features with confidence. “Och, you’ve naught to fear.” He took her hand, and held it small and curving in his as he touched it gently to his lips. “The more you fear the greater power Sheelin has over you. Fear feeds the darkness.”

  Tears slipped down Eithne’s cheeks. Bron wanted to bend over and kiss each one away, but he resisted. He knew she could not rely upon his strength alone. She must find that place in herself.

  “Oh, Bron,” she said, her voice agonizing. “I dare not even close my eyes. I fall into the darkness. ’Tis a great black pit.” She fisted her hand. “In that place my heart feels hard as stone. I cannot breathe.”

  “’Tis because there is no love in that darkness.” He raised his hand and touched the tip of her chin. “Look into my eyes, Eithne. What do you see there?”

  She lifted her face to his. In her eyes he saw the swirling turmoil of her emotions. She searched his own for long moments. “I see…a wealth of love and gentleness.” With softened focus they held each other’s gaze. “What do you see in mine?” she asked.

  Countless times he’d fallen into those depths. He’d glimpsed a myriad of her emotions, her anger, her joy, her sadness, but the unveiled void he saw now caused him the greatest of concern. “I see your fear,” he said truthfully. “What are you so afraid of, Eithne?”

  Tears coursing down her cheeks, she turned away from him. “Sheelin, I fear Sheelin and his Unseelie Court.”

  “I think not. For you know that is all illusion. Tell me truly what you fear.”

  She covered her face with her hands and began sobbing.

  “Speak true, Eithne,” he prompted.

  Gently, he pried her hands from her face. “Look at me, Eithne,” he commanded. His warmly empathic glance strayed to her trembling lower lip and to the faint vibration of the pulse on the curve of her throat.

  She shook her head with refusal.

  “I think, Eithne, you fear your own power. You fear your own power to love.”

  Her eyes flashed with desperateness. “I love you.” She threw her arms around him and buried her head against his chest. “I love you,” she murmured over and over.

  He held her to him. Then her weeping burst out in inconsolable waves. He fought to contain his own welling of emotion. He did not doubt she loved him, but he sensed she withheld that most vulnerable part of herself. He was not sure why.

  “Aye, you know how to love, but you don’t know how to let yourself be loved…because you don’t love yourself,” he returned with deep-felt compassion.

  “Musha!” interrupted the hissing voice of Gibbers from the corner. “An evil, wicked gurrul she be. She cud niver love.” The rancor and sarcasm of Gibbers’s words hung like vile bog gas in the air.

  The times in Bron’s life that he had fully lost his temper could be counted on the one hand he had. The slow fire of his anger rose as he carefully released Eithne and let her fall against the pillows. He stood. In one great step he was before Gibbers, who had presence enough to crouch with innate cowardliness. He reached out his hand and picked Gibbers up by the thin thread of his green neck and he strode out the door.

  Outside, he thumped him down and vented his anger, cleanly, clearly, and magnificently. “I’ll not stand by and hear you speak ill of her. You are the evil, wicked one. You are the devil who cannot love. Now be gone. I have no wish to see your face again!”

  Gibbers cringed and blathered in the burn of Bron’s anger. He did not miss the full potency of the message. Hastily, he slithered out of sight.

  When Bron returned, Niamh was holding the weeping Eithne. She turned to her brother and accused, “You’ve pushed her to the edge and off.”

  “Nay.” His voice was low and assuring. “She cannot face the powers of darkness until she has faced the darkness in herself.”

  “And how is that to happen?”

  “Through the night of fear.”

  “Nay! ’Tis an awesome ordeal. She has not the strength.”

  “She has my strength to draw upon…and after the night of fear her own strength will rise that she may face Sheelin.”

  Niamh still seemed unconvinced. She opened her mouth to speak again but Bron touched his fingers to her lips in a plea for silence. He would explain the ordeal to Eithne and she could make that decision for herself.

  “Come now, my love.”

  Readily Eithne drew away from Niamh and reached for him. He pulled the bedding away and wrapped her in a flannel quilt and carried her to a chair by the fire, where he sat down, holding her against him.

  By afternoon Eithne’s spirits lifted as she regained her vitality. Niamh prepared a reviving drink of herbs for her that put the glow back into her countenance. Bron suggested he take her riding. She did not like giving up their cozy arrangement by the fire, but soon she sat upon Samisen’s back, still cocooned in the safe cradle of Bron’s arms.

  The gale had passed and the sun shone bright. A rare, lonely beauty stretched over the island. She was happy to be out in the clarity of the day and away from the soul-shaking shadows of the night.

  Samisen carried them across bog and rockery and down among the shifting blowing sand dunes of the southern shore. Long and pliant as silk before the wind, the gray marrum grass etched the dunes like thick whiskers.

  “What is that sound?” asked Eithne, her ears straining to a sporadic clamor farther down the beach.

  “’Tis the harping of seals,” said Bron, gently nudging Samisen forward. “You can hear them talk on clear days like this, while they tend their newborn pups.”

  “And what do they say?”

  Bron chuckled. “I’m not so certain. Niamh could tell you. She is that canny. Everything speaks to her…the winds, the sea, the stones, the animals.”

  Eithne watched the hundred or so dark shapes wallow in the sand and flipper in and out of the waves.

 
; “Beway.” She smiled. “The wee things are a precious sight to see.”

  “And to feel,” said Bron slipping down off Samisen. Doubling around, he caught a stray pup. Returning to Eithne, a huge grin upon his face he presented a wet, furry baby seal to her.

  “Begorrah!” she said, laughing with pleasure. It sniffed and sneezed as she held its warm, wiggly softness close to her body. “Aye, I’ll take it back to warm my bed this night.”

  “And what of me?” Bron tried to look hurt but was not so successful.

  She flashed him her most audacious smile. “You shall warm not my bed, but myself.”

  He bowed playfully, but his voice held verity. “I am your servant to the end, milady.”

  She handed the pup to him saying, “I would truly keep it but it must remain with its own kith.”

  “Aye,” he agreed, dropping the pup near a barking grande dame. Eithne wished he was not so ready to agree on that point. Would he drop her as easily to her mother’s care if the time came?

  He remounted Samisen and set a slow-paced walk up the beach.

  “How long a ride to the croft?” she asked.

  He nuzzled her neck and said lowly, “How long would you be wanting it to be?”

  Her hand went up and caressed his rough cheek. “As long as the sun shines, I’m content to be out-of-doors.”

  “’Tis a true island woman you are, then.” He kissed her hand. Eithne felt it to the very tips of her toes. In his loving company, her dark dreams disappeared and she wondered how she could have ever been frightened at all.

  “I have something else I must show you.”

  They now climbed the headland slope crossing the squelchy, boggy terrain where the goldening mist thinned below the sun. With each breath, Eithne breathed in that gold.

  “There ahead,” said Bron. “Beyond is a barrow mound. A low narrow entrance leads within. ’Tis a sacred place. ’Tis a path into the underworlds.”

  She saw where he gestured and spied the rising mound with a stone slab opening.

  “Now in seriousness we must speak, milady. There beneath the earth, myself and many of my clansmen have made the journey into the dark night of the soul. The sea clans believe that the greatest warrior is the warrior who has the courage to face himself. Until you face the darkness in yourself, Eithne, you cannot face the darkness of Sheelin.”

  The feelings of fear she’d thought had been banished with the clarity of the day returned. She looked away from Bron, back to the mound, saying, “I’ve enough darkness in my life. I’ve no wish to see more.”

  “Aye,” returned Bron. “I understand you, but if you come through the night of fear, your mind will be stronger and cannot be broken by Sheelin’s sorcery.”

  “Nay,” she said firmly. “I’ll not do this!”

  “Why?”

  With a wide open gaze she turned her face to him. “You know why. You have said it. I fear myself. I fear my own darkness. I…I am as evil as my father.” Her voice broke and she began crying. Bron put his arms about her, but she shrugged him off. “Nay! I’m unworthy of your love. Leave me be.”

  Bron let fall his arms. “Sweet Eithne,” he pleaded in a compassion-filled voice. “Let me love you. Let someone love you…especially your own self. If you cannot embrace your darkness…you’ll not embrace mine nor anyone else’s. And then you will truly be like Sheelin. Don’t you see?”

  “Aye,” she sobbed. “I see too much. Too much!”

  Silence fell between them as they rode to the croft. Once there Eithne remained outside, sitting upon a stool in the afternoon sun. Bron stayed near and groomed Samisen.

  In early evening the winds rose in a whipping vengeance. Still silent, and inwardly churning like the sea in a gale, Eithne sat before the fire. Niamh cracked nuts and peeled them to eat. Wordless, she shared the white meat with Bron.

  “’Tis your singing harp we need, my brother,” said Niamh, her eyes on Bron’s harp, which sat in the dust of one corner. Eithne thought it was unthinking of her to bring it up, but Bron seemed unoffended. He merely nodded his head.

  In the hearth flames she watched the dance of light and dark. Her own inner battle reflected both flame and shadow. Why must the fate of Myr rest upon her shoulders? Why must she be the one to inherit the singer’s voice? Why…why and why? She wrapped her arms around her legs and lay her forehead against her knees. Slowly, she rocked to and fro, stranded in the dilemma. She felt Bron’s arm upon her shoulders, but it was no consolation.

  Finally she said, “Aye, I’ll do it. I’ll willingly submit myself to the night of fear. But have no great expectation for I am no warrior.”

  His hand moved to caress her face. “Arrah,” he said in a pride filled voice. “You are more warrior than has ever been seen in these Blessed Isles. You are a warrior of the heart.” In a welter of tender emotion, he kissed her lightly on the lips.

  And then they heard it. A haunting cry that cut through the night like a knife through flesh. The sound was brittle with pain and anguish and an incredible despair.

  “What was that?” Eithne whispered. She did not miss the look exchanged between Bron and Niamh.

  “It’s the wind coming in off the sea,” said Bron. His arm tightened around her shoulders.

  Suddenly, the door blew open.

  Niamh screamed as the candles blew out and the croft was plunged into darkness. In the dimness, Eithne caught the flash of white cloaks. Bron rose swiftly and walked over to face three strange women on the threshold.

  “May we enter?” asked one. The flickering light from the hearth danced over the deep shadows and hollows of her thin face, giving it an almost skull-like appearance.

  “Who are you?” asked Bron suspiciously.

  “We’ve come from the spring-fed pool, just beyond,” said one whose hair was near silver in whiteness.

  It was Eithne who recognized them. “Ask them in, Bron. They are the swan sisters who came with us at my mother’s bidding.”

  “Aye,” said Bron, with comprehension. “Forgive me.”

  The women stepped inside. Niamh moved to close the door against the bitter wind and quickly lit the candles.

  “I am Epona of Myr,” said the tallest woman, whose strongly marked features took on an austere splendor in the firelight. “These are my sisters, Ceith and Terwen. With your permission we’ve come to cast a circle of protection. The gale brings the harbingers of dark sorcery to Tir nan Og.”

  Again they heard it.

  It was a wailing scream of anguish that rose and fell like a rabid wolf at midnight. It grated along bone and nerves, setting teeth on edge and fine hair on end. It drew forth the primeval fear of the night, the dead and the undead, the unembodied entities that wandered in the darkness.

  Eithne had risen to her feet. She felt the blood draining from her face and her heart pacing with fear. “Aye,” she said. “’Tis welcome you are to cast your circle.”

  “Do not be afraid, Eithne,” soothed Epona. “It is your father’s dark work. He thinks to frighten us all with his phantoms.”

  “Come, drink hot tea and sit before the fire,” invited Niamh.

  “Aye,” echoed Bron, moving low stools and a chair for them to sit upon.

  Eithne studied the swan sisters closely. She was very curious about her kinswomen. Ceith’s hair was flaxen, soft, and fine; it was a halo in the candlelight. Her eyes were wide and tilted and, at that moment, reflecting the clearest blue. Terwen in contrast had blue-black hair and skin as snowy white as a dove’s underwing.

  “Is it true only those of pure heart can enter Myr?” asked Niamh as she offered them steaming cups of tea.

  Terwen looked over at Ceith. Eithne could not read the glance that passed between them. Epona smiled into her cup, and said, “That is the tradition.”

  “More than anything I wish to one day see Myr,” said Eithne. “Is it so different from here?”

  “Very much so,” assured Epona, not elaborating.

  The death-wail c
ame again. This time it was nearer. The cry drifted across the night and faded on the wind. A lull fell in the conversation and brought the true errand of the visit to point.

  Setting her cup aside, Epona said, “Let us now cast the circle.” She reached over and touched Eithne on the arm gently. “Eithne, you are of our kith. You shall help us.”

  Me? Eithne almost asked aloud, unsure that she had heard Epona’s words correctly. As if fully aware of Eithne’s self-doubt, Epona nodded her head affirming her request. Eithne felt sudden pride and for the first time in her life, a sense of belonging. Her gaze met Bron’s and he gave her a supportive smile.

  “Ceith, move the stools, and Eithne, build up the fire,” directed Epona.

  Eithne hurried to obey her while she bent to the hearth, watching Epona from the corners of her eyes.

  Epona removed her feather cloak and laid it aside. She unfastened a large pouch from about her waist and took from it two smaller silk bags, and four white, long wing feathers.

  The fresh peat that Eithne had laid across the smoldering fire caught hold. From one bag Epona took a handful of mixed herbs and scattered it on the fire. Heavy curls of smoke circled above the fire like coiling serpents. Eithne sneezed. The scent was sharp and made her nose tingle.

  “Now let us join arms together, sisters, and cast the circle of protection,” said Epona.

  Silently, Eithne and the other swan sisters interlaced their arms. In unison their voices rose in a soft chant, pouring out from their hearts in low flowing rhythm. Eithne found herself singing for the first time odd patterns of sound that instinctively flowed from her lips. On one level she knew that innate knowledge of the chants was her birthright as a swan maiden. Three times she and the others slowly circled moonwise within the croft.

  Then, Epona raised the white swan feathers above her head and waved them through the air saying, “We banish from this croft all things dark and mischievous. We call forth the circle of light and protection around us.”

  She lowered her hand. She held the feathers splayed before her, took one to herself, and said, “Earth witch, ear to the ground.”

  Then she faced Ceith and said, “Water witch, arms in the stream.” Ceith’s long graceful fingers took the feather from her hand.