Holder of Lightning

by S L Farrell

  Jenna hugged her again, and Maeve stroked her hair. “Padraic is worried about you, Jenna,” she said.

  “Padraic doesn’t need to worry.” Jenna used his first name scornfully, as if she hated the taste of its familiarity. “This seems to be my problem, not his.”

  “He’d take the cloch and its burden from you, if he could.”

  Jenna’s eyes flashed at that, and she stood abruptly, taking a step away from her mam. In the hearth behind her, a log crashed in a whirling cascade of sparks. “He can’t have it. It’s mine.”

  She pushed away from Meave, who let her go. “That’s what he said you’d say, that you wouldn’t, that you couldn’t, willingly give it up now, even though it hurts you.” Maeve smiled sadly. “I wish you could. I would do anything to stop you from being in pain, Jenna. I wish . . .” She looked away to the fire, then back to Jenna. “I wish you’d never found the stone. I wish Niall, your father . . .” She stopped.

  “What about my da?” Jenna asked.

  Maeve shook her head. “Nothing. He said nothing of this to me, but in looking back on how it was, I think he was always waiting for that cloch himself. I wonder now if he didn’t bring it to Ballintubber himself, from Inish Thuaidh or wherever he came from before. If he’d lived, it would have been him who was up on Knobtop that night, not you.”

  “And then Tiarna Mac Ard would have come.”

  Her mam gave Jenna a knowing smile. “I loved your da, Jenna. But it’s possible to be in love more than once in your life. It’s even possible to be in love with two people at once, even if it’s dangerous and even though you know that those feelings will inevitably cause everyone pain. One day you’ll realize that. I’ll always love your da, and always cherish my time with him. After all, he gave me you.”

  “And I’m all that’s left. All the rest that we had is gone. I have nothing.” Her voice was wistful and sad.

  “Most of it is gone, aye, except for a few things of his I took before we left. Wait here a moment.” Maeve rose from her chair and left the room for a few minutes, returning with a small wooden carving in her hand. “Remem ber this?” she asked, holding it out to Jenna: a block of pine fitting easily into her palm and poorly carved into a representation of a seal and painted a bright blue, though wood showed through at several places where it had been scratched.

  “Aye,” Jenna said. “The seal I used to play with when I was a baby.” She looked at Maeve. “Why that?”

  “Your father carved it, before he left for Bácathair. When you lost interest in it, I kept it because it was his last gift to you. I’d forgotten I still had it until I was trying to find a few things to take when we fled. Here . . . it isn’t much, but you should have it back now.”

  Jenna held it in her left hand as memories surged back: sitting on her mam’s lap at the table and laughing with her mam as the seal bobbed in a pan of water; tossing it angrily across the room one night because she was hungry and tired, chipping a crockery bowl in the process—she’d never told her mam that, letting her think the bowl had been chipped some other time. “Da made this? I never knew.”

  Maeve nodded.

  ... touch something that was once theirs, and they can speak with you, if you will it . . .

  “Mam, may I keep this?”

  Maeve smiled at her. “It’s yours, Jenna. It was always yours.”

  She did nothing until after the evening meal, when she was alone again in her room.

  The sun had sunk behind the hills. The night was dark, the moon and stars hidden behind a screen of clouds. The air seemed heavy and cold. Jenna had dismissed the servant for the night and sat in a chair near the fire, feeding it peat until the blue flames rose high and the light touched the far wall of the bedroom. She took the carving of the seal from the stand by her bed and set it in her lap, staring at the fire for a time. Then she took it in her right hand.

  She stared at the carving, at the marks her da’s knife had made shaping the wood, and seeing in her mind’s eyes the shavings curling away under the blade. She could almost hear the sound of the dry scraping of sharp iron against soft wood. . . .

  No. She could hear it.

  She turned. Near the window, a man sat in a plain chair, holding a block of wood in one hand and a knife in the other. Shavings were piled in his lap. She could see the wall behind through the ghostly image. His face . . . Jenna gasped, realizing that the man who sat there, hair the color of fire, was the same she’d glimpsed when she’d found the stone. “Da?” she whispered.

  He looked up. “Who . . . ?” he asked. He seemed confused, looking around. “Where am I? Everything looks so pale . . . Maeve, is that you? You’re dressed so strangely, like a Riocha.”

  Jenna walked toward him, holding the battered, chipped seal out so he could see it. “I’m Jenna, Da. Your daughter. Seventeen years old now.” He shook his head, wonder and fear and confusion all mingled in his gaze. His reaction was so different from that of Eilís, but then Eilís had held Lámh Shábhála when it was active and knew that the cloch con tained its old Holders. When her da possessed Lámh Sháb hála, it had been dead, just an ordinary stone wrapped in legend. Her da would have had no experience of the cloch’s abilities.

  “Wait,” Jenna said. She imagined her memories opening to him, as if they were gifts that she could hand him, letting him see within her as Eilís had, only this time she directed the sharing, choosing what she allowed him to know. She could feel his gentle touch on her memories, and as he comprehended them he gasped, the knife and seal falling from his grasp. They made no sound, vanishing before they reached the floor.

  “I’m dead. A ghost.”

  “Aye,” she told him softly. “Or neither dead nor ghost, only a moment caught forever, like a painting. I don’t really know, Da. But Eilís, the lady in the falls, told me that Lámh Shábhála carries its Holders. Which means you were one, too, even though the mage-lights weren’t there for you. Here, do you remember?” She took the cloch out and held it so he could see the stone. He started to reach for it, then let his hand drop back.

  “I remember, aye. I carried it with me, everywhere. Then, on Knobtop one day, I lost it. I was never sure how that happened. I go up there and look for it, all the time, still. Did I . . . ?”

  “No, Da. You never found it, but I did, the night the mage-lights came.”

  The wraith of Niall nodded. “So the stone truly was Lámh Shábhála. I never knew for certain; for all I knew, it was just a colorful pebble, though I’d always been told it was a cloch, and supposedly the cloch, the Safekeeping. But it was dead—or waiting for the mage-lights—when I had it.” He sighed. He looked at her for a long time, a slow smile touching his mouth. “You look like her. You have Maeve’s eyes, and her hair.”

  “She always says I have your nose, and the shape of your face.”

  He laughed. “I remember her saying that, not long after you were born.” He was silent for long moments after that, his face somber. “Why did you call me here, Jenna? If I’m dead, why did you rouse me? Why didn’t you leave me to rest?”

  “I wanted . . .” Jenna stopped. Now that she had called him, she wasn’t sure what she wanted. There was so much. “I need to know what you know about the cloch. I need you to help me.”

  He stood and came toward her, reaching out his hand. She extended her own hand for his touch. She expected to feel his skin, or perhaps a waft of chill air. She felt nothing. Her fingers went through his as if they were mist. Is that what would have happened with Eilís? She seemed so real, so whole, but she was trying to scare me.... Jenna felt disappointment, and the figure of her da drew back, sighing. “You’re a dream. Not real.”

  Jenna shook her head. “No. I’m real. It’s you who aren’t.”

  He may have believed her. He made no protest. “If this is death, why is it so . . . ordinary? Why don’t I remember dying? Why do I seem to be still in our house, and you standing before me like a ghost?”

  “I don’t know,” Jenna answered
. She looked at the carving in her hand. “Though this wasn’t with you when you died, and it’s all I have of yours. Maybe that’s the reason. There’s so much I don’t know, Da. The stone was yours for a while—tell me why. Tell me how you came to have it. Tell me everything. Help me as you would have helped me if you were still alive.”

  He clasped his hands together, staring at them as if mar- veling at their solidity. “If I were still alive, I would have

  Lámh Shábhála,” he answered. “Not you. I would have been on Knobtop that night.”

  “But I have it now, Da. Your daughter.”

  He looked at her. “My daughter,” he said. “I never expected to have the gift of a daughter. For that matter, I never expected to fall in love at all . . .”

  15

  Niall’s Tale

  MY mam, your great-mam, was the one who took the cloch. No, that’s not quite true. Actually, it was your great-da who stole it from where it rested . . .

  “No, let me begin again. It’s easier to start farther back. Let me tell you the story as my mam used to tell it to me. . . .

  “She was born on Inishfeirm, an island just off Inish Thuaidh. Inishfeirm’s best known for the Order of Inishfeirm, with their white stone buildings set high on the peak. From what my mam said, there weren’t many residents of Inishfeirm outside the Order; of those few, most were fisherfolk, her family included. They knew the Bráthairs of the Order, though. Couldn’t help it, since the Order dominated what social life there was on the island. They’d meet them in the streets or in the market, buying fish for their table or some of the greens that came over from the big island.

  “My mam’s name was Kerys Aoire. The Aoires weren’t Riocha, just plain folk, but well enough off and one of the main families on the island, from what Mam told me. They were often invited by the Máister to dine at the Order Hall on the feast days. The Order was a contemplative one, devoted to the Mother-Creator. In the last decades of the Before, the Order was known for its cloudmages, but when the mage-lights failed, so did their prominence. By the time my mam was born, they were a curiosity from another age, a place to visit and hear the old tales, to see the spectacular scenery of Inishfeirm, with its buildings clinging like lichens to the steep cliff walls of the mountain peak that formed the isle, with the bright parapets of the Order, built five centuries before, standing proud at the summit. Once, the cells of the Bráthairs were crowded; now, half of them were empty, though the Order still attracted occasional acolytes from Inish Thuaidh, young men sent to serve by wealthy families, mostly, and even a few from among the mainland Riocha, primarily from Falcarragh in Tuath Infochla.

  “One of the acolytes, a boy of eighteen summers named Niall, caught my mam’s eye. Aye, that’s my name as well, and I’m sure that tells you some of what happened next. I don’t know much about my da. Mam always claimed that she wouldn’t tell me his family name because she wanted to protect him, but I’m not certain she ever knew it. I suppose it doesn’t matter. They fell in love, or at least lust. My mam was probably your age, sixteen or seventeen, and naive. It wasn’t the first time a Bráthair of the Order and a local girl had become lovers; I’m sure it wasn’t the last, either, though afterward I’ll bet the Máister watched things more closely than before.

  “One of the treasures of the Order of Inishfeirm was its collection of clochs na thintrí. Once, the Order’s founders had even held Lámh Shábhála, and three of the other Clochs Mór had been theirs, as well as several of the minor stones. But when the mage-lights failed, Lámh Shábhála was given away or lost, though they retained the other clochs. Over the centuries, they had accumulated more stones reputed to be clochs na thintrí, though of course no one could know for certain with the mage-lights long dead. Some of the clochs had been handed down through families for generations; others were purchased or found, and as to their lineage and the truth of the claims made for them . . . well, no one knew.

  “Some two hundred years before my mam’s birth, the Order acquired a stone that was reputed to be the long-lost Lámh Shábhála. I don’t think anyone actually believed that tale. Mam said that she’d seen the collection a few times when the Máister would order it brought out for the admiration of his guests, and some of the clochs were gorgeous stones: gleaming, transparent jewels of bright ruby, midnight blue, or deepest green, faceted and polished, some of them as big as your fist. The one called Lámh Shábhála looked puny and insignificant alongside them, at that time wrapped in a cage of silver wire as a necklace. Even the necklace was plain: simple black strands of cotton. The Máister seemed somewhat skeptical about the claims. You know how tales grow and change with each telling, and by that time it had been four centuries and more since the clochs were alive with power, so it’s no wonder that no one knew for certain what Lámh Shábhála had looked like.

  “The Bráthairs were contracted by their families for life to the Order. Marriage was forbidden to them. When Mam twice missed her monthly bleeding, she told Niall. She was afraid that he would go to the Máister, confess, and be forbidden to see Mam again, and Mam would be left to the shame of a bastard child. Certainly that had happened before, and there were women on Inishfeirm who were pointed out as local scandals. Now Mam thought she would be one of them, a cautionary tale to Inishfeirm girls who looked with love on one of the Bráthairs.

  “But Niall was true to her. He promised Kerys that he would go away with her, that he would take her to one of the Tuatha where they might be married. And to prove that his promise was in earnest, he gave her a token of his love and also of his rejection of the Order. He stole what he perceived as one of the least of the clochs, and gave it to my mam.

  “Aye, the very cloch you hold now.

  “They managed to steal away at night, taking a small currach that belonged to my mam’s family. Though the moon was out when they started, my mam said, they chose the wrong night, for a quick storm came thundering out of the west and south after they passed the last island and were nearly across to Tuath Infochla. A currach is fine in a calm sea; in the storm, in the huge wind-driven waves, only a very lucky and very experienced sailor could have kept the tiny craft afloat and neither Niall nor Kerys were experienced or lucky. The currach foundered just off the coast. Both Niall and Kerys went over—Mam, at least, could swim well, and she knew to rid herself of her wet clothes before they dragged her down. She said she never knew what happened to Niall. She heard him call once, but in the storm and night, she never saw him again. She called for him, called many times, but only the thunder and the hissing of rain answered her. She was certain she would die, too.

  “But she did not. When Mam told the tale, she always said that a pair of large blue seals came to her, and kept her above water, her arms around their bodies as they swam toward shore. I don’t know if that’s true at all; in the midst of the storm and the terror, who knows if what you remember is true. What is true is that, gasping and choking on the cold salt water, she found herself on the rocky shore, naked and shivering.

  “Around her neck, somehow, the necklace Niall had given her was still there.

  “Mam saw a light high on the hill behind her, and she walked to a cabin. The shepherd family there took her in, set her by the fire, and gave her clothing and blankets. If the storm hadn’t thrown Kerys ashore at that place, where there was a sparse shingle of beach and a house close by, she would have died anyway, of cold and exposure. She always wondered whether some faint power still lurked in the stone, that it brought the seals and found the beach and saved her so it would not be lost. Again, I don’t know if that’s true or not. Certainly the stone never did anything else for her . . . or for me. But I get ahead of my tale.

  “The next day, the shepherd, his wife, their two children, and my mam went back down to the beach. They found shattered pieces of the currach, but nothing else. Niall’s body wasn’t ever found; he drowned, most likely, and his body was dragged to the bottom by the weight of what he wore, or tossed to the shore at the foot of one of the
wild cliffs nearby and never seen.

  “Kerys stayed with the shepherd family, whose name was Hagan, and I was born that winter. I don’t know what tale she gave the Hagans regarding that night—for all I know, it may have been simply the truth. The Hagans kept to themselves, rarely going into the nearest village, and Mam said they told the villagers that she was a cousin who had come to stay with them. When the shepherd’s wife died the next spring in childbirth, my mam remained, and eventually married Conn Hagan, my stepfather. They had two other children of their own. I can say little but good about Conn Hagan—he treated me as well as he treated his own children. If it was a hard life, it was no harder for me than for his own.

  “There’s not much more to tell. When I was sixteen, I felt the need to see more of Talamh an Ghlas than the few acres of our farm. When I left, Mam gave me the cloch and told me the tale about her and Niall. I set off north and came to Falcarragh, and sailed from there over to Inish Thuaidh, and lived on the island for a few years. I even visited Inishfeirm, though I didn’t tell anyone who I was. I visited the Order, and they told me about the Before and the clochs na thintrí and Lámh Shábhála, the Stone of Safekeeping.

  “I played the stranger with them, saying that I’d heard the Lámh Shábhála was also there at the cloisters, but they said ‘no.’ Many years ago, they told me, a cloch had been stolen from the cloisters, and though some had claimed that the stone was Lámh Shábhála, the Máister was unconcerned about the loss because the claims regarding the cloch were almost certainly false. If the stone was a cloch na thintrí at all (and the Máister doubted it) it had been no more than a clochmion, a minor stone. No one knew where Lámh Shábhála was, they told me. That cloch was lost.

  “But I learned a lot about the clochs na thintrí from the Order of Inishfeirm and from other places, and I always wondered. Many of those I talked to spoke of the Return, the Filleadh, for they believed that the mage-lights would return soon, maybe within my lifetime. I thought that if this cloch was truly Lámh Shábhála, then I would be the First Holder. I would hold the renewed stone. I wandered more, leaving Inish Thuaidh and traveling the High Road south until I came to Ballintubber.