“Tell me your favorite story about the fairies,” I said.
“I’d have to think on that, now.” She bit her lip in a manner I found appealing. “There are so many of them.”
“Pick one,” I said. “Whichever comes to mind first.”
Tess took a breath. “All right. I have it. Now, there was a tragic series of episodes in our history among the ordinary people, who believed that sometimes the fairies might steal away a newborn child and leave a changeling in its place. The changeling would howl and grimace, taking no nourishment at the breast of the woman meant to be its mother. ’Twas plain, or at least the people thought so, that the real babe had been taken away. There were some who believed that if they cast the changeling into the fire, the fairy child would vanish and the true child would reappear in its cradle, though who knows how many mothers and fathers steeled themselves for the deed. We know it happened more than once. It must have.” As Tess spoke, I marveled at the change in her demeanor. Storytelling had given her new energy. “On other occasions, the parents might carry the changeling out into the night, up to some dark and boggy place in the lee of a fairy mound, and leave him there for the fairies to reclaim.”
I waited a beat before saying, “That’s some story.”
“That wasn’t the story. Sure, I was only givin’ you a bit of background.” Tess smiled. “You wonder, don’t you, what happened to the child left on the hillside in the wind and rain?”
Paudie came back with the pints. “It died,” I said, “and if the parents ever went back they’d’ve found the bones.”
“Ah, but what if it didn’t?”
“What if there really were fairies?” She nodded, and I said, “But there aren’t. The babies died of exposure, just like they would’ve died of third-degree burns.”
Leo came in, stinking of smoke, and Paudie made more room for him in the booth. I watched Leo look tenderly upon his fresh pint as he brought it to his lips—as if it were the face of a woman he’d loved all his life, his first drink instead of his sixth.
“It won’t do to think on it too literally,” Tess was saying, which brought to mind Síle and our talk of happy endings. “When you’re listening to a story, any story a’tall, you’ve got to believe in it with all you’ve got as it’s being told, or else there’s little pleasure to be found in it.”
I took my first drink and licked the head off my lip. “Okay,” I said. “I’ll stop butting in. Continue.”
Once more Tess settled herself into a posture for storytelling. “Now, there once was a young woman in the west of Ireland who had the dreadful ill luck to discover a changeling in the cradle one gloomy morning. The sweet rosy face and twinklin’ blue eyes of her baby boy were gone, and in their place a gaze blacker than coal and the scowl of a man who’d lived twice as long and twice as hard as he was meant to. The poor woman had gone through all the usual charms to protect her firstborn, as the mothers of her parish used to do. But there was no human magic strong enough to keep the fairies away from her wee boy, and now he was gone from her forever.
“She called her husband in from the fields, and together they decided what they must do. That night they walked five miles to the nearest Shee—the fairy mound, wreathed in whitethorn trees—and they left the changeling on a bed of sedge. From the first breath of dawn to the time they laid it down in the heather, the thing had not ceased to wail for an instant, and even as they left it miles behind them, they could still hear the echoes of its cries in the whistlin’ wind of the night. In the silent cottage, they climbed into their bed, weary and heartbroken.”
Leo and Paudie were listening intently. “She’s a beautiful storyteller, so she is,” Leo whispered. Paudie looked as proud as if she were his own child instead of his brother’s.
“For a year or more, the couple mourned their loss,” Tess was saying, “and it was often whispered of in the village pub. In time, though, they had another child, and another, and another until there were six altogether, and as the years passed, the couple thanked God the fairies left them well enough alone. The loss of their firstborn still weighed like a stone on their hearts, but most days they managed to forget, so that the dull ache seemed to have no source that they could tell of.
“Each of their children grew tall and strong, and one after another, it came time for them to go out into the wider world to seek their fortunes. The eldest boy promised to return and care for the family acre when the time came, but until then, the man and the woman were as they’d been at the beginning: just the two of them, and the quiet hope between them. In this way the years passed, their joints stiffened and their hair lost all color, until one morning the woman awoke to find her husband lying too still beside her.
“The children could not come home again to share in the loss. They’d lives of their own now, in Dublin and abroad. One day her eldest son would return to till his father’s land as he’d promised, but in the meantime, his mother rose and toiled and cooked and ate and slept alone—as no one is ever meant to.”
This was an odd thing to say coming from a nun, and I looked at her closely. Tess was so wrapped up in her story that she never paused to consider what she’d said, how the truth she’d just told reflected on her own life.
“It seemed to her that all the comfort had gone out of her snug little house,” she went on, “with her husband lyin’ cold in the ground, and the widow began to pray that her eldest would return to her of his own choice, and live with her always.
“One day not long after, as afternoon settled into evening, the widow stood on the threshold and caught sight of a figure walking across the fields towards her cottage. Her heart leapt with joy, for who could it be but her eldest son come home to grant her wish at last?
“But as the figure drew closer, a sense of confusion settled upon her, for he did not carry himself in the way she knew, and his shirt caught the light as if the linen were woven through with silver. Now he was at the edge of her own land, holding up a hand to greet her, and yet this young man was not, could not be, her eldest son.
“At last the man reached the edge of the farmyard. He stopped at the gate and took off his hat. The stranger said, ‘Do you know me, Mother?’
“And the woman gazed up at him, her confusion giving way to fear. The sun was behind him, so that his face was cast in shadow, and his skin seemed to glow with the quiet radiance of the full moon. She began to understand.
“He spoke again, and his speech was unlike any she had heard before: ‘I am hungry from the journey, Mother, and I smell something simmering on the fire. What have you made for supper?’
“The widow could not bring herself to speak; it was all she could do to lift a hand and invite him inside. He bent his head so that he might enter the little cottage where he was born, and, leaving his boots at the door as his father used to do—though there wasn’t a speck of mud upon them—he took a seat at the table laid for one.
“With trembling fingers, the woman ladled out the fragrant stew. She set the bowl before him on the table fashioned by the capable hands of his dead father, and once she’d sat down beside him, the young man bent his head and clasped his hands to utter a prayer, if prayer it was, for the words he used belonged to no human language.
“Then, with a grateful glance at her, he began to eat, and the way he did this too was fearsome and wonderful to her. Each spoonful delighted him, each bite of meat or potato brought another smile to his lips. There was a queerness to his every movement, too, as if the fairies had taught him a different set of manners. Even so, the widow once caught a glimpse of her husband inside the face of her strange guest, and such a terrible thrill it gave her.
“‘Ahh,’ the young man said at last, drawing a fine handkerchief from his pocket to wipe his mouth. ‘Had you kept me, this stew would have been my favorite. I have never known such nourishment—not since the last time I fed from your breast, dear Mother.’
“‘How can that be,’ she asked plaintively, ‘when you have grown so
tall and strong?’
“‘They filled my belly with other things,’ he said, and because she was afraid then to ask any more questions, there came a silence between them. Finally the young man laid his kerchief on his knee and spoke as he began neatly to fold it. ‘It did not take them long to come for me, but even now I remember how cold it was, and how wet, up there on the hill. That shiver,’ he said quietly. ‘It will never leave me.’
“As he spoke these words, it was as if the old chill spread from his heart into hers, though she could not understand this sympathy, for the babe she’d left wasn’t her babe a’tall. ‘They’d already taken you away from me,’ she said, and in her voice there was a note of pleading. ‘All that I brought to the hill was the changeling they left in your place.’
“The young man shook his head, but his attitude was one of sorrow, not of reproach. ‘The fairies did come in the night,’ he said, ‘but they did not steal me away. They haven’t the power for that, though they’ll have us believe they do, and in the end that’s nearly the same. They could only cast a spell on me through a chink in the shutter, drawing all the warmth and joy out of my tiny heart so that I would seem to you a different babe altogether. They knew then that you would take me up to the hill and leave me there in the darkness, and then truly I would be theirs.’
“The widow clutched at her breast, as if her heart were giving out with the grief of it. ‘How was I to know?’ she whispered. ‘How could I be wise to such a trick, and we such simple folk?’
“‘I have never blamed you, Mother,’ the man said gently, and when he reached across the table to reassure her, she felt a hum beneath the skin of her work-worn hand.
“‘You must tell me,’ she said, her voice choked with emotions she had not known she could feel. ‘I must know. Was it a good life you led with them? What did they teach you, and did you sleep warm at night, and did they raise you with love, as I would have done?’
“The man rose from the table to stand by the hearth and stoke the fire, staring into the flames just as his father used to do. And like his father, he seemed to be lost in his own thoughts.
“For the first time, she uttered the name she had given him, and the young man looked up from the fire. ‘You must not call me by that name,’ he said, and a sharp note had entered into his silvery voice. ‘It was lost to me when they took me from the hill.’ Another silence settled between them, and the woman felt a kind of shame for all the things she did not know. ‘I shall answer your questions as best I can,’ he said at last, ‘though there are certain things I may never speak of.’
“‘I had a fairy mother,’ he began, ‘and in the beginning she loved me, in her way, almost as well as you did. Even among the Shee there are womenfolk who cannot bear children of their own, and it is this want which leads them to steal away the offspring of humankind. She kept me in a cradle of moonwood carved with scenes of desert caravans, marching elephants, chariots, and epic battles, so that night by night I might dream myself into a future of greatness.
“‘I was schooled in the ways of the Shee, but I always knew I was set apart, and I asked many questions that went unanswered. As I grew, a great restlessness came upon me, so that at last my fairy mother was compelled to show me a vision of you in this very room: surrounded by the brothers and sisters I would never know, and my father quietly stoking the fire just as I have done tonight. And I grieved for the life I should have had as your eldest son. She told me I could never go above, that once a human child is taken, there can be no taking him back, but this too was a falsehood. It was a long time before I began to see that the fairy folk hold no reverence for truth—and how can they? For even before they’ve spoken the lie, they’ve convinced themselves it is so.’ He sighed. ‘After that my fairy mother grew cold to me. I was told I had no further need of schooling, and I became a servant of the Shee.’
“The woman was surprised at this, for it seemed to her that this young man was dressed like the son of a lord, with his fine linen shirt all shot through with silver, and his soft leather boots with their shining buckles.
“‘The fairies are, as you have guessed, an immoderate race,’ he went on. ‘There is hardly an end to their balls and banquets, so that as they sleep, we must tidy up the remains of one feast only to prepare for the next. Even my schooling was executed in the most languid fashion, my tutor more fond of wine and games and noonday slumbers than any book or map.
“‘In all that they left unsaid, however, and in their eternal pursuit of pleasure, they showed me how to betray them. I learned for myself that I might return someday to the world of men, that all that was necessary was for someone, even one person, to remember me.’ He gazed into her eyes with a look of the most ferocious love, and again he frightened her. ‘I heard your prayers, Mother, and I was restored.’
“The woman knew she should feel joyful, but unqualified happiness was beyond her. She had prayed not for the return of this lost son, but for the young man she had thought of as her eldest; and she began to be afraid that perhaps this man, her son, knew this, and harbored a resentment he had yet to show her. ‘They won’t come lookin’ for you?’ she said at last.
“‘They cannot reach me,’ he replied. ‘I have come home to you, to till my father’s land and to care for the animals, and to be a help and a comfort to you all the days of your life.’
“Oh, how she trembled at this! ‘Forgive me,’ the widow said, ‘but I fear what my neighbors will say, for they will not know you. What shall we tell them when they come to call, or if they should meet you down in the village?’
“‘You need only remind them that I am your eldest son,’ he said, as if these extraordinary circumstances warranted hardly any explanation a’tall.
“She yearned to make clear to him that the village knew another son for her eldest, that enough time had passed that folk seldom spoke or thought of her old tragedy and they wouldn’t believe her if she told the truth, but fear held her tongue.
“‘I’ll sleep up above,’ he went on. ‘That was always my rightful place, wasn’t it, Mother?’
“‘Aye,’ said she. ‘That is where you would have slept, once you’d outgrown your cradle.’
“She cleared the table and swept the hearth, watching him as he rinsed his face and hands at the washstand in the firelight. There was still a bit of a glow about him, and she wondered if it would fade with time or if the fairy sheen would always be about him, and if others could see it, too, and if so what would they think of him and how would they treat him. They would set him apart—after all even a man from three miles up the road would always be an outsider to them—but somehow she knew that no matter what looks or words he met with, he’d always have his dignity about him, his quiet confidence. The fairies had been cruel to him, but at least they’d given him that.
“He came to her then, and put his strong arms about her, and kissed her softly on the cheek before climbin’ up to the loft. When she said her prayers, she thanked the Holy Father that her eldest, the true eldest, had been restored to her; though in her secret heart she was more than a little afraid that the Holy Father had had nothing to do with it, for the fairy lands lie well beyond the Christian realm, and her child would not answer to the name she had given him.
“In the morning she woke to find her little house still as ever, and her heart seized at the thought that the miracle of the previous evening had been nothing more than a dream. But when she dressed and went to the door, she found her lost son down in the field, mending an old stone wall in poor condition since before the passing of her husband; and when she looked back at her table, she found there a basket of eggs and a jug of fresh milk.
“The widow knew there was magic about him still, for as hard as he worked, he never tired. Whatever he did he made appear the easiest task in the world, even the hoeing and turf cutting that had all but broken her husband’s back on the longest days. He’d the fairy airs about him, but unlike the fairies, he would labor cheerfully for hours. He s
ought no one’s company but hers, and he never went down to the pub. But every so often, she would wake to find him comin’ quietly down the ladder in the middle of the night, stealing out of the house only to return with the dawn, and she wondered if he’d left behind him a fairy wife.
“The months passed, and the woman received no word from her eldest son—her second son—on when he might be returning to take over the farm. This was both a relief and a worry. Her son sometimes referred to her other children, but he never wished aloud that he might meet them, and she wondered if he’d laid down some new piece of magic to prevent them returning.
“At last she received a letter, and another, and another. They were off in Dublin and London and America, busy livin’ their lives. One or two sent her money, and her fairy son gazed coldly at the paper in her hand as if she had offended him. These moods of his soon passed, however, and he grew warm and affectionate towards her once again.”
I glanced over and saw Paudie and Leo still hanging on her every word. “And in this way the widow lived out her life,” Tess said, “her joy tempered by an uneasiness of which she could never speak.”
She leaned back on the worn red upholstery and took a breath, just as Leo had done on my first night here. She’d finished her story, and I didn’t know what to say, because any compliment I could have given her would have been inadequate.
“Tess, you’re a marvel,” Paudie declared, and Leo rushed to add, “She’s the finest storyteller of the rising generation, so she is!”
Tess laughed. “Leo still thinks I’m sixteen years of age, instead of thirty-six.”
Finally I said, “I thought he was going to suffocate her in her sleep, or something,” and Tess gave me a weary glance as she lifted the water glass to her lips.
“It’s the quiet drama I like best,” she said. “No sword fights or shouting matches. There’s greater tension just waitin’ on the second shoe to drop. The vague unease, the waiting and wondering.”
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