Maeve gave him what seemed a lukewarm smile. “We can hope not,” she answered. “An’ what good would it do if I told those here anything else?”
“Because you don’t know if it’s the truth or not.”
“Truth?” Maeve gave him a smile that faded even as he saw it. “Truth is as slippery as a wet salmon,” she told him, “and as hard to hold onto.”
32
The Dawning of the Day
FROM THE TAVERN, Colin followed Maeve to Keara’s cottage, which no longer poured forth the dense fog. Maeve ducked in the open door. “Aiden? Keara?” she called.
Aiden answered from the bedroom: “In here.”
Maeve followed the call, with Colin behind her. A wan and pale Keara lay in her bed, her hair matted with sweat and dark circles under her eyes. Aiden was at her side, feeding her a bit of soup and tea. Seeing Keara, a sense of guilt washed momentarily over Maeve. Look at her, it’s me fault that she nearly died in the effort. “How are yeh, me darlin’?” Maeve asked. She knelt on the other side of the bed, brushing back the damp strands of hair from the young woman’s forehead.
“I’ll be fine,” she answered, though her voice was but a whisper. She coughed, and a bit of fog slid from her mouth. “I don’t think I can do much more for yeh, though. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be,” Maeve told her, smiling. “Yeh’ve done more than anyone else could’a. Yeh’ve made it possible for Colin to come back, and for us to do what we planned to do all along. We’ll be in the other world soon, I promise.”
Keara’s eyes moved, and her gaze found Colin. A glimmer of a smile touched her cracked lips. “Colin, we di’nah think yeh’d come back in time.” Her eyes shone with tears. “Maeve said yeh would, said she’d make it so, but I was afraid it might all be for naught.”
The words cut at Maeve, even as Keara gave her a look that spoke of adoration and affection.
Aiden was staring toward Colin with hard, dark eyes, his hand clasped in Keara’s. “She would have died for the Morrígan, gladly. ’Twas a sacrifice she’d make for all of us. She was willing to do whatever was asked, no matter the cost to herself.”
“What you’ve done wasn’t wasted,” he told Keara and Aiden both, evidently aware of the undercurrent of their words. “I’m here to help Maeve open the gateway.”
A nod, from both Aiden and Keara, was his only answer. Keara’s eyes closed, then opened again. “Sorry, m’Lady,” she whispered. “So tired.”
“You rest, then,” Maeve told her, stroking her cheek. “Rest and know that without yeh, nothing a’tall would have been possible. Yeh are the true hero of our tale, and I’ll make sure yer part is sung afterward. Would that please yeh, to be part of a song?”
The smile flitted over Keara’s lips again, but her eyes closed. Her breathing deepened. “Let her sleep as long as yeh can,” Maeve told Aiden. “But when yeh hear the leamh begin their attack, yeh must take her directly to the mound. Them that the leamh capture and put on their ships might not be able to reach the gateway when it opens, and I won’t have Keara left behind after her sacrifice for us all. Do yeh understand?”
“Aye, Morrígan,” Aiden said. “We’ll be there.”
Maeve nodded and stroked Keara’s cheek once more. Then she rose, swiftly, and with a gesture to Colin to follow, left the room and the cottage.
Outside, the fog was still heavy but already noticeably thinning, and they could both feel the wind off the Atlantic. Colin could see the glow of the sun overhead through the clouds. Maeve glanced upward as well and scowled. “Not much time,” she said. “The Old Ones don’t have the power they once had, or perhaps the land itself is angry that we’re leaving.” Maeve sighed and tugged her cloak tighter around her.
“Come on, then,” she told Colin. “We have our work to do.”
Back at in her own house, Maeve bustled about, dragging the various components of the spell from where she’d stashed them in the bedroom—material she’d been collecting since she and Rory had found the cloch back in ’47—and checking again that all the necessary ingredients the voices of the cloch had told her she needed were there. She could feel Colin watching her from the bed as she hurried, putting everything in a small chest. She heard the intake of his breath when she added the scabbarded iron dagger with an ornate copper hilt.
“Yeh know that the spell requires blood,” she said, drawing the weapon from its scabbard. The leaf-shaped metal blade was dark with oxidation except where the edges had been filed to a bright polish; the oaken hilt was dull from the ravages of time and the hands that had touched it over the centuries, nearly black in the hollows of the knots engraved in the oak. “’Tis a blade I’ve kept for, well, a long time, and ’tis the one I must use.” She softened her voice then. She could nearly taste the fear in Colin, and that made her suddenly uncertain—which she couldn’t afford. The spell demanded concentration and certainty. “Yeh haven’t changed yer mind?”
He was staring at the weapon, eyes wide. His hand was in his pocket, and she knew it was wrapped around the cloch. She wondered if the voices were whispering to him, wondered if they were warning him of her lie. No, they wouldn’t do that. They know what the cloch was sent to do, and they know the bard’s role. “It’s just . . .” he managed, then stopped to swallow. His gaze moved to her face. She placed the blade back in the well-worn leather and put the knife quickly in the box. “No,” Colin said, but the word was no more than a husk. “I haven’t changed my mind.”
“Those were brave words yeh said to Niall back in the tavern, and to Aiden and Keara as well.”
“Thanks.” His gaze was fixed somewhere just past her face, or perhaps somewhere inside himself. “They all . . .” He stopped again, licking at his lips as if they were dry. “They all love you, Maeve. And more than that. They worship you. You’re the one they’d follow anywhere, to any fate.”
“I love them, also,” Maeve told him. “I love yeh as well, Colin,” she added. “An’ the way I love yeh t’ain’t the way I love them. I hope yeh know the difference. ’Tis what makes this so difficult, for all of us.” She crouched down in front of him, taking his face in her hands and forcing him to look at her. She saw his regard snap back into focus as the Morrígan rose within her. Even her voice sounded different to her own ears. “I’ve told yeh; there’s another way, and that’s what I’ll do: I will cut yeh, aye, and ’twill be a deep one but not a deadly one. Do yeh believe me? If yeh would die, then part of me would die with the spell, too.”
“I believe you,” he answered. He seemed to be searching her eyes, as if behind them there might be another answer, as if he knew that what she just told him was a lie. Slippery truth, indeed . . .
He must have seen the despair in her face; he attempted to smile. “It’s okay, Maeve. I said I’m willing to do this. You just have to promise me it won’t be for nothing.”
In answer, she leaned forward to kiss him, a long and lingering embrace. When she pulled back again, she took his hands. “Yer a singer of the old songs, Colin, and yeh know what history and truth they hold for people. I promise yeh what I promised Keara: when the songs are made about this day on the other side, in Talamh an Ghlas, yeh will be a great part of them. Yer name will never be forgotten, not by any of us, and the songs about yeh will always be sung. ’Tis what I can promise yeh for certain.”
Colin’s eyes narrowed. “Maeve, are you saying that I can’t go with you through the gateway? Is that what you mean?”
“Aye,” she told him. “Yeh can’t come with us to where we’re going. The spell doesn’t allow that.” The corner of his mouth lifted, and his thumb brushed away another tear from her cheek. She hurried on before he could speak, before the Morrígan inside could stop her. “But if this isn’t what yeh want, Colin, I won’t hold yeh to any promise yeh’ve made. I’ll understand and I’ll let you go. All yeh need do is stay here and when the leamh come, surrender yerself an
’ go with them. But let me be blunt . . . yeh also have to know that if yeh do that, it means the death of everyone else here, mine as much as anyone. None of us will surrender, even if the spell fails. It’s yer choice, love. Either way, we were never destined to be together except for the brief time we’ve already had, as much as we both might have wanted more.”
She could see the struggle inside him, battling the vow he’d made. Over the centuries, a thousand heroes had worshiped and feared her, had taken oaths in her name over and over again, and she had watched them fight and bleed and die. Lugh, Cúchulainn, Indech, Odras . . . the names flowed on and on; it was no accident that many named the Morrígan the Goddess of Death. This is what heroes, men and women alike, do and have done forever. They die, and nothing can stop that—it’s their destiny. If his name is to be among their roll, Colin will do the same. A part of him knows that as well as I do. She watched his face, watched the struggle underneath subside slowly.
Colin nodded, though his cheeks were pale. “I gave you my word,” he told her. His voice was like the gravel under a rushing brook. “And I’ll keep that word.”
As if he’d uttered a premonition, a low, mournful wail sounded through the thinning fog from the direction of the harbor: a ship’s horn. Maeve’s head came up and she stood, looking a final time into the box to make certain that everything was there.
“We need to go now,” she told Colin. “The leamh are coming.”
33
America Lies Far Away
WHAT THE HELL am I doing?
The phrase kept echoing through Colin’s head as he walked behind Maeve toward Fionnbharr’s mound. The world seemed to have acquired a distance from him. He walked, somehow, just outside reality. Everything around him was strangely sharp and distinct: the sound of his shoes on the gravel of the path, the chill of the Atlantic wind on his face, the masked, failing glow of the sun through the lingering fog at the horizon, the scratch of the wool in his sweater, the movement of clouds against the sky, the sweet scent of grass against the brine of the sea, the lingering taste of this morning’s tea and scones on his tongue, the hypnotic swaying of Maeve’s skirt as she walked . . .
Every sense was hyper-alert, and he found himself trying to commit each moment, each sensation, to memory as if they were currency with which to barter in the afterworld that was awaiting him. His hand was in his pocket, his fingers clutching his grandfather’s stone as he pulled it out to place it around his neck again, and he could hear the whispering of voices within it, but they were faint and contradictory.
She’s betraying yeh.
No, this is indeed the moment. Yer doing the right thing.
Yeh can’t trust her.
Yeh must trust her.
The interior conversation was difficult to process. No, it was impossible. The words seemed to mean nothing, shattering against his skull. He felt light, almost airy. He wondered if this was a feeling he shared with everyone who faced this kind of crisis, who had chosen (or had chosen for them) a moment where decisions had to be made, where their life would be forever changed afterward.
The voices from the cloch continued to yammer at him, incessantly.
She hasn’t told yeh everything or enough.
This might actually be the end for yeh.
What will Jennifer and Tom think? How will Mom react when she gets the news? What will Aunt Patty say? And with that, another thought: Will they ever really know? Maeve hadn’t told him what would happen with this spell; would the island itself go through the gateway into this other place? If he couldn’t go with them, what would happen to him afterward?
Spells and magic and hidden worlds—how can you believe anything will happen at all? This could be a madwoman’s delusion. He shook his head, as if the thought could be discarded like a dog shedding water. He reminded himself of everything he’d seen here with Maeve: the selkies, the aos sí, Keara’s fog, the underworld beneath the mound to which Maeve had taken them.
No, no, the magic was real. He’d seen it. It had to be real.
He had to believe it because otherwise his decision would have no meaning. Otherwise there would be no songs for him.
From the distance, in the direction of the harbor village, there came the bark of two quick but very distinct gunshots. They both paused at the sound, Maeve casting a quick glance over her shoulder. The look on her face was strange, an expression he’d never glimpsed on her before. There was almost an eagerness in the set of her mouth, in the widening of her eyes—as sharp and hard as crow’s eyes—as if the disturbing sound was pleasant to her. Her body leaned toward the faint echo of the gunfire, as if she wanted to move toward the struggle rather than away from it.
The Morrígan . . . the voices whispered as one. The Morrígan . . .
Colin realized that was who he was seeing: not the Maeve he’d fallen in love with, but the old goddess that was also part of her. That aspect of her was drawn to battle and death, and she wanted to revel in the blood. Then the moment passed, and the Maeve he knew returned, her gaze softening and lines of worry creasing her face. “We have to hurry,” she said, though her words sounded like brittle ice to his ears. “They can’t hold off the leamh forever, and the spell is long to cast.”
She turned back and her pace quickened. Colin remained where he was, glancing over his shoulder toward the harbor. There, he knew, was his rescue, if he wished it. All that was required was for him to run toward the naval personnel who were undoubtedly just now coming off their ships, and surrender himself to them. Why, Superintendent Dunn might be with them. The worst that would happen is that he’d be held for a time before being deported and sent back to the States, back to Chicago and his family; at best, he could plead that he’d come back to the island to recover his guitars, especially his precious Gibson, only to be inadvertently caught up in this turmoil. Eventually—if reluctantly—they’d let him go. He might even be able to travel elsewhere in Ireland, to find more songs and more old tunes, to continue his study.
In time, he might forget the Oileánach, Inishcorr, and Maeve.
In time.
The voices howled in protest. Yeh ca’nah do that. Yeh gave yer word. The bard is a necessary part of the spell. Yer voice . . . ’twill open the gate.
“Your grandfather never did go back. I think that always bothered him. At least you won’t have that regret.” The memory of his Aunt Patty’s comments came to him as well. They seemed prophetic now.
“Colin?”
Maeve had stopped, looking back at him. He could tell from her face that she knew what he was thinking, could tell that if he ran, she wouldn’t try to stop him, that she almost expected him to do exactly that.
So run! This is the moment when you can save yourself.
But he couldn’t will his legs to move. Looking at Maeve, looking at the despair and desperation that wrapped around her as tightly as her red cloak, he found himself unable to act.
He glanced back one last time, then hurried toward her as she turned and continued along the path to the mound.
At the base of the mound, just inside the ring of stones, she set down the box on the grass. Colin, silent, stood alongside her. “Fionnbharr!” she called. “It’s time to keep yer promise.”
Cold air, as if from a tomb, stirred the folds of her cloak and rushed over both of them. Fionnbharr appeared, standing at the top of the mound under the hawthorn tree, dressed in armor and helm with a sword at his side. A shadowy Lugh stood beside him, holding his spear. “I see yeh still have the fool,” he said.
“Shut it,” she snapped at him. “Get yer people and go hold back the leamh. Either that or be cursed as coward and traitors for the rest of what little life yeh’ll have remaining.”
Fionnbharr sniffed audibly. “An’ who will do the cursing if none of yeh are left, or if this gateway doesn’t work?”
“It will work if yeh give me the ti
me,” Maeve answered. “And yer chinwagging here won’t do that. Do it or do’nah, but leave me to my task.”
Fionnbharr laughed, mockingly, and she thought for a moment that he might simply fall back into the mound, but instead he waved his hand in summons, and the cold host appeared, ghostly, behind him. Skeletal horses were brought to Fionnbharr and Lugh, and they mounted the spectral steeds. “Get to yer spell, Battlecrow, or be cursed yerself for failing us.”
With that, he beckoned again, kicked his mount with his boot heels, and the host of the aos sí flowed past them, frigid and riotous, their voices shouting in the rush of wind that followed. Maeve’s cloak billowed out as they went, and she saw their hands grasping at Colin as they passed. She took his arm, afraid that one of them might snatch him away.
Then they were past, a glowing presence winding into the distance down the path and over the small ridge between the mound and the harbor. “Right, then,” she said to Colin. “We have to hurry . . .”
She began plucking items from the box. The knife she thrust quickly into the belt of her skirt, not daring to look at Colin as she did so, though she could feel him staring at her. She brought out the herbs and the spices. “Turn widdershins and scatter them to the winds. Feed the sky . . .” the voices in the cloch had told her decades ago. She obeyed, taking the powders and dried, crumbled leaves in her right hand and lifting up her hand as she turned counterclockwise. A harsh, cold Atlantic gale touched her as she did so, and she opened her hand. The air took the offering from her with the sound of laughter.
She stooped down to take up the parchment containing the incantation, which she had written down in the cavern of Rathcroghan while Rory slumbered near her. “It’s time for your part, m’love,” she told Colin. “Put the cloch around yer neck and hold it.”
Looking apprehensive, Colin followed her instructions; as he lifted the jewel, the cold, billowing sky-flames appeared again above them, so like the aurora that sometimes appeared in Irish skies, only far more brilliant and imbued with a power that she could feel—a throbbing power swirled down around them and filled the stone as if it were a receptacle. She saw the curling filigrees of the scars appear on Colin’s forearm where the sleeve of his sweater had fallen down. His face was lined with a grimace, and she knew he could feel the frigid energy within the stone, burning his hand all the way down to the shoulder.
The Crow of Connemara Page 35