by Mia Pride
Chapter 14
“Gwynneth, wake up, mo chroí.” She awoke with a start and sat up in bed, hearing her name whispered in her ear by a familiar voice. Rubbing her eyes to adjust to the dark, she looked down and saw Liam sleeping next to her on his stomach, only a blanket draped over his backside to cover his otherwise naked body as his arm draped across her waist. He must have removed his trousers after she was a sleep to save her the embarrassment of her earlier actions. Scanning the room, she saw the fire burning low as it ran out of wood.
Feeling gooseflesh form on her skin, she tightly wrapped her arms around herself as she heard the voice again and an eerie chill took over the small space. “Gwynneth, och, my darling daughter. I have missed you so.” Looking around the room in confusion, her eyes made contact with a tall, sturdy man standing at the foot of the bed. He had black and gray streaked hair and a beard to match with bright hazel eyes that danced at the sight of her. A large pelt of animal skin was draped over his massive shoulders and a thin band of gold adorned his head.
Her eyes squinted as recognition took over. She still had no precise memory of him, but her mind knew his face well. He looked just as he had in her dream the night before. “Father?” she whispered quietly and looked down at Liam to see if he stirred, but he was sound asleep next to her. Her father smiled down at her with a twinkle in his eye.
“I’m so glad you know me, mo leanbh. Abigael told me about your accident. I was afraid you would not remember me.”
“Abigael? But, how…”
“Shhhh, mo leanbh, I only have so much time.” His face twisted in remorse as he thought of his daughter’s misfortunes, feeling responsible for them all. “Please, come with me. I have so much to tell you, or show you, rather.” He put a hand out to her with a smile.
She only hesitated slightly, feeling instinctively trusting of him, yet still unsure. She put her hand out and he grabbed it with his large extended hand and helped to gently lift her out of bed and onto her feet, as she carefully avoided stepping on Liam.
“What are you doing here, papa? How are you here?” She rubbed the sleep from her eyes to help her focus on her father’s features. She suddenly recognized his face vividly and leaned into his body, wrapping her arms around his broad chest. He was warm, solid and real; not just the spirit, but the whole man.
Returning her embrace, he stroked her long blonde hair with his fingers and hugged her tightly with his other arm. “Tis Samhain, Gwynn. The veil is very thin between your world and mine on this night. You are very special to me, and very important to the world. I had to visit you, mo Leanbh.” He released his grip from around her body and looked down at her, tucking a stray tendril of hair behind her ear. “Abigael told me about the child you lost. I am truly sorry, mo chroí.” His voice was soft and caressing and he placed a nurturing kiss on her forehead. Gwynneth looked up to him in confusion, her mind reeling.
“I failed you tremendously in my life. Only in my death can I try and explain my actions. I hope you can forgive me.” She was silent as she listened to her father speak, starring up at him as he towered over her petite body. His size always made her feel protected as a child, and she looked up at him with the same reverie as she did as a little lass.
He looked down at Liam sleeping in the bed and gave his daughter a sideways smile of approval. “I do not have much time with you, Gwynneth. Abigael will answer all of your questions on the morrow. For now, I need to show you something, an important piece of your past, a part of your identity. Come.” Doran put a hand out to Gwynneth with a reassuring nod of his crowned head. Gwynneth looked over at Liam cautiously. “He will not awaken, Gwynn. Come.” Gwynneth reached out her right hand and held his tightly as the room around her swirled away.
Her body suddenly felt like it was in free-fall. She was weightless as the days and nights of the past swirled around her, streaking by as she fell down a colorful, deep hole. She could hear voices whispering in the wind, the voices of people who have come and gone as her night dress whipped around her body. Her stomach plummeted to her feet as she made impact with the earth and the world stopped swirling around her. When she opened her eyes, she was no longer in Abigael’s house with Liam and her father.
Looking around, she realized she was in a large house, similar to King Garreth’s, only with a larger central room. She saw several corridors that appeared to lead to different areas of the house. The central hearth was flickering away, casting shadows over the wooden furnishings of the room. Though it was warm in the room from the fire, a chill flowed through Gwynneth’s body and she wrapped her arms around herself and started rubbing her hands fervently to create a warm friction. She spun in a frantic circle, seeking out her father, but he was nowhere in the room. “Papa?” Starting to feel her heart hammer in her chest as the panic rose, she heard a painful groaning sound from one of the corridors.
Gwynneth stopped breathing. Where was she? What was that sound? It sounded like a woman’s agonized voice, but it was hard to tell. She heard the groaning again and saw a shadow flicker out of the corner of her eye. Turning quickly to follow the shadows and sounds, she located the corridor of their origin.
“How is she?” said a worried, booming voice that Gwynneth recognized as her father’s. Not knowing where she was or why she was here, she followed his voice and tiptoed closer. She approached with caution. Leaning her hands against the rim of the wall, she poked her head slowly around the corner and saw her father’s tortured face. He had his large arms crossed and was pacing in front of a door way with fur hangings pulled closed.
“She is struggling, my king. She is struggling very much.” A woman was standing in front of the entrance to a room with her eyes downcast. She was an elderly woman who was quite short, at least a head shorter than Gwynneth. Her body was plump and she was wearing an old brown wool tunic with a leather rope tied at the waist. Her sleeves were rolled up to her elbows and she was rubbing her hands together in a constant state of worry. A loud scream filled the corridor and both heads popped up and stared at the door way. “I must go to her,” the woman said abruptly and disappeared into the shadowed room.
“Papa?” Gwynneth walked over to her father and looked at his face. His eyes were drooping and red, as if he had not slept in days and his mouth sloped downward in a sever frown as he dropped his head into his hands and started to sob. “Papa? What is happening?” Gwynneth approached him with caution, but he did not respond. Hard, wracking sobs escaped from his throat as his body shook with fear. She reached a hand out to touch his sleeve, but her hand went right through him. “PAPA?” Gwynneth’s panic rose in her throat as she shouted at him, but he was not hearing her.
In a state of frenzy, Gwynneth ran into the room where the old woman disappeared, hoping that someone would be familiar and tell her where she was. As she ran in, she came to an abrupt halt. Looking down, Gwynn saw water all over the ground and slowly stepped away from it. Looking up, she could see the elderly woman closer now. Her tunic was soaking wet in the front and she held the hand of a person in a bed. “Can you hear me? Where am I?” No response.
It was clear that someone was lying very ill in the bed and the elderly woman was desperate to save the life of its occupant, but the look on her face gave very little hope. Another earth shattering scream was released from the ill person and it made Gwynneth jump with fright, her heart rate increasing until she had to force herself to breathe. It was a woman. She saw long wavy red hair hanging from the edge of the bed. The woman turned her head and her features caught in the light being cast about the walls by tallow candles in their tall iron holders on a side table. Her eyes were tightly shut and sweat was dripping down her face while she wreathed in pain.
Instantly, Gwynneth froze. She knew that pain, it was a pain she had just lived through. This was a woman about to lose her child. Suddenly, Gwynneth felt nauseous and bent over, holding her own vacant womb. Extreme pity overcame Gwynn as she stepped closer to the woman and laid a hand on her damp forehea
d. Startled by Gwynn’s touch, the woman’s eyes flew open in alarm and locked on her. They were the purest emerald green eyes Gwynneth had ever seen. As she focused intensely on Gwynneth’s features, the woman’s face softened for a brief moment, all the pain temporarily vanishing. “You can see me?” Gwynneth whispered, “Who are you?”
“You survived.” The words drifted from her weak lips like a whisper in the wind as she reached out a shaky hand. Gwynneth grabbed a hold of it tightly, feeling more confused as the moments passed. Looking carefully at the face of the woman before her, Gwynneth felt a sense of familiarity in her features.
Staring back at her, with blazing red hair, was a woman with strikingly green eyes, the color of the rarest emerald gemstone, greener than the rolling hills of Ériu. Almost nothing on earth was as green as the eyes boring into her at that moment, except her own.
Gwynneth had never seen her true image with much clarity. The bronze mirror she owned allowed her a general idea of her features, but the color of her skin and eyes was altered within the golden reflection staring back at her from the smooth bronze surface. The only features she was certain of were her wavy, silvery blond locks and the emerald green eyes that no person had ever neglected to comment upon. They were rare, indeed. And now, they bore back at her from the face of the woman lying upon the bed.
Hearing her father sob in the corridor, and remembering Ceara’s revelation that Gwynneth’s mother died in child birth, a wave of powerful understanding washed over her, making her legs shake with weakness. “Mother?” Gwynneth’s eyes filled to the brim with spontaneous tears as she realized that she was somehow clasping the very real hand of her mother, her mother who died twenty years ago. Her mother’s mouth formed a weak smile, confirming Gwynneth’s astute observation.
“H-how is this possible? Why am I here?” Before her mother could respond, her body convulsed with another gut-tearing contraction and she squeezed Gwynneth’s hand with the strength of an iron band and let out a blood-curdling scream. The elderly woman was between her mother’s legs, reaching inside of her dilated womb, desperately seeking a head or appendage to identify within the massive, squirming bulge. A gush of blood escaped and the elderly woman shrieked in horror.
Without leaving her mother’s side, the elderly woman shouted to the king in the corridor. “Both will die if we do nothing! We must cut the babe out!” Within an instant, two more women rushed into the room, one with a sharp knife and the other with handful of linen rags. The king thundered into the room, walking straight through Gwynneth and sending a chill through her. He reached out and took his wife’s hand, the same hand Gwynneth was already holding. Suddenly feeling like an intruder during this very private moment, Gwynneth released her mother and stepped away, watching her father lean over the woman she never got a chance to know.
Feeling as if she was going to swoon, Gwynneth backed away and supported her body against the wall. She was watching her own birth. She was watching her mother die. Covering her face with her hands, she tried unsuccessfully to stifle her tears. This was all too much for Gwynn. She wanted to escape back to her bed where Liam’s warm body was resting with hers. A shutter rolled violently through her as she realized she had to be here, she had to watch. Her father brought her into this memory for some unknown, although seemingly important, reason. Why else would he thrust this horror upon her?
Forcing herself to open her eyes, her focus wavered between her inconsolable father, her dying mother, and the woman cutting her out of her own mother’s womb. Covering her mouth with her hands, Gwynneth pressed herself harder against the wall, trying to make herself as small as possible while silent tears rolled down her cheeks.
The room went silent for a split second as she was pulled from the bloody womb of her mother. Her mother’s screams stopped and were replaced by the cries of an infant lass with platinum fuzzy hair. The babe was purple and quivering, screaming at her new world. One woman wiped the blood off of her and handed her to her mother.
“Alyson,” her father whispered in her mother’s ear. “Alyson, my sweet love, you have birthed a beautiful lass.” His voice was soft and soothing as he stared at his new daughter and stroked the sweat-drenched red curls off of his wife’s face.
“Mo leanbh.” Her mother’s voice was weak and shaky, but filled with the love and tenderness of a new mother. “Mo leanbh luachmhar. Gwynneth.” Gwynneth’s eyes widened at the sound of her name whispered on her mother’s lips. She realized her mother was no longer looking at the infant daughter in her arms. She was looking at her grown daughter standing in the corner of the room and gave her a loving smile, starring her in the eyes. “Mo leanbh.” A tear ran down Gwynn’s cheek as her mother’s gaze drifted off and a new wave of pain tore through her body.
“There is another, My Lady!” The women surrounded her mother’s body and Gwynneth heard a second set of lungs screaming, but could not see around the wide bodies of the women forming a human wall around the scene. The elderly woman held the babe up high to hand it to the king. “Another daughter, my king,” her voice shook with uncertainty, having never expected more than one child. The king stared, mouth agape, at his second daughter, screaming and kicking her new arms and legs. This child had bright red hair, the color of fire, just like her mother’s.
Gwynneth’s tears stopped abruptly and were replaced by a gush of air leaving her lungs, as if she has been punched in the stomach. Watching the second daughter kicking in her father’s arms, he handed her to her mother, who was weakening with every breath. She could no longer speak more than one word at a time. “Mo…Leanbh…Ceara…”
Her mother’s voice trailed off with an eerie sigh, the final breath of life escaping her body. Gwynneth screamed and ran over to her mother, tears streaming from her face with such force that everything looked like a blur. “Mother! Mama…” she grabbed her mother’s limp hand and held it up to her wet cheek. “Nay…mama…” all she could do was stare at her mother, lost to the trials of child birth and the two wriggling daughters in her lifeless arms. Starring at the blonde child, an eerie chill crept up her spine, seeing herself as a babe, twenty years ago. Her eyes trailed over to the red-haired daughter and Gwynneth gasped as she finally processed what her mother’s final word had been. “Ceara.”
Chapter 15
“Ceara? Nay…” Gwynneth thought aloud and shook her head. Perhaps it was but a coincidence. Ceara does mean “bright red” in Gaelic, and the babe had red hair. Surely many red-haired lassies were named Ceara? Holding her head in her hands, she tried to think of her new friend Ceara in her mind. She was stunningly beautiful with bright red wavy hair and...piercing green eyes. Nay, it was not possible. Ceara’s mother was Abigael. Suddenly, Abigael’s words from last night came racing back into her mind, “Ceara is not my daughter by nature.” She remembered her saying a desperate father brought Ceara to her for protection. Looking over at her father’s sobbing, heartbroken face as he scooped two lassies out of his deceased wife’s arms, Gwynneth had never seen a man more desperate in her life.
Only a minute had passed since the second daughter was born, but it had been a minute to change a lifetime. Gwynneth met her mother, lost her mother, and gained a sister. Before she could further process the revelations in her mind, she heard a third cry enter the room and quickly turned her head toward the women leaning over her mother. One more small, screaming child was pulled from her mother’s lifeless womb. This child was another daughter, but with dark brown hair. She was smaller than the other two, and her cry was slightly weaker. Nevertheless, her little fists were clenched in a ball while she wailed and kicked her new feet in the air, looking strong and healthy.
Doran was holding Gwynneth and Ceara in his arms while he stared at his third blood-covered daughter being cleaned and wrapped by the midwives. Silence befell the room as he dropped his head and wept. The moment he and his wife had dreamt of for nine moons had ended in her demise and left him with three motherless daughters.
The room dimmed
as her subconscious was yanked away from her father’s abominable memory. Suddenly the ground dissolved around Gwynneth’s feet and she was swirling through the abyss again as all her senses were thrown to the four corners of the wind, hair whipping around her face. Her feet landed with a thud and she scrambled at her face, trying to untangle the mass of hair surrounding her eyes.
Looking around, she realized she was now outdoors in the dead of night. Two men were whispering near a fire, one holding a torch. The other man was quite large, even from this distance. She could see he was cradling a bundle wrapped in a blanket in each hand. The firelight was creating a glow around the white fabric of the blankets, but she could not make out what was inside.
She tiptoed closer, trying to hear their words and see their faces. She waved her hands as she stepped closer, testing their ability to see her. Neither man blinked in her direction, so she continued closer to the fire. It soon became evident that the larger man was her father. His face was distraught, even worse than in his last memory. One of the bundles in his hand started to move, and a little fist came out from one of the wrappings, followed by soft cooing sounds. As she leaned in, she saw two fuzzy heads, one covered in red hair and the other chestnut brown hair.
“Tis the prophecy, King Doran. You do not have a choice.” The man next to her father, holding a torch, looked very young. His features were soft and golden fuzz was growing from his chin, glittering in the light of the fire like sprinkles of star dust on his jaw. He had a long straight nose that stood out on his face, but he was attractive with soft brown eyes and short sandy blonde hair. She could tell by his voice that he was a well-educated man, one of noble birth. He was wearing a long white robe with a matching white cloak pinned across his shoulder with a golden brooch. A large hood hung from the back of his cloak and a thick gold torc adorned his neck, the round hammer marks on the gold metal glimmering in the torchlight. She easily recognized him as a druid in his ceremonial garbs.