When the Stars Sang

by Caren J. Werlinger

  Blossom lifted his head, his ears partially up, the tips flopped over.

  “What did you hear?”

  A moment later, she heard the sound of a car coming up the drive. He scrambled to sit at the front door, whining and tilting his head.

  From the front of the house, there was a call of “Yoo-hoo, dear!”

  There was a loud bang and an “Oof!” as Louisa and Olivia both tried to enter the locked front door before Kathleen could get there. Blossom backed out of the way as she turned the lock and swung the door open. For a moment, Kathleen felt a flash of irritation.

  Louisa must have seen it. “We’re so sorry, Katie,” she said, grabbing her sister’s shoulder to pull her back. A canvas tote bag swung from her other hand. “We’re so used to coming and going from here without giving it a thought.”

  Olivia, her hands holding a slow cooker, looked back and forth between them. “Oh, yes. Maisie did the same at our house for years. Sometimes we forget.”

  They seemed so contrite that Kathleen felt herself blush. “No, it’s okay. Really. I’m just—I come from a city where everyone keeps their doors locked all the time. No one just walks into anyone’s house.”

  “Oh, that must be awful,” Olivia said, walking past her into the kitchen. “We made a big batch of chili for tonight and thought you might like some as leftovers.”

  “With a fresh loaf of bread,” Louisa said, reaching into her bag and pulling out a towel-wrapped object.

  “You shouldn’t have done that,” Kathleen said. “What’s the occasion?”

  “For tonight,” Olivia repeated, as if it should be obvious.

  “What’s tonight?”

  The sisters stared open-mouthed at each other. “Has no one invited you?”

  “Um…” Kathleen tried to recall an invitation.

  “It’s Samhain,” said Louisa.

  Kathleen’s brain raced, trying to place the word in some kind of context. “You mean Halloween. But I didn’t figure anyone here goes trick-or-treating.”

  “Not Halloween for us, dear.” Louisa tucked the edges of the towel around the bread. “When the Irish were rescued and some of them settled here, they brought their traditions with them. One of them was Samhain. We’ve carried on ever since. We’ll have a big bonfire on the beach tonight at sunset. Everyone brings something to share. And then we all bring a bit of the Samhain fire home with us.”

  “This is very important,” Olivia said solemnly. “You must light a fire tonight from the Samhain fire. Have your kindling and logs built up, ready to light. It brings a blessing on the house for the coming year.”

  “But I don’t have anything to bring,” Kathleen protested.

  “Don’t you worry about that.” Louisa patted her arm. “There’s always more than we can eat. Just be at the beach before sunset.”

  Olivia noticed the dog for the first time. “Who’s this then?” She crouched down with a loud creaking of her knees. “Come here,” she said, holding a hand out to Blossom who peered at them from behind Kathleen’s legs. “What’s his name?”

  “Blossom.”

  “Blossom? What kind of name is that?”

  He crept cautiously forward and let Olivia pet him.

  “Well, I thought he was a skunk at first, and… Never mind.”

  “Oh,” said Louisa with a smile. “Bambi is one of my favorite movies.”

  Olivia pushed to her feet with a groan and more loud cracks from her knees. “Come on, Lou. We need to get Daddy home and rest up for tonight.”

  Kathleen followed them out of the kitchen and almost ran into Louisa when she stopped suddenly.

  She pointed at the computer. “Did you do that?”

  Kathleen blushed and nodded.

  “We didn’t know you were an artist,” Olivia said, bending to get a better view of the book cover on the monitor.

  “I’m not.”

  “Oh, but you are,” Louisa said. She beamed at Kathleen. “Maisie would be so proud.”

  “We’ll see you tonight,” Olivia said. “Don’t be late.”

  They hurried out the door and got into their car. Kathleen stood on the porch and waved them off as Blossom sat and leaned against her leg.

  “Guess we have a date tonight,” Kathleen said, scratching his ears. “With the entire island.”

  Chapter 5

  THE BEACH WAS ALREADY in shadows as the sun set over the Head on the far side of the island. Overhead, the sky was a deep indigo as Kathleen and Blossom made their way down the path. She carried a fresh batch of cookies. Blossom darted after a rabbit and returned a few minutes later, his tongue lolling and his tail held at a jaunty angle as he trotted at her side.

  It seemed to her when she arrived at the beach that the island’s population had tripled. She had no idea this many people—over eighty were gathered—lived here.

  Olivia made a beeline for her, taking her by the arm and guiding her to where blankets were spread on the sand and a few portable tables were set up, already loaded with platters and casserole dishes and covered crockpots. Louisa scooted a platter over to make room for Kathleen’s cookies.

  “We’re so glad you joined us,” she said. “Have you met everyone?”

  Without waiting for an answer, she hooked her arm through Kathleen’s, her other arm cradling her daddy’s ashes, and took her around to introduce her to people. Many of the faces she recognized, but the ones she hadn’t met knew who she was. Her head was soon spinning, trying to remember all the names.

  A few people held babies, she noted. “Why are there no children?”

  Louisa’s nostrils flared for a moment. “When the powers that be decided I was no longer fit to teach, we couldn’t find another teacher willing to live on the island. The children go to boarding school on the mainland. They’ll be home for a month over solstice and Christmas.”

  Sunset turned to dusk turned to full darkness. A thumbnail of moon rose over the edge of the ocean.

  “It’s time,” Louisa said, guiding her back to where everyone was gathered around the wood stacked in a pyramid on the sand.

  Rebecca stepped forward and, immediately, all conversation ceased. Only the soft sound of ocean waves lapping at the beach filled the night.

  She knelt next to a torch that had been stuck in the sand and, with a few strikes of a flint on steel, ignited the torch. It flared in the darkness. She stood with the torch and walked a circle around the bonfire, speaking words that sounded to Kathleen like a mixture of Irish and something else.

  “What is she saying?” she whispered to Louisa.

  “It’s a prayer,” Louisa whispered back. “To the spirits of our ancestors and to the gods who watch over the island, asking them to protect us through the coming winter storms.”

  Someone began beating on a drum. Kathleen looked around and recognized a bodhrán in someone’s hand. The beat was hypnotic, with the ocean as background noise. One woman, the torchlight glinting off her mane of brilliantly red hair, wearing flowing robes and shawls and bangles that jangled as she moved, danced in a circle around the fire.

  “Isn’t that…?” Kathleen whispered again.

  “Siobhan Greyeagle.”

  “Who owns the gift shop in town?”

  Louisa nodded. “She’s a witch.”

  Kathleen waited for Louisa to laugh at the joke, but she didn’t.

  Everyone began swaying in rhythm to the drum. The islanders linked arms. Olivia took one of Kathleen’s elbows, Louisa the other, and led her in a slow circle dance around Rebecca and Siobhan and the bonfire. Rebecca stuck her torch into the base of the pyramid, and the wood caught. The flames leapt into the night, sending a shower of sparks skyward to join the stars.

  In the sudden flare of light from the fire, Kathleen saw Molly on the other side of the circle, watching her. Her eyes burned with an intensity that hit Kathleen in the belly. Olivia handed her a bottle, pushing it to her lips. Before Kathleen could complain about germs, Olivia tipped some of the liquid int
o her mouth.

  Kathleen coughed and gasped as the liquid burned its way down her throat while the bottle passed to Louisa and the next after her. She’d barely been able to catch her breath when a pipe came around. It looked very old, with its scarred wooden bowl and clay stem.

  Olivia took a couple of deep drags and then held it out.

  “Just two or three puffs, dear. And be sure to inhale.”

  Whatever was in the pipe set off another bout of coughing. When she stopped coughing, she realized that all of Siobhan’s clothing had been shed. Her bangles still jingled as she continued to dance in the nude.

  Kathleen tried to look anywhere but at Siobhan. When she glanced toward Molly again, she was whispering in her brother’s ear—Kathleen couldn’t tell which brother.

  The dance continued. Kathleen shuffled around the fire with the others. The bodhrán sounded as if it were beating inside her head and chest. She closed her eyes, listening to Rebecca’s chant as her feet moved of their own accord.

  This seemed a very odd ceremony for people who were Christian, and she suddenly thought of stories she’d heard of pagans dancing naked at solstice and other celebrations. She supposed that was what Siobhan was doing if she really was a witch. For a brief moment, she thought it might be nice to take her clothes off and dance with her. She giggled as a picture of all the islanders naked on the cold beach flashed through her mind.

  “What are you laughing at?”

  She opened her eyes to find Molly standing beside her where Olivia had been. “Nothing.”

  Was it the beat of her heart or the beat of the drum that was pounding so loudly in her chest as she stared into Molly’s eyes?

  “Time to eat.” Louisa yanked on her other arm, dragging her toward the tables.

  Soon, everyone was seated on blankets around the fire, balancing drinks and plates piled high with food. Kathleen lost track of where Molly had gotten to. She took a few bites.

  “Oh my gosh, this is delicious!”

  Olivia grinned and nodded.

  Kathleen decided it must be the combination of eating outdoors in the cold air warmed by the huge bonfire that made everything taste so good. Blossom squeezed in, pressing himself against her thigh. She fed him a bit from her plate.

  Her belly still burned from whatever had been in that bottle, but it was a pleasant burn. With food on top of it, the fire warming her, and her new friends gathered around, she was content. A moment later, she was mortified to find her eyes filling with tears.

  She lowered her gaze to her plate, trying to swallow past the sudden lump in her throat.

  “Are you all right, Katie?” Olivia asked.

  Kathleen nodded, but didn’t trust herself to speak. What could she say? She didn’t understand it herself. She’d been among these people for less than a month, but they had accepted her as one of them. She hadn’t felt that kind of belonging in so, so long…

  “Walk with me.”

  Rebecca stood over her, holding out a hand. Kathleen allowed herself to be pulled to her feet. Rebecca took her plate from her, passing it to Louisa, and led her by the hand, out of the circle of warmth and conversation, along the beach to where it was just the two of them and the stars and the ocean. And Blossom, tight to Kathleen’s side. Rebecca smiled at his inquisitive expression.

  Kathleen gestured back toward the bonfire. “What a curious mix of traditions.”

  Rebecca fixed her with an intense gaze. “It should be a mix. None of us is just one thing, complete in and of ourselves. For us, First Ones and Irish blended together to make us who we are. We are the island, and the island is us. If it’s injured, we’re injured. If we thrive, it thrives.”

  She tilted her head to look at the stars. Kathleen followed her gaze and realized she had never seen a sky like this since she was a child. She’d forgotten how many stars there were when there was no other light. The night was black as velvet, the stars so bright, with only a sliver of moon, that she felt she could see forever into the universe.

  “You’re open tonight.”

  Kathleen opened and closed her mouth, unsure how to respond. “Open to what?”

  “Tonight, anything is possible,” Rebecca said. “It’s said, on this night, the veil between worlds thins.”

  “What does that mean?” Kathleen realized Rebecca was still holding her hand. She tugged it free.

  “Just try to remain open.”

  Rebecca went back to the fire, leaving Kathleen staring after her. She glanced down at Blossom who was gazing up at her.

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  PATRICK HAD PULLED OUT his fiddle, and someone else had produced a pipe. Some nights, down the pub, impromptu sessions of traditional Irish music broke out. Tonight, they played on the beach.

  The bonfire was burning low, and the islanders began to disperse, calling out to one another as they left. Molly had no idea what time it was, but knew it was well after midnight. She hoped everyone would just go home and sleep in, leaving her alone tonight—and that included her brother. She still wasn’t exactly certain how she’d been talked into the sheriff job.

  For months after she’d graduated and returned to Little Sister, she’d been restless, rudderless, unable to decide about grad school or jobs on the mainland. “You were a pain in the ass,” she knew Aidan would have said. When she was away from the island, she missed it like an amputated limb, but when she was there, she was unsettled, irritable. Finally, the island’s elders stepped in and suggested the sheriff’s position.

  “It’s only part-time,” they said. “We’ll send you for training, and you can see how it goes. If you don’t like it, you don’t have to continue.”

  So she went to the academy. Those few months away had been hard, but she’d relished the physical training, pushing her body to the breaking point.

  “You won’t have to do anything, really,” they said upon her return.

  For the most part, it was true. The sheriff position on Little Sister was mainly administrative, filling out police reports for insurance forms after homes and boats were damaged, or filling out the rare death certificate.

  The actual sheriffing on the island mostly consisted of rounding up rowdy tourists speeding along the island’s roads or taking boats out while intoxicated. The island didn’t have a jail. She just escorted them back to Wilma’s hotel to sober up. A few had been disinvited to return to the island. The job paid a small monthly salary that supplemented the fix-it work she’d started to pick up here and there.

  That was thirteen years ago. Tonight, all she wanted was a peaceful night with no need for a sheriff.

  On the far side of the fire, Kathleen was saying goodnight to Miss Louisa. Molly had watched as Rebecca pulled her away into the darkness, curious as to what her aunt wanted with her. Kathleen had looked a bit shaken when she returned. Miss Olivia pushed a plate of leftovers into Kathleen’s hand as she waved to Wilma and disappeared into the darkness with the dog at her side.

  “I’ll see you at home,” Molly said to her mother.

  She grabbed one of the wooden torches stuck in the sand and lit it from the bonfire. Jogging to the rocks that edged the beach, she made out Kathleen’s figure climbing the path through the woods. The dog heard her first. Kathleen stopped when it did, turning to see what the dog was staring at.

  “Oh. It’s you.”

  “You forgot one of these.” Molly held up the torch and put out her other hand for the dog to sniff. “You have to light a fire tonight with flames from the Samhain bonfire. It’s tradition.”

  Kathleen tilted her head, her features lit by the dancing flames of the torch. “What happens if you break the tradition?”

  Molly hesitated. The question had never occurred to her. “Don’t know. No one’s ever done it. Not a good idea. It might bring catastrophe down on the entire island, and then how would you feel?”

  Kathleen gave a half-laugh and reached for the torch. Molly pulled it back.

  “Thought maybe
I’d walk you home.”

  “Do I need to be walked back to the cottage?”

  Molly flushed at the amusement in Kathleen’s voice and knew her excuse was flimsy. “Depends. I need to make sure you light this fire. And how much did you have to drink? I am the sheriff here.”

  Kathleen smiled and nodded in the general direction of the cottage. Molly fell into step beside her as the dog trotted ahead of them.

  Molly pointed. “Your new sidekick?”

  “He was a stray, but I guess we belong to each other now.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “Blossom.”

  “Blossom. You sure you didn’t have more to drink when I wasn’t looking?”

  “I haven’t had anything to drink since that bottle got passed around,” Kathleen said, picking her way over roots and rocks in the trail. “One sip of that stuff was enough. And then the pipe. I still feel woozy. What was that?”

  “Island moonshine and…”

  “Pot.” Kathleen glanced in her direction. “Isn’t that illegal?”

  Molly shrugged. “The law looks the other way for this one occasion.”

  Kathleen stopped. “Meaning you look the other way.”

  “It’s part of the tradition. The poitín opens us.”

  Kathleen threw her hand up. “That’s what Rebecca said. What does that mean?”

  “A lot of people have visions on this night.”

  “Visions.”

  “Visions.”

  Kathleen stomped up the path a few steps and then stomped back. “You’re serious. You can’t be serious.”

  Molly shrugged again. “You didn’t grow up here. You can’t be around all of this…” She held up her empty hand, looking to the skies. “… and not believe in things like visions.”

  Kathleen shook her head. “You’re crazy.”