Dana was mesmerized by the image.
“What does it mean?” she asked.
“The river is the inexhaustible Source of Life,” said the Singer. “The children who drink from cracked cups were loved from birth. Though the cup is flawed, as with all human love, still it is a gift that serves them. The children who drink from their own hands were not given love. They must help themselves to the water of life.”
“That’s sad,” murmured Dana.
“The saddest tale of all,” the Singer agreed.
Dana thought of Gabe. Though things hadn’t been perfect, she had definitely got a cup.
She noticed a book under the Singer’s arm and peered at the title.
The Book of Dreams.
“What about that one?”
“You may not see it. It is a tale to be told in your future.”
Dana returned to the baskets, digging further. Here was the world at her fingertips! Everything she ever wanted to know at a glance. She rummaged through books on dragons, ancient stones, and the creation of the universe. She was about to grab another pile, when she stopped. She could be there forever, lost in thoughts and ideas. Was this the test? A trick or a trap? She tossed the books back.
“You must choose one,” the Singer of Tales insisted.
Exasperated, Dana closed her eyes and grabbed the first thing at hand. It was bound in white leather and stamped with gold.
The Book of Obscured Memories.
“How about this one?”
Inside the Singer’s cowl, the face changed. Saint Kevin’s gray eyes gazed out at her.
“‘Obscured’ means secret or hidden away, little sister. Memories may be obscured for good reason. Before you look, take heed and take care. No one can save you from this. None of us may be kept from the truth; it is an appointment we meet either in life or at death.”
Dana was suddenly afraid. More afraid than she had been throughout the quest. She wasn’t expecting it to come so suddenly and without warning, yet here it was: the challenge of her own dark truth in the Fort of the Shades.
Something stirred inside her, deep in the abyss. Some monstrous memory she had buried long ago. Every part of her screamed. Put the book down! Leave it shut! Don’t look!
She was shaking so hard, she thought she might faint. Like a small child waking alone in the dead of night, she faced the terror of the unknown. She wanted to hide in the covers. She wanted to call for her dad.
Dana steadied herself. She had no choice. If this was what she had to do to find her mother, then so be it.
She opened the book.
he young musician rented a little house near the Glen of the Downs, not far from the place where he had met his glimmering girl. She told him she wanted to live in the woods and close to the mountains, for she abhorred the crowded towns and cities.
On their wedding day, when they went to the Registry Office, she clung to his arm and wouldn’t let go. The loud noises of the traffic made her flinch. Her nose wrinkled at the smells in the air.
But when he brought her back to the cottage, she clapped her hands with delight; for it was surrounded by oak trees, and there were wild roses trailing over the doors and windows.
“Is this my home?” she murmured as he carried her over the threshold.
The walls were freshly papered with a pattern of green leaves. The floors had blue tiles and the roof, wooden beams. A fireplace stood in every room. The furnishings were old and old-fashioned.
“Forever and a day,” was his reply.
He loved that she was a country girl with simple tastes. Worshipping her, he accepted her quirks without question or complaint. She would not eat salt. Nor could iron enter the house. And there was to be no mention of her family.
One warm summer night, they lay on a blanket outdoors to watch the stars fall over the treetops.
“Tell me something about your childhood,” he urged her. “Where did you grow up?”
Her laugh was light, but a veil dimmed her eyes.
“Do not seek to know too much about me, my love. You are from Canada and I am from Ireland. What else do you need to know? Accept what is and be content. I’ve forgotten a lot about my past and maybe that’s best for our happiness together.”
Did he suffer a moment of disquiet, then? Did he feel the darkness of the shadow cast by events to come? Did he sense the approach of their parting and the pain that lay in wait for him?
The book contained moving pictures as well as words. Dana drank in every image of her mother, as someone who had hungered and thirsted for such a sight. Edane Lasair made a pretty human, dressed in floppy hats and brightly colored clothes. The fiery hair of her true nature had turned to strawberry blond, tumbling over her shoulders. She often appeared dreamy and distracted, yet her look was gentle and her mouth quick to smile.
Nine months later their daughter was born. She was a sweet-natured baby with her father’s dark hair and her mother’s eyes that shone like the stars.
Not yet twenty, Gabriel worked hard to support his little family. He coached music students, busked on Dublin’s busy streets, and played on the bandshell by the seafront in the summer. They didn’t need a lot of money as their rent was small and they lived modestly. Edane made a small garden, growing most of the fruits and vegetables they ate. Flowers brightened every room. Their home was filled with light and music, joy and beauty.
From time to time odd things would happen.
The baby was only six months old when Edane left her on a mat under a tree in the garden. The leaves of the young rowan sheltered the infant while flickering with sunlight to keep her entertained. Back in the kitchen, Edane kept watch on her daughter from the window as she baked a blackberry pie. Turning but a moment to put the tart in the oven, she looked back again to check on her child and let out a scream. The baby was surrounded by wild animals. A fox licked her face. A badger was nudging her out of a damp spot. Birds flitted around her as she tried to catch them.
At the sound of Edane’s cry, the animals fled, leaving the infant in tears.
Another time, Edane woke in the night with a mother’s instinct and glanced over at the baby’s cradle. Light hovered in the air above it. Gurgles of laughter rose up. Hazy with sleep, Edane made a questioning noise. The light disappeared. Silence ensued.
Dana watched her mother’s reactions. How she ignored or denied the strange things she saw. How quickly she forgot them. The spell of humanity was woven so thickly around her, it repelled anything that threatened to unravel it.
At three years of age, the child was a stocky little girl with bunches of dark curls and a mischievous temperament. Curious, courageous, she loved to run and she loved to climb trees. No longer a baby, she was growing fast, discovering who and what she might be.
One day when her father was away at work, she escaped from the garden and into the woods. Climbing high into the branches of an oak tree, she found herself unable to get down again. She didn’t cry, but waited for her mother to find her. It was Edane who cried and became upset, who called her “a bold girl.” The child was put to bed for a nap, kicking and screaming. When her mother went to kiss her, the little girl pushed her angrily away and kept on yelling.
“I hate you!”
Patiently shushing her daughter’s shouts, Edane drew the curtains to make the room dim. Then she sang a lullaby.
Seothó, a thoil, ná goil go fóill,
Seothó, a thoil, ná goil aon deoir,
Seothó, a linbh, a chumainn’s a stóir.
Hush, dear heart, no need to cry,
Hush, dear heart, no need for tears,
Hush, my child, my love and treasure.
Soothed by the song, the little girl grew quiet. Her eyelashes fluttered softly; a smile crossed her face.
Edane tiptoed to the door. It was only when she turned for a final look that she saw the glow around her daughter’s bed.
Dana was sitting up and gazing at her palms. With a squeal of delight, she cupped her
hands and offered them to her mother. They brimmed over with golden light.
Edane’s features twisted with anguish as memory slashed like a knife, cutting the spell that bound her. In horror, she backed away from the child who carried her mark, the sign of the Light-Bearer. She backed away from her child as she remembered who she was, her abandoned life, and her beloved, the King, whom she had forsaken. She backed away from her child as her mind and spirit broke.
Then she ran from that place, never to return.
ith the force of a blow, Dana remembered that moment. The shock. The agony. The severing of the bond between mother and child. She was a bad girl and she drove her mother away.
Deep inside, the monster rose.
It was something you did. You are the reason your mother left. You are the one who broke your father’s heart. It was you who tore your family apart.
Dana dropped the book as if it had burned her. A cry tore from her throat. She ran away from the Singer of Tales, the Lord of Misrule. Away from the truth.
Far in the mountains, a child was lost. She stumbled over the bogs, sobbing and weeping. Her feet sank into the soft ground. The winds were cold on her face. She ran without sense or purpose, her heart as wild as the hearts of birds, shattered like an egg that had fallen from the nest. Her cries mingled with the lament of the sheep scattering before her.
Maammaaa.
Maammaaa.
Inside her mind, the serpent coiled, squeezing and strangling.
It was your fault. You are to blame. You are the monster at the heart of your family.
For many long lonely hours, Dana staggered through the wind and rain. Eventually she came out of the mountains and into the foothills in sight of the sea. She passed a derelict cottage with broken windows and an overgrown garden. Now she stood at the edge of a forested ridge overlooking a glen that was severed by a road. Dimly she recognized where she was.
Battered by the storms of the previous day, the tree houses in the Glen of the Downs hung askew like ruined nests. The site was deserted. Led by their betrayer Murta, the eco-warriors were on the farthest side of the vale, digging up an illegal dump. Big Bob patrolled the trees alone, without fear or suspicion. The sun had set. No one worked in the dark.
As twilight descended over the valley, the shadows in the forest deepened.
From where she stood, Dana could see what the eco-warriors couldn’t. In the silence of the evening, bulldozers advanced on the glen like a convoy of tanks of an invading army. Behind them came the trucks that bore the chain-saws, the iron machinery of the war on nature.
With her fairy eyes, Dana could also see the lines of refugees leaving the valley. Birds and small animals, the spirits of trees and flowers, all fled the coming destruction of their homes. As Dana witnessed the exodus, images flashed through her mind of similar scenes she had seen on the television: columns of the displaced and expelled, filing down roads or through frozen forests, children and old people and weeping women, all driven before the onslaught of the shadow.
Across the glen, she caught sight of two titanic figures locked in mortal combat on top of the ridge. The King had lost his weapons and grappled bare-handed with a writhing foe. No longer inside Murta, the demon wore its own shape. More chimera than real, it was blood-red and monstrous, with a segmented body and long coiling tail. Every part of it was burned and blistered, yet it raged unabated. Dana’s heart quailed. Lugh’s limbs looked twisted and broken. He bled from many wounds. Would her godfather die in the struggle?
The first iron blade cut through the bole of a tree. Dana’s fairy blood quivered. Sharp teeth sawed through the wood. A slender birch toppled. Sap seeped from the bloodied stump. More trees were set upon. More crashed to the earth. A dimness settled over the woods as life and light were extinguished.
Big Bob came running as soon as he heard the chain-saws. He knew he had been betrayed. Sickened and defeated, he made his last stand by an ancient oak, as the trees fell around him like soldiers on the battlefield.
On the height above, the King had fallen. Shrieking its triumph, the demon lifted him high in the air, ready to hurl him down the ridge. Lugh would die with the trees. His eyes were dark with anguish. He could not save his people. He could not save his Queen.
It was the slaughter of the trees that woke Dana’s fairy self. As the silver lightning shot through her veins, she let out a cry of rage for the Mother Earth.
MAMA!
She looked down at her hands. Ever since that fateful day, she had refused to let it happen. She had denied her gift. In that one searing moment, she had learned to hate it, banishing it forever to the dark of her psyche.
Now the monster rose up from the lake of her mind and Dana saw that it was beautiful and shining with light. She smiled with love at the gift of her birthright. She bowed her head to acknowledge its beauty.
By making peace with your own monster you diminish evil’s power, over yourself and in the world.
She cupped her hands together. As the golden light welled up in her palms, she raised them to the sky in offering.
Now the light shone out like a beacon to reach the one who was lost in darkness; the one who had heard her cry in the shadowlands; the one whose eyes were beginning to open as she ran toward the light.
A giantess came running out of the west and over the mountains. Her fiery hair streamed behind her like a comet. Her hands gleamed with the brightness she bore.
On the eastern ridge, Dana’s palms spilled over to suffuse the sky with a radiant arc. When the giantess stopped on the opposite ridge, her light poured forth to join with Dana’s.
Under the glow of the golden bridge, the Glen of the Downs was lit up like day.
Evil works best undercover in darkness, in secret and silence, through furtive action, covert operations and clandestine relations, when no one is certain, where no one can see. Who can fight shadows? What is being fought? But in the glare of the light, the motorists driving through the glen couldn’t help but see. The images were too stark to be denied. Ancient trees falling. Chainsaws cutting. Bulldozers ploughing great ruts in the earth. And one man alone, arms around an old oak, face wet with tears.
Everyone knew about the protest. Many did not support it. They wanted the road widened so they could drive faster. They didn’t care about trees or nature or the life of the valley.
But there were others who agreed with the tree people, who had made contributions and signed endless petitions. They saw Big Bob standing alone and they knew in their hearts it was time to act. Whether big or small, each had a part to play.
A silver Mercedes screeched to a stop at the side of the road. A middle-aged businessman jumped out. He ran to the nearest tree marked for felling and put his arms round it, placing his body between the bark and the blade.
A secretary on her way home, after working late, pulled up in her little Ford Fiesta. She ignored the mud on her high heels as she picked her tree and ran to protect it.
Now a local builder, out with his children for an evening drive, saw the others guarding their trees. He stopped his van—“FOR OUTDOOR WORK, I’M YOUR MAN”—and he and his three girls tumbled out. Holding the youngest in his arms, he blocked the path of a bulldozer, while the older two stood on either side of him.
As more and more drivers pulled into the shoulder, a human chain of defense quickly formed around the trees.
As below, so above. Even as the light had filled the valley, calling up the resolve of every trueheart and braveheart, so, too, it brought strength to the King high on the ridge. Now the demon screeched and cowered in the brightness. Now Lugh rose up to fight again. Taking hold of the monster, he flung it into the Irish Sea, where it sank beneath the waves and dissolved in the brine.
Following the light that shone over the glen, the eco-warriors came rushing back to camp. In an instant they were shinnying up trunks and swinging on ropes, as cheers and war cries resounded through the valley.
Shortly after came the wail of sirens a
s police cars converged on the scene. And then the media. All efforts to work halted.
The battle was won.
Dana waited as the shining figure came toward her. Too impossibly young to be a mother, Edane was no longer a giantess but a shy slender woman. She looked at Dana as one who had hungered and thirsted for such a sight.
“Mama?” Dana whispered.
Dana knew her, but didn’t know her. She was the mother her child-mind dimly remembered, appearing still to be in her teens. Dana was trembling. She barely heard her mother murmur. Child of my heart, blood of my blood.
And though Dana longed to go to her, to be touched and held by her, she was unable to move. She felt cold and stiff.
“Why did you leave me?” The words had been frozen so long inside, they were like jagged icicles as sharp as knives. “Why did you go?”
Pain marred Edane’s beautiful features. Tears welled in the blue fairy eyes.
“I was lost, my little one. I fell between the worlds. Between those I loved in one and he whom I loved in the other. I have wandered blind in the dark, unable to find my way out.”
“In the dark?” Distrust etched Dana’s voice. The old anger flared. The unappeasable rage against a mother who had abandoned her child. “How? You carry your own light!”
Edane held out her hands as if to plead. Gold streamed from her palms.
Without thinking, Dana lifted her hands in response. It was the same movement she had made years ago.
“Don’t you see, my daughter?” Edane said softly. “It has returned to me only this day. I lost the light when I lost you. For I am the Light-Bearer and you are the Light that I bore.”
And Dana suddenly understood. Holding back no longer, she ran into her mother’s arms.
ana could have stayed there forever, happy and at peace in her mother’s arms. She remembered the softness and the scent of apple blossom. All the things she had ever wanted to tell Edane crowded into her mind and onto her tongue; stories from school, tales of her football gang, the boy she secretly liked but had mentioned to no one, the trophy she had won in the Irish language competition …
The Light-Bearer's Daughter Page 20