Beyond a Darkened Shore

by Jessica Leake

  “Ciara never comes with us,” Branna persisted. She was right. Máthair rarely, if ever, asked me to accompany them away from the castle.

  “She is of more use here. We must all play our part—for the good of all.” She held her arm out, the sleeves of her robe hanging down to her waist. “Come now, girls. Ciara needs her rest.”

  “Please, Máthair,” Deirdre said. “Can’t we sleep here with Ciara?”

  Máthair met my eyes, wariness evident in the thin press of her lips. There had been a time when the three of us slept in the same bed every night. But that was before I had become of age, before my abilities had manifested and my own mother treated me as though I were more wolf than daughter—one to be respected and feared.

  Indeed, the first time I’d used my abilities was when I’d accidentally used them on my own mother.

  I remembered being furious with her. She’d forbidden me from riding for the rest of the week because I hadn’t gotten up in time to go to Mass.

  “You’ve shamed us, acting like a pagan,” she’d said, her face red with anger.

  “No one wants me there anyway!” I’d thrown back at her. Even before my true abilities had manifested, many were uneasy in my company. It was as if they sensed from the very beginning that I was different.

  I was more hurt that she never defended me. She knew what the others said about me, but she never attempted to silence them. It was as if she silently agreed. And when she took away riding, the one thing that made me feel free and useful and accomplished, something inside me broke.

  It was as if my fury took on the form of an invisible hand, reaching from my mind to hers. It grabbed hold of her and pushed hard enough that she stumbled backward into the wall. Her anger and disappointment in me quickly changed to an icy, paralyzing fear.

  She’s just like her, my mother had thought, her words tumbling over themselves, echoing in her mind. Too powerful. Too dangerous.

  Just like who? I’d thought back, but I was already letting go of her mind. Shaking with the horror of what I’d done to her, with the fact that she was afraid of me, I watched her flee my room.

  That was five years ago.

  Ever since then, my mother had been cautious in my company, like one would be cautious with any wild thing. My father, when he’d heard what I’d done, had locked me in my room for two days. On the third, he’d asked me to join him on the training field with a single rule: I was never to use my abilities on members of our family. And once others found out what I could do, I was no longer welcome in church.

  “I would take great comfort from it if they stayed,” I said to Máthair now.

  She hesitated, and I felt my heart twist in response. What had my sisters to fear from me? “Very well,” Máthair said. “Just for tonight.” She rubbed her hand gently over Branna’s head, and bent down to kiss Deirdre’s cheek.

  She left as quietly as she’d come, and I pointed to the fastenings of my armor. “I will have to remove all this before bed. Will you help me, Bran?”

  “Of course,” she said, her nimble fingers making quick work of the stubborn buckles.

  I’d washed the blood and gore from my armor before entering the keep, but it still took the effort of the three of us to remove it. The leather leggings were the worst of all, practically molded to my skin.

  Branna sat back on her haunches with an exasperated groan after several unsuccessful attempts to free me from them. “I think I will have to cut you free,” she announced.

  “Do whatever you must,” I said.

  She retrieved a dagger from my wall and cut them off in strips. I breathed a sigh of relief when they fell in a clump at my feet, and I was left in my linen tunic.

  “Here’s your robe,” Deirdre said, holding the heavy velvet aloft. “Now will you tell us a story?”

  I glanced at my wooden tub longingly but knew it would have to wait. I smiled. “I would love to.”

  Deirdre threw herself into my bed and buried herself beneath the thick pelts. Branna and I joined her, laughing. “What kind of story?” I asked.

  “A scary one,” Branna said. She gave Deirdre a nudge with her shoulder, and Deirdre nodded.

  “Now what kind of older sister would I be to scare you both witless before bed? Haven’t you had enough fear for the day?”

  Branna shook her head while Deirdre watched me solemnly. “Better to think of a story and be afraid than to think of the Northmen,” Branna said. “We won’t be scared because we’ll all be together. It’s only when we’re separated that we’re afraid.”

  Guilt spiraled inside me. Depending on what I learned from the Northman prisoner about my father, I might have to leave them again soon. “Very well, then. I shall tell you a story about one of the scariest water creatures.”

  Branna’s face lit up. “Is this about a each-uisce? Shauna swears her grandfather tamed one once.”

  “Shauna is wrong,” I said, holding her gaze so she knew I was to be taken seriously. “Each-uisce can never be tamed. They may appear as sleek black horses, eerily beautiful, or even ponies, deceptively small. Always their manes and tails are dripping wet, and their eyes glow like a wolf’s.”

  Deirdre shuddered and pressed closer to Branna.

  “That doesn’t sound so bad,” Branna said, but I could see the gooseflesh on her arms.

  “Their appearances are meant to draw you in,” I said. “You see, there was a girl, long ago, who was the lone survivor of an each-uisce encounter—though her friends were not so fortunate. On one of the darkest nights the world had ever seen, with thunder roaring so loud in the sky it seemed as though the rocks beneath their feet would crumble away, a young girl and her friends were on their way home.”

  “Why were they out wandering in the dark? I’ve never heard of anything more foolish.”

  “Shh,” Deirdre said to her sister. “It’s just a story.”

  “It’s a warning,” I corrected. “They had strayed too far from home and had lost their way in the storm. Another lesson you’d do well to learn. The craggy hills and coast can all look the same; that’s why Brother Mac Máel spends so much time on lessons of the land with you.”

  “He hardly teaches us anything else,” Branna said, and Deirdre shushed her again.

  “There were four of them altogether, the youngest Deirdre’s age. They held hands and kept close to one another, but they were afraid they’d never find home again. Lightning lit up the sky, and a magnificent black stallion appeared before them. His mane dripped, water flowing in rivers down his sleek body, but the girls thought nothing of it. He was in the midst of a thunderstorm, after all. He knelt down before them, inviting them onto his back. The girl’s friends said, ‘He wants us to ride him, and he’s big enough for all of us. We’ll be sure to make it home now.’ But the girl was afraid. She remembered the tale of the each-uisce her older sister had told her,” I said with a pointed look at my own sisters. “The horse’s nightmarish eyes sent chills racing up her spine. ‘I’m afraid this horse is a demon in disguise,’ the girl said, but she was too late. Her friends leaped astride, and the each-uisce galloped away so far and so fast not even a hawk could keep up from the sky.”

  Both Branna and Deirdre listened with wide eyes, so quiet I could hardly hear their breaths. “Why did they not throw themselves from its back?” Branna asked.

  “Its skin becomes like the stickiest sap. There is no escape.”

  “What happened to them?” Deirdre asked, her voice barely more than a whisper.

  “The each-uisce took them back to his pond and dived to the very bottom. He trapped them under until they drowned, and then he ate everything but their hearts and livers. He came back for the girl, for an each-uisce has never had his fill, but she hid from him in a cave. She watched him change into the most beautiful man, with a voice like an angel, but still she did not leave the safety of the rock at her back. Morning came, and the each-uisce disappeared, along with the thunderstorm. In the light of day, the girl realized her ke
ep was within sight and walked back home without her friends, but alive just the same.”

  A hush fell over us, the crackling fire the only sound in the room. “That was a sad story,” Deirdre said finally.

  “It is, so you must promise me you will remember it. It’s no secret there are monsters that roam all over the coast.” I leaned closer to them and whispered, “Especially at night,” and they both jumped and then laughed. “Truly, though, you should only ride the horses and ponies we have here.”

  “Then you must also promise to keep teaching us in secret,” Branna said. “We’re tired of Brother Mac Máel keeping our ponies on leads.”

  I smiled. “That all depends on Máthair. She’s the one who fears you will hurt yourselves.” Our mother had an unusual fear of horses, preferring to walk unless absolutely forced to ride. I had always wondered if perhaps she had encountered an each-uisce in her younger years, but as with many things, she would never say.

  “Will you tell us another story?” Deirdre asked. She yawned so wide I could see every tooth.

  I laughed quietly and gave her a hug. “You’re too tired to hear another, and I need a proper bath. I’m sure I’ve smelled better.”

  To my surprise, no further argument was given. They burrowed under the furs, and after a few minutes of tossing and turning, they were quiet, and asleep.

  After kissing each of their cheeks good night, I turned to my wide wooden tub in front of the fire.

  Many viewed bathing as a luxury necessary only every cycle of the moon, but I had a different opinion on the matter, especially after a battle—I might no longer have been covered in blood and sweat, but I still felt unclean.

  My handmaiden had painstakingly prepared a bath for me earlier in the evening—when I should have arrived home. I didn’t dare rouse her from her warm bed now to bring the bath back to a comfortable temperature. The scent of lavender and mint still perfumed the air invitingly, despite the cold.

  The water in my tub was too cold to soak in, so I bathed quickly, scrubbing my skin until it was pink from abuse. Finished, I stood, and as my hands grasped both sides of the tub, I suddenly went blind. My heart pounded in my chest like the thundering hooves of a herd of horses. The water dripped from my body; I could hear it falling back into the tub with a drip, drip, drip. A cry for help clawed its way up my throat, but my lips would not part to release it. I could not move.

  I sensed rather than saw the mist rise up around me, colder even than my bath had been. It snaked up my legs and blanketed my body until gooseflesh covered my skin. My breaths came in a panicked pant, and I willed my legs, my arms, to move, but not even my strength could force them to. As suddenly as it had disappeared, my vision returned, but I was still paralyzed. Then came a flash of blinding light, and in the midst of it, a crow appeared. Its eyes held mine, worlds of knowledge contained within.

  Ciara, it said, and the blood in my veins seemed to turn to ice. It was the same voice I had always heard. Now that I heard it clearly, it was a hoarse, dangerous sort of voice. Do you know who I am?

  Still in the hold of the same paralysis, I could only stare.

  I am one of the Tuatha Dé Danann, the first men of Éirinn who were once worshipped as gods. The Morrigan, Phantom Queen, and goddess of war and death. It tilted its head, and the feathers shifted, oily and black. In rapid succession, images poured into my mind, until I was sure I was in the grip of madness: a misty wood, the fog slowly taking shape until I could almost make out the figure of a woman; but then she turned, and her face was that of a crow’s, her hair made of feathers. But then, you have always known me.

  The crow’s harsh caw-caw-caw blasted through the room. It flew so close to my face I feared it would tear out my eyes with its talons, but it only buffeted my cheeks with its greasy black feathers. In its eye, I saw my memories, all the times I had seen the crow before: the day I received my first blood as a woman; the day I had taken control of one of my fellow clansmen during training; on the battlefield at Fir Tulach, when Northman raiders had sailed all the way down the river to lay siege to the village there; and then earlier today, before the Northman prisoner had landed on our shore.

  The crow’s eye seemed to shimmer and grow, until it soon blotted out everything else. I was trapped; the Morrigan’s voice was all I could hear.

  For hundreds of years, the Tuatha Dé Danann have allowed the raiders from the north to rape and pillage our lands.

  In my vision I saw Northman longships, with prows of gaping dragon heads, make landfall on the coast of Éirinn. Cold nausea gripped me as I watched them slaughter every monk they encountered at the monasteries along the coast, their axes making quick work of men who had virtually no defenses. From there they moved on to the villages. Houses with thatched roofs went up in infernos, children ran screaming, men were cut down as women were taken as slaves. The raiders took everything of value, packing captured slaves and treasures until their longships hung low in the water from the sheer weight of it all.

  And then: the night they attacked my father’s castle for the first time. I tried to block out the vision, one I had long since kept at bay, but I was helpless to stop it.

  No, I said when I found myself back in the front pew of the church.

  No, I said again when Father Teagan, now long dead, lifted his hands in prayer.

  The horn rang out across the bailey, loud and urgent.

  Run, you fools! I tried to shout to all the people in the church, who glanced at one another in confusion.

  My father stood and hauled my mother to her feet. “Take the hidden passageway,” he said, and pushed her along as my sisters and I clutched at her skirts. “Go!” he said when she hesitated.

  Finally, she obeyed. Máthair carried Deirdre, then a mere baby, in her arms, while she kept a firm hold on six-year-old Bran’s hand. Both were crying, their eyes wide with terror.

  “Keep hold of your sister,” Máthair said to me urgently, and I did. I held Alana’s hand until the moment she was dragged from me.

  Why show me this? I tried to shout at the Morrigan, but it was like shouting into the wind. I shook with the effort to keep the images at bay, for I knew what came next.

  Máthair raced across the bailey, keeping Bran’s face pressed against her skirts as best she could. But I saw everything: men taller than my father, axes cutting into my clansmen, women screaming, while still others were caught and bound. Blood everywhere. It tinted my world red as though my own eyes were bleeding.

  Alana was so quiet, her face twisted in terror and disbelief, but she didn’t utter a sound. The steps to the keep were only a yard away. But then she tugged me to a stop. “Moira!” she screamed. She was looking at her friend who lay dead, blood pooling around her while her mother clutched her broken body to her breast. I remember thinking: But she’s a child. Children don’t die in battle.

  Our mother reached the steps of the keep. She whirled around when she realized we were no longer behind her.

  “Alana,” I said with another tug, but my sister was frozen in horror.

  When I turned back toward our mother, a Northman loomed above us, cutting off our escape. He was as big as a bull, his straw-colored hair long and braided. The axe in his hand was stained red, and a fresh wound—a deep cut from his eyebrow down to his cheek—dripped blood. His blue eyes shifted to my mother. Somewhere across the bailey, I heard my father shout.

  Áthair is coming, I told myself. He’ll save us.

  Alana finally turned away from the sight of her fallen friend, only to scream as she saw the massive man before us.

  He grabbed her, yanking her from my grasp. “These must be your children,” he said, his voice loud enough to carry across the bailey. He spoke our language—he wanted my father to hear him. “This one will make a fine slave.”

  “No!” my father shouted, running toward us, but he was cut off by another Northman.

  “No?” the enemy before us repeated. He glanced down at my struggling sister. “You’d rathe
r she be dead, then? You cut down my nephew who was barely older than a child himself.” His upper lip curled, his expression turning feral. His gaze was fixed on the body of an adolescent boy, one of the fallen Northmen. “Blood for blood,” he said, and slit my sister’s throat.

  My father barreled into him then, knocking him to the ground as my mother screamed and ran to Alana. I couldn’t look away from the blood bubbling from her throat.

  More men came to the Northman’s aid, but not before my father ducked beneath the man’s axe and drove the blade of his sword into the enemy’s leg. The remaining ranks of our clansmen joined the battle, and eventually, the Northmen retreated—taking my sister’s murderer with them.

  I could only hope he had later died of his injuries.

  A cold sweat broke out over my skin, and I shook as though I were feverish. I begged for the images to end, to be released from the vision, but they continued mercilessly.

  Another vision of Éirinn, this time of green hills, the sky above steel gray. Northmen ran across the hills, armed for battle. The men seemed different, somehow; their features were twisted, and some had deformities that made them appear less than human. They called to one another in a strange tongue, like Norse, only more guttural. More and more appeared until there was an entire army. They moved as one, swarming over the meadows, killing even sheep in their path.

  As they ran, they grew taller and wider, until they were as big as mountains. The earth shook with their steady footsteps, and soon, all of Éirinn was covered by the massive men. With their axes and their legs as wide as oak trees, they destroyed everything, burning what they did not reduce to rubble. The scene changed, the land becoming more familiar: the coast where Branna and Deirdre gathered seashells, the meadow where they rode their ponies, my father’s castle upon the cliff. My clansmen lay torn apart, blood spilling upon the ground, turning the earth red. High-pitched screams came from the keep: my sisters begging for mercy. I tried to shake my head, to close my eyes against the terrible vision, but the Morrigan was relentless.