The Fox

by Arlene Radasky

  “This is the path of the ancients,” he said. “The path we walk on and the standing stones were both placed by the gods. We hold our most sacred ceremonies there.”

  “I seem to remember a storyteller’s song about standing stones in this area,” said Coira.

  “It is said the gods built them for man to use as a sacrificial altar for our ceremonies,” said Moroug.

  “Ouch, wait. I have tripped,” said Rhona. “Nathraichean, please give me your arm to steady myself on these stones. I do not want to fall into the water.”

  We had come to a stream. The robed druid seemed to float across while we stumbled and bruised our feet as we clumsily walked from stone to stone to cross the shallow but cold and fast water.

  The forest opened up to a small meadow and in the middle was a small circle of man-height stones. There was a large fire in the center, and I heard a multi-voiced hum coming from the stones. They seemed to move, waver in the firelight. We walked closer, and I saw eight swaying figures in white robes, just like the one leading us. The people in the robes held hands and made the shadows that seemed to give the stones movement. The robed figures sang the song I had heard.

  Our guide stopped just outside the ring of stones and whispered into the ear of one druid. The circle broke, and he walked into the ring. He motioned us to follow. I got to the ring and again, just before I stepped in, I looked around the circle of trees behind us. I knew he watched. The fox I saw earlier was there and watched us.

  Firtha stood in her white robe on the other side of the ring. The fire between us bathed her in an orange light. Shadows danced on her body, created by the moving flames. I had not seen her at the evening meal, and I wondered what would keep her away from her king, especially, when Lovern’s news proved her right about the Romans. Now I knew. She had been here preparing this ring. Waiting for us to come.

  She watched us come into the circle and bade us to sit on the ground around the fire. As we sat, her eyes took us in. Her loose hair, red in the firelight, hung below her waist; her hood hung down the back of her robe. The fire did not give enough light at that distance to see the color of her eyes. I remembered they were the blue color of water melted from ice. A band of beads circled her forehead and tied at the back of her head; her sea eagle feather was attached so it hung behind. She still wore the necklace of boars’ teeth. I wondered if she were able to add to it from the boar that had become our evening meal.

  An alder staff was in her hand, one long enough to touch the ground at her bare feet and rise above her head more than two hands high. Lessons from Lovern about this tree flashed through my mind. He made his music pipe from it. It gave different dyes for our cloth. Some druids used it to help call in spring. Maybe that is why she holds it tonight. It is almost spring, almost Beltane.

  Unbidden, the memory came that it also called the soul of the sacrificed human to come back to aid the living. A volunteer sacrificed human. The little I ate at dinner laid unsettled in my stomach.

  Small stones scattered on the ground dug into me. Uncomfortable, I shifted, hoping not to put a hole in my green dress. The hot fire burned my face, while my backside was cold. I shivered and Lovern put his arm around me. I was able to settle down, and when I looked around the small, seated circle of fellow travelers, I saw they all had their eyes on Firtha. Rhona lowered her eyes until she looked straight into mine. I saw a great strength there. I was glad she was my friend.

  “Now you are here,” Firtha said as she came closer to us. The humming stopped as soon as she started talking. Robed druids came closer to hear her words. “Tell me what you found, Lovern.”

  “As I told the king, the Romans ready themselves to take our lands. To make slaves of us or kill us. That is what they have done on the lands they occupy now. It is what they want for us. I stood in a camp of Roman warriors and have seen they have weapons and train to kill us.”

  She nodded. “It is what I have told the king for many moons. I have seen it many times in my dreams. It is because we are weak. Do any of you know why we are weak?”

  Firtha slowly looked into the eyes of all present. No one responded.

  “We are weak because the gods ask us to give ourselves to them. We have stopped obeying that command. Yes, we learn what we can about nature and healing and other magic, but we have not given back all we should, in payment, for many years. My teacher was ancient when he taught me the arts. He told me we should never change them, but we have.” She paused. “We have become soft and because of that we could lose all we have. Our lands and our families. We need to catch the ears of the gods again.”

  Her staff pounded the ground in her agitation as she paced, walking around us quickly. We had to turn our heads to follow her footsteps. “We must get back to the ways of the God and Goddess. They gave me a vision. A vision of victory. I was told that if we come back to them fully, we could have what we want. We can have peace.”

  She stopped pacing and as the alder staff hit the ground in time with her every word, I trembled.

  I heard words tumble from her mouth but could not understand them. Voices from all those in cloaks around us uttered short, quiet sighs of agreement.

  She raised her staff to the sky. “Gods and goddesses, listen to me. We will have a human sacrifice!”

  A fearful rushing sound of unstoppable water and wind filled my ears. I closed my eyes and began to pray. My heart heavy with dread, I began to shiver. The snake awoke and raised its head in my belly again. Memories of my feelings, those that had told me of my shortened life, flooded my head.

  I was afraid, so very afraid.

  CHAPTER 22

  AINE

  MAY, 2005

  Noisy London. I’d almost forgotten. Fort William’s traffic was nothing like what flew by my little apartment above the bookstore. Arriving back late on Friday night, I fell into bed and slept until the din woke me at half past eight.

  I tried to phone George’s home, but got no answer. His office didn’t answer either. I had called him a dinosaur because he wouldn’t carry a mobile.

  “Too damned intrusive,” he’d said.

  There was no answer all day Saturday so I finally decided he must be out of town.

  Saturday wasn’t a total loss; I did get to visit with some friends from MGC and decided I’d made the right decision by going to Scotland to chase my dream. Talking to them brought back all my old dreary, depressing thoughts about jobs in my past. Writing up reports and statistics didn’t fill my life with any light. I ordered after-dinner drinks for my friends and I and silently toasted myself and my choice of a new life.

  Sunday morning. The bookstore, closed and quiet, allowed me to laze around until ten in the morning, rereading my notes on Marc’s earlier site. The chieftain’s tomb where I’d found the first bowl, the first one Jahna led me to. It was in the University of Birmingham’s Museum of Ancients along with the other tools Marc found in the tomb. I leafed through the pictures I’d taken of the bowl found under the stone where it had lain so many years. Jimmy’s words ran through my mind. The same artist probably had worked on the bowl that contained the ashes I’d found in the cave. Jahna. I was certain it was her. I’d never be able to prove it to the world, but I didn’t need to. I was proving it to myself and remaking myself in the process. If Jahna wanted to help me along, who was I to dissuade her?

  I called George’s home again. Three rings—why hadn’t I called before I left Fort William? I was about to hang up when she answered.

  “Hello?”

  “Oh. Hello. I hope I have the right number, is George home?”

  “May I ask who is calling?”

  “My name is Aine. Aine MacRae.”

  “Oh my, Aine. This is Meg.” She sounded a bit dazed, not at all like her normal formal self. Meg Smyth was George’s secretary while he worked at the university. Also Sophie’s friend, she helped when she could while Sophie was ill. She’d retired at the same time as George, and now made sure George had food in the house an
d didn’t get buried under an avalanche of his books and paper work. George paid her to stop by once or twice a week. She came more often as a friend. Her husband died many years ago, and there were no children. I often wondered if they were going to get married or stay in this strict relationship, stepping around their need for each other’s comfort for the rest of their lives. “Aine, George is not here right now. He is… Well, could you come by?”

  “Yes, I can be there in a little over an hour. Meg, is he in hospital?”

  “No. Not in hospital. Aine, let’s not talk on the phone. I’ll be waiting with a bit of lunch for us. See you in a bit.” Her voice was not jolly, not jolly at all.

  My thoughts rambled while I rode the underground. She said George wasn’t in hospital. A deep, dark thought about death sprang forward, but I quickly buried it. He must be on a trip. Yes, a trip. Why didn’t he call me and tell me? He wasn’t beholden to me. We weren’t related. We were friends. No. More than friends. I considered him my uncle. But still, he didn’t have to call me every time he left town. Why did Meg’s voice sound as if she were holding a secret close to her heart? Why was I frightened? Now that I think about it, he really didn’t look good when he got on the train last week. He didn’t tell me he felt ill. And Meg said he wasn’t in hospital.

  All these thoughts swarmed through my head as I jumped on the tube at the Marble Arch, running up and down the stairs when changing at Trafalgar and then on to Waterloo. George lived near the Royal Theater.

  When Sophie was well, they’d loved to go to the theater. Since she’d died, I don’t think he’d gone once. He told me he didn’t need to live through others’ lives; his life was filled with his own memories to keep him company. I didn’t think he read a novel or a work of fiction after her death. It was as if a door closed to a part of the world for him when she died. He lived buried in his history. The buried memories of others released through his archaeology. His life.

  I knocked. Meg opened the door. She looked just as she had the last time I saw her several years ago, thin as a straw, grey hair so tightly pulled back into a bun at the nape of her neck it seemed to give her brown eyes an almond shape. Her strong, long fingered hands grasped my shoulders and pulled me into the house. Though she was severe looking, she was anything but. Every bone in her body was friendly. She wasn’t much for powder or lipstick. It was to her benefit now, as powder and lipstick seem to gather in a woman’s creases and wrinkles as we age. Rosewater. She always smelled like rosewater. Hugging me close, I could tell she still wore it.

  “Aine. Oh, my dear. It’s so good to see you! Come in. I’ve sandwiches and tea for us. Here, sit in the study. I’ll bring them down.”

  I watched as her calf-length black skirt and sensible brown shoes marched up the stairs to the kitchen. I stood in George’s study. Its dark, mahogany shelves overflowed with books and papers. I also saw labyrinths. He told me he’d been collecting them but there were close to fifty, of all sizes in here. Some on top of books, some standing propped by papers and others braced by little plate stands. There were even a few on the arms of the leather chairs. Some looked ancient and some new. It was as if he’d started his own museum of labyrinths. I picked up a bronze one with its own stylus in a hole in its side. A medieval Eleven Circuit pattern that looked like the Chartre labyrinth. Four quadrants walked and traced to meditate. Heavy in my hand, it looked as if someone had used it lovingly for many years. The edges of its grooves were worn.

  “I see you found his pet.”

  I jumped. I’d not heard her come down the stairs.

  “Pet?” I didn’t know what Meg was talking about. I looked around for a small animal or bird. I was surprised, as George never liked animals underfoot. “What pet?”

  “That thing. He carried it around in his pockets until he wore holes in them before he went up to Scotland. It is not a light thing as you can tell. He decided not to take it with him on his trip; ‘too cumbersome,’ he told me. He got it from a friend who found it in an estate sale in Ireland. He’d take it to the park before sunrise and sit on a bench, waiting for the sun to come up.” She started pouring tea into rose-patterned china cups. Sophie’s rose patterned china cups.

  My mouth watered. The cheese sandwiches looked yummy and the steam from the tea smelled like Taylor’s of Harrogate Scottish Breakfast. George’s favorite.

  Then she stopped and set the teapot down. My eyes moved from the teapot to her face, and I watched it fill with even more wrinkles as tears filled her eyes and slid down her cheeks, spotting her white blouse. I lost my appetite.

  “ And now, of course, he can’t use it. Aine, dear. George didn’t want me to call you. He told me to tell you he went out of town if you called or came by. But I can’t do that.”

  I closed my eyes. Bad news was coming, and I didn’t want to hear it. I took a deep breath and opened my eyes to look into her teary ones.

  “George is in St. John’s Hospice. He’s been there for a week. He is dying, Aine, dying.” Her hands covered her face and her shoulders bobbed up and down as she sobbed.

  I stared at her, unbelieving. A week. He’d gone in right after he left Scotland. He didn’t seem sick. What does she mean he’s dying?

  “Meg. If he’s so ill why isn’t he in hospital?”

  “His treatments have stopped working now.” She lifted a tissue to her eyes. “He knew this some time ago and made plans with St. John’s before he left for Scotland. I didn’t want him to go up there, I thought he should stay here and fight this thing, his illness, but…. He is such a stubborn man. I doubt even Sophie could have convinced him otherwise. Anyway, I have been told he is close to dying.”

  Death had visited me before. My father died before I went to university, then my brother Donny, and, soon after, my mother. But, I’d not grown used to it. Does anyone get used to death? Now George. I knew he was ill, but it was always in the distance. When I asked how he felt, he always told me he was fine. Looking out the window, at the road in front of George’s home, I wanted to yell and stop the traffic. George is dying! But, the cars continued on their way. Life was the same for the people in them. George’s death would not affect them.

  I gently took hold of Meg’s shaking shoulders until she looked up at me. “I need to see him. Can I visit? Is he well enough for a visit?”

  “Uh, oh. Yes. Of course. Let me call and tell them you are coming. I’ll be right back.”

  As I waited for her return, I picked up the labyrinth and held it. My trembling hands would have dropped the stylus, so I traced the grooved path with my fingers. Years of quests and meditations were recited over this piece of metal. It felt warm to my cold fingers. As I traced the path, I silently begged whatever powers that be to let George be well. When I got there, I wanted him to be standing at the door saying, “What am I doing here? Let’s get back to work, Aine. There are years to uncover and mysteries to find answers for out there. Call a taxi and let’s go!” Grasping the sculpture to my heart, I wished him to be well. I didn’t know how to handle his death.

  Meg walked back into the room. She hugged me and said the hospice was expecting me. The address of St. John’s Hospice and cab fare were stuffed into my hands.

  “But aren’t you coming with me?” The thought of doing it on my own made my heart beat fast. I was close to panic.

  “No, I can’t. I have said my goodbyes. I have done all I can for him. I can’t watch him die. I call everyday and tell the staff to pass along my hello. But to go and watch him die? No. I’m not going. They’ll call me when he goes. Who else would they call? I’m all he has left. Well, you and me, Aine. I would have called you. After. He didn’t want you to worry over him. But, I guess you were supposed to be here.”

  She picked up the tea and still full sandwich tray and started climbing the stairs in her sturdy shoes. “The taxi will be here in a moment. I took the liberty of calling. They’ll take you there straight away.” She stopped and turned her head to me. “Tell him I am praying for him and think
of him. Please?” Her tears started again. She snuffled and climbed to the kitchen.

  My taxi arrived just as George’s front door closed behind me.

  Light filled the reception area. Light and soft classical music. Never a music buff, I couldn’t tell what music was playing, but it soothingly filled my ears. I expected the medicinal smell of a hospital, that sterile, antiseptic smell that permeates clothing and never seems to come out. I was surprised at the lack of any odor. No antiseptic, floor cleaners, or – what I dreaded most – death. I didn’t really have an idea of what death would smell like, but I was expecting it here. Then as I stepped up to the reception desk, perfumed lavender wafted into my nose. The woman, Jane by her nametag, must have lavender lotion or a candle nearby. I preferred the scent of real lavender.

  “Good afternoon. May I help you?”

  “Yes. My name is Aine MacRae. I’m looking for George Weymouth. I mean, his room.”

  “Mr. Weymouth,” Jane said, running her finger down a list of orders. “Yes. Ms. MacRae, I’ll call and let them know you are here. They’re expecting you.”

  Overstuffed chairs sat heavily on a blue linoleum floor and filled the reception area. Water gurgled over stones in a small table fountain. Doors opened and closed down the long hall to the right and left of the desk. I wondered if George would appear around the corner of the wall at any moment.

  “Ms. MacRae, Sarah will be right here. Would you like to sit down?” I wondered if she wore that look of condolence for every visitor who came here.

  “No, thanks. I’ll just wait here.”

  Another door opened and closed, and a woman slipped around the corner, smiled at me, and then Jane, and at Jane’s glance back at me extended her hand for me to shake. “Hello. Ms. MacRae? My name is Sarah MacDougal. I’m working with Mr. Weymouth. I’d like to talk to you for a minute before we go into his room, if you don’t mind.”