Summer's End

by Lisa Morton

  She also claimed that the Celts owed their good fortune to their gods, who were quite real and visited each Samhain.

  The original manuscript had been a mishmash of Mongfind’s own life, the history of the Irish Celts, and Druidic rituals. As the manuscript progressed, the sections on her own life had become less detailed, more rushed, and I soon found out why.

  The missionaries had timed their armies to arrive shortly before Samhain, when they knew the warriors would be settling into their winter quarters and the rest of the country preparing for the festivities. The Samhain rituals in essence renewed the Celts’ contracts with their gods, and the gods’ communion with their mortal worshippers was at a low point just before. The invaders’ strategies had been thought out for decades, and were carried out with ruthless efficiency; they laid waste to the Celts’ nobility and warriors, silenced and imprisoned the Druids, and enslaved the rest. The Catholics had inadvertently killed many of the Druids when they’d cut their tongues out to ensure that they would be unable to call for their gods. Mongfind had been mutilated with all the rest, but had found one piece of luck the others hadn’t: A sympathetic Catholic missionary. From her journal:

  One day I arrived at the place where I thought I would spend the remainder of my life: One of our great halls, now a home for our conquerors. My cell here was better—I was provided with straw to sleep on, and there was a high window large enough to permit nearly an hour of sunlight to penetrate each afternoon.

  The man in charge of this place visited me as soon as I arrived. We were of course unable to communicate—even if we knew each others’ languages, I had no tongue to convey words with—but he gave me to understand that he intended me no harm. The others treated him with reverence, and I realized he was in charge of this place. He pointed at himself and said the word, “Jerome,”[10] which I took to be his name.

  He made sure I received generous amounts of food and blankets, and I soon began to recover some of the health I had lost after my initial capture. As he visited me each day, he brought long rolls of paper, ink, and quill, and taught me words from his language, which he called Latin. I was at first unwilling to use the quill, but reconciled myself soon enough—how could it be against the gods to learn of his world and language?

  I quickly became quite adept at writing in Latin, and Jerome—whose title was “Abbot”, while his house was called “monastery”—was very pleased. He began to urge me to write of my people and our history. At first I refused, and he accepted my explanation that we didn’t believe in committing to mere paper that which we held sacred.

  But one day Jerome arrived at my cell very early in the morning; it was not yet sunrise, and he woke me. He said he’d just received word that the Church had issued orders for the remaining Druids to be put to death.

  Then he took me from the cell, led me out of the monastery, and brought me to where he had a horse waiting. He told me that this was the only time he’d disobeyed his Church, and that he would spend the rest of his days begging his God to forgive him. He’d provided my mount with supplies, including food, clothing, tools…and ink and paper. I thanked him profusely, communicated to him he would have made a fine Druid, and left him forever.

  I knew not this part of Eire, but a day’s ride brought me to uninhabited woodland, with plentiful game and water. I was well trained in Celtic survival arts, and knew I could make a home here. Whether I could avoid the Romans forever…well, only the Dagda and the Morrigan[11] knew that for certain.

  It was a hard life, and lonely, and I did not fare well as the year grew colder. I was able to call upon the sidh for some assistance, and when I needed to hunt I allowed the Morrigan to fill me…but without a Druid of the opposite sex, I was unable to call down the Dagda or even bring the Morrigan’s full powers into play. Samhain came and went, and I could offer only a small sacrifice—a fox I’d captured and held for that night. It was not enough.

  Within a month I knew I was dying.

  Although Jerome’s consideration had led me to believe I was healed, the mutilation of my mouth by his fellows began to plague me, and with the onset of winter cold I fell ill. I knew I could hold on for a short time, but doubted I would live to see Beltane[12].

  Beyond my own death, however, loomed a greater horror: If I was the last remaining Druid, all of our knowledge would die with me.

  Unless I committed the greatest of sins and recorded it all.

  I could, with the language and utensils Jerome had provided. I knew I wouldn’t have time to write all I knew, but if I began now, I might have just enough left for the most important things, the rituals and stories and formulae that every Druid learned in their first year.

  And so I begged the gods’ forgiveness and I wrote.

  It was more difficult than I’d expected, especially as winter set in. I built small fires for no other reason than to thaw my ink and my cramped fingers. I resented time taken away from the task of writing—time to hunt, to prepare food, to attend to other bodily needs. I realized my thoughts were not organized, that recollections of my own life (which I selfishly thought important enough to commit here) were bound with the true knowledge.

  Yet it kept me alive. Even as I grew weaker and thinner, even as the spittle I coughed up began to contain more blood than other fluid, I kept writing. I burned with the need to record, and my own heat carried me through to Beltane and beyond.

  But as another Samhain approached, my fingers finally refused to work, and my eyes grew dim. It was enough; I’d written only a fraction of our learning, but it would do. What was here could provide a new beginning, should it be found by one of understanding.

  As my body failed me, I settled on one last plan:

  I would journey to a nearby bog, and on Samhain I would offer myself as sacrifice there, asking the thick waters to preserve me and hide me until one would come who was worthy of receiving this, the last of our real soul. I will wrap these pages carefully in animal hides and a box Jerome provided, and take them beneath the water with me, trusting in the gods to keep us both.

  Forgive me, holy ones. I know I’ve failed you twice now and damned the world to a new darkness, but perhaps one day our light will shine again, if my sacrifice is accepted.

  I dream of a new world.

  There were still pages after that—apparently Mongfind had remembered a last few items to commit to history. But her story really ended there. In the bog where she and her pages were found, more than fifteen hundred years later.

  And she’d been right about at least one thing: The world had descended into “a new darkness.” The Dark Ages settled over Europe and continued for a thousand years, ten bleak centuries of ignorance and confusion that climaxed as the Black Death raced across the continent while the Church burned tens of thousands of so-called witches and tortured heretics.

  Despite the Enlightenment and the Renaissance and the Industrial Revolution and the Digital Age, I couldn’t help but wonder if the world had ever really recovered. Especially recently, as I passed each year more convinced that mankind was entering its own final chapter, that centuries of greed and ecological devastation were finally leading to a planet that would no longer be able to sustain so many of us.

  I was less certain what to make of Mongfind’s accounts of encounters with sidh, of using magic to ward off foes (before the missionaries had slain the Druids), and especially of blood sacrifices on Samhain to propitiate the gods. The knowledge Mongfind had recorded was a mix of what seemed to be practical information—which healing herbs could be gathered in a forest, when to plant certain crops, how to create “needfire,” or sparks engendered by friction—but other parts of the recorded lore read like a fantasy novel. There was an account of a Samhain when the sidh had appeared in the king’s throne room, demanding tribute of food and slaves, but Mongfind and a male arch-Druid name Mog Roith had sacrificed a black sheep and a young warrior who’d offered himself to invoke a fearsome and powerful death-spirit named Bal-sab, who had driven t
he sidh back to the barrow they’d emerged from. Mog Roith and Mongfind had spent the next two weeks not sleeping or eating, but working first to banish Bal-sab, and then to create a spell that would seal the barrow forever.

  Bal-sab…Charles Vallancey’s “lord of death.” There was more about Bal-sab and Samhain: Apparently each Samhain, sacrifices were offered to Bal-sab to ensure his cooperation throughout the coming year. If they bought him off with a few small deaths at the end of every summer, he apparently spared the Celts from plagues and wars and pestilence the rest of the year.

  Dear God. Vallancey’s ludicrous ramblings suddenly didn’t seem so ludicrous anymore. Instead, he’d been right all along. We were the fools, not Vallancey. The alternate history of Halloween was the real history.

  All of this was presented in Wilson’s straightforward, matter-of-fact translation, which made it all sound perfectly plausible. I really didn’t know what to think of it.

  I was going over it again when my phone rang. Checking the caller ID, I saw “Ó CUINN, CONOR.” I’d given Wilson my number, but somehow I wasn’t entirely comfortable knowing that ó Cuinn had it.

  The conversation that followed didn’t do much to dissuade me in finding Dr. ó Cuinn unnerving. He wanted to meet. His Irish accent was anything but lilting; he sounded excited and anxious. I asked what he wanted to meet about.

  “Have you read the journal?”

  “Yes. Or at least most it.”

  “What do you make of it?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Well, maybe I can help. I’ve got some ideas on it, but…well, we should discuss it in person.”

  I debated for a few seconds. I could tell him I was busy (which was true; in fact, I had two book signings and four interviews scheduled over the next week). I could ask that he just e-mail me whatever he had to say. But then I reminded myself that this man was a respected archaeologist, an expert in a field I’d once seriously considered pursuing. He undoubtedly did have some insight into the find, and I was curious to know why he wanted to share his thoughts with me.

  “All right,” I told him. “Did you have somewhere in mind?”

  He had his own temporary office at the UCLA campus. He wanted to meet tonight.

  I almost said no. I’d attended UCLA as an undergraduate, and the place hadn’t changed much since then. It was spread out and dark, with parking structures nowhere near any of the buildings. This was a Monday night in fall, so the campus would be quiet: No sporting events or film screenings at Melnitz Hall, no crowds of students to feel safe within. When I’d attended the school, I’d lived in one of the dorms to the west of the grounds; they’d routinely issued warnings to female students about the dangers of walking alone after dark. I’d even written a recent short story in which a male student had been attacked here by a transgendered rapist.[13]

  But I was intrigued—did he know something about Samhain? I’d googled Conor ó Cuinn, and his credentials were solid; not overwhelming, but he’d overseen enough excavations around Ireland that he was considered something of an expert in Celtic history.

  That brought up a new question in my mind: Why had they called me in? There was surely nothing I could offer above what was in my books. There had to be some other reason they hadn’t revealed yet. Maybe they were just doing a documentary for The History Channel and needed another talking head.

  So I said yes, and by 8 p.m. I was parked and making my way across the campus grounds. It was a mid-October night in L.A., which meant it was still warm enough to need only a light jacket. The campus was mostly empty; in fact, it seemed too empty. Surely classes were in session in October, and a state university must have certainly offered some evening classes? I saw only a handful of students, all hunched over and hurrying somewhere as if anxious to escape a chill that didn’t even exist.

  I was just passing a thick growth of shrubbery ringing the edge of one of the great brick-built halls when I first heard it: A slight rustling of the leaves. The night was still, there was no breeze to blame, and I swallowed down a small jolt of unease. I scanned the low bushes, trying not to appear too obvious, but saw no movement, nor heard anything else. A squirrel, then, or maybe a cat strayed over from the surrounding residential area…

  Something struck the brickwork ahead and to the right of me. The tiny, metallic clang was followed by what sounded for all the world like a stifled laugh.

  This time I did stop, peering into the dark corner from which the sounds had emanated. I wished then that I carried a flashlight, one of those little mags that dangles on a keychain; or even a lighter. As it was, I could make out nothing in the black shadow surrounding the looming three-story building.

  I waited for a few seconds, ears straining, but heard nothing else. The echo of a distant cell phone conversation, yes; or something coming from within the building, possibly traveling through a ventilation duct. That was it.

  I continued on; the hall where ó Cuinn had said his temporary office was housed couldn’t be more than a hundred yards off now. I was sure it was the next building ahead, and I’d be safe once I was inside—

  Something scuttled through the bushes just a few feet to my left now, and all speculation was done. I reached into the jacket pocket where I’d put my car keys, and wrapped a fist around them; if I had to fight off an attacker, they might think twice after getting a key wrapped between two knuckles in the face. But I still started walking fast, toward the building, trying not to look over my shoulder, trying to ignore the obvious sound of something now following me, something getting closer with each step. Suddenly I was shivering, and my breath puffed out in front of me—how was that possible?—and I almost ran the last bit to the double doors leading into the hall, to the warmth and safety of the well-lit interior beyond…

  What if the doors are locked? That thought flickered through my growing unease as I leapt up the five steps to the landing, reached out for the door, tried not to imagine being caught there, in front of the doors, alone, by whatever tracked me…

  I flung the door open and stepped through.

  As the door closed behind me, I turned and looked out.

  There was nothing there.

  I actually walked right up to the glass, scanning the night. I’m not someone who frightens easily; maybe it’s because I explore fear so often in fiction. I have no phobias, and being a lifelong city dweller (and occasionally working as a screenwriter in the film industry, where the writer is everyone’s doormat), I’d developed a tough hide. I’d been followed before…but I’d never been followed like this.

  “Ms. Morton?”

  I spun so fast I nearly tripped on my own feet. Conor ó Cuinn stood behind me; I’d been so intent on looking outside that I hadn’t heard him approach. I have to say that as much as he put me on edge, he was still preferable to whatever had just followed me.

  “Are you all right?”

  “Yes, I…sorry, I think someone just followed me here.”

  ó Cuinn’s reaction to that was unexpected, to say the least—he glanced quickly past me, and then smiled. “Yes, well…perhaps we can talk in my office.”

  It was such an inappropriate response that I wanted to shout at him; I would’ve turned around and left, except that something was still out there. Something that didn’t seem to shock Dr. Conor ó Cuinn.

  It crossed my mind then to wonder if what had followed me had been ó Cuinn himself. Could he have somehow beat me to the entrance, or used some other way into the building? Or even put someone else up to it? But why?

  “Dr. ó Cuinn…”

  “Call me Conor.” He gestured down the hallway. “Please.”

  I followed him. At least that way he was ahead of me, always in sight.

  ó Cuinn’s “office” turned out to be little more than a storage closet, with boxes lining two walls, a window with the blinds drawn over it on a third wall, and beat-up metal desk and threadbare chair against the fourth. On the desk were a tablet computer and plug-in keyboard, a pen,
a pad of paper, and a few books. He gestured at a metal folding chair pushed up against the cardboard crates, and he took the ancient rolling chair behind the desk.

  “I’m sorry, I don’t have anything to offer you…” He waved a hand around the space, indicating the lack of coffee maker or even water cooler.

  “That’s okay, but I…” I decided to be honest with him and see how he reacted. “Something was definitely after me just now, outside.”

  He peered at me for an instant, and I found myself disliking his narrow features and dark eyes (black Irish) all over again. After a few seconds, he looked away and asked, “So, you said you’ve read most of the manuscript?”

  “Most of it, yes. I haven’t looked at some of the longer sections in detail yet, the…”

  “Spells?”

  “Well…yes.” There were lengthy sections of the manuscript that seemed to be little more than very precise descriptions of rituals and ceremonies, or how to gather and dry certain herbs, or how to enact what could only be called “spells.” I’d glanced at a few of them, but had tuned out when I’d seen words like “wand” and “sacrifice.”

  I should probably mention here that I’m a confirmed, die-hard skeptic, and always have been. I’ve never believed in ghosts, UFOs, Bigfoot, Nessie, reincarnation, conspiracy theories (most of them, anyway), demonic possession (although I’d like to—it would explain a lot), Echinacea’s ability to prevent a cold, Mount Olympus, trickle-down economics, chupacabras, magic (other than illusion), vampires, werewolves, or any religion you’d care to offer up. I’m a longtime subscriber to Skeptical Inquirer magazine, and for entertainment I enjoy watching YouTube videos of James Randi debunking various so-called “paranormal” happenings.