The Silver Bough

by Lisa Tuttle

  “Wait, wait.” Reluctantly she pushed him away. “I still don’t understand. What happens after we make love?”

  “She didn’t tell you?”

  “Who?” She frowned. “Phemie? But she never told me anything. It was only when I saw your picture with hers in an old newspaper that I guessed…”

  She broke off, aware that Ronan had gone tense with listening to something else. She heard it, too, a noise from above them in the dark sky. She had the sense that a large flock of birds was passing overhead, but it didn’t sound like birds. As she strained her ears to make sense of it, she thought she could hear screaming, and furious shouting, and thuds and crashes, heavy blows, weapons connecting with other weapons, and with flesh, in some incomprehensible battle. She opened her mouth to ask, and he pressed his hand against it, warning her to keep quiet.

  They huddled together in silence for long, uncounted minutes while Ashley tried to figure out who was fighting, and where—surely it couldn’t be up in the air, as it sounded. She stared up into the darkness, her eyes attempting to conjure shapes out of the emptiness, until, gradually, the sound diminished, as if the invisible battle were moving somewhere else.

  “What was it?” she whispered.

  “The sluagh,” he said in his normal voice.

  “What?”

  “They’re some sort of spirits—some people call them the host of the unforgiven dead. They were believed to go flying about above the world in great clouds, doing evil when they could, and constantly fighting with each other. In the morning you’d see their blood splashed on the rocks. The blood of the hosts—fuil nan sluagh—is another name for red crotal, that’s the lichen used for dyeing Harris tweed.”

  He spoke matter-of-factly, and she gaped at him. “But that’s a myth, right? They’re not real.”

  “How real do you want? You heard them.”

  “But there must be some other explanation for that noise. I mean—”

  He grasped her hands firmly and leaned in close, this time not for a kiss, but to fix her with his gaze. “Understand: You’re not in the world you used to know, not anymore. We’re on an island now, and it’s slipping into another reality where all the things you’ve been brought up to think of as legends are alive and powerful. I’m very glad the sluagh passed over without noticing us, because one of their nastier tricks is to snatch up people, drag them all over the place, and eventually throw them down to their deaths. Telling yourself they’re not real is no protection.”

  She remembered the shell of the Grand Hotel, and the dance music she’d heard, the party she’d glimpsed from afar, and shivered. “How did this happen? Why now? Is it because of you?”

  “I think so. Probably. Yes.” Abruptly, he dropped her hands, and his voice hardened. “But it’s not my fault. Better blame my grandfather. He’s the one who dragged my poor mother back here—and dragged me into this world where I don’t belong. That’s where the whole imbalance began; I’m sure of it.”

  “Ronan, I’m not blaming you.” She grasped his arm and stroked it. “I just want to understand. Is there some way of making things right, of…restoring the balance?”

  He was silent for a moment. “You don’t know?”

  She shook her head. “I’m in the dark here.” She smiled, because it was literally true.

  “When a golden apple appears, it’s as if all the magic of this land is concentrated in it. The woman and the man who share it can have whatever they desire most—no matter how impossible their wish might seem. There was a golden apple the year my mother was Queen, and again the year Phemie was crowned.”

  “But she didn’t eat it!” She blurted it out without thinking, but he didn’t question how she knew.

  “That’s right. She didn’t want it, and neither did I—it was something the town tried to foist upon us. They were going to make me redeem my mother’s mistake. My grandfather’s mistake, it was, really, for dragging her back, but of course they never blamed him—it was she they blamed for every misfortune, and after she had died, they shifted the blame to me.

  “Have you ever noticed—no, you’re probably still too young; you’ll have to take my word for it. People always talk about how things were different, better, right in the olden days, when they were young and the world operated as it was supposed to, and people all knew their places in the scheme of things. They probably talked like that when people lived in caves; how caves never used to smell or get so damp, and the animals were fatter and the fish jumped into the nets…they want to believe in a golden age, and blame somebody or something for the collective fall from grace.

  “So, supposedly, nothing was ever quite so good in Appleton after my mother’s return. When she was dead, it became my fault. I became a sort of living symbol of bad luck. Even when I was providing steady employment and bringing wealth into the town it was never enough, somehow, never as good as it would have been if only I’d never been born. And my one chance to make things right was to go back to where I’d come from. This was made quite clear to me. I’m sure it must have been the only time in the history of the Apple Fair when the ‘stranger’ was chosen even before the Apple Queen! I knew what my role was meant to be. Only I wasn’t ready to play it.

  “And now there’s another golden apple, ripe and ready to be picked. Another chance. If you’ll share it with me?”

  She nodded, unable to speak. He moved to kiss her, but she pulled back.

  “Do we have to do it here?”

  He obviously didn’t understand, so she elaborated. “We don’t have to make love in the cemetery, do we? Can we go back to my place and do it there?” Her voice wavered a little.

  “We can make love wherever you like. And however you like.” He stood up and helped her to her feet.

  “It’ll be more comfortable,” she said. She thought of the bed, and also of the pack of condoms she’d brought in her luggage all the way from Texas. It might be ridiculously petty to think about such a thing when she’d just agreed to abandon the only world she knew for him—but what if it wasn’t true? What if they were both pretending? Trust in Allah, but keep a close guard on your camel, she thought as, hand in hand, they began to pick their way cautiously between the graves and headstones toward the gate.

  “Whose grave were you looking at when I found you?” she asked, just to break the silence.

  “Not a grave. The memorial tablet to my mother.”

  “There’s no grave?”

  “They never found her body.”

  “What happened?”

  “They said it was suicide. I don’t think so. I think she escaped.”

  “Escaped?”

  “She jumped into the sea. Someone saw her; it was at the roadside, by those big rocks. It’s very rocky there, and the water isn’t very deep. If she’d died, they would have found a body. They didn’t. No one ever found her body. I think she got away at last. I think she found her way back.”

  From Magic Islands

  by Gracia McWilliams

  (Turtle Press, 2004)

  SEVERAL sites in Scotland can also lay claim to being the “real” Isle of Avalon. These include not only the mysterious phantom island of HyBrasil, but also a few places much easier to locate on the map and actually visit.

  Among the most interesting to the visitor are the island of Lismore, whose name means “Great Garden” and which was the burial place of Pictish kings; and the Appleton peninsula, which boasts “King Arthur’s footprints” on its shore, not far from a cave whose unimpressive size and appearance has not stopped it being pointed out to generations of visitors and locals alike as the one where the great king of the Britons lies in an enchanted sleep.

  Although Appleton is part of mainland Scotland, its older name of Innis Ubhall, or “Apple Island,” suggests that this was a recent development; and, indeed, only a single, narrow road and a few hundred yards of earth and stone sustain the connection. It is not hard, looking at a map, to imagine that “stem” severed, and if hard facts
are missing to back up the perception, nevertheless local folklore is rich in reasons to believe. During the month I stayed in Appleton I heard many stories and perhaps half a dozen explanations for why “the apple” either decided or was forced to forfeit its status as an enchanted, drifting island. The most popular (judging from the enthusiasm of the audience at the ceilidh where I first heard it) was a tale of human trickery: An ordinary man, an impoverished youngest son, uses his resourcefulness and quick wits to win in a contest against a supernatural opponent. But the one I liked best (romantic that I am!) was a love story.

  She was the priestess/princess on the magic isle, the youngest of three; he was a poor young fisherman who one day chanced to drift or row a bit too far from shore. They fell in love at first sight. She was a magical immortal being; he was not. However, it had always been in the gift of the priestesses to allow some worthy mortals to join them, to eat the magic apples that grew on the island, and dwell there forever. But the two older sisters (or they may have been her mother and grandmother) refused to allow that in this case. He was only a common fisherman, not a hero, not of noble blood, and therefore not good enough for her or the island.

  She did not give up. Using the birds of the air and the fish of the sea she managed to communicate with her young man, and one night in the early 1600s (unusually for this sort of story, it’s set in historic times; even the year was specified, although for each storyteller it was slightly different), she ran the island aground in order to be with her lover, and the other two women were unable to shift it. This was partly because their magic powers were waning in the face of the rationalistic modern world, partly because the great love between the two young people created its own power.

  Mortals came to live on the grounded island, but the old magic did not die. The youngest of the sisters had children who still carried the old magic in their blood, as did the apple trees that continued to flourish on the land. And as long as the apples grew, and lovers remembered the meaning of a shared apple, all would be well, and Innis Ubhall remained a demi-paradise.

  Only one of the storytellers—he had to be the oldest, tiniest man I’ve ever seen!—sounded a darker note at the end of this tale, sorrowfully shaking his head as he warned his rapt audience of their impending fate:

  “Once upon a time, the magical pact was renewed every year, when the Apple Queen shared an apple with her lover, on behalf of us all,” he said. “But the orchards are all gone now, and although a few people still grow apples, they’re hard and sour, no good for eating. It has been more than fifty years since the last Apple Queen. Ever since she ran away, refusing the gift, things have gone from bad to worse. I don’t know if such a gift will ever be offered us again; but if it is, and if it is ignored again, we’ll have only ourselves to blame.”

  Some of the older members of the audience nodded gloomily, and everybody there seemed to know what he meant—except me. I had to ask, “Excuse me, but what do you think will happen if this gift is ignored again?”

  “I think those other two ladies will get their way and take the apple back to be an island, only this time it won’t be a paradise. Not for us. Far from it.”

  I asked him when he thought this was likely to happen, and he replied that it could be any day, for Appleton was living “on borrowed time.”

  Indeed, there is a general air of gloom—doubtless because of the depressed economy—throughout Appleton, which is at odds with the beautiful scenery and warmly hospitable nature of the inhabitants which should, by rights, attract loads of tourists. Forgotten it may be—and most undeservedly—but I really don’t believe that scenic little spot is in any danger of drifting out to sea. It was nearly two years ago that I heard the wizened old storyteller make his dire prediction, and, as I write, Appleton is still attached to the rest of Scotland, and still most firmly on the map.

  AS SHE STOOD staring at the mass of rock and mud and rubble that blocked the road, Kathleen heard a car approaching. She didn’t turn to look, but when it stopped and the engine switched off, she felt intruded upon, and edged aside, heading back for her car, hoping she could get away without the need for conversation. She was feeling decidedly fragile after her experience in Ina McClusky’s house.

  “Kathleen?”

  Her heart gave a great leap, and she stopped and turned to face him. Dave Varney looked more tentative than she’d imagined he could, and on an impulse she said, “Were you trying to run away, too?”

  He flinched. “Too? Does that mean you got my note?”

  “What note?”

  “So you weren’t running away from me.”

  “I hadn’t noticed you chasing,” she said, rather tartly.

  “It’s not for lack of desire, believe me. Or the will. But things have been conspiring against me.”

  “Things?”

  “Mechanical things. My phone. This…vee-hicle. If I told you everything, it’d be like ‘the dog ate my homework, miss, and then the bus hit a dinosaur…’”

  She laughed. He smiled, looking less strained, and as their eyes met she felt a current running between them, and knew he felt it too. “So…you wrote me a note?”

  “Mmm. In my old-fashioned way. Handwritten, hand-delivered—I got to the library about fifteen minutes too late, so I pushed it through the mail slot in the library house door, and hoped you were in, or would be very soon…and I walked around for a bit, then I thought I’d drive around for a bit; and then I saw you.”

  “And thought I’d been so freaked out by your note that I was trying to escape?”

  He screwed up his face, looking embarrassed. “Well, it wasn’t the response I’d hoped for.”

  “Are you going to tell me what it said?”

  “Not right this minute. Do you want to go somewhere? For a drink or something?”

  “Sure.”

  He made a gesture toward his car, but she stepped back, looking at her own. “I’d rather not leave mine here. Why don’t we meet somewhere?”

  He looked uncomfortable. “Um, if you don’t mind…I mean, if you’re driving anyway, could I come with you?”

  She looked from his gleaming Porsche to her cheap-and-cheerful Micra, and she shrugged. “I don’t mind. I guess I could bring you back here to pick up your car later…”

  “I don’t want to put you to any trouble,” he said quickly. “You don’t have to do that. It’s just that I’m afraid…I have this feeling…that something else might happen if we don’t stick together. I don’t want to lose you.”

  Her heart gave a leap at his words, and she turned away, shaken. Was he for real? “OK, let’s go. Harbour Bar at the Victoria all right?”

  Neither of them spoke during the short drive back. She wondered if he felt he’d said too much already, or if she was ridiculously oversensitive, ascribing a deeply personal meaning to lightly meant remarks. At this time of day the street in front of the library was deserted, as usual, so she parked there, close to home. “The Vic’s just around the corner,” she explained.

  “Your local?”

  “I guess.” She didn’t care for visiting bars on her own, and had been inside the Harbour Bar only once. “The food isn’t the greatest.”

  “Thanks for the warning. We’ll stick to liquid sustenance. The drinks are all right?”

  “They don’t do cocktails.”

  He looked comically shocked. “Neither do I!”

  As they approached the front of the hotel they saw that two small tables for two had been set out on the sidewalk.

  “How very Mediterranean,” he said. “Shall we?”

  “Absolutely.”

  He pulled out a chair for her.

  “We have to make the most of this weather,” she said. “It can’t go on like this forever. It’s October.”

  “Are you sure of that?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It may be October in the rest of the world, but is it here? Are we still following the same calendar? Are we in the same time zone? Do the same
rules still apply?”

  She looked at him uncertainly, but before she could say anything, a bright-eyed, fresh-faced young woman wearing a crisp white blouse and short black skirt approached their table asking what they’d like to drink.

  “A glass of red wine for me.”

  “My tipple as well. Shall we get a bottle?”

  “If you like.”

  “No, if you like. I won’t bother unless you’ll have an equal share.”

  “I think I could manage a couple of glasses.”

  “OK, then. Any preferences?”

  “I’ll leave it to you—the one you ordered with dinner on Saturday was very nice.”

  As he fell into a discussion with their server about the wines on offer, Kathleen looked at her watch and saw that it had stopped. She looked at Dave’s arms, bare where he’d pushed up his sleeves, showing coppery hairs and freckled, lightly tanned skin, but no watch. His hands had neatly trimmed nails and pinkish, rather prominent knuckles. He wore a plain, flat platinum band on the fourth finger of his left hand. She glanced at it and glanced away again, remembering the wife who had died so young of cancer. Kay was her name, Kay Riddle. He had spoken of her quite naturally, without awkwardness, during that first evening they’d spent together, not dwelling on it, but letting her know about his loss, and thereafter able to say “we” or refer to Kay without further explanation. That he’d loved his wife very much—that he loved her still—she didn’t doubt. The sight of his wedding ring gave her a small pang, but it was only a small one. After all, they weren’t kids, they both had their private histories, and there was no sense in being jealous of a dead woman.

  “I did try to call you,” he said quietly, and she flashed him a startled look, feeling uncomfortably as if he’d just homed in on her innermost feelings. “I couldn’t get through. Is your phone working all right?”

  She thought of the trouble she’d had in the library. “I’m not sure.”

  “I can’t use mine at all. No network coverage for the cell phone, and I had to unplug the landline because otherwise it would keep ringing, and—”