by E. E. Holmes
I stepped out of line and started for the staircase, but Hannah caught my arm.
“Jess? Where are you going? The procession is about to start!” she whispered.
“I’m just going to talk to Savvy. I’ll be right back,” I said.
“But what if the line starts without you?” Hannah asked. She fidgeted nervously with her sash.
“Look, do you want to come with me, if you’re so anxious about it?” I asked her. “It’s just a line of people. I’m pretty sure we can just step right back into it if it leaves without us. It’s not a train, Hannah.”
Hannah made a face at me and followed me across to the staircase. When we reached the foot of it, we could finally hear what Siobhán was saying.
“Perhaps if Celeste or I were to go up and speak with her—”
“Be my bloody guest,” Savvy cried, throwing her hands up in the air. “If you can get her out of that room, I’ll take up abstinence.”
“From what?” Siobhán asked, smirking sardonically.
“From bloody everything!” Savvy hollered. Several people nearest the stairs craned their necks to investigate. “Mind you, she thinks you’re part of her hallucination, so if you manage to pull that one off, you’re a bleeding miracle worker, you are.”
“Sav? Everything okay?” I called softly up the steps.
Savvy spotted me and immediately turned away from Siobhán, who was still talking, and descended the steps.
“This is not what I signed up for, I’ll tell you that for free,” Savvy said as she arrived at the bottom of the staircase.
“What happened?” Hannah asked.
“It’s Frankie! She’s still convinced she’s concocted this place inside her head. She won’t come out of her room, she won’t read any of the books we gave her, she ignores every lesson, every assignment. We even took the Wards off her bedroom and told the resident ghosts to have at it. They’re floating in and out of there morning, noon, and night, and she still won’t admit she can see them.”
“Wow, really?” I asked. “You’ve got to give her credit, she’s committed.”
Savvy snorted. “Yeah, well if she doesn’t un-commit soon, I’m gonna go round the twist. We all thought she’d come around by now, but it’s been weeks, and she hasn’t budged an inch. Siobhán’s acting like this is my fault, but no one’s pinning this on me. You can’t mentor someone who refuses to believe you exist, for fuck’s sake.” She pointed to a red mark just below her jawline. “When I went up there just now to try to coax her down, she threw a book right at my bloody head!”
“Yikes,” I said. “You okay?”
“I’ll live. Might have to kill her, though. Maybe she’ll believe in ghosts if she is one,” Savvy said, rubbing her jaw.
“Why does she need to come to the Airechtas?” I asked. “She doesn’t need to vote, does she?”
Savvy shook her head. “Nah, she and her sister don’t become an official clan until they’re initiated, and we can’t do that while she’s… well…”
“Rejecting all attempts to bring her back to reality?” I suggested.
“Yeah,” Savvy said ruefully. “I spent the last hour trying to convince Frankie to come downstairs. I gave it a go for as long as I could, but Phoebe and I have to be at the Airechtas as well.” She pointed to her own lavender sash and pulled a face. “We’re the only ones in our clan, so we can’t count on anyone else to sit through it for us. I would have made Phoebe go alone, but she’s such a moron, I doubt she’d know when to raise her hand.”
Savvy looked over her shoulder. I followed her gaze. Phoebe stood at the very back of the line. She was staring blankly into space, twisting a strand of hair around her finger and chewing on it. Poor Savvy detested being so closely tied to her cousin, whom she’d only met a handful of times during her childhood. At first, I’d thought Savvy was being too hard on Phoebe, just because Phoebe had grown up in a tiny country village, but my subsequent interactions with her had justified Savvy’s many complaints: Phoebe was, in all likelihood, the dullest person ever in the history of the world. No wonder Savvy was on a constant quest for her next irresponsible, spontaneous decision—she was just trying to balance things out.
“I can talk to Frankie later tonight, if you want,” Hannah offered. “When the Airechtas is over.”
Savvy sighed in relief. “Would you? I’d be ever so grateful. I know you mentioned it before, but I wasn’t going to pressure you, especially now that Frankie’s taken to throwing things.”
Hannah laughed lightly. “Sav, I’ve been her. Seriously, however badly she’s dealing with it, I’ve been worse. Trust me. On the meds, off the meds, in denial, in full-out panic mode, I ran the whole spectrum before Jess and Karen broke me out. I can get through to Frankie, I know I can.”
“Better wear protective headgear, then,” Savvy groaned, rubbing the mark on her face. It was just starting to bruise.
A second gong resounded through the hall, making my head ring. At the front of the line, the massive double doors of the Grand Council Room creaked slowly open.
“Good luck staying awake,” I said to Savvy over my shoulder as we rejoined the line. She grinned at me, then flipped me off. I turned back around, and gasped at the sight before me.
Even in my unenthused state, the sight of the inside of the hall took my breath away. All the candles in the ancient wooden chandeliers had been lit, casting a dancing golden light over the entire space. Long mahogany tables stood end to end across the entire length of the room, draped in gold clothes that were embroidered with a pattern of Triskeles and Celtic knots in glinting silver thread. High-backed chairs stood along the tables. A silver panel of fabric was tied to the back of each one, embroidered with the name of the clan who was to sit there. The bare stone walls were no longer visible. Instead, the many elaborate tapestries from the upper halls of the castle had been brought down and hung, so that we now seemed to be processing into a portrait gallery. Every High Priestess of the last millennium gazed regally down upon us, seeming to exert collective authority over the proceedings from beyond the Aether.
I scanned the tapestries until I found the haughty, imperial gaze of Agnes Isherwood, my own ancestor, bearing down on me. Was it naïve that I thought I could see a family resemblance in her long straight nose, her dark hair, and her wide eyes? Did I perhaps just wish I saw some of myself up there—a desperate attempt to prove to myself that I belonged here in this castle that seemed constantly to be chewing me up and spitting me out?
Agnes Isherwood wasn’t just a distant ancestor to whom time had eroded my feeble connection. She was a Seer who made the very Prophecy that had shaped the course of my life, and so many other lives as well. The Isherwood Prophecy had sown the seeds of fear amongst the Northern Clans, and those seeds had flourished and run rampant—a stifling, choking weed that had entangled many Durupinen before us, twisting and knotting them in a snare they could not escape. As I stared up into her face, I could not tell if I wanted to salute Agnes Isherwood’s image, or hold a lighter to the damn thing and watch it go up in flames.
Tearing my eyes from Agnes, I followed Hannah down the center aisle between the tables, searching as I did so for our clan name on any of the chairs. Finally, I spotted Clan Sassanaigh in the second row from the front. We slid into the aisle to stand behind the chairs, but did not yet sit, taking our cue from the many other Durupinen already standing in their assigned places.
“Do you think anyone would notice if we just grabbed a spot in the last row?” I asked Hannah, leaning in so that no one would hear me. Róisín and Riley were standing in the row directly behind us.
“This isn’t exactly an open seating situation, Jess,” Hannah hissed. “We just have to suck it up. Besides, I don’t think this meeting is going to be any shorter or any more interesting from the back row.”
“It would be if I was asleep,” I muttered, so quietly that she either didn’t hear me, or pretended not to.
As we stood behind our chairs,
waiting for everyone to file into their places, I ran my fingers over the delicate silver embroidery on the chair cover. Now that I could see it up close, the sheen of the fabric was worn down in places, and a few of the seams were slightly frayed. This chair cover, with our clan name on it, was probably the oldest piece of fabric I’d ever touched. It ought to have been in a museum… well, if clandestine matriarchal societies shrouded in centuries of secrecy actually had museums.
Finally, a hush settled over the assembled rows of Durupinen as the last of the seats were filled. After a few long moments of anticipatory silence, a lone flute began to play, the sound of it filling the hall so completely that it was impossible to tell where the musician might be hiding. As the melody swelled with quintessentially Celtic tones, the members of the Council started filing in. I turned to watch their procession toward the raised benches at the head of the room, and took immediate note of their attire. I had stood before the Council a number of times, but they had always been dressed in their own street clothes. Now each wore a long gold robe, not unlike something a particularly flashy gospel choir might don, except with unusually high collars and lace-edged sleeves that draped from their wrists and trailed behind them like trains on wedding dresses. As they drew closer, I could also see that upon each head rested a delicate circlet of hammered gold leaves on a twisted vine. I knew they must be hundreds of years old, and yet it did not seem possible that something so fragile could last for so long and still be in such pristine condition. Could objects, like people, be repaired and renewed through Leeching, I found myself wondering?
Fiona stumped by me, looking bad-tempered as usual. Her circlet was slightly askew and the hands peeking out from the sleeves of her robe were splattered with paint, as were the tips of her grubby old work boots. Several Durupinen were staring at her as she stomped past, their expressions disapproving. As she passed our row, Fiona caught my eye and gave me a wink and a grimace that quite clearly said, “Can you believe we have to participate in this arcane bullshit?” I fought against a laugh that threatened to bubble up in my throat.
The Council members filed into their places in the benches and turned to face the assembly. I realized as I listened to the music swelling that it was incomplete. The last time I’d heard music accompanying a Durupinen procession was when Hannah and I were being Initiated as our clan’s new Gateway. As we had walked to the central courtyard, nervously clutching our candles, a flute and a violin had serenaded us. That violin had been played hauntingly by none other than Catriona; now, it was the absence of her playing that was haunting. Equally haunting was the gaping hole in the Council formation, where Catriona ought to have been standing at that moment.
A military drum began to pound a steady rhythm and the Caomhnóir trooped into the room in tight marching formation. They were outfitted in their formal uniforms, each draped with the sash of the clan they were sworn to protect. I could just glimpse Finn’s stoic face in the fourth row, his chest thrown out as though it could barely contain the deep-seated pride he felt for his duty. I smothered the fluttery feeling he set off in my stomach and the smile that was trying to tug at the corners of my mouth; surrounded by the entirety of the Northern Clans was probably not the best place to betray my forbidden relationship with Finn.
The Caomhnóir split off and filed into two long lines, one on either side of the Grand Council Room, so that they seemed to be standing guard over the tapestries along the walls above their heads. As the last Caomhnóir assumed their posts, the final beat of the drum struck, echoing through the room so that the silence that followed it seemed almost oppressive. Then the doors to the hall opened again and Finvarra entered to renewed melodies from the flute.
Rightfully, she ought to have been sweeping up the aisle on her own two feet with sure, and steady steps. Instead, two Caomhnóir pushed her wheelchair slowly toward the front of the room. Carrick floated along behind them; deep concern for his mistress had carved his face into a craggy landscape of worry. Finvarra looked shrunken and feeble, somehow even frailer than when I’d seen her yesterday. She was wearing robes of shimmering gold fabric. A circlet, much more elaborate than the others, clung precariously to what was left of her hair. Beneath that circlet, though, Finvarra held her chin high and a fierce fire burned bright in her eyes. She seemed determined, through sheer force of will, to lay claim to her dignity and her power before the entire assembly, regardless of the state of her health. I felt a totally unexpected surge of pride that she was our High Priestess. In spite of all of our clashes and disagreements, I felt nothing but respect for her in this moment.
Because that’s the thing about women, isn’t it? You can push us down, and you can bury us, and you can heap the world on top of us, until we must surely crumble to dust. And instead, we turn into diamonds.
I seemed to be alone in my reaction, however. All around me, gasps and cries of shock rose from the crowd. Evidently, many of the Durupinen had not known Finvarra was ill, or at least did not realize the severity of her condition. Three seats away from me, an older woman had burst into sobs, which she quickly stifled with her hands. She turned and buried her face in the shoulder of the woman beside her, who began to stroke her hair as tears dripped silently down her own face. I stole a glance at Hannah; her bottom lip was trembling.
Finvarra did not deign to notice any of these reactions from her audience. The Caomhnóir wheeled her into her position at the High Priestess’ throne, but they did not move her into the seat itself; perhaps they thought she would not be able to tolerate being lifted from her wheelchair. Perhaps she simply did not want to suffer the indignity of everyone watching her struggle.
When Finvarra was in position, she raised her arms and the flute died away on a long, haunting note and went silent. The mutterings and whisperings amongst the assembled Durupinen died away as well.
Finvarra’s voice, though shot through with a quiver that she could not master, was full of unbridled fierceness, as though she dared everyone in the room, with every word, to deny that she was at anything less than her most powerful.
“Welcome, my sisters, to the 203rd Airechtas of the Durupinen of the Northern Clans. For over a millennium now, the clans of the Northern Isles have met once every five years in the week leading up to the winter solstice. As we gather together, we look to the future, and recommit ourselves to our sacred duties as the keepers of the Gateways. In many ways, this year is no different; we will make proposals, cast votes, and shape our policies as we have always done. In one important way, however, this Airechtas is, perhaps, the most significant we have ever held.”
Though utter silence had fallen at the first sound of her voice, the quiet deepened now. My own pulse sped up, sure I knew what she was referring to, and wishing I could sink through the floor and out of sight as she continued to gaze imperiously over us. I felt like every single pair of eyes behind us was now boring into the back of my head like hundreds of tiny drills.
“For hundreds of years, we have feared the coming of the Isherwood Prophecy. We shaped our policy around its looming threat. Its terrible weight forced our hands again and again as we tried in vain to throw it from us. There has not been a time, in living memory, when we did not live in fear, looking over our shoulders for a whisper, a sign of its approach.”
A woman standing diagonally in front of us actually turned around to sneak a glimpse of Hannah and me. I turned and met her eyes so fiercely that she whipped her head back around at once, blushing furiously.
“And now, for the first time, the threat of the Prophecy is gone. We have come face to face with our greatest threat, and we have survived it. Our sisterhood cannot help but be shaped by the absence of the Prophecy now, just as it had always been shaped by its presence,” Finvarra said. The mandate in her voice was clear. “In the immediate aftermath, appropriate measures were taken to investigate every detail and to punish those responsible for the near-destruction of our world. Those measures were devised not only by the Council of the Northern Cl
ans, but also by the International High Council. They were not made lightly, and they will not be questioned further. They will not be made the subject of further debate, or used to drag down the vital work we must do this week.”
I shifted my footing so that I could see Marion out of the corner of my eye. Her expression was stony, with no hint of her trademark smugness. Her hands, clutching the back of her chair, were white at the knuckles.
“We will not allow our enemies to divide us even as we try to heal. We will not look back; we will not look to shift blame, to point fingers, to propagate fear and mistrust. That was the way of the past, and it nearly destroyed us. From today, we only look forward. How can we learn and grow from this experience we have had? How can we take the lessons gleaned from it, and apply them to our clans? How do we recommit to our Calling?”
She looked sternly around the room. Several people shifted and looked at each other, as though unsure if Finvarra was actually expecting someone to answer her. No one spoke up, though, and Finvarra continued. “We will explore this question as we move forward this week. It should be the foundation for all that we work toward. Before you propose a policy change, or an amendment, or contribute any suggestion to the week’s proceedings, you must first be able to answer that question: how does this move us forward?”
All around the hall, heads were nodding in agreement. Whatever Finvarra lacked in physical strength at the moment, she more than made up for in authority and inspiration as she spoke. Her audience was captive to her, just as it always had been when she was able to stand on her own two feet. In fact, I thought I could sense an even deeper respect now, running like a current through the room.
“As you have all no doubt noticed, I am not long for this world,” Finvarra said. A ripple of murmuring rose and fell within the crowd. A few Council Members seemed to be attempting to quietly protest the pronouncement. Finvarra was having none of it.