by Unknown
Solstice
It is the day of the Summer Solstice and I prepare myself for the night ahead by sleeping late yet again and then working on my martial arts moves before a shower and choosing the correct T shirt for the coming confrontation. I have black jeans and I am going to wear these with my usual Doc Martins but the T shirt has to feel just right which takes me almost two hours of internal argument before I finally pick one with a rather splendid panther on it. To complete the ensemble I have a short black leather jacket, with a few casually placed studs on it. I congratulate myself on the final look and as an after thought to my femininity spray myself with something expensive and quite raunchy.
I have told Hilda that I plan to meet with him and hopefully not get taken. She does not think this a good idea but I cannot think of another way that I can get him back to this Alfheim place. I have my martial art skills that he is not aware of and also some measure of magic ability which will have to suffice. If I do not go he will come for me and that would place the others in danger. John at the least would try and take charge of the matter and he is not a trained warrior despite his love of martial arts. The group might well also step in and that would be disastrous. I cannot risk any one of them. So, I beg that she does not mention this to my brothers or even to Aylsa until after midnight. I am fairly certain that his glade is somewhere in the small wood at the back of Meadow Lane, as there is a brook running through it down to the river before it reaches the estuary. All I have to do is wait until I feel him attempt to pull me to him and when the time is critical make my way to the glade.
We wait indoors and it is not long after seven when I feel the first tug of his sending. Now all I have to do is resist. By ten thirty this is becoming more impossible than difficult and I decide I have time to make slow steps to meet him. I walk from Hilda's house to the end of Meadow Lane the houses I pass are all so neat and tidy with manicured gardens and curtains that match. It clashes so with all that I have been through and have to face. On the one side the gracefulness of a suburban street and on the other alien beings and magic. The whole scene is suddenly taking on a surreal twist. As I climb over the style which gives access into the wood, I can feel a storm brewing and before I have gone more than ten yards, it is suddenly upon me. I dive for shelter under a large oak. The wind has gone wild. It beats the trees and assaults the bushes. Following in its wake, the rain deals killer blows until the wood whimpers in its pain, and those small creatures left racing for their homes cower under logs and stones. I sit hugging my knees and rocking in time to the winds howling. You only had to ask, my mad lover. You only had to ask. I was yours before ever I knew you, but it has to be on my terms, I thought, my head throbbing in pain and my body aching for his.
Lightening has split the sky and now the thunder rolls defiant. Then as abruptly as it began the rain ceases, but the air still hangs heavy and threatening. I think about the revellers that will gather soon in the town square and wish I could turn back time a whole week. I pass hawthorn and ash close growing to hazel where soon nuts will be forming and I hear the sound of the stream as I approach but its lazy idleness has turned to a roaring torrent. All somehow fitting for my mood, or is my mood shaping the things around me. I am suddenly too tired to think straight any more. In this manner I enter his glade.
Now I need some good delaying tactics. He is surprisingly dry after that rain as he stand there waiting for me. “You took your good time”, he says.
“Maybe I dance to no man's calling” , I answer him.
“Ah but you have already told me I am not a man as you would name one.”
He is so pleased with himself and that fuels my anger.
“How did you finally find me”, I ask, “Considering my mother took considerable lengths to hide us from you?”
“Music”, he replied,“We use song to seek out love but we also use it to lure our enemies to their deaths, Music is important to us not only for the pleasure of its sound but also its usefulness in spinning a geas. Whatever you have been told of us, you are of our blood and it shows in your mastery of song. I have watched you play with the crowd on many a night and it was one of the things that led me to know you were the one I was seeking. But even if it had not been so, I would have stayed to listen to your songs. Finally, you sang that song about one of our kind who changed his shape to win the love of a girl, and you looked directly at me. It felt as if you sang it only for me and not the crowd. You looked at me as if I was the only one there that mattered. It felt, I thought it felt as if you were sending me an invitation, but you kept hiding from me and that too I read as being your desire for me to pursue you. So I came to you in a vision occasioned by the rose and you showed no sign that my advances were refused, in fact you welcomed them.”
I had the grace to blush. “I thought I was having a dream. There is a difference between what we think we want and what we should want, or something like that. I thought it was not real so it did not matter .”
“It was real for me,” he said, his voice suddenly bitter.
Me too, I thought but I cannot trust you with that information. Damn there is nothing worse than feeling guilty when you fancied yourself so self righteous. “So”, I continued “which high living whore seduced you for relief from her aged husbands lack of interest?”
“Your grandmother”, he replied matter of factly. “I was one of her favourite guardsmen”.
“You were her lover”, I almost screamed it, “How do you people live with yourselves”
“It was considered a great honour,” he replied, “and besides that she is a very beautiful woman
“An honour”, my mind tried to work its way around that one, then a thought hit me, “Don't tell me you are my grandfather”.
“I have no issue,” he said his face now stern and unreadable. “Now if you have quite finished wasting my time we have a portal to cross.”
“Look this is hardly all my fault, I have never even met this grandmother and my own mother has been missing all these long years, I don't even know anybody in this Alfheim place, I just want to stay here and be normal and grow up and well I just don't see why it has to be me that goes and it is not fair ”
He raises a fist to strike the air as if totally exasperated, which is how I want him, just slightly off balance and feeling superior.
“Don't hit me,” I simpered. “I will go quietly” Away from here, without you, my mind added on. He smiled, his lips curled and his eyes narrowed. Predatory, dangerous and too damn cocky by half. He moved cat like towards me crossing the glade at a swift pace. I lowered my eyes and shifted back slightly with my back against a tree trunk. He reached for me and I did not fight it as he pulled me towards him and my knee connected hard with his groin. Then I was flying through the air towards another tree trunk as he collapsed onto one knee fighting back what could have been a scream. I executed a rather rickety break fall. Yes it hurt, but he did not need to know that.
He took three deep breathes, his aura took on a glittery quality as he slowly stood. He clapped his hands together once and I saw electricity spark between them. Lightening played around him as he called to the gathering storm.
“Orbis”, I whispered, my sense of alarm suddenly off the scale.
“You low down cheating bitch,” he said with a smile that definitely did not reach his eyes.
I smiled back though it was more bravado and I hoped he did not realise. “I am learning from the best, my sweet,” I said.
The lightening arced towards me and blazed around my circle. I knew fear as the circle started to buckle. Things were suddenly heating up and I had limited ability to deal with this. Then without warning something within me coalesced. Something buried so deep down I had never been aware of its existence and now it rose up and gathered in my solar plexus. I felt my hair begin to float about me in an energy storm and my head snapped up as I held out my hands to repel the lightening. The shock on his face was worth it but I almost fried a tree. Thunder rolled. The air smell
ed of ozone. I had bitten my lip at some point and the words 'tasted blood', took on a whole new meaning. I felt it then for what it was; potent, true killer strength, power and the ability to carry it through and direct it at will. It was heady, exhilarating and far too dangerous. I did not want this. I released my hold on the anger and allowed it to dissipate. “I do not wish this,” I said.
He grimaced “And you think that I will stop because you do not wish it?” he replied.
“Yes”, I answered him, “because your employer wants me alive and undamaged. I have no market value if you damage me”.
He snorted a laugh. At this moment in time, this was not how he wanted things to end but he knew I was right.
“I could kill you,” he almost whispered.
I shook my head. “No, that I will never believe” A tear fell down my cheek, “That was the river, and this is the Sea', funny how you finally understand something years after you have heard it.”
“I misjudged you. I thought you untrained”, he continued.
“Well I was”, I sigh “Until you hit me, I was”
If Hilda had not noticed. If Aylsa had not wanted to see my brother's group. If. “I should have been easy prey”, there is no more emotion left in me.
His face was gaunt, strained. Part of me ached to wrap my arms around him, to hug him close and never let go. In the distance I heard people counting down to midnight when they would let of fireworks and party through until dawn. I sensed the power building up before I saw the portal start to form. The church bell pealed out to acknowledge the hour. He vanished from my sight. I fell to my knees howling like a wounded animal.
Aftermath and Leave Taking
When people spoke of the night of the last Solstice they remembered the strange storm that had almost drowned out the fireworks. It was localised over the small wood back where the beck runs to meet with the river estuary. It was notable for the lightening that seemed to fill up that sector of the sky and the tremendous thunder rolling down the hill as if someone was playing a giant percussion instrument in time to the light show, and then a cataclysm of water lashed the area with trees bending and falling. They say that if it had not been for the rain a truly monumental fire would have devastated the entire wood but then they do exaggerate don't they.
John, Ben and Aylsa found me still lying on the bank of the now raging stream. I was soaked through and foetal. They gathered some of the broken saplings and made a rough stretcher which they used to carry me back down to Hilda's. I was limp as they stripped me off and I was towelled dry, and so I remained for four days, occasionally accepting a sip of fluid and lost in strange dreams that led me to cry out . On the fifth day I sat up and accepted full cup of fluid. I felt as if I had aged a thousand years and every bone in my body ached. Then I ate . Two weeks passed whilst I played the invalid but on the start of the third I listened to my body and confided in Hilda that it was not only handkerchiefs that could make it through from a vision. It was harder explaining it to John.
Who am I? What am I becoming? Who is he and why are we alike?
He seems to have sparked a war inside of me and one that not only confuses me with its intensity but also raises issues of what is morally right or wrong. I am a half blood and therefore not quite human but not defined alien. I find his morality confusing but at least it appears to be honest with itself. Maybe they do play games and make it a little more glitzy than it seems but the bottom line is they are not being as deceitful as most humans are with each other. My human mind shaping stopped me from being honest and saying that the wanting him part came from within me as well as from his spells and yes I had sung to him and only him that night because, because I allowed the passion within me to reach out for the reflection I saw in him. It was a game that I wanted to play ;one that appealed to me because he was so potentially dangerous and therefore more exciting. I had felt stronger, wilder, potent, a true predator.
It seemed a good idea to leave the area for a while and as I did not want to ruin John's life as well as I had my own I suggested that he stay and take care of the band and the house and perhaps his new relationship whilst I dragged Benjamin off with me for a few months. To this end I had a word with Fergus who was the man who organised the travelling markets and he agreed to take Ben and I out with him and his wife Margo. We could set up as buskers which he thought would be a neat addition to the market's popularity.
For over three months we travelled around with the markets, singing what ever the public wanted and it has given us enough money to gain our own transport and a little more. Although we have paid our way, the traders have been so good to us, rather like an extended family. They have set circuits that they work so we have gone from our local one and been introduced to others gradually spreading out up the country. We were hopeful of branching out in search of some places where we can make an interesting difference to the quality and quantity of our music. And so far it has all been very stimulating, but yes we had needed to make enough to keep us and help in how we travelled. The guys in the markets spent a lot of time showing Benjamin how to drive and he was very happy to be doing so. I will not mention how happy he was for the girlies that chased him when we were in the local villages and towns. I just prayed that, as it was only brief, they recovered without any harm from their experience of him. I also learned to drive but it was not my major endeavour, I needed to know how to use magic in a more sophisticated form and this I tried to work upon. We left the guys before Suffolk and pushed on through rolling countryside with brief stops to replenish our savings , busking in the towns and cities and occasionally getting a booking for a club or the invitation to play at one of the public houses. Whilst I collected anything that I could that related to magic, Benjamin began to collect shirts, not the variety worn by the office types, but flamboyant hippy style ones in
a rainbow of colours. All this travel was changing him rapidly from the shy boy that started out with me into a very self assured hotty.
At this point we began to meet up with many other seekers, musicians and artists similar to ourselves and I absorbed any of their magic practices into my own expanding knowledge trying to fit and craft it together into a simpler whole. It was a good summer of festivals and music, with little rain and green fields to camp in, almost idyllic in a way and certainly good for my growing child.
Travelling gradually drew us northwards, we had bought an old van that served as both home and transport, but the weather was turning colder as winter drew in and we began to think of home and the coming Christmas celebrations. I too was looking a sorry site busking on street corners in the towns with my unsuitably enlarged belly sticking out like a sore thumb on my skinny frame. We made a last stop in Norwich where I could obtain some books and supplies from a shop I had been told of called Inanna's Festival on St Andrews Hill, and then we set off back down through East Anglia and Essex towards home.
It is late December when we arrive and the sight and noise of our van causes a stir in the town square. John being one of those that sticks his head out of the town hall to see what the commotion is about. We had written to him, but without a warning date in mind, of our progress. By the time we make it along the Street we have acquired Truthy as well as John. I come as a bit of a shock to them and not because of my size but the fact I have grown my hair and augmented lots of little plaits with coloured ribbons, wool and a general medley of strange things. Also gone are the jeans and T shirts as they no longer accommodate me, although I am hardly fat. I have had to embrace leggings and large floaty tops, not to mention woollen shawls and capes to keep the cold at bay. Everyone seems to be talking at once so we are all none the wiser as to what has or has not happened by the time home is in sight. John pulls me to one side as Ben and Truthy help each other to unpack the van, well squabble over it anyway. “I am going to marry Aylsa,” he says. I am so genuinely pleased for him and I say so. “Also,” he clears his throat and looks a little sheepish, “It will be very soon as she too is pregnant”
What can I say. I burst out laughing. I can only hope that Ben has been a little more thoughtful with his adventures of late.
Weddings and Celebrations
They have decided to marry after Christmas and this gives me just enough time to make some clothes for the celebration and help in planning a feast. The manager at the Docks is more than keen to host the wedding party and extra beer and mead is added to the now cramped back room. Benjamin has transported both Aylsa and Truthy to the nearby town to buy suitable clothing for the bridal party and Aylsa, who still does not show, looks so slim and pretty in her lace dress that I feel almost envious. Truthy is being a bridesmaid but I decline this offer as I am now the size of a small elephant, or at least I feel like I am! Friends and relatives are coming from all over for Aylsa and we have the group and some of the market people coming for us. I am just happy to sit things out and ruminate.
Christmas has been a wonderful time for us this year, spending it with Hilda and Aylsa. Usually we worked over the period but this time we could relax and enjoy a more traditional atmosphere. Hilda's sons had sent her presents and she went around smiling all the time. I did not want to ask how they had got them through the portals but it was interesting to note that it was possible. I made a mental note to ask her about this in the New Year. A large joint of beef was cooked for the main meal and augmented with a goose and some vegetables fresh from their store and then a large steamed pudding that Hilda has made herself. It has been such a long time since we dined like this and I think of my mother and father trapped in Alfheim and also of Red and things I wish I had or had not done.