by Kevin Hearne
Here I had to stop. Granuaile let the silence stretch for some time before she timidly asked a question.
“The ones you left behind … did you ever go back?”
“Secretly, yes. Sometimes they were worse off; sometimes they were better off. I figured out a way to help the ones who were worse off, but there was never any question of continuing the relationship. Even if they were willing, I couldn’t.”
Silence fell again for a few moments as she considered this, and then she said, “I … well — wait. How did you deal with the depression? I mean, how are you even functioning?”
“I ran from it. I’m still running. Most people don’t have a choice about picking up and leaving. They’re stuck — or believe they’re stuck — where they are, and they don’t see a way out or the possibility of a better tomorrow. I always have somewhere to go, a new life to live, a new language and culture to learn about.”
“So you don’t know what happened to your families?”
“I know what happened to all of them, unfortunately. They lived their lives, and now they’re gone.”
Granuaile puffed some air past her lips and blew a wisp of hair out of her eyes. “You know, most of the time I’m able to ignore how old you are, but sometimes I get a sense of the enormity of it.…”
“Yeah. It’s not really the sweet carefree deal that it seems. There are dues and blues. And you can’t avoid it either. If you remove yourself from human relationships and all the baggage that comes with them, you’re removing yourself from humanity entirely. The pain and regret and embarrassment are all repaid in joy, however brief and infrequent that joy may be. I’ve seen what happens when you try to set yourself apart.”
There was silence while Granuaile considered this. Then, delicately, almost too soft to hear, she asked, “Can I ask what happened to Tahirah?”
“Sure.” Such an easy word to say. But I had to take a deep breath and divide my mind in order to answer, stripping away the emotions and memories until only the raw words were left. My voice was flat and toneless as I said, “We were ambushed by a Masai war party. Tahirah took a spear through her chest and died before I could even attempt to heal her. And when I saw her dead eyes — eyes into which I used to look and find peace — my reason fled and rage took over: I cast camouflage on myself and cut them all down. They thought they were being slain by a demon. It wasn’t my finest hour.”
For a time there was nothing but the soft, rolling rumble of the engine and the whistle of gusting winds. Then Granuaile whispered, “I’m sorry, Atticus.”
“Yeah. Me too.” I paused. “You know that saying about how time heals all wounds? It’s not always true.”
Granuaile nodded, acknowledging that I probably knew what I was talking about.
“I couldn’t bear to stay there after that, where every place and every person was a reminder of her. If you spend two hundred years in an area, every tree and every rock becomes familiar, and every step brings a new memory shaped like cut glass. I took my eldest son aside — his name was Odhiambo — and told him as far as the tribe was concerned I was dead too. Without his mother, there was no life for me there anymore. He was chief now; Tahirah had run the things that needed running, because I had no desire to lead. He tried to argue with me at first; I had been giving him, as well as the rest of my family, Immortali-Tea, and my leaving meant that they would begin to age normally. To me, that was all to the good. The eternal youth of my family had begun to wreak havoc on social structures that normal people take for granted, such as having children before the age of thirty or forty — or, indeed, having them at all. Tahirah and I kept having children, but they rarely married and had children of their own. And of our few grandchildren of childbearing age, none of them was the least inclined to start their own family. There was always time for that later, you see, because I was giving them all the time they wanted to be selfish.
“I had already decided some decades earlier that administering Immortali-Tea to my whole family had been a colossal mistake, but while Tahirah lived I never dared suggest we let nature take its course with her children and grandchildren. With her gone, however, it was abundantly clear that despite my family’s advanced age, their development had been severely stunted in crucial ways. They looked down on people who aged normally. They rarely took physical risks, or even wished to exert themselves. A sense of entitlement had bloomed within them. And so I thought the best gift I could give them at that point was a chance at normalcy, painful as that might be.
“Odhiambo disagreed vehemently. He wanted me to teach him how to make Immortali-Tea, even though he knew very well he’d have to become a Druid to do it and he was far too old to begin the training; then he wanted me to make a vast supply and leave it for the village. But he gave up soon enough, seeing that I was determined, and so I wished them all harmony, shifted away from there, and returned to Europe at about the time its monarchs were discovering that the world might be round and full of vast resources to exploit.”
“So, ever since then, it’s been a month here, a year there, then move on, like a rolling stone and all that?”
“Pretty much. This is the longest I’ve stayed in any one place.”
I waited for her to tell me I was selfish and irresponsible, or that I was the most epic deadbeat dad ever. I searched for signs that she was thinking it. Aside from looking a bit sad, her face was inscrutable; I lost some time as I focused on the freckles high up on her cheeks, and they blurred out and went wonky, the way things do when your eyes wonder what the hell you’re doing. She kept her gaze focused on the road, lost in her own thoughts.
“Ten years later I returned,” I continued, as if I hadn’t paused and stared at her for three minutes. “Though I took care to go in camouflage. By listening and inference, I learned that Odhiambo was dead, as were several others. They’d committed suicide, Granuaile. Couldn’t stand the thought of aging. And they were angry with me for leaving — not because they missed me, but because they missed my miracle elixir.”
“Well, that’s just …”
“Yeah. One of my daughters was out alone collecting roots, and I showed myself to her so that we could talk and catch up. At first she was glad to see me, but when I made it clear I wasn’t staying or reversing their aging, she turned sullen and never smiled. She made no inquiries into my welfare, and perhaps I deserved that. But then I learned I was commonly cursed by my own family, as was Tahirah, for together we had ruined their paradise on earth, their own land of ceaseless summer.”
Granuaile shook her head slowly and frowned, her judgment clear, but said nothing.
“That was when I decided I would never share Immortali-Tea with anyone again. To my children and grandchildren, I was nothing more than a tit engorged with the milk of eternal youth, and while I had Tahirah by my side, I’d been willing to ignore that unpleasant reality. It made me wonder, though, if perhaps that was all I had been to her as well. I don’t know now if she ever loved me, you see? Perhaps she only loved being young and keeping her kids young once they reached adulthood. I tell myself no, there was no way she could have fooled me like that for two hundred years, what we had was real — but the doubts won’t go away. There will always be a blemish on the memory.”
“Don’t doubt it, Atticus,” Granuaile said. “Never doubt that she loved you.”
“Why?”
“Well, because I—” She stopped abruptly, unsure of how to continue. Her hand flailed at the air to brush that attempt away, and then she began again. “Because you’re right. She couldn’t have faked it for two centuries. Nobody could. You would have seen it in her eyes if she was faking, but you never saw that, did you? You said yourself you found peace in her eyes. I know it turned to shit eventually — if there’s anything I learned from studying philosophy, it’s that everything turns to shit — but you had two hundred years of bliss before that, and you might be the only guy who ever got that. Ever.”
That was a comforting way to look at it, and I n
odded to indicate that she’d made a good point.
We exchanged one of those cheerless, halfhearted, tight-lipped smiles where your eyes apologize for the past and your upturned mouth indicates hope for a better future. It’s an odd way to reassure someone, but somehow it seems to work across cultures and outlast dynasties. It works well in the cab of an SUV too.
After a few more miles of silent driving, Granuaile opened her mouth to speak, made a tiny noise, and then closed it again. Uncertainty.
“What is it?” I asked.
“I have something to share with you, but I don’t want you to be angry with me.”
“No one ever wants their sensei to be angry with them. It tends to lead to dire punishments, like being forced to read Candide.”
She smiled nervously, unsure if I was joking. “Right. Well. In the interest of not hiding anything …”
“Yes?”
“My stepfather is an oil executive in Kansas.”
“I know, you’ve mentioned it before.”
“I hate him,” she spat, fingers tightening on the steering wheel.
“I had surmised as much. Where’s the hidden part?”
“While you were in Asgard, I underwent the Baolach Cruatan.”
That got my attention. The Baolach Cruatan was a test of courage and cunning administered to new initiates by elder Druids, and not everyone passed. Those who failed died. I hadn’t been sure when or even if it would happen to her, but the fact that she was sitting next to me meant she’d passed it. “Congratulations on your survival,” I said. It was a practice of Druidry that had made Saint Patrick’s job of converting the young much easier; as far as initiation ceremonies go, a short dunk in some cold water was a much more attractive option than an uncertain trial in which you would undoubtedly be scared shitless and perhaps die. “Who tested you?”
“Flidais and Brighid.”
“Both of them? You saw them both?” Breakfast with Coyote hadn’t been her first meeting with an immortal after all. Granuaile nodded.
“Wait,” I said, a spark of irritation flaring at her for the first time in my memory. “Two members of the Tuatha Dé Danann visited you and you failed to mention this to me? Did you not think it was relevant somehow?”
“I was ashamed because of what happened—”
“Okay, stop right there,” I said. “I don’t care what happened, because the fact is, you survived. The mistake you made was letting your emotions dictate this choice not to tell me of it. I just got finished working out a scheme with the Morrigan to fool the Tuatha Dé Danann into thinking I’m dead, and now you tell me they’ve seen you?”
“They saw me weeks ago, when you were in Asgard, before you faked your death.”
“I understand that. But when they hear that I’ve died, they’re probably going to wonder where my apprentice is — the one that survived the Baolach Cruatan. They may even want to take it upon themselves to finish your training.”
“But we just faked my own death,” she protested.
“No, I didn’t stage that to fool the Fae, because I didn’t know you’d come to their attention yet. Bottom line is, you need to tell me whenever you run into any gods, because you might not be seeing the bigger picture. If Brighid has taken a personal interest in you, she will probably send Flidais to the crime scene and then we’ll be found. Flidais will hunt us down.”
Granuaile clenched and unclenched her fingers on the steering wheel, obviously distressed.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
I didn’t accept her apology right away; a bit of extra guilt on this issue would be good for her. I pointed at the iron amulet currently dangling on a gold chain outside her shirt. “Look, have you been wearing that amulet all the time, including whatever sack time you got last night in all that madness?”
“Yeah, I’ve gotten used to it.”
“Good. There’s a chance Brighid might not be able to divine your presence if you keep wearing it. It’s not bound to your aura yet, but its close proximity might help quite a bit. And if that does work, she might really believe you’re dead and never send Flidais to look for you.”
“Or she’ll remember I was wearing it during the Baolach Cruatan and send Flidais anyway,” she replied.
This made me smile. “That’s the way to think.”
Granuaile frowned. “Do you seriously think Flidais can track us from my old car to the new car, through the two different restaurants, over to the hotel, then to the hospital and the vet’s, all the way up here to the rez?”
“I don’t know. But she doesn’t have to do it that way.”
Her hands left the steering wheel in a gesture of helplessness. “How else would she do it?”
“You have a marble of turquoise in your pocket.”
“Oh … she’d just ask Sonora.”
“And Sonora knows exactly where you are because of that marble.”
She pouted. “I have to give it up, then?” I nodded and tried not to be distracted by her lips, extended and puckered. I was supposed to be angry with her. “But I can’t just throw it out the window!” she said.
“I know. Pull over.”
She obliged and we got out of the SUV. She walked around to my side and I put out my hand, palm up. “Let’s have it.”
Granuaile reluctantly dug the marble out of her jeans pocket and grimaced. “Can’t I say good-bye first?”
“We’re on the Colorado Plateau. Sonora won’t hear you.”
“We’re not going to leave it here, are we?”
“No,” I said, removing my sandals. “I’ll ask Colorado to return this piece of Sonora through the earth, and then I will explain very carefully that we wish to keep your existence a secret from anyone who asks, especially the Tuatha Dé Danann. Colorado will spread the word to all the elementals worldwide. They’ve been keeping my whereabouts secret for centuries now, so this won’t be difficult.”
“Does this mean I can’t talk to Sonora now?”
“Yes, but you can always get a new marble next time you’re down there. And you wouldn’t have been able to talk to him outside of his range, anyway.”
“Her range.”
“Hmm? Oh, right. Her range. What were you going to tell me earlier before we got distracted by trust issues?” Granuaile was watching me place the wee piece of Sonora on the ground, a wistful expression on her face. My question caught her off guard.
“Trust issues?” She looked up with alarm. “You don’t trust me now?”
“You kept secrets from me. Not personal secrets — keep those all you want. I mean you kept something from me you knew damn well I should have known. And I must assume you convinced Oberon to keep quiet too. There aren’t any laws against suborning hounds, but there ought to be.”
“Atticus, I’m so sorry!” she said. “I was trying to explain and you cut me off. Will you let me finish?”
I nodded once. “Go ahead.”
“Okay, mental gearshift. I was telling you about my stepfather. His name is Beau Thatcher. He’s a giant dick in a suit, and I was thinking about him after I went through the Baolach Cruatan. Before as well, to be truthful. And that’s what I was leading up to. I never told you the complete truth about why I want to be a Druid.”
“All right,” I said. I clasped my hands together and waited.
She took a deep breath before continuing. “Basically, I want to be the opposite of him. His nemesis. I want to completely destroy his company and drive him into bankruptcy. He laughs when people get upset at oil spills. He laughed hardest at the Gulf oil spill, because the journalists got shut out, the local biologists were bought out, and the company went on to post obscene profits. Massive die-offs and extinctions in the Gulf and wetlands ruined for decades, and he laughed, sensei.”
“As you said, he’s a dick in a suit.”
“But it makes me so angry!” she cried, clenching her fists. Then her voice softened. “Angry enough that it kind of scares me. Don’t you ever get to feeling that way about
people like him?”
“Sometimes. But preventing ecological disaster isn’t a Druid’s primary function, Granuaile. Gaia has outlasted dinosaurs and she will outlast the dicks in suits as well, whatever they do to her. This oil spill or that will be overcome, given enough time. Protecting the earth’s magic is what we’re for. That’s why the Tuatha Dé Danann became the first Druids — it was after that episode in the Sahara that I told you about, when a wizard took the elemental’s power for his own. Gaia recognized that she needed champions among humans to prevent that from happening again. And so the children of Danu were chosen to become those champions. Marbles like these,” I said, pointing to Sonora’s turquoise, “appeared beneath their feet. And when the Tuatha Dé Danann picked up those marbles, the elementals began speaking to them and teaching them and eventually guided them in binding the first human to the earth. But you don’t see the Tuatha Dé Danann jumping around trying to prevent the clear-cutting of the Amazon or the damming of the Colorado River.”
“Well, why not? Don’t they revere nature? Don’t you?”
“Of course. They — and I — revere all life. Even if significant portions of that life seem too stupid to live, we have to let them live anyway. Unless they try to directly kill us.”
Granuaile squatted on the ground beside me and considered the marble. It was an excellent opportunity for me to stare at her without getting caught, so I did. She spoke after a few golden moments of sunlight on a troubled brow. “I think I see what you mean. When Sonora was speaking to me and pointing out the plants and animals that lived along the Verde River, she loved the gnats and the boring little weeds as much as the native trout and the sycamores. She made me love them all too. I wanted to keep them all safe.” She looked up and had one of those teary smiles on her face, and it was ridiculously precious. It quivered and crashed into a sob after a few moments. “I couldn’t do it though. I had to kill this javelina, and I was so mad at the goddesses for making me do it.” She paused, took a deep breath, and wiped the tears from her cheeks. “But I think I understand the wisdom of that whole process now.” The smile returned, but weaker. “It’s good. You can’t just say the words and be accepted. You gotta have the great responsibility before you get the great power.”