Emerald Magic
Page 33
“There was no cat,Nuala,” her mother said soothingly. “You must have dreamed it.” She looked around for a nursing sister; her little girl was becoming too excited.
“But there is a cat. There is!”
“What’s its name, then?” asked her father. “I’ll go home and call the cat and try to find it.”
Nuala felt hot tears burning behind her eyes. “I never gave it a name.” The new tenderness in her father’s voice made her want to cry more than the shouting had ever done. “But I caught it before the garage fell down. I was holding it very tightly; I felt it scratch me because it was afraid. Look, I can show you.”
She tore at her hospital gown and bared her chest. Her parents bent over her.
There were not any scratches.
Her father said, “When we shifted the timbers off of you, we didn’t see any cat.”
“You must have missed it, then.”
He shook his head. “That’s hardly possible.We moved every stick in that garage to get to you.We would have seen a cat if one had been in there. But I’ll go back and look now if it will make you feel any better, if you’ll promise to be quiet until I come back.”
Nuala clasped his hands between hers. “Please.”
Mammy stayed with her while he went to look for the cat. The nursing sister brought tablets for her headache, and a glass of cool, sweet orange juice.
“My daughter has dreamed of some cat,”Mammy told the sister. “I’m afraid she’s been a lonely little girl, but things are going to be different when we get her home.”
“I didn’t dream it!” Nuala protested. She was surprised at herself for being so bold. “It’s a cream-colored cat with green eyes. I ran outside to save it.”
“Then I think the cat saved you,” said the nursing sister. “From what I understand, going outside is all that kept you from being mutilated by a shattered window.”
Nuala’s mammy thrust her fingers into her mouth. Her eyes were very large and shiny with sudden tears.
Nuala’s father did not come back until visiting hours were almost over.
When Mammy heard his footsteps she looked up. For just a moment Nuala saw the old worry in her eyes, but there was no smell of drink on him. He only looked tired.
“I searched through every inch of that garage and shifted all the debris,” he told Nuala. “I didn’t find even a bit of fur, and no blood. If there was a cat, it must have run away after the garage collapsed. But I still think you made it up. You always did have an active imagination.” He did not seem angry, though. He did not hit her.
“There was a cat,” Mammy said softly. “Except I think it was an angel.”
Daddy drew up a second chair beside Mammy’s and sat down with one arm around his wife’s shoulders.
A rosy glow seeped into the hospital ward.
“What a beautiful sunset,”Nuala said in her rusty voice.
Pushing a strand of hair out of her eyes, her mother glanced toward the nearest window. “It is beautiful,” she agreed, sounding surprised. “I had forgotten about sunsets.” She lifted the child higher onto the pillow so the three of them could watch together, with the glow reflected on their faces.
WHEN NUALA WAS WELL ENOUGH to go home she looked everywhere for the cat.
Her parents had promised her she could keep it; she could even let it sleep on her bed. She made out a list of possible names and carefully selected the very best one to give to the cat when she found it. She looked in the hollow under the cedars; she searched the fields beyond the house. She asked all the neighbors. She put up a notice in the local shop. But she never found the cat. No one in the neighborhood had ever seen a cream-colored cat with green-grape eyes.
No cat.
There was only the deep, happy purring that Nuala felt within herself when her parents smiled lovingly at her and at each other.
In the spring, the three of them planted new geraniums in the window boxes.
About the Authors
DIANE DUANE has been writing for her own entertainment ever since she could read (having written and illustrated her first novel in crayon at the age of eight). Her first novel, The Door Into Fire, was published by Dell Books in 1979. On the strength of this book, she was nominated two years running for the World Science Fiction Society’s John W. Campbell Award for best new science fiction/fantasy writer in the industry. Since then she has published some thirty novels, numerous short stories, and various comics and computer games, appearing on the New York Times Best-seller List and garnering the occasional award from such organizations as the American Library Association and the New York Public Library. She is presently best known for her continuing “Young Wizards” series of young adult fantasy novels about the New York-based teenage wizards Nita Callahan and Kit Rodriguez. Works now in progress include the last novel in her Middle Kingdoms series (The Door Into Starlight), the seventh “Young Wizards” novel (Wizard’s Holiday), and the completion of her present Star Trek/“Rihannsu” sequence of novels (The Empty Chair). In the rest of her spare time Diane gardens (weeding, mostly), studies German, listens to shortwave and satellite radio, and dabbles in astronomy, computer graphics, image processing, amateur cartography, desktop publishing, and fractals. She is trying to learn how to make more spare time.
BORN IN 1947, TANITH LEE began to write at the age of nine. In the early seventies three of Lee’s children’s books were published. But in 1975 DAW books of the USA began her life as a professional writer. To date she has published seventy-five novels and short-story collections. Four of her radio plays have been broadcast by the BBC, and she wrote two episodes of the TV series Blake’s 7. She has won various World Fantasy awards and was short-listed for the Guardian Childrens Book award with her novel Law of the Wolf Tower. Lee lives in England with her partner, the writer and artist John Kaiine.
JANE YOLEN is a two-time Nebula winner for short stories, and the author of over 250 books for children, young adults, and adults. Called the Hans Christian Andersen of America by Newsweek, her many other awards include a Caldecott, three Mythopoeic Society Awards, a World Fantasy Award, a National Book Award nominee, two Christopher Medals, and three honorary doctorates. The reading room of the elementary school library in Hatfield,Massachusetts, has been named after her, a singular honor. She and her husband live part-time in Massachusetts and part-time in St. Andrews, Scotland.
ADAM STEMPLE is an author and musician who lives in Minneapolis with his wife, Betsy, his two children, Alison and David, and a very confused tomcat named Lucy. He spends his days watching the children (and the cat), his nights playing guitar with his Irish band, the Tim Malloys, and the few hours he may once have used for sleep, he now spends writing. He has just sold his first novel to Tor Books. Adam Stemple is very tired.
JUDITH TARR is the author of more than two dozen novels, including World Fantasy Award nominee Lord of the Two Lands and, most recently, Tides of Darkness (Tor) and House of War (Roc). Her mother comes from a large Irish family, and her grandmother,Mae Ryan, had the Second Sight. She has kissed the Blarney Stone and been addressed like a native in the streets of Kilkenny. She lives in Arizona, where she breeds and raises Lipizzan horses—some of whose relatives shared the role of the magical white horse in the wonderful Irish film, Into the West.
ELIZABETH HAYDON’S debut novel, Rhapsody: Child of Blood, in her internationally best-selling fantasy series “The Symphony of Ages,” was selected by Borders.com as one of the top ten novels of 1999 across the entire literary field. Each of the subsequent books in the series has made the “Year’s Best” lists of Barnes and Noble, Borders, and Amazon.com. A longtime editor in the educational field, Ms. Haydon is also a harpist and madrigal singer, and has published over one hundred texts. The first novel in her fantasy series for young adults will be released in the fall of 2004.
CHARLES DE LINT is a full-time writer and musician who presently makes his home in Ottawa, Canada, with his wife MaryAnn Harris, an artist and musician. His most recent bo
oks are Spirits in the Wires and A Circle of Cats, a picture book illustrated by Charles Vess. Other recent publications include the collections Waifs and Strays and Tapping the Dream Tree and the trade paperback edition of The Onion Girl. For more information about his work, visit his Web site at www.charlesdelint.com.
RAY BRADBURY is one of those rare individuals whose writing has changed the way people think. His more than five hundred published works—short stories, novels, plays, screenplays, television scripts, and verse—exemplify the American imagination at its most creative. Once read, his words are never forgotten. His best-known and most beloved books, The Martian Chronicles, The Illustrated Man, Fahrenheit 451 and Something Wicked This Way Comes, are masterworks that readers carry with them over a lifetime. His timeless, constant appeal to audiences young and old has proven him to be one of the truly classic authors of the twentieth century. In recognition of his stature in the world of literature and the impact he has had on so many for so many years, Bradbury was awarded the National Book Foundation’s 2000 Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters.
ANDREW M. GREELEY is a Catholic priest who teaches at the University of Chicago and the University of Arizona. He is on the staff of the National Opinion Research Center. Among his sociology books are The Catholic Imagination, The Catholic Revolution, and Priests: Sociology of a Calling Under Attack. His fiction includes the “Blackie Ryan” and “Nuala Anne” mystery series and the O’Malley family saga. He has an honorary degree from the National University of Ireland/Galway.
JANE LINDSKOLD has long been fascinated by the Irish poet and playwright William Butler Yeats. Indeed, her second published academic paper was titled “The Autobiographical Occult in Yeats’ ‘Second Coming.’ ”When she started research for this story, she was resolved not to write about Yeats’s doomed romance with revolutionary Maud Gonne, but the story insisted. Lindskold is the author of fifty or so short stories and over a dozen novels. The most recent of them are Through Wolf ’s Eyes, Wolf ’s Head, Wolf ’s Heart, and Dragon of Despair. She is always writing something, and enjoys doing so very much. You can learn more about her work at janelindskold.com.
FRED SABERHAGEN has been writing and selling fantasy and science fiction for a bit more than forty years, and now lives in New Mexico with his wife, Joan Spicci. His mother’s maiden name was Monahan, but he has never been to Ireland.
PETER TREMAYNE is the fiction-writing pseudonym of Celtic scholar and writer Peter Berresford Ellis, whose work has been published in nearly twenty languages around the world. His work has received much critical acclaim and in 2002, being born of Irish parentage, he received the accolade of being only the second living writer to be bestowed as an Honorary Life Member of the Irish Literary Society at the hands of its current president, Nobel Literary Laureate Seamus Heaney.Nobel Laureate W. B.Yeats, Charles Gavan Duffy, and other Irish literary personalities formed the Irish Literary Society in 1891. The award was given in recognition of Peter’s “notable contribution to Irish literature and cultural scholarship.” He began to publish fiction under the Peter Tremayne pseudonym in 1977 and authored many books in the fantasy genre, based mainly on Celtic themes. In 1993 he began a series of short mystery stories featuring a seventh-century Irish religieuse—Sister Fidelma—which were instantly acclaimed. There are now twelve Sister Fidelma novels and one volume of short stories published. The books appear both in the UK and USA and are translated, so far, into six other European languages. Peter’s work covers a wide field and demonstrates his many interests. There is now an International Sister Fidelma Society, supportive of Peter’s work, with members in twelve countries.
CECILIA DART-THORNTON graduated from Monash University with a degree in sociology. Her interests include writing music, reading nonfiction, the welfare of animals, and environmental conservation. Her fantasy trilogy “The Bitterbynde” is published in twelve countries and earned high praise from reviewers across the world. “The Bitterbynde” comprises The Ill-Made Mute, The Lady of the Sorrows, and The Battle of Evernight. Currently Cecilia is writing a second trilogy entitled “The Crowthistle Chronicles,” beginning with Book #1: The Iron Tree. Her grandparents were born in Ireland, but she now lives in Australia with her husband and two dogs. Her Web site can be visited at www.dartthornton.com.
L. E. MODESITT, JR., has published a number of short stories and technical articles and forty novels, many of which have been translated into German, Polish, Dutch, Czech, and Russian. His latest novels are Darknesses, the second book of the “Corean Chronicles,” his newest fantasy series, and The Ethos Effect. His first published story appeared in Analog in 1973. Born in 1943 in Denver, Colorado, Mr. Modesitt has been, among other occupations, a U.S. Navy pilot; an industrial economist; staff director for a U.S. congressman; director of congressional relations for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency; and a consultant on environmental, regulatory, and communications issues.
JACQUELINE CAREY was born in 1964. After receiving B.A. degrees in psychology and English literature from Lake Forest College, she spent time living in London and working in a bookstore, returning to the U.S. to embark on a writing career. An affinity for travel has taken her from Finland to Egypt to date, and she currently resides in west Michigan. She is the author of the critically acclaimed “Kushiel’s Legacy” fantasy trilogy, including Kushiel’s Dart, which received the Locus Award for Best First Novel and the Romantic Times Reviewer’s Choice Award for Best Fantasy in 2001. Other previous publications include a nonfiction book, various essays, and short stories. Further information is available at her official author’s site, www.jacquelinecarey.com.
MORGAN LLYWELYN, who is an Irish citizen and lives north of Dublin, has published thirteen historical novels about Ireland and the Celts. These include the international best-seller Lion of Ireland.Work in progress is The Irish Century, a five-volume series chronicling Ireland throughout the twentieth century. The first three of these novels have already been published to wide acclaim: 1916, 1921, and 1949. Llywelyn’s novels have been translated into a total of twenty-seven languages and five have been optioned for film. Her work also includes a nonfiction biography of Xerxes of Persia, four books for children, and a substantial body of short fiction for various anthologies. She is a founding member of the Irish Writers’ Centre, past chairman of the Irish Writers’Union, and a cofounder of the Irish Children’s Book Trust. Among her literary awards are the Washington, D.C. Cultural Achievement Award, the Best Novel of the Year Award from Penwomen International, the Poetry in Prose Award from the Galician Society, Book of the Year for Young Adults from the American Library Association, the Saint Brendan Medal from the Brendan Society, and the Readers’ Association of Ireland Biennial Award. She has been named Woman of the Year by the New York Irish Heritage Committee, Exceptional Celtic Woman of the Year by Celtic Women International, official bard of Clan O’Brien, and an honorary member of Clan Kavanagh.
Table of Contents
Cover Page
Title Page
Copyright Page
Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION
The Little People
HERSELF Diane Duane
SPEIR-BHAN Tanith Lee
TROUBLES Jane Yolen and Adam Stemple
THE HERMIT AND THE SIDHE Judith Tarr
THE MERROW Elizabeth Haydon
THE BUTTER SPIRIT’S TITHE Charles de Lint
BANSHEE Ray Bradbury
PEACE IN HEAVEN? Andrew M. Greeley
Literar y Fantastics
THE LADY IN GREY Jane Lindskold
A DROP OF SOMETHING SPECIAL IN THE BLOOD Fred Saberhagen
FOR THE BLOOD IS THE LIFE Peter Tremayne
LONG THE CLOUDS ARE OVER ME TONIGHT Cecilia Dart-Thornton
THE SWAN PILOT L. E. Modesitt, Jr.
THE ISLE OF WOMEN Jacqueline Carey
THE CAT WITH NO NAME Morgan Llywelyn
About The Auther
Andrew M. Greeley, Emerald Magic