by R J Darby
Knowing that the place of her ancestral blood was so close challenged those ideas. She felt almost like a child, finding her mother again after a tiring journey being lost in the forest. There was a pulling at her heart, and she swore she could hear whispers on the wind.
“Come home, come home my darling, you belong here, you have finally found us, come home, come home, we will welcome you and grant you entrance, live out your days with us sweet banshee, little leprechaun, come home,” it went on and on. Having to wait a full day's walk was a form of torture. It was like hearing the cry of her children and not being allowed to sue them. Naimh, I had never been very good at separation. Some of the older leprechaun with more children than she had, had told her that they should cry it out and learn to self soothe. She had never been able to, though she had tried very hard, even sitting on her hands on occasion. It had not worked, however. The call was just too strong, as was this one.
She was glad about now, had she known how little the time would be that she had left with them, she would have woken them up in their sleep - despite her own exhaustion - just to look at the pretty faces. The journey with almost over and the next would begin.
She was soon to be home, meeting the ghosts of her past.
Another ghost of her past, however, was not ready to make this departure easy. There would be more hurdles.
Chapter Fourteen
A Face They Know
A figure began to walk towards them from the West. Even at a distance, it seemed vaguely familiar, like a repeated taste that someone hadn't had since childhood. Rowan eyed the horizon as the figure came into view, silhouetted against the last streaks of the day and looking like an ink printing on gold paper.
The walk was a casual speed, or at least it looked to be. Rowan was good at working out these things. He had walked many miles in his time and taking great pleasure in doing so. He would often go barefoot to better connect with the Earth.
He could not see if this wondering had any shoes on, or even a pair of hand-stitched leather-like his own with a buckle on the side. Not the usual kind of thought that a person might have, nor a standard fairy for that matter, but it was very common for a cobbler. On many occasions had Rowan ingratiated himself to somebody's company by complimenting them on their shoes. For a leprechaun, however, it was the one thing, as regular as greeting someone with a handshake upon first meeting or reuniting.
“What are you staring off into the distance for?” Naimh turned her head to face the same way, squinting to try and get a better view of the figure which approached. The light was too strong behind him.
“I wonder who could be out here, and it seems strange to have any living being in this area, especially so close to the Forest of Phantoms.”
“I suppose they might be thinking the same about us. Do you think we should talk to them? It might be nice to have another living soul to join us on our travels.” And it would have been - if this were a living soul.
“I shall go and ask him,” said Rowan, establishing the gender by the man's gait.
“I think I will join you if we are going to make a new acquaintance, I wouldn't like to have you mess it up by saying something silly.”
“Would I?”
She cocked her head. She did not speak a word; nevertheless her husband could hear her voice quite clearly, and it said 'undoubtedly.'
The two wandered across the field as the sun disappeared entirely, only remnants of its glow remaining.
Rowan raises the hand, then within shouting distance. “Evening good fellow! What leads you to these parts?”
There was no answer, so this time his wife tried.
“I see that you join us on this merry evening. Are you well, sir?”
Still, there was no reply, and they took it in turns to try and interact with him, considering by his walk that he was quite old, and therefore possibly also quite deaf. Surely he would hear one of them eventually as they drew nearer and nearer to him.
“Good evening, kind stranger.”
“I beg to know, are you well? Sir? Sir?”
“I don't know that he can hear as yet.” Rowan lowered his voice for a moment, although it was almost unnecessary. “I think he has cauliflowers in his ears.”
“I dare say you should mind your tongue. Look at the height of him, he is a fairy. What have you just insulted one of the more respectable kind?”
Rowan winked. “If he is a Pooka, as it is nightfall, I say he not only has cauliflowers in his ears but cabbages, potatoes, and a loaf of spelled bread in there too.”
She tried hard to hold it back, but wickedness teased at her smile. “You old fool, you do make me laugh. We must take it seriously though, what if he is injured?”
Thinking that it would be quite dishonorable to abandon a fellow fairy in need, the two of them picked up their pace. They were within twenty feet of the man when they both stopped, laying down the same footstep as a beginning of a starting line to a race.
As the sun fell from the sky completely, so did the desire for the company on their faces.
“What is this witchcraft?” Naimh breathed.
The sky with pricked with stars and the moon cast it’s a glow on the face of the man approaching them.
“Sluagh.”
The mention of the word took away the last of heat in the air. The Sluagh, where most dangerous spirits, cursed to wander the Earth, their purpose had not been fulfilled. They would wander in from the West looking for souls to share in their misery, which were already close to death.
“It cannot be!” Naimh's hand graced her bosom, where her heartbeat at twice the rate she was used to (used to before this business with the fear gorta had occurred anyway).
“I'm telling you that it is,” said Rowan has he captured her wrist to pull her in the direction from which they had just come.
“I know a Sluagh when I see it...”
He talked hastily on her sleeve, “Then you know that this is one. Come! We must getaway. If it cannot find someone soon to die, it might like to push us to our graves that much quicker.
It was a logical sentiment, but like their callings, before it fell on deaf ears.
“I can't believe it.”
Rowan huffed, letting out a laugh. “Well, you can see it, and that should be enough to believe it! Getaway with you.”
“Jeremiah?” she asked. The formerly tight fabric began to loosen. Rowan would have preferred to be confused. The weight that fell to the pit of his stomach was made all the heavier by the truth. He looked at the features which were outlined in the moonlight, barely enough to know a man by unless they have been known before.
“Jeremiah...”
It was true. Their comrade, having saved their lives and been tossed down a waterfall, walked again.
There was a darkness to his eyes and the sharpness to his cheeks, which before made him look refined, then seemed to cut through the cold air of the night.
They had thought that his passing was one of peace. The pair of them wondered if he had not meant for his sacrifice? The letter on the table said that he did, but was it written by his hand? What if it had been planted? They did not really know his handwriting after all. Could it have been a scare tactic? No. Caradine had looked far too wounded at best survival. Unless, of course, it was because his plan for vengeance had been forced to a lesser alternative resulting in only one death? One that he would easily cast aside as a meal leprechaun, rather than risk offense to the banshee blood.
It didn't matter. What mattered was that a good man was forced to a tragic end - to become nothing more than this lamenting creature.
Most importantly, they needed to run. Quickly.
Hand in hand, they ran across the field, practically dragging one another onwards and picking up speed all the while.
“I cannot believe it! That dear sweet man! I cannot believe it! How many more innocent fairy will die for this?” Naimh had become frantic.
&
nbsp; Rowan tugged her onwards sharply. “Enough. We will stop it soon enough. That is a promise. But right now, we have to run. Run East until the sun rises.”
Fear soaked in like night air on an already sodden coat, making the idea of running for the next several hours seem quite feasible.
Had it not been for Naimh freezing on the spot so suddenly that Rowan fell to his knees as he tried to go ahead. Statuesque and gripping him, he looked back. In the distance was the Sluagh, yet in front of him was his wife in a cold sweat and with wide eyes.
“Now is not the time!” he yelled as the vision took her.
A rowan tree covered in the plum plumpest are red berries stands tall on an island in the middle of the lake. The tide is slow and passes by with a tranquil flow, met by the bowing branches of the tree as if they are two wandering soles greeting each other.
Within the clear water, a fleck of black appears, followed by another. This darkness becomes thicker, and looking upstream, it has taken over. No creatures are alive in this mass of black, not one. It is the kind of choking shadow which includes everything it passes, scarcely even allowing bacteria and algae to breath. And it is coming towards the tree.
Slap!
Rowan's palm meets with Naimh's fair skin, and she is jolted back into reality.
Blinking, she asks in disbelief: “did you just strike me?”
“I did. Now run.”
Rowann had never laid a hand on his wife before having far too much respect for her. He figured that she would forgive him once she remembered what was behind her.
The graze of Jeremiah's long cold fingertips on her shoulder had her quite thankful that she had been woken up from this peculiar vision. Was that why it walked towards them? Was someone in the local area about to die? But who could it be? The feels stretched on for miles with very few dwellings.
Neither of them was about to hang around to find out though. Their feet tumbled on the ground until this son greeted them with safe arrival, where they collapsed together, panting and falling asleep in a heap the moment they touched the ground.
What a cruel world Tír na nÓg and the rest of the Eire had become.
Chapter Fifteen
The Forest Of Phantoms
The Forest of Phantoms was called so because of its inhabitants. Many humans mistake them for something more sinister. This, however, was the home of the banshee.
It was indeed easy to see why it might be avoided. A humid mist rolled out of the dense foliage, almost all of which was a deep green. It reminded the two leprechauns of the crushed velvet worn by many of the elven noblemen and noblewomen. There was a sense of refinement about it, an opulence.
The river they had been following since the directions of the Merrow went into the forest, disappearing only a few meters in because of the heavy undergrowth. Moss and stone steeped its bank on the entrance, causing a tinkling of ripples not dissimilar to the winch I'm left out in the open.
Even Rowan was forced to admit that there was a sense of calm about it if one could look past the mist and silvery spider webs that stole the light from the outside and turned it to a heavy shadow.
Naimh sat down, cross-legged by the water.
“What are you doing, my dear?” her husband asked.
“I must take the area. I know you will not understand my meaning, but this is something that I must do. I have been told to do so.”
“By what?”
“I do not know,” she had to admit with a purse of her lips, “I feel that it is like when you are a wee baby, just a tiny thing, and your mother teach you a song. You don't remember her teaching it to you, but you know the tune perfectly.”
“Like the song we sing at the equinox, I understand. Do what you must, but for the record, I have never understood half of the things that you do, and I have loved you all the more for it.”
Naimh sat still and silent with her eyes shut.
She could hear the forest, not just the movement of creatures, but the very Forest of Phantoms itself. About five minutes’ walk away, a centipede screed over a rock with its little feet tapping out a jig. Further still, that was an owl nesting with its partner inside the split of a tree. At the end of the river, or at least one of its thoughts has it wound on for out to the hills beyond, there was a creaking of saplings growing - silver birch and oak.
And next to them they were-
"Eyes," she said as she opened her eyes.
“What do you mean eyes?”
She smiled. “Turn around.”
Not sure what he was expecting to see (or if the pressure had finally cracked his wife), Rowan did as she bid.
“Goodness!" The leprechaun practically jumped out of his clothing. Many sets of eyes greeted him from within the wood! Each pair was as bright as a jewel, with some looking very much like his wife's emeralds. Nine banshees loomed there, sunken into the shadows so much, but they seemed one with it - an image not helped by the fact that they all wore black.
Rowan could do nothing but blink, and they appeared to do nothing but look with eyes that felt like they were viewing his very soul rather than his mortal vestige.
“Merry meet, oh sacred banshee.” Naimh got up after speaking and walked towards them, beginning to get down to her knees.
“Love." Rowan took her shoulder.
“Worry not dear husband, these are my kin as much as you are, and they will do us no harm.”
One of the banshees moved forwards, leaving the forest almost completely. She had a bonny face, marked beautifully with freckles that stood out against her porcelain skin.
“I know what I'm doing,” she said as she ended up on one day, bowing her head.
Rowan didn't have the foggiest idea of how she could know what she was doing. Neither of them had been to this place before, and what they knew about it could be fit on one page, not even a human page, one which could be fitted into the pocket of a leprechaun (without any sort of magic). He certainly didn't have a clue what she was doing, so we hope very much that she was right.
Doubt struck him as the many banshees remained in their place. It was becoming creepy. He didn't want to think that word about such an important and revered being, but it was true, and he could not control the thoughts that passed through his mind. It was just getting creepy.
The banshees watched the female leader, who has now stopped just outside of a forest - as far as she has got a minute earlier.
There was quiet.
Someone had to make a response.
Rowan was feeling rather like he was watching two cats face-off, just waiting for one another to make the first move before all hell broke loose. He hoped very much that it wouldn't. Hope was something he was starting to deplete his supply of.
Eventually, the porcelain-skinned banshee opened her arms and bent to one knee, being in a posture like a mirror to his wife. They stood together, and for the first time, the lady spoke. Her accent was thicker than that of the leprechauns, which had him remembering just how far they had traveled. There was a gentle note to it, though, somewhat like a telling off when a person knows that what they are saying will help you eventually.
“I welcome you home,” she said.
Home. The word had never had so much meaning to Naimh. Perhaps she had thought that it had back in the Quiet Place. This was different. Now she knew it's meaning, as clear as the waters that ran behind her.
“It is our pleasure to meet you, although we come on difficult terms.”
The banshee nodded, glancing at the leprechaun's attire. “These are difficult times indeed, much has been lost, and much more will be lost until the mighty serpent has been returned to rest.”
Rowan spoke up. “A rest is not what you needs unless it is one everlasting.” Up until finishing that sentence, he had felt quite confident. The stunning eyes of the band she had turned on it, however, and it occurred to him, but he may be one-fifth of the size that he was before. Who did he think he was talking
to like that? These were banshee! Sacred spirits. Not only could he feel the eyes of the group on him, but his wife's too. If she could have given him jolly good clout or kick him in the shin, he was certain she would have. Or that she may still.
Without words, he searched into his jacket pocket and presented the orb, the first of the Four Treasures, in both hands. Keeping his mouth shut got them further.
The band took a step further out of the forest and inclined her body to examine the item. She looked back at her group with a hum, seemingly breaking the spell which held them so statuesque.
All bowed, leprechaun, and banshee included in a ring.
“You may join us. It is so.”
“What is so?" Rowan asked, but Naimh placed a gentle touch on his wrist.
“Do not ask. Remember, there are only three questions allowed.”
As they sunk into the forest, forming a pathway that had definitely not been there before, the freckled leader looked back with a wry smile. “She knows her people.”
“How did she-?”
“All in good time. First, let us welcome you. You may call me Madriel.”
The homes of the banshee were an organic and simple affair. The houses were made of fallen sticks in a pointed triangle, and on the floor, they were bedded with moss — the connection to the deity of the earth with clear. And really, what more could be expected from such a well thought of race?
With the canopy of trees hanging over, there was no sunlight, rather an eerie glow created by luminescent toadstools and mushrooms, which grew around the trunks of trees and along the forest floor in their makeshift clearing. No tree had been unnecessarily cut down for their comfort, and what they ate came directly from the earth with a great focus on sustainability. This between leprechaun found out when they were fed a nettle stew, topped with rose hips, and quite delicious.
Naimh finished the remaining broth. It had been a while since she had had something so fresh and light. The pair of them wished that the man she would hurry up, though. Each passing second was just another opportunity for Caoranach to ruin more lives.