Conor regarded him gravely. “Do not misjudge me. I feel Sorcha’s hurt deeply, and she knows it. But I have traveled this way before; and I have stood on the threshold between that world and this. Perhaps that makes it easier, for unlike the rest of you, I can carry both within me. For you, the changing will be harder each time. But your doubts do nothing to ease Sorcha’s task. She needs our strength, while we are here. She needs to touch us while she can.”
We sat quiet for a while. It occurred to me that Conor had not really answered his brother’s question. It was late, and the forest was still save for the axe blows ringing out in the darkness. I recalled another time, when I had seen Finbar’s mind-pictures despite his efforts to shut me out; the cold, the falling, the flight…was this what he feared, the flashes of sight that told him of things to come? How much did he see? And was the future so ill, that he did not dare to share his visions?
My mind was well shielded, but Finbar spoke as if he knew my thoughts. “Sorcha,” he said softly. “Believe me when I tell you that you should not be doing this; it would be better for you to go away, far away and forget us. Leave the forest and seek protection with the holy brothers in the west. You will never be safe here.” He twisted the ends of his hair in restless fingers.
“So we should all perish?” questioned Conor mildly. “The lady Oonagh would certainly be pleased with that result. You offend your sister with such a suggestion, Finbar. We are her brothers; she loves us as we love her. She could not take such a choice.”
“She must not stay here,” said Finbar. The shutter in his mind was firm; whatever dark knowledge he held there, it was not to be shown us.
“These images of the mind,” said Conor, poking the embers with a long stick, “they can be riddles in themselves. What you see may be truth, or half-truth, or a nightmare of your own making, born of your fears and wishes. The lady Oonagh’s enchantment may even now be at work within you. Perhaps she meddles with your inner voices as she changes your outer form. You cannot trust these visions.”
“What else can I trust?” Finbar replied. “With no knowledge of the time we were gone, what other map have we to guide our choices? There is scarce time to recall who we are, before it is blanked out again. Our father could be dead or worse.”
“He still lives,” said Conor softly. “Stricken sorely by the loss of his children, and bound fast by his wife’s spell, but not wholly under her domination. He survives, thus far.”
How do you know?
His words had shocked us both; we asked the same question together, I inwardly, Finbar aloud. Our eyes were fixed on Conor intently. Our expression, I think, was the same.
Conor looked down at our linked hands, smiling a little ruefully. “You are right, of course,” he said. “One cannot be man, and bird, at the same time. Entering that new state of consciousness, you lose the memory of the old. You are not a man in swan’s feathers; it is not so simple. You change entirely; and your vision of the world is a wild creature’s: flight, safety, danger, survival. The lake; the sky. There is little more. During that time, you may fly over the lord Colum’s stronghold, or swim by the shore where Eilis and her ladies play at ball, but you do not see them, not as a man would. You cannot;
but I can
.”
Finbar drew his breath in sharply. “I should have known,” he said slowly. “You are further down the path than I guessed. I am sorry, as well as glad; your burden may be worse than mine, in its way.”
The lady Oonagh. What of her?
“She still rules there, Sorcha. And will bear a child by harvesttime. Her influence is strong. She still seeks you, but without success, for the dwellers in the forest protect you.”
“Father. You said he was not entirely under her spell. What did you mean?” asked Finbar tightly. I looked at him in surprise. Perhaps I did not know him as well as I thought. He caught my expression.
“The power of enchantment is great, Sorcha,” he said more calmly. “The power of loss is strong too. I begin to understand, now, why he has acted as he has. So, it does matter to me that he survives. It matters that she is stopped. But there is a limit to the price I would pay for this. There is a limit to the price any of us should pay.”
“I could tell you about Father,” said Conor. The ring of axe on wood had ceased; now my two eldest brothers came down the hill, breathing heavily, and squatted down next to us. “I could tell you much; but sometimes it is better not to know.”
“Not to know what?” asked Liam, settling between me and Conor and putting an arm around my shoulders.
“What passes, what changes in the world, while we are in that other state,” said Conor. Liam glanced at him sharply. “So you
do
know,” he said, not altogether approving.
“Some things yes, others no. I am not able to be in all places at all times; my bodily shape is the same as yours. I see differently, that’s all. Rest assured that our father still lives, and is not altogether lost, though his grief is terrible. He longs most to see his daughter, in whose face is his last memory of her whom he loved and lost. The lady Oonagh hates that,” Conor said.
My jaw dropped in surprise. Me? But he had scarcely noticed me when I was there. “What tale did she spin, that he could accept her innocence in this?” asked Diarmid with a dreadful bitterness in his tone.
“That I can’t tell you,” said Conor. “Besides, why deepen your own sorrow and frustration? We can do nothing for him, or against her, until the enchantment is broken. So, we must do as Sorcha wishes, and leave her here to complete her task, though it breaks our hearts to do so.”
It was terrible how quickly the remainder of that night passed. We sat by the fire, talking of this and that, trying not to glance skyward too often for the first traces of dawn. Later, much later, the boys and Linn came back from their expedition. They had escaped the worst sadness of the night by filling it with activity. It would be a night long remembered by the local people, a Meán Samhraidh of more than usual activity by the wee folk; several washing lines would be missing items, a few dairies and cellars would have unexpected spaces on their shelves. Padriac passed me a warm woollen gown in a vivid shade of red, several sizes too big, a capacious shawl, and some homespun stockings, well mended. They’d be good for winter. Cormack bore a large sack of meal and a bundle of turnips, a round of ripened cheese and a length of stout rope. Both had pockets full of small treasures. Linn was licking her lips.
“I hope you took good care not to be seen,” said Liam, frowning. “I want no trace of Sorcha’s whereabouts spread among these people—you know how tongues wag. It takes but one traveler to catch idle gossip, and the tale is away down the road and to the lady Oonagh’s ears before you can draw breath.”
“It’s all right, big brother,” laughed Cormack. “We may be unsure if we’re man or bird, but we haven’t lost all our skills. I guarantee you we left not a trace. Even the hound cooperated, didn’t you, Linn?”
She danced around him happily; he was back, and her world was in place again. I could have wept for her, knowing how short his stay.
“We must make it up to these people, when we are ourselves again,” said Diarmid. “It is wrong to steal; besides, they are poor and can ill afford to spare these things. Still, I believe Sorcha’s need is greater, just now.”
“Don’t worry,” said Padriac lightly, sensing this lecture was aimed at him. “We won’t forget. Some midsummer eve, in years to come, the little people will leave them a stack of wood, and a jug of ale, and some finery for themselves. We’ll be back.”
“Maybe,” said Finbar.
“That’s enough!” Liam’s voice was sharp. “To finish her task, Sorcha needs our support, she needs our trust. Haven’t you yourself always said we seven must be here for each other, that our strength is in our oneness? Of course Sorcha will complete her work, and of course we will return. I don’t doubt this for an instant.”
“As surely as sun follows moon,” said Conor quietly. “As surely as seven streams become one strong river that flows and swirls over boulder and under towering cliff, never faltering on its journey to the sea.”
“Next time, Sorcha,” said Padriac, “I’ll be able to make you a better weaving frame. There are some good bits of ash, I’ve put them to dry under the overhang at the back of the cave. They should be ready by midwinter, if you keep the rain out. And save that rope, I’ll be needing it.”
I smiled at him; so eager to help, so young yet. He might have outgrown his boots, but in essence he had changed not at all. No, it wasn’t my youngest brother I was worried about.
“I ask myself,” said Finbar, with a stubborn note in his voice that we all recognized, “why this must happen. Why must Sorcha endure what must occur, why sacrifice herself thus when she could be safe and protected, and move on with her own life in peace? Why not leave us as we are? For all we know, by the time the task is done, if indeed it can be done, our father might be dead, or changed forever; why then need we be saved, and thus ruin our sister’s life?”
We all stared at him. There was a slight pause. It was Conor who spoke first.
“Because evil must not be allowed to prevail,” he said.
“Because we must reclaim what is ours,” added Liam.
“And save our father, if we can,” said Cormack. “He’s a good man for all his faults, and without his leadership our lands are as good as lost. Briton and Viking and Pict will be swarming over the islands, and to our very door.”
“Because Sorcha believes it’s the right thing,” said Padriac with devastating simplicity.
“I cannot let the lady Oonagh’s work go unpunished,” said Diarmid. “If it weren’t for my stupidity, perhaps we could have stopped her. My honor requires me to seek her out, to make an end of it.”
“Listen,” said Padriac. “It’s almost dawn.”
They were silent. A solitary bird had begun to chirrup high in the elms. And the sky was indeed beginning to lighten with the first pale gray of the morning.
We made our way to the shore. Liam went ahead, carrying the lantern. I walked by Finbar, and I tried to let him know how I felt, but could not tell if he heard me.
All will be well. Believe in me. Hold on, and live. For us all
. It was like sending thoughts into empty air, to be blown away by a passing breeze.
We waited for the light, clasping hands in our circle, saying nothing, passing strength and love one to the other. Finbar was between Conor and myself; he let us take his hands, but they were still icy cold, as if nothing could ever warm him again. Just before dawn, Conor bid me go back to the cave, for, he said, it was better if I did not watch them go. They hugged me one by one; Conor first, then the others in turn, till only Finbar was left. I thought he would go without a word; but he touched me on the cheek and for a moment he let me in.
Be safe, Sorcha. Till next time. I am still here for you
.
The chorus of birdsong swelled. It was like that other morning, the morning the mist had arisen from the lake and taken them from me. It was suddenly too much to bear, and I felt my lips trembling, and tears welling in my eyes.
“Go back inside now, little owl,” said Conor gently, and his voice came to me as if down a long, narrow tunnel.
“Until we return,” said Cormack, or maybe it was someone else, and then it was really dawn, and there was a sound of rushing wind, and swirling waters, and beating wings, and I ran blinded by tears back to my cave and lay there facedown weeping, for losing them now was no easier than last time and I did not want to see, or even to imagine, the slipping away of their minds and the transformation of their selves into creatures of the wild.
Outside, Linn began a terrible howling that went on and on, echoing through the woods, and over the water, and up into the wide pink and orange and dazzling blue of the sky as dawn turned to day.
Living out there for so long, I began to feel as if I were part of the forest itself. It was like an old tale, perhaps the story of a young girl cruelly abandoned by her family, who grew up able to talk with the birds and fishes, with raven and salmon and deer. I’d have liked that; unfortunately the presence of a perpetually hungry Linn meant the wild creatures gave our small dwelling a wide berth. There was a family of hedgehogs who ventured close at dusk once it grew warmer and, whenever I had some morsel of food to spare, I put it out on a smooth stone under the bushes for them, and made Linn stay inside until they crept off again into the undergrowth.
The changing moods of the forest worked their way deep into my being. As nights became longer, as berries ripened on bramble and hawthorn and nuts hung heavy on hazel and chestnut, I too underwent some changes. I was always a small, skinny thing and my diet was frugal at best. Nonetheless, that autumn my body began to change from a child’s to a woman’s, and I began my bleeding. This should, I supposed, have been cause for some form of celebration, but it felt like no more than an inconvenience, for my whole will and energy was focused on the tasks of gathering starwort, and spinning and weaving my six shirts. Nonetheless, I took time that first night of bleeding to bathe myself by moonlight, and then I drank some rosemary tea for the cramps, and sat under the stars listening to the owls and the stillness. That night I felt that the Lady of the Forest was very close, and I sensed the movement around me of a great and deep magic, but I did not see her.
It became necessary to go further afield in search of starwort, for the supply of brittle, thorny thread was running short. Six squares of the woven fabric had been enough to make one rough shirt, and I had started the second, but had thread enough for a sleeve, maybe, but no more. I went out with a small sack and a sharp knife, looking for the patches of feathery gray that sprang up in forest clearings, where dappled sunlight could penetrate the autumn canopy. This plant liked the damp, and grew closely on the banks of little streams, crowding out the ferns and mosses. It was a plentiful time, and often I was lucky enough to bring back a bundle of hazelnuts and elderberries as well.