The owl hooted again. It sounded disapproving. The glade was its nightly hunting ground and we were disturbing it.
"I'm sorry." I let my twilight go and sensed a rush of powerful wings as the owl launched itself. "Good hunting."
There was only a little uisghe in the jug, but it was late and I was growing tired after all. After I drank it, my head spun. I curled on my side in the tall grass and thought about all the coupling in the glade, all the Midsummer coupling in the tame fields beyond the woods. I knew what men and women did together. I'd seen frogs mating. There was that queer fluttering feeling in my belly again. Combined with the uisghe, it made me feel excited and sick.
Not yet, the bright lady whispered in my memory.
I closed my eyes and listened to the grass crackling beneath my ear. I thought about the other one, the one I'd seen in my mind's eye earlier. The man. Bright, though not so bright as the lady. His gentle smile. The seedling cupped in his palm. I opened my eyes and gazed at the grass. There was a tiny, half-opened buttercup nestled amid the long stems, colorless in the fading twilight. I breathed in the remembered scent of sunlight warming the ripe fields, taking it deep into me where it mingled with the warmth of the uisghe. There was no sick feeling left, only calm and goodness.
I cupped my hand around the blossom and blew out softly.
The buttercup opened.
Well, well, I thought. Mayhap I wasn't a great shapeshifting magician like those from the days of old, but mayhap I had some small magic that was all my own.
Or was it?
Was it a gift of the Maghuin Dhonn? Or the mysterious, unknown gods of Terre d'Ange?
I wasn't sure I wanted to know.
I murmured a prayer to my diadh-anam and sought refuge in sleep, comforted by the rustling grasses.
CHAPTER THREE
It was a blessed relief to return to the solitude of our cave. I spoke less than was my wont on our long journey home and my mother did not press me. She spoke only of inconsequential things. She taught me to use the short bow that my uncle Mabon had given me, praising my fledgling skills. As we travelled, I got to be quite good with it.
She did not speak of my father and I did not ask.
I did not speak of the buttercup.
Nor did I seek to repeat the attempt, not during our journey. But I paid greater attention to the world around me than I had paid before. Raised from childhood in the wilderness, I had always been attuned to it. Now it seemed that awareness had deepened, as though a sense I'd always possessed had awakened more fully. When I concentrated hard, I heard the songs trees sang to themselves, reaching their leafy crowns toward the sky, sinking their roots deep into the earth with a slow, satisfying slither.
Not heard, not exactly. But it was a sense like hearing.
A stand of birch trees grumbled in the shadow of a great spruce. The grasses and scrub of wide-open spaces flourished with a brief, exuberant shout. Wildflowers whispered delicately and perished.
And animals…..
It was harder because they moved, but I could sense them, too—if I stayed still enough.
Once, a fox-vixen trotted across our path, a grouse hanging from her narrow chops. She saw us and froze, one forepaw raised.
"She's got kits," my mother murmured. "Half-grown, I reckon. Needs to feed them with autumn coming."
I felt relieved that I wasn't alone in my ability to sense such things. "You can tell, too?"
"Aye, of course. And you're growing into your skills if you can." She looked at me sidelong, then addressed the fox conversationally, summoning a flicker of twilight and making a shooing gesture. "Go on, you."
It trotted away fearlessly.
"Do you hear the trees grow?" I asked her. "The grass speak?"
My mother shook her head. "No. Do you?"
I took a deep breath. "I do."
She eyed me. "Well, that's a fine thing, isn't it?" Is it?
My mother smiled. "To be sure, Moirin mine."
"But it's not a gift of the Maghuin Dhonn?" I pressed her.
She walked without answering for a while. "I cannot say for certain. Surely, there have been those among us tied to the sacred places— the springs and groves and the standing stones. But you sense this everywhere?"
"Aye," I murmured. "Not easily, but aye."
She shrugged. "Mayhap it is a gift we have lost."
"Mayhap." I thought of the man with the seedling and said no more.
At the end of our journey, we found our neat, cozy cave had grown foul and smelly and messy with neglect. Mice and other scavengers had gotten into our stores and nibbled holes in our blankets. It took days to set matters in order, sweeping out droppings and spoiled foodstuff, pounding our blankets on rocks in the clean, cold water of the stream and hanging them to dry. It was hard work, but I didn't mind. It was good to be home.
By the end of the first day, we had cleared away the worst of the debris, but a rank odor lingered.
I wrinkled my nose. "Shall I see if there's pennyroyal yet blooming in the meadow?"
"'Tis too late in the day." My mother made a face, too. "And I fear a stench too great for pennyroyal. Do you have a sense we've further unwelcome visitors lurking?"
I shook my head.
"Nor I." She dusted her hands and cast a glance at the sky. "We'll sleep in the open air tonight and have a closer look on the morrow."
As it happened, we didn't have to wait that long. My mother built a merry fire in the firepit while I plucked a grouse I'd shot the day before, much to my considerable pride. We roasted it on a spit and ate it along with handfuls of late-ripening blackberries. As the soft blue light of dusk began to settle over us, I felt warm and content. Insects buzzed in the last summer air. Along the stream, trout were feeding. Tomorrow, I'd catch fish for our supper.
Something in the far reaches of the cave rustled.
My senses sharpened.
There were visitors—scores of them. They were so tiny and slept so soundly during the daylight hours that neither of us had sensed them. A vast black cloud of them rushed out of the mouth of the cave, rising into the dusk on flittering wings.
"Bats!" I leapt to my feet, laughing with unexpected delight. The cloud split and streamed around me. Nearly inaudible cries filled the night. I spun around amidst the rising swirl. "Can we keep them?"
"Are you mad, child?" my mother asked, but she was smiling. "No, there's the source of the stench, right enough. We'll let them feed and drive them out in the morning."
"All right." I gazed wistfully after the swarm.
My mother's smile deepened. "Never doubt you're a true child of the Maghuin Dhonn, Moirin mine. From what little I've seen of D'Angelines, none of them would dance amidst a bat-swarm."
I dropped back to the hearth and sat cross-legged in my travel-worn blankets, cupping my chin in both hands. "What was he like?"
"Your father?" She poked at the fire, stirring the embers. A flurry of sparks arose, chasing the feeding bats. "Passing fair to look at. They're a lovely folk, you know."
I felt insulted. "And we're not?"
Her brow furrowed."'Tis….. different. There's a keenness to it, a symmetry. Like a well-tempered blade." She smiled wryly. "They certainly think well enough of themselves for it."
"Did my father?"
"No," she said slowly. "He was different. Lovely, aye, but he didn't strike me as one to use it as a weapon." She gave me a quick glance, and for the first time, I saw shyness in her. "Offer it as a gift, more like. Beauty and desire."
"Milky-white skin and green, green eyes," I said. Aye.
"What else?" I asked when she said nothing further.
My mother sighed. "What would you have me say, lass? We barely spoke. On the surface he was calm, but desire moved in him like a current, deep and strong. When I looked into his eyes, I felt it." She touched one hand to her chest. "And inside me, the voice of the diadh-anam said, Yes."
"Do D'Angelines have a diadh-anam?"
"No." She shook her head. "I know only a bit. They believe they are descended from their own gods. One was born of earth. The others….." She stirred the fire again and watched the sparks rise. "The others came from beyond the stars. One of them called him to me."
"Is it true?"
She shrugged. "Mayhap."
I thought about the bright lady. My memory had faded, but I remembered beauty as keen and deadly as a blade. It drew me and frightened me to think on it now, knowing what I knew. But the man with the seedling had been gentler and different. "Mother? In the morning, there's somewhat I wish to show you."
"All right, my heart."
In the morning, we went to the meadow to gather pennyroyal. It had passed its prime, but it would suffice to dispel the lingering odor of bat droppings once we'd driven them out. My mother cast curious glances in my direction, but asked no questions. In the meadow, I found a plant that would suit my purpose, a dandelion only just beginning to go to seed.
"This," I said. "Watch."
"'Tis an old plant, the greens will be bitter….." My mother's voice trailed off as I knelt and cupped my hands around it.
I breathed in sunlight and warmth.
Blew it out.
It was hard—harder than before. And I understood without words that it had been easier before because I'd attempted it at Midsummer, and it had been a smaller thing I'd attempted with the buttercup. The effort made me dizzy. But I held to the sense of rich, fertile brightness and kept blowing steadily until I saw black spots before my eyes. The dandelion blossomed into a sphere of gossamer seeds.
"Stone and sea," my mother whispered.
I took a few deep, gasping breaths. "Whose magic? Ours or theirs?"
"Yours," she said firmly.
"But why? What's it for?"
She crouched beside me and blew softly on the dandelion ball. An ordinary breath. The fairy seeds blew away, drifting into the warm air. She watched them go. "Must it be for anything?"
"It seems it ought."
She shrugged. "Then no doubt it will be revealed in time."
My mother could be somewhat infuriating. "I saw a vision," I said. "In Clunderry, outside the fields. A man all ringed around in brightness with a seed sprouting from the palm of his hand."
"Oh?"
Very infuriating. "Mother!"
"Peace, Moirin." She laid her hand atop my head. "Mayhap you glimpsed some fertility god worshipped by the Cullach Gorrym. Mayhap it was a sending of one of the gods of Terre d'Ange whose blood runs in your veins. I do not know. It awakened you to certain gifts, which is to the good. But you recall that the purpose of our journey was to be reminded that gifts must be used wisely?"
"Aye," I murmured.
She rose and helped me to my feet. I stood, swaying. "Was this a wise use of power? Exhausting yourself to accomplish what would have occurred naturally in two days' time?"
"I wanted to show you," I said stubbornly.
"And so you have." She kissed my cheek. "Come. We've unwanted visitors to dispel."
I sighed, and went with her.
Four days later, I met Cillian.
I'd been ranging in the pine wood to the southeast of our homesite to gather dry, fragrant pine needles to stuff new pallets for my mother and me. I left off with my basket half full when a light rain began to fall. I didn't mind the rain, but it wouldn't do to gather damp mast. I headed for home with the basket slung over one shoulder and my bow and quiver over the other. Silvery raindrops slid from the needles overhead. Birds twittered in the boughs, telling one another all was well with the world.
If I'd been paying attention, I might have sensed him before I saw him, but I wasn't and didn't. It was plain luck that I came upon him from behind—luck, and the fact that I moved quietly. He was crouching behind an outcropping of stone that overlooked our hearth, peering over the edge. The sight startled me enough that I let my basket fall to the ground with a soft thud.
"Who's there?" He scrambled to his feet and whirled—but I had already summoned the twilight.
A boy.
I guessed he was a couple years older than me. I couldn't see his coloring properly in the dim twilight, but he was fair-skinned. He turned his head from side to side, one hand hovering over the hilt of a dagger.
"Who's there?" he called again.
I unslung my bow and nocked an arrow. "Who asks?"
His eyes widened. "Dagda Mor!" He glanced all around for the source of my voice, but there was nothing to see. He had heard me speak only because I willed it. "Where are you? Will you not show yourself?" When I didn't answer, he stooped carefully and picked up a bulging satchel. "Come, I mean no harm. I'm Cillian mac Tiernan of Innisclan. I've brought an offering." He untied the drawstring and opened the satchel. "See? Fresh peaches."
The peaches smelled ripe and heady and wonderful.
I hesitated.
"You don't want them?" Cillian tugged the drawstring closed. "All right, then. I'll take them away."
"Just leave them and go."
"Ah, no." He shook his head. Even through the gloaming, I could make out the glint of curiosity and bravado that lit his eyes. "Don't the Old Ones love a bargain? Show me your true form. Just a glimpse. I'll take my leave, and the peaches are yours."
I really wanted those peaches.
I let the twilight fade, keeping the arrow trained on him.
"Dagda Mor!" He stared at me. In daylight, his hair was reddish brown. He had grey eyes and a smattering of freckles across the bridge of his nose. "Are you flesh or spirit?"