Child of the Prophecy (87 page)

"What test?" I was cold again, quite baffled by her words. "What must I do?"

She sighed. "He has followed you to the ends of the earth. All that he treasured, he has given up for you. You tremble with joy, now, that he is alive; and yet you sent him away, time after time. Perhaps once too often; perhaps, this time, he will not return, knowing himself unable to endure another banishment."

The four of them were starting to fade, starting to leave already. Their forms grew transparent and attenuated, until I could see little of them save the eyes, sorrowful, proud, not entirely without pity.

"Tell me! Oh, please, oh, please tell me what I must do!"

The Lady of the Forest was last to go. Her voice now seemed as fragile and ephemeral as the sigh of a breeze over the leaves of a great forest, a soft rustle of farewell.

"You must go down to the sea and wait for him," she said. "There will be but one chance. Waste that, and he is lost to you forever. You must open your heart, and speak truth from your lips. Ah, not yet," she added as I sprang toward the entry. "Not until dusk. You must wait until the time of changing. It is only then that you can bring him home." Her shadowy figure blurred, and faded into nothingness.

At the time when the clear blue of late afternoon began to dim and darken, as if a brush had been drawn across the vast expanse of sky to paint it the shade of dried lavender, the hue of a dove's wing, the color of lichen on ancient stone, I went out barefoot, down the rough-hewn steps, all the way down to a place where great flat rocks raised their backs above the sea on the south side of the Needle. There would be times when the water washed the creviced surface of these monumental stones; even now, their secret corners held tiny pools, each with its delicate share of life: fragile sea creatures, clinging, fronded anemones and iridescent fishlings no longer than a single eyelash. But now the high surface of the rock was dry; here I seated myself cross-legged, straight backed, and fixed my gaze on the darkening waters before me. I felt the warmth trapped there in the ancient stone, and the earth's embrace as she gave the sun's life back to my body.

Words came in silence, as once before. This rock is your mother; she holds you in the palm of her hand. This warmth is your father; he gives you his life, his spirit and his strength. For all the serenity of time and place, my heart was beating fast as the light faded; the sea was growing dark, and I saw no swimmers there in its cold embrace, no sons and daughters of Manannan mac Lir playing in the swell as the sun sank lower in the west, somewhere beyond the green hills of Kerry. The water whispered in at my feet, bathing the old stones, laving, lapping, as if it would wash away things past and make all new and clean. A great flood; a great welling of tears. But there could never be enough tears to make up for what I had done. If there were treasure to be cast up on this wild shore, who less deserving to receive it than this sorcerer's daughter, who had wounded so many good folk on her blundering way? How could that ever be made right?

Words came again, secret words borne on the whisper of the west wind, sighing in the deep surge of the sea. This breath is a promise, a gift of love and loyalty. The tide turns; all things change, and, are reborn. The earth suffers and endures; the ocean trembles, waiting for renewal. Fair things perish, and innocence dies. But hope survives while the Watcher keeps faith, high in the Needle. This is the way of truth.

I trembled to hear the words, but still I sat quiet there on the rocks, for it seemed to me there was nothing else to be done but wait and hope. If hope were gone, then there was indeed nothing left, nothing at all.

Out in the darkening water there was a sudden movement that was surely not just the swell, or the tangling of shining seaweed borne on its breast. Surely—surely those were creatures, sleek-bodied, round-headed sea creatures, playing, diving, dancing in the tide, their forms the very essence of the shifting, fluid element they inhabited so joyfully. I narrowed my eyes, peering closer. Yes, they were selkies; five or six of them moving and circling some way off shore. From time to time they would raise their heads from the water, the dark skin slickly gleaming in the last light, and fix their liquid, plaintive eyes on me where I sat perched on the rocks of the Needle. Surely they would come closer. Surely, here where the stone sloped quite gently to the water, a selkie could slip ashore and . . . and . but they did not come in, and now the sun was sinking below the horizon, away in the west, and it was almost dusk. This would be my punishment, perhaps, for daring to hope that, after all, I might be granted such a wondrous gift, to hold in my arms once more what I loved best, and had thought lost forever. This was my doom for daring to believe, even for a moment, that the goddess might think me deserving of such kindness. I breathed his name as the selkies seemed to drift away from the island, and still farther away until I could barely see them in the half light. Darragh, I whispered like a foolish lovesick girl. Oh, please. Oh, please.

"You'll need to do better than that," said a dry little voice on my left. I started, and looked down. This time it had not even taken the time to transform; it was the small, ragged owl I saw, though there had been no sign of a flight, or a landing. "You'll have to do some real work, and quick. Dusk doesn't last long; soon it'll be dark, and too late."

"Think, girl, think," said a cracked, deep voice on my right, a voice which seemed to come from the very rocks themselves; was that crevice a kind of mouth, that neat, round hole studded with a bright shell, a kind of eye? The Fomhoire were everywhere. Thus had they survived for countless eons, while others were slain or exiled. "Think," said the voice again. "Use your head. Think back."

"I can't," I whispered. "I can't see him. Surely it is too late." And yet, out in the water, was not there a single selkie left, alone in the dusk, bright eyes gazing back toward the land, seemingly reluctant to swim after the others as they made their way eastward to the sheltered bays of the bigger islands? He waited; but he would not wait forever. What was I supposed to do? I could not call; this was a wild creature, my voice would only frighten him away. Think, Fainne. Remember. Remember.

"Singing," I muttered as it came back to me. Darragh playing the pipes, so sweetly, and coaxing me, trying to get me to join in. What had he said? Something about seals, that was it. I bet you could sing fit

to call the seals up out of the ocean, if you tried, he'd said. The goddess help me. How could I sing this wonderful creature to the shore, I with my cracked and weeping voice that was like the cry of some small, lost marsh creature croaking alone in the reeds? I looked into the dark, liquid eyes of the selkie, and he gazed back at me, and I knew this was exactly what I must do; that mine was the only voice that could sing him home. For, choked and broken as it was, was it not the voice of love?

"Hurry up then," urged the owl-creature. "Too late, when it's dark."

And indeed, out in the sea, the selkie turned his head to look after the others; and turned back to look at me. So I took a deep breath and began to sing. My voice was weak and tuneless; a little thread of sound snatched away by the west wind, surely a song too small to carry as far as the creature that bobbed there in the swell. He was watching me.

"Good," said the owl-creature with patent untruth.

"More," encouraged the rock-being. "More. Louder. He hears you. Quick, now."

It seemed he did hear me, for he swam closer, and I imagined I saw something like recognition in those strange eyes, dark, sorrowful eyes with the wildness of the ocean in them. I began again. The warmth of the great stones flowed into me, the west wind gave me breath, the voice of the sea lent a deep counterpoint to the halting flow of my melody. I sang on as the light faded and the water grew ink-dark, as the shadows stretched out their long hands over me, and the sky turned to the deep violet of dusk. My voice was a pathetic shred of ill-formed sound in the vast expanse of this remote place, my tune unformed, my words halting. But I made my song from the depths of my heart, and I poured into it all the love and longing I had held hidden there. All the things I had never told him, because I could not, I sang to him now. I sang on into the dusk, waiting for the time of changing.

Come to me now, my bonny one

Sleek-coated, wild-eyed selkie

Son of the ocean, strong swimmer, come.

The night grows dark, the air grows cold Swim in to safe shore, seek your shelter Wild is the west wind, chill the spring tide.

Lad of my heart, my bonny one Come home, come home to me now Long have I waited to hold you close Long have I ached to hold you by me Safe in the circle of my arms.

The last light faded. At my feet, close by the margin of sea and land, the selkie waited, smooth dark head barely visible above the water, around eyes fixed on mine. My song drew to a halting close. I reached down my hand as dusk turned to dark, and my fingers gripped the strong hand of a man. I pulled with all my strength, as tears began to flood my cheeks anew, and at last, there on the rocks beside me, sprawled shivering in the first dim light of a rising moon, was my dear one, soaking wet, shivering from head to toe and without a stitch of clothing on him. I put my two arms around him as I crouched there by his side, and wondered why I had ever doubted he would come back to me. Had he not always been the truest of friends?

"I'm sorry," I whispered. "I'm sorry, Darragh, oh, I'm so sorry I have done this to you."

He blinked, and turned his head this way and that, as if he were not quite sure which one he was, seal or man. Perhaps, if the tales were to be believed, from now on he would never be quite one or the other. He was shivering so hard I felt the spasms through my own body where I held him. I reached to unfasten my shawl, thinking to put it around him.

"I'm sorry," I said again through tears of joy and pain.

Darragh rose cautiously to his feet. His body was very pale in the moonlight; pale and naked and quite, quite beautiful. I swallowed.

"It is possible to live here," I went on, wanting him to speak, yet fearing it too, for I had laid my heart open and now I began to wonder if that had been very foolish. After all, he had turned his back on me once before, when I had longed to feel his touch. "There is food and water and shelter. But it is not much. We cannot leave this place. I'm sorry. Because of me, you have lost all that you might have had."

Darragh looked at me in the half-dark. "You always said you c— couldn't sing," he observed through chattering teeth. "I'd dearly like to hear that song again. Loveliest tune I ever heard, that was. Would you sing it to me one more t—t—time, if I asked nicely?"

I felt a blush rise to my face. "I might," I said. "Right now, we have to find some way of warming you up, before you freeze to death."

"I could think of one or two," said Darragh, himself blushing fiercely as he spoke. He reached out his arms to me, and I wrapped him in mine, never mind the lack of tunic or trousers or a scrap of anything at all, and I felt the steady beat of his heart against my body, such healing for the wounded spirit I thought I might die with the sweetness of it.

"Darragh," I said. "There's nothing for you here. Nothing at all but me and the seabirds and the weather. It's no sort of life for you." All the same, I held on tight to what I had; I understood, now, that some things are too precious to let go.

"All I ever wanted was you by my side, and the road ahead of us," said Darragh. "I'm well content with that."

"Not much of a road," I said, feeling the flood of longing begin to flow through my body, feeling the need to be closer still rising fast in me, near overwhelming.

"A great adventure." Darragh's voice was soft against my hair. "That's what it is." Another deep shudder went through his body, and I made myself step away.

"Tell me something," I said. "That night on Inis Eala, when you played the pipes, and upset me. Why did you turn away from me? Why wouldn't you say goodbye with a kiss, or a hug, or some little thing? I thought—I thought—"

"Silly girl," Darragh said gently. "You never saw it, did you? You never saw how much I loved you, and longed for you, so that I couldn't trust myself to touch, knowing if I started I couldn't stop, and I might do something that would frighten you away forever? It gets to a lad like that, Curly, the wanting; even now—" he glanced down at his naked body, and up again, "even so cold, you see— ?" He gave a helpless sort of grin.

"Come then," I said shakily, reaching out my hand to him, "let us waste no more time."