The Sidhe Princess Read online

  All through the long, dreary day, she thought about Fee, and tried to picture what her sister must be doing on her afternoon off in the big American city. Moira’s daydreams included no rain or mud, only sunny bright skies and pretty red and yellow leaves floating down from the trees like Fee had described in her letter.

  When bedtime finally arrived, sleep eluded her. Moira lay staring at the low ceiling, waiting for the gentle snoring sounds that would signal her parents were sleeping. She didn’t know what time the moon would be rising, but as soon as she knew that Mum and Da slept, she arose and dressed. Then, clutching the torch and tea tin, she crept silently down the stairs in her stocking feet.

  Though the rain had stopped dripping from the eaves a couple of hours ago, she knew it would still be wet and nasty, especially once she reached the fens. So she donned her rain slicker and pulled on her rubbers sitting on the mat beside the front door. She silently slipped outside.

  No moonlight could possibly find a way through the heavy clouds, Moira noticed. The torch beam lighted a slender path in front of her as she crossed the yard. Gusts of wind threw the moisture from the dead grass onto her pant legs, and the mud sucked at the soles of her boots as she trudged determinedly toward the edge of the fens.

  She reached her destination more quickly than she’d anticipated, gone right past in fact, for suddenly she found herself surrounded by low bushes and brambles. Thick mud oozed half-way to her ankles when she stopped and shined the torch beam all around, searching for the tree stump she’d sat upon scarcely two days before. But the stump was nowhere to be seen and none of the dark landscape looked familiar.

  As she turned to retrace her steps, one of her boots was so mired that she stumbled and fell flat in the muck, her breath escaping in a loud whoosh. The torch flew from her hand and spun away, while she lay momentarily stunned, unable to breathe.

  “Are ye hurt?” The strangely accented voice belonged to a man.

  Eerily flickering shone around her, like firelight. Moira coughed and noisily sucked in air. “No,” she wheezed.

  She had levered herself up on her elbows when his large, blunt-fingered hand appeared in front of her. His touch seemed familiar as she grasped his hand and struggled to her feet. Ignoring the mud clinging to her slicker and staining the knees of her pants, she squinted through the dim light at his tall, robed form.

  The memory came back in a rush. He’d been one of the first apparitions she’d ever seen on that spring day just before she turned thirteen. She’d been reading about King Arthur and had asked the strange bearded man if he was Merlin.

  “You’re the druid, Bran,” she said when words finally formed in her dry mouth.

  Though he nodded, his craggy brows drew together and his pale eyes studied her for a long moment before he replied. “You were but a lass when first we met, Moira. How came you to be a woman so soon? Or mayhap ‘tis not so soon?”

  “More than three years.”

  “As long as that?” He retrieved her metal torch from under a bush and handed it to her. “You didn’t wander here by accident tonight, did you now?”

  Shaking her head, she snatched the metallic cylinder and gripped it tightly in both her hands. She pressed her lips together to keep her words at bay, but his probing gaze demanded answers.

  “I’ve come to meet the Maid of Ulster,” she blurted. “She promised to look into my future.”

  “Sometimes the future is better left unknown, my lass. Ill tidings can be hard to hear.” Bran’s expression grew even more grim. “And Oonagh O’Dwyyer is not to be trusted, for whate’er she does comes with a price.”

  A bit piqued at his patronizing tone, Moira dropped her right hand over her pocket. “I’ve brought payment.”

  But the druid’s stern face didn’t change. “Don’t be surprised if she demands more. Or takes what she pleases. That one is not so fair as she looks.”

  “I have to know about my sister,” she insisted, suddenly aware of how peevish she sounded.

  But a soft jangle of beads and a swirl of white interrupted her thoughts and the conversation.

  “Here you are, then!” said the Maid of Ulster, linking her arm through Moira’s. However, her sweet expression faded quickly as she locked eyes with Bran. “We’ve no business with you, old man. Go away and leave us be.”

  The druid’s posture stiffened and he seemed to grow even taller as he glared down at the waif-like Maid. “I shall go only if it is Moira’s wish.”

  Under the scrutiny of the two beings, Moira stared at her feet. The Maid’s open hostility toward Bran, who had been kind in the past, was unexpected and made Moira uneasy. But she’d come too far to turn back now.

  “Y-yes, please go.” Her voice was scarcely above a whisper, but the flickering light vanished and when she raised her eyes, the druid was gone.

  “Is that what you’ve brought me, then?” Her tone belittling, the Maid nodded at the metal torch Moira still held in a death grip with both her hands.

  “No!” Moira quickly denied. Shifting the flashlight to one hand, she pulled the tea tin from her pocket. “This is for you.”

  The tin rattled as the Maid closed her delicate fingers ‘round it and pulled the box from Moira’s grasp. Even in the dim night, she saw the sparks of excitement flare in the child-woman’s golden eyes. With an eager greediness befitting a child, the Maid pried off the lid and cooed with happiness as she lifted first the feathers and then the beads.

  “So pretty,” the Maid murmured, and jabbed one of the feathers into a narrow braid of hair hanging in front of her ear. Then she lifted the sachet to her nose and sniffed, her pale brows arching with pleasure at the scent. Next she lifted a sugar cube to her nose as well.

  “Those are for eating,” Moira quickly explained.

  The Maid gave the white cube a skeptical look and cautiously touched one corner with her tongue. Her eyes went wide at the unexpected sweetness and she popped the cube into her mouth. Moira knew the moment the sugar dissolved for the Maid’s eyes grew even wider and her lips puckered in a plump “O” before they spread into a smile of delight.

  “You’ve done well, Tall Moira,” she acknowledged as she rummaged through the rest of the contents with her index finger. “Exceedingly well.”

  Finished with her perusal, she replaced the lid and dropped the tin into a leather pouch that hung by a cord from her belt.

  “Your service has pleased me enough to grant your wish.” Then she turned to go deeper into the fens. “Follow me.”

  Switching on the torch, Moira obeyed.

  The path was overgrown with brambles and the mud clung and sucked at Moira’s boots. The Maid, however, seemed to glide right over the surface of the ground, her slippered feet leaving no prints, while Moira struggled to keep pace.

  After what felt like a long time but was probably less than a quarter of an hour, the pathway grew more solid but brushy. The beam of the torch showed Moira a solid mass of trees and boulders directly in front of them. But the Maid didn’t waver, as she ducked through a small space between two large willow trees that Moira almost missed.

  Crouching, she followed the Maid into a clearing with a stone encircled well in the center. Moss clung to one side of the rocks in addition to the faces of several of the large boulders that bordered the clearing.

  “Wait here now, whilst I fetch my mirror and wand,” the Maid ordered. Before Moira could respond, she disappeared the way they’d just come.

  Shining the torch ‘round the clearing, Moira discovered a tall cairn of stones piled adjacent to the well. Unlike the craggy boulders and the dark pitted stones around the well, these were pale and smooth with strange runes painted on several of those near the top.

  A rustling of the trees drew Moira’s attention to them, and she noticed a particularly tall hawthorn on the other side of the well that had bits of cloth and metal trinkets fastened to its lower branches. She remembered one of her teachers at school had mentioned offerings left in hawthorn
trees by those that still followed the old practices, especially at Samhain and Beltane. “Godless heathens,” her teacher had pronounced them.

  When she recounted the incident at dinner, Mum had made the sign of the cross and grabbed for her rosary, but Da had said he saw nothing wrong with a little observance of the old ways.

  When the visions had first happened to her three years ago, she’d been convinced they were divine retribution for her sins. But no matter how hard Moira prayed, no matter how many Hail Marys she uttered, or candles she lit, nothing changed. Perhaps she should have tried the old ways.

  Before she could pursue that thought, the Maid returned. The light from Moira’s torch flashed off a large brass dish the other woman carried under her arm.

  “There’s no need for that light.” The Maid’s tone sounded a bit quarrelsome as she waved her free hand in front of her eyes.

  Dutifully, Moira shut off the torch and slipped it into her jacket pocket. She followed the Maid to the cairn and watched her place the shallow bowl on the top, the pile of stones almost waist high on the tiny woman. The golden metal glinted even in the darkness, enough for Moira to see the shapes inscribed on the upturned edges. The same runes painted on the rocks of the cairn.

  Then the Maid pulled a thin, peeled stick from her belt -- a wand, Moira knew without being told.

  Standing arm’s length from the stones and the dish, the Maid touched one of the runes, first on the stone and then on the dish, methodically moving in a slow circle as she tapped a dozen different runes. Watching in utter fascination, Moira thought that each rune on the dish glowed a little brighter after the tip of the wand moved away.

  “Go and fetch water from the well,” the Maid instructed when she paused. “And mind you don’t spill any on the ground.”

  Shaking away her enthrallment, Moira rushed to do as she was bid, her legs jerking like dried twigs tied together. A crude twine rope jutted over one side of the well, and she knelt down on the encircling rocks to pull it toward her. Though she couldn’t see anything in the dark interior, she could feel the weight of a bucket on the other end of the line. She swirled the rope in an arc to make sure the bucket was full before pulling it up.

  When she hauled it to the surface, she saw the bucket was a large hollowed-out gourd with the twine rope knotted through two roughly carved handles on the top. Setting the gourd on the low top of the well, Moira loosened the knots with unsteady fingers, and hugged the container close to her body as she stood. She didn’t doubt now that the runes on the bowl glimmered, for she could see each one flickering like a candle embedded inside the metal. Her steps faltered a bit at the sight, but she didn’t slosh any of the water over the edge.

  “Pour it in. Carefully now, for the surface must be calm before we can see.” The Maid’s eyes seemed to glow with the same intensity as the writing on the bowl, and the tip of the wand in her hand shined with the same golden light.

  Too late to turn back now, Moira scolded herself, although her stomach ached as if she had swallowed some of those same fiery letters. She held the gourd close to the shallow bowl and slowly poured out the water. The liquid spread across the surface, filling to within a few centimeters of the rim.

  With her free hand, the Maid indicated that Moira should return the makeshift bucket to the well. She crossed the short space in a few steps, placing the gourd on top of the rock shelf next to the rope.

  She turned around just in time to see the Maid touch the shining tip of her wand to the surface of the water. Light flared up from the bowl so bright that Moira flinched and threw her hand up to shield her eyes.

  “Come have a look then.” The Maid beckoned, and though her feet dragged, Moira again obeyed, squinting.

  When she stood on the opposite side of the bowl, the Maid smiled, her eyes still alight with the same potent flame. “Blow your breath across the water, softly like a sigh.”

  Moira’s chest felt as if iron bands constricted it, but she managed a ragged inhale that she held for a long moment before she bent to blow ever so slightly on the shiny liquid. The fire lessened to a smolder as her breath moved across the surface and behind it a heavy mist grew from one edge of the bowl to the other. For a long moment the dark cloud obscured the water, but then the light began to pulsate in the center and the haze receded to the edges of the dish. Images grew into figures within the beating core. Moira rubbed her knuckle into the corner of each eye to be sure the likenesses were really there.

  “Is that your sister then?” the Maid asked as Fee’s form wavered within the enchanted water.

  Moira nodded in slack-jawed wonder. ‘Twas Fee right enough, though she’d changed her hair and worry lines creased her forehead. She wore a fine new woolen coat, but her same old blue knitted scarf Mum had made her a half dozen years ago. Moira peered at the familiar wintry landscape where her sister stood and recognized it as the village cemetery with its single tall cross and the smaller gravestones scattered ‘round it.

  Fee moved a step closer and encircled a stooped figure with her arm. To her horror, Moira saw that it was Da, weeping like an abandoned child. And on his other side stood a tall figure that she recognized as herself. Then she knew. Mum was dead and the three of them were standing at her graveside, the freshly turned earth spread like a great gaping wound at their feet.

  A strangled sob escaped from Moira’s suddenly clogged throat. She swallowed it back down and forced out a whispered plea. “Is this the next time I’ll see my sister? At our mother’s funeral?”

  “My mirror doesn’t lie.” The Maid’s tone was flat, devoid of compassion.

  This was not what she’d wanted to see at all. Moira swallowed back tears and forced her voice not to quake. “Can’t you show me something happy? Will my future be nothing but bleak despair?”

  “Of course not.” The Maid uttered one of her laughs, like a playful but petulant child, and the morose image in the mirror dissolved. “Surely a girl as pretty as you will have a fine husband someday.” She touched her wand to the surface of the water and the bright light spread across it. “Try another breath and think about love.”

  Such a thing as a husband had never occurred to Moira. Truth be told, she’d spent most of her time trying to get out and stay out of the loony bin. The few local lads she knew from church or school teased and called her names, or avoided her altogether. Not that she’d ever had the slightest interest in any of them. Fee neither, for that matter.

  Wondering if she or her sister had marriage in their futures, she bent close to the dish once more. Then, closing her eyes against the glare of light, she drew in her breath and exhaled slowly.”

  “Ah!” The Maid’s haughty utterance brought Moira’s eyes open with a snap. “Seems your sister will wed a Hebrew.”

  Moira stared at the new scene in the mirror. Fee sat on a park bench and leaned her head on a man’s shoulder. Though Moira couldn’t see his face, she could plainly see the star of David pin on his lapel. And the serenely happy look on her sister’s face. Before she could say or think anything else, the scene shifted again.

  The green park was replaced with rows of tall stone and brick buildings crowded together. Automobiles, buses and lorries jammed the streets and people hurried along the sidewalk. She saw herself among them.

  “And you will live in a big, dirty city,” the Maid exclaimed with a derisive snort.

  Belfast. Moira decided, judging by the movement of the traffic and the signs in the shop windows. She watched the watery image of herself enter a dark building – a pub with a smoky interior. Her future self sat in a snug near a window. A man sat on the leather bench next to her. His large hand rose and cupped her cheek. He was so close that all she could see were his pale blue eyes.

  “Will ya marry me then Moira?” His husky voice was low and a little gruff. “And make me the happiest man on the face of God’s green earth?”

  “Ho!” cried the Maid on a burst of childish giggles. “I knew you had a husband in your future.” He
r merriment sent the images rippling away, much to Moira’s chagrin.

  Thoughts tumbled through her mind like dried leaves caught in a windstorm. Who could this man with the pale eyes be? And how long before she could go to Belfast and meet him? Would he understand her as well as Fee did?

  Seeing Moira’s puzzlement, the Maid touched the water with her wand a third time. “There’s more to this story, I’m thinking, and you want to see it.”

  This time, Moira slammed her eyes shut before the blinding light hit her. But the confusing emotions continued to bombard her, making her sway a bit with their force. Taking a steadying breath, she peeked through her right eye and warily blew across the mirror.

  The image coalesced and Moira slowly opened both eyes to behold spring in the fens. A small figure sat in a green clearing. The picture wavered, then sharpened to reveal a little girl of five or six, wisps of her dark hair clinging to one cheek and hanging over her shoulders. Her dark blue eyes intently studied the white chicken feathers clutched in her fist.

  Moira’s pulse suddenly hammered fast and loud in her ears. A heretofore unknown feeling of intense love and protectiveness rose up from deep within her, grasped her pounding heart and squeezed. But sweetness tinged the pain, and the power of love such as she’d never felt before flooded her mind and body.

  “Is that my -- my daughter?” she asked in awestruck wonder.

  “My mirror doesn’t lie,” the Maid reminded again, the gaiety in her tone not altogether pleasant.

  As Moira watched the tableau, a familiar figure approached the child, who stood and offered the feathers, her expression too serious for one so young. “These are for you, Princess.”

  The watery image of the Maid laughed and snatched the gift away. “What a good little lass you are.”

  The weight of unease in Moira’s chest fell like a stone to the bottom of her stomach. Her child would carry the same terrible burden that she herself possessed. Memories of the sanitarium flashed across her mind -- the poking and prodding, the medication, the indignities. Would her child be doomed to the same torments?