Edie
“So what was so special about the stone?”
It was August when Frank and I drove another long and winding Irish sea road, and by eight thirty, the sky was a deep Prussian blue, just preparing for the stars to come out, with all sorts of purple and gold light dying off in the west.
We had spent the summer solstice in Scotland with all the other spiritual vagabonds that show up to Callanish and then driven down to London. Frank was a freelance writer and didn’t need to be anywhere in particular, but he had some meetings in London in July, so I went back and forth between the archives at the British Museum and Oxford for my research. I also got a chance to visit some old high school friends in Saint Albans and travel with them down to Avesbury and Stonehenge, sharing my theories.
Now it was August, and everyone was on vacation. It had been unusually hot as of late, and everyone was more than ready for that passage of vacation that led away from the dog days of summer and into the light breeze of September, with its reliable sixty-degree forecast and the comfortably familiar, monotonous grind of the incessant wasting of our workdays. I missed my northern isles and the breeze off the North Atlantic Ocean and the Irish Sea. And now, on the eve of Lughnasadh, we were arriving back at my house, Sully’s house, in Ireland, where we would stay until Frank went back after the fall equinox, at which point I’d be there alone to finish the book.
But first, before arriving home, we arrived at the Larne Ferry Station to take the ferry directly across the Irish Sea to a notable Lughnasadh celebration. As we had learned, ferry crossings and timetables in the North Atlantic and Hebrides were of a complicated nature. It often amused me to think of the hubris of modern people regarding how far we had come with infrastructure when it probably had been easier to get from island to island four thousand years ago when everyone had their own boat and knew the tides and currents intimately. Then I laughed at myself, quibbling in my mind that it had likely been even easier five thousand years before that when an ice bridge connected the whole of Britain, not to mention that Britain had been attached to the whole of Europe then too. One large continent with no separation. Given the recent turn of events in the EU, that might come as a surprise to some. I dared not point this out since I was afraid my archaeologist humor was getting tiresome for Frank.
Neither of us was used to spending this much time with one another, so we recognized that we were slightly more sarcastic and bitter than usual—the slow grate of the nerves that comes with blissful time with your best friend.
The sky would be black in no time—the long summer nights were quickly coming to an end—so it was I who drove, as the one far more comfortable with the gentle curve of the back roads that led up the hills to my home. I had learned where to anticipate the curves as if navigating a lover’s body. That, coupled with the hypnotic rhythm of the bumpy road below and the low throwback pop music on the radio had me close to a trancelike state.
“Hello? Are you awake?” Frank snapped two fingers in front of my face. “Please don’t fall asleep on these jackknife roads.”
“Sorry. Yes, what was your question again?”
“What’s so special about the stones? Why do they bring them in from far away? Why one rock over another?”
“Well, it’s an interesting question, to be sure. Of course, they were using stone for so long before metal existed: to hunt and to carve out boats to travel in, in their homes to grind barley and wheat, and, well, in their monuments, of course. So a stone becomes a precious thing and something to be chosen wisely. It was a tool chosen for its strength, and different stones have different important properties. Like a flat stone for building a home, or slate for drawing and carving, or the malleability of flint for sharp knives and arrows. Then, they noticed the color of stone too. That’s what eventually led to the end of the Stone Age, actually. They loved the stone so much, and noticed such nuance in it, that they began to wonder what might happen if they brought together the two most powerful things they knew existed: stone and fire.”
“And then, bam, metal!” Frank illuminated.
“So when they threw some of the green stones in the fire, they got copper, and the blacker stones by the sea produced tin. It changed everything. I actually hated having to choose between studying the Stone Age and the Bronze Age in college because, like most things, the change from a hunter-gatherer society to farming, for instance, would have been gradual. I suppose that as soon as you discovered that substance, you would attempt to make better tools and weapons, but then the time it took to learn the alchemy, perfect the craft, and spread and explain the information must have been a process over decades, and you know how hesitant people are to accept anything new.”
A loud snore erupted from the slumped figure beside me. Loud enough for me to know that it was a remark on my rambling and not a sign that my passenger had dozed off by 9:00 p.m.
The drive up from Dublin had taken longer than anticipated; it always does. So it was nearly 10:00 p.m. when I pulled into Doherty’s, the coastal village pub again. We only had a few minutes to quench our thirst before the last ferry.
We walked inside, ordered the garlic chips and Guinness from the menu without hesitation, and plopped down on a comfy leather couch by the fire, the roar of wind on the ocean faintly audible just outside the window.
“Glad we’re going to be together this year for my birthday,” Frank said as I carried the Guinnesses over to our table.
“Me too,” I said.
“Mainly I just want to hear about the crisis of mind that occurred for you when you turned twenty-nine a few months ago. I need advice for the vicious midlife spiral I’m about to have.”
“Mmm, well I am the ultimate source for advice on spirals.” I winked at him, and he laughed at my cheesy joke. “But I think we have fifteen more years until midlife,” I suggested.
At this, he fondled one of the few silver hairs that haloed my head in long curls around my face, fallen out over time from the long brown and auburn braid down my back that was practically a uniform. I had always had beautiful, long, thick, wavy hair. It was fun to show off, but when I was working, as I had been for the whole year thus far, it was always pulled back. The only makeup I wore was practical Carmex lip balm and mascara since my brown lashes turned blond at the ends and needed to be defined to be seen at all. My steel-toed boots, Carhartt trousers, and Patagonia all-weather zip-ups in an array of colors completed the ensemble. It was not feminine by any means, but I was confident in it in a way I never had been in my youth. I felt beautiful, not like the girls in the magazines but a deeper kind of beauty that shone from my eyes now when I spoke about the people, places, and history that I loved. I had become an expert in my field before thirty and was self-reliant, with a little help from Sully. I loved what I did, and it showed. I guess that’s what makes someone truly attractive. It’s less about face symmetry and more about soul symmetry—“a pleasing proportion of parts of a thing.”
The bar was nearly empty. And that was saying a lot for a tiny village bar on the coast like this. These towns saw few tourists and were populated by some of the only humans in the world that still spoke Gaelic, people who had never seen an iPhone like the one Frank was chatting on and who probably had plenty of their own speculations and answers about the ancient land and monuments I was here to investigate. They didn’t see me as someone providing answers to their questions about their own history. It didn’t matter how long I had lived there; I would always be an American and an outsider.
There was an old man sitting at the bar who had a mass of wavy gray hair and small, twinkling eyes to match. He was the kind of older man whom you could tell had been handsome in his youth, and he carried himself that way, still flirtatious and proud, broad shoulders upright as he finished off his pint. He set down the glass, wiped his stubbled chin with the back of his hand, and ordered another Smithwick’s as a “Smiddick’s.” I smiled at him and then turned to the bartender. “Hey, any idea when Michael will be working?” I asked in as casual a tone as I could muster.
“He takes most of August off,” he responded as he filled the old man’s pint glass, eyeing me up and down, clearly curious about what I had to do with his workmate. I smiled and thanked him for the information.
“So ye’ve an interest in Michael?” The old man at the bar smiled, revealing stained teeth.
“He’s a friend, yes. I met him for the Beltane fires three months ago. You know him?” I asked, more out of friendly conversation than curiosity.
“Oh aye, I’ve known Michael since he was a lad. Don’t make them like that Michael anymore. He’s an auld one, he is.” He said the last part in a hushed whisper and glanced over at the current bartender.
I bit my lip to keep from smiling so big. “Is that right?” I asked. “He was the perfect gentleman at the Beltane festival.”
“Oh, aye, that’s no surprise, but that’s not what makes him special. He’s off today for Lughnasadh preparation.”
I nodded, understanding more deeply now what I had sensed in Michael, that he was a true Celt and still celebrated the old festivals of the wheel of the year.
“Do you know what that means?” he questioned me, taking a sip of his beer with one eyebrow raised.
“I do.” I nodded and left some space in the conversation, unsure of how to respond.
Then Frank piped up from the leather couch. “She’s an archaeologist.”
The old man’s face creased with a frown and furrowed brow. “Of course Michael would go and meet himself an archaeologist,” he muttered under his breath, but loud enough for me to hear. I blushed a little and quickly changed the subject.
“Where is he spending his time off this month? Do you know?” I asked in a friendly way, trying not to sound too interested.
“Weeeell, he is back at home on his farm—did you know his family has a farm?”
“I think he mentioned that, along with something about a 7th century Viking ship’s remains,” I answered. The man rolled his eyes, and I felt the need to reassure him. “Don’t worry, that’s two thousand years out of my wheelhouse.”
“Sounds to me like he was trying to impress ye.” The old man shook his head and continued, “Yes, he’s on his farm, reaping the barley, making beer, celebrating and relaxing with his family. They have bonfires on the weekends and invite the local country folk who can’t afford to travel during August like everyone else does.”
“That’s so nice.” I smiled. And it really was. “I’m Edana,” I said, offering my hand, and his eyes twinkled in apparent recognition.
“I’m Mickey,” he said, shaking my hand and lingering a bit. Then Mickey pulled a five-pound note from his pocket, set it on the bar, nodded to the bartender, and stood to go. “Nice to meet you,” he added with that twinkle in his eye. As he walked to the door, I felt an impulse come over me that hadn’t in a long time.
“Will you—” I began, but Mickey cut me off as he opened the ancient oak door.
“I’ll tell him you asked after him.” He nodded, put his cap on, and was gone.
I carried my pint glass into the adjacent room, where four high-top tables surrounded a snooker table. I took a long sip of the dark, creamy liquid and realized that I had already finished half of it. Slow down, I thought to myself, looking down at all my cracked knuckles and black peat–filled fingernails. I was daydreaming about a manicure when I overheard Frank’s snooker opponents mention a permit for a bonfire happening later in the month. The taller one, thin with greasy black hair, bent over his cue, pulling back long and straight. He hit the red ball hard into the side pocket but with enough topspin that the white ball bounced back across the table and behind a wall of his own balls, effectively snookering the other player.
“Bloody hell,” his shorter, curly-haired opponent complained. “All I want to know is whether the cheap bugger is providing the ale or not.” He paced and bent down to table height to assess his position.
“Aye, there’ll be ale and Dermot there with his guitar, Declan on the bodhran, and the whole village down to celebrate Mabon,” the taller man answered.
“Aye, it’s bad luck to let the wine run dry on the first day of fall. There’ll be plenty. It’s nigh on eleven; let’s get back up to Campbeltown,” the shorter man said as he hung up his cue and then walked over to the table that his half-empty beer sat upon.
Pretending not to be enthralled with their conversation, I quickly glanced over Frank’s head, out the window, toward the lacy stone walls that traced a maze over the landscape until it fell flat off a cliff into the ocean.
“Got the snooker table all to yourself now,” the short man called over to us.
“Did I hear you say you live in Campbeltown?” I asked as the shorter man eyed me and the taller one looked over at Frank. Campbeltown was just a few miles across a small channel from the stone circle we wanted to visit on Machrie Moor on the Isle of Arran. A direct crossing would be much easier than taking the ferry to Ayr from Larne and yet another to Arran. Frank had disappeared to the bar for the moment. “You know, we’re trying to get there for the fall equinox. Do you know the stone circle there?”
“Are you one of those Mabon fire dancers?” the tall, skinny one, Colin, asked.
“No, I’m an archaeologist doing research,” I responded.
“I heard they make human sacrifices on the solstices,” he responded in a whisper.
This warranted a deep chuckle and embarrassed snort from Charlie. “Don’t be ridiculous, clotheid, they haven’t done that for thousands of years.”
“And not even then, really.” I smiled coyly, adding my opinion sotto voce.
“Yes, we go down to Ailsa’s Craig on the beach for the Mabon fires. It’s just down the steep hill from the stone circle that overlooks the sea,” Colin responded. He had the kindest soft brown eyes, round as a kitten’s.
Frank brought them over two pints of what they were drinking “Yer boyfriend is rather generous,” the shorter man, Charlie, noted.
“Oh, no. Just my best friend.” I smiled sheepishly, looking over at the taller man, who lit up with this news about Frank being single, as I had suspected he would. Maybe we’d have an easy ride to the autumnal equinox festival after all. I was done waiting on the ferries.
“Lovely, then!” the tall man said, clapping his hands together, bowing chivalrously and introducing himself to Frank as Colin, a lorry driver.
I couldn’t tell if Frank genuinely liked him or if it was just brilliant acting in the name of buttering him up to get some information on their boat. Whatever his intentions, it worked. In just about fifteen minutes, the bar was closing, and we offered to drive them to their boat docking a few miles away. We learned it took about an hour to get to Campbeltown from where we were by boat and that Machrie Moor was just twenty minutes beyond that docking, over on the neighboring island. It would take two hours in total instead of ten hours and ferry timetables.
As we said goodbye at the dock, Frank chimed in, clapping his hands together, already picking up one of Colin’s more endearing mannerisms. “We will meet you here on September twenty-second for the Mabon fires. Edie here will bring her drum, I’ll bring the peyote, and we will dance and commune with the ancestors; it will be grand.”
“Can’t wait!” Colin chimed in before Charlie could comment. Charlie smiled a lipless smile and waved us off.
“Hey, Charlie, what’s peyote?” I heard Colin ask as they walked away before we turned the engine back on.
“That was even more smooth than usual,” I said to Frank as we drove away. “I appreciate you using your charm in the name of my research.”
“I actually think I like the guy. Maybe that’s the craziest part,” he responded.
“The good news is that Mabon and Samhain are our last two festivals to research, and now you’ve made it much easier for us to access the stones that are normally the most difficult to get to. A large ferry can’t get around Ailsa’s craig, but a small fishing boat can.” I said. “But the bad news is…”
And then we said in unison, “We missed the damn ferry again.”
Ailsa
Aric stumbled over to me, drunk off ale, perhaps, or maybe just from the general reverie of the evening. He planted a sopping wet kiss on my neck, where his mouth lingered. He laughed, the sweet smell of smoked meat and herbs lingering on his breath.
“You’re certainly enjoying yourself, Aric,” Ros’s sister Rasha spoke up. I gave her a look suggesting she not provoke him, but all women had trouble not engaging with Aric at close proximity. His dark hair gave way to a darker beard, kept long in the fashion of his people. Just that alone was enough to ensure he was exotically appealing, not to mention his washing up on the seashore, speaking a mysterious separate language, and being widowed by the age of eighteen.
As a girl, I had never quite understood why Aric was so appealing, but I was starting to understand. Something had changed over the last six months, and I was no longer cringing at his touch or his wet, sloppy kisses. In fact, I realized, watching him bow to Rasha and strut back to his friends, I had come to depend on his grace and the feeling of ease I had whenever I was around him. I watched him introduce himself to both strangers and friends of this northern isle with such ease and kindness, jovial and welcoming. My heart stayed in my chest, not in my throat, as it was so often with Ros. And there was my husband, bright and shining across the fire, I thought to myself. My husband. I felt a little kick in the belly at that. Or was it butterflies at the thought of my husband? Four moons had passed since my pregnancy began, and I was starting to feel movement in the womb.
“I heard you’re calling the dancers at midnight,” Rasha said as we both watched Aric.
“My first time,” I said to her and smiled.
“Does Ros know?” she asked, innocently.
Could he have told her about our plan to escape tonight? I suppose if he had told anyone, it would be his sister. “I don’t think he does,” I answered, truthfully.
“It’s just such a beautiful song, I know he’d want to hear you do it. In case it’s the last time.” I stared at her. Did she know his plan? “I don’t think he has any intention of attending his own wedding. I guess I’ll have to marry both twins.” Rasha laughed.
I hugged her briefly. “I’m sorry, Rasha.” I wanted to tell her so much more. “But that’s not a bad idea.” I joked instead, giving her a playful nudge on the shoulder. I wanted to enlist her help with telling him that I wasn’t leaving with him tonight either, but I couldn’t ask that of her. And I was braver than that. She kissed my cheek and ran off to join her mother, sister, and the other dancers. I waved over to them and then went to sit quietly next to Ray at the edge of the circle, hoping this might exempt me from further conversation.
My head was spinning now as the crowd moved around us. In the distance, the questioning “hoo-hoo” of a long-eared owl formed a chorus with the crickets. The local Druid, Bormag, began a chant that broke into melodic song, recounting the battles of generations of past; some of the words we knew, some he sang alone, his clear, high voice streaming into the night like a lark’s song. I had that familiar feeling that my heart would burst, looking out onto the crowd of my friends and loved ones, the villagers that I had come to know throughout my life. It had been a hard life, but it would have been so much worse without the support I had from my village. I leaned back, enjoying the moment, never wanting to leave. How had I ever entertained leaving? I thought to myself.
And then I was instantly reminded. Ros’s tenor rose to my right, above the deep voices encircling Aric on the periphery of the stones. One look at his ruddy complexion betrayed his intentions to me at once. He had come to start something with Aric if I wasn’t prepared to leave with him. I had become uncharacteristically short-tempered lately. I said a quick prayer in my head and prepared myself to stand up from the stone on which I sat with Ray. He grabbed my arm and gave me a warning look that I was surprised to see. It was unlike him to get involved. Perhaps it was his bond with Aric, or perhaps it was our own connectedness, but he pulled me back as I tried to move toward the two men facing off now. I stared at him, as questioning as the owl, for a moment before my attention was pulled back to Ros, who was staring at me across the fire.
“I just need to speak to him for a moment, Ray,” I said. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“I’ve had a dream of him jumping off the cliffs into a fire, Ailsa. Whether that is literal or metaphorical, you cannot follow him into it, do you understand me?” he asked in a fatherly tone, glancing down at my small belly.
“I know the dream.” I responded, nodding.
“You don’t even know how to properly sail,” I heard Ros muttering as I walked over to him. Aric and the other explorers seemed to be laughing, taking it in stride, and attempting to calm Ros, assuming he was drunk, which was making him even angrier. “You don’t belong here,” Ros said as he spat. Aric tracked my long strides as I made my way over. We made eye contact, but he didn’t smile or interrupt me. He simply nodded a gentle, half-nod in my direction. He knew. And he was prepared to let me deal with my own mess.
“Your handler is here, Ros.” a deep voice said across the crowd as I grabbed Ros’s arm and glanced over at Rasha, sitting between her fiancé and Ros’s, both of whom looked concerned. She gave me a pitiful, helpless look that angered me almost as much as her brother’s ridiculous behavior. I pulled my hood up and covered my face, feeling like everyone around the giant fire knew, just as intimately as I did, what this was actually about. It wasn’t unusual for drunken fights to break out between rivals at festival time, but if that happened, we weren’t going to have the benefit of privacy for slipping away.
I snapped my hood up, “Is this your idea of slipping away quietly?” I pulled his arm, indicating he should follow me, and he did. Grandmother had gone over to speak to Aric, and Ray was distracted with the ceremony as I looked over my shoulder to make sure no one followed us to the shore.
I had run the decision over in my head one thousand times before I made it and one hundred times after. The outcome was always the same. I knew what I had to do. I took a deep breath. I was angry at him for acting out, but that wasn’t the most important emotion at play here. What was it Ray always said? Feel the feeling, but don’t become the emotion. We walked so speedily to the beach that I was losing my breath.
“I feel your fear,” Ros said, holding my hand, our fingers interlaced tightly. “Cast it into the fire! The boat is ready, with sails. It’s safe with plenty of food and water to get us to the southern isles.”
The wind was not particularly strong, nor was the ocean rough, but the night was cold for Lughnasadh. He was right: it would be a safe crossing.
“I’m not afraid, Ros. Well, not of the crossing, at least.”
“Then what is it, Ailsa?” he snapped. “You have the great unknown ahead of you. Seize it for yourself! We have an open journey and anything we can dream, like you said you wanted!” He paused, breathing heavily from nearly running away from the fire at the stone circle.
We had reached the walkway down to the beach from the shorter cliffs of the island. The sound of the waves rolling in seemed a calming roar compared with the madness of my best friend in front of me. He started to ease me down the steep incline that led to the beach. I heard the jubilant chanting from the fire far behind us and turned around instinctively.
“You know I love you, Ros, but I can’t go,” I said, and I felt his fingers slip out of mine.
He looked back at me, the open sea and the setting sun framing his pink face, his fire-colored hair, and the high arches of his blond brows and lashes. “It’s what we said we wanted,” he said in such an innocent manner that it broke my heart.
“I changed my mind,” I said, placing my hand on his heart, a familiarity, I realized in that moment, I had with no one else. “It’s not my dream anymore.” I wrapped my heavy green cloak around me tightly against the night. “But it’s what you want, and I want you to seize it.”
“All I want is you!” he screamed, almost childlike.
“Ros, I know you feel that way now, but it’s simply not true.” He sank into the sand, head in his hands, elbows on his knees, and I knelt next to him, searching, praying for something to say.
“I could wring your skinny little neck, Ailsa. Don’t tempt me.” I backed away for a moment and took a deep breath for perspective.
“It’s an adventure with nothing to tie you down, and perhaps that is closer to who you are than just someone who only wants me.” I laughed. It was a tiny, amused noise, nothing more, but he glared up at me as I spoke. “That’s never who you were when we were growing up, Ros. You’ve always dreamed too big for this island, and I loved you for it. You didn’t need me then and you don’t need me now. Look at your sail! It will take you where your soul leads.” I gestured out to the moorings at his boat, which stood, shining and beautiful, lengths above the rest. He had poured his heart into it day by day, and I was shattering that same heart in this moment. I shivered from the thought.
“Is it love or loved, Ailsa? Because you’ve used both tonight.”
I brushed the golden-red wisps of hair from his eyes and bent down, touching his forehead with mine. “I said both because I love you now and have loved you in the past, and I will love you forever.”
“I should have known you would be afraid,” he said in quiet disgust.
“I’m not afraid to go with you, Ros. I’m afraid to stay and fulfill the role I was born to. I’m afraid of what being head Druid will mean and how it will test me, I’m afraid of mothering and birth and how being a dowser like father will change me. And that’s why I have to stay. It’s the harder thing because it’s not running away.”
“And what of the child—if it is mine and I’ll never see her or know her?” He thought for a moment, looking up into the stars for answers they could not give. How many people had faced these same struggles before us? And how many more would across time? I thought. I watched him for what felt like a long time and an instant. I watched the anguish on his face melt into something deeper; more sorrowful. Then he placed a callused, cupped hand on my cheek, and his eyes glistened into mine for what I hoped would not be the last time. “Tell her the stories of old; don’t let her forget them. Tell her about our alder trees and my broken leg. Take her out on the boat. Make sure she knows that my heart is strong, that I was always true, despite enduring some difficulties and making mistakes.” He pulled me to him. We shared one last, warm kiss, and then, holding the back of my head, he gently pressed my cheek to his so I could feel the hot tears burning tracks down his full cheeks and pointed jaw. “And sing her the songs we used to sing. You know my favorite one.”
He began to hum the tune quietly and then sang, “Now wherever I roam I am not alone, you left me with something to hold on to.” We rocked back and forth pressed together for a few last moments. Ros smiled at the kicks he could feel through my cloak on his thigh. “She’s strong like her mother, aye?”
A lump formed in my throat. I couldn’t think of anything to say. “Sing to her yourself, Ros. You can come back to tell us all about your adventures.”
He nodded. “You told me to follow where my soul leads.”
“Go, then,” I said, “before the ceremony begins and Rasha and the twins come looking for you.” He turned quickly to go and left without looking back.
As painful as it was, I forced myself to stay and look out over the horizon, watching him leave, sails pulled and bow uplifted in defiance of the breakers that challenged him before the promise of the still, open seas on the other side.
I thought about our different perspectives in that moment. Ros, facing those angry waves, focusing on getting through the rough moment, having faith that there was calm and peace ahead. And me, with the perspective of the gods, standing on the high ground above him, seeing clearly that there was peace ahead of him, if he could only push through the crashing waves.