Ailsa
“What makes you wake at daybreak and lay your head down at night?” Jord asked.
“I know the answer to the second one is wine,” answered Ray, smiling in his broad, frog-like grin that stretched from ear to ear. He and Jord had set out across the hills to the moor just before dawn. Preparations for the eve of Samhain were underway, and my rounded belly was finally peeking out from my heavy green cloak. It was colder than usual and had already snowed once. Last Samhain, I had walked home from the smokehouse with Ros wearing my cloak only, but tonight I was wearing fur underneath my Druid’s cloak, as well as a thick wool dress under that, and I felt a bit like a round hedgehog plumping up for winter. Three moon cycles had passed since Ros left, and while some days, like today, it felt like I thought of him constantly, other days passed peacefully with no reminders of him at all, as Aric and I prepared for the arrival of the baby and the Druids searched for answers in the stones, awaiting the prophetic arrival of the messenger from the south that Ray called the stranger.
“The crack in the stone,” Jord said, his eyes drifting to the tallest stone.
“I’ve examined it several different times,” I said. It appears that the crack happened where the veining is most concentrated, and inside the veins, the rock shimmers; when set aflame, it melts.”
“How did you get up that high to look?” Ray asked, astounded.
I smiled knowingly. “Aric lifted me up.”
Jord said, bashfully, “I’m sure he was happy to do it for you,” and we all had a laugh.
Ray’s eyes were wide. He had been in a jovial mood that morning, but as the time of the ceremony grew near, I could tell something was on his mind. “I have dreamed about this night,” he said. There was a long silence as he seemed to be deciding something important. Jord and I waited with our breaths held. “It’s the night of the fire,” he said finally. Jord and I glanced at one another. There was always a fire at the stones on Samhain. “He comes tonight,” Ray said, gathering his things.
“Who, the stranger?” I asked.
“I’ll be back here by nightfall for the ceremony,” Ray responded, answering my question without actually answering.
Jord and I looked at each other and bade farewell to Ray, watching him as his short legs carried him to the king’s cave with haste. He turned around abruptly.
“Tonight you will call the fire, Ailsa,” he declared.
“But I call the dancers now,” I protested.
“Spirit tells me that you will be in childbed for the winter solstice ceremony, so I need Jord to practice calling the dancers once before then.”
Jord smiled down at me. His eyes were dark pools, like the black of the deepest part of a lake. “Do not fret, ‘twill be all right, child. I feel your parents here with you on this most auspicious day the ancestors descend to earth.” I looked up and saw their reflection in his eyes, which were so dark the pupil could not be distinguished. “Let us go and prepare the village for the procession,” he said. I gently brushed a spider from my cloak, and Jord helped me to my feet.
“He’s a funny little man, changing the ceremony at the last minute,” I said, mostly to myself.
Jord agreed, adding, “I wonder who this stranger is.”
Jord gave me his arm for the long walk across the moor and through the oak grove back to the village and I thought it peculiar that as close and Ray and Jord were, Jord was still clueless about the intentions of the stranger. “What’s the answer to your riddle, Uncle Jord?” I asked as we walked, but he looked confused. “About waking and laying your head down?”
“Oh. It wasn’t a riddle. Just an observation about the sun’s power over us all.”
I shook my head and smiled up at him. “I always felt like you embodied the calm that falls over the land at this time when the veil is most thin, Uncle.”
“I thank you for that, Ailsa. I am particularly thankful for the wisdom of the ancestors tonight. It is most needed at this time.”
We walked through a light drizzle of rain, and I pulled my hood up, happy to reach the oak grove where we were covered. As we crossed the river on flat rocks, I heard a voice call to me. “Did you hear that?” I asked Jord. He shook his head, continuing toward the village. I told him I would catch up to him after I stopped by the great oak for a prayer before the ceremony.
As I made my way there, I heard footsteps following. No one can sneak up on a Druid in the woods in autumn. The leaves were crunchy, and the light drizzle had sent all animals and their sounds inside their dens and nests for the moment. “Who’s there?” I demanded as I approached the great oak. Someone grabbed me from behind, and I screamed. I instantly regretted that—and hoped Jord hadn’t heard me—when I spun around to find Aric’s giant face grinning down at me. The time between Mabon and Samhain was the Nordic New Year, so he had been home with me all this time, in celebration with the few other Norseman in the village. This, combined with the imminent birth of his child, our growing affection for one another, and Ros’s long absence, had left him nothing less than jubilant the past moon cycle. In this moment he looked a little crazed, though.
“Are you here to kill me?” I asked through short, jagged breaths. I was rebutted with a long and hearty laugh from Aric, who nearly doubled over with hilarity.
When he finally regained his breath, he responded, “No. Do you know where we are?”
Looking around, I felt the rough, three-foot-wide trunk of the tree that I had flattened my palms against for support. “We’re in the oak grove, at my tree.” He opened his mouth to respond but instead just glared down at me intensely, willing me to understand. And I stared back at him, blank, remembering the time Ros had followed me out to the old oak grove to tell me about his plan for Lughnasadh. I stared back into his eyes, creasing mine into an almond shape, and suddenly I saw exactly what he wanted me to see. “How do you know about my tree?” I wondered out loud. “Do you follow me?” I asked, near frustration.
“Yes. And no,” he responded, holding up his hands to keep me from interrupting him as he continued. “I came here, in grief, to be alone, when you were just a child and my wife had died. And I saw you. I watched you like something ethereal. You didn’t seem real.”
I stared up at him in disbelief, afraid of what he had seen since then and what he could know, afraid of a part of me being laid bare without my knowledge. “So you sought out the old gods of the oak grove to heal you after Iona died, when the gods of your home didn’t show up for you?” I asked.
He looked at the ground, the oak’s woven roots, which seemed to entangle us as we stood there, rising up between his feet and as high as my thighs. The ancient trees started to crawl from the earth like that. He was as still as night, and then there was a small, gentle nod followed by a tear that fell to ground around the roots in offering. “But I found healing from you instead.” His words floated up to me, and he lifted his gaze to mine and continued, more impassioned now. “This child, who I knew had lost everything but who nonetheless seemed so full of life and happiness, was my teacher. I wanted what you knew about grief, your secret to surviving it.”
“There’s no secret,” I said, feeling in that moment the full weight of my father’s grief, which had pulled him under.
“I saw you here, at this tree, and I felt like I knew your soul, like I had seen it here, and so when I did love you, after we were married,” he emphasized, “I knew exactly where to come when I was looking for you and exactly what you’d be doing when I found you here. I couldn’t ever disturb you in what felt like both your work and your pleasure at the tree, but I felt that if I could be a part of what you were doing, a voyeur of your ritual, then maybe I would be closer to you, understand you better.”
Some incredible feeling bubbled up inside of me, and I couldn’t stop it from trickling over my lips and bursting into fits of laughter. I slid down the trunk of the tree into a crouched position, scratching my back like a bear on the way down, feeling comforted and at home in between the large roots of my tree, where I rested my arms and continued my fits of giggles, laying my head back against the trunk and inhaling the smell of the sweet black earth beneath me and the musky man, my husband, looking very perplexed.
“What on earth is so funny, my dear?” he asked.
After a few more seconds, I got myself under control and lifted my arms to him in embrace. He crouched down with me, nestled in the roots like a pair of rabbits. “Nothing,” I said, resting my head safely on his shoulder and closing my eyes, thinking to myself that whether life was all free will or destiny or a mixture of the two, it had somehow aligned. I had been so mad at Ray for dismissing Ros, for forcing the connection with Aric, and for leaving me in the dark about it for so many years. But Ray hadn’t forced anything. He had merely seen the truth, from a different perspective, and he had let it play out as naturally as possible, hopefully with as little pain as possible. I said a silent prayer for Ros’s happiness, as I often did when he sprang to mind.
Normally, Aric wouldn’t have let me get away with something as dismissive as “nothing” when I broke into one of my giggling fits, but the sound of the dancers bringing up their voices in procession to the stone circle sent a shiver up my spine and pulled us both away from our moment.
“Oh no, I’m late!”
Aric stood up and pulled me into his arms. “I’ll carry you up to the moor; it will be faster.” I wrapped my arms around his neck for stability, and he patted the trunk of my tree. “See you soon, old friend,” he said to it and ran off through the woods.
The last of the ghostly procession arrived at the top of the cliffs just as I joined the Druids and Jord began calling them, their lanterns floating across the moor toward the rest of us at the stone circle. The dancers approached from all directions, long white dresses dragging behind them as they carried lanterns with them up the path from the beach. They wore veils as well, thinly woven to show their faces through the silvery white fabric. The veils were held in place by flower crowns made from juniper, lavender, ivy, and jasmine. I had helped Rasha and Reina with theirs, and we had stayed up late, talking about Rasha’s new husband and silently hoping for Ros to return home for Samhain eve, but he hadn’t.
The sound of the Druids’ humming eased a knot in my stomach that I didn’t realize I had been carrying until then. I had expected Ros to come home, even just briefly, this week for his birthday and favorite festival. I took a deep breath and strode toward the light of the huge fire, leaving Aric behind me with one last squeeze of his fingertips. The sound of my heavy breathing and heartbeat faded as I got closer to the drums and the song and story that called the dancers around me. I stood in a circle with the other Druids, looking for Ray with no luck. Was he with the stranger? I wondered.
The drums stopped; the dancers froze. It was my turn. I stepped up, prepared to call the torches to the great fire at the center of the circle, but I never called the fire that night—or ever—because a greater fire than any of us had ever seen before had just arrived on the island.
Ray’s voice rang out in the stillness, and when I carried my torch to look down the beach toward the cave where he had disappeared to, I saw the fire that he had described in his dream: wild, out of control, and consuming the boats moored on the beach.
“Ray!” I called desperately, following Jord to the path that led down to the beach. Then Ray appeared, seemingly out of the mist, walking toward us on the moor.
“You must go alone, Ailsa. In haste.” He spoke directly to me, but Aric stepped in.
“Are you mad? She’s with child.”
I quieted him. “I’ll go,” I said.
I walked across the moor, handed my torch to Ray, illuminating his sooty, sweaty face, and made my way down to the beach.
As I came closer to the cave, I recognized Ros’s beautiful crab claw sailboat as the kindling of this great fire. I gasped and ran as fast as my legs could carry me, calling Ros’s name. He stood on the bow of it, and when he saw me, he picked up one of the flagons of strong wine he had packed, took a long, deep swig of it, then threw it into the ship with a satisfying smash as the shards flew everywhere. I shielded my eyes, thankfully, because in one instantaneous whoosh, the fire went up, hot on my face, and the ship disappeared in flames in front of us.
“Ros, are you ok?” I ran to him where he had jumped off into the water just in time. His face was flushed red from the heat of the fire, and I saw the reflection of it in his eyes. I waded out in the water to my knees, but he pulled me out farther and kissed me sweetly until I was immersed to my shoulders. He tasted like salt: his sweat, tears, and the ocean mingling on my lips. “Why did you scorch your beautiful boat, Ros?”
“They’re after me,” he said, out of breath, kissing my cheeks.
“Who?” I asked. “And firing the boat is a little attention-grabbing if someone is pursuing you, don’tcha think?”
He smiled at me with the huge, wily grin that had captivated all the girls of our youth, and I saw then that he had returned to his wild and unpredictable self. “I made it down to the south isles and decided to go over to the mainland. I met some men from the south to trade with, and they asked me about ye.” he explained. “How?” I asked, perplexed. “They wielded strange weapons, Ailsa, sharp as sharks’ teeth, but bigger, more formidable. They threatened me more than once with them.” I wondered why Ray hadn’t mentioned the possibility of violence from the stranger. We had simply been looking for messages about the stones, not expecting battle, I thought. “And they had all kinds of jewelry and breastplates,” he continued. “I’ve never seen anything like it. I was worried for you since they were asking after you, so I sent them off track, far north, but as I was coming back here for Samhain to warn you all, I saw them sailing into the eastern harbor, and they shot one of their silvery weapons at my boat.”
He was out of breath from telling me, so I held his head in my hands to calm him. “I’m OK,” I said. “We’re OK.” I smiled.
He pulled me to him, and we embraced. “I’ll take my fishing boat so they don’t recognize me and leave in the middle of the night so I can go up to see everyone at the Samhain festival for a moment.”
As he spoke, he started off toward the cave where his fishing boat was moored. He spared a scarce glance at me over his shoulder, and in that moment, a falling star streaked downward across the sky. I gasped and pointed up, but it was too late; he had missed it. Blink and the magic is gone. I let the thought float in—and out just as quickly as the light had appeared in the sky.
I ran after him, struggling in my heavy clothes, removing the wet fur from under my cloak. Ros looked over at me, standing at the mouth of the cave as he prepared his small fishing boat inside, heaving in what was left of the furs, woolen blankets, and leather bags full of soaps, herbs, dried jerky, fruit, barley and medical necessities. I brought him my warm underclothes, he smiled and nodded. Last, he pitched in his flint tools. He had spent more time on a boat in his life than on land, perhaps, so it was no surprise that he worked swiftly and effortlessly. He pushed his boat out of the cave onto the runners that dropped it down into the deeper waters that surrounded the cave opening. The same one where Aric had washed ashore nearly twenty years ago.
He extended his hand to me. “Let’s walk up to the Samhain fire and tell them not to worry about my fire,” he suggested, holding up a dry cloak for me.
I laid the wet green Druid’s cloak in his boat, assuming I’d walk him down with his sisters when he left, and I wrapped the indigo-dyed wool around me. “This is beautiful,” I said.
“I got it for ye in the southern isles,” he answered, looking pleased to see me in it. “Don’t tell Rasha and Reina, though,” he joked. “Never did think the green favored you much.”
We held hands and walked past the fire, tamed by the wind and waves somewhat, toward the steep pathway up to the moor from the beach. “The tide’s going to change soon.” I pointed out. He raised his eyebrows, kissed the back of my hand, and motioned me up the path in front of him. “I’ll be back in time.” he answered.
I looked for Aric’s face first as we crested the hill to the moor. Ros ran over to his family, resistant to part ways with me, but I saw Ray’s concerned face through the jubilant crowd first and walked straight to him, the heartbeat of the bodhran pounding in my ears. “Don’t worry, the fire is dying down and he’s leaving after—where’s Aric?” I interrupted myself.
“He’s here, Ailsa. The stranger from the South. Aric took some of his men to meet his boat at the eastern coast.”
My heart leaped into my throat. For Aric, for Ros, and finally for Ray and myself. “What are they going to do?” I asked.
“My intuition and experience tells me they mean no harm, but speaking to Ros today has led me to believe they can easily make enemies, and they clearly know who you are.”
“Why do they know me, Ray? You’re the head Druid. You’re the one with the visions.”
Ray gave me an abashed look, but before he could reply, someone yelled my name from across the darkness.
“Ailsa!” I heard Aric’s voice and went to meet him, sprinting up the moor. “They saw us coming and turned south to go around to the other coast.”
“Why would they do that if they meant well?” I glanced at Ray, who had joined us, and noticed Ros watching us over the crowd as well.
“Ros!” Aric yelled. “The tide is going out and taking your small boat with it!”
Ros hugged his mother and walked over to us casually so as not to frighten his family any more than they already were. “Are they here?” he asked Aric.
“They’re coming around to dock on this side of the island,” he answered.
“Best you go, Ros,” Ray said. “Aric says they don’t seem friendly.”
Ros looked at me. I looked at Ray. “She’ll be safe with me here,” Aric said. “No need to worry.” I was, as always, thankful for his kindness.
Ros nodded, said goodbye, mostly to me and mostly with his eyes, and made for the quickest way down. We three watched him, solemnly, yet no sooner had his head disappeared in descent than it popped back up again. “They’re down there by the fire!” he yelled, pointing and running toward us.
“How’d they get here so fast?” I turned around, looking at Ray, Aric, anyone who could explain.
“I told you they’ve some sort of sorcery,” Ros said. “My boat’s gone past the breakers; I can’t get to it. I…” Ros looked at me, defeated.
“Ray, please!” I grabbed his hands urgently, “Can you go talk to them and make sure all is well?”
“I’ll go with him,” Aric said. “Can’t send the old man by himself.” He rubbed Ray’s shoulder and smiled his sweet smile at me, eyes creasing into triangles.
Ray nodded solemnly and reached for Ros’s hands. He held them in his own, and I saw tenderness pass between them for the first time. What had they talked about on the beach before they set the fire? I wondered, watching them. Ray reached up to hug Ros, and I heard him whisper, “You know what you have to do.”
Ros nodded and patted Ray’s shoulders. There was shouting in a foreign language down on the beach. Aric kissed me goodbye and reassured me all would be fine. I looked at the stone mace and ax he carried, and the ceremonial mace that Ray carried, and felt better. “Be careful,” I said as he turned to lead Ray down to the beach.
Ros had left to walk south in the direction of the cliffs where we had met so many times. His pace was quick, so I had to run to catch up with him. “What were you and Ray talking about? What do you have to do?” I asked, barely able to breathe.
“Go back to the stone circle, Ailsa,” Ros said without looking back at me, still walking too fast for me to catch up in my condition.
“Please!” I yelled. My heart was thumping so hard with my exertion and fright. “Please don’t jump like my father! Ros, tell me you wont!”
At this, he turned around. The edge of the cliffs was in sight, and I fell to my knees in exhaustion.
“I have to,” he said, walking over to me and lifting me up. “But I’m going off the south cliffs, where there are no rocks below, only the one craig that I can swim to if I don’t catch my boat. But I will, don’t worry. I’ll dive for it– I’ve done it before, just not so high up.” he laughed. He walked with me a bit closer to the edge, and the wind blew the new indigo cloak he had given me up around us, whipping my hair wildly. “See, it’s just there. I can make it if I jump now.”
The edge of the cliffs hid the fire and Ray and Aric from our view to the west. I closed my eyes and said a prayer that they were safe. “You don’t have to go like this,” I pleaded, looking down at the swells of the sea below, spying his little fishing boat fifty lengths from the shore.
“Tell the foreigners I went south again to the traders,” he said, looking down at the ocean below, searching for the best place to enter the water. “I’ll be long gone in the other direction.” He winked at me, silently telling me that if I ever needed him I could find him in the North, the lands of pink and green night skies and ship builders. He pulled me in for one last, long kiss. “Tell my story, Ailsa. The Samhain eve that I flew down from the cliffs into the sea.”
He laughed with excitement in his ocean blue eyes, his huge ear-to-ear grin visible across the moonless night. How many times had we laughed together? As young children we had played games in the meadow, hiding from his parents and rolling in the dirt with his dogs. As older children we had found humor in almost everything, especially anything serious. All the ceremonies and festivals at which we had planned pranks, snuck off, made jokes, or laughed at the serious behavior of the adults flew through my mind all at once, and I managed to laugh through my tears. I held the underside of my belly on the steep ascent to the very top of the cliffs, the place where it had begun, where he had first kissed me under these very same stars, with different promises. “It’s time.” he said.
We backed away from the edge of the cliffs together, holding hands. Once we were well enough back, he looked at me one last time, took a deep breath, and took off running full speed. When he reached the edge of the cliff, he pushed off hard, put his arms out, and dove into the sea with the grace of an albatross. I ran to the edge, where I saw his boat bobbing, straining to see a small head pop out of the water. “Please!” I begged out loud.
I cried for him and collapsed on the grassy cliff, just inches from where we had dangled our feet as children and then challenged our individual destinies as adults, coming together as one for the first time. Sheer physical and emotional exhaustion had pulled me back from the stars to the earth, though. Through my hazy vision, I could see Ray coming into focus at the corner of my eyes, hunched over me, checking my breathing and palpating my stomach. I felt the familiarity of his small yet strong and knobby hands and the way in which they could deeply probe all of the inner organs; he knew exactly where they should lie and how they should feel.
“Did he make it?” I whispered, grabbing his forearm as much to reassure him of my strength as to get him to stop prodding and poking me.
“Shhh, Ailsa.” Ray laughed in his fatherly manner, a deep rumble in his chest. “Ros and Aric are both safe, but you’re fevered; let’s get you home.”
And somehow, for the second time, Ray lifted a person one and a half times his size and carried them to safety.