Like the Sea
As she soaked in the tub, Áine’s thoughts drifted… He is a stranger, yet He is no stranger… odd… what is the truth of it? Where did He come from and how is it that He is here in these mountains now? He is not Síabhru, yet He is Síabhra [of the Sídhe], I can Feel it in Him. Who and What is He? She closed her eyes and searched her memories… back… far back in subjective time… she could hear the sounds of the sea, the surf striking against rocks like thunder. Her heart was mixed with both joy and sorrow, the boundaries fuzzy and undefined, like twilight.
If joyful is the fountain that rises in the sun, its springs are in the wells of sorrow unfathomed at the foundations of the world… He’d said that to her once, a long, long time ago… and then they’d parted.
No, this cannot Be! her eyes flew open, but she Knew it was the truth as soon as the thought came to her. The tears came unbidden to her eyes all at once, welling up from deep within, and her tears were of both joy and sorrow.
Back in the kitchen, he suddenly felt what She was feeling, and a tight knot gathered in his throat at the realization that She’d remembered. Will She now reject me, as I rejected Her so many years ago? Would serve me right if She did, I was a foolish lout in those days. He swallowed the hard lump in his throat, but with great difficulty.
He returned a while later and helped her out of the bath, dried her off, and wrapped her in a warm fleece robe. He picked her up in his arms and easily carried her back into her bed and covered her again with quilts. From the kitchen, he fetched a tray with a big bowl of chicken soup, biscuits, and coffee, and he fed them both with the same spoon.
“What shall I call you?” Áine asked.
He hesitated, then looked at her with a hint of a smile in his eyes. “You already Know,” he teased, “but I’ll humor you anyway… I’ve been called many names… not all of them very nice,” he chuckled. “Some call me Giolla dé Cair, the Hard Servant… others call me Trickster or Coyote… some call me the Son of Lir… while others call me Winter King… some say I am the Green Man… Manannan, Abarta, Barinthus, Manawyddan… and you have called me Like the Sea,” he winked at her, “Does that answer your question?”
She grinned at him playfully. “Yes, but what shall I call you now?” she teased.
He seemed thoughtful a moment, then said, “I’m sure you’ll think of something suitable, Summer Queen.”
Áine looked at him, not hiding the surprise she felt at His use of that name.
“Go back to sleep, woman. I’ll still be here when you wake,” he touched her face ever so softly. “Sleep,” he said, and she closed her eyes and slept the most peaceful sleep, her smile never fading.
While she slept, he explored the house. He found the stables and henhouse, cleaned them out, and put down fresh straw and feed. Dubhealaíin consented to allowing him to brush her coat, Knowing her mistress was not up to the task. He brushed the mare until her coat gleamed with nearly a blue-black sheen, then covered her with the woolen blanket again.
“Relax, Dubhealaín, our muirnín [beloved] will be fine… I’ll see to Her… don’t worry yourself, good friend,” he said as he went back into the main hallway.
He had himself a bath and a shave, and looked in on Áine who still slept. He was very tempted to crawl into bed beside her, but he didn’t wish to wake her. Instead, he went into another bedroom and crawled beneath the quilts. He lay there for some time, tossing and turning, rehashing old memories. I swear, by all that I Am, I will not repeat the mistakes of the past… this time, in this place, things will be different. And at last, he settled down and drifted off to sleep himself.
In the morning he awoke just before dawn, kindled the fires, gathered fresh eggs from the henhouse, and made the two of them a hearty breakfast. Áine was already awake when he entered her bedroom. There was much she wished to talk about, but he was having none of that and insisted she eat and then rest some more. She convinced him to read aloud to her from a book at her bedside, because lying around in bed all day even when you needed to was maddeningly boring. And so, he opened the book after breakfast and began to read aloud.
The book was called The Magic Road and it told the tale of a traveling harper on a quest to find the Oak King’s daughter, and it told of his plans to win her heart, and to make her his wife. As he read to her, Áine watched him closely. There was not a nuance or any single thing about him that she failed to notice. And as the hours passed, she wished more and more that he would put the book down and climb under the quilts with her. But then she would glance down at her old woman’s hands and realize that it was likely he wouldn’t do such a thing, and she tried to push those sorts of thoughts out of her mind, and simply enjoy what was.
And she would… for a time. But then those thoughts would force themselves to the foreground, over and over again, and she knew not what to do to make them go away. It was during one of those moments of anguish that he happened to glance up from his reading and saw the look on her face.
He quietly closed the book and went over and sat on the bed next to her.
“What is it?” he whispered, “What is causing you this pain?”
And she couldn’t tell him, but he already knew.
“Close your eyes,” he said.
She closed her eyes.
“What do you see?” he asked.
She thought for a minute, then she said, “Your face, your hair, your eyes,” she whispered.
He closed his eyes just as she opened hers, “I see your face, your hair, and your eyes, too… and you are not an old hag, because I see you as you Are… in Summer, and as you will always Be… inside.” And then he slowly bent his head down, and their lips met, and he kissed away the tears that silently trickled down her cheeks.
“Did you forget that in Summer, I will be the old one and you will be the young one?” he whispered in her ear. “In the Spring and in the Fall, we will be well-matched, for We are Beings of Twilight, you and I, and we are in the Windlass Mountains on the Isle of Dreams… where Twilight magics Are… We will Be as Twilight Is here in this place… We are limnal Beings in a limnal place.”
“But I almost perished,” she whispered.
“But you didn’t,” he whispered back, “Do you know why?”
She thought long and hard about this, but no answer came to her.
“You are of the inner seas. I am of the outer seas. We are two spirits… meant for each other… a matched set,” he softly said.
Áine got very quiet, thinking about everything that had happened. She looked at the ceiling. He wondered what she would say next and the silence was deafening, and then the silence was broken.
“Is tú mo rogha?” Áine whispered. [You are my chosen one?] She almost held her breath, waiting to hear what he would say next.
“Tá sin de rogha agat,” he whispered back to her without hesitation. [That is for you to choose.]
She looked over at him lying there next to her. She couldn’t help but smile, but quickly wiped the smile from her face. He’d responded in the way the tradition required.
“Ní imghabhaim aon fhear,” she said. [I shun no man.]
“Ní imghabhaim aon beann, in urraim duit,” he said to her. [I shun no woman, out of respect for you.]
“In the Spring then,” she smiled and he pulled her close for a kiss, and held her in his arms.
“But you still haven’t told me what you’ll call me,” he teased.
She thought for a moment and then collapsed in a fit of giggles.
“What??” he grinned, “Tell me!”
She kept laughing, and then blurted out, “Lodan Luchargán…. Puddle Elf… ha-ha-ha-ha!”
“Why you….” and then he laughed too, thinking about it.
They spent the rest of that day talking and laughing and making plans for the Spring.
