The Mammoth Book of Irish Romance

Dara England Eternal Strife

Conmaicne Rein, Ireland — 800 AD

Sinead shivered in the early morning cold, tugging her shawl more tightly around her shoulders as she peered into the gloomy grey world ahead. Her breath hung in pale clouds on the air and mingled with the wispy mists rolling in off the water. Here along the lakeshore the earth was soggy and made wet sucking noises each time she pulled a booted foot free of the clinging mud.

Heart pounding, she held on tightly to the clay pitcher in her hands and searched for the resolve that had seemed so strong when she set out. She thought of her mother lying ill and alone in the draughty little cottage she had left behind. That was enough to bolster her determination.

It didn’t matter that Mother would have forbidden this desperate act had she been aware of the plan her daughter had in mind to save her. All that mattered was that Sinead was finally taking action.

Courage temporarily renewed, she walked with confidence, stepping free of the cover of the overhanging willow branches and wading through the waist-high grasses leading down to the edge of the waters. She refused to think of what might be crouching, slithering or lurking among the weeds, as she knelt to peer into the murky depths below.

Tiny minnows darted away from her shadow. The light was still too dim for her face to look back at her from the mirrored surface but she knew what she would have seen if it had: a thin young girl of eighteen, with hip-length hair as dark as the feathers of the raven. Somewhere amid that mass of wild, unruly hair would be a plain face, unremarkable but for its pale, tightly drawn features. Her wide green eyes — her most predominant feature — were doubtless large with apprehension at the moment. Yes, perhaps it was as well she couldn’t see.

Reluctantly, she inched further forwards until her toes were near the water and her skirts dragged in the filthy mud, so that she could scoop the pitcher into the deeper water.

She moved gingerly, making certain nothing save the pitcher touched the waters. All knew the folk of the lake guarded their watery home jealously and hated to be disturbed. Moreover, they could move as swiftly and silently as the fog; in one breath a man or woman might think themselves alone, in the next they appeared from nowhere to drag an unsuspecting victim down, screaming, into the icy depths of the lake.

Sinead flinched at the thought.

Her pitcher came up filled with cloudy, brown water carrying the stench of the lake. Twigs and bits of decaying leaves floated in the water so that the liquid looked more likely to sicken the person who drank from it than heal them. Nevertheless, a tea made with the special waters of the lake combined with the petals of the joyflower, which grew in the near meadow, and a little fever-wort from the nearby forest, was famed for its healing powers.

Certainly Sinead had tried everything else. Her new-found confidence about as substantial as the shifting fog swirling around her, she hugged her brimming pitcher to her breast and began backing away from the water’s edge.

An instant later, she collided with something solid and damp at her back. With a startled shriek, she dropped the pitcher, its precious contents spilling out across the ground.

She had no thought to spare for it.

Whirling, she found herself confronted with a vision from a nightmare — a creature of scale and fin, yet standing upright on human-shaped legs. One of the lake folk.

Sinead trembled, too terrified even to flee as the creature looked down on her. Its form was vaguely akin to that of a woman but not even the quickest of glances could have mistaken this creature for a human being. Long slitted gills ran up either side of her neck, a broad, pale fin covered the length of her spine, and iridescent scales dotted her skin. Intertwined with her fair hair were long strands of green lake weed, which clung damply from the crown of her head down to her waist.

It was her eyes that most horrified Sinead: two orbs of water, clear and colourless, without any hint of feeling or life.

Sinead might have stood forever, paralysed by fright, had she not suddenly become aware of that dreaded icy touch. The lake woman had stretched out a long hand to clasp clammy fingers tightly around Sinead’s wrist.

«Come. come.» The liquid whisper that poured forth from her lips was not a voice, but rather a thin, trickling sound like the dribble of water running downhill.

«Come. come with us.» Others took up the chanted command and Sinead abruptly became aware of other lake folk creeping in from the water’s banks to surround her.

She bit back a squeal as one crept in and wound its slender fingers through her loose hair.

«Join us, join us,» the lake folk chanted.

Sinead, cringing, slapped their hands away and tried to back away from the water’s edge. She knew it was a futile gesture; few were those who escaped once they had felt the icy grip of these otherworldly beings and looked into their cold, watery eyes.

«No! Leave me alone,» she cried. «I don’t want to go with you!»

But even as she spoke the words she knew it was no use. Wasn’t this what was said always to happen to those unwary enough to allow themselves to be taken captive by the lake folk? They were dragged down into the icy depths never to return; whether their fate was to drown or become one of the folk themselves no one knew.

Sinead did not want to suffer the horror of either fate.

As if reading her thoughts, the first lake woman spoke. «You have taken that which is ours,» she hissed, her voice at once as soft as lapping water and as firm as a roaring sea. «Those who partake of the magic, belong to the magic. It is the law of the Sídhe and we abide by it.»

Sinead attempted to stumble backwards but found herself hemmed in on every side. The shelter of the willow trees might as well have been miles away.

Desperately, she tried to reason with the folk.

«Please, you don’t understand. I didn’t mean to offend the Sídhe — or you — but I have to take the water. My mother is very ill; the healing properties of the lake could save her. I must have the water and I must return alive to nurse my mother back to health. There is no one else to look after her any more, no one but me to sit with her. She lies awake every night, you see, burning with fever and struggling for every breath. There. there is no one else.»

She could think of nothing more to add to the plea. As simply as this, her whole life had been boiled down to a few sentences, yet what a load of burden and responsibility those few words carried. Truly, there was no one else.

She might have claimed she had a lover she couldn’t bear to leave behind. But she hadn’t. She might say she had small children who depended upon her or friends who would miss her. But the truth was, she had none of those either.

At her impassioned plea, the lake woman’s eyes had grown even more opaque. «Your mother is not our concern. If you want the water, you must pay the price. It is the law of the Sídhe,» she repeated. «We must obey.»

Sinead didn’t allow herself to despair yet. A terrible inspiration dawning on her, she summoned what courage she could. I have to do this. I am Mother’s only hope.

Aloud she said, «Very well. I will pay whatever price you set and willingly. Only let me return to my mother first. Let me brew the needed potion and feed her, so that she may recover. Afterwards, if you still want me. I am yours.» She had to choke out those final words, so great was the sense of doom that accompanied them.

She did not know what she expected from the lake folk, or why they should care for her bargain when they could easily drag her off right then with or without her permission.

She could only feel surprise and then a vague sense of the inevitable as she watched them hesitate — given pause by her brave offer.

Can it be they harbour something akin to human feeling or pity?

The lake woman’s face remained as chill and expressionless as ever but Sinead imagined she could see a foaming turmoil within her eyes.

From behind, one of the other creatures whispered, «It is best if she succumbs willingly.»

The lake woman seemed to agree. After a moment of studying Sinead, she said simply, «The bargain is struck. You have until the rising of the morrow’s sun before the magic will come for you. Until then, take what you need and go.»

As simply as that, she faded away — she and the others disappearing into the mist.

If the grey fog near the lake had held one sort of terror for Sinead, her next destination held an altogether different kind of danger. Certainly the peaceful meadow stretched out before her looked safe enough. There was none of the marshy land or the wispy tendrils of mist to speak of gloom and danger.

But Sinead was well familiar with the tales. She knew of the more alluring danger that the beautiful meadow before her possessed: the temptations of the Fae. The local tales were tangled and confused. Who could trust them? But on one point they all agreed. To enter into the chosen realm of the Fae was madness.

And yet, as she had done at the lake, Sinead focused her thoughts on the price of failure and the reward of victory as she forced herself to tread through the tall grasses in search of the bright little blossoms of the joyflower.

The flower was not difficult to find; the meadow was abundant with them and their bright colour combined with their sweet, heady scent led her to a thick patch all too quickly. Sinead gathered the yellow blossoms by the handful, stuffing them into a woollen pouch hanging from her belt. Then, relieved at finishing so quickly, she began to depart.

How still it was here. How peaceful. The sun had now risen to its place in the sky, illuminating the meadow with warm rays of gold. A soft breeze stirred wisps of Sinead’s unbound hair against her bared neck and cheek. Her arms were now feeling heavy from the weight of the pitcher of water carried on one hip. Whatever had possessed her to fetch the water first rather than last?

If she had not been strongly aware of the need to remain alert how easy it would be to stop right where she stood, to lie down and rest amid the meadow grass and wildflowers, to gaze up at the drifting clouds in the cheery blue sky overhead.

She shook away the temptation as soon as she became aware it had entered her head. She had come here with a mission. She had accomplished her purpose as swiftly as possible and must be on her way.

With thoughts such as these, so caught up did she become in the need to be alert towards what lay to her left and right that she forgot to look where her feet tread. Until the moment she realized she was no longer walking amid waist-deep grass. She trod instead on a circular path of well-worn earth, a heavily beaten ring in the centre of an otherwise grassy field.

A faery ring.

Horrified, she froze where she stood, her sudden, clumsy halt causing a small amount of water to splash out over the side of the pitcher and dampen her skirt. She scarcely noticed.

How could she have been so careless? The very thing she had set out to avoid was now surrounding her. There was no spot in the earth filled with more powerful magic than a faery ring.

Moistening her lips with her tongue, she clutched the pitcher more firmly to her side and tiptoed backwards — making her way to the edge of the ring. She almost thought she had made it, almost dared to hope her trespass had escaped their notice.

But such was not her fortune.

«Who is this, brother? Who is this that has come to dance with us?»

Sinead flinched at the light, musical voice coming from beyond her shoulder. Heart heavy with dread, she forced herself to turn and meet the fearfully charming sight.

A pair of Fae folk stood a short distance away, perusing her as though she were some unfamiliar object, some curious, foreign bird or flower that had suddenly appeared where it did not belong.

They were male and female, the pair of Fae, and a very handsome sight they might have been to the unknowledgable eye. Youthful and attractively featured, they were similar enough to have been twins — save that one was a young man, the other a girl. Their clothing was all of gold and silk, their hair as yellow as freshly churned butter. Their very skin seemed to shimmer and sparkle under the light of the sun, as though gold dust powdered them from head to toe. Sinead did not doubt that it did.

«I cannot tell you her name, sister, for it has not yet been given to me.» The young male’s voice was as tinkling and beautiful as that of the girl. He arched one fair eyebrow at Sinead. «Tell me, maiden, what is your name and why do you come here to steal away our secrets?»

Sinead thought she detected a hint of mockery in those tawny eyes and her back stiffened. «I do not come here for your secrets but for your joyflower. My mother is gravely ill and a potion containing your joyflower may save her.»

He appeared not to have heard that last. «Our joyflower? Why, that is even worse, is it not, sister? We would not have one fewer sweet blossom in this meadow than that we already have.»

Despite her fright, Sinead found herself staring the pair of them down combatively. «That’s the most nonsensical thing I’ve ever heard,» she said sharply. «This field is drowning with wildflowers and a few less cannot make any difference to you at all and might help me a great deal.»

His response was quick. «Ah, but suppose it is not our wish to help anybody but ourselves? Therein lies the trouble. For Fae folk, as you must know, care very little for others and very much for themselves.»

Sinead wearied of this verbal battle. «What is it you want from me?» she asked resignedly.

«How tiresome these ordinary folk are, are they not?» he addressed himself to his companion. «Have we not already stated our purpose? Is it not clear to anyone with eyes and ears what the Fae folk want, what we enjoy above all else?»

His sister rushed forwards. «Pay no mind to my brother, little one; he is simply in love with his own wit. He means no harm by it.»

When the words were spoken in that lilting, musical voice Sinead found that she could almost believe them. Almost.

«Never mind the false kindness. Simply tell me what it is you ask — or rather what you demand, for I’ve no doubt it will soon enough come down to that.»

The golden brow knit and the rosebud shaped lips puckered into a pout. «You see, brother? You see how you have offended her? And now she will never come willingly to the dance.»

Her companion glowered. «What matters it whether she is willing or not? She has entered the ring. She is in our power.»

Sinead swallowed, for she knew his words were nothing but truth, whether he intended malice or not — and obviously he did.

«I don’t understand,» she answered, feigning ignorance to buy herself more time. «What is this about a dance?»

«How simple-minded you mortals are.» The male sneered at her. «Do not pretend ignorance. There can be no man, woman or child alive who does not know of the faery dance, the endless, eternal dance of bliss in which we pause only during the light of day to gain new partners.»

«Of which you are now one,» his sister cut in. As she spoke, she shifted oddly, as if to cover something with her skirts.

Sinead’s attention was drawn downwards where, for the first time, she noticed an appalling sight. The feet of the Fae were bare despite their other finery. And what feet they were! Battered and bloody, bruised and swollen, they were the feet of immortal beings who spent every night of their lives dancing heedlessly, madly away under the light of the moon, no more able to stop themselves than the ant could stop its toil or the seasons could cease their turning.

«Your feet,» Sinead gasped, with mingled sympathy and horror.

The male seemed annoyed that she had noticed the single flaw to their otherwise beautiful persons. «Never mind that, it is nothing.» His tone was dismissive. «The pain is scarcely felt when one becomes caught up in the rapture of the dance.»

«That is so,» his sister agreed.

Sinead’s eyes widened. «You are mad. Both of you.»

The male simply smiled; the female nodded pleasantly. «But, of course.»

Sinead shuddered. «I. I think I’d better be going now.»

«But you cannot,» the female answered. «Once a mortal has entered the ring it is physically impossible for them to depart, unless we will it.»

«Let me guess. The law of the Sídhe?»

«Exactly so,» answered the male.

Sinead sighed. «I’ve told you my mother needs me — she needs this joyflower. What will it take for you to agree to let me take it to her?»

«There is nothing that can be given in exchange for a human life. I’m sure you will agree,» answered the male faery coyly.

For the first time that day Sinead felt the backs of her eyes prickle with tears — not tears of fear, but of dismay and frustration. To have come so far only to be defeated by a witless pair such as this!

It was in this moment of utter despair that an idea came to her mind. «Suppose we made a bargain?» she offered. «Suppose I swore to return at dawn tomorrow? Would you allow me this one last night to return to my home? After all, what could possibly be gained by keeping me now against my will? I can promise you I’d never cease to hate you for it and I should not dance well for you at all. It would be an eternity of strife.»

The faeries exchanged looks. Then the female shrugged. «I see no reason why we should not let you go for awhile yet. If you swear to return to us of your own free will, we will grant you this last half-day and night of freedom. We will even grant you the joyflower to carry away.»

Her brother looked disgruntled, Sinead noted, but he too gave his assent.

«At dawn on the morrow,» the female said, «the magic will come for you.»

Regretfully, Sinead agreed.

Scarcely had she escaped this second test when she found herself facing a third. The woods at the edge of the meadow were dark and deep and were rumoured to be guarded by fearsome forest creatures who permitted no human to set foot within their boundaries.

And yet, the fever-wort grew only within the shadows of the wood and, having committed herself this far, Sinead could hardly turn back.

Besides, she comforted herself, she had already sold her life to the lake folk in exchange for the pitcher of water she now carried against her breast and to the Fae folk in exchange for the joyflower in her belt pouch. What did it matter, in the end, whether it was the lake folk, the Fae, or the dreadful creatures of the forest who eventually claimed her? Oddly enough, the thought emboldened her.

With a good deal more resolve now than she had possessed earlier in the morning, Sinead entered the shadows of the wood.

She travelled far, all the way into the heart of the forest, before she at last found a shady little clearing beside a babbling brook, where the fever-wort grew in profusion. Here she gathered as much of the plant as she needed and, tucking it into the little pouch dangling from her belt, set off on her way again.

Relieved at having completed her goal so easily and having met with no interference from the frightful wood creatures, she was eager to leave the forest behind her and to be soon at her mother’s side once more.

Unfortunately, that was not to be. She quickly discovered that she had journeyed so far into the shadowy wood that she could no longer recall the way back out.

Picking her way along the path that looked most familiar, she at length found herself back once more in the exact same shady clearing she had so recently left. In fact, no matter which direction she left this spot in, she continued to return always to the same place. What is this? she asked herself. What mischievous magic is at work here? Am I doomed forever to wonder this gloomy wood?

It was as she again came face to face with the babbling brook after her third attempt to leave the clearing that Sinead first began to sense she was not alone, and perhaps had not been alone this entire time. A tingling feeling tickled its way down her spine; she could feel unseen eyes upon her.

Spinning slowly, searching for her watcher, her eyes abruptly collided with an unexpected figure. It was as if it simply appeared from nowhere. One moment there had been nothing but a beam of sunshine slanting down through the treetops to fall across a rotting stump. In the next instant he appeared.

He was a great stag of the forest. His graceful body was lithe and muscled beneath his copper-hued hide; massive, spreading antlers towered above his head. And yet he was more than that.

What should have been the neck of the stag, widened rather than narrowed, merging into the form of a man’s waist and upper torso. Fine, reddish-hued fur ran up to a broad chest, above which soared bare, muscular shoulders and a head as human as that of any young man she had ever seen. Well, perhaps not quite human. Certainly there were features distinctly human in that face, but there were also traits that could only have come from the stag. His nose was long and narrow, his high chin and cheekbones were dusted with fine hair of the same hue as the deer hide further down his body. Even the longish hair of his head was a deep, rich red to match his hide. His mouth was wide and pink and possessed of a more generous pair of lips than would seem natural on most people.

But just as with the lake folk, it was this creature’s eyes that made her reassess her impression of its humanity. Those dark, pupil-less eyes were as beastly as the rest of his face was manly. Sinead could read in them no sign of human emotion or intelligence.

There was no more time for gawking. A sudden stirring of the hairs along the back of her neck warned her of still more hidden observers. Daring to look away from the stag-man for an instant, she stole a glance over one shoulder.

The motion was met with a fluttering and a scurrying of movement among the branches of the near trees along the boulders edging the brook. Sinead caught only the vague impressions of an owl with the face of a child ducking back among the fallen leaves of an oak and a raccoon with human-appearing hands and feet scuttling behind a fallen log.

She shuddered, imagining how many more equally strange creatures still lurked in the shadows.

«You needn’t fear; we mean you no harm — though neither will we aid you.»

Despite having noted his human-like mouth, Sinead was nonetheless startled when the stag spoke in the voice of an ordinary man. Swallowing, she tried to slow the wild thudding of her heart. Unnerved as she was at being addressed by a half-stag, half-man, a tiny part of her mind was beginning to accept such odd things as being somehow natural on a day as strange as this one.

The steadiness of her voice came as a surprise. «I’m glad to hear you mean me no ill, great stag, as I face a mission of great importance and it’s imperative that I carry it out with haste. You see, my mother is gravely ill and I mean to brew her a healing potion. I have already collected the needed fever-wort and was just on my way home when, as you probably saw for yourself, I discovered myself somehow turned about and lost. It’s the oddest thing but no matter which path I chose I found myself drawn again to this same clearing.»

Even as she spoke, she took the opportunity to study the stag-man further and quickly found herself blushing. It was a ridiculous thought to have at such a moment, but she suddenly realized she had never seen a man with his upper body bared before. She was not certain she was seeing one now.

Luckily, he followed her words and not her foolish thoughts.

«There is nothing strange in your losing yourself here,» he said, once more surprising her by his casual tone. He sounded much like any handsome young farmer she might have conversed with in the local village. «The Sídhe of these woods guard the forest by means of an ancient spell, denying not entrance but exit to any foolish or desperate enough to tread this ground.»

Sinead frowned at the implied insult. «By ‘foolish’ I suppose you mean me?»

He agreed. «From the moment you stepped into the forest shadows you have doomed yourself to suffer the same fate as those before you — to wander eternally the twisted pathways of the wood.»

«As you do,» Sinead ventured with sudden understanding. «Were you and these others once human beings like me?»

The stag-man seemed to consider. «Perhaps,» he answered at last. «It is hard to recall a past so distant. For me it has been very long since I walked with human feet upon the earth.»

Sinead found that difficult to believe, for his face appeared only a few years older than her own. But perhaps that was a part of the Sídhe spell — perhaps ones such as he did not age or aged more slowly than most.

She realized he was looking pointedly downwards at her small feet, encased in shabby boots, and peeking from beneath the edge of her skirt’s ragged hem.

«For you, walking among men and women will soon become a dim memory as well. You will come to accept the wood as your home and to guard it as jealously as we.»

«Never. I would spend my life fighting against the spell. It would be an eternal strife.»

«You will find soon enough that there is little to fear and nothing to fight, just as you do not now despise your humanity or find it a fate to be striven against. You simply are what you are.» Even as he spoke, he turned away.

«Wait!» Sinead cried after him. «Don’t go, please; I need your help. I cannot live in this terrible forest forever.» At his expression she hastily amended, «I mean, certain as I am that it is a lovely place to call home, I am needed elsewhere. My mother, remember? She has no one but me to look after her.»

The stag-man shrugged a powerful shoulder. Sinead could not help admiring how it flexed the long muscles of his back.

He said, «If that is the case then I am sorry for you both, but there is nothing I can do. Only those who have already succumbed fully to the forest magic are capable of escaping its spell, and by then they have lost the desire to do so.»

«By succumbing to the magic.?»

«I mean those who have taken on the beastly forms such as those you see around you. Those who have become as we.»

A tiny flame of hope flickered to life within Sinead’s heart. «Then you, who have already taken your beastly form, know your way past this horrible ensnaring spell that has twisted the path at my feet and made me a prisoner to the wood?»

«We know the proper path out of the forest,» he admitted. «It is visible to us who are no longer spellbound.»

«Show me the way,» Sinead demanded boldly.

The stag-man stared at her with imperturbable eyes. «Why should I do that? It is too late for me. I have given up the human existence. Why should I aid another in escaping the fate that is mine?»

Sinead’s temper stirred to life. How had she ever found him attractive? Heavens, he was a. a beast. Her voice rose in mingled anger and desperation. «It is because you could not escape when you still possessed the will that you should help me! Because you were once the prisoner that I am now. Only remember what it was like to possess human compassion, human love and, if you still have any drop of human emotion within you, aid me in returning home to care for my mother.»

Something flickered briefly in the stag-man’s dark eyes.

She dared to hope her argument had moved him.

«Very well.» The declaration was sudden; she had the impression that even he was startled by it. «I will grant your request, but only in half.» His lips twisted in an attempt at a human smile that was both ghastly and vaguely appealing. «We do everything by halves here, as you see.»

Sinead was too uneasy about her circumstances and too shaken by the sudden and strange pull she felt towards this half-human, half-animal creature to spare patience for his odd bit of humour. Her heart, which had leaped a little at his first words, sank as the last sunk in. «What do you mean you will grant only half?»

The stag-man’s tone hardened. «I offer you a bargain. I and the others will grant you safe passage through the forest and will lead you out of this spell-wrought snare, but only on the condition that you must return to this place tomorrow morning. Take the fever-wort to your mother and make your healing potion. Tend her through the night but, at the dawn of the morrow, the magic will call you to us again.»

Sinead knew in her heart nothing she could say would persuade him to change his mind. He had been generous in his way. Unexpectedly, she found herself admiring what humanity was left in him. She no longer thought of him as a horrifying creature. There was something unusually graceful and somehow right in the blend of animal and man before her. What would it be like to be transformed as he — to lead a half-woman, half-beast existence?

She shook her head, it was not a possibility she was comfortable entertaining. All the same, she found herself speaking words of agreement. As easily as that, the dread bargain was sealed.

She shuddered as the reality of that sank in and tried to comfort herself. At least out of all of this, I may yet save Mother.

Back at home in the little cottage nestled at the foot of the hills, Sinead brewed up a strong tea over the hearth, using the lake water, the joyflower and the fever-wort herb.

Her mother was scarcely conscious and it was with difficulty that Sinead managed to trickle a portion of the tea into her mouth.

Then she crawled into a pallet of straw on the floor and fell asleep wondering if all she had done would be enough. What if she had bargained away her life to the creatures of the lake, meadow and wood for nothing?

She awoke early to find her mother’s fever-induced sleep had gone in the night, to be replaced by the deeper slumber of true rest. She had passed the point of crisis and was on the mend. Sinead rejoiced at the healthy pink glow in the formerly pale cheeks and was relieved on pressing a palm to the lined forehead to find it cool to the touch, the fever fading like the last stars of the night.

Fading stars. Sinead recalled the awful events of the day before, the rash promises she had made. She wondered which magic would come and claim her first — that of the lake folk, the Fae of the meadow or the half-beast creatures of the wood.

Reluctantly, fearfully, she stepped out of the cottage and into the grey light of early morning. There was a chill in the air. The grass under her feet was still heavy with dew and on the horizon a faint tint of rose lightened the sky.

How like yesterday it all seemed! Almost she could believe she had simply dreamed the events of the previous morning and afternoon. Almost she could wish she had.

It was just as the tip of the bright sun appeared over the far treetops that Sinead became aware of the magics. She could not be sure which of them she first sensed.

A great rushing sound, like the roar of a river overflowing its bank, came sweeping down over the hills from the north. It seemed to carry on it the call of the lake folk: a multitude of watery echoes flooding her way.

Instantaneously, another sort of magic began to well up from the opposite direction. This magic was visible to her eyes as a bright ray of sunlight, a shining, golden stream gleaming over the hilltop and flashing down towards the cottage in the valley. Sinead could almost hear the laughter of the faeries riding on the sunbeam, could almost smell the overpowering scent of meadow flowers and hear the drumming tread of delicate feet pounding out a steady, endless dance of mirth and madness.

And finally, at that very moment, a third magic came pouring towards her from the western hills. This magic took the form, not of a sight or an audible call to her ears, but of a silent urging, a pulsing of the earth beneath her, an insistent tugging of the wind, on which was borne the scent of moss-covered bark, rotting leaves and fertile earth. Sinead had but to close her eyes and she could envision the peaceful clearing with the babbling brook, the soothing shade of the overhead canopy and the strangely compassionate half-stag awaiting her coming. Oddly, the scene was no longer a dreaded or troubling one.

Onwards all three streams of magic travelled down the hills, racing towards her — competing, Sinead imagined, to see which would claim her from the other, for clearly she could not belong to the water, the meadow and the wood.

She could do no more than stand motionless and wait to discover her fate. Running would have been fruitless. Dashing into the frail little cottage? What good could that do? No, she summoned her courage and waited, waited.

They were all but simultaneous, the magics, as they slammed into her. It was impossible to guess which had reached her first. Caught up in the heart of the roaring whirlwind of the clashing powers of lake, meadow and forest, Sinead was knocked to her knees.

The gale whipped her hair into her face, showering her in a hail of forest leaves, of forest sights and scents.

She sensed invisible torrents of water beating at her, tossing her helplessly about like a twig in a stream.

The brightness of the sunlight was blinding, burning, scorching through her.

With angry fury the three magics fought over her, until Sinead thought surely when they were done there would be no scraps of her left for any to have. Perhaps that was their intention?

And then suddenly. The storm abated. As swiftly as they had descended upon her the three magics now abandoned their fight. The torrent of lake voices seeped away, back into the northern hills. The bright beams of sunlight faded back to the dull grey of early morning. The powerful gale of forest magic died down to a whisper of a breeze, then swirled away back over the hills to the wood beyond.

At last Sinead was left alone.

Exhausted after the ordeal, it seemed to require a great amount of effort for her to pull herself upright. Yet when she stood and looked down it was to discover herself still very much a living human being. There were no scales or gills, no delicate feet worn frail and bloody with endless dancing, no antlers or fur. She had not been transformed into anything mad or grotesque but remained simply. herself — which suddenly seemed like a very plain thing to be.

Why did none of them take me? I don’t understand.

And then, she did. It is left to be mine. My choice. Since none of the magics could prevail they had struck a compromise, had left their victim to choose the manner of her doom.

Yet oddly enough, it hardly felt like any doom at all. Not any more. Her decision was all too easily made.

As she made her way lightly up the hill path towards her destination, she looked ahead to her new life in a different, exciting home. She even found herself envisioning a particular figure awaiting her and felt an unexpected thrill of anticipation.

Over the passing years, the poor widow living in the little cottage at the foot of the hills found her life markedly improved. Once she had been an impoverished woman. Her health had been poor. She and her only child had dressed shabbily and often gone hungry.

All of that changed the morning she awoke to find her poor young daughter had disappeared, stolen away for ever by some cruel fate.

And yet. life suddenly became so much easier once her beloved Sinead was gone. Little piles of food suddenly began appearing on her doorstep at odd hours. Heaps of berries and dry twigs for her fire were often found nearby, left by an invisible hand. Fever-wort was a frequent gift from the widow’s mysterious visitors; great bunches of the stuff decorated her windows and grew along the edges of the cottage.

And sometimes. sometimes when she rose in the early hours of the morning she would step outside to find two beautiful deer grazing on the dew-soaked grass at the edge of her garden — a mighty stag and a graceful doe. Strangely, from a distance there was something almost. human about the pair.