Chapter 4
Four
Three days had passed before I finally gathered the courage to confront Viviana. She was in the cupboard, grinding blossoms in a mortar. The candles around her had melted to dewdrops.
“Celadine,” she said, without looking up. “I’m lacing its juice with wild rue. Glitonea has an earache.”
“Where am I from?” I said. “Tell me or I’ll leave.”
She kept at the poultice, saying nothing. I watched her hands dance between bottles and droppers, her fingers slicing the air in confident whisks.
“I deserve to know, Viviana.”
She tipped through the jars, lifting and shaking them. “I hear you, but it looks like we’re out of deadnettle,” she said. “Let’s talk in the forest.”
The air was thick with the scent of recent rain. Through the chirp of insects, I heard wilder sounds—hisses and snorts and the deep inhalations of larger creatures. As I scouted for the deadnettle, Viviana spoke of the gods.
There was Danu, of course. But also Brigid, goddess of wisdom and poetry. Lugh, the sun god and Epona, goddess of horses. Enya was the goddess of desire, of love.
“You’ll know love one day,” Viviana said.
I plucked off the nettle’s spade-shaped leaves. I would let her speak, but I would not forget my question.
“You don’t realize it yet,” she continued. “But you’re very handsome. You have a beautiful face, a broad chest, high shoulders, a straight back. Your hands are small and dexterous.”
I flipped my hands back and forth. “Is that a good thing?”
Viviana laughed. “Yes. They are very nice hands. And soon you’ll know a different kind of love. You’ll meet a woman who will unlock new feelings in you.”
Her words pressed hot against my skin.
“The women who visit here don’t seem to be seeking love,” I said.
“This is true. Their desires lie elsewhere.”
“What if mine do, too?”
She halted and stared at me. The forest pulsed and murmured. I turned away.
“What do you mean?” she asked.
I’d read tales of knights and maidens. I knew of the birthing process. The idea of courtly love held no appeal to me. I wasn’t sure why this surprised her.
“What if I don’t wish to marry? Surely there are men who don’t.”
Viviana smiled like this was the most na?ve thing she’d ever heard.
“Of course you’ll marry.”
The trail sloped downhill, opening to a beach we rarely visited. I brooded.
“Will I? I don’t see it.”
“You will.”
I was feeling cornered, defiant. “You never did.”
She flattened a wrinkle from her dress.
“My life is far from traditional.”
“So is mine. I perform the chores and tasks of both men and women.”
I did nothing to mask the anger in my voice. Viviana looked at me with hardened eyes.
“I promise, you will find love.”
“How do you know?”
“I just do.”
Because of the prophecy.
She looked to the crown of trees and continued. “Love, for me, exists in a different form. It comes through all this—the island, its ancient ways, and the power we can derive from it. That was the vow I took when I accepted the sisterhood. A direct descendant of each priestess—”
“Must take up residence on the island until another fills her stead, I know.”
“Then you also know that my life cannot be yours.”
“Let me leave then.”
The words slipped off my tongue, shocking us both into silence. Her eyes narrowed, fingers tented.
“There are boats by the beach huts,” she said breezily. “No one is keeping you here.”
“Fine then. I shall leave in a few days.”
“You are welcome to. But have you considered why you’re here to begin with? Why the sisterhood made an exception for you?”
A foolish question. Infuriating. “I spend all my days considering this,” I said, trying to keep my voice level. “Yet I’m intentionally kept in the dark. How can I know unless you tell me?”
“We can’t tell you until you’re ready.”
The rage came, swift and sudden like a geyser.
“I AM READY!” I shouted. “WHY CAN’T YOU SEE THAT?”
I tugged my hair till my scalp screamed. I hated this, hated my lot, hated being a nameless speck. I lashed off towards the shore, yelling until I went hoarse. My hands curled into tightly bound fists, ready to smash, to destroy.
Closer to the tideline, I slowed, trying to discern the surprising shapes ahead. A group of creatures were basking on the rocks.
“What in the world…”
They were part man, part fish, with iridescent tails, barnacled muscles, jagged teeth, menacing eyebrows, webbed hands and hair like gnarled seaweed. Their eyes were roving the shoreline, vigilant.
Viviana caught up to me. “Merfolk,” she said. “You know as well as I that it can be dangerous when they come aground.”
It was rare these days to spot any of the ancient beings.
Dragons, fairies, ogres, white stags and unicorns were fading out amid the rise of the new ways.
Merfolk too. They were the original inhabitants of the Distant Isles, direct descendants of the sea god Manannán.
After losing a great battle, they grew fins and took to glowing palaces beneath the waves.
The merfolk, or merrow, remained resentful of land dwellers like us.
Female merrow might disorient whole fleets with their beauty, while a merman would happily drown any fisherman who dared toss a net in his direction.
On the rare instances when they came ashore, the sisterhood kept a wide berth. So did I.
“Still want that boat?” Viviana asked.
We locked eyes, the animosity circulating. I wondered if this had been her plan all along. Goad me into rage, show me the mermen, remind me that I had no path for escape.
“You will not keep me trapped forever,” I said. “And when I do leave, it will be the happiest day of my life.”
She clutched her chest, visibly hurt. I instantly regretted my words.
But the guilt was just one flame in a growing inferno.
My eyes went hot with something like rage, but more frightening.
The feeling came from the outside in, seeping through my ears, encasing my mind with a throbbing dread.
I stormed into the woods, sweaty yet cold, crushing branches as I went.
Closer to home, I felt a cleaving. My mind was splintering from my body, the movements of my limbs no longer my own.
The temple—a wooden octagon with a same-shaped cupola—came into view. In fits of madness I seemed to be drawn there. I closed the door behind me, offered up a desperate prayer, but the tension didn’t slacken. If anything, the gods’ silence only intensified my rage.
A marble statue of Danu stared back at me from behind the altar. To its right sat a blest harp. The sisterhood would play this instrument on occasion, but I was forbidden to touch it, another rule that kept me at a distance.
A dam burst. A star exploded. I grabbed the harp by its golden pillar. It was heavier than I’d anticipated, oiled and slippery.
I raised the ancient instrument above my head. I sensed now that this was why the sisterhood distrusted me. They understood my capacity for destruction.
I dashed the sacred harp to the ground. The pillar shattered, exposing ancient inner wood. I smashed it again, kicking the tangled strings across the floor.
I stood there shaking. I’m not sure how long. I had transgressed in an irredeemable way. I had become someone who obliterates.
When I looked up, Elinor stood in the doorway.
I will never forget the expression on her face. Drawn, pale, uncomprehending. As she surveyed the damage, moving from confusion to shock to horror before settling, worst of all, on disappointment, I wished to dissolve. She opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out.
“I’m sorry. Please…” But what was I pleading for? Surely not forgiveness. What I’d done was unforgivable. We both knew it. She came right up to me and looked me straight in the eye. She was a small, hunched, delicate thing. A wrinkled apricot. She loved Danu’s harp the most.
She reached up, placing a hand on my shoulder. I felt my fate dangling in the silence.
“Go to the top of the mountain,” she said, voice pebbled with urgency. “Go on foot and don’t come back until tomorrow.”
“The mount—”
“Go,” she commanded. “What you’ve been seeking is there.”
“What I’ve been seeking… but the harp. The sisterhood will—”
“I will deal with the sisterhood. But you must leave here before they see this. Go now,” she said, gripping my hands. “Run.”