TWO
I was in bed when I woke up. I lay still, savouring the warmth that wrapped me up like a sausage in bacon, then stretched an arm above my head and opened my eyes. My body ached and when I touched my face, I could feel the beginnings of a scab on my right cheek, under my eye.
The candle was burning on the table and I rolled over, surprised that Pa had allowed it. Its light turned the rest of the room into a mess of flickering shadows and changed Ma and Pa’s bed, just a few spaces away from mine, into a dark bulk twice the size that it normally was. My head hurt and my brain felt sleepy, sluggish, reluctant to think any long thoughts that actually meant anything.
I sat up and the world spun into a black and golden smear. A high ringing in my ears made me grab at the wall for support and for a moment I forgot to breathe. Words tumbled around in my head, words and melodies, and I saw the faces of old men with wild grey hair (speak louder, shout, for I am deaf), young men with big black hair (fairy tales fairy tales I don't enjoy), a woman with no hair (I got myself a big fat plan gonna be a singer). When my head cleared, I realised I could hear voices. They melted into each other like the buzzing of bees and I couldn’t pick them out properly until one suddenly rose and I heard Ma:
‘I don’t care!’
I slid out of bed and over to the knothole in the floor, knelt down and looked through. I could see the top of Pa’s head and if I wriggled around, a little bit of Ma’s face. They were sitting at the table in front of the fire, which they’d let die down. I remembered the candle and looked guiltily over my shoulder, promising silently that I’d blow it out when I got back into bed.
Ma had been crying. Her eyes were red in her white face like blood on snow and there were strands of her dark hair working their way loose from under her white cap. ‘I don’t care,’ she said again. ‘I can’t do this anymore.’
‘What do you mean you can’t? You can. You will!’ Pa’s head looked tired, but his voice was rough and angry and I winced when I heard it.
‘I can’t, Huw, I just can’t.’
‘Then what do you suggest we do?’
‘I don’t know!’ Ma scrubbed her face with one hand. ‘I just don’t know. But I can’t do this, Huw. Please. You don’t know what it’s like, you’re at the smithy all day, you don’t know what it’s like, being here at home with her and not knowing when she’s going to have another fit and when she does not knowing what to do. I never know what to do. All I can do is watch her and it hurts and I hate it, Huw! I hate it!’
‘I know you do. You do keep on telling me.’ Pa’s voice was cold, but Ma didn’t seem to hear him.
‘And I can’t do everything by myself, I have to send her out to fetch water or catch a chicken or borrow fire and I have to sit here and know that she’s out there and even though I try and finish, it’s never quick enough and I have to go out and carry her home and everyone watches—everyone, Huw! They just stand and stare at her like she’s some freak on display and the children...’ Ma’s voice broke. ‘You saw her today. Covered in mud and—they threw stones at her! As though she were a mad dog!’
‘You think I don’t know what it’s like?’ Pa was glaring at her. ‘Men passing through Encotte come into the smithy and they always tell me about their families, about how clever and strong and useful their children are and I just stand there and nod and smile and everyone else in the smithy knows that I can’t say anything because the only child of mine who’s lived past their first year is the one who the other children call the mad girl of Encotte!’
‘How dare you try and blame this on me!’ Ma almost shrieked it and I clenched my eyes shut against her wild face. ‘Dara’s twice as clever as any other child in the village and even if she’s not that strong she still works, she really works and she’s a huge help to me! She’s a blessing! Remember that, Huw? You said that when she was born—that she was a real blessing!’
‘If you love her that much, why can’t you cope with her anymore?’
‘I do love her! How dare you say that I don’t! I love her more than anything in the world! It’s you who doesn’t love her, you don’t care about her, you don’t care about me—’
‘Katie!’ Pa’s voice cracked like a slap on her face, and she fell back limply in her chair.
I hadn’t realised that I had been holding my breath; and my heart thudded against the floorboards so loud it seemed as though the noise would echo throughout the entire house and Ma and Pa would look up and see me. There was a tune growing in the back of my head, growing like a fire, not the same one as before but a different one.
is it a kind of dream floating out on the tide following the river of death downstream oh is it a dream there’s a fog along the horizon a strange glow in the sky and nobody seems to know where you go and what does it mean oh
I pressed my cheek against the knothole and prayed for it to stop.
‘Katie,’ Pa said again, and the thunder had left his voice, leaving it broken like an empty conker case. ‘Oh Katie.’
Ma made an odd noise, but I didn’t dare to look.
‘Katie. What about Druth?’
‘Who?’
‘Druth. My cousin.’
‘The Danann one?’
‘Yes.’
‘He’s at court. He’s not married. Why would he help us? He’s at court. He probably likes to forget that we’re his relatives.’
‘Katie, you never really met him, you don’t know what he’s like. And he’s not like that.’
‘But why would he bother?’
‘Some people have a genuine desire to help others.’
‘Grow up, Huw.’ I heard Ma’s laugh ring out, harsh and brittle. ‘What would he gain from helping us? And how would he help us, anyway? Do you really think he’s going to leave his comfy place at court to come here and explain to us why our daughter’s mad?’
‘I thought... Maybe Dara could go to him.’
‘Go to court?’
‘Yes. Druth could—’
‘Huw, are you even thinking about this? Dara at court—she’s in enough trouble here, how do you think she’d cope there? And how would Druth cope with her? If I—He doesn’t even know us that well!’
‘He knows me.’
‘Just because you fought with him in the war doesn’t mean—’
‘It does mean that. He said things, told me—told me things that make this sound like it might be a Danann problem.’
‘What?’
‘The things that Dara sees, the way she is around animals—that’s certainly like the Danann, that she can hear their thoughts—’
‘Huw—’
‘No, listen. You remember why the Danann backed out of the war? They lost so heavily at Carraig Catha and hundreds of them died.’
‘Huw, you know I can never remember all those battles.’
‘After that battle, after Carraig Catha, they just left, left us to finish it all. Druth said it was because of their prince, the Danann prince, he was some kind of seer and he saw—visions. Druth called it—the Sark, I think, the Seeing Sark. He was very bitter about it. That was why he left Aval-lón. Because the prince saw visions and he followed them and that was what made Carraig Catha go so wrong.’
‘So?’
‘So, from the way Druth talked, I think Dara sees may be a part of that—the Seeing Sark. A Danann thing.’
There was a long silence. I could hear logs snapping in the fireplace and my heartbeat against the floor, slower now but no quieter.
bright eyes burning like fire bright eyes how can you close and fail how can the light that burned so brightly suddenly burn so pale bright eyes
I didn’t like this tune. It sounded lonely, so sad, so worried. I wanted the old tune back, the tune before all this happened. Something about a ship and a place that I’d never heard of before. Maybe if I could remember that, all this would go away.
is it a kind of shadow reaching into the night
‘Druth’s your cousin. You’ve got Danann blood in you. Dara’s got Danann blood. Is that why this is happening?’
‘I don’t know. I just don’t know, Katie, but Druth might. That’s what I’m saying, I think he could help her. There’re doctors and all sorts in Camulus. Maybe Druth knows one that could help her. Cure her.’
‘But what if he doesn’t? What if he sends her away again and locks her up in an asylum? Huw, I am never, ever going to send Dara to an asylum, and you are not—’
‘He won’t, I tell you!’
‘But how do you know?’
bright eyes burning like fire bright eyes how can you close and fail
‘Because he was my friend then and he’s my friend now. The Danann don’t change, they’re not human like us. Druth’ll be the same. And Katie—Katie, ow-kerensa, what choice do we have?’
Ma began crying. I opened my eyes and looked through the hole in the boards. Pa had moved out of his chair and was holding her in his arms as she wept, one of his hands holding the back of her head like a baby’s. She clutched handfuls of his shirt and sobbed into his shoulder. I stared at them, and the knot was back in my throat, only now it was so much simpler. Ma’s face was hidden in the maze of Pa’s arms and all I could feel was the anger that had escaped from me before.
there’s a high wind in the trees a cold sound in the air and nobody ever knows when you go and where do you start oh into the dark
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Any of the song snippets you recognise, well, duh they're not mine. ^_^
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