Faery Tale (34 page)

Nestled out to sea on the west coast of Scotland, the Isle of Skye is the largest of the islands that make up the Inner Hebrides. This was my second trip to Scotland—Kirsten and I had taken a “sisters trip” the summer after our dad passed away. He'd headed to Scotland after he got out of the navy to visit his best friend Richard, who was living there at the time. They drove from the lowlands to Loch Ness in a search of the Loch Ness monster, hoping to dive in, find it, and bite it on the nose. He told tales about trying Talisker for the first time on the Isle of Skye, nearly falling out of his chair from the strength of it. As a mountaineer and avid naturalist, he spoke of Scotland with a reverence that was awe-inspiring. He was as infatuated with the landscape as he was with the people, especially the rugged and epically heroic Highlanders. And the man could do a spot-on impression of the Scottish Highland accent. It was really quite astonishing. After he died, we decided a trip might be in order. As though we could somehow find his footprints on the main street in Portreigh. As if we could stumble into a bar and find him there.

 

So much of our relationship with my father revolved around hiking or eating. We ignored the elephant in the room—his mysteriously failing health. Everything was quitting on him—he had nearly crippling pain in his back and neck, blurred vision, dizziness, loss of circulation to his hands and feet, loss of balance, loss of bladder control. And he was only sixty-five years old. We told him he needed to take a break from teaching. His days in retirement were crowded with doctors' appointments to address each troubling new ailment. Pills were prescribed, tests were run, and nothing was discovered.When KP and I were home for Thanks-giving the year before he passed away, we'd gone out to eat in College Town. It had rained and when evening fell the ground froze. From the driver's seat Dad mused about dinner.

“I wonder if tonight I'll have the steak teriyaki . . . or will it be the tatiki roll?” We were glad to be eating out. His house was devolving into a wood-hermit's bachelor pad, reeking of dog urine and cluttered with papers, magazines, and bills. After the warmth and buzz of Mom's house, Dad's felt like a mausoleum.

We were both noticing that everything for him was getting harder. I forced myself to smile, trying to show him that for tonight, instead of being absorbed with the cacophony of ailments, he could concentrate simply on being with us. There were six types of medications on the cracked tile table, and I had watched his thick fingers shaking to clasp their tiny centers as he methodically sorted them into the appropriate days.
Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday
. . .

He was gloomy as we pulled into the parking garage. We were moving together down the driveway one moment, and he was looking at me. The next he was slipping, his feet out from underneath him. It's a split second I play over and over again—that split second I had to react: I let out a noise as I reached for him—his arms didn't come out to break his fall and I heard a sickening crack as his face hit the concrete.

In an instant we were bending over him, seeing blood gushing from his nose.

“Goddamn it!” he shouted, holding it with his hand. “I broke my goddamn nose!”

I turned my head as quickly as the tears sprang up, biting my lip.

Oh my God. What should we do? Call an ambulance?

“Come on, Dad . . . We need to get you to the hospital . . .” KP urged, helping him to his feet.

“No,” he said, his voice muffled but stubborn. “I'm fine. It's a broken nose. What the hell are they going to do?”

“Dad,” I insisted, “you're being crazy. We need to get you to the doctor's. It's broken—”

“Signe, I'm fine,” he nearly shouted. Softening then, he pulled his handkerchief from his back pocket.

“I just want to have dinner with my daughters,” he said quietly. The driveway was still empty and there was no one around, only the soft yellow lights from the Plum Tree Restaurant glowed from across the street.

So we had dinner then, the three of us, with our father's nose bleeding onto the white tablecloth until the confused waiter offered us ice in a towel.

As Eric and I drove through the Highland countryside it dawned on me that something of significance was happening: I was remembering. I hadn't been able to face the dark corners—I'd grieved for the death of my father, but that couldn't aid me in coming to terms with the loss. Because what I really needed to grieve for was his
life
. It had been, toward the end, so unbearable to bear witness as he suffered. I was completely helpless, and all I could do was tell him I loved him even as I watched him deteriorate in his loneliness.

I had dinner with my father ten days before he passed away. As we drove from Bundy Road into town, I noticed his coordination was off. He looked down for one moment to adjust the radio, and the next we were swerving into oncoming traffic. It was two days after Christmas. As we pulled into a parking spot, he drove over the curb, nearly striking the parking meter. We ordered wine with dinner, he had the surf and turf, and I regaled him with stories from Random House, trying to learn the ropes, trying to find my way amid all the talent there. We must have talked about books. Mostly I just remember his warm brown eyes, and how they somehow seemed a little duller, but how they still looked at me with so much love. The following Wednesday I was back in New York when he called.

“It's snowing here,” he said, “and I'm looking out the picture window in the kitchen. I've got cardinals at the feeder today. I wish you were here, Signifer.”

“Me, too, Dad.”

He paused for a long moment. “I've been . . . seeing things.”

“What do you mean, seeing things?”

“I've been seeing patterns in everything lately,” he said, his voice sad yet somehow filled with a curious wonder. “I see faces in the bushes, in the snow. I'm seeing patterns in everything.”

I didn't know what to say. Hearing him like this broke my heart. I was thinking,
I should move home.

“Anyway, I went to the eye doctor today and they said I had ocular hemorrhaging. They sent me straight to the hospital for more tests, so I'll probably be getting results back next week. They did blood work, scans, the whole nine yards.”

“
Ocular hemorrhaging?
Dad, that's serious. They don't have any idea what's going on?”

“Oh, you know doctors. They don't tell me a goddamn thing,” he sighed. “I just wish I knew what the hell was going on with me.”

“I know, Dad. Me, too. They'll figure it out. I know it. Just hang in there.”

He told me about how an old student of his, from back in the 1970s, was coming to stay with him on Friday for the weekend. My dad's filthy house flashed in my mind, and inwardly I cringed. It'd been a long time since he had entertained an out-of-town guest. But the hardest thing was how painful it was for him to walk, how he couldn't straighten his spine enough to look up at the sky anymore, couldn't see his cathedrals of trees.

That Saturday the sun went down, and Dad's friend Roger was still out and about from the day. My father's car was in the driveway, but it was pitch dark in the house. Concerned something might be wrong, a neighbor let herself in. Flipped on the lights. Called out to him.

They found him in the bedroom, still under his sheets.The dog was lying on the bed next to him, her eyes moving side to side. Side to side. Dogs always know. They stay anyway. When my mother called to tell me, I locked myself in my own bathroom like it was the safest place to ride out this storm, like clutching the tub could somehow keep my world from imploding.

 

I closed my eyes for a moment as Eric and I drove across Skye Bridge. There was water underneath me, and we were headed into the mountains. The thought soothed me. There was something beautiful in remembering his end, no matter how hard, when I was in the safety of his church. Maybe, I thought, this was the only place I could allow myself to remember.

I'd been so quiet for so long, Eric seemed to understand I was processing something. It was as if he could feel my temperature change. Something caught his attention and a moment later he pulled over onto the side of the road. Across it was a foamy white waterfall cascading over a tumble of rocks.

He turned to me. “Hey. Want to take a look at that waterfall?”

I took his hand in mine. “Yes,” I whispered. “I really do.”

 

We bounced around various B and Bs all over the island. It was a luxury to have a full Scottish breakfast every morning (hold the haggis), but the biggest luxury was being able to sleep next to Eric again. And I was delighted to be on an island where there were more faery sites than anywhere else on my journey: There was Dunvegan Castle, home of the Fairy Flag. There was Skye's own Fairy Bridge. There were the Fairy Pools in the Cullin Mountains. There was Fairy Glen above the town of Uig. We certainly had our work cut out for us.

Legends, however fantastic or far-fetched they may appear to be, are rarely without some trace of historical fact
, read the message on the Dunvegan Castle website. And the legend of the Fairy Flag of Dunvegan goes something like this: Long ago, when faeries and men still wandered the earth as brothers, the MacLeod chief fell in love with a beautiful faery woman. They had no sooner married and borne a child when she was summoned to return to her people. Husband and wife said a tearful goodbye and parted ways at Fairy Bridge, which you can still visit today. Despite the grieving chief, a celebration was held to honor the birth of the newborn boy, the next great chief of the MacLeods. In all the excitement of the celebration, the baby boy was left in his cradle and his blanket slipped off. In the cold Highland night he began to cry. The baby's cry tore at his mother, even in another dimension, and so she went to him, wrapping him in her shawl. When the nursemaid arrived, she found the young chief in the arms of his mother, and the faery woman gave her a song she insisted must be sung to the little boy each night. The song became known as “The Dunvegan Cradle Song,” and it has been sung to little chieflings ever since. The shawl, too, she left as a gift: if the clan were ever in dire need, all they would have to do was wave the flag she'd wrapped around her son, and the faery people would come to their aid.
Use the gift wisely
, she instructed.
The magic of the flag will work three times and no more
.

As I stood there in Dunvegan Castle, gazing at the Fairy Flag beneath its layers of protective glass, it was hard to imagine the history behind it. The fabric was dated somewhere between the fourth and seventh centuries. The fibers had been analyzed and were believed to be silk from either Syria or Rhodes. Some thought it was part of the robe of an early Christian saint. Others thought it was a part of the war banner for Harald Hardrada, king of Norway, who gave it to the clan as a gift. But there were still others who believed it had come from the shoulders of a beautiful faery maiden. And that faery blood had flowed through the MacLeod family veins ever since. Those people were the MacLeods themselves.

“Pardon me, miss . . .”

“Excuse me . . .”

“Frank! Frank! Do you see it? That's the Fairy Flag!”

I moved out of the way. Visitors were allowed entry into the bottom room of the Fairy Tower, as part of the museum, but Dunvegan Castle was still inhabited by the clan chief—now the strikingly handsome Hugh MacLeod, the thirtieth MacLeod. And the room in which the faery mother was rumored to have visited her crying son so long ago was directly over my head, still a part of the private residence. I looked up at the ceiling. Crazies like me were probably the very reason that the room was closed to the public in the first place. But if anything, it made me exceedingly happy that the flag was still so prized, that the tower was still kept private. I scanned the crowd for my own sexy Highland chief, Eric MacLiebetrau of the German Liebetraus. A girl can dream, can't she? He'd look awfully fetching in a kilt . . .

On the way out I stopped to speak to the disarmingly charming castle curator, Maureen Byers. She lived in the castle year-round, and often at nights and during the long winter months she was the only one there. She was well suited for the job; she's not afraid of the dark. And she did, in fact, believe in faeries. Ms. Byers suggested we visit both the Fairy Pools and Fairy Glen, and was kind enough to give us directions to both places.

“You must see them,” she enthused. “They're magical.” That was endorsement enough for me. But first things first. Since we were following the story of our faery maiden, the next stop on my tour was Fairy Bridge.

 

The bridge was unmarked and unpassable. It was similar to the original Fairy Bridge on the Isle of Man, but here no one left trinkets. Stretching our legs, we went to explore. I felt nothing. It didn't feel ominous, it didn't feel strange, it only felt . . . forgotten. I crossed the stream and climbed the opposite bank where I discovered a black feather lying in the grass, of course. Pulling out my plastic bag full of trinkets, my fingers naturally found the perfectly round, deep copper stone from the Point of Ayre on the Isle of Man. How could I have forgotten? I'd learned in the Manx Museum that the Isle of Man, in antiquity, was actually considered to be the southernmost island that composed the Scottish Hebrides: Mull, Isle of Skye . . . Isle of Man. This kingdom was once linked with that one. And yet on one bridge faery history was being honored—and in the other, it seemed long forgotten, save the name. I left the copper stone on the far side of the bank, lodged in a crevice, and slogging back through the stream, nestled back into the car. Something—some relationship, possibly beyond my ken—was taking place. On the Isle of Man I'd left a trinket from Glastonbury. In Ireland I'd left shells from the Aran Islands in the old fort, sitting its lone vigil on the top of Black Head. All without even thinking. Here I felt compelled to leave something from the Isle of Man. Perhaps so these two bridges could remember, through this simple copper stone, their common past once more. Or maybe, as Ninefh suggested I should, I was just doing as I was told.