The Light-Bearer's Daughter (32 page)

he young musician rented a little house near the Glen of the Downs, not far from the place where he had met his glimmering girl. She told him she wanted to live in the woods and close to the mountains, for she abhorred the crowded towns and cities
.

On their wedding day, when they went to the Registry Office, she clung to his arm and wouldn’t let go. The loud noises of the traffic made her flinch. Her nose wrinkled at the smells in the air
.

But when he brought her back to the cottage, she clapped her hands with delight; for it was surrounded by oak trees, and there were wild roses trailing over the doors and windows
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“Is this my home?” she murmured as he carried her over the threshold
.

The walls were freshly papered with a pattern of green leaves. The floors had blue tiles and the roof, wooden beams. A fireplace stood in every room. The furnishings were old and old-fashioned
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“Forever and a day,” was his reply
.

He loved that she was a country girl with simple tastes. Worshipping her, he accepted her quirks without question or complaint. She would not eat salt. Nor could iron enter the house. And there was to be no mention of her family
.

One warm summer night, they lay on a blanket outdoors to watch the stars fall over the treetops
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“Tell me something about your childhood,” he urged her. “Where did you grow up?”

Her laugh was light, but a veil dimmed her eyes
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“Do not seek to know too much about me, my love. You are from Canada and I am from Ireland. What else do you need to know? Accept what is and be content. I’ve forgotten a lot about my past and maybe that’s best for our happiness together.”

Did he suffer a moment of disquiet, then? Did he feel the darkness of the shadow cast by events to come? Did he sense the approach of their parting and the pain that lay in wait for him?

The book contained moving pictures as well as words. Dana drank in every image of her mother, as someone who had hungered and thirsted for such a sight. Edane Lasair made a pretty human, dressed in floppy hats and brightly colored clothes. The fiery hair of her true nature had turned to strawberry blond, tumbling over her shoulders. She often appeared dreamy and distracted, yet her look was gentle and her mouth quick to smile.

Nine months later their daughter was born. She was a sweet-natured baby with her father’s dark hair and her mother’s eyes that shone like the stars
.

Not yet twenty, Gabriel worked hard to support his little family. He coached music students, busked on Dublin’s busy streets, and played on the bandshell by the seafront in the summer. They didn’t need a lot of money as their rent was small and they lived modestly. Edane made a small garden, growing most of the fruits and vegetables they ate. Flowers brightened every room. Their home was filled with light and music, joy and beauty
.

From time to time odd things would happen
.

The baby was only six months old when Edane left her on a mat under a tree in the garden. The leaves of the young rowan sheltered the infant while flickering with sunlight to keep her entertained. Back in the kitchen, Edane kept watch on her daughter from the window as she baked a blackberry pie. Turning but a moment to put the tart in the oven, she looked back again to check on her child and let out a scream. The baby was surrounded by wild animals. A fox licked her face. A badger was nudging her out of a damp spot. Birds flitted around her as she tried to catch them
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At the sound of Edane’s cry, the animals fled, leaving the infant in tears
.

Another time, Edane woke in the night with a mother’s instinct and glanced over at the baby’s cradle. Light hovered in the air above it. Gurgles of laughter rose up. Hazy with sleep, Edane made a questioning noise. The light disappeared. Silence ensued
.

Dana watched her mother’s reactions. How she ignored or denied the strange things she saw. How quickly she forgot them. The spell of humanity was woven so thickly around her, it repelled anything that threatened to unravel it.

At three years of age, the child was a stocky little girl with bunches of dark curls and a mischievous temperament. Curious, courageous, she loved to run and she loved to climb trees. No longer a baby, she was growing fast, discovering who and what she might be
.

One day when her father was away at work, she escaped from the garden and into the woods. Climbing high into the branches of an oak tree, she found herself unable to get down again. She didn’t cry, but waited for her mother to find her. It was Edane who cried and became upset, who called her “a bold girl.” The child was put to bed for a nap, kicking and screaming. When her mother went to kiss her, the little girl pushed her angrily away and kept on yelling
.

“I hate you!”

Patiently shushing her daughter’s shouts, Edane drew the curtains to make the room dim. Then she sang a lullaby
.

Seothó, a thoil, ná goil go fóill,

Seothó, a thoil, ná goil aon deoir,

Seothó, a linbh, a chumainn’s a stóir.

Hush, dear heart, no need to cry
,

Hush, dear heart, no need for tears
,

Hush, my child, my love and treasure
.

Soothed by the song, the little girl grew quiet. Her eyelashes fluttered softly; a smile crossed her face
.

Edane tiptoed to the door. It was only when she turned for a final look that she saw the glow around her daughter’s bed
.

Dana was sitting up and gazing at her palms. With a squeal of delight, she cupped her hands and offered them to her mother. They brimmed over with golden light
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Edane’s features twisted with anguish as memory slashed like a knife, cutting the spell that bound her. In horror, she backed away from the child who carried her mark, the sign of the Light-Bearer. She backed away from her child as she remembered who she was, her abandoned life, and her beloved, the King, whom she had forsaken. She backed away from her child as her mind and spirit broke
.

Then she ran from that place, never to return
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ith the force of a blow, Dana remembered that moment. The shock. The agony. The severing of the bond between mother and child. She was a bad girl and she drove her mother away.

Deep inside, the monster rose.

It was something you did. You are the reason your mother left. You are the one who broke your father’s heart. It was you who tore your family apart
.

Dana dropped the book as if it had burned her. A cry tore from her throat. She ran away from the Singer of Tales, the Lord of Misrule. Away from the truth.

Far in the mountains, a child was lost. She stumbled over the bogs, sobbing and weeping. Her feet sank into the soft ground. The winds were cold on her face. She ran without sense or purpose, her heart as wild as the hearts of birds, shattered like an egg that had fallen from the nest. Her cries mingled with the lament of the sheep scattering before her.

Maammaaa
.

Maammaaa
.

Inside her mind, the serpent coiled, squeezing and strangling.

It was your fault. You are to blame. You are the monster at the heart of your family
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For many long lonely hours, Dana staggered through the wind and rain. Eventually she came out of the mountains and into the foothills in sight of the sea. She passed a derelict cottage with broken windows and an overgrown garden. Now she stood at the edge of a forested ridge overlooking a glen that was severed by a road. Dimly she recognized where she was.

Battered by the storms of the previous day, the tree houses in the Glen of the Downs hung askew like ruined nests. The site was deserted. Led by their betrayer Murta, the eco-warriors were on the farthest side of the vale, digging up an illegal dump. Big Bob patrolled the trees alone, without fear or suspicion. The sun had set. No one worked in the dark.

As twilight descended over the valley, the shadows in the forest deepened.

From where she stood, Dana could see what the eco-warriors couldn’t. In the silence of the evening, bulldozers advanced on the glen like a convoy of tanks of an invading army. Behind them came the trucks that bore the chain-saws, the iron machinery of the war on nature.

With her fairy eyes, Dana could also see the lines of refugees leaving the valley. Birds and small animals, the spirits of trees and flowers, all fled the coming destruction of their homes. As Dana witnessed the exodus, images flashed through her mind of similar scenes she had seen on the television: columns of the displaced and expelled, filing down roads or through frozen forests, children and old people and weeping women, all driven before the onslaught of the shadow.

Across the glen, she caught sight of two titanic figures locked in mortal combat on top of the ridge. The King had lost his weapons and grappled bare-handed with a writhing foe. No longer inside Murta, the demon wore its own shape. More chimera than real, it was blood-red and monstrous, with a segmented body and long coiling tail. Every part of it was burned and blistered, yet it raged unabated. Dana’s heart quailed. Lugh’s limbs looked twisted and broken. He bled from many wounds. Would her godfather die in the struggle?