The Fire Opal (25 page)

“My priestesses found the weapon first, and I hid it carefully in a secret vault in the sea, in a place that even Uria’s mermaids would never find, no matter how well they trolled the waters.

“But the world was in chaos after that battle. Uria’s vulture women were a constant threat, hounding me and murdering my priestesses, searching tirelessly in the burnt ruins of the forest for the battle-axe. I was forced to exile myself from Ireland. And after Uria sailed in her Viking ship back to some arctic land, I heard that she had to move through an emanation and in a tightly controlled environment if she meant to survive.

“At seven years old, Maeve, you came into contact
with the broken battle-axe, the Answerer. You responded to it with pure instinct. It is an object, yet it is also sentient, as you immediately understood.”

“I didn’t feel evil coming from it,” I said.

“It isn’t evil. It was never meant for such ill usage as Uria put it to. You must remember that. It was originally the staff and weapon of the great Brian Boru. It’s good that you forgot it, too, Maeve. Forgotten, it has been safest. It is because you buried it where light could attach itself to it again that Ishleen came. Ishleen is the Swan Daughter, come to herald the return of the elementals to Ard Macha. When Tom Cavan unearthed the armor, the poisonous threat he unleashed killed the delicate Ishleen in her first incarnation. But your mother, in her powerfully instinctive way, knew and yearned for her dead child’s return, though she was thought to be mad.

“The night your mother gave birth again to Ishleen, Uria’s henchwoman came to take her, but your mother had given you the charm necklace to wear while you held Ishleen. You had gone a step further and put the necklace on Ishleen. Uria’s henchwoman could not take her because of it, and took your mother’s ghost soul instead, thinking that the baby would have a poor chance of survival. Because you’ve insisted Ishleen always wear the chain, they were not able to get her for years.

“What they really hound that area for is the Answerer, but they cannot sense its location there because it does not smell of the poison of Uria. It has undergone intense purification in the room that was once the priestesses’ apothecary. For now, it must remain just where it is. It is
extremely unlikely that they could ever find it in that sacred place.

“As I’ve said, Maeve, this Fire Opal, which you have brought me at great risk to yourself, is the seed upon which the entire world might turn.”

She tied the last bit of thread, then held the shawl up in the light. The rain stopped and the clouds cleared. In the sunlight, the shawl glistened as if with red embers.

“Your shawl is inundated with little beads of potential fire. If you are faced with the threat of Uria, breathe hot breath onto this shawl and you will ignite in an aura of flame, flames in which you will be completely safe.”

“Goddess, how do I release my mother and sister and all the tundra women from the ice?” I pleaded.

She nodded and went on. “The five tundra woman priestesses, who went on Uria’s barge and were eventually killed, had brought a druid wheel with a triple spiral emblem forged on it. It was meant to set life and time back into true motion, to change the regressive lack of life force, the suspension from life that holds the icy air around Uria. Probably rusted or buried in ice, the wheel was likely discovered by one of the henchwomen and turned tight in the opposite direction. No growth, no transformation can occur as long as the wheel is stuck so tightly, only a long icy purgatory of waiting. That atmosphere is also maintained by lack of true fire; the false light drains vitality and holds life in abeyance. Uria is too terrified to move much at all. The reintroduction of true fire onto that barge, no matter how secretly those fires are being burned, has likely already begun to make changes
in the atmosphere, and because of the presence of fire, it is likely that the wheel, if you can find it, will be easier to turn and release. Life will inevitably rush in.”

“Will it work, what the tundra girls have planned? Can the ghost souls of our mothers go back into their bodies?”

“It is possible for the ghost souls to return to the bodies, but you must realize that by having been separated that way, they are changed. A thread has been broken. If they return to their bodies, they might not cleave to them the way they once did. They will inhabit them mostly, but they might drift loose sometimes, especially at night during sleep. It’s important that the ethereal dresses always be kept nearby to contain them and give them form. The tundra girls are very right about the dangers. Ghost souls dissolve or break into particles in a rough wind. Their minds go back into the mind of nature herself, and particles also go into the minds and souls and bodies of their children and loved ones, but it is a kind of death. It is a separation.”

I sighed and closed my eyes. Everything before me felt daunting, and I realized that my neck and back were aching. Exhausted, I rubbed my eyes and heard my stomach rumble. But I knew I could not let myself give in to this desire for rest.

I opened my eyes and found Danu leaning slightly toward me, studying my face with soft intensity. She reached out, her hand hovering near the side of my cheek, hesitating to touch.

“How I miss the human element,” she said quietly, almost apologetically. “Seven centuries is a very long time. Memory grows weaker and weaker. We are all in danger of losing touch with our true histories.

“You are tired, Maeve. Unfortunately, there is too little time. You must get back before the narcotic effect wears off.” She stood and, taking my hand, led me back out through the dwelling, and down the stairs. Something occurred to her, and she stopped in the middle of a corridor. “Remember, Uria has been using Tom Cavan as a human agent, but she doesn’t trust him. And I doubt that he trusts her. Plus, he is ambitious, which frightens her, but until she has the Answerer, she is dependent upon him. I imagine that he is after it himself. If the opportunity ever arises and he asks if you know where it is, you should suggest to him that it is in a bog south of Ard Macha near the hill at Rosscoyne. The peat there is intensely absorbent, the most entrapping in Ireland. Creatures and things unlucky enough to fall in rarely find their way out without help. It is not turf he can cut with so much ease as the bogs of Ard Macha. And it is filled with all manner of sunken objects. It will keep him endlessly busy, if he doesn’t tumble in himself.”

She took two pieces of beige silk from a pocket in her gown. They floated, suspending themselves on the air before her. She concentrated on them, and images appeared on the surfaces as if drawn. “Here are two maps of the Rosscoyne bog,” she said. “Possession of these can make the lie seem more believable.

“In any case, Maeve, pit Uria and Tom Cavan against each other. And remember that Uria’s rage weakens her without the Answerer.”

We passed a dining hall where Phee and a group of Swan Women were sitting around a massive table laid with breads and cheeses, fruit and cake, eating and talking softly.

“Goddess,” I said to Danu, pointing in at the feast, my stomach grumbling.

“I’m sorry, Maeve, but you cannot eat the food of the Other World. You have too much business left in Ireland.”

“But I feel weak, Goddess,” I said.

“You must find the strength within yourself, Maeve,” she answered.

Seeing me looking in, Phee raced out and embraced me. I kissed her on the crown of her head. She made numerous excited signs to me, which I was too hungry and distracted to try to decipher. She pointed at someone—a pale, enigmatic-looking woman who was gazing in another direction, as if lost in thought. I wondered if this was some incarnation of Phee’s mother, but before I could ask, Danu swept me off and out the door.

When we reached the beach where my little boat waited, Danu said, “You know that if all goes well, I will see you again. There will be something more I will want you to do.”

She took both my hands and pressed them to her belly pocket, where the Fire Opal was. Warm pleasant sparks
moved in currents through my hands. She bent down and kissed my forehead.

I boarded my vessel, and she told me to be careful since I was now traveling alone.

“You know not to be enticed by anything or to eat anything as long as you are in the waters of the Shee. Leaving is always less threatening than trying to get here, but it is possible that something still might happen.”

“Nothing will distract me, Goddess. I will think of my mother and sister.”

It occurred to me as the boat headed eastward that I had never asked her about Francisco. I felt a sudden painful remorse at this omission. Maybe, I thought, I had not asked on purpose, afraid of the answer she might have had for me.

I looked at her watching from the shore. She held both hands pressed against the Fire Opal in her belly pocket.

Soon she was very far away, and when I could no longer see her island at all, I felt frightened of the wide ocean before me.

The air grew humid and the sky overcast, dim clouds grumbling and flashing as if it were about to pour again. An intense almost green darkness fell over the horizon around me. I shivered and sat curled into myself as the boat lifted and fell on the waves.

CHAPTER 21

A
s I sailed eastward, the sky grew even dimmer and heavier. I felt uncomfortably hungry and was so unable to focus clearly that I tried to distract myself with other thoughts: the image of swans transforming into women, of words that the goddess had spoken to me. I relived again and again everything I had witnessed in the Ard Macha of seven centuries past, but that had the effect of exhausting me. So I gave myself over to comforting memories of Francisco. I remembered the soft light coming into Mam’s face as he’d called her “Señora” and touched the triple spiral, causing it to hum. And I thought of the night I’d sat with him in the sand under the figurehead of
Nuestra Señora de la Soledad
, and he’d put his arms around me.

These thoughts warmed me until I saw an island far up
ahead to the left with the sun shining over it. A tree with large orange fruits grew on the beach. The wind blew almost violently, propelling my boat closer, but still everything was soundless but my own breathing.

The boat arrived at the island and beached itself in the slender margin of sand past the tide. I got out, shaking with hunger, approached the tree and pulled one of the oranges down.

I sank my teeth into it, tearing away the rind and eating the juicy pulp, consuming it in a kind of frenzy, juice dripping over my chin and hands.

I had finished and was considering taking another when I saw a figure moving farther inland, a man who could have been Francisco, his hair and oat-colored shirt rippling in the strong, silent gusts. He was waiting there in the distance, expectantly looking off in another direction. I waved wildly and tried to scream his name, but I had no voice.

Remaining oblivious of my presence, he began to walk inland, away from me.

Suddenly there was sound again, soft breezes and the rush of the tide. I ran in the direction the man had gone. The sun got brighter, transforming everything, so I had to shield my eyes with my hands.

Ahead were more trees like the one on the beach, thick with deep green leaves and heavy with oranges. Others, less ornate, were clustered with pale brown nuts.

My skin gloried in the warm, clear air and the smell of citrus and roses. Something very subtle but intoxicating mixed itself with the other fragrances, a vague earthy smell that caused my blood to race.

The second time it rushed me, I knew with a shock what it was: the scent of Francisco’s skin and hair, blown to me on the back of a breeze. In the far distance, I saw him pass between two orange trees. Now I had no doubts. It was Francisco. I ran breathlessly after him, but when I reached the sunny clearing where I’d seen him go, he was nowhere around.

A peacock strutted past, and I followed it. I found myself before a large house, the sun making the plain white walls so bright that I had to squint. There were tall open arches and curtains blowing lightly outward in the soft breezes.

At the entrance of the house, roses grew in abundance. The view of the sea from here was nothing like the dim Atlantic at the northwest of Ireland or the clouded seas I had been traveling on. This sea was drenched in sunlight and shimmered like thousands of silver coins.

As I was about to go into the archway of the house, I saw a name engraved in majestic stone above the lintel: FRANCISCO CORTEZ.

My heart raced. I passed from the brilliant sunlight outside into the shade of the partial interior, shafts of brightness breaking the dark here and there, slanting through the arches. Something moved in my peripheral vision and I gasped, “Francisco!” But it was just the work of a ghostly curtain rippling and casting shadows on the wall.

Small green fruits and bright red chilies hung from little potted trees along the floor. I ascended a white stone staircase toward the upper house and was startled again,
but this time by a tall, dark wood cabinet facing me like a confronting presence. I touched it. “Francisco,” I said, as if he might emerge from the wood.