Marei - book one. Part three: Shadow. Chapter 18

His appearance on our door step was heralded by a thunder storm the likes of which was talked about for years; it was the kind of storm that defines not just a season, but a year. The storm had rolled rapidly in from across the ocean and it was only because of the warning from the Feykin that we were able to be prepared at all. With each mighty gust, the House groaned. Bits of slate tile were being pried off the roof by insistent digging fingers of wind that felt far too cold to be the winds of spring. As the wind blustered around the House, trying to find a way inside, the almost rhythmic crash of roof shingles shattering on the ground below could be heard over the crashing din of thunder and the pounding sound of rain beating harshly against the remaining roof and walls.

In the magick room, one section of roof had been exposed enough to the harsh winds of the sea that a small hole had formed, leaking the steadily into the room. Grandmother and I were carefully collecting the rain water in a basin and persistently mopping up the splashes of water before they reached the consecrated center of the room.

Gurek was patrolling the oiled paper windows he had reinforced with crossed and bound supple boughs from saplings and tending to the fire which alternately tried to blow into the room or was threatened with drowning from a particularly wet gust from outside.

Together Grandmother and I slid a full bucket of rain water out from under the hole and quickly replaced it with the second, empty bucket. I hefted the bucket and followed Grandmother as she pushed aside the magick room curtain and entered the common room. As she hugged Gurek, I dumped the bucket into the rapidly filling bath basin. We did not dare to open the front door to dispose of the collected rain water for fear that more water would come in through the door than we were dumping out.

Grandmother exchanged a worried glance with Gurek. “He should be here by now, M’khindẻǽ, if he’s to come this night at all.”

Gurek shrugged, his face carefully neutral. “Perhaps he will come tomorrow. If I were a stranger to these shores I would have found a hole to hide in and waited out this storm.”

“The Feykin are usually correct with their timing, even accounting for human nature’s insistence on changing plans. Perhaps their mention of an injury was a warning that he would be injured during the storm and would take longer to get here, or need our help to find his way here in the rain and darkness.”
As she spoke a flash of lightning and crash of thunder broke simultaneously over the House accompanied almost immediately by an ear splitting crack and fizzle, similar to the pop greenwood makes in the fire, but magnified a hundred fold. My heart hammered in my chest as the sound of timber splintering drowned out all other noises, even the continued rumble of thunder.

With one grave look at Grandmother, Gurek strode purposefully toward the door, pulling his cloak from the peg and slipping into his warm fur lined boots. “I will go find him, Láidáin and bring him back to the House. Set up the beacon so we can find our way home.”

Grandmother nodded her thanks to Gurek but from the lines showing starkly on her face in the fire light she was obviously worried. She caught his arm as he reached for the front door and turned him to kiss her. “Please, M’khindẻǽ, be cautious and return safely.” She reached up on tiptoe and kissed him again, her rounded belly pressing into his flat and muscular one.

He rubbed his opened palm against the hard curve of her stomach and kissed her again, lingeringly. Then with one long look at her, he turned and wrenched open the door. Jubilant at being allowed access, the wind exploded through the door with what seemed like a bucket of rain water clutched in it’s breezy arms. Cloak billowing out behind him even though he was still inside the House, Gurek pushed against the pressure of the storm and out into the darkness.

Both Grandmother and I had to lend our shoulders and backs to close the heavy wooden door against the inrushing current of air and water. When finally we succeeded in closing shutting off the portal to the gale winds, the floor was wet and puddles were forming as far into the house as the fireplace itself. I reached towards the kitchen table to a pile of linen towels we had stacked there but Grandmother stopped me with a hand on my wrist.

“Toss a towel at the ends to stem the worst of the tide and leave the rest; we have far more important work to be doing, to insure the safety of our loved one and the traveling stranger who is struggling to reach us.” She gathered a collection of herbs and a bundle of small, oddly colored sticks from the shelves and dumped them almost at random into a bowl. Swirling them around, she tossed the mixture into the fire. Instead of catching alight immediately as I had expected, the sticks and herbs only smoldered and smoked a dark, almost blue, fragrant smoke that billowed in bulbous spires up the chimney.

Grandmother grabbed the rest of the towels from the table and pushed through the curtain into the magick room with me on her heels like an eager puppy. At her instruction I emptied the half full bucket into the bath basin and replaced it with the giant cauldron that hung over the fireplace. The cauldron would hold many times more water than the bucket alone so I guessed that whatever we would be doing to set up the beacon would require more time than it takes to collect a bucket full of water.

Grandmother was hurriedly, but tidily, consecrating the central circle in the magick room. Before she closed the energetically charged circle she gestured to me to leave the bucket and come inside with her. Once I was inside the black outline, she finished the last half turn that wrapped us in her intentions.

Raising a wooden blade from the wall into the air she began to intone to the elements, gathering them to our purpose and imploring them for their aid. “Mighty Water we feel your power this night. You have taken a tiny drop and multiplied it, multiplying your power and might. Gather with us this night and bless our loved one and future friend with safe passage through your mighty army. Mighty Air we feel your power tonight. You have grown, magnified into a force that blows down trees and tears the rocks from my roof. Gather with us this night and bless our loved one and future friend with your breath at their backs and carry our smoky message across the night sky to reach them and draw them home. Mighty Earth we feel your power tonight. You stand tall against the continuous onslaught and soak up the excess, channeling it away back to the sea. Gather with us this night and bless our loved one and future friend with shelter from the storm and paths that are dry enough to see in the darkness. Mighty Fire we feel your power this night. You split the sky and fell the trees with a single touch, yet you also keep our house warm and dry within the raging storm. Gather with us this night and bless our loved one and future friend with inner warmth and continue to burn steadily in the hearth, warming those within and sending a beacon to those without.”

She sat cross legged on the floor on one side of the central stone altar and as I did the same, she reached her hands across the altar to me. Taking my hands in hers, she leaned forward and rested her forehead against mine. “I have put the beacon herbs in the fire already. The smoke from their smoldering will add a scent to the air that will act as a partial beacon for Gurek and this stranger. But there is also a magickal beacon that can be enacted that will draw those who are tuned to the magick. Since Gurek and I are bound not just by our love but by the child in my womb, it will be very easy for us to strengthen the bond and raise it to the level of beacon. But first we must try to find the energy of this traveler and tie him to the beacon line not only so he can reach us at the House, but so that Gurek can find him by following our ties. We must be his eyes in the dark and his compass in the storm.”

Grandmother began to chant, a monotonous but rhythmical chant that I had not yet heard in any of the rituals I had participated in. Her voice was low pitched, lower than her speaking voice, yet it resonated through the room, competing for acoustic space with the blustering of the storm. I closed my eyes and listened carefully to the chant, wondering if I should be doing anything to assist, since I was forbidden to chant with her.

Breath after breath Grandmother chanted until I could sense the shift in her that magickal trance brought on. Unlike the larger rituals where I had experienced the sensation of falling or flying into a vision, I was very conscious of my self; the physical discomforts of my human body. My left foot was almost asleep and I had an itch between my shoulder blades but I knew that I could not shift or release Grandmother’s hands to scratch that itch; I must endure and remain perfectly still. I began to count in my head as Grandmother’s chant droned on, starting the count again whenever Grandmother took a breath in.

My forehead where it was pressed against Grandmother’s was becoming sticky with perspiration and I could feel a droplet of it condensing and threatening to run down my nose. Willing the drop not to fall into my eyes I stopped counting and stopped noticing when the chant cycled around again into a new chorus. My entire focus was on that one coalescing droplet of sweat shared by both of us. I was tempted to blow upwards to move the drop or disperse it but I was afraid that doing so would break Grandmother’s concentration. Stubbornly the drop settled at the upper edge of my eye socket just inside my eyebrow near the bridge of my nose and refused to fall.

Rallying my resolve and wrestling my attention away from the recalcitrant droplet I tried to focus instead on matching my breathing with Grandmother’s chant. Inhaling only when she did and exhaling for the entire span of the chant I soon became light headed but still did not experience the cross over into a magickal frame of mind that I had become used to experiencing when Grandmother and I worked together on magickal meditations.

Frustrated I began to unconsciously catalogue my discomforts. My left foot was definitely asleep now and a pain in my bent back that had been just a twinge previously was now a full blown ache. My right elbow was digging into the surface of the rock altar and I’m sure I would have an imprint of the irregular rock face for hours after. That obstinate droplet of sweat from my slick forehead still refused to fall. My bottom was becoming sore from sitting on the hard floor cross legged for so long. The dripping water in the cauldron seemed to be the loudest thing in the room and I could not stop myself from a growing irritation at the constant noise.

Grandmother droned on and on, repeating the beacon pattern. I hoped that she was able to find the stranger and Gurek, because I certainly wasn’t able. Feeling more than a little guilt at my lack I refocused myself again and stretched my mind beyond my physical discomforts and into the rhythm of Grandmother’s chant. For a moment my concentration paid off and I began to feel the familiar disconnection from flesh that accompanies the trance state until above the steady wind, rain, drip and drone I heard the unmistakable sound of the front door opening.

My head shot up, disconnecting my forehead from Grandmothers and knocking the drop of sweat onto the altar between us. Grandmother did not move from where she sat and though I had heard the door open, now that I listened again I could not hear any sound of movement or the rush of wind and rain through the door that had been so loud when Gurek had left the House earlier. I strained against the eerie silence that had descended on the house to hear any noise from the front door. Where before I had been all to able to hear the screams of the wind, the rain pelting against the roof and the steady torturous drip of the leak into the cauldron there was suddenly nothing; only the sound of the blood rushing past my ears.

There – again; the sound of the door opening, but not with a storm outside. I looked again at Grandmother, her face rapt with the trance of the chant. When I looked down at our hands, hers had loosened and were no longer holding mine tightly in their grasp. The skin on the back of my neck began to prickle as a light cold breeze blew across my back from under the door curtain. I was certain I had heard the door open and now I could feel the wind from that opening on my neck beneath my braided hair. Yet still, no noise; no triumphant yell of greeting, no feet shaking off cold wet boots at the door. If Gurek had arrived home, he was still standing outside the door.

Again I heard the noise, the click of the door mechanism as it unlatched and the slight scrape of the hinges and the wooden door against the one uneven spot in the floor that had warped slightly from years of water absorption. This time a footstep fell heavy on the wooden floor and my heart leaped in my chest. To my surprise though, instead of relief and joy it hammered in fear as the cold wind blustered in under the woven door of the magick room.

The door clicked again as if closing and another heavy footstep echoed on the floor. I began to ease my hands out from under Grandmother’s hands but just as the last knuckle of my fingers edged past her palms her hands shot up and grasped my wrists with a tight, claw like grip. Her eyes shot open and pinned me motionless to my spot, burning a hole into my head.

“Marei... Do not break… circle… beacon called… more than Gurek… Hold fast…… call out….” A whisper of Grandmother’s voice sounded inside my head as our eyes transcended bodily boundaries. Through the nonverbal communication her chant was ceaseless and droning like a hive of bees in the summer. My heart was still fluttering as fast as a rabbit’s when caught in a snare when I realized I had been unconsciously counting the footsteps as they drew nearer to the magick room where we sat, protected only by the weaving of Grandmother’s intentions around the painted pentacle.

Five… Six… Seven… A long pause. If the creature in the common room was as tall as Gurek it could easily have crossed the space between the front door and the magick room in only seven steps. Again the tendrils of cold breeze ran icy fingers across my neck and down my back. I shivered in the chill, turning my thoughts away from what might be standing on the other side of the magick curtain and inward, picturing Gurek in my mind.

Think. I told myself. Where would Gurek be now? What is he doing? I pictured the powerful man in my mind, tracing along the paths in my mind. I first imagined myself walking the path that led to the well and beyond to the grove but I could not find him anywhere on that path. Next I tried to him on the trail between the House and the Woodsman’s home but again could not find him in my mind’s eye anywhere along that path. I visualized the path that led down to the left of the House, leading along the edge of the forest to the beach below; the path that I took to find the House when I first visited, and the path we took to celebrate Beltane on the beach with the others of the circle.

It was on this path that I was able to picture him, drenched with rain, powerful arm wrapped around another man who was hobbled by an injured foot or ankle.

Thump.

A footstep sounded from inside the magick room, behind my left shoulder and a gust of wintery air rustled the fabric of the clothes I was wearing. I closed my eyes tightly and leaned into Grandmother, touching our foreheads back together again. This time grateful for the sweat that glued us together I mouthed the chant along with her and though I did not mean to add voice to the movement, the chant poured forth from my mouth along with hers.

I panicked, mind whirling in crazy circles like the Feykin man who had tried so hard to impress me that morning. I was shadowing; bound not to speak for a year. You must… be as the gods – witnesses… you will have no sense of free will… you will mold yourself to my life style Grandmother’s words to me before my trial in the cauldron ran through my head as I tried to force myself to stop chanting. I remembered the Oak Man, who had branded me; the cat faced goddess who offered to give me endurance; the bleeding earth mother who shot me with golden light and then I knew: the Gods and Goddesses were more than just witnesses. They were active participants when needed, when prayed to or asked for, when it suited both their needs and the needs of their beloved humans. Sometimes, just sometimes, the Gods and Goddess would act.

Thump.

The footstep sounded as if it was still outside the bounds of the circle, but I did not know if it would stay there. Pouring my intentions into the drone of the chant and into envisioning the energetic walls of the pentacle as physical walls, I pictured Gurek and the stranger again on the path uphill towards the House. In my mind I encouraged them both; wished them the warmth of the hearth fire waiting for them at home. When I reached out to touch Gurek with my mind’s eye, he looked up and nodded as if he saw me.

He said something to the man he was helping up the hill and they both smiled the grim grin of those who are tired and weary beyond continuing and yet do not falter because they know their goal is close. I began counting steps again; this time not the disembodied footsteps outside the circle of safety but the footsteps of my friends as they neared home. Underlying the increasing numbers, whenever they slowed or stopped to rest, even momentarily, I could hear the mantra of my cauldron testing repeating in my chant, urging them onward and up the hill. Just one more.

Thump.

The footstep was quieter now, at a distance as if whatever had caused it had left the magick room and was back in the common room. Just one more. The clicking sound of the door again and a scrape in the strange silence then one final click. As the latch fell into place the night’s sounds returned to the House; rain beating a steady tattoo on the roof, the deep mellow drip of the roof’s leak into a much fuller cauldron, wind whistling around the house; shaking the oiled paper windows and tossing shingles to the ground.

In my minds eye I could see Gurek and the man crest the hill that brought them to flat land and in sight of the House. They did not stop walking; instead they seemed invigorated by the sight of the chimney smoke and the dim flickering light behind the oiled paper windows. Grandmother squeezed my hands gently and then released her hold on my wrists as she stopped chanting; the sound seeming to linger in the air. As she pulled her forehead away from mine, I opened my eyes to find her smiling, but looking as exhausted as if she had made the climb down the hill in the rain herself. She stood and almost effortlessly banished the energy shield that had been cast around us during the beacon.

Scooping up any dry towels we could find, together we pushed past the curtain and into the common room. Without a word, we set to our individual tasks. I added several pieces of wood to the fire until it was roaring and casting off so much heat that I began to sweat as I tended it. Grandmother put a pot next to the fire to heat water for tea to warm their hands and insides. After I had the fire stoked up high, I pulled the remains of dinner out and warmed the bread on the oven stones in the side of the fireplace. Grandmother draped the towels on the backs of the chairs and together we positioned them so that they could absorb the warmth of the fire without being in danger of lighting ablaze themselves. We collected blankets from the bedrooms that were not usually used and brought them close to the door.

Then we waited. The wind was still blowing so hard outside that we did not dare to wait with the door open but we stood as close to the door as we could without being in the way when it did open. We did not have to wait long.

The door banged open as the latch was lifted and the wind pushed the plank, a far cry from the quiet click I had heard before. In the doorway, so wet that they were dripping puddles, were Gurek and the other man. As I had envisioned, Gurek had one arm around and under the shoulder of the stranger, helping him to hobble on a swollen ankle into the house. The stranger looked up with a hopeful, wistful smile and eyes the same piercing blue as Dywennydd’s, and my breath caught in my throat and my heart hammered in my chest.

Grandmother grabbed Gurek’s face in her hands and kissed him solidly on the mouth, careless of the puddle of water he had brought with him into the house and of the open door. With a bemused, one sided smile, the stranger removed himself from Gurek’s support to give him the full use of both arms. As Gurek and Grandmother embraced, the stranger and I sized each other up.

He was as tall as Gurek with wide shoulders but his shoulders sloped gently down, as if he was used to being disappointed and had learned long ago to shrug it off. He had a strong brow, already lined with thought or worry or both and a prominent nose that might have been unattractive on men who did not have as finely defined cheek bones as he. His mouth was full lipped and lined as if he laughed easily and smiled often and it was not rounded at the apex as were the mouths of other men I had seen and known who kept beards. His lip peaked twice, with a gentle valley between the peaks directly below his nose. And strangest yet, his face was completely clean shaven and smooth like a young boy’s before he started the changes to become a man. Yet the curve of his throat and the set of his jaw indicated that he was far from that awkward transition.

His muscular calves were bare under a drenched short robe and he wore a festive red cloak that had been no barrier to the insistent bludgeoning of the storm. He was drenched, dripping water from his long sweeping eyelashes and in a wide puddle around where he stood shivering against the cold. I reached around behind him, accidentally brushing against him as I closed the door against the storm trying not to knock anyone down. When our bodies touched a shock of heat raced from the contact point to pound in my chest and I looked down at his legs.

There was a slight tremor to his knees, as if he had walked far and was very tired and his right ankle was swollen tightly against leather sandal thongs that laced up to his knees. I was not unused to seeing men’s legs – my own people wore their kilts even on the coldest of winter days. Yet the sight of his legs made me feel shy as if I had spied on something forbidden and sacred as I had felt the first time I saw the intimate dance between Grandmother and Gurek. Heat rushed to my face and I could feel myself blushing as I averted my eyes and looked again at his face.

I was fascinated by his lips. There were none in my life except Oak Man that had a clean shorn face and I was certain I had never seen a man’s lips so finely defined and visible. I wanted to touch him, to see if his face was indeed as smooth as it looked. To rest my finger in the divot that ran from the top of his lip to his nose.

As I envisioned doing just that, a wave of heat coursed through me and I blushed again, my pulse pounding in my ears and at that sacred spot between my legs. I wanted to touch this man, but more than that, I wanted him to touch me in the way that a man touches a woman. Suddenly dizzy, I swooned and dipped towards the floor. Then – oh bliss! His hands reached out and stopped my rush towards the floor. With the touch of his hands on my skin I felt as the tree must have felt when it was split apart by lightning earlier that evening.

He caught me gently with smooth hands not warn and roughened by working the fields but as he broke my fall his weight shifted onto the damaged foot and a slight grimace of pain flashed across his face. I stood away from him quickly and backed to where the towels were warming beside the fire. I collected them all and brought them to the two shivering men, still feeling the memory of his hands on my skin.

Grandmother and Gurek finally separated and Grandmother removed Gurek’s cloak, hanging it on a rafter to drip dry over the bath basin. I took the strangers cloak when he timidly offered it and traded him the dry towels. Gurek unashamedly stripped off all his wet clothes and vigorously toweled dry. After a moment of hesitation, the stranger also removed his wet clothing and self consciously began to rub with the towel.

When I realized I was staring, the heat of embarrassment flushed my face and I turned away, busying myself with tasks to keep from looking again. He turned to watch me walk across the room and I suddenly became aware both of his gaze and of the shapes my body made in the air as I walked. I felt simultaneously self conscious and proud but the knowledge that his eyes were on me made me clumsy and I spilled tea and fumbled plates as I readied a warm snack.

When I finally turned back to the group at the door, both Gurek and the stranger were wrapped in warm blankets and Grandmother was attempting to untie the tightened knot on the sandal straps of the injured foot. After a few moments it became obvious that the soaked leather was not going to unknot and Grandmother sliced the uppermost thong, releasing the stranger’s swollen foot.

With a practiced eye and gentle hands Grandmother probed the tender ankle to see if it was broken or just sprained. I handed first Gurek, then the stranger a hot mug of tea and turned to retrieve the warming bread from the fireplace. Noticing that the wood had burned down to half, I added two more logs to keep the fire blazing hot as the men warmed up.

I sliced the bread and drizzled honey on the steaming top, placing several slices on a common plate. Turning to bring them to the group I saw Grandmother give a satisfied nod and gently rest her hands on the stranger’s ankle.

“It’s not broken, thank the gods. But it is mightily dismayed and will be sore for at least a three-day.” Grandmother looked up at me and smiled as I offered the plate of warm bread to the warming men.

“This foot has never been at rights, I cannot see how this is too greatly different.” The stranger’s voice was rough and dry sounding in his throat as if he was desperately thirsty and he spoke formally, with an accent that was unfamiliar to my ear. He nodded his thanks to me and took a slice of bread. “A wrong turn in the dark and gloom led me to find a hole where it seemed there was none.” He shrugged deprecatingly, “and since I have never been particularly athletic in nature, when I encountered this form of nature I naturally fell.” Half of his mouth lifted in a sardonic smile as if he knew he was poking fun at himself and did it naturally before anyone else got the chance to do it for him.

“I’m glad I was able to find you as quickly as I did. The storm would have made short work of you if you’d tried to shelter there by the cliff’s edge.” Gurek turned to address Grandmother, “he had fallen on the section of path where it roams closest to the cliff’s face. The exposure there is so great that the wind might have knocked him to his death, if the erosion of the cliff itself didn’t finally give way and capsize into the sea below.”

“I thank you, sir,” the stranger croaked softly. When he spoke quietly his voice was not so grating on the ears. “Though many who know me would wonder indeed why you would choose to risk your own life on this evening just to save a wasted shell such as myself. But perhaps the Gods have finally chosen to hear my prayers.” He lapsed into thought, contemplating his steaming tea mug as if trying to coax a tea leaf augury from within it’s depths.

Seeing the fragile beauty of the man in the chair I could not imagine how anyone would overlook him, or think poorly of him. He was obviously not the type who tended to be a braggart or bully, and though it was obvious that our language was not the one he was used to speaking, still he spoke fluently which bespoke of a richness of soul and intellect. A fiercely protective urge swelled my young heart as I watched him act surprised at every act of kindness, as if he wondered when he would be ridiculed and turned from the house in disgrace.

Grandmother put a motherly hand on his shoulder and made sure he had a second piece of warmed bread before she began to gather herbs from the kitchen to ease his pain. I followed her, making note of what she was using should he need it again. She brewed him a fresh mug of tea designed to both relieve the swelling in the ankle and assist him in sleeping. She brought the mug to him as he drained the last of the previous tea.

“This tea will ease your discomfort when you drink it. We have a room waiting for you, and a dry robe you can borrow until we can wash and dry the clothing you brought with you.” Grandmother took a sleeping robe from Gurek who had just returned with one of his own for the stranger to borrow and handed it to the man.

“You do not even know who I am or why I came and you offer me healing and shelter.” His lips pressed tightly together as he shook his head bemusedly from side to side.

“Introductions can wait until morning when you are dry, well rested and in less pain. Then we will gladly listen to your story.” Gurek held out an arm to help the stranger to his feet. After a long wordless moment, the stranger took Gurek’s arm and together they hobbled to what had been my bedroom.

I could hear them moving about, settling him into bed with additional cushioning around the pained ankle. Grandmother and I began to prepare for sleep; banking the fire for the night and emptying rain water a bucket at a time from the cauldron in the magick room. We collected the dishware and stored the remaining food. Without being too obvious I tried to make sure that we had enough eggs and meal to add another, probably very hungry, person to the morning’s meal.

As I worked, my mind kept imagining him naked in my room, and I struggled not to picture him as he had been when he was drying off. I felt fevered and flustered and though I tried I could not seem to stop thinking about his body, in various stages of undress, so close to my bed.

That night as Gurek and Grandmother met in their ancient form of communication my mind was not idle; I was imagining the face and hands and warm body of the man sleeping soundly on the other side of the wall. To think that he was sleeping in a bed that had been mine, pressing his muscled body against the mattress where my body had slept countless times before seemed deliciously intimate. I shivered, the hair on my arms standing up even though the House was toasty warm from the highly banked fire still glowing in the fireplace.

Sleep did not come easily for me that night as I strained to hear the sound of his breathing through the wall, even once pressing my ear against the wooden barrier to see if I could discern the rhythmic rise and fall of his breath. Leaning my head against the wall on the pallet at the foot of Grandmother’s bed I finally succumbed to sleep.