Awakening the Gods Page 8

“It’s a religious ritual as well as a tradition,” said Sinead. “Some will be coming from Gougane Beara as a pilgrimage of sort. And there’s a mass held up on the top of the first one.”

  “Why May 1, Sinead?” I asked. “I know that they’re climbing as part of a tradition and it’s Bealtaine and all that.”

  “I don’t know. Maybe it’s because Bealtaine is the fire festival for the beginning of summer. Fertility and all that. We’re climbing the fertile Mother Earth.”

  I fell silent thinking about this. Somehow it resonated with me. Since when had I become so “at one” with the soil? I tried to push the weird feelings aside and looked over at Maura, who was smirking at Sinead.

  “You have a different theory?” I asked quietly.

  This time I really wanted to know how she felt and not provoke a flippant answer as I had earlier. She gave me a curious look, shrugged and shook her head.

  We all continued our climb in relative silence. The wind was picking up a bit as we rose higher. At first, it was a gentle incline, following the straggling line of people on the climb, some in clusters, and others on their own. The ground wasn’t too boggy, since the spring hadn’t been as wet as usual. The ground began a sharper rise and I found myself panting a bit as I tried to maintain my previous pace. Maura passed me, not breaking her stride. Sinead allowed her to move ahead and came to check that I was okay. I realised then I wasn’t as fit as the other three, but that was no surprise, given that my exercise had mostly been confined to walking around Dublin.

  Eventually, we reached the top. Maura and Ingrid were already sitting on a bit of tarp, drinking from their water bottles when I came up to them, panting. I stood for a few minutes, waiting for my breathing to slow and looked around me. People were gathered in clusters, drinking water, eating snacks or just sitting. Some people were praying, fingering their rosaries or closing their eyes in contemplation. I moved to the centre and could see the large pile of rocks that formed a cairn, with a kind of stone pillar altar-type stone in front of it. I looked into the distance, moving towards the edge to get an unobstructed view. The landscape stretched out towards Kerry and it was clear enough that I could even detect the silver glint of the sea. I stared at it, my eyes focused on the distant shore. We were up so high that flying birds were level and I felt like it wasn’t just the edge of this mountain I stood on, but the edge of time, the edge of a world. I inhaled deeply and tried to preserve the feeling. Eventually, I turned around slowly and something caught my eye at the cairn. I blinked, uncertain if I was just imagining it. My grandmother, her hair unbound, dressed in a flowing gown and her arms raised up to the sky.

  I blinked again, still disbelieving my eyes. But a group of people blocked my view and when it cleared and I could make my way towards the cairn, there was no sign of her. Coins, tied bits of cloth and other offerings were scattered there, but nothing that confirmed what I had thought I’d seen.

  I went back to the group and took a seat on the tarp. Sinead offered me a sandwich but I declined. I’d brought an apple and a granola bar, thinking that would be enough. I wasn’t until I’d eaten it all that I’d realised how foolish I’d been not to have taken up her offer. Maura gave me a knowing grin and pulled out a small brown roll and offered it to me. I took it gratefully.

  “Are you enjoying yourself?” she asked.

  I nodded. “This is all new to me really.”

  “Hill walking?”

  “All of it. Hill walking, the area. I haven’t really travelled as such. My holidays were mostly spent either in Dublin, or at my boarding school in Galway.” I looked at her relaxed pose, the sun glinting in her dark eyes. A stiff breeze blew her hair about in a Medusa-like manner. “You’re obviously experienced. I suppose you’ve done this for years.”

  “Oh, you’d be right about that,” she said. “More years than you can count.”

  I laughed. “These two mountains or many places?”

  “You could say that I’ve probably been to the tops of most hills and mountains in Ireland.”

  I stared at her. “That’s quite an accomplishment.”

  She looked over at me and laughed. “Not really. I’ve had the time.”

  I looked past her, through the clustered groups near the cairn, towards the other edge of the mountain and back towards a small group by the cairn where it parted a little. I saw someone kneeling by the cairn, his familiar profile to me. His hands were on the ground among the small rocks piled there.

  “Look,” I said. “Isn’t that Smithy, there?”

  Maura turned around and stared in the direction I pointed. “Where? I don’t see him.”

  I pointed again, but someone moved and blocked my view. I rose and said, “I’ll go see.”

  I made my way towards the cairn and the cluster of people. When I got there the head I thought was Smithy’s was gone. I looked around to see if I could spot him somewhere else, but there was no sign of him. I glanced down at the cluster of small rocks and large to see what he was doing there. The rocks were disturbed in several sections. I tried to locate the one I thought it might have been and knelt down. I lifted up the rocks and saw what looked like cattle horns. The earth around it was damp and was faintly stained red. Blood?

  Puzzled, I stood and went back over to Maura.

  “Did you find him?”

  “No.”

  “Who are you looking for?” asked Sinead looking over at me.

  “I thought I saw Smithy,” I said. “But I guess I was mistaken. I also thought I saw my grandmother, earlier. But it was probably someone else. It was strange. Her hair was wild and loose and she wore a long flowing gown. Her arms were raised to the sky as though she was playing some goddess in a film, welcoming the dawn. And that is definitely not my grandmother.”

  Sinead laughed. “Well, I wouldn’t put it past someone doing that, but certainly not your grandmother, however eccentric she might be.”

  Maura made a noise in her throat, gave me a wide eyed look and turned away. But not before I could see the laughter. But it was the brief glimpse of panic she’d shown initially that had me the most puzzled.

  11

  Smithy

  Smithy rolled his shoulders and flexed his arms in an effort to loosen his body for the task ahead. Part of him was excited about it. He felt an energy that he hadn’t experienced in such a long while he’d almost forgotten what it was like. He breathed deeply. He mustn’t count on it too much. Pin too much hope on what he was about to undertake. It was only a low whistle. Nothing important.

  He entered the shed and tried to shake off the unsettled feeling that still clung to him from the day before when he’d seen Saoirse up there on the mountain. He’d not expected her to be there, though it shouldn’t have been a complete surprise that she might want to join all those who made the climb on May 1. Still, it had been unnerving to see her just when he was performing the small ritual that had been his part in the day’s events since he could remember. The climbers and religious observers had grown over the years, but he’d still managed his part, as had the others over the years. In some ways it was easier to do it unobserved when so many people were there. Anu was the only one who still wore a glamour so that she remained hidden from the view of mortals. Still he didn’t think Saoirse had seen him, and if she did, she probably would think nothing of it.

  That’s what he’d told himself since he’d returned yesterday. He’d said nothing to Anu or anyone else, because what was there to say? And though he still fulfilled this annual ritual obligation, he wanted as little to do or say to the others as possible. Except perhaps, Oghma, whose musical talent and banter were irresistible. Someone of many words and all of them good. He could even tolerate Maura, though to be fair, she’d not been too bad the other night at the session. And though he couldn’t figure what game she was after playing, he couldn’t deny that he was glad she’d brought Saoirse with her.

  Saoirse. There he was again, bringing his thoughts back to her. He couldn’t refute
his attraction to her, though she was young. Too young, he told himself. Too young in too many ways. Or was it her youth that appealed to him? The innocence of her, she with her Doc Martens and quirky dress and the eyes that had seen nothing. The music? Yes the music was part of it and how it felt when they played together. He closed his eyes again and remembered the pure union of the music. It was beyond craic, good time, or anything like it. It had been as if the music transcended and fused them at the same time.

  He sighed. Enough of this. Time to transcend in a different way. He moved over to the work table and took up his tools. Deep breaths, he thought. He closed his eyes and tried to summon the magic. The air hummed and he opened his mind and his body to it. It’d been so long he could barely remember what it felt like. What the summoning consisted of when it reached out, when it made contact and when it channelled the response to fill his body.

  He waited, but there was only silence. Had he done something wrong? He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to recapture his earlier excitement about making the whistle, the certainty that the magic would come, because how could it not with such a feeling, such a notion that what he was about to make would have all the qualities and more of the most perfect low whistle in this world, or even the Otherworld? He tried to remember what it had been like when he’d last made a whistle for the Sídhe. It was Lugh, wasn’t it? Who else would demand nothing but the most perfect low whistle and who else would be capable of playing the most perfect low whistle to show it at its best? Saoirse was the only one he knew who might come close to it.

  And back again to Saoirse. He stared at the metal pipe in front of him and tried to recall how it was he made Lugh’s whistle. It was in a time so long ago he couldn’t even categorise it in his mind now. Another reason to stay focused on Lugh and not Saoirse. Saoirse could only ever be a brief period in his life. An enjoyable interlude, he corrected. It wouldn’t do to get involved with a mortal. Didn’t they always say that? Music, and that was it. Music, and maybe a little flirtation inside and outside the music.

  He continued on that line of thought and absentmindedly picked up the metal tube and his little hacksaw and began his work. He thought of the tunes they could play together with the whistle, tunes that would be more than tunes. Tunes and airs that could express a bit of fun and something more. A kiss. A caress. Through the title of the tune, the words of the air he could touch her cheek, run his thumb along her lips, kiss her brow, kiss the dip between her neck and collar bone. Light kisses. Light as a butterfly.

  Through the airs and tunes he would pull out the pins that held her hair in place and unwind the braid. Slowly, he would loosen the braid so that it unfurled into the long flowing tresses around her. Tresses of flame gold. Isn’t that how it was expressed in all the airs? Taimse im choladh s’na duistear me. Don’t disturb me indeed as I dream of the loveliest woman ever, he thought.

  Her face filled his mind, the curves of her body, the swell of her breasts, the swale of her waist and rise of her hips and thighs. It was erotic and at the same time it was something else. An energy flowed through him and he allowed it to come, feeling both aroused and exalted at the same time. He looked down at his hands and they seemed apart from him, working independently of his conscious thoughts. His thoughts were still taken up with Saoirse, her body and the music that she played. Music that hummed around him and played his lips, his neck and his chest both inside and out. They were kisses, as light as the butterfly kisses he’d rained down on her. The kisses deepened, lingered on his body. Her lips, they were on his, brushing and then pressing. Her arms slid around him and he put his hand on her breast. They embraced each other their clothes gone, discarded, and they met each other skin to skin. Their heat was irrepressible and as he entered her, it became a flame that consumed them both, now finally united. Now finally one. And when he spilled his seed in her it was the release of thousands of years of yearning and love pouring forth, filling the one and only being that could ever receive it from him in this union of perfection.

  He opened his eyes, panting. He hadn’t realised he’d closed them. He’d realised nothing of what was around him. He’d only known what was going on inside of him. His hands shook and he blinked, his breath still coming in short bursts. He squeezed his hands and released them, forced himself to inhale deeply. What had happened? He felt exhausted and exhilarated at the same time. But also peaceful, loose limbed, almost blessed by Anu herself. He shook his head. It was the strangest, most erotic experience he’d ever felt. But it was also something more. Magic.

  He looked down on the work bench. The metal glinted in the overhead light that shone down on it, as if it were basking in the spotlight. The metal that was now fashioned into a low whistle. He stared at it. Magic? He shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts and make sense of what had just happened. He couldn’t explain it, and if he was honest, he didn’t want to explain it, because it would mean digging deep and exploring things he just didn’t want to explore. Things he couldn’t explore. Not now, not ever. But this was the first time that he’d ever really thought it might be possible to move beyond the pain, or at least ease it for a time.

  And who was he to question how or why that might be? Or what or even who was the cause. Who? Would he even acknowledge that it could be a who? The whistle stared up at him in a challenge. He picked it up tentatively and put it to his lips and blew in it, half afraid of the sound that would be emitted. The note that sounded was clear, resonant. And perfect. He blew another one and another and put them together in a tune. The tune was charming. It charmed him, rang through him and played his body like he was the instrument. He took the whistle away from his lips and breathed. Had he created this?

  He tried again, this time letting the notes come. It was a tune, or was it an air, threading its way through the room and wrapping itself around him like some woman’s body entwining her limbs with his. He felt the air weave its way down inside him and he was there, again feeling Saoirse against him, feeling himself inside her.

  He pulled the whistle from his lips once again and gave a strangled laugh that turned to a groan. A phallic object made real, he thought. Would it have the same effect on anyone else? Would it have the same effect on Saoirse?

  He sat there, staring into the fire. On his lap rested the whistle. He’d carried it around for four days, afraid to let it out of his sight. Was it because he feared losing it? Misplacing it in the large expanse of his house? Hah. He knew the reason had more to do with his own wariness about what he’d created. Created with magic. His magic. Magic born of the gods knew what kind of longing or lust. Lust. Surely it was just lust that had led him to create something so…so, what? So wondrous? So addictive? He couldn’t argue with the addiction part. He’d found himself playing the whistle too often for comfort. Initially it was to see if the qualities he’d experienced, yes, qualities seemed a good, neutral term, if these qualities were just a one-time occurrence or if it was something permanently part of the whistle. Something indelible, integral, unmoveable. And each time he tried it, the tune, the air, or whatever music it happened to create, wove its web around him and penetrated his body and his mind in the most euphoric manner. Orgasmic, he thought. Truly. Literally. Addictively. And Saoirse, the living embodiment of this perfect music and perfect union. Holy Mother of God, he thought, sardonically, a phrase that he’d picked up over the years in the most satirical manner possible. But now, he half felt he should be invoking Anu, thanking her, cursing her for waking him up. Or at least this part of him. Holy Mother of all.

  And now for the dilemma of whether to give it to Saoirse. Could he even manage to face Saoirse at this point? After all he’d thought, dreamed and experienced this week involving her? There was a session tonight down in the village. It was possible she wouldn’t even turn up for it. It wasn’t the Saturday night one that he’d said he went to often. It was the Friday night one, at the pub at the edge of the village. O’Sullivan’s. The session that was more traditional, less raucous, but
very good. He could take the low whistle down there and see if it had the same effect on everyone else as it had on him. And maybe, down in the pub, it wouldn’t have the same effect on him. He could play away fine, no bother. That he didn’t usually play the whistle might cause a little bit of a stir but would it be worth it to see the result? He took a deep breath. No. No, it wouldn’t be worth it. And a little part of him didn’t want to share this whistle, or the experience of it. Would he give it to Saoirse though? Could he bear her playing it anywhere but with him? He suddenly disliked the notion of that very much. But would he want her to play it? He found he did. And he also found that since his head was surely all over the place the best decision at this point would be to leave the whistle behind and save it for another time. If that time ever came. For now, it was the fiddle.

  He picked up the case, opened it and withdrew the fiddle. A few tweaks with the pegs and he was away. The bow flew across the strings and he allowed himself to get carried away by a familiar tune, the rise and fall of the slip jig, merry and winsome. It was a jig from the Otherworld, fashioned out of the web and warp of the air. It skipped and jumped along and lifted his heart. He hadn’t played that in a long time. Or had he ever played it before? The Otherworld tunes came and went as they pleased and he wouldn’t pin it down. It hated that he knew and let it come visit at will and skip off when it wanted to. It was enjoying the skipping, for it wove around him and then in him for a good while, until his doubts and tension eased away and he skipped and jumped alongside it. And then, finally, with a last little lilt, it hopped off, back where it came from. He blinked and kissed the air, thankful that some part of the magic still liked him.

  12

  Smithy

  He had the fiddle case in his hand, weighty enough, as he stood before the door to the pub. Even through the door he could hear the milling throng and just imagine the hot fug of the air inside. He strained for the sound of the music, and there it was—the fiddle, the concertina and flutes winding down a tune. He could tell nothing from the sound of the flutes to know if one of them was Saoirse, but he thought not. And he didn’t know whether that knowledge made him feel disappointed or relieved.